First of all and most importantly, I told them I couldn’t afford it. My financial situation is even bleaker than it was a year ago, and there are no immediate prospects for a dramatic improvement. It would be impossible for me to afford private insurance. Well, I suppose I could go without food, stop paying my rent, or default on my student loans. I like eating, sleeping in a bed and having good credit, so I’m not likely to give up any of those things.
Secondly, I told them I had a philosophical problem with the state forcing me, against my will, to enter into a contract with a private company. I should not be forced to subsidize the health care of others. Is that how the actualrial tables work? Sure it is, but its the same idea with car insurance. Should I be forced to subsidize the car insurance of some lousy driver when I only take the T? When I’m older and sicker (or a driver), I will want younger and healthier people to be paying, but I wouldn’t force them to do so.
Seeing as I 1) had no intention of using the insurance, 2) had no desire to accept the Commonwealth’s charity, 3) did not wish to be a drain on the Commonwealth’s precious resources by forcing them to pay for a wasted health insurance policy, I asked them to grant me the exemption and not put a further financial burden on an already struggling citizen.
Guess what? It didn’t work. I got a whole packet of information in the mail today telling me that my application was denied. Sign up for health insurance, they told me, or we are going to dip even further into your pocketbook. I don’t know what I will do when they try.
When I first wrote why I wouldn’t be signing up for insurance Peter Porcupine asked me what happens when I “fall off that bike and break a leg, and discover that an emergency room visit is seven grand”? My response is the same today as it was then: “If i break a leg and it cost 7k to fix it, then I’ll (slowly) pay off the bill. The “affordable” premiums are expected to be at $200-$250 a month. If I had to pay $250 a month for each of the past 9 years that I haven’t been to the doctors, I would have wasted 27,000. Thats a savings of $20k. I’ll take my chances while I am young and healthy.” Actually, it isn’t the same. Its been another year without a broken leg, so theres another savings of $3,000.
I have the right to appeal it, and I plan to, though I don’t believe I have any chance of succeeding. Why bother then? I’m hoping to drag this out until January 1st so that when the DOR asks me for proof of insurance next April 15th I will be able to tell them that it is under appeal, and try to avoid the penalty.
It’s almost enough to make me want to move to North Carolina. Almost.
First of all, thank you for sharing your experiences with us. My question is somewhat related to the overall thrust of this post, but perhaps tangentially so.
<
p>What do you say to those who think that a yearly physical (or at the very least once every 2 or 3 years or so!) is necessary? I know that yearly physicals may not be necessary, but seeing a doctor even once every three years seems to me to be a pretty good idea. I know some people say that yearly physicals aren’t necessary, and I tend to agree. But I do get the sense that you should at least screen for certain diseases, no?
For STD’s, if you have had sex. Many STD’s don’t always have obvious symptoms, but can cause health problems if left untreated for too long, not to mention can be passed on. There are even free clinics.
<
p>just an fyi đŸ™‚
There are even free clinics.
<
p>The clinics aren’t free. They may be costless to the person being screened, but somebody is paying for them.
It’s really something that should be free, and paid for by tax dollars. The state shouldn’t make anyone pay for STD screening, no one should be afraid of a bill for going in as often as they want (after every new partner is best) and making sure they aren’t carrying an asymptotic disease. These diseases render people infertile, especially when they are unnoticed and go untreated. We have a constitutional duty to protect people’s fertility because procreating is a constitutional right to be protected, so we should not be sterilizing people by objecting to free clinics. Maybe that wasn’t what you were doing, raj, but I think it was what PP was saying “excellent” about?
you know, where you get a rash like this:
I do not object to taxpayer funded clinics for the indigent, for the reasons you cite. I do object to them being called ‘free’ in the context of this discourse, and I also object to freeloaders who use them for reasons of anonymity, when they have doctors and health insurance, and then do not make a donation to cover costs.
<
p>Carry on.
They should be separated out from regular health insurance and all paid for by the state. They shouldn’t be considered free loaders for going to a clinic for anonymity. If the lack of anonymity, or the embarrassment of going to your primary doctor after every new partner, diminishes the number of people asking for a test, then it is a big problem. There should be way more anonymous free clinics, like in every Walgreens, and if someone wants to go to their primary care doctor for their test, it should be covered by the state too, so that no insurance plan has to include coverage for STD tests at all.
