Top penalty for not buying insurance to quadruple; federal mandates proposed
January 17th, 2008The penalties for not buying insurance in Massachusetts have been set too low to “encourage” compliance, stated Jonathan Gruber, a director of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector.
The proposed 2008 top penalty of $912 per year is a four-fold jump from the $219 penalty people will face when filing their 2007 tax returns.
The secretary of administration and finance is trying to figure out how to “strike a balance in setting penalties that would withstand challenges to their legality and fairness,” writes Alice Dembner (Boston Globe 1/11/08).
Imposing the letter of the law would create an unwieldy schedule of 27 different penalties depending on an individual’s age, income, and place of residence.
Gruber said the proposed penalty would be less than 40 percent of the cost of insurance for younger people, and 20 percent of the cost for older people. A 50 percent penalty, some suggested, would unfairly penalize older people whose insurance premiums are twice as high as those of younger people.
A federal mandate for health insurance is advocated by presidential candidates Hillary Clinton, John Edwards, and Christopher Dodd. They would require comprehensive “insurance” that pays for routine and preventive care.
The proposed “shared responsibility” would force young people to subsidize the health tab for middle-aged and older persons, on top of their payroll tax, writes Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York. (Wall St J 1/4/08).
“This is contrary to a fundamental American principle. This nation has always believed in making life better for its children, not in exploiting them.”
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January 18th, 2008 at 6:15 am
Trying to force “compulsory” health insurance on anybody in the United States should be a crime punishable for “high treason” for any and all socialist/communist criminals in this government who would dare to do this in what is supposed to be the “free”, and “free market”, United States. They’ve already created a mess in this country by these criminal, unconstitutional restrictions of freedoms of the people in favor of greedy corporate interests. It’s much worse than that, however, because, as Vladimir Lenin (not a good “American” for most Americans who don’t “know” and don’t “care” (and which lack of caring and knowing infuriates people I know from “former” communist bloc countries)) said, “In order to control a country, we’ve got to control the healthcare system”. This “New World Order/One World Government” is International Communism, a fact that escapes the unknowing and uncaring who are glued to their TV sets and couldn’t tell the difference between Vladimir Lenin and George Washington. What really is bad about this is that “New World Order” is all about money and greed. When someone gets older and goes from being a “taxpayer” to being a “drain on the system” (retired, on disability, etc.), they want that person “dead” so that they will no longer be a drain on the system. There are, in any/every socialist system, “inordinate delays” in care, the intention of which is “we hope that you just die while waiting; then you are no longer a drain on the sytstem”. They are clever, and deceptive, so these “delays” are attributed to government “inefficiency”, and most people foolishly believe that. People from former communist bloc countries know what is going on much better than most Americans. A suggestion is for everybody to not believe Michael Moore’s movie, “Sicko”; it’s just a front, and propaganda, for government socialism and communism. Don’t the people wonder how he, and his film crew, got access to free medicine in Cuba. Mr. Moore also didn’t tell the full truth in “Bowling for Columbine” or “Fahrenheit 9/11″. Can’t they see what is going on???