Right-wingers OUTRAGED that prostitutes are allowed to buy health insurance

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

If they didn't have access to healthcare before, it's because the market would not support it (and it's pretty clear why).  You can argue that this is a market failure that the government should correct, but if the GOP is concerned about how Obamacare will affect insurance companies (and in turn insurance purchasers), their concerns and "outrage" are quite logical here.  If you have too many high-risk insureds purchasing insurance without enough low-risk insureds also purchasing insurance, insurance companies will lose, rather than make money, resulting in, eventually, substantially less people who are insured.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

If they didn't have access to healthcare before, it's because the market would not support it (and it's pretty clear why).  You can argue that this is a market failure that the government should correct, but if the GOP is concerned about how Obamacare will affect insurance companies (and in turn insurance purchasers), their concerns and "outrage" are quite logical here.  If you have too many high-risk insureds purchasing insurance without enough low-risk insureds also purchasing insurance, insurance companies will lose, rather than make money, resulting in, eventually, substantially less people who are insured.

And that's why we have the individual mandate. So it's not just high risk people. But the Republicans think that's tyranny

But the individual mandate will only work if the tax for not getting insurance is more than the cost of getting insurance, which it's not.  The individual mandate has no teeth, rendering it largely ineffective.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

If they didn't have access to healthcare before, it's because the market would not support it (and it's pretty clear why).  You can argue that this is a market failure that the government should correct, but if the GOP is concerned about how Obamacare will affect insurance companies (and in turn insurance purchasers), their concerns and "outrage" are quite logical here.  If you have too many high-risk insureds purchasing insurance without enough low-risk insureds also purchasing insurance, insurance companies will lose, rather than make money, resulting in, eventually, substantially less people who are insured.

And that's why we have the individual mandate. So it's not just high risk people. But the Republicans think that's tyranny

But the individual mandate will only work if the tax for not getting insurance is more than the cost of getting insurance, which it's not.  The individual mandate has no teeth, rendering it largely ineffective.

That logic implies that the value of insurance is zero, when it's obviously worth something. Not only do you get to bypass the fine, you also get insurance. But having every individual go out and buy their own insurance policy from private companies is obviously the worst way to try for universal coverage. You'll get no argument from me on that.

Sorry, I should have said that the fee has to be more than (the cost of insurance minus the current benefit of having insurance).  But for many people, the immediate benefit of having insurance is nothing or very little (maybe the cost of a yearly physical, and we can even throw in blood work just to inflate the costs).  So you're talking about a fee of $95, which is clearly less than even the cheapest of insurance plans.  If we even assume you can find a $100/month plan that somehow has no copays, the most that someone is saving when they only go for a physical once a year is $500.  So you're still talking about trying to incentivize someone to spend $700 when the cost of not doing so is $95.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

If they didn't have access to healthcare before, it's because the market would not support it (and it's pretty clear why).  You can argue that this is a market failure that the government should correct, but if the GOP is concerned about how Obamacare will affect insurance companies (and in turn insurance purchasers), their concerns and "outrage" are quite logical here.  If you have too many high-risk insureds purchasing insurance without enough low-risk insureds also purchasing insurance, insurance companies will lose, rather than make money, resulting in, eventually, substantially less people who are insured.

And that's why we have the individual mandate. So it's not just high risk people. But the Republicans think that's tyranny

But the individual mandate will only work if the tax for not getting insurance is more than the cost of getting insurance, which it's not.  The individual mandate has no teeth, rendering it largely ineffective.

This reminds me of someone online who said something to the effect of, "Well I'm not getting insurance because I can just pay the fine which is half as much as the insurance is so THERE! HARUMPH!" Because paying x to get absolutely nothing and then pay for your healthcare out of pocket makes so much more sense than just paying 2x and the $15 co-pay to see the doctor when you need to.

I don't know of anywhere that you can get insurance for two times the cost of the fee (which would equate to about $16/month).  If you don't regularly go to a doctor and you can't be denied insurance for a preexisting condition, and you're short on cash and have little expectation of needing insurance in the near future, choosing to live uninsured is a logical decision.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

It's a fee of $95 or 1% of your taxable income, whichever is higher. For most people, 1% of your income is higher, in many cases considerably so.