…asymptomatic means.
<
p>You want the state to pay for screening? I actually have no problem regarding public health. I had believed that I had made that TOTALLY CLEAR in my previous comments on this site.
<
p>Yee gads, how much do I have to save from my previous comment for here?
This makes perfect sense for someone of your apparent ideological perspective.
However, many of us believe that if there are some without the essentials to fully participate in our society we are all diminished by it. These essentials include, among others, food, shelter, education, and health care.
With that said, I do sympathize with your plight given that the Massachusetts system hardly addresses the high cost of health insurance. As we all know, the best way to insure everyone and to reduce costs to all the insured would be to adopt a single-payer national health plan.
Government is about force. As citizens we agree to certain rules and the government enforces those rules by legal force. Those rules are pretty much voted on by elected representatives of the citizenry.
<
p>If you don’t like the laws, then feel free to work to change them, or move to another jurisdiction. Otherwise, dance to the tune or pay the piper. Your rights are subject to the common good.
Inadvertently or not, you have put your oh-so healthy finger on two basic problems with “mandated” health insurance schemes. First, no one likes being “mandated.” In the not-so distant past mandates such as wearing seat belts while driving raised considerable opposition–and not just from the wingnuts. I’ve always felt that a good policy–on health care or anything else–should make the greatest number of people feel good about it. Clearly this mandate doesn’t pass that test–for you or many, many others.
<
p>Second, as Krugman and others have pointed out, universal health insurance plans only work if everyone participates. If presently healthy people can opt out, then get coverage when they become ill (and almost everyone does, sooner or later) the plan becomes untenable. That’s why Medicare for everyone works. It solves both the first and second problems.
<
p>What is required to get us to Medicare for all is a change in our “Bowling Alone” attitudes. Your approach amounts to “Health Care alone.” I’m supporting a new elementary school in our small town, even though my kids are long grown and off on their own. Because when they were in school here, we counted on our older and childless fellow-citizens to support the schools, and so on. If we can’t get to that communitarian compact, we are not going to achieve a health insurance system that is better than what we have now.
then you should fund it in a way that’s universally affordable. Like taxation. No one likes paying taxes, but we all do it. Requiring people who don’t get insurance through their work, but aren’t quite poor enough to qualify for medicaid, to buy insurance on the open market is equivalent to a very narrow and highly regressive tax increase. Politicians like this because it only screws a subset of the population, so they’re less likely to get voted out of office. Actually providing everyone with Health Care would be politically risky, and our legislature has certainly proved itself again and again to be highly risk adverse.
Smalltownguy you are a person with a citizens view of government as a place where we all work together to support (and help pay for)the entire range of public programs — public education, public health, public safty — that build healthy thriving communities — whether or not we consume benefits from every one of the government programs. Those of us who did grow up in or live in small town understand this citizens view more easily I think.Not easy to do anything alone in a small town.
Since when is Blue Cross a “public program”? This “health plan” is corporate welfare plain and simple.
<
p>I shed crocodile tears over BFK’s predicament, but perhaps he (or she) should be encouraged to hook up his (or her) Conestoga wagon and go west. Life is peaceful there, in the open air, but if BFK breaks a leg, it’s unlikely that it would be treated nearly as well as it would be in MA. Same with many other maladies. Problem is, that, if BFK decides to return to MA for medical treatment after many years of absence, he (or she) would probably be demanding to be treated here as if he (or she) had been a continuous resident.
<
p>I’m sorry, but not even communitarians believe that.
<
p>It’s almost enough to make me want to move to North Carolina
<
p>As the Germans would say “geh schon” go already.
When I was about BFK’s age, I also felt very good, never went to the doctor, never took medicine, etc. One day, I felt a bit punk, and figured it was the flu. A day later, I felt very weak, and went to an urgent care clinic. Lo and behold, I was bleeding internally, and might have bled to death, but for a timely colonoscopy at a Boston hospital. I was in the hospital for a week. I’m glad I had health insurance (at the time, Harvard Community Health Plan).
<
p>BTK, are you immune from cancer (ask Jon Lester)? Does God protect you from car accidents caused by uninsured drunk drivers? Insurance is one way to shield yourself from catastrophic risks that are unlikely to happen, but that you cannot afford to bear.
