Gibson writes: "So why am I paying the $300 penalty? Through healthcare.gov, I found that as a single 26 year-old male living in Dane County, Wisconsin, who expects to make somewhere around $30,000 next year, the most affordable health insurance package for me comes with a deductible anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000. That's roughly 15 percent of my income that comes out of pocket before my health insurance even kicks in."
Obamacare has a big hurdle with young people. (photo: David McNew/Getty Images)
Why I'm Choosing to Pay $300 to Stay Uninsured
24 December 13
ould you pay $5 to save $1? I didn't ace Math in school, but I do at least know that a Lincoln is worth more than a Washington. If you were presented with this deal in a store, to buy a $5 item to get $1 off another, most people don't see that as a deal. Now, multiply those numbers by a thousand, and you may start to understand why the "young invincibles" of America aren't participating in the healthcare exchanges.
Two days before Christmas was the last day for people to enroll in the health insurance programs on healthcare.gov to be ready by January 1st. We're all supposed to enroll by March of 2014 to not be penalized $300 for being uninsured. But for me, $300 is much cheaper than the alternatives. I'm a 26-year-old man who eats his veggies and exercises daily. I don't get flu shots, and haven't gotten the flu since I was in middle school (knock on wood). I also meditate daily. As a result, the sickest I ever get is a sniffle here and there. I was 15 years old the last time I got an annual physical exam, and am no worse for wear now than I was 11 years ago.
So why am I paying the $300 penalty? Through healthcare.gov, I found that as a single 26 year-old male living in Dane County, Wisconsin, who expects to make somewhere around $30,000 next year, the most affordable health insurance package for me comes with a deductible anywhere from $2,000 to $5,000. That's roughly 15 percent of my income that comes out of pocket before my health insurance even kicks in. This "affordable care" would cost me about $150 a month, and I'm having a hard enough time even putting away $100 a month into my savings account when you take rent, a car loan, groceries, gas, heat, and phone bills into account. And unlike most people my age, I was privileged enough to attend college without having to take out student loans, so I'm a lot better off financially than most of my peers.
The biggest healthcare cost of my life was $6,000 in surgery back in Fall of 2011, when I broke my elbow in two places. I was uninsured, so the cost of that procedure came out of pocket. Parents and elderly friends gave me plenty of shit for not having health insurance, saying I could have saved myself a lot of money by being insured. However, if I'd had the health insurance package I mentioned above, $5,000 of that surgery would still have to be paid for out of my own pocket. Sure, I'd save $1,000 in the end, but I'd have to pay $5,000 to do it.
I didn't suffer any other catastrophic accidents until January of 2013, when I was run off the road while riding a bike in Florida and fractured my right arm. Since I was uninsured, the emergency care clinic down the road from my accident wouldn't even see me, so I had to drive myself to an emergency room at a hospital close to Immokalee. The total cost of a doctor X-raying my arm and wrapping it up in a bandage and a sling was in the neighborhood of $2,500.
Even if I'd had the health insurance plan I mentioned above back when the accident happened, that entire cost would have still come out of my own pocket. And since I didn't see the doctor for the rest of the year or hurt myself bad enough to go to a hospital, I wouldn't have even paid my whole deductible before my health insurance kicked in. I would've just paid $150 a month for the remainder of the year, an $1800 blow to my already strained finances - for nothing.
The administration is really hoping that people my age will sign up for health insurance on healthcare.gov. But only 29 percent of people my age say they'll be signing up. The whole premise of the individual mandate is that when everyone signs up for health insurance, the risk pool becomes healthier as a result, and health insurance becomes less costly for everyone. However, it's been found that young healthy people not participating would have a very minimal effect on health insurance costs, so our non-participation isn't the end of the world.
And given situations like mine, why the hell would any young person, in this tenuous economy, want to pay upwards of $1800 in premiums on top of a $2,000 to $5,000 deductible for healthcare costs that may or may not even occur? Does it make more fiscal sense to pay $3800 to $6800 a year to have health insurance and see a doctor when shit happens, or to pay $300 to be uninsured and hope for the best?