Yes, you're correct.  When I did the math, I was thinking that'd be someone making $95,000... I missed a zero somewhere in my head.  But my point still even if we get to the penalty being $285.  Assuming our scenario earlier, the penalty of $285 is still significantly lower than the $700.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Not only is the expected value of health insurance higher than one doctor visit per year (even if you don't get sick every year, you will in many years), most people are risk averse and would consider the utility of having health insurance to be higher than the mathematical expected value -- car wrecks, appendix bursts, cancers, etc., can easily run up bills into the hundreds of thousands, so even though the probability of those events are pretty low, you still want to cover yourself.

Oh, absolutely most people are; however, "most" may not be sufficient to support the insurance industry.  I knew several people who chose not to buy insurance pre-Obamacare; with the ban on denials for preconditions, the motivation to do so will only increase.

As for car wrecks, 13 states (including Michigan) require auto insurers to provide Personal Protection Insurance (aka Personal Injury Protection or PIP) for insureds, rendering that unexpected risk moot in the health insurance debate.  As for cancer, someone could get insurance when they learned of the cancer; granted, their premiums will be higher, but based on cancer prevalence data from 2010 (last year I could find), prevalence in the U.S. is around 4.2%.  When you multiply the increase in premiums by a mere 4.2%, cost-benefit analysis will often produce a result that says that, factoring in the probabilities, it would be better for someone who has little-to-no yearly medical costs to wait until he is diagnosed with cancer before deciding to buy insurance.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Your premiums won't be any different from having cancer or not having cancer -- one of the major pieces of the ACA.  The only acceptable rate variations for the same coverage would are age, location, tobacco status, and number of people on the policy.

In that case (and I'm not sure of the exact way the preexisting condition rules work, that would only support my proposition.

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Michigan, and some other PIP states, require insurance for all drivers.  Again, it's not that all people would do what I'm saying.  It's just that for this to work, enough balance has to exist.  I think the current tax is too low.  I would have pushed for making it higher (given that the alternative of repeal/defund is an unrealistic pipe dream).

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I honestly don't know the answers to those questions.  None of them are "friends"; they're more casual acquaintances who I've debated health care reform with.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

The individual mandate penalty also increases each year; the $95 or 1% of income is just for 2014.

Even by 2016 it maxes out at $695 for many individuals (or $2,085 as a maximum).  Even $695 wouldn't be enough of an incentive under my scenario earlier, and that was assuming a monthly premium of only $100, which is a VERY low premium.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

The individual mandate penalty also increases each year; the $95 or 1% of income is just for 2014.

Even by 2016 it maxes out at $695 for many individuals (or $2,085 as a maximum).  Even $695 wouldn't be enough of an incentive under my scenario earlier, and that was assuming a monthly premium of only $100, which is a VERY low premium.

Ok... some people will make that conclusion, but your original claim was that the mandate has "no teeth". That's obviously untrue unless you believe penalties that large will have absolutely no effect on consumer behavior, which is a conclusion any serious healthcare economist would disagree with. Sure not everyone will end up buying insurance, but that was never the intention of the individual mandate. It was to drive enough people in to the state/federal exchanges to keep them profitable. You can claim that the penalties aren't stiff enough to do so, but most people who deal with this stuff for a living would disagree (including the insurance companies), and the only way to really know for sure is to wait a year or two.

Also, if you really have friends who are opting out of health insurance because of the ban on denying insurance for a preexisting condition, they're woefully misinformed. There's a set enrollment period for that very reason. If you don't have health insurance come May 2014 and you get badly injured or develop some sort of awful disease, you can't just enroll in one of the exchanges.

No teeth was an understatement.  Obviously even a penny is some amount of "teeth".  My point was that I don't think it has enough teeth, even when the penalties have increased.  We won't know for sure for at least another 2-3 years.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Starting the penalty small is so stupid. Whenever a system is new, you want to set expectations immediately. When a new highway opens, the police don't ignore it the first week. They flood the road with speed traps, so people know they have to follow the rules.

I'd agree with this as well.

[Queen Mum Inks.LWC]

Starting the penalty small is so stupid. Whenever a system is new, you want to set expectations immediately. When a new highway opens, the police don't ignore it the first week. They flood the road with speed traps, so people know they have to follow the rules.

I'd agree with this as well.

Considering the many travails the ACA went through to get through congress by the skin of its ass (and losing the public option and 50 state medicare expansion along the way) was a higher penalty remotely feasable politically?

Oh of course not. But that's just because the GOP is a bunch of political hacks, not because it was a bad idea.