<
p>You are not required to buy health insurance by anyone. If you freely elect not to, you will pay an additional tax of about $210 on your tax bill next year. This money will go into the safety net fund, to pay hospitals for caring for people who elect not to have insurance. Your claim that you will never use free care is heroic, but silly. Faced with a $100,000 hospital bill for inpatient care, you will inevitably become an subsidized safety net patient if you are admitted to a hospital.
<
p>I pay for insurance out of my own pocket, and my premium also includes a surcharge to help finance the safety net fund. My back of the envelope calculation suggests that since I pay a family HMO premium, my share of the surcharge is about equal to your added tax liability for not buying health insurance. Apparently, you believe that I should pay something toward your care, but you should not. The sound you hear is me playing the world’s smallest violin.
You may be playing a violin, but I am playing the odds… and so is the State. The chances of me getting cancer are extremely remote. I know it, and so do the insurance companies, and so does the Commonwealth. They know it is extremely unlikely, and thats why they want me to pay. They want my money to pay for the little old ladies who is much more likely to fall and break her hip than I am. They want my money to pay for the remote chance that you may one day bleed internally (I’m glad you are better, by the way). I want my money to pay my rent and to pay down the mountains of student debt I have accumulated.
<
p>If I am not required to get insurance then your definition sounds a lot like extortion. It is a law that we must all have insurance, not a recommended guideline. Its like saying there is no speed limit. If you freely elect to go over 65mph then you will pay the $210 ticket, plus surcharges on your insurance.
<
p>I’m not deaf to the objections and concerns of people who want me to have health insurance (most notably my mother). Its not that I don’t want insurance; if my employer offered it I would gladly take it. Putting aside my concerns about the state requiring me to enter into a contract and fatten the wallets of shareholders against my will, I want someone to take a look at my checkbook and tell me how it is financially justified for me to get it.
<
p>Methinks that you have never heard of child-onset leukemia. Or child onset diabetes. Or other childhood diseases.
<
p>Mr or Ms Ironman, I will assure you that you are not an Ironman. Children are not. Adolescents are not. Young adults are not. The elderly are not. But, if you want to be part of a community that you might someday want to take advantage of, you had best be advised to contribute to the community. Otherwise, leave, and don’t come back.
<
p>I have to admit, but I sincerely don’t care when you leave. But your whining is annoying, and it would be nice if you did leave. I have paid health insurance premiums religiously for longer than you apparently have been alive, and I have gotten squat in return. To date. Now, hitch up your Conestoga wagon and get out of here.
raj, I know I am not invincible. I’m just broke. I know I can get sick, but as I said above the chances of that happening are very slim. The worst that is likely to happen to me can be fixed with a $25 bottle of whiskey.
<
p>Maybe someday I’ll switch jobs and take one that will either pay me enough to afford insurance on my own, or will offer it to me. Until then, I’d much rather do good in the world for little money.
<
p>That said, on the occasions that I do read BMG, I often skip over your comments. I find you to be extremely condescending and can’t stand to read comments written in that tone. Even still, I would never tell you to go back to Germany. I can’t imagine having the arrogance to tell someone this state would be better off if they picked up and left.
<
p>I’m happy that you have had health insurance for so many years. I hope you have found it worthwhile and a worthy investment. If, like you say, you have gotten squat in return from it then I might say some of that money has gone to waste. Using the same numbers, at $3,000 a year for 30 years, you could have saved $90,000. Thats almost enough to cover DaveS’ $100,000 bill described above.
<
p>At this time in my life the little money I work hard to earn can do me much more good in my pocket. Your circumstances may be different, and that may be why you have chosen to pay for insurance all these years. We are both adults, however, and we are both capable of making these decisions on our own. We don’t need the Commonwealth making them for us.
All of hope you do beat the odds and never suffer a health disaster that puts you or your Mother in catastrophic debt.
<
p>Looking at it from a citizen’s point of view, I guess all of us who paid federal state and local taxes to support the schools, roads, fire and police, sewer and water, parks and cultural opportunities in your community got their money’s worth because you seem like a pretty smart person with a steady job, even if you don’t listen to good advice from your Mom who only has your direct self interest, good physical and economic health in mind. Hum…wonder how much that adds up to?
