DJ reads the health care bills (there are three of them), grinds the numbers, finds it all unduly complicated, deliberately evasive, and agrees with his House representative who is voting against it because it does little to cut costs or stop premiums from rising.
There are some places he got it wrong though. A good example: The “tax” for not having insurance. There are some pretty big loopholes one can use to avoid it, including claiming it’s against your religion, making less than 133% of the poverty level, or not having a plan available to you thats under 8% of your annual income. Pretty major groups that fall into that category that won’t be taxed for not having insurance. And none of that starts until 2014, at which point the cap on the fine is $95 or 1% of your salary, going up to 2.5% of your salary or $695.
Kind off topic, but did you hear about the protesters using the F & N words? Since most of them are also “proud tea-baggers” it re-enforces my thoughts on that group as well. Not long before those protestors start wearing white hoods and burning crosses on the whitehouse lawn…
Woody, the penalty is set in Sec. 1501, and amended by both Sec. 10106 and Reconciliation Bill Sec. 1002. Read it again and see if you agree with my understanding: subsection (b) of the proposed IRC Sec. 5000A says that the amount indicated in subsection (c), which is up to 2.5% of income or a max of $695, is a MONTHLY penalty, though as I read it, the total penalty for the year cannot exceed 300% of that amount. So after 2015, the maximum annual penalty would be $2,085.