4 ms·

> Someone who underwithholds has to have that money in the first place to do so. Sure, they may have spent it, but it suggests an ability to earn money commemor

> Someone who underwithholds has to have that money in the first place to do so. Sure, they may have spent it, but it suggests an ability to earn money commemorate with the debt incurred. ... With insurance subsidies, scamming "insurance" companies can sign up nonexistant people etc. If you claim an undeserved subsidy, then that means you earn too much for the subsidy. Which means you earn enough to pay for healthcare. You may want to spend it on something else, like your mortgage. But then we're back to the underwithholding situation. The Social Security Number prevents subsidies from being claimed for nonexistent people. It's like the "phantom dependents" problem on income tax returns. When the IRS began requiring an SSN to be provided for each dependent, the problem went away. I'm not convinced that fraud would actually be a major problem. It's not like you get the whole year's subsidy at once. You get it a month at a time. Instead of running the income-check interactively, run it as a batch process after the first month of coverage. Then investigate the most egregious cases -- either individual or insurance company fraud. If an insurance company is committing fraud, take it out of next month's subsidy payments. Remember -- we're already trusting these insurance companies to provide a whole year's worth of coverage, until the next open-enrollment period. They're around to be accountable.

hga 13y ago
"If you claim an undeserved subsidy, then that means you earn too much for the subsidy. Which means you earn enough to pay for healthcare. You may want to spend it on something else, like your mortgage." Your last sentence indicates you know the truth about the statement your penultimate sentence makes. Which might be better stated as "Which means you earn enough to pay for healthcare according to this dog's breakfast known as the Affordable Care Act", which following our version of Newspeak for the naming of political bills tells us it's unlikely to be always, or maybe generally affordable. "The Social Security Number prevents subsidies from being claimed for nonexistent people." Good point. Change "nonexistent" to "real people under 65 not in the system" (the SSA knows the age). Like illegal aliens using other's SSN numbers, a scammer "insurance" company could just harvest numbers and other ID information for people who aren't buying insurance through Obamacare (hard to say, but a selection of young ones should be fairly safe) and those covered by employer plans, unless and until those people are reported to HHS. "[Insurance companies will be] around to be accountable." I'm postulating the creation of new, entirely or partly fraudulent ones (e.g. Obamacare subsidizes the creation of co-ops), or the subversion of existing ones. If there's "free money" to be had, it's likely stupid people will try to grab some, no matter how likely or certain it is they'll get caught.
- tanzam75 13y ago
  > Your last sentence indicates you know the truth about the statement your penultimate sentence makes. Which might be better stated as "Which means you earn enough to pay for healthcare according to this dog's breakfast known as the Affordable Care Act", which following our version of Newspeak for the naming of political bills tells us it's unlikely to be always, or maybe generally affordable. You cut off my actual last sentence in the paragraph, which compared it to underwithholding on income taxes. This is what I keep bringing up, and you keep ignoring. This is not so different from income taxes. Someone who earns 400% of poverty level owes $5000 in federal income tax, plus maybe another $5000 in local property tax and possibly state income tax. They might want to pay that $10000+ towards their mortgage, rather than to the government. Since you're clearly very concerned about the financial burdens imposed on those less fortunate among us, I hope you'll support eliminating all taxes on those earning 400% or less of poverty level. We can make up for it by taxing the rich more heavily. What do you say? Or perhaps we should do the same for health insurance. Single-payer system, paid for by progressive taxation.

hga 13y ago

"If you claim an undeserved subsidy, then that means you earn too much for the subsidy. Which means you earn enough to pay for healthcare. You may want to spend it on something else, like your mortgage." Your last sentence indicates you know the truth about the statement your penultimate sentence makes. Which might be better stated as "Which means you earn enough to pay for healthcare according to this dog's breakfast known as the Affordable Care Act", which following our version of Newspeak for the naming of political bills tells us it's unlikely to be always, or maybe generally affordable. "The Social Security Number prevents subsidies from being claimed for nonexistent people." Good point. Change "nonexistent" to "real people under 65 not in the system" (the SSA knows the age). Like illegal aliens using other's SSN numbers, a scammer "insurance" company could just harvest numbers and other ID information for people who aren't buying insurance through Obamacare (hard to say, but a selection of young ones should be fairly safe) and those covered by employer plans, unless and until those people are reported to HHS. "[Insurance companies will be] around to be accountable." I'm postulating the creation of new, entirely or partly fraudulent ones (e.g. Obamacare subsidizes the creation of co-ops), or the subversion of existing ones. If there's "free money" to be had, it's likely stupid people will try to grab some, no matter how likely or certain it is they'll get caught.

tanzam75 13y ago
> Your last sentence indicates you know the truth about the statement your penultimate sentence makes. Which might be better stated as "Which means you earn enough to pay for healthcare according to this dog's breakfast known as the Affordable Care Act", which following our version of Newspeak for the naming of political bills tells us it's unlikely to be always, or maybe generally affordable. You cut off my actual last sentence in the paragraph, which compared it to underwithholding on income taxes. This is what I keep bringing up, and you keep ignoring. This is not so different from income taxes. Someone who earns 400% of poverty level owes $5000 in federal income tax, plus maybe another $5000 in local property tax and possibly state income tax. They might want to pay that $10000+ towards their mortgage, rather than to the government. Since you're clearly very concerned about the financial burdens imposed on those less fortunate among us, I hope you'll support eliminating all taxes on those earning 400% or less of poverty level. We can make up for it by taxing the rich more heavily. What do you say? Or perhaps we should do the same for health insurance. Single-payer system, paid for by progressive taxation.