Fwd: Massachusetts Tweaks Mandatory Health Insurance Law
I forwarded Michael Pollak’s query to Steffie Woolhandler & David
Himmelstein. I can’t tell you which one responded, because they have
a single email address and didn’t sign the comment. But here it is.
Loss of the state tax exemption will result in a tax penalty of
about $200 for anyone who files taxes in the state.The second year, the penalty will be half of the value of the
lowest cost policy available to the individual (about $1050 for a
37 year old).At 11:38 PM 4/17/2007, you wrote:
hi - any comments on this? - Doug
Begin forwarded message:
From: Michael Pollak mpollak@panix.com Date: April 17, 2007 11:24:07 PM EDT To: lbo-talk@lbo-talk.org Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Massachusetts Tweaks Mandatory Health Insurance Law Reply-To: lbo-talk@lbo-talk.org
On Sat, 14 Apr 2007, Steven L. Robinson quoted an All Headline News service article:
Massachusetts Tweaks Mandatory Health Insurance Law After Defining Affordable Premiums As Between 5 Percent To 10 Percent Of Income
which was pretty good. The concluding paragraph succintly sums up what wrong with Mittcare:
According to a statement on its Web site, the group found that 46.1 percent of those earning up to 300 percent of the Federal Poverty Line would have to go into debt to afford even subsidized health insurance. And 39 percent of those earning from 300 percent to 500 percent of the poverty line could not afford premiums of $380 per month.
But there was one thing that puzzled me: the penalties. The article says:
Any adult who is not exempted by law from having a policy who fails to purchase one will lose a $200 annual state tax exemption.
Assuming people at this income level are in the 15% bracket, this sounds like we’re talking about a $30 penalty. Which is unjust and unfair but kind of trivial as a negative incentive, no? And if they are adding a
$200 annual state tax exemption which these people specifically aren’t getting, then it’s no negative incentive at all.So on this reading, it’s still a Potemkin plan, but its less draconian than I’d been led to believe. Am I misreading something?
Michael
http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk