Increased Penalties for the Uninsured Under the Republican’s AHCA?
Caroline Pearson at Avalere has a piece on how the House of Representatives AHAC healthcare program penalizes older and lower income people more so than higher incomes and younger people. Just to refresh your memory, the ACA penalizes people who do not have insurance based upon income.
While the penalties under the ACA are based upon income, the penalties under the AHCA are based upon age determinant premiums. Older people under the AHCA have higher premiums up to 5:1 of the younger insured rather than the 3:1 ratio under the ACA. Remember too, the ACA does not use age as a determinant of the size of penalty which is based upon income. While most likely the healthiest, many Millenials have lower incomes and could an have issues paying the penalty under the AHCA as the size of the penalty at lower income is a larger percentage of annual income. The impact of large groups of the younger and healthier Millenials not buying insurance could be felt in the risk pool potentially forcing higher premiums for everyone. Different than the penalty being paid to the government under the ACA, the penalty under the AHCA is paid to a private company. It will be interesting to see if this is be tested in court also
Younger Adults
Older Adults
If young adults are discouraged by the penalty and cannot afford to enroll, it could hurt the risk pool. While a recent RAND analysis showed that young people as a whole moving in or out of coverage may not have a large impact on the risk pool, the healthiest and least expensive young adults not enrolling could still result in a significant negative impact on the pool. A recent CBO report confirms a similar projection of those deterred from enrolling due to the continuous coverage provision will tend to be healthier and a penalty could have a significant negative impact on the risk pool and result in higher premiums. Certainly the size of the penalty regardless of income will have an impact as well as the age/premium factor.
The Republican “plan” is anti-nationalism at its finest. By denying the sick healthcare because it “costs more”, they weaken the country. Sounds like a global conspiracy to me to derail the US into a plutocracy.
How can it be a global conspiracy when we are the only industrialize country without universal healthcare?
Then, the penalty would increase the longer you wait to buy insurance, so you don’t get insurance because you cannot afford the penaly.
Warren:
Yearly penalty applied when you buy.
well, my discerning eye can’t see how this is going to make the people who hated Obamacare happy…. i mean the “little people” who voted for Trump.
i would recommend an insurance plan that charges a small percent of wages/income without regard to age. that way the healthy young would be paying in advance for when they become the unhealthy old, but not more than they can afford . of course, it would have to be “mandatory” to work. but then “penalty” sounds iike mandatory and that’s what people didnt like about Obamacare.
It’s ridiculous. You don’t get assessed the penalty until you actually get insurance. That would actually DISCOURAGE people from getting it.
They should just have a one-year grace period. After that, pre-existing conditions WILL NOT be covered. Period. THAT will be the penalty for not having insurance. It is ridiculous to expect an insurance company to pay for some thing that did not happen when you were insured by that company. That’s like getting into a car accident and then buying insurance to cover it.
Warren
that’s why the private insurance model can’t work.
Why’s that, Coberly?
“that wil be the penalty”
Yeah, and somehow you think that uninsured person will be the only one hurt by denying coverage.
yeah. heard a report the other day that Hepatitis C can be cured by a drug the drug company wants 80 thousand dollars for. at that price it would be cheaper for the United States to buy the company on the free market and provide the drug at cost.
the point here is that at the current cost people do not get treated. Hepatitis C spreads to other people. ultimate cost, not to say suffering, is higher than it would be to buy the drug company.
Warren
I was going to say “think about it.”
But then I remembered that I believe that most people aren’t smart enough to think about it.
Hepatitis C spreads by blood-to-blood contact. Don’t share needles.
Point is, if you have insurance when you get it, that insurance company would be required to pay for the treatment.
“Hepatitis C spreads by blood-to-blood contact. Don’t share needles.”
What does that have to do with the cost of HepC drugs?
Injuries in auto accidents are caused by driving. Don’t drive.
Type II diabetes is caused by obesity. Don’t overeat.
Joel,
Your problem is you think you are talking to human beings.
The same problem you have when you inform them about climate change.
They are not human beings
“Injuries in auto accidents are caused by driving. Don’t drive.
“Type II diabetes is caused by obesity. Don’t overeat.”
One bad analogy, one good one.
Driving is a normal, even necessary activity. Almost everyone agrees that the benefits of driving are worth the risks. That is not the case with sharing needles and overeating.
The point is that if you choose to forgo insurance, no-one else should be forced to pay for your healthcare when you get sick or injured. You get to choose, and you get to deal with the consequences of your choice.
Warren,
Sometimes, as will increasingly happen if this gop abortion is adopted, people do not have a choice.
But you constantly miss the real point here. In any decent society, sick people are eventually cared for. The costs of that healthcare will be paid by the society in one way or another. The only way to avoid paying those costs is to refuse healthcare to uninsured people when they get sick.
