How do you feel about having to pay for health-care, or lose your IRS tax refund?
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$5 Answers
The actual provisions of the bill are public, anyone can read them, they're even summarised right here on Mahalo. Speaking as someone who is actually qualified to prepare taxes for a living I can tell you how it works:
Your actual income is reported.
You deduct a bungton of things from that number.
After all of the deductions are finished you arrive at a lower number called your "Adjusted Gross Income"
Your Adjusted Gross Income, or AGI, can be 0. You can owe the government NOTHING.
You compare your AGI to how much money was withheld from your paychecks over the year.
You either owe money, or you get money back.
According to Mahalo's own page on the bill, and the bill's own text as it was passed, and even the quote in the Asker's own link: "If somebody doesn't have coverage, they'll either have paid the penalty that they owe or they'll get a letter from us saying that you owe this amount."
So what IS real? We all know it's not the messianic promised land like NBC/CNN and hard leftwing mainstream media has been saying, but it's also not the death of America at a kenyan muslim's hands like the right wing and all of the different companies Rupert Murdoch owns have been saying either.
So lets cheat. My second link is a little flash application that will tell you EXACTLY how the bill will affect you and why. Once that's out of the way Ric Romera of all people has a politically neutral reading and explanation of the bill, strictly factual, on ABC7 (my third link).
But first let me go through the second link's app with you as John, a ~30 year old uninsured man with a wife and one child and an AGI of roughly $45,000 a year (meaning his actual income is at least 50,000):
---Begin quote: Results of the "How will Healthcare Reform affect you?" flash application---
"Beginning in 2014, you will receive tax credits to help afford insurance premiums in the new exchanges as well as assistance with deductibles and co-payments. According to your income and family size, the tax credits will ensure you do not spend more than $2835 to $3622.5 on premiums. Your maximum out-of-pocket costs for deductibles and co-payments would be capped at 27% of the total cost."
"You are required to have health insurance by 2014. Penalties for not having coverage begin in 2014 at $95 per uninsured dependent and rise by 2016 to $695 per person (up to a maximum of $2,085 per family or 2.5 percent of household income (whichever is higher). After 2016, the penalty would be increased annually by the cost-of-living adjustment."
---End Quote---
So the net result of this guy, who is making at LEAST $50,000 a year and taking almost no deductions at all to have an AGI that high (he needs to fire his tax preparer...) is that he will pay LESS taxes in order to afford insurance and he will pay a MAXIMUM of 27% of all expenses out of pocket for deductibles and copayments. His premiums would even be capped at about $3,700.
But what if he refused, like Budawaggi says he will? Then STARTING IN THE YEAR 2014 he would pay a $95 per YEAR penalty for each uninsured dependant. Only by the year 2016 would that rise to $695 with the fine CAPPED at either $2085 or 2.5% of your Adjusted Gross Income (whichever is higher) and this is tied to the cost-of-living index so it's adjusted that way each year after 2016.
So really you don't have any penalties for the next FOUR YEARS, which is also when most of the other provisions people worry about take place.
That third link, the one I said was a nonpolitical walkthrough of the bill, really is just a simple factual timeline of what happens and when according to the current bill as it was passed.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$However, I do not know where you thought one would "lose your IRS tax refund", should one does not purchase a health care plan. In the link you provided, it is mentioned as part of a commentary, not a fact.
In fact, only a small penalty - - currently 2.5% of (adjusted?) gross income - - may be imposed for those who do not have or purchase health insurance (how the IRS will track you or your plan, and/or prove such or not is beyond me; I can imagine the pending lawsuits over those who wish to opt out for religious or other reasons; I wonder whether the Fed thought to add legal costs to the health law). The Consitutionality of such will be argued, eventually, by the Supreme Court, as 37 States have voiced their dissent over the law (considering that the population of those 37 States is a far greater majority of the population than the seven Congressional Representatives whose "majority" votes passed the bill, I'm wondering who, indeed, Congress is representing!).
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Per your link, the "lose your refund" statement was a commentary, not a fact, other than that the 2.5% penalty may reduce any such refund to the point that it may be "lost" or you may even have to pay.
