Penalties for Those Without Health Plans

No period of history has ever been great or ever can be that does not act on some sort of high, idealistic motives, and idealism in our time has been shoved aside, and we have paying a penalty for it.

Alfred North Whitehead (1861-1947),  Dialogues of Alfred North Whitehead (1953)

No one in the world,  as far as I know…has ever lost money by underestimating the intelligence of the great masses of the plain people.

H.L. Mencken (1880-1956), Notes on Journalism, 1926

I give President Obama the benefit of the doubt.  His goal in pushing through ObamaCare in the face of unified Republican opposition was idealistic and well intended .

But, for the moment at least, in the eyes of 58.4% of  Americans, the law’s consequences outweigh the benefits if you believe the average of  national polls. 

Take the problem of  the economic penalty, $95 this year, or 1% of your income, growing to $695  if you did not enroll in a plan.  A feeling exists out there  that it’s patently  unfair to penalize people if they did not sign up for an ObamaCare approved plan even if they can not even sign up on healthcare.gov.

President Obama has changed the rules to avoid political damage as he tends to do  if a rule damages Democratic prospects for the midterm elections in November 2014.  

Now, If you sign up for insurance by the end of March, you will not face a penalty, the White House said last Wednesday. Originally, the Obamacare law had been interpreted as giving people until Feb. 15, 2014, to have health coverage.

That’s a good thing. For  people to be penalized even if they could  find a plan through healthcare.gov,  or other means, or through no fault of their own,  on short notice insulted  the intelligence of the American people.  

Anyway , the IRS does not have the manpower or resources to enforce the penalty.  Besides, ten percent of data submitted to the health plans are still wrong, and their erroneous enrollments were going to be rejected. That wretched backend of the website is a fault.  

Moreover,  Democrats wanted Obama to remove threat of a penalty.  It  threatened their reelection prospects.  In any event, the young expect ObamaCare to be repealed so many of them are not enrolling. They are not cowed by a penalty, especially when they do not think it will be enforced.

Delays of ObamaCare rules have become the rule rather than the exception.  The White House reserves the right to change or delay provisions of the law to avoid political damage. So,  not to worry, you won’t be penalized. You can wait until March 31, 2014 to enroll.

Rules are made to be broken, delayed, or not enforced if they are not enforceable, or even if  unilaterally changing them is questionable constitutionally as critics assert.   

Is choosing an ObamaCare endorsed plan health plan a new deal, a good deal, a bad deal, or no deal ? 
It  gets confusing  if you are an ordinary American citizen of normal intelligence.

Tweet:  The White House has ruled people will not be penalized for not enrolling in a health plan.