I would think Ryan will get to that point one day if the gop keeps controlling healthcare. But we not that indecent yet.
So, accepting your assertion that “sick people are eventually cared for,” who should pay for it? If this is a decent society, will there not be people willing to pay for it? Do we not already have free clinics, church-run hospitals, and not-for-profit insurance companies?
In fact, Americans are the most generous people, by far, than any other country in the world: “In a first of its kind survey, the Almanac found that Americans out-donate Britain and Canada two-to-one and nations like Italy and Germany 20-to-one. What’s more, more than half of every single income class except those earning less than $25,000 donate to charity.”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/americans-are-worlds-most-charitable-top-1-provide-13rd-of-all-donations/article/2580876
So, if we are not donating “enough” (whatever that is) to charity hospitals and free clinics, it is because we don’t want to.
Stop with that charity stuff. Take out all religious donations (the vast majority of which have nothing to do with charity), educational giving, and the picture changes.
When you channel the “Thousand Points of Life” bs, you are talking bs.
BTW,
I love the Top 1% give 1/3 of charitable giving thing. It stands out like a sore thumb. Intentionally I presume.
Warren,
I’m very willing to accept the fact that you don’t care if people die because they are without healthcare insurance, but that is not the way our country works. Let’s deal with reality, not the way you wish things were.
What that boils down to, EMichael, is that people do not give where YOU think they should, so you would have the government take their money and direct it as you see fit.
Thus, by YOUR OWN STANDARDS, ours is NOT a decent society.
And, let me ask you, Jerry, do YOU donate to free clinics and charity hospitals?
Jesus, Warren, you are a broken record. You have about 3 and a half “ideas” and they all amount to the same thing. “Don’t take away my precious money.”
Your mind is not capable of understanding the idea of a “tax.” You think we call just sit in our own shit and everybody do his own thing without government “coercion.” A societly like that wouldn’t last one day.
And in a decent society… the kind humans evolved in for awhile… your uncles would finally look at your worthless selfish self and take you out in the bush and leave you.
Maybe you are the new man… what humanity has evolved to become in an industrial society. You will no doubt think you are happy in your own private Las Vegas with your gold plated urinal. But I would think it was hell.
Warren,
I do not give a damn who people give their money to. The topic is your claim that Americans are very charitable and thus healthcare could come from charity for some people.
Your own link(which I trust not a whole lot) shows that the vast majority of that charity has absolutely nothing to do with providing healthcare.
As Cob said, it is hard to argue when your ideology restricts you so much.
“The point is that if you choose to forgo insurance, no-one else should be forced to pay for your healthcare when you get sick or injured.”
Which is why we need universal health care, like all the other industrialized nations on the planet. That way, nobody foregoes insurance.
See how that works?
Are you, Coberly, incapable of seeing that the States did not give that power to the U.S. government?
So, EMichael, you now assert that ours is NOT a decent society, because our charitable contributions do not go where you think they should. So I will ask again, do YOU contribute to free clinics, charitable hospitals, and other such healthcare charities?
Joel, as I told Coberly, the U.S. government was not given that power by the States. Get the Constitution changed.
Warren,
Two things.
One, states do not give power to the government, the constitution does.
Two, do you also believe that the constitution does not give the federal government the power to provide Medicare insurance to seniors?
The States created the U.S. government through the Constitution, and the States must ratify changes to it.
If you believe that the Constitution gives the U.S. government such power, then please quote the relevant passage.
The constitutionality of Medicare is settled law. Look up the decisions yourself if you don’t believe it.
You fail. Want to try again? Here is the entire text of the U.S. Constitution:
http://constitutionus.com/
It’s like an open-book test.
Good luck.
Warren:
You are being a twit. Stop please . . .
“If you believe that the Constitution gives the U.S. government such power, then please quote the relevant passage.”
Uh, Warren,
The Constitution means exactly what the Supreme Court says it mean.
Marbury v Madison
*means*
Jerry is right, It is settled law. In the sense that the SCOTUS has ruled on the Constitutionality. The SCOTUS, per Marbury v Madison, decides what the Constitution means, not Warren or any of the simpleton TEAsheeple.
Joel:
I admonished him. Lets not rub it in guys, ok?
Sorry. I didn’t think the epithet “twit” carried the same content as my subsequent posts. I stand corrected.
Joel,
You were being kind.
In short, ALL of you are incapable of answering the question, with the text of the Constitution right in front of you.
This is not a post about the impact of the AHAC on the Constitution.
It is about one aspect of the AHAC which I mistakenly thought the lot of you need to understand. God forbid, the lot of you as well as the rest of those clamoring for single payer, universal healthcare, Medicare-for-all, European – style of healthcare, etc. offer little up on the PPACA, (or for you who do not know what this is) Obamacare other than Trump style tweets of misleading and often times false information.
Know the topic as so many of you have failed in your knowledge of the PPACA. Class over . . .