Guest Post by Eric Peters
It was nice of the Orange Man to rescind the punishment – the “shared responsibility payment” – applied by the IRS for failing to fork over money to the health insurance mafia, for “coverage” people didn’t want to buy or simply couldn’t afford to buy.
That latter part being the interesting part.
The federal government – which is now the Luca Brasi of the insurance mafia, making “collections” on its behalf – punishes people who can’t afford to buy the mafia’s services.
Which is of course just what the actual Luca Brasi did. He’d visit a grocery store whose owner had not sent along the envelope full of cash and bash the clerk’s nose in, smash the cash register and just take whatever he could snatch.
But the government forced Obamacare on the people of this country by claiming it would make paying the mafia more “affordable.”
Of course it did no such thing – because Obamacare is (among other things) a wealth transfer mechanism – and not just from us to the insurance mafia but also from those who don’t need health insurance to those who do.
There are people who are young and healthy, who haven’t got medical problems of any kind and aren’t likely to have them. People for whom regular payments to the insurance mafia make as much sense as making payments on a car they never drive. Hysteria has been confected to convince everyone that an imminent Medical Crisis hangs by a hair over the heads of everyone, but this is nonsense – and the mafia’s business model depends on it being nonsense.
If everyone or even almost everyone – or even half of everyone – had serious major recurrent medical problems and bills, then the insurance mafia would be out of business rather than doing very good business.
Its business depends on taking in (literally, in the case of the mafia) more than it (reluctantly) pays out.
That is the very basis of insurance – as a going concern. The financial premise is that most people don’t need it.
But the mafia wants – needs – everyone to think that it is lunacy to live without “coverage” – so as to keep everyone paying for “services” most don’t use.
Until Obamacare, however, the young and healthy – and savvy – could skip it, just as once-upon-a-time good drivers who avoided “accidents” – which rarely are – could also elect not to be “covered” for damages they never incurred.
They behaved responsibly, which included setting aside money that would otherwise have been wealth-transferred to others – and thus had it available for the just-in-case, which usually never came. And so, had savings – capital – to be used to build wealth. Which led to being able to afford many things, not just car repairs and medical treatment, without relying on insurance.
This could not be tolerated, of course. Independent decision making, prudent action; self-responsibility, financial independence, most of all. A pox – a law – against all of those things.
Thus, the accident-free driver was forced to finance the accident damage caused by others; their “pre-existing conditions” became his financial obligations. The cost of car insurance skyrocketed via what amounts to reversion to the mean, or least-common-denominatorism, enforced by Luca.
Similarly, the young and heathy are now mulcted to finance the chronic medical problems of the old and unhealthy.
With one big difference.
A person can still avoid the car insurance mafia by not driving. Ditch the car and Luca is legally powerless to filch your pockets – or to punish you for having empty pockets.
Obamacare sics Luca on you to pay the mafia – and if you don’t pay (or can’t pay) then Luca collects to pay the government.
You are threatened with what is styled a “shared responsibility payment,” but it’s a punitive tax (as all taxes are) paid to the government and has as much to do with “responsibility” as CNN has with neutral reporting.
It is exactly as it would be if the DMV sent thugs to your home to make you pay a fine for not having car insurance on the car you sold and don’t drive anymore.
But, I have glad tidings – for some, at least.
There is a way to avoid the “shared responsibility payment” – and avoid Obamacare (and thus, Luca).
All you have to do is not earn enough money.
There is a line item on the 1040 (see here) which allows an exemption if insurance coverage is “unaffordable” relative to your income. This is a boon to people who’ve already decided they’re tired of being mulcted and so reduced the amount of money they earn, in order to keep more of it.
Why earn $10 so that Uncle can seize $4 – and then force you (via Luca) to send another $2 to the insurance mafia?
It pays better to live on less, which I have managed to do – first out of necessity (divorce) and then because I realized how much more easy life can be. I now earn less – and so am taxed less.
Including the Obamacare “shared responsibility” tax, which I no longer “owe.”
