Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

Jimbo

6 (6.3%)

Jeremey and Seven

7 (7.3%)

Brun

14 (14.6%)

Eliott

9 (9.4%)

Amir

8 (8.3%)

Penny

7 (7.3%)

Clinton

14 (14.6%)

Lt Abbie Porter

11 (11.5%)

Dr Ellicott-Chatham ('Dr John', as I think of him)

7 (7.3%)

Beatrice Chatham

5 (5.2%)

Other (please specify in comments)

8 (8.3%)

Total Members Voted: 36

[Is it cold in here?]

You're required to have it even if you're left no way to get it.

[Tova]

You're required to have it even if you're left no way to get it.

You keep using that word...

[Gyrre]

Well, I suggested that Roko go to a lawyer with political ambitions. However, it looks like Jeph has decided to go one step further. To have a seriously important public figure, genius and, let's be brutal here, defence contractor say that the current situation for May is entirely unacceptable to him. That will make the politicians sit up, take notice and, likely, panic. It will be curious to see how all these barriers to May getting help never really existed at all and how much the bureaucrats will insist that they never blocked, refused or were even aware of Roko's request for a review.

That said, yeah, Hanners is right. Between here and there is going to be a serious mess of rage, fear, political ass-covering and scapegoat-finding and it's going to be a difficult thing to live through for all involved and  their friends.

The problem is it’s still a quick fix from someone who could make it happen.

Not to mention that nearly noone wins when politicians panic.

[Gyrre]

You're required to have it even if you're left no way to get it.

You keep using that word...

Not having it incurs a fine.

Weird fact: the Patient Protection and Affordable Care act was ultimately only deemed Constitutional by the Supreme Court by way of the PPAC falling under Congress's power to create new taxes.

If that isn't telling of our country's bureaucratic shenanigans, I don't know what is.

[Penquin47]

Okay... not totally clear. "your income tax returned to you? I can only assume you don't get your entire income tax returned to if you have coverage. Can you be more precise?

Does it mean that a portion of your tax is some kind of a health care levy which is returnable only if you can show proof of health care coverage?

Income tax is taken out of your paycheck every time you get paid.  At the end of the year, you're given a statement of how much tax you paid, which you then take to a tax return service to figure out how much you should have paid.  If you didn't pay enough, then you have to pay the balance at that point; if you paid too much, you tell the government and they send you a check (or in modern times deposit it into your bank account).

However, if you can't show that you have health insurance, you don't get the tax return if you overpaid throughout the year.  They just keep the excess as a penalty for not having health insurance.'

This is why despite being single and childless I tell my employers I have two dependents so they withhold less in taxes.  I've had my taxes within a hundred dollars either way for the last ten years (one time I managed to hit it perfectly and had a tax return of $0!) thanks to how shit is structured.  Suits me fine - the government is not getting an interest-free loan from me and I don't have the "omg I'm gonna get a huge tax return!" that leads to it being spent three times before I even get it.

[Tova]

So, if you owe the government money at the end of the tax year, then there are no consequences whatsoever? That is odd. But okay.

I think I understand it about as well as I want to now.

[jwhouk]

So, if you owe the government money at the end of the tax year, then there are no consequences whatsoever? That is odd. But okay.

I think I understand it about as well as I want to now.

Ohhhhh there are consequences. Your tax bill suddenly goes up. Ask me how I know. Go on, ask me.

[Tova]

Okay, I'll bite. How do you know?

[jwhouk]

$1,100.

[Penquin47]

As long as you've paid 90% of your tax bill*, they call it good in that there are no consequences other than having to write them a check instead of getting a refund.  If you paid less than that, though, there's a penalty based on how much you owe.

(Or if you owe less than $1000, or there were some kind of extenuating circumstances such as a natural disaster that affected your income, or a few other ways to get around it.)

[Tova]

Okay. I still find it weird that your penalty is based on how much of your income was withheld by your employer for tax, something you have little control over. Or am I misunderstanding that as well?

[jwhouk]

You do have control of how much your employer withholds from your check. It's called a W-4 form. You can claim a certain number of exemptions, which your employer uses to determine how much tax should be taken out of your check weekly. You can also ask for your employer to take an additional amount out of each check (weekly, biweekly, monthly) in case you think your withholding won't be enough for the year based on your tax situation. (Looks up at previous post, sighs)

[DSL]

... And if you're self-employed and file quarterly estimated taxes ... you want to be a particularly good estimator. I choose to err on the side of overpaying. It means the government gets the free use of my money for part of the year, but it beats paying a penalty.

[Wingy]

What it does is require you to show proof of coverage to get your state income tax returned to you...

Okay... not totally clear. "your income tax returned to you? I can only assume you don't get your entire income tax returned to if you have coverage. Can you be more precise?

Does it mean that a portion of your tax is some kind of a health care levy which is returnable only if you can show proof of health care coverage?

