``I haven't needed it,'' says Lilavois, a 35-year-old, call-center manager from Miramar who dropped his medical insurance plan five years ago. ``I lead a healthy lifestyle. I eat a proper diet. I use herbal remedies. And I haven't been sick -- not so much as a flu -- for years. So why would I spend money on an insurance plan that I'm not using? It's not cost-effective.''

Agree or disagree with Lilavois' strategy, healthcare-policy experts and even the politicians debating reform measures have taken notice of the so-called ``invincibles,'' people in their late teens to mid-30s who choose to be uninsured because they're convinced that their relative youth and/or healthy lifestyles make an insurance-free life worth the gamble.

That gamble has become a crucial point in the debate over healthcare reform and how to pay for it, as the proposals in Congress would mandate that everyone buy insurance or face steep penalties. Supporters of mandatory coverage, including President Barack Obama, say it's a key step in making insurance affordable for everyone.

It truly makes my wonder whether these morons have ever read the U.S. Constitution. Where in the heck do they get the nerve and the audacity to even think that American Citizens can be economically fined as a civil penalty for not purchasing Government Health Insurance?

This is a tax, clear and simple. It’s a desperate measure by a desperate government to rake in billions of dollars quickly and float people’s medical bills on the health care service survivors.

I will go to jail before I pay for a government healthcare plan. Ironically once in jail they will give me healthcare for free!

I posted a thread here back in 07
if someone can find it i would be most grateful

it was 3 videos, showing us the future
in one of them it showed insurance in the future

you would have to urinate everyday in the toilet
that toilet would be connected to the internet
the toilet would analyze your urine and send data back to your insurance company

the guy who urinated in the video drank some alcohol, so due to fear that the toilet would find and increase his insurance fees out he used a bottle of already poured urine of his own.

but the toilet found out with inconsistencies and he automatically got flagged for dishonesty.

that wasn't a sci-fi video, it was made by that famous futurist, the one with grey hair.

Anyhow, it seems that may actually be quite precise.

I've told people all about this.

People seem to have rose colored glasses and they think our Universal Health Care plan is a plan that like Europe and Canada where the govt. essentially just takes care of you, free of charge.

It isn't. Why is everyone so god damn ignorant of this? It's a Pay or Be Fined system..

FFS, I can't take it anymore. The ignorant dimwits of this country deserve everything they ask for.

Who did you think 'mandatory healthcare for all' incorporated??

This healthcare reform stipulates that every American, regardless of ago, race, or income, maintain health insurance.

There will be penalties (read: fines) for anyone found NOT to be carrying health insurance. The initial costs put it upwards of $500 more per individual and $950 - 1500 more for families. That's just to ease us into it. The rates increase each year and by 2011, the costs go up to around $1200 more per individual and UP TO $4000 more per family. Don't worry because it's slated to continuously increase until 2020 -- it will take 10 years to "pay" for this bill.

What's so funny is that people are discussing this in other threads and think that $4000 is the cost -- when in fact it specifically states $4000 MORE than they are paying now. Meaning, what you pay now for health insurance PLUS $4000 for a family of four -- by 2011.

Are we having fun yet? What are you going to give up to pay for this? I would imagine my family would be healthier if i could afford to buy all natural, fresh food. But I won't be able to anymore -- it'll be a good thing I have all that new insurance. Hope it covers malnutrition.

When I was 25 and "Invincible" I started a new job and got insurance. I hadn't been sick in 10 years or more, but my wife insisted. Then, 1 MONTH later, I blew myself up, while remodeling a house!! About $600,000 later, I was very, very happy that my wife had insisted!

Fast forward about 5 years, new job, new insurance, on job about 3 months, ER visit, sent home, ER visit, sent home, Appendix Ruptured, ambulance ride, ER, Operation, Hospital Stay.......very, very happy to have insurance!!

Fast forward to 3 years ago. First child born with no problems. One year later, second child born 3 months premature. 3 months in NICU, heart surgeon flown in to do surgery. $1M later, I am very happy to have a healthy baby boy, and insurance!!

I am only 36 now, but health insurance has saved me AT LEAST $2M!!! I am still a young "invincible" man, but if it weren't for insurance I would have either drained all of my families resources, or been a burden on the taxpayers, or not survived and healed so well. Some procedures would have been done by the hospitals to keep me and the baby alive, but not all of them!

As much as I hate the Socialist direction we are going, somebody that "chooses" to go without insurance is putting all of us at risk of picking up their bill. They will still get life-saving care, and either the hospital hikes everyone elses rates, or Medicare kicks in to cover it. Either way, we ALL pay for that person's "choice"!

We're doing this in a recession by the way, with soaring unemployment rates and displaced individuals. So, yeah.. let's institute mandatory health care so everyone has to pay. So all those "slackers" who don't buy insurance don't put out the rest of the country.

