risk

People Who Pay the Individual Mandate Tax Should Get Healthcare

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One of the problems I have with the individual mandate, is those who do not get healthcare insurance have to pay a tax, yet get nothing in return. That tax should go directly for paying for healthcare for those persons, by either using that revenue to add them to Medicaid or an assigned risk pool.

Option 1: Automatic Enrollment to Medicaid for Those Without Insurance.

Those who pay the individual mandate tax could automatically be enrolled in the government’s Medicaid program. The individual mandate tax could pay for the costs of enrolling these persons into medicaid. Medicaid would ensure these persons have access to basic healthcare, and because such an expansion would be paid directly out this tax, there would be no cost to government.

Frame 27

Option 2 Assigned Risk Pool for Those Without Insurance.

Alternatively, those who do not enroll in a private market insurance plan could be placed in the assigned risk pool, similiar to those who can’t buy insurance on the private market due to DWI or bad driving records. The individual mandate tax could pay for those individuals who don’t have insurance to be automatically assigned to an insurer, for it’s most basic plan.

Insurers would be forced to accept persons assigned to them, at random, by the government, who don’t currently have insurance. These individuals paying the individual mandate tax, would have their tax revenue handed over to the private company they are assigned to. Insurers would cover their healthcare costs, with very basic plans.

House By the Pond

People Still Would Want to Get Insurance.

Being enrolled in Medicaid or a an Assigned Risk Pool insurance is far from an ideal solution for most people. People would be actively encouraged to buy insurance on the exchange, rather then taking whatever the government has randomly assigned to them, or government sponsored Medicaid.

Yet, the assigned risk pool is better then nothing.If for some reason a person didn’t sign up for insurance, they should be covered with basic healthcare insurance. Assigned risk is very market friendly, and is less government involved then expanding Medicaid, so it seems likely that would be the reform chosen for healthcare coverage for all.

How Much Do I Have Invested in NY State?

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Last night I was pondering how much I had invested in NY State, not in form of capital as much as knowledge and connections. You know, over 29 years of living in this state, I’ve learned much, and moving away from it, would seem I would loose a lot.

Things like (in no particular order):

  • Familiarity of the roads and places
  • How state government works (sorta)
  • The general topography of the land
  • General folkways of doing things
  • Community organizations
  • Personal connections

South West

Maybe this is why a lot of people never leave the community they grew up in, and even fewer ever leave the state they were born in. It just seems like moving on is such a daunting task, especially when you’ve come so familiar with the status quo.

I’ve lived in other parts of Upstate New York, from time to time, but somehow any part of New York State your in is kind of structured the same way. Other states, not so much. But maybe I’m over playing the differences.

Then again, the world is always changing. The place I knew a few years back rarely stays the same due to forces of man and nature alike. Time changes everything.