Buying it is legally required, to make sure there are enough healthy people paying in to meet the costs of the people with pre-existing conditions.

It means, if you don't have a documented health plan, and you paid in too much income tax to the state, then your refund of overpaid tax, all or in part, can be kept by the state.  Ostensibly to help pay off the cost of whatever care you used during the year but did not pay for in the form of private insurance and thus took from the state.  The Federal level ACA (Obamacare) was similarly modeled and this was called the "individual mandate" and worked similarly: if you didn't have proof of coverage, it made the most sense to avoid overpaying taxes (because you wouldn't get a refund). 

Past tense is used above because the Republicans in the federal Congress passed a bill and it was signed into law effectively eliminating the federal individual mandate.*  Now there is a court case pending, last I knew, attempting to remove the last bits of the ACA from the law by noticing that the funding method (the individual mandate) is not severable from the rest of the ACA bits, and since the mandate has been severed (made void), therefore the rest of the law is similarly null and void.  I believe this case is still pending in federal appeals court.

* Certain more libertarian elements (me included) viewed this with rejoicing because it removed what amounts to a tax imposed by executive order.  That's a dangerous precedent to set and accept for any length of time; it's Congresses job to levy taxes, not the executive branch by fiat.  However, we imagined that this event would also force Congress back to doing their job and finding the funds to pay for the rest of the ACA.  This has not turned out to be the case and as a result, many of the state-driven implementation pieces of the ACA are now seriously jeopardized due to lack of funding, with the end result of people dying for lack of proper health care.  The Republican party branded candidates are going to have a lot to answer for come November 6, 2020...

[cybersmurf]

Funny thing: IIRC over here in Austria, if you manage to tell them you'd get a tax return of less than 800 to 1000 euro, they don't even contest it, since somebody looking at it costs more than that.

[Case]

What it does is require you to show proof of coverage to get your state income tax returned to you...

Okay... not totally clear. "your income tax returned to you? I can only assume you don't get your entire income tax returned to if you have coverage. Can you be more precise?

Does it mean that a portion of your tax is some kind of a health care levy which is returnable only if you can show proof of health care coverage?

Buying it is legally required, to make sure there are enough healthy people paying in to meet the costs of the people with pre-existing conditions.

It means, if you don't have a documented health plan, and you paid in too much income tax to the state, then your refund of overpaid tax, all or in part, can be kept by the state.  Ostensibly to help pay off the cost of whatever care you used during the year but did not pay for in the form of private insurance and thus took from the state.  The Federal level ACA (Obamacare) was similarly modeled and this was called the "individual mandate" and worked similarly: if you didn't have proof of coverage, it made the most sense to avoid overpaying taxes (because you wouldn't get a refund). 

Okay, I think that now I understand better why Americans are not so enamoured with the ACA - it's pretty hard to see how this system isn't overly complicated & opaque, doesn't spuriously involve the state, and how it acts in a way that is fair (both fairness wrt to burden-sharing and the specifics of penalizing undesired behaviour).

I'd caution against conflating the term 'individual mandate' with this weird tax-deduction penalty whaggamathingy - Not merely to accommodate my OCD, but also because it's easy to imagine that when people debate healthcare systems and compare the ACA to other designs that feature a legal requirement to have insurance (like the Austrian, Belgian and German ones), they will be tempted to assume that the latter also feature this weird income tax-return penalty thingy. That is not the case (not entirely certain about the Austrian & Belgian systems, but it would surprise me if they did).

(click to show/hide)

Your insurer is legally required to double your premiums for every month you are uninsured after the first month, period. No involvement of the state executive or its IRS-equivalent.

This is less pro-oligarchy than it sounds, as 87% of Germans are insured with "Krankenkassen" (lit. "Sickness-funds"), who are not strictly speaking companies with a profit-motive, so its pretty obvious you are burdening your peers by not being ensured, rather than "sticking it to the man". Krankenkassen are more like a kind of mutual funds whose sole purpose is to invest in the healthcare of its members. Germans would distinguish between "Krankenkassen" and "Krankenversicherungen" (Sickness-insurances) - both are insurers, both are privately run, but only the latter are bona-fide companies with a profit motive.

On the flipside, nobody can be refused basic-plan insurance, for any reason at all, period. The Krankenkassen cannot refuse anybody, no matter what plan people want to enroll in; the private insurance companies can refuse to take someone into one of their higher-tier plans. But basic care is covered for every homo sapiens in Germany (yes, also non-citizen residents).

Same simplicity with the premiums: Your premiums are fixed at 14.something% of your non-deductible income (where 'non-deductible' probably means something different than it means in the US, so take with grains of salt). Your employer is required to pay half of that, so in the end, everybody pays about 7.something% of their income for healthcare, nobody can be denied basic-plan coverage, and the decision about what treatments are considered basic plan is made periodically by public panels staffed with representatives from stakeholders (care workers, insurers and patients), that are overseen by the government (in an Ombudsman-role). Pretty similar to how unions and employers handle working-rights disputes.

