IRS will benefit from Obamacare

[Hammerhead]

http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=176997

[Karl Hungus]

If you're going to require people to have health insurance, you have to have a mechanism to enforce it.

Can we just get a policy with a $1 million deductible? That should be really cheap, like $10 a year.

[wallypiper]

If you're going to require people to have health insurance, you have to have a mechanism to enforce it.



True that, but it doesn't make it good. I don't really have a problem with mandating participation in the health insurance pool. Virtually nobody will manage to go through life without requiring some kind of health care and pay as you go just doesn't work for most people. The irony is, the people that DO buy insurance are typically much more likely to be able to pay minor medical bills without it.

But maybe the solution is pay after the fact. Say Johnny Yardman decides not to buy health insurance. Then one day he chops off his toes with his mower and gets rushed to the nearest hospital that will take uninsured patients with non life threatening injuries. They treat him and present him with a bill for say $6,000. (You don't get toe re-attachment when you don't have insurance, just stop the bleeding and sew up the stumps.) He doesn't have $6,000 so to settle the bill he has to enroll in a mandated make up insurance program. His other option is being sued by the provider and having some assets seized as settlement. If he chooses instead to enroll, he has to pay back $7500. The extra 25% is a penalty for not having paid into the system up front. The provider gets paid and the system get's reimbursed for the payment and for the carrying cost and the administrative costs. And Johnny is motivated to stay in the pool since his normal premiums will be much less than the "penalty" premiums his bad bet has imposed.