Of course none of us owe the government – or the mafia thugs – a red cent. The use of that word in this context is vile almost beyond utterance. It is a moral inversion; rhetorical gas-lighting. A common burglar has more decency. He does not claim you “owe” him the contents of your safe.
Nor does he send you letters threatening to “fine” you if you don’t leave your window open for him next time.
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Huge scam that insurance companies pay less for health services than an uninsured person. I’d bet, huge numbers of people would choose to self insure.
Our primary health care is through the Tricare system. My most recent health ordeal is actually tied to my military service time and is covered by the VA… turns out the Air Force used THAT kind of hernia mesh and I saw on the television on a commercial for the Limbaugh law firm up in Cape that I may be due a lot of money in compensation. I won’t hold my breath and I’m not calling until Rush is in town with the Lamborghini.
The last explanation of benefits from the Veterans Administration provided a list of the charges and a list of the payments made to service care providers. A 30,000 and change bill from one of the surgeries was “Completed” with a payment of 2800 dollars and change. No balance billing allowed.
The letter from the VA has a whole lot of fine print. If you read that fine print, you discover that it is against federal law for the service provider to even try and get more money out of me because when the VA decides how much they will pay for Veterans Choice care that’s that.
No wonder the veterinarian out here has gone galt.
Hey DD
I thought this wuz funny..
http://thesmokinggun.com/documents/stupid/arkansas-idiots-670389
I listen to POTUS radio while driving, Chris Cuomo, was on the other day and a caller was reminding Cuomo about all the promises obama made on the ACA and how it was nothing but lies. You can keep your doctor, you can keep your plan, it’s not a tax, it will save an average of $2,500 a year……..
Cuomo, who claims to be an independent, actually said, “Obama didn’t lie about any of that, he just didn’t know.”
Doesn’t matter, Trump is punting on a fix until the 2020 elections. As if he alone can battle the lobbyist millions given to congress to give us cold diarrhea in a dixie cup and say, it’s better than a shit sandwich.
Okay, so in addition to being a non-stop liar barry hussein is the equivalent to stupid (“he just didn’t know”). Sure am glad cuomo clarified that for me.
Been living this way for a while. Simple equation – don’t earn it, they can’t steal it. Don’t be in debt, don’t need to earn it, they can’t steal it. Live and be healthy, don’t need their “insurance”.
Has worked out great. I live a much better lifestyle than 90% of the people around me that have bigger houses, better cars and more “income”. Why? I actually have time to think, read, spend time with my wife and kids and enjoy vacationing any time I choose to. I see the sun rise daily, without rushing off to some drone cubicle.
Them? They have to keep making that monthly nut, having to kiss their bosses ass to climb the corporate ladder (to an early death), ask permission to take a vacation, or take time off for their kids, and they have a daily commute that is hell. All so they can have a moderately higher standard of living than me. Between inflation, interest payments, forced insurance payments, taxes etc. they probably KEEP less than my debt free lifestyle affords me. And they had to do all of that work for the OWNERS (see George Carlin) just to maintain it.
No thanks, I prefer freedom to (debt) slavery.
I smell a best selling ebook here.
An interesting and little understood factoid: if you select a policy from the marketplace and your annual income is solely from “owner draw” (as in what a business owner pays him/herself in the event the biz has no profit that year) then guess what: you do not qualify for any subsidy on your bummercare premiums because in the eyes of the IRS, owner draw is technically NOT income and therefore you are undeserving of government subsidized health insurance. But, for those who live off owner draw it sure seems like income-you buy bread, gasoline, utilities, and pay the rent with the funds.
As long as obozo was in office the IRS chose (or was directed) to not enforce that aspect of the law. Go figger.
Only in the world where government tries to run our lives, day and night.
I confess. I am an ObamaCare outlaw. I owe the Shared
Responsibility Penalty for tax year 2017. I may owe it for
2018. The limbo bar is extremely low and you almost have
to live on the streets to get under the minimum income level.
