General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: The individual mandate: I and others warned that this was coming, too. [View all]Zalatix
(8,994 posts)I said, I don't like the Individual Mandate. That is NOT the entire ACA. Know the difference.
Let me explain to you how this plays out.
You have lots of McDonald's franchise employees who will never see employer coverage. They are, as of 2014, being told to pay for health insurance, which will EASILY hit the ceiling of $80 a month if they are working full time minimum wage, which comes out to ~$20K in California.
Seeing this big extra $80 a month hit on their budget, they won't pay for insurance.
So they'll be assessed a $695 a month tax penalty come 2016.
But some dreamy folks on here insist the IRS can't enforce that.
The good part of the ACA says that no pre existing conditions can be denied. Guess what that means? That means people who have no insurance will try to GET insurance for a short while when they get sick. And they will be able to because pre-existing conditions aren't cause for denial.
I'm sure you know what that leads to.