I began the day as I always do, reading the funny's section on NYtimes.com, and I got the shock of my life when I read Jay Leno's Monologue. He made a claim that those who do not get acceptable insurance could face up to 5 years in prison.
I was like that has to be fake, no way the Democrats would punish someone who falls into a category that can't pay the average individual premium of over 5K a year. However, sure enough I found evidence for this 5 year nonsense here, here, and here.
So once again Washington has said OK special interests (Doc, Insurance Co.'s, and Hospitals) your behavior is fine. However, the little guy gets screwed over. In New London County, the local paper did a special report that found that the absolutely minimum level of compensation required to have an apartment and feed yourself was 15$ an hour. That works out to 31,200 a year. That was their base line. However that is nearly 300% more than the 2008 poverty income level of $10,991 dollars. Let us say that you do make $40,000 a year as a single person in New London County, that would leave you, after:
- A graduated federal tax rate on income below 32,500 of 15% and over that at 25%, with a personal deduction of $5,700 and a personal exemption of $3,650. This person would pay 15% rate.
- A Connecticut tax rate of $300 plus 5% of the excess over $10,000
- A Medicare tax rate of 1.45%
- A Social Security tax rate of 6.20%
with a net salary of $30,542.50 per year, or a bi-weekly salary of $1,174.71. Or a (reliable) monthly income of $2,349.42 (leaving 2 bonus checks throughout the year - doing this because most people are really bad about savings accounts).
Now lets say this person is completely average, with the following items:
- Median Rent of $624.00 per month.
- Median Car Payment of $378.67 per month, based off of:
A. Median selling price of 28,400 for a vehicle.
B. 20% Down
C. A 0.0$ Financing rate
D. 60 month term
- Monthly car insurance of $182.00, based on:
A. Connecticut average of $2,184 premium per year.
- Median Food Budget of $187.58, based on:
A. Average food expenditure of 9.7% of net income
- A Cable bill of $65.00 a month, based on:
A. Basic cable coverage of $15.00 a month
B. High speed internet coverage of $50.00 a month
- An average cell-phone bill of $50.00 per month
- Average Credit card payments of $431.91
A. average total credit card debt of $10,679.
B. Average annual percentage rate of 13.54, or a daily periodic rate of 0.03710%
C. 4% repayment rate on balance.
- Average electricity bill of $67.93, based off of:
A. Average individual using 4000Kwh per year.
B. Average cost per residential Kwh is .2038$
Now let's stop right there, because if you add up those numbers you will see our TOTALLY AVERAGE person only has $354 of discretionary income.
This is without any insurance of any kind (not too unusual for someone who works for one of the many outsourcing firms like manpower, or KBR, etc.).
If we add on the average cost of Health Insurance in MA (because they have a mandate) it is by the most generous (lowest) estimate that I could find $5,143 per person, or $428.58 per month.
This would drop our totally average person (who makes 4 times federal poverty)to being in the hole to the tune of $75 a month.
Yet President Obama wants to call this person a free loader.
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I am sorry, but that isn't change I can believe in.
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The U.S. government already spends more on a Per-person basis on healthcare (medicare or medicaid) than any other country in the world. This means that even if one doesn't get (through not qualifying) services our government is still shelling out the dollars.
This means that we are at present paying for services that in other countries (like Britain) we would get, and on top of that we have to get private insurance.
All this bill does is allow the healthcare companies to rape the consumer even more. The Politicians can claim they made reform, while the AVERAGE person gets screwed even worse.
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I am a liberal, or a progressive, or even a socialist. I believe that drastic change needs to take place in the U.S. We need the government to radically reform our healthcare delivery system, not rearrange deck chairs on the titanic. To threaten the average person with jail-time and call the average person a free-loader who "games" the system is outrageous.
Mr. President, the average American is sinking in debt, because the government has not stopped usury by banks. Mr. President the average American is losing wealth not gaining it. Mr. President if people can't afford insurance, maybe that issue needs to be taken care of prior to threatening Americans with 5 years in jail.
This is not reform, this is the creation of debtors prison.
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Edit 1 - Changed Medicaid tax to Medicare tax.
Edit 2 - Changed American's to Americans, was a plural not a possessive.
Edit 3 - Changed math based on tax rules, so sorry not a tax accountant.