Question by Lois Griffin: How does mandating that people purchase insurance raise revenue?
I’ve heard many people, both left and right, say that the individual mandate……. was the primary “funding source” that “pays for” Obamacare.
Is that true or false?
We have approx. 2 to 3% of the population that goes without insurance………
mandating this small group to get insurance somehow PAYS FOR the expansion of medicaid and all that stuff???
doens’t make sense to me.
how does mandating that someone purcahses insurance “raise revenue” ?
Give your answer to this question below!
Major sources of new revenue include a much-broadened Medicare tax on incomes over $ 200,000 and $ 250,000, for individual and joint filers respectively, an annual fee on insurance providers, and a 40% excise tax on “Cadillac” insurance policies. There are also taxes on pharmaceuticals, high-cost diagnostic equipment, and a 10% federal sales tax on indoor tanning services. Offsets are from intended cost savings such as changes in the Medicare Advantage program relative to traditional Medicare.[44]
Summary of tax increases:
Broaden the Medicare tax base for high-income taxpayers: $ 210.2 billion
Charge of an annual fee on health insurance providers: $ 60 billion
Impose a 40% excise tax on health insurance policies which cost more than $ 10,200/$ 27,500 per year: $ 32 billion
Impose an annual fee on manufacturers and importers of branded drugs: $ 27 billion
Impose a 2.3% excise tax on manufacturers and importers of certain medical devices: $ 20 billion
Raise the 7.5% Adjusted Gross Income floor on medical expenses deduction to 10%: $ 15.2 billion
Limit annual contributions to flexible spending arrangements in cafeteria plans to $ 2,500: $ 13 billion
All other revenue sources: $ 14.9 billion
Original budget estimates included a provision to require information reporting on payments to corporations, which had been projected to raise $ 17 billion, but the provision was repealed.[45]
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patient_Protection_and_Affordable_Care_Act#Summary_of_funding
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i’ve got news for you 20 million will still be without insurance….was it worth it?????
The individual mandate is not about raising revenue, its about the rational and equitable distribution of health insurance risk. It’s about having everyone pay into the insurance system, and giving them access to preventive care so they won’t forgo treatment and only show up for healing when they are in critical condition (the most expensive form of care).
If everyone pays into the insurance system, then the healthy will subsidize the unhealthy. That’s the whole point of insurance.
Unfortunately, the U.S. has put up with a fragmented risk pool of high risk (Medicaid, Medicare– paid for by the taxpayer already), non-profit, and for-profit risk pools.
The for-profit risk pools have been the largest market failure because their incentives are not aligned with the purpose of the market. They will only insure healthy people because they won’t generate claims, therefore the profits they generate can be pulled out of the health-care system and redistributed to investors. That defeats the purpose of health insurance; and it is a business model Americans are fools for putting up with. It would be like a burger joint offering hamburger contracts, but when you show up for your hamburger they deny your request for lunch due to a pre-existing hunger and tell you to call the government (to sign up for Burgeraid).
Every other nation on earth already understands this, or have learned the lesson of not doing it. They have single-payer systems which make pre-ex moot, have lower costs due to preventive care access, and lower malpractice because everyone has a medical record so doctors don’t have to guess in the dark when a patient shows up unconscious in the ER for the first time.
Raises revenue for those uninsured ER visits that you and I currently pay for,
First of all, the estimate is over 30 Million without insurance. That’s 10%. Not 2%.
And the answer is…because there will be 30 Million MORE people paying.
Its coming. Stop second guessing it before its ready.