It was mentioned on Fox news this morning.
"how the IRS will track you or your plan, and/or prove such or not is beyond me"
Read my answer for the answer to this pondering in your answer.
Mmmm...our taxes already pay for health care. VA, MediCare, HMO...you know. Incase you didn't know we also pay for other's welfare here in the states. Did Fox not mention that?
As soon enough I will be required to buy health insurance and one cannot get blood from a stone I will likely wind up in jail/prison for not purchasing the health insurance and while I am in jail/prison for not purchasing health insurance I will certainly take advantage of the jail/prison health and dental plan.
How much will be the cheapest option available to allow us to be considered "having insurance"? Sign me up for that plan and let me get on with fixing the economy all my myself...please no more things I have to pay for as they will bankrupt me.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Jail/prison health/dental plan. I wonder if they figured that into the CBO analysis? Sign me up.
Well, according to Mahalo's own summary of the bill's provisions you may start to get one: http://www.mahalo.com/health-care-education-affordability-reconciliation-act-of-2010
Overpaying your taxes and waiting for a refund that has earned you nothing all year is only for people who can't save money any other way. Letting the government have your money interest free all year is not patriotic, it's bordering on self-destructive. I guess if you really have absolutely no willpower to not spend that money during the year, or keep it in a savings account where it can earn you more money, then putting it into the government's hands is o.k., but think about this...YOUR tax dollars are paying for all those extra employees the government hires every year to process the tax returns and send out your refund.
It would be interesting to know how much it costs to process each refund, from the manpower, to the machinery, to the postage, to the extra employees at the post office, to the overtime to deliver the checks. If it cost $22 for a businessman to send a letter, what would a refund check cost to send out? And who is paying for that? YOU are!
If you were smart, and invested the money you would have paid to the IRS every year, it would probably offset a lot of the health care expense, don't you think?
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$After they get every drop of your blood, sweat and tears in the health insurance arena, they'll start dictating that you must spend your money buying from another private company (whose buddy-buddy with DC) and then another, and another. Once We The People let them dictate buying health insurance, they will dictate everything, and it WILL happen in your lifetime.
Obamacare includes enough funding to hire +17,000 IRS agents to literally monitor every citizen's premium payments every MONTH. The IRS will be looking into some segment of your finances every MONTH. (Rhetorical) Do you comprehend what that truly means? How invasive that is?
Per the Examiner (link below): "According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, people who work in government jobs earn 45 percent more than peope who work in the private sector. From 1998 to 2008, public employee compenstation grew by 28.6 percent compared to 19.3 percent for those who worked in the private sector. In most U.S. states, government workers received significant pay raises. Those in the private sector received few pay raises and most lost their jobs altogether. In 2008, about half of all state and local government expenditures or about $1.1 trillion dollars went toward pay and benefits of public workers. According to the BLS, in 2009, the average state or public employee received about $40 in total compensation per hour compared to $27 per hour for private workers." And now Obamacare is going to add another 17,000 government workers (IRS agents) to the rolls. Who do you think pays for this? US!!
How do I feel about having to pay for health INSURANCE or lose your IRS tax refund? (Your question is erroneous and misleading because you are not required to pay or even get health CARE, but you are required to have INSURANCE.) I feel we are on the road to losing everything. Our financial stability and our FREEDOM.
You can leave an optional "tip" with Mahalo's virtual currency, Mahalo Dollars. If you are asking a difficult question that might require some research, or if you'd like a wide variety of feedback, a higher tip often leads to more answers to your question.
M$
Nancy, you are now playing semantics.
This is what I was talking about. There IS wool being pulled over people's eyes, it's the wool of extremist partisan politics. The wool of Fear Uncertainty and Doubt, the wool of logical fallacies, twisted words, and half-truths and whole lies.
You say you care about facts, but why then do you use words like "conned" and now play at the semantic difference between insurance and care? That is not a factual argument, it is just you saying that I'm wrong because you were talking about something else with a slightly different name, even though your entire post discusses Insurance just as mine does.
@meyermv, are you suggesting that because the Bush administration was wrong, that it's okay for the Obama administration to be wrong too? That kind of thinking is why our government has degenerated into such abuse of power.