<
p>The state makes decisions for you quite often. You can’t get a drivers license (or at least a car registration) unless you can prove financial responsibility, which, in MA appears to mean paying car insurance. If you don’t have a car, but are using public transportation, you are still mooching off the public trough–who do you believe pays for the lions’ share of the cost of the MBTA?
<
p>The state (actually the feds) require you to have property insurance as a condition of getting a federally-secured mortgage. (That’s not exactly correct, but you have to have property insurance in order to get a federally insured mortgage.) The state has certain zoning regulations, which provide you with at least a certain minimal level of living comfort. I suppose that you could, if you wanted to, live in an industrial dump. Feel free.
<
p>I could go on. If you want to believe that you want to an island, recognize that others have paid for your education.. Helped subsidize your health care. Helped subsidize your food. Will likely be called upon to help subsidize your children. And now, you don’t want to carry your part of the implicit generational contract. As I said, “geh schon.” But don’t expect the rest of us to subsidize your health care. Subsidize your food. Or subsidize your children.
<
p>If you want to get the generational contract changed, try to change it. I have here suggested other ways of changing it. The only thing that I hear from Generation Whiner is “I don’t wanna.” Stop whining. But, if you dug yourself into a hole, you only have yourself to blame.
I went to public schools (through high school, anyway), played on playgrounds, drove on roads, studied in public libraries, drank water out of the tap, and did and do any number of things my tax dollars go to support. There are even more things they go to support that I don’t use. I have no problem doing any of that. I get why I pay taxes. I have no problem with the idea of zoning or most other laws on the books.
<
p>This is different, though. The state doesn’t require people without cars to pay for the car insurance of those who do. I’m a renter. The state doesn’t require me to pay into a pool to protect homeowners. They don’t require me to get life insurance, even though if I die it would cost my family thousands of dollars to bury me.
<
p>You know, that sounds like a good idea. Lets force everyone to get life insurance. Odds are I’ve got another couple decades to pay before I die, but the old guy down the street could go at any moment. Some fat cat in a big Manhattan insurance office can make a fortune off me and we will prevent the state from having to pick up the tab for my one way ticket to the great unknown. We can mandate life insurance and call it a generational compact.
<
p>I’m not whining, raj. I went to several excellent private universities, got an excellent education, and picked up couple wall decorations along the way. I took out loans to afford it and I am paying them back. I knew what I was getting into then and have no problem living up to my responsibilities. I knew it would take many years to get myself out of this financial hole, but it was worth every cent. Those were obligations I freely took upon myself. This is one the state is forcing upon me.
<
p>This is different, though. The state doesn’t require people without cars to pay for the car insurance of those who do.
<
p>No car? The state does require those with cars to pay for your trips on the MBTA. If you use bicycles, the state also requires others to pay for roadways on which the cyclers cycle.
<
p>The state doesn’t require me to pay into a pool to protect homeowners.
<
p>I presume that you’ve never heard of renters’ insurance. The state doesn’t require you to carry it, but you would be well advised to. If you have a fire in your apartment that spreads elsewhere into the apartment complex, you might find yourself liable for damages in the other units. Of course, if you are “judgement-proof” (unable to pay for your liability) why should you care?
<
p>They don’t require me to get life insurance, even though if I die it would cost my family thousands of dollars to bury me.
<
p>If you don’t give a tinker’s damn about your family why should I? As far as I’m concerned, they could throw you into a pawper’s grave.
<
p>I’m not whining, raj.
<
p>Horse manure. You have been whining for a long time. What do you believe that your bitching and moaning about your personal situation is other than whining?
That’s right, raj. The state doesn’t require me to get renters insurance but it does require me to get health insurance. Both are well advised, but only one is a requirement by law.
<
p>It’s not bitching and moaning. I don’t mean for this to sound glib, but I don’t need your, or Charley’s, or anyone else’s sympathy. It won’t solve my problem just like my sympathy for Charley won’t bring back his friend. What do I believe this all is about, then? I am using my personal situation to illustrate a point. I’m showing the consequences of this action and its not all academic.
It’s not bitching and moaning
<
p>It is indeed more bitching and moaning. You claimed to have gotten a higher education at some (unnamed) private institution somewhere, for which you are paying off your student loans. Your choice. If the unnamed private institution was in MA, it was supported by the property tax payers of the town in which it was located. Leeching off the property tax payers.
