Issuing a fine of $3800.00 if I do not have health insurance?

Jeeeeees, calm down! This was just a trial balloon floated by one senator.

Much of the point is that Obama's reform will include the insurance carriers, as well...I believe the hope/expectation is that the carriers will not be allowed to not cover you. Additionally, if I understand correctly (and things go forward as they are now), the "public option" will give you the opportunity to buy into a variety of plans that will be offered for everyone (as if the general public qualified for group rates).

If it all works out, the $3800 fine would be for someone who had all of the options in front of them, but still CHOSE to not buy into an insurance plan. Most of the people who'd choose to do that are people who can afford personal insurance, and they can probably afford the fee, as well.

the find of $3,800 is for a family of 4 making $66K a year. If you are the only one with out insurance, then the max they can fine is between $750 to $950 per year

i agree that health insurance like auto should be mandatory for everyone. the principle of insurance is the law of large numbers, which means you get a big group of people and insure them, which means the sick and healthy. the healthy pay for the sick people claims and the healthy when they get older and get sick, will then have the younger healthy pay for their claims.

but the problem with health care now, is that if you have a pre-existing condition they are by law in many states not allowed to insure you, so they get only healthy people and pay no claims. or even if you had insurance for years and get a serious illness, they dig thu your records and hope that somehow it was pre-existing and deny your bills, making you liable for the bills, or raise the premiums so high, you cancel it since you can no longer afford it.

like you said, unless employed and have group insurance you are SOL and no one will touch you.

the purpose of this health reform is to insure everyone and not just the healthy, so that everyone can get health-care, including you.

we will have to wait and see how this turns out. every day someone comes up with a new wrinkle of what they want or don't want if this bill should pass.

you do have one other option and if your state has a high risk pool, but it is pricey and since you are unemployed, may not be able to afford it. but in the high risk pool, if you are un-insurable and you are due to your diabetes, you may qualify for insurance. call your insurance department where you live to see if you can qualify or if due to your finances can qualify for medicaid pending finding a job.

good luck and take care of yourself.

The same people who are proposing that fine do not want the public option either. So, you will be forced to buy insurance from a private insurance company or pay the fine.

yeah, but that fine is for people who make over 6 times the poverty level or 66k a year. But it is still very dumb to penalize people. But remember, the truely poor and unemployed already have government healthcare, and the elderly do too. So they wouldn't be fined.

The target of this is becuase for their insurance to work, they need healthy people paying into it to balance out the unhealthy people. But the problem is people like myself at 25 living very healthy taking the top grade multi vitamins and spending 30 minutes a day at the gym, we dont need health insurance. At least I feel I don't.

So what they need is for people like me, who are healthy to HAVE TO pay for insurance. And the point is if I do not pay, they it will fail so instead they have to penalize people like me.

this is not today... this is the "new world" when you should be able to get affordable health insurance even with your pre-existing condition. In this "new world" everyone is required to have health insurance and that is the fine for breaking the law. why do you think you should not be penalized for breaking the law?