There has been a lot of talk lately about the young invincibles, those adults between the ages of 18 and 29 that believe they will never get sick. It is feared that they will merely pay the $95 penalty, rather than pay for health insurance, which they regard as a waste of money. While we readily excuse the young for foolishly thinking they do not need health insurance, what excuse is available to those politicians who thought that youthful folly could be transformed into prudent behavior with a penalty that is a mere fraction of the annual premium? Of course, there is no way the politicians were naïve enough to believe that. But a penalty large enough to do the trick, a penalty that closely approximated the premium, and deducted from the weekly paycheck, would have been demagogued as a tax increase. Therefore, the only penalty that could get through Congress was one too small to be effective.
Not everyone in the designated age group is a young invincible. Some people are actually capable of learning from the experience of others. If they find themselves employed at a business that does not offer health insurance, they will call up an insurance company and buy it on their own. Far too many, however, must learn everything the hard way. First they have to get sick; then they want health insurance.
I once worked in a small business establishment with about ten employees. The boss was the opposite of a psychopath, though if there is a term for this psychological type, I have yet to learn what it is. Having more empathy than was good for him, his pity could easily be elicited, and quickly turned into a little ready cash. Fortunately for him, he also had self-knowledge. Fearing that some of his employees might get sick, and then come to him for help, he got group insurance and insisted that everybody participate.
Joe was one of the employees, a man of 28 years. He signed up for the group insurance with only a little grumbling, but when he got himself a girlfriend, his cost of living went up. If I recall, his monthly premium was $150, and the boss paid half of it, but $75 was $75. So, he went into the back office, and told the bookkeeper to drop him from the health insurance plan. The bookkeeper asked the boss if that would be all right, and the boss said, “Absolutely not!” Just three months earlier, Joe’s wisdom tooth had abscessed, and by the time the thing was pulled, the boss had shelled out almost $400. Therefore, he was not about to risk being on the hook for something serious, like a hospital bill. Upon pain of losing his job, Joe agreed to remain insured.
Six months later, Joe was diagnosed with hepatitis C. The doctor surmised that Joe had contracted it when he got the tattoo on his right arm. He began a series of interferon injections, which went on for about nine months, and had he not had health insurance, I suspect the bill would have been around $20,000. When the treatment was over, he was cured of his disease, but not of his folly; because two months later, Joe went into the back office and told the bookkeeper he could not afford to keep paying the premium, and that he needed to drop the insurance.
Some people can learn from the experience of others; some people have to learn from their own experience; and some people remain untroubled by the inconvenient lessons of experience, no matter where they come from. Needless to say, the boss was even more adamant about Joe having to remain insured. But I guess Joe could not have been too hard up for cash, because a few months after that, he came in and showed us his new tattoo.
It’s going take more than a $95 penalty to knock some sense into people like that.