This is precisely the problem with the American healthcare system, and with our worthless representatives in Congress. No other developed country makes its citizens endure so much financial strain just to have access to a doctor when they're hurt or sick. I personally wouldn't mind paying a few percentage points more in taxes each year so I can see the doctor without worrying about which bill I'll have to not pay in order to do it. And judging by the debacle of a giant taxpayer-funded subsidy to the private health insurance companies known as Obamacare, I bet most Americans who can't afford our current healthcare system could alternatively afford a marginally-higher tax rate to have guaranteed healthcare.
The entire reason single payer healthcare - in which one payer, the taxpayer, pays for healthcare - or a public health insurance alternative to the private insurance companies didn't make it into the final healthcare reform bill was because of corporate-owned senators like Max Baucus, Joe Liebermann, and the entire GOP caucus. It isn't because they were so concerned about people being able to have the best access to healthcare, but because all of those senators count on the private health insurance industry's bribes to win the next election cycle. Liebermann's wife was a lobbyist for Hill & Knowlton, a firm that represented big pharmaceutical and health insurance companies. Insurance companies are the top industry contributing to Baucus's campaign war chest between 2009 and 2014. Most Americans can put two and two together.
It's crucial to understand that the only reason private health insurance companies exist is to profit from the illness and injury of others. That's literally the only reason they're in business. Sure, abolishing the private health insurance industry may cost a few jobs, but if your job is based on figuring out the best way to make money off of someone else's suffering, that's definitely a job that never should have existed in the first place. Healthcare is a human right, not a commodity only the rich deserve.
We won't have universal healthcare until we have a Congress that listens to the American people. We won't have a Congress with integrity until the bad ones get voted out. The bad ones won't get voted out until we get big money out of politics altogether. And that won't happen until we the people organize for enough states to sign onto a constitutional amendment that says corporations aren't people and money isn't speech. So until then, I'll pay my $300 penalty for being uninsured, and try my best to stay healthy and well while I organize for those things to happen.
Keep up with US Uncut!
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Carl Gibson, 26, is co-founder of US Uncut, a nationwide creative direct-action movement that mobilized tens of thousands of activists against corporate tax avoidance and budget cuts in the months leading up to the Occupy Wall Street movement. Carl and other US Uncut activists are featured in the documentary "We're Not Broke," which premiered at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival. He currently lives in Madison, Wisconsin. You can contact him at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it , and follow him on twitter at @uncutCG.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work. Permission to republish is freely granted with credit and a link back to Reader Supported News.
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Comments
We are concerned about a recent drift towards vitriol in the RSN Reader comments section. There is a fine line between moderation and censorship. No one likes a harsh or confrontational forum atmosphere. At the same time everyone wants to be able to express themselves freely. We'll start by encouraging good judgment. If that doesn't work we'll have to ramp up the moderation.
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It is in the risk-analysis that your post is most concerning. It seems that you put a $6,000 hospital bill at the high end of expectation. This is far from realistic. For example, a 26 year-old is about as likely as anyone else to have an emergency appendix or gall bladder attack, and in my experience those little jobs can run closer to $60,000 than $6,000. 26 year-olds are more likely than others to be involved in injurious accidents, and serious infections are generally indiscriminate. All those $100 bills, saved over the months & years won't last very long when illness befalls a self-insured person.
Anyway, I hope your choice is fortunate for you, that you remain among the substantial majority of young people who will have no occasion to regret in later years the unacknowledged risks they took in their youth.
mess!
I wonder why an American company can provide good insurance overseas when companies here usually don't. I have to admit though, I have no idea what kind of premiums the school was paying for their overseas hires
My story: I noticed that my hearing was getting worse over the summer of 2006. When I returned to Kuala Lumpur in August 2006 for a new school year, a CT and MRI confirmed that I had acquired a rare nerve disease resulting in tumors growing inside nerves going from my ear the brain. I couldn't continue my job as a music teacher because I couldn't hear good enough to do my job.
I've been hospitalized a few times over the years, and was profoundly glad I had health insurance when it happened, for even a few days' stay could easily blow the doors off $6,000.