<
p>You apparently have made a bad choice in your education, and you do not want to pay your dues to the community. Some of us have been consistently been paying our dues to the community, particularly those older and the younger in the community. It is fairly clear that you wanted to take advantage of the community, and that now you do not want to repay your obligation after having taken advantage of the community. Generation Whiner. Geh schon: Go already.
<
p>BTW, I know nothing about Charley’s situation, so I’m not going to even attempt to comment. Note to Charley: please do not explain what this commenter is referring to.
You know what else you’ll likely be subsidizing? Childbirth. You know who has kids? Young, healthy people. Yeah, it’s just women, that’s true, but you might potentially have something to do with a pregnancy at some point.
<
p>Do you think that women should have to completely pay for childbirth through their own premiums? Or could you possibly allow for some cross-subsidization?
<
p>BTW, I’ve had young, healthy male friends get testicular cancer; get the flu – and die from it(!!); suffer from depression; etc. Your good fortune up to this point is exactly that. Past results are no guarantee of future returns, etc.
<
p>I very much understand and sympathize with your complaint that insurance is too expensive for your means; I also really understand and sympathize with your complaints about the enriching of certain interests thereby. I’ve written about both at some length here.
<
p>However, I absolutely cannot get with the idea that therefore you should be excused from the social compact of health insurance, that you should be an island unto yourself. The world just doesn’t work that way. One of the main reasons why insurance is so expensive for everyone else is because so many are free to opt in or out of the cross-subsidization game.
<
p>The game has changed. I’m not going to hold that the rules are perfect, but they exist for a damn good reason.
If there was a line item on your state/federal taxes that read: “If you made less than $x, check this box and add $3000 to your tax burden”, how would you feel?
<
p>What I’m curious about is this… is it the cost burden, or to whom the payment goes that has got you down? I ask because, for me, it’s entirely the former. I would have no problem contributing to the social good through taxes for health care; for me, the sole hangup is that I’m required to enter a contract with a private organization, and that there’s absolutely no precedent for this in American government, so far as I can tell*.
<
p>So, BFK: is it the price to contribute, or the private status of the contribution?
<
p>
<
p>* I don’t know of any other instance where, in return for being alive, citizens are required to enter a private contract. Sure, you can’t register a car without insurance, but you aren’t required to own a car. Same goes for vaccines and public school attendance, property insurance and federally backed mortgages, etc. Where else does the government require you to enter a contract with a private contract merely because you’re alive?
Philosophically, I despise the idea of the state using its power to force me to enter into a private contract for all the reasons you mention. Where this merely a term paper I was writing I might advocate refusing to get insurance as a form of protest, regardless of my ability to pay. Practically, its the cost. Some months I come out with an extra $50 in my checking account, some months I’m a couple bucks short. I’m not trying to sidestep your question, but it’s both reasons.
<
p>I’m not convinced a single payer form is the way to go, but that may be because I don’t know enough about it. I’m open to being convinced. That said, I think I would be more comfortable being forced to have health insurance if it was just another program run by the state for all citizens. If at your birth you are issued an insurance card, and then you fork over the copayment for services rendered, that would be more acceptable to me. Analogously, I pay taxes to support state parks, and when I camp there I pay the associated fee. That’s fine by me.
<
p>One of the reasons I won’t even consider getting a subsidized plan is that I don’t want the Commonwealth’s (or anyone else’s) charity. I don’t make much, but I can meet all the obligations I took upon myself. I don’t want a hand out, and I don’t want someone telling me I have to because it’s for my own good.
If something happens, you will recieve care. No one is going to allow you to die of appendicitis in the ER waiting room because you lack the means to pay. So the risk to you is exactly zero; everyone else is presently bailing you out. If you break your leg, and wind up with a $7,000 bill, you might pay it slowly, and without interest. But if you wind up with appendicitis, or with the same cancer that struck 23 year old Jon Lester last year, you will wind up with a bill in the hundreds of thousands of dollars or more, and you will file bankruptcy and pay zero. Then we will hear about how the terrible plight of the uninsured.
<
p>I have mentioned before that this would be acceptable if you actually bore the risk of your own recklessness, but you do not.
