The New York Times is getting a little nervous, based on its recent examination of people who have decided that Obamacare is not worth the price. I want to walk through this particular example, because it was about the only one that had any actual numbers involved:
Ms. Williams, who earns less than $40,000 a year at a small marketing firm in Seattle, said she did not want to hand over what little discretionary money she had after rent and other living expenses to an insurance company. She has been uninsured since moving a year ago from Ohio, where she had a job with health benefits.
She qualified for a subsidy to help buy coverage through Washington’s marketplace, but said that she still would have had to pay around $135 a month for the least expensive plan, with a $6,000 deductible that she said made it unfeasible.
OK. $135/month = $1,620 a year. After subsidies. That was Ms. Williams’ cheapest plan available, and it has a $6,000 deductible. Obamacare tax = $300 a year (1% of income over $10,000) for this year, will go up eventually to $750 a year. As long as Ms. Williams has less than ($1,620 + $6,000 – $300) , or $7,320 a year in medical expenses, it makes sense to her to not pay the tax. Even when the tax goes up to 2.5% she’ll still have to incur more than $6,870 a year in expenses before she would have been better off buying a plan.
And this is where the New York Times has put its readers at a disadvantage: because while my readers knew to run the numbers last year, the Old Gray Lady’s are just learning this now.
Via… I don’t remember, sorry.
Moe Lane
I always thought that living under the PPACA would be worse than the HealthCare.Gov roll out fiasco.
Again, can we stop calling it ObamaCare? That implies that he cares about the effects of his policy. ObamaTax is much more apt (as the math in this instance supports).