No doubt, a single-payer system is what we need, something that we would all pay into as we could afford; but we have what we have. The ACA won't work if too many people follow Gibson's irresponsible path.
Insurance has nothing to do with health care, and everything to do with extracting profit, by preying on misery and human frailty. Obama-Romneycar e/ACA will fail as healthcare provision, because that is manifestly not its purpose.
ObamaCare is a first step towards a national health care system.
Incidentally, my dr told me I was very old to have appendicitis, as mostly this nails people age 10-30. That's YOU!
And 48 years ago, following a serious accident involving two crushed cervical vertebrae, I spent 93 days in hospital. Back then, health care was CHEAP, with my private room costing but $22.50 per day. I had coverage with my dad's policy, fortunately (I was 20).
Carl, imagine what 93 days in hospital would cost now; i imagine over $1 million!
And NOBODY, no matter how healthy, is totally immune to accidents.
You miss the point. Single payer is a taxpayer-funded service, not a premium based insurance product. Nobody gets a bill. Health care, you see, is a right, not a privilege. And while all our taxes might go up a smidge, the actual cost will stay the same and eventually go down dramatically.
We can't, and shouldn't, force people to have to decide for themselves what the risk/reward -- cost/benefit of medical care should be (unless it is to die with dignity). It is a human right to get the most beneficial service available because, you see, humans should take care of each other to the best of our abilities. It isn't a benefit of one's birth or fortune to get adequate health care.
That's why ObamaCare might be better, but still wrong. And why we must continue to work toward single-payer.
But neither case answers Carl's real complaint. He would rather pay $300 for no insurance than $1,800 for a relatively high deductible policy. That would be his preference whether payment were exacted through tax withholding or direct premium payments. The only effect of the tax-based system you describe would be to moot Carl's complaint, not to answer it.
He supports his point of view by stating that Lincoln ($5) is worth more than Washington ($1), but in doing so he excludes risk. Lincoln exposes him to the full cost of an appendectomy, while Washington limits his exposure to $5,000. So the question is not whether Lincoln beats Washington, but whether he beats him at the odds.
To answer that question, Carl relies on a 26 year-old's presumption of good health and good luck. In addition, he seems to underestimate the cost of health care in the event that it should be required. In short, I don't quarrel with his or anyone's desire for single payer healthcare. My quarrel is with his naive and inapt view of risk-based pricing.
He uses the expression "knock wood" which I thought was most interesting since he better keep knocking on it. He needs to educate himself how much it costs for major services--not just fixing an elbow. If he does a little more investigation, he will find out that insurance's primary purpose is to protect one from the calamity of major expenses. The same as it is for home insurance, auto insurance, etc.
I am not a fortune teller but I can tell you for certain that if something does happen while he is young (automobile accident, diagnosis of a chronic illness like diabetes, marriage to his sweetheart who might come down with breast cancer and on and on), WE will be paying for this young man which is exactly why Obamacare was created--to make everyone responsible for their own health care. So, my dear young, naive friend, pay your $300 and have that block of wood handy at all times. When you become a wise adult you will look back and realize how foolish you were.
Insuring a car but not health buys into the materialistic mind set that money is the only thing of value.
I have a rare nerve disease in which the first symptoms are usually tumors inside the nerves going from the ear to the brain. I've shrunk part of one large third brain tumor and my hearing continues to improve. According to the Western medical establishment, this never happens.
The 'real world' is made up of much more than the mind can ever imagine. Too often, it is our knowledge that is limited.
Socializing the cost of medical care through health insurance if a good bet for everyone. We all pay a little every month so that there is a health care infrastructure that is there, or supposedly there for all of us if we get sick. That is the idea of socialism, and insurance.
To not pay into ACA/ObamaCare is
1. Illegal.
2. Does not support your friends, neighbors and countrymen.
3. Gives the Republicans more ammunition to attack both ObamaCare and Single-Payer, which I would prefer.
4. Weakens the system.
5. Does not account for you if you happen to get sick and need to rely on the country to help you.
6. If you do have an injury that is expensive, it is likely that you will not get it fixed and may ruin your earning capability for the rest of your life, not a good choice for you or the country.