I was close. I needed another 2K in deductibles and I could
have made it. Oh, well.
They offered to let me pay them in 72 easy monthly payments
to pay off the $1400 debt. Isn’t that nice? I owe Uncle Sam
for being too damn poor to buy the insane priced insurance.
I worry about the communists getting back into power in the
District of Criminals. The worm can turn real quickly.
KAG 2020.
we need a law that states cash payers 4 medical services can only be charged what the lowest insurance reimbursement is paid for the same treatment–
a couple of weeks ago i was on my stomach underneath one of my trailers shoving a hose into a clogged mainline & i hit the mother lode–it was like a dam broke so i started crawling backwards as fast as i could move —
i raised up too soon & smashed my head on a steel beam–it was one of those surface cuts that aren’t really serious as long as they don’t get infected but bleed like you’ve hit an artery–i was fine but since it was rusty & i haven’t had a tetanus shot in over 10 years i decided to go get one–
it was late friday afternoon & my dr had left her office so i started calling walk in clinics,which i thought were reasonably priced alternatives–i called 4 clinics & the cheapest one was about $175.00,up to about $225.00–they all wanted a new patient in take fee & info filled out,none would allow me to just walk in anonymously,pay a modest amount of cash & get the shot–
i was using the internet to find clinics & the publix grocery store pharmacy kept popping up so i said what the heck,i’ll call & see if they do shots–yep,$75 for the shot & it turned out that it was covered by my insurance 4 a $35 co-pay,which publix waives 4 my particular plan so i walked out w/o paying anything–
basically,publix is probably paid $40.00 or less,cash payers should get the same deal–
The abuse of cash payers is sickening. Hospitals play dirty and expect the patient to pay the bloated charges. Some more so than others, but there is no consistency.
The sad thing: people think banks are bad actors, but most do not understand that insurance companies of all stripes are nothing more than financial companies, just like the unloved banks.
The model for walk in clinics in my part of the country has been shown to work reasonably well (at least from the perspective of the customer), especially at grocery stores, though the big chains tend to close them down after a couple of years. I went to one for shingles treatment and found both the quality of care and the charges an exceptional deal. I would guess that existing players lobby hard to make life tough on that type of walk-in clinic that does its job well at affordable prices (prices at my clinic were posted, in plain view).
Sure am glad that congress is issuing all those subpoenas instead of wasting their time and our money trying to make things a little better for citizens and taxpayers.
Trump needs to pass a law forcing medical providers to post prices.
ha ha ha …now you funny too.
https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2019/04/trump-organizations-dishonesty-all-too-common/586366/
As detailed in The Washington Post, Trump’s statements of financial condition for the years 2002, 2004, 2011, 2012, and 2013 contained numerous exaggerations and falsehoods. Trump claimed that his golf course in California had 55 lots ready to sell; it had 31. He said his Virginia vineyard sat on 2,000 acres; it sat on about 1,200. He added 10 stories to Trump Tower in New York. He might as well have added an aside about “my wife … Morgan Fairchild.”
These overhyped statements probably don’t offer much to prosecutors as actual evidence—that is, something that could be used in a fraud investigation against Trump or his business. The disclaimers literally say not to trust anything in the documents. It’s hard to prove intent to deceive when the dishonesty is so out in the open.
More by David Dayen
These statements do, however, offer a window into the world of privately held companies such as the Trump Organization, which operate under very lax accounting rules.
“The sad thing: people think banks are bad actors, but most do not understand that insurance companies of all stripes are nothing more than financial companies, just like the unloved banks.”
you are oh so correct about insurance companies,and if the citizenry had a clue as to the level of influence that the insurance industry has on our nation there would be a revolt —
fyi, Rust actually has nothing to do with Tetanus and if your wound bleeds, tetanus is highly unlikely, so unlikely one could almost say impossible, blood means oxygen is present and the bacteria can’t survive, the more it bleeds the better. Deep puncture wounds w/ no bleeding are the ones to be concerned about.
The Washington Generals will not beat the Harlem Globetrotters.