Read the Constitution. It's such a phenomenal collection of wisdom. It will help you appreciate that We The People need to stand our freedom ground in the face of all political manipulation - especially when they twist explanations of bills to sound like they are addressing a heart-tug issue but are really massive abuse of liberties in disguise: Partiot Act and Obamacare both!
It's never an issue of whether you have something to hide or not - they just want you to think that so you will go along with their invasion of your privacy. It's about what is Constitutional and right. It's never about justifying what's wrong.
Your comment started out with reference to universal health CARE. You didn't say anything about insurance.
@ nancy's answer, in response to "How invasive that is?"
Is it anymore invasive than the Bush Admin, Senate and House passing the Patriot Act? They listened to your conversations, read your emails, monitored where you and I were.
So what if he's adding 17,000 more people on pay roll, to watch my pay my premium? I don't care. They can watch where my money is being transfered all day long. I'm not doing anything illegal, what do I have to hide? Is he related to all of them or something? Are you against people having jobs? You know what's a waste of our tax payer money? Salaries that go to Senators who have affairs and the church allows it, then they have the gall tell their wives that they are possesed by demons.
Incase you didn't know, and since Fox probably doesn't air fact, you are ALREADY paying for other's health insurance. Medicare/Medicade, VA. The reason there is so much debate about change is that the old system doesn't work. The new system might or might not, but the old system doesn't.
We are in agreement that health CARE could use attention, but the question posed was worded incorrectly because the issue at hand with the IRS refund loss has to do with health INSURANCE. Our brilliant Representatives conned us all with hyperbole to make unthinking Americans believe they were addressing healthcare, but the legislation is only about health INSURANCE. It's a shame you voted my answer down. People need to realize the wool that is being pulled over their eyes. They need to hear from people like me who really do care about the FACTS.
Here's the link back to the page you referred me to. If you read past the first section campaign speech and get to the specific points of the bill you will see that it repeatedly discusses INSURANCE and not care.
http://www.mahalo.com/health-care-education-affordability-reconciliation-act-of-2010
http://www.mahalo.com/health-care-education-affordability-reconciliation-act-of-2010
I would also point out that literally every single other 1st world country in the entire world has universal healthcare. So far England seems to be the only one with freedom issues, the rest (particularly scandinavian and nordic nations) are doing quite well.
The simple truth is that our way, the old way, does not work. We were paying more for healthcare per person than pretty much everyone else while receiving healthcare on par with CUBA.
The Examiner, Fox News, CNN, NBC, all these are not news stations but political entertainment. They do not care about facts, they care about partisan politics. The hard facts prove that America has been spending far too much on 2nd world quality healthcare.
But that's the problem, nobody cares about objective facts, they care about "facts" that talking heads and partisan politics trumped.
that link is awesome, thanks.
You're kidding, right? Being forced to buy $3,700/yr minimum product from a private company or get penalized $2,085 or @ 2.5% AGI by the Federal government is about health CARE? Give me a break! It's about greasing your buddies palm and getting re-elected by welfare recipients (who already get great health CARE).
It matters not @shadowex3. Either the US moral majority's eyes are open and we overturn this in the SCOTUS or next November, or the legions of existing and new hire IRS agents will be monthly looking into a lot more than health insurance premiums. And with roughly half the nation working for governments, making 45% more than the other half that is paying for the governments, it may all be a moot point anyway.
Thanks chris. A lot of people assume just because I don't absolutely hate the bill that I must absolutely love it. In truth I think of it as just a step in the right direction with some good and some bad. I'm really very neutral politically on many things, probably because I've spent so much time as a nerd that I care more about reading the actual bill than what the news has to say about it.
So I do what I can to dispell myths and put forth facts on both sides. While right now I argue with Nancy that this bill is not as bad as she claims, and I dispell the myth of losing your tax refund, I also am at the same time arguing with some of my friends in other places that there are downsides to this bill and things which should be better.
That's why I like the second and third links. They don't discuss politics at all, they just say "Here's the numbers, here's what happens, here's how it happens, here's when it happens. Click here, type here, and this is exactly what would happen to you."