Why would anyone get health insurance now?

Because you could run up tens of thousands of dollars in medical debt before you got your insurance policy. This fear is why people have insurance in the first place.

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Apparently you don't understand how insurance works than. Aside from being unethical, doing this raises the rates for other people and if everyone did this there would be no more health insurance. Insurance works because money is pooled. Most people pay into their health insurance every month (or whatever your payment schedule is) but don't use it often for anything more than preventative care. Because of this the money that isn't used gets pooled and becomes available when someone has something more dire than a checkup. That's why you pay much less for health insurance than for paying for medical care out of pocket. If everyone did what you suggest money would not be pooled and the pool would dry up. Bye bye insurance, good luck paying out of pocket. Even with some doing it since you aren't paying your part there is less money in the pool. Also, if the insurance companies figure out what you're doing they can deny you so don't delude yourself.

The fines are no where near 2500. You would get insurance so you don't have to pay out of pocket when you are in an ER. You can't get insurance over night and it doesn't cover injuries that happened before you signed up for the policy. Your premium will still be rated based on your health conditions, like age..

Edit: The fine will be about $650 or so by 2016, then it stops rising.

Because I am a responsible adult, so I purchase health insurance because it's the right thing to do. You think you can just call up the day you're sick or injured, but most likely there will be a waiting period for coverage. Do you really want to sit around your house for 30 days with a broken leg?

We don't need health care insurance companies. We need tax funded national health care like Canada, England, Germany, France, Switzerland, Sweden, Denmark, Japan...loads of other developed economies have. What do the insurance companies really do? Shuffle paper. Thats all. They shuffle paper for a big fee. They are not doctors, nurses, lab techs, pharmacists, they are paper shufflers; overpaid paper shufflers. They are the death panels, "oh, you got sick, we will drop your policy, we will not cover what you happen to have wrong with you". I have the funny feeling that if that happened to you or someone you actually cared about you would understand the need for national health care very clearly. Maybe thats what it takes.

Be very careful with your wish on especially # 2.

Yes, you can get insurance on the day you get sick, but your insurance would not take effect until a year later, buddy. Think again.

Yep . . . as I lie brain-injured from that motorcycle accident and in a coma, I can sure get insurance then, right. My bills won't devastate my family, right.

Yep, as I lie incapacitated by a stroke, I can sure sign up, right? My care costs won't affect my family, right?

Yep, after I die from that sudden massive heart attack, I can sign right up, right. The bills won;t devastate my family, right.

Yep, while my wife is giving sudden severely premature birth, I can run right out and get that insurance so I won't be responsible for the delivery and immediate care costs, right.

Yep, none of those things will happen to me . . . I'm lucky, right?

Actually it's $650 all the way up to 2.5% of your income.

You can't get health insurance in a day. It has to be underwritten. And your plan works great...until you get in an accident or something like an appendicitis, and DON'T HAVE INSURANCE.

So don't.

See how that works out for ya.