Basically, I think not getting health insurance is the wrong thing to do. AND, if you are so poor as to really not be able to pay for health insurance, you likely have your figures wrong because when you go through the system you would get a heavily subsidized plan through Medic-Aid.
I told Carl that I may respond with an article about why I'm buying in...but I'm 48...I don't fault Carl for his position on this issue.
For those who were not watching, they literally laid AHC low through their unashamed blackmail and transparent sabotage of the urgently needed single payer health care system. Both are said to be heavily indebted to Big Healthcare . . . and their pay-backs Corporate America was a badly crippled health care system. This near-treasonous action was accepted by the "powers that be" without comment. In fact, Obama just rewarded Max Baccus with an Ambassadorship to China. WTF!!
* If you and I used this same insider info, we would land in the federal slammer with felony convictions!
This is why the Dems will never achieve the party discipline that the Repubs do.
Remember how Lieberman jumped the party and was allowed to keep his committee chairmanship.
It's like raising kids...if there is no consequences for bad behavior, the bad behavior will continue.
Of course maybe Baccus et al. are just doing Obama's dirty work for him so Obama can keep giving nice speeches with a mildly progressive (but meaningless) line
The expense for that treatment now could set you back half a million dollars. Good luck with your $300 penalty. I have great respect for you based on previous writings, but this time I see a fool.
The older age group has more problems but that is covered by Medicare. Accidents are more common in the young whether auto, gun or work related.
Just work in an ER and get a good look at who, how old and what are the needs of incoming patients will show the fallacy of not having insurance. I had a broken knee from a household accident that required surgery and one night in the hospital which cost $12,000 ten years ago.
While I agree that ACA is a poor system that represents a windfall for insurance companies and does not control costs it is far better that the old system, but ACA still is far from what we need-Single Payer.
I'm sorry that you want to play Russian Roulette on your health, but it angers me to see this web site willingly promoting the view that people should refuse to buy insurance. That this site would encourage people to risk their health and livelihood because the ACA falls short of the perfect is obscene. It's almost similar to the ads run by Koch-sponsored groups against the ACA. Literally if I changed a word here or there the article would be eerily similar.
I agree that the ACA is not a panacea for what ails the US healthcare system. I agree that it falls short in man ways, but it at least curtails the intolerable abuses of the US healthcare system. It at least tries to bring some humanity to a system that is otherwise cruel and heartless. This article is dumb for so many reasons.
And I supported the public option and single-payer. But let's be honest. The votes were never going to be there for the public option, let alone single-payer. The Congress in office at the time was just not going to vote for it. They didn't have the votes and they were never going to have the votes.
What some on the far left don't get is that, for many Americans, this is a matter of life and death. They couldn't afford to wait another 20-30 years for the perfect system to emerge, if it ever did at all. I say this over and over again in threads about healthcare reform here, but no President before Obama had been able to get any form of universal healthcare passed. And had he failed it would have been another 20 years before another President of either party tried to reform healthcare.
I concede that the ACA falls short in some areas and it's not perfect. But at the very least it will provide relief for millions of Americans who would otherwise not have any access to healthcare at all. And they can't afford to make the perfect the enemy of the good or the just barely good enough. The consequences of the ACA not passing would have almost certainly meant death for Americans.
For single-payer to ever become a reality American attitudes toward government are going to have significant change. It's going to take a long-term sustained effort to change their views because, otherwise, single-payer is a nonstarter politically.
Not really, overall. It's very short-sighted and not looking at the big picture for ALL Americans, many of whom need insurance because that is the US system to get "affordable" health care, unfortunately. If we don't/won't/don 't want to buy into it when we're young and healthy, then, if the system never goes to single payer, we should not buy into it ever.
I'm not for insurance dictating health care; I'm for single payer. But we all must care about each other, young or old. And by not buying insurance when we're young, we are taking away from those who are not healthy, older and at risk for many illnesses, and we are taking a great chance if something major happens to us, for we would then need to place a huge burden on the taxpayer to help us pay for health care.
