on Obama and Obamacare

We can't let him do that

You apparently believe that the individual mandate is a significant factor in people's decision to have health insurance.

The tax penalty is $695 per adult.

Quite frankly, that's a drop in the bucket compared to what I pay for health insurance.

If it was solely an economic decision, it would be a LOT cheaper for me to pay the tax penalty than buy health insurance.

I would bet that is true for most people, and that the individual mandate has only a very marginal effect.

But I would like to see your numbers showing otherwise.

Obama care was based on it. Obama promised the insurance companies that everybody would pay a premium and that was what got the insurance companies to agree.

My position is that I do not know the actual impact of the individual mandate.

Yes, I'm familiar with the policy argument.

But, I'm going to conclude that you don't know the answer to the very basic question "What percentage of persons would drop their insurance but for the individual mandate."

Your OP makes the alarming assertion that without it, premiums will increase dramatically, but there is no actual analysis to back that up.

Additionally:

Without the mandate, supporters argue, the health insurance exchanges (state-based marketplaces for buying and selling small group and individual health insurance policies) established under the ACA will suffer from "adverse selection" — that is, only sicker, higher-risk individuals will sign up for coverage, leading to higher per-member health care costs and, therefore, higher insurance premiums. If pushed to its extreme, this effect could lead to catastrophic failure for health insurance markets as soaring premiums render coverage unaffordable for more and more people.


https://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB9646.html

I asked you what is the numerical impact.

In fact, if you actually read what I wrote, you'd notice that I don't dispute that there would be an impact. I am asking you what its magnitude is.

it was included in the Bill, despite opposition from significant quarters.

And one could logically suppose that consisted of relevant analysis ... to support the insertion of the individual mandate into the ACA.

And it would also stand to reason that the framers intent was some sort of 'pricing support' for the overall program.

That being said, my (company co-paid) health insurance premium 'only' went up like $28 bucks/month this year (including both our contributions). A fairly small % of the overall cost.

Dunno what the Marketplace plans have done, however. I do know early on (2012-2014) their were some great deals ... but those disappeared in like 2015.

for being irresponsible, and supported by center right opponents of socialized healthcare as a poison pill to be used to to help destroy the rest of the ACA.

We apparently can not implement social programs that do not feature this sort of nannying.

But I very much doubt that was the main, let alone THE, reason for it.

I'm pretty sure there was at least reasonably-sound economic analysis of the issue as well.

would drop insurance without the mandate. I never said anything about it. That is an after the fact addition to strengthen your argument. The mandate is an axiom to spread costs .

As noted upthread the penalty is negligible compared to the cost of individual ACA premiums. So it serves neither as a compelling reason to enroll nor as an effective means of supporting the overall costs.

But you have repeatedly claimed that it is essential and that without it premiums will skyrocket, so provide the data. “It’s axiomatic” is a very weak argument.

The penalty was set well below any conceivable figure that people would pay for health insurance on average, just so that it would 'be there' but not really be all that punitive.

It was a political argument, not an economic one.

Where did they go if they needed health care ? The same place those who paid the penalty did. The ER.

It was clear that the penalty wasn't nearly high enough to force the behavior that is was designed to.

Is to earmark that penalty for an ER reimbursement fund.

What data do you have to support it would be only a very marginal effect???

Do you know the meaning of the words "I would bet..."?

When you start a sentence with "I would bet..." do you generally intend it to mean "I have data which shows..."?

It is equivalent to saying "I don't know, but if I had to guess..."

I don't have any data that Slippery Sam is going to with the fourth race at Aqueduct either.

But, sure, if you ignore the premise of the sentence, I can see how you get there.

I did, however, show you that it would cost me around $695 to pay the annual penalty, now that my wife is over 65.

However, I am paying something like $400 a month.

So would you mind explaining to me what IDIOT is going to pay $4800 to avoid paying $695?

Does that happen a lot in your world?

then I am confused and out of the discussion with you.

With no sign of death spiral, it seems that the promise of coverage, rather than a very weak mandate is what drove most people into the market.

https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2020/1/6/21052264/obamacare-still-in-effect-mandate-gone-voxcare

The primary reason I pay over $5k per year for health insurance is not to avoid a $695 penalty.

It turns out that a surprising number of people like having health insurance.

CA replaced the Fed penalty for not having health insurance with a state penalty. Other states should do that to keep premiums from skyrocketing. I think covered CA rates rose about zero for 2020. Maybe this is part of that.

without any insurance and then not paying the hospital bill, which causes a rise in health care costs for everyone when the hospitals write off that debt and in turn increase their prices for everything to cover the write offs. I thought it made sense if it would cause someone to purchase insurance if they were going to have to pay a penalty on their taxes anyway. With the ACA individual subsidies this did make sense for some people to go ahead and purchase insurance on the ACA exchanges, depending on their income and particular situations. But my self employed, 28 year old son didn't see it that way since his premiums were still around $300/month with the subsidies; i.e., $3600 per year vs. $695 per year. He was healthy, owned nothing to lose in bankruptcy but his car, and was willing to take the risk, a likely result for many people his age.

that if the elimination make premiums increase it would have happened 2 years ago when he announced that the IRS would not be enforcing the fines.
Hasn’t the mandate been “on paper” only since then?

The purpose of this thread was to hope dropping the mandate would hurt Trump because health care costs would go up. I’m still hoping it hurts him.

My husband was on ACA, had a good bronze plan that cost him about $135/month, 0 copay for primary, $40 for specialists, 0 copay for lots of drugs, others tiered, $100 MRI or CT, $150 per day if admitted, $100 ER - really good! It went up to $900/month last year. He had to leave the company he worked for and loved as they offer no benefits to part time people and there's no way we could afford the 2019 premiums for his prior plan.

Of what he claimed he would do, but he's already passed what 20,000 lies. He wants all healthcare plans reduced and destroyed, while in public projects the opposite. He's doing the same thing with our Social Security, but again in public will claim he is the only one who'll ever fix it, which is his typical lie he uses.