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Group fails to get enough signatures for ballot question to repeal health-insurance mandate
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Comments
There was a ballot for that?
Do over! I want to sign it! I know many people who can barely afford health insurance. Having to file an extra page with my MA taxes also pisses me off.
And I'm guessing that the people who DID sign
Don't know the full text of the law. The law requires people to buy insurance only if they make a pretty decent chunk of money. Also, there are sliding-scale plans for people pretty darn far up the income ladder -- up to 301% of the poverty level, I believe.
You know what that extra form on your taxes does? It calculates whether you pay a penalty for having health insurance. It does that by determining whether your income is considered high enough to afford insurance. In my case, I have insurance that my job pays part of the premium for. However, when I fill out that form, it says that based on my income, I'm not required to have insurance and wouldn't have a penalty for having it. In other words, they don't think I make enough to afford insurance. And while my family isn't exactly raking in the dough, we're hardly poor either with our two incomes (both doing professional jobs at nonprofits).
Right?
IN IN IN IN IN.
If you think health insurance is expensive ...
... try injury or illness. Maybe you are just a wee bit too young to have had friends who were financially, if not physically, saved by these laws requiring and providing for health insurance.
In time, grasshopper, in time.
Were they really calling themselves MAIM? Yikes.
You know what's not expensive?
Death. Just sayin'.
And before anybody asks, I let my insurance lapse after Celticare decided to BS me on some eye treatment I had earlier this year (which I could have paid for entirely out of pocket, thank you.) I'll just pay the fine. Screw 'em. Go rip somebody else off. I won't live here in five years, anyway. I'm not married to this place.
Yay?
!!
Well, best of health to you! Otherwise, if you have a catastrophic illness or accident, I'm sure you'll pay back the state and medical system every cent they charge the taxpayers for your heroic, bootstrappy stand. Right?
I'm working for another 50 years
Outlook good.
FTFY
We're all planning on working. It's what happens between now and 50 years from now that defines if we're able to or not.
Death can be very expensive
Two of my friends who might have died were previously very healthy people who found themselves in catastrophic situations. Had they died, their children would have collected about $3,000 in social security each MONTH. Not only that, they would not be paying taxes like they are today, because they would be dead.
Parents dying in their 40s are VERY expensive to society.
Ever have to pay for
Ever have to pay for cremation/burial/services (and in some cases probate court)? Death is only not expensive for the dead.
Oh noes!
Who will ask trivia questions to drunk BU kids???
If they can barely afford health insurance...
Just imagine how screwed they would have been if they'd gotten sick without it. At least the state is now there to offer an option that covers for the fact that in our employer-provided healthcare paradigm, we've allowed for employers who don't provide healthcare.
If you don't like filing an extra piece of paper with your taxes, then you should be a proponent of state-funded healthcare for everyone. There'd be no need to turn in extra pieces of paper if the state already knew that it protected your life for the year.
National French Toast Day
Totally off-topic but today is:
National French Toast Day.
GOOD
I am surprised that nobody markets Massachusetts' universal healthcare as a FANTASTIC innovation and start-up driver.
After graduating school last spring I went the start-up route for 6 months before taking a job with a regular company and it was very helpful to have a low-cost insurance option that I could afford while working on a business plan and working for a startup.
And Single Payer would be even better for business
Imagine an idea that would save businesses 10% to 15% of payroll costs?
MAIM? Really?
Am I the only one that thinks this is a hilarious name for a group that is against the health insurance requirement is named after something that you need health insurance to pay for if it happens to you?
It's right up there with Rapiscan
The airport low radiation scatter machines that pillage your 4th Amendment rights as they scan you.
TSA and Rapescans
Where's the fuckin ACLU when you need it?
My Two Cents
My two cents between insurance is expensive on one side and how a sudden illness on the other side, I want to chime is what kind of solution to the problem of how health care companies are try to make money by screwing people over by making everyone sign up?
I also have my own smaller society-wide issues like insurance with college students who can't go under their parents. The alternative is to buy insurance from the school that cost thousands. I find that ironic as dropping out of school means free health care.
But I digressed, the current system and the subsequent national system that copied from us is unacceptable. So many of the problems is related that the incentive of insurance is to maximize profits, the solution is not make everyone buy them to their benefit.