I'm just saying...it's not perfect, but it's the law...we should each do what we want, but I for one want to be able to look in the mirror every day, knowing my decision was well-thought-ou t and for the long run, helping the whole, not just me.
After all, if we did get universal health care, isn't that at the core of its reasoning: it is our right to be treated for illnesses to stay well and not burden others?
Do no harm.
N.
for a few more years. Our national healthcare system allows me not to worry about doctors or hospital bills. Reading the comments I wonder why Americans are so worried about insurances. Suppose they have a car insurance , even if they don't have an accident every week. A fire insurance even if their house doesn' t burn down every year. Yet, as soon as it comes to their healthcare, they start calculating like mad and consider any risk better than being covered. I paid healthcare not because I was sick, but to avoid becoming sick. And feel glad at my age I never had a serious car accident, my house didn't burn down, and nobody had serious health problems, we will continue our insurances, because it can be different tomorrow. It's a lottery and we prefer to pay for no problems than being on the side of those who benefit of Insurances because they lost houses, cars, life's, or health.
When Americans are ready to join the civilized world, we will demand national, non-profit, single-payer health care along with strict government controls on medical and pharmaceutical costs.
Until that time, sit back and watch the continued battles over "Obamacare." It's all about profit over people.
In short. Bad choice.
I worked on my first single payer campaign in 1992 when the insurance Co's torpedoed a single-payer Medi-Cal conversion. I'm furious that single-payer (and public options) were never on the table. But after my experiences, I would never take a pass on insurance.
I own everything that I have free and clear. No mortgages, no payments, no debts. I will never borrow any money. If I can't pay cash for something, I just don't buy it. I will refuse to be treated for illness or injury that is not covered by Medicare part A, and I will not BET that I will be damaged.
Another commenter has it exactly wrong: the Inscos bet that you will NOT be damaged, and so they will be allowed to keep 100% of what you pay, or BET. YOU, the buyer of insurance, BET that something bad WILL happen, and that it will be bad enough to exceed your deductible.
I will choose to refuse: I'm going to leave what modest things I have to my daughter, my heir, rather than spending everything to get much older than I am (I will be 65 in April). Thus, I will pay the penalty. The insurance industry says I have 4 pre-existing conditions (though i am completely recovered from all). You can imagine what my deductible will be, for paying-- BETTING-- dozens of times that $300 penalty.
The ACA says I must be offered insurance. However, it does not say that I must be offered the same rate as a non-smoking healthy 26-year-old. I've made my health bed, and I will cheerily sleep in it, double meaning intended.
In the US we have socialized GAMBLING, but no socialized medicine. Bah Humbug!
Merry Christmas to all.
This was in the 1950s! We're way behind.
The first is that private health insurance should NOT be abolished. This is the same draconian approach that the right uses to justify its moralistic interventions to so much national detriment. If private insurers wish to compete with a single-payer system, LET THEM! Healthcare should be treated in the same vein as public education. If you want to send your kids to private school, do so, but you still have to support the public system.
The other objection I have is the writer's assertion that healthcare is a right. It is not! Like a free public education it is a worthy benefit. This may seem a trite distinction, but it is not. As a retired teacher, I can assure that many if not most of the problems we have in public education stem from the blurring of this distinction. The only proper justification for the loss of a right is the violation the right of another. A benefit, on the other hand, can be lost if one does not comply with the conditions of the benefit. So, for example, if a child repeatedly disrupts the learning environment, that child should be removed from the classroom. The actual RIGHT to an education redounds on the parents. Similarly, if you smoke, drink excessively or otherwise make no effort to provide minimal self-care, a penalty is not inappropriate.
Carl, grow up and take a little responsibility for your life.
*****************************
I own no smartphone, nor TV, much less premium channels (I grew up when watching TV was free after you bought the set). I own everything I have. No mortgage, no payments.
I will NOT bankrupt myself on health care if I get sick or injured. I'm almost 65, and I will go ahead and die with dignity, as my mother did at 78, or take only what Part A Medicare pays, if I choose to repair myself.
I should be allowed to make this responsible adult decision. But if I am not, I will pay the penalty.