The details are complex and not widely known even to natives, but the principles are fairly simple. Goes back to Bismark's horror of burdening the state with social care costs - the state is just involved enough to make sure that the system works, but otherwise it was designed for autonomous function.

Anyhow - thanks to everybody who helped educating the furriners.

[Gyrre]

What it does is require you to show proof of coverage to get your state income tax returned to you...

Okay... not totally clear. "your income tax returned to you? I can only assume you don't get your entire income tax returned to if you have coverage. Can you be more precise?

Does it mean that a portion of your tax is some kind of a health care levy which is returnable only if you can show proof of health care coverage?

Buying it is legally required, to make sure there are enough healthy people paying in to meet the costs of the people with pre-existing conditions.

It means, if you don't have a documented health plan, and you paid in too much income tax to the state, then your refund of overpaid tax, all or in part, can be kept by the state.  Ostensibly to help pay off the cost of whatever care you used during the year but did not pay for in the form of private insurance and thus took from the state.  The Federal level ACA (Obamacare) was similarly modeled and this was called the "individual mandate" and worked similarly: if you didn't have proof of coverage, it made the most sense to avoid overpaying taxes (because you wouldn't get a refund). 

Okay, I think that now I understand better why Americans are not so enamoured with the ACA - it's pretty hard to see how this system isn't overly complicated & opaque, doesn't spuriously involve the state, and how it acts in a way that is fair (both fairness wrt to burden-sharing and the specifics of penalizing undesired behaviour).

I'd caution against conflating the term 'individual mandate' with this weird tax-deduction penalty whaggamathingy - Not merely to accommodate my OCD, but also because it's easy to imagine that when people debate healthcare systems and compare the ACA to other designs that feature a legal requirement to have insurance (like the Austrian, Belgian and German ones), they will be tempted to assume that the latter also feature this weird income tax-return penalty thingy. That is not the case (not entirely certain about the Austrian & Belgian systems, but it would surprise me if they did).

(click to show/hide)

Your insurer is legally required to double your premiums for every month you are uninsured after the first month, period. No involvement of the state executive or its IRS-equivalent.

This is less pro-oligarchy than it sounds, as 87% of Germans are insured with "Krankenkassen" (lit. "Sickness-funds"), who are not strictly speaking companies with a profit-motive, so its pretty obvious you are burdening your peers by not being ensured, rather than "sticking it to the man". Krankenkassen are more like a kind of mutual funds whose sole purpose is to invest in the healthcare of its members. Germans would distinguish between "Krankenkassen" and "Krankenversicherungen" (Sickness-insurances) - both are insurers, both are privately run, but only the latter are bona-fide companies with a profit motive.

On the flipside, nobody can be refused basic-plan insurance, for any reason at all, period. The Krankenkassen cannot refuse anybody, no matter what plan people want to enroll in; the private insurance companies can refuse to take someone into one of their higher-tier plans. But basic care is covered for every homo sapiens in Germany (yes, also non-citizen residents).

Same simplicity with the premiums: Your premiums are fixed at 14.something% of your non-deductible income (where 'non-deductible' probably means something different than it means in the US, so take with grains of salt). Your employer is required to pay half of that, so in the end, everybody pays about 7.something% of their income for healthcare, nobody can be denied basic-plan coverage, and the decision about what treatments are considered basic plan is made periodically by public panels staffed with representatives from stakeholders (care workers, insurers and patients), that are overseen by the government (in an Ombudsman-role). Pretty similar to how unions and employers handle working-rights disputes.

The details are complex and not widely known even to natives, but the principles are fairly simple. Goes back to Bismark's horror of burdening the state with social care costs - the state is just involved enough to make sure that the system works, but otherwise it was designed for autonomous function.

Anyhow - thanks to everybody who helped educating the furriners.

Removing the profit motive from healthcare in our country would do WONDERS for it.

[For those who have vision impairment of some variety, that's WONDERS in rainbow colos starting with red on the left. Since indigo isn't available in the color selction, teal was  substituted and blue got shifted over one.]

[cybersmurf]

Removing the profit motive from healthcare in our country would do WONDERS for it.

[For those who have vision impairment of some variety, that's WONDERS in rainbow colos starting with red on the left. Since indigo isn't available in the color selction, teal was  substituted and blue got shifted over one.]

That, and doing something about student loans.

[TorporChambre]

That’s Cerenkov radiation. The rest of the comic since then is [woven with] the hallucinations of Marten [et alia], dying from the radiation exposure.

eGads! And that's when he met the Beast of Bourbon! And only after that would the advanced cybrids emerge. Only after would they visit Station. The rule of parsimony would have us disbelieve the great Ellicott-Chatham intellect, eccentricity, and wealth.
My Rollenspiel demands revision.