The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled to uphold the Affordable Care Act in a 5-4 decision written by Chief Justice John Roberts.
From the decision: “Nothing in our opinion precludes Congress from offering funds under the ACA to expand the availability of health care, and requiring that states accepting such funds comply with the conditions on their use. What Congress is not free to do is to penalize States that choose not to participate in that new program by taking away their existing Medicaid funding."
*Children will no longer be denied health insurance due to a pre-existing condition, effective immediately. *Young adults can stay on their parent's health insurance policy until age 26. *Adults will no longer be denied health insurance due to a pre-existing condition, effective in 2014. *Health insurance providers can no longer cancel your policy because you get sick. *There can no longer be annual limits to health coverage. If your illness is incredibly expensive, you won't have to worry about reaching a limit to what your insurance company will pay.
In 2006, the percentage of Americans without health insurance was 15.8%, or approximately 47 million uninsured people. More than 40 million adults stated that they needed but did not receive one or more of these health services (medical care, prescription medicines, mental health care, dental care, or eyeglasses) in 2005 because they could not afford it.
What does that mean for me? Well the Supreme Court ruling contains this passage "... that the shared responsibility payment may for constitutional purposes be considered a tax. The payment is not so high that there is really no choice but to buy health insurance; the payment is not limited to willful violations, as penalties for unlawful acts often are; and the payment is collected solely by the IRS through the normal means of taxation." What that means is that I will pay the tax for not purchasing insurance as it is likely to be substantially below what I pay for insurance coverage on an annual basis until I really have to have coverage due to a major medical emergency then I can't be denied coverage under the ACA for an existing medical condition. Finally, like the non-productive I have a way of having other people pay for my wants.
Dangerous plan. The coverage applies for only expenses incurred AFTER your policy goes into effect. Any medical expenses incurred during your uninsured emergency--perhaps thousands or tens of thousands of dollars--are entirely on you. Incidentally, before the Affordable Care Act, U.S. taxpayers were already taking up the slack for the uninsured (supporting the argument that the mandate is constitutional under the Commerce Clause). To the extent that the law reduces the number of people who are uninsured, it saves taxpayer money.
From Kaiser: http://healthreform.kff.org/faq/will-everyone-have-to-buy-health-insurance.aspx "Several groups are exempt from the requirement to obtain coverage or pay the penalty, including: people who would have to pay more than 8% of their income for health insurance, people with incomes below the threshold required for filing taxes (in 2009, $9,350 for a single person and $26,000 for a married couple with two children), those who qualify for religious exemptions, undocumented immigrants, people who are incarcerated, and members of Indian tribes. The penalty for people who forego insurance is the greatest of two amounts: a specified percentage of income or a specified dollar amount. The percentages of income are phased in over time at 1% in 2014, 2% in 2015, and 2.5% starting in 2016. The dollar amounts are also phased in at $95 in 2014, $325 in 2015, and $695 beginning in 2016 (with annual increases after that). The Congressional Budget Office projects that 3.9 million people will pay the penalty in 2016. The total penalty for the taxable year will not exceed the national average of the annual premiums of a bronze level health insurance plan offered through the health insurance Exchanges. Health insurance plans will provide documents to people they insure that will be used to prove that they have the minimum coverage required by law."
When savings exceed costs, then you ON NET, budget deficits fall-- "On net, CBO and JCT’s latest comprehensive estimate is that the effects of the [PPACA and the Reconciliation Act] on direct spending and revenues related to health care will REDUCE federal deficits by $210 billion over the 2012–2021 period http://cbo.gov/sites/default/files/cbofiles/ftpdocs/121xx/doc12119/03-30-healthcarelegislation.pdf
Many, if not most, of the same people who make this argument are working to pass laws to prevent women from have the choice as to whether to have an abortion...even if they're the victims of rape or incest... even to save their own lives...even if prenatal tests show that the fetus isn't viable outside the womb. Many, if not most, of these same people want to MANDATE that women who do seek to get a legal abortion must first have (i.e., purchase) a medically unnecessary ultrasound. Many, if not most, of these same people oppose allowing sick people to purchase medical marijuana to ease their suffering from cancer and other debilitating diseases. I could go on. With all due respect, when people complain about laws that give the government control over our lives, while simultaneously advocating for laws that give the government control over our lives, well, I find it hard to take such complaints seriously.
Chris L., I repeatedly said, "many, if not most,..." I have no idea what your positions on these issues are. If you're the exception, then I commend you on your consistency. On the other hand, if you're an advocate for big government with abortion, gay rights, medical marijuana, contraception, and/or the rest, then your complaints about big government ring hollow. As I said, most of the people who oppose President Obama's policies are against big government, except when they're for it (and they're for it a lot).
On the other hand, starting next year, the new health care law prevents private health insurers from denying coverage or charging higher premiums for pre-existing conditions. It has also already eliminated the caps on coverage so that those of us with insurance can't go bankrupt after actually running out of insurance after a major injury or illness. Here's one to pay attention to. The Affordable Care Act has also eliminated insurance co-pays for checkups, pap smears, mammograms, and other preventive care. Most people don't know about this, and many doctors take advantage of this widespread ignorance by charging for co-pays anyway. So, the next time that your doctor's office tries to charge you a co-pay for a check-up or a pap smear, just tell them that youf insurance company doesn't have a co-pay for preventive care. They won't argue. (Feel free to call your insurer to confirm.) Incidentally, Brits tend to defend their health care system in the same way that Americans tend to defend Medicare: http://articles.latimes.com/2009/aug/15/world/fg-britain-health15