I have 4 pre-existing conditions. I am privately uninsurable. However, I have recovered from everything I have had, and I refuse to bet that I will get sick or hurt.
Insurance, sans quotes, is that which one purchases expecting to never use it. So how does insurance work? Well, you pay a fee to a company and in return, IF you have a loss that is greater than your deductible, the company steps in and pays it for you.
In the late 90s early 2000s, I made somewhere around $20,000. My Blue Cross insurance which started out at about $100/month with a $3000 deductible steadily rose till just before I went on Medicare, I was paying close to $300/month with a $5000 deductible. Did I like that? Hell no. But… it was insurance.
In 2007 I had a fall that resulted in 21 broken ribs and two collapsed lungs. The helicopter flight alone cost $18,000. The 10-day hospital bill over $200,000. Doctors, drugs, all the usual expenses associated with a bad accident at least another $100,000. And I was to pay that how???? My home was only worth about $30,000, net of mortgage. Savings? About $120,000 in IRAs. Without insurance, I would have been wiped out and STILL owed at least $150,000. But I HAD insurance. I paid my $5000 deductible and Anthem took care of the rest.
Do I prefer paying Medicare’s $100/month? Sure. Did I STOP paying for Anthem before I got Medicare? Hell no. My mama didn’t raise a fool.
Underground: The Julian Assange Story
It's a must see.
Susan is correct, cruel. The ACA is torturous to the poor who cannot afford it. They are forced to play a cruel game of predicting an unknown future by gambling with Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum poker chips, or pay a fine, none of which are "affordable" options to them. Some fortunates who can afford it are looking down their noses and righteously accusing them of "wanting" to gamble and recklessly taking risks for themselves and their families. These costs are nothing to many wealthy Platinumers. It is downright mean, cruel, to blame the entrapped poor.
USA Money = power culture is way off as the health care goes. Young person can travel to Mexico or Cuba and get the fix there - universal health care is only viable option for the USA - any civilized society has it - till then these private fixes are jokes.
What we have is government of the rich by the lobbyists and politicians and for the rich. NPI, no people involved. When did we stop caring for the masses of hungry, down trodden and freedom seeking people, or did we never care for them.
Why? Because we knew that we would sell everything we had and bankrupt ourselves if one of our children was sick or injured and money could help them recover.
This 26-year old is shortsighted. One in four people uses hospital services every year. People don't realize how high hospital costs are until they encounter them. This lady can buy a silver policy for about $200/month.
If this is true -- if we are all paying a lot of money to cover the treatment of the uninsured, we ought to all want see these people pay their own way.
Personally, I am ready to die with dignity. My one child has left home, and by my own labor I own my home free and clear, as well as every other possession I have.
I'm not going to a hospital if something goes really wrong with me. I have lived a rich (in experience, not money) full life, and I intend to leave everything I have to my heir, not to an insurance company in advance, or a bunch of doctors and hospitals at the end. I pay between $42 and $65 per visit to an excellent chiropractor. If some illness does get to me, I will decide whether it is worth fixing with cash. Till then, I will pay the penalty for not being insured. When I was in Norway, where I was treated for the most recent of my pre-existing conditions in 2010, all treatment AND doctors' fees (3 MDs involved) cost me about $500 US. Here, the same would have cost me thousands. And I wasn't even a citizen there!
Damn and Blast the American capitalist health system. I will not take part! I will go ahead and die first, and cheerily. It HAS BEEN a wonderful life. Merry Christmas, or whatever you celebrate, to all.
1) As an insurance holder you will benefit from the negotiated rates not applicable to non-insurees. This is significant, availing you of the $80 office visit vice the $250 visit and equivalent savings for drugs.
2) You will use healthcare differently as an insuree. You are more likely to go to the doctor to have that spot on your arm checked for melanoma. The delay may be the difference between stage 1 melanoma (treatable) and stage 4 melanoma (untreatable). Check out the Texan who had a fever and waited two weeks because he had no insurance. He got to the hospital two weeks later and died within 2 days of H1N1 swine flu.
3) As an insuree, you get certain free preventative services including annual checkups, X-rays, etc. Will you go without checkups because you have to pay?
