More Obamacare fuckups

[Whirlin]

Not doubting you know your shit but what exactly does this mean? Let's just give a hypothetical. What's the cutoff for not owning federal taxes, 10,000 dollars right? So if someone made 10,000 dollars and had no tax obligation and they received 2000 dollars in tax credits for having to buy their own insurance, does that mean they get a check from the IRS for 2000 dollars from those credits? Or is there some math involved and it would be less than 2000?

Yes, a check for $2000
Usually there are phaseouts on credits, think of them as a reverse tax bracket... so it may be like, for every 1k over 10k you make, you'll get $100 less of a credit, so at 30k income, you get nothing... NOTHING, GOOD DAY SIR.

The best example of a credit is the Earned Income credit. Googling that will give you a ton more information on tax credits. The theory behind that credit is that if you make between like, 10k-25k (those values arbitrary... been years since I've looked it up), you'll get money back. The theory behind it is that if you made less than 10k, you're likely a student, child, etc, and shouldn't get money back. It's also earned income, so that's income subject to payroll taxes, not investment income or partnership income (which are considered passive forms of income).

Also since it's a tax credit and not an outright subsidy paid to the insurance company every month does that mean this person making 10,000 would have to pay for that 2000 dollars throughout the year and will receive a check a couple of months after they file their taxes? What do they do in the meantime when they need that 2000 dollars they didn't previously have? Put everything on a credit card and pay the high interest rates?

Yes. Or budget out the excess that they receive in April for the year. But there would be the initial sting upon implementation.

[Tgo01]

Yes, a check for $2000
Usually there are phaseouts on credits, think of them as a reverse tax bracket... so it may be like, for every 1k over 10k you make, you'll get $100 less of a credit, so at 30k income, you get nothing... NOTHING, GOOD DAY SIR.

That's hilarious. So some people will receive "credits" but won't actually be able to use them?

Yes. Or budget out the excess that they receive in April for the year. But there would be the initial sting upon implementation.

So let's go back to my hypothetical person making 10,000 dollars a year, they would have to pay one fourth of their income for health insurance throughout the year and might get something like 2000 dollars of it back during tax time and the other 400 dollars is lost to the insurance companies? This is all of course just talking about premiums, we haven't even talked about the fact that this 200 dollar a month healthcare plan only covers 60% of medical costs after a 6,000 dollar deductible.

In other words Obamacare is a useless piece of shit legislation and no one should really be defending this legislation any longer.

[Warriorbird]

Give me your zip code and who you currently use and I'll do it.

<<This is me calling you on your bullshit.

In before your excuse of "I don't want to tell you where I live because I don't want you to stalk me!

Verizon. 24521 and you can triangulate in on Rebec Vineyards. Note the "decent service" clause and I have identified my business address on the boards before. Neither Sprint or nTelos are valid answers.

[Whirlin]

So let's go back to my hypothetical person making 10,000 dollars a year, they would have to pay one fourth of their income for health insurance throughout the year and might get something like 2000 dollars of it back during tax time and the other 400 dollars is lost to the insurance companies? This is all of course just talking about premiums, we haven't even talked about the fact that this 200 dollar a month healthcare plan only covers 60% of medical costs after a 6,000 dollar deductible.

In other words Obamacare is a useless piece of shit legislation and no one should really be defending this legislation any longer.

If you're only making 10k per year, I think you have a lot more concerns than just that!

I thought most of the values that were being thrown around were just for illustrative purposes for how the law works. If those are the actual values for the credits/etc, then yes, that would not be good. But hey, at least preventative care is taken care of with that premium?


Additionally, there is always the option of accepting the penalty instead of paying the premiums and obtaining the health insurance. If the penalty is only $500, it would be a more viable option than the premium + credit.

[Tgo01]

From healthcare.gov, too funny.

Why should I have health coverage?

Did you know the average cost of a 3-day hospital stay is $30,000? Or that fixing a broken leg can cost up to $7500? Having health coverage can help protect you from high, unexpected costs like these.

They really should clarify this more, let me see if I can help.

Why should I have health coverage?

Did you know the average cost of a 3-day hospital stay is $30,000? Or that fixing a broken leg can cost up to $7500? Having a bronze plan would mean that 30,000 dollar hospital stay would only cost you 12,000 dollars, that's assuming you've already met your 6000 dollar yearly deductible. Forcing everyone to have health insurance ensures Obama looks good by claiming more people have access to 'affordable' healthcare that they didn't have before.

More funnies.

Deductible If you need medical care, a deductible is the amount you pay for care before the insurance company starts to pay its share. Once you meet your deductible, your insurance company begins to cover some costs of your care. Some plans have lower deductibles, like $250. Some have higher deductibles, like $2000. Many plans provide preventive services, and sometimes other care, before you've met your deductible.

