Affordable Care Act a HIT!!!! 7 million goal achieved; 8 million now signed up!

[Robert May Eng.]

This is exactly the UK experience, however, I still believe that there are a number of entities vital to the nation that should be run by the State. My 'musts' would include transport, healthcare and utilities to name three.

I feel the same way about most of the public services.

[/QUOTE]Despite it's detractors, the NHS has an absolutely marvellous fund of dedicated people who treat their careers as vocational and just because the admin, management and political meddling have conspired to make it a leaky boat doesn't mean we should give up on it.[/QUOTE]



I would like to see all public services run on budget by an elected managment team that have no political axe to grind and remove all these services from the political chess board. A do the job properly or lose the position approach. Countless millions have been lost with the changing governments priorities .

Bob

 

[Pat]

You may be correct...AT THIS TIME. AFAIK the penalty for non-compliance is small the first year, greater the second year, and gets very expensive thereafter. We knew this going in, just as we knew the penalty for employers not complying was phased in much the same way.

Doug

Doug, I admire your optimism but the size of penalties on the current individual mandate are immaterial if there is not the ability to enforce it.
If you don’t buy health insurance in 2014 – as dictated by the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act – you are expected pay the tax when you file your income taxes in April of 2015. If you don’t, you will receive a notice from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) stating that you owe the penalty. The IRS can collect the money by reducing the amount of any tax refund that you are owed in the future. But the law says that you will not be subject to criminal prosecution and the government cannot file a notice of lien or file a levy on your property.

So once again, the incentive the law provides is to effectively manage your taxes as any fine is simply limited to the size of your refund.

Everyone that wants it ought to have health insurance. But the answer is not government coercion but positive incentives to do so. Instead, employers have incentives to limit their work force size, hours worked and in some cases move them overseas. The law's provisions are self defeating.