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The health care mandate and your wallet
Protestors stand outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C.
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You could argue Chief Justice John Roberts exercised a little independence this week, if not financial. Roberts, of course, was the swing vote in the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act. Now that the law has been upheld -- or most of it, at least -- Marketplace's Adriene Hill parses some of it for us and explains the future of the law.
Listen to the interview above and learn who's excluded from the individual mandate and what really happens if you decide not to buy insurance and not pay the opt-out tax.
And for more coverage on health care, visit our special collection.
As a 60-year old recently laid off in Massachusetts I was very interested in the outcome of this decision, especially with regards to subsidies for those who can’t afford the high cost of health insurance which I am pretty sure probably has the same loop holes in place that exist in MA for the middle class. The outcome is bleak for someone in my age group to be rehired – the average time it takes to land a comparable salaried position is 44.6 weeks—and longer for the area I live in (some of my friends have been taking part-time jobs for over two years to meet their bills). This is what I learned happens to someone in my tax bracket (earning under $60,000/yr) for a family of two because I have received some severance pay: There is no help whatsoever by the State which means I am expected to absorb the cost of my existing insurance through COBRA of over $1200/month. We do not live lavishly (can’t remember the last time we went out for dinner), do not take vacations, our home mortgage is $800 with taxes, and we have two cars (a must in the rural area where we live) rapidly heading to the 100,000 mile mark. The only help I can receive toward health care costs is to apply for Unemployment Insurance whereby we are covered for up to 80% for only as long as I am receiving unemployment (just made it under the minimum annual earnings category for two). Whew! But isn’t this counterproductive? Once I no longer have severance pay and UI (which ends at 30 weeks) we can receive help from the State but if there is no check coming in the last thing I’m going to be thinking about is health insurance if I can’t pay my mortgage with a $38,000 balance. Do we really want to forgo insurance coverage and take a chance? My point – the middle class is getting squeezed to death in MA. BTW according to the State calculators they estimate that we should be able to pay $422/mo toward our health insurance (which is exactly what we did pay when I was employed).