What plans are they looking at? Not the 6000 dollar deductible one I was looking at.

[Tgo01]

If you're only making 10k per year, I think you have a lot more concerns than just that!

Perhaps but aren't those the types of people this law was supposedly going to help?

I thought most of the values that were being thrown around were just for illustrative purposes for how the law works. If those are the actual values for the credits/etc, then yes, that would not be good. But hey, at least preventative care is taken care of with that premium?

The 10,000 dollar income I made up, the 200 dollar a month premium covering 60% of medical costs after a 6000 dollar deductible plan is a plan I pulled directly off of healthcare.gov. As far as the tax credits you would have to look to WB for that, he claimed he could get a plan for 60 dollars a month after tax credits from the site (I have yet to see what sort of tax credits I would be eligible for, if any.)

As far as preventative care being taken care of what does that cover exactly? Would some people be better off just paying for those things out of pocket and skip having a premium to begin with?

Additionally, there is always the option of accepting the penalty instead of paying the premiums and obtaining the health insurance. If the penalty is only $500, it would be a more viable option than the premium + credit.

That's kind of a lame argument though isn't it? I thought this bill was supposed to help people get affordable healthcare not force them to pay a penalty because the affordable healthcare available to them is too expensive.

[Whirlin]

Perhaps but aren't those the types of people this law was supposedly going to help?

I dunno... most bills with any sort of tax implication, such as the earned income credit, are written without people that low in mind. I may be mistaken, but I thought 25k is typically used as the midpoint for such benefits. If you're making drastically underneath that, it's assumed that you're either a student, or a dependent, which is against the intent of the credit/law

The 10,000 dollar income I made up, the 200 dollar a month premium covering 60% of medical costs after a 6000 dollar deductible plan is a plan I pulled directly off of healthcare.gov. As far as the tax credits you would have to look to WB for that, he claimed he could get a plan for 60 dollars a month after tax credits from the site (I have yet to see what sort of tax credits I would be eligible for, if any.)

There's usually also an out-of-pocket maximum associated with most plans... however, irrelevant if you can't make the premium payments.

As far as preventative care being taken care of what does that cover exactly? Would some people be better off just paying for those things out of pocket and skip having a premium to begin with?

I dunno what they cost to an uninsured person though... but things like physicals, probably subsidies on routine medications, annual eye exam. Potentially dental as well, varying from plan.

That's kind of a lame argument though isn't it? I thought this bill was supposed to help people get affordable healthcare not force them to pay a penalty because the affordable healthcare available to them is too expensive.

I think they did the best they could with the confines they had, but yes, it still didn't necessarily meet with the expectations. Offering any sort of credits to the poor is difficult to get buyin for. I mean, it's already getting flagged as a socialist law. If we further subsidized the poor's premiums, wouldn't that just rally more cries of socialism?

[Tgo01]

I dunno... most bills with any sort of tax implication, such as the earned income credit, are written without people that low in mind. I may be mistaken, but I thought 25k is typically used as the midpoint for such benefits. If you're making drastically underneath that, it's assumed that you're either a student, or a dependent, which is against the intent of the credit/law

They only count people making almost 5 dollars more per hour than the federal minimum wage? This is of course assuming people can even find full time/40 hour a week employment. Next time I talk to a mother of two working for 9 bucks an hour I'll be sure to inform her the government considers her a student or a dependent.

There's usually also an out-of-pocket maximum associated with most plans... however, irrelevant if you can't make the premium payments.

Yeah, funny enough the out-of-pocket maximum was just a few hundred dollars more than the yearly deductible. I'm going off memory though because the website is down for me again.

If we further subsidized the poor's premiums, wouldn't that just rally more cries of socialism?

Who cares? What were Democrats more concerned with at the time; getting Obama reelected or looking after the well being of American citizens? Considering they had to make sweetheart deals with some Democrats to get them on board and the fact that they pushed this legislation through without a single Republican coming on board I guess they were more concerned with getting Obama reelected.

Good job Team D, you just fucked the average American citizen for four more years of Obama.

[Jeril]

I just searched for minimum wage and this was one of the websites that came up: http://www.ncsl.org/issues-research/...age-chart.aspx

Going by that the most common wage is 7.25 an hour. Working 40 hours a week and 52 weeks a year this nets a gross income of 15080.

[Parkbandit]

Verizon. 24521 and you can triangulate in on Rebec Vineyards. Note the "decent service" clause and I have identified my business address on the boards before. Neither Sprint or nTelos are valid answers.

http://cell.phoneprovidersguide.com/24521-zipcode-cell-phone-providers.html

One thing I had to do to boost my signal in my home was to get AT&T to give me a "micro-cell" which you connect to your Internet and it gives you a mini-tower at a place where you don't normally get good reception.