4) Look at the 20 year outlook for likely expenses. If, in the next 20 years, you fall down and hit your head, putting you n the emergency room and a three day hospital stay requiring MRI and other diagnostic care, how would you deal with the $30,000 bill? Over a 20-year period, this kid of an event is relatively likely, even for someone who believes himself to be in good health.
When three quarters of workers make less than it costs them to live on their own, buy a mid sized car every nine years, responsibly insure themselves,save 10% of their income for emergencies, and plan a retirement after age 67, it should not come as a surprise to anyone that nobody can afford even reasonably priced insurance. In order to do those things, you need to earn a salary of at least $48,632 a year or $24.32 an hour. For our society to work, that HAS to be the new minimum wage, with cost of living figured on the basis of durable like a car or the cost of rent.
For point of reference, that was slightly less than the average manufacturing worker twenty years ago when the manufacture of consumer goods for domestic consumption formed the largest segment of the United States' Gross Domestic Product (according to the Bureau of Economic Analysis)
This problem was caused almost exclusively by our involvement in the World Trade Organization and the International Monetary Fund, based on the hubris that U.S. Workers could be convinced to compete on a level playing field with workers from sweatshop nations that could be easily bribed to ignore worker rights and environmental standards.
By suppressing wages we socialize the operation of irresponsible business and create an environment where business expects to have their expenses socialized and their profits privatized. This is why the stock market soars as incomes plummet.
Globalization has harmed everyone in the world except those who have corrupted themselves into control of their countries. The countries least effected by globalism are those with high tax burdens that penalize large incomes. Unfortunately, many of these countries have also outsourced consumer goods manufacture and are experiencing the high unemployment and underemployment that is the necessary consequence of that policy.
We have a hard choice: internalize and maintain mass prosperity, or continue globalization and ensure inequality.
Affordable Health Care is just the most proximate symptom of a questionable direction.
If you have NO insurance, you will pay 3 times more than everyone else for the same service. There's a less than 1% chance that you will need $3000 worth of health care any year in the near future. Well, for you, it looks higher.
However, if you are severely injured, you will risk bankruptcy as a result of the medical bills and rehab coast.
It's so weird that my doctor here offers lower prices when I didn't have insurance. Because he knows when I paid cash he got paid, some of the insurance companies deny payment and cause rifts between the doctor and his patients when he has to send them to collections. I'm in arizona, my health plan is to go to mexico if I need health care, they're just as good as we are but they charge a reasonable price and use the same techniques and medicine.
My sister got cancer when she was 30 and spent nearly 6 months in and out of the hospital before she was well again. Insurance paid out between $300K and $500K by my estimates. I too believe in single payer insurance but don't impoverish yourself for life trying to pay back a medical bill like that one.
I see his shortsighted argument, and there are many excellent comments below showing examples of its errors, but to inflate numbers, especially costs to illustrate a point is disingenuous and misleading at best.
Carl can save $300 over the course of 12 months to pay this ridiculous fine. He can't afford to take on $150 in additional costs regardless of what it is for, that's the real problem.
On the other hand, many people underestimate the costs of full-taxpayer funded systems. Many total around 20% of earned income. That is in addition to other income taxes. In the United Kingdom, their National Health System (NHS) is supported by payroll taxes totaling about 20% of earned income - 9% employee and 11% employer. France's system is supported by a 14% employer tax plus other taxes that total 21%. Most economists believe that employees ultimately pay the entire payroll tax, including the employer portion, through lower wages.
That makes intuitive sense, as businesses don't plan to lose money when they hire people, and competing businesses seeking the same employee must also pay the sames taxes.
With that in mind, a European-style system would probably cost a person earning $30,000 an additional $6,000 per year, comparable to plans here. Basically, the $30,000 job would become a $27,000 job, with the employer and employee each paying $3,000 per year, and leaving the employee with $6,000 less income.
To really lower health care costs, we need to look at the biggest causes. Obese people, for example, cost 4 times as much to insure as normal or overweight persons. Insurance could be priced to give discounts for not being obese.
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