…who, when I was a teenager in the 1960s knew nothing (as far as I was concerned) and then, as I got older, it was clear that he knew quite a bit.
<
p>If something happens, you will recieve care.
<
p>That is exactly the point. He will receive care, and somebody is going have to pay for it. A number of decades ago, my father (who then knew nothing) and I (who knew everything) got into a discussion about motorcycle helmet mandates. His off-handed remark (he knew nothing, of course) was that society would not just let someone die from an accident. And that society would have to help support any wife and children who might be left behind. So the motorcycle rider owed it to society to minimize the likelihood of serious injury.
<
p>The above is only partially sarcasm. When I was a child… But my father was exactly correct.
OK, I know that ads for drugs are far from the scope if this post, but it is within the realm of health care, it is seasonal, and I think it’s pretty funny, so I want to share this.
<
p>I don’t know if it is Viagra, or Cialis, or one of the other ED drugs, but there is one that has some light music playing in the background while two old people who need prescription coverage show what happens before, well, it happens. While writing my last comment I thought I heard that that ad coming from my laptop. I have a Christmas music set playing and Elvis’ Merry Christmas Baby just came on. The drug companies took Elvis’ song! Do you think this might be because he was virtually impotent?
claim 10 dependents and then just not file income tax returns. Hey that might even be cheaper that attempting to prop up big pharma.
<
p>I am also the one who has a $5000 company sponsored health insurance plan. A plan I describe openly and proudly as the scam plan from Hell, Satanically inspired. This bunch of mafia mobsters however apparently know they can freely continue to practice their art with zero “government” interference.
Do you have a cell phone? Cable TV? Do you drink Gingerbread lattes at Starbucks? Own a computer and carrier? All of those are luxuries that you indulge in while your school bills consume your income.
<
p>IF you get sick, you’d pay us back? From what? The scant wages you have would be gone. No, you would take the medical care, and stiff the free care pool.
<
p>Employers must pay. Individuals must pay. It’s the first subsidy the free care pool has ever had, and it’s about time.
<
p>As far as coercion goes – I don’t want Mumbles Menino to have $500,000 for ‘dialoging’ about race in the boston Public school; I don’t want to subsidize the MBTA and MWRA which are of zilch benefit to me. But I paid all my taxes this year, and subsidized your water and transportation, kiddo.
Should, God forbid, lightning strike me this afternoon resulting in need expensive medical care, I would have to set up some sort of payment plan with the hospital. How would I do it? How does anyone with a large, unexpected change in their financial situation do it? You rearrange your financial house. I could get a deferment on my student loans, freeing up a couple hundred bucks a month. I could get a better paying job, or a second job, or both. I’d probably do all these things and more, but yes, PP, I would most certainly pay you back.
<
p>As for my lifestyle, yes I have a cell phone – its the only phone I have. No I don’t have cable, but I rarely watch television anyway. My laptop was purchased 5 or 6 years ago while I was a full time student. I’ve never been to Starbucks, and it’s a rare occasion when I’m at Dunkies. Saturday nights consist of board games and a deck of cards, or a DVD from the library, not dining out and bar hopping. I didn’t choose my career to make gazillions of dollars, and I adjusted my lifestyle accordingly. I have a simple life, but I enjoy it. I’m not a freeloader.
get together and take this all the way to the Supreme Court. If it is not unConstitutional it should be.
…but when you fall down a flight of stairs, break your neck, and require long term care in a paraplegic facility, like so many motorcycle riders I’ve seen, – you may not be able to GET or HOLD that ‘better paying job’…..and then what?
In 1975, I was living in Arlington VA. I was crossing the 14th street bridge into DC one rainy night in my Fiat X1/9 sports car. When I was passed by a motorcyclist. A few minutes later, the cyclist was running off the side of the road after having spun out. Although he had not been severely injured, that was when it became clear to me that we as a community have a right to demand certain things of people who want to live in the commnity.
<
p>And, it really is as simple as that.
<
p>We, as a community, have a right to demand that persons who wish to partake of the community pay their share. If they don’t believe that their shair is fair, they can try to get the community to change it. Absent that, why should they be permitted to freeload off the community?
<
p>Sorry, but Generation Whiner is getting to be annoying.