What do you think will happen considering they are not going to fix the economy and then slam this down our throats? What's going to happen to all the people that can't pay? *gasp*.. They're still going to be paid for "by the rest of us"!!

Either that.. or we can send them to jail... yay!! Where they get 3 meals, a bed and free care!! Roughly $20,000+ per inmate!!

What a genius plan!!

How is forcing healthy young adults to buy health insurance any different that the school property tax which those property owners without children still have to pay? In fact, most of us without children are paying school taxes so those young adults with children can send their kids to public school. Yet, I don't see any of them complaining about that.

This really reeks of people who don't want to contribute when they don't directly benefit at the current time. Wait about ten years when they start complaining about how high their premiums are due to the lack of healthy young people getting insurance.

Originally posted by SyphonX
I've told people all about this.

People seem to have rose colored glasses and they think our Universal Health Care plan is a plan that like Europe and Canada where the govt. essentially just takes care of you, free of charge.

It isn't. Why is everyone so god damn ignorant of this? It's a Pay or Be Fined system..

FFS, I can't take it anymore. The ignorant dimwits of this country deserve everything they ask for.

Not only is it nothing like England, France, Canada’s or even Cuba’s socialized health care from an everyone must pay a premium standpoint it’s going to lead to a certain amount of chaos and eventually and progressively less quality care.

While the big insurance companies are slowly being squeezed out of the new changing market and doctors who don’t want to work or can’t work with the new Federal Health Care Insurance it’s going to lead to confusion, delays, shortages and eventually fewer gifted people wanting to pursue careers in Medicine. Doctors from around the world come to the U.S. to practice because they know ultimately it’s only in a free market where you are going to get paid every penny you are worth.

I estimate depending on what kind of Bill that they initially but through it will be 30 years until all the effects and changes fully occur to the system. Changes for the worse is what I envision not for the better, because history has shown when you take economic incentives for performance out of the equation quality goes down. I also say the initial Bill because what most people don’t get is once that initial Bill goes through, making changes to it by piggy backing those changes on to other Bills will be a constant and seldom seen process.

Once government starts out taking over something it just expands and tweaks and expands and tweaks from there in a nickel and diming process that eventually ends up creating something that is not even remotely similar to what people thought was going to be the case when the original Bill passes.

There are other ways to provide health care coverage to the poor and indigent without destroying the entire existing system and that is what’s going to happen. The entire existing system as we know it will be destroyed over the course of a couple administrations and five or six congresses.

Common sense says a government already up to its eyeballs in debt can’t afford to give away more services.

This is a for profit undertaking on the government’s part, it’s way to get it’s hands on all the billions and trillions spent on health care.

It hasn’t done a very good job managing Social Security, Medicare or our tax funds. Why on earth would we give them more.

The problem is that once you give someone the authority to “oversee”, “supervise”, “regulate” – or whatever – your health, then you give them complete and total control of your body.

If someone or something is legally entitled to control the aspects of your health then they, by default, have the right to control everything you do that might impact that health. That means having power over everything you ingest or don’t ingest. It includes any activities you may engage in or do not engage in. In short, everything you do or don’t do.

It’s just like a de-facto parent: don’t parents tell their children what they can eat or not? Don’t parents tell their children what activities they can engage in? Why? Because parents (for now) have oversight of the health and well-being of their children. Do you really want the government to become your parent?

Originally posted by Kaploink
How is forcing healthy young adults to buy health insurance any different that the school property tax which those property owners without children still have to pay? In fact, most of us without children are paying school taxes so those young adults with children can send their kids to public school. Yet, I don't see any of them complaining about that.

This really reeks of people who don't want to contribute when they don't directly benefit at the current time. Wait about ten years when they start complaining about how high their premiums are due to the lack of healthy young people getting insurance.

First the only people who pay for School Tax are property owners. Second they really don't own the property the State does that's why they have to pay taxes and can have it taken away from them even if they own the property free and clear if they don't pay taxes, the person or corporation that owns the mineral rights wants to evoke imminent domain or the State wants to develop the property in another way and evokes imminent domain.

How about this rather than forcing young, or middle aged, or old aged healthy people to pay to a communal collective that really is just communism why not just deny people who have no insurance or money care!

See that's the easy I am not my brother's keeper solution! I don't pay to educate your child, I don't pay to save them if they get sick. You don't pay to educate my child, you don't pay to save them if they get sick.

We each take care of our own responsibilities and encourage everyone else to be responsible at the same time! Wow there is a concept.

If you are my friend, or neighbor or someone I want to voluntarily help because you need some help to pay for your child's education or your child's doctor bill I decide whether I want to be charitble, you decide whether you want to accept it.

Don't you think it would be a much nicer world if instead of trying to be each other's keeper and forced into this brainwashed system of a government that wants to profit over convincing us all we are supposed to be our brothers keeper instead we each just chose self responsibility, and self reliance, and helping out those who are genuinely in need because they are genuinely in need instead of a system where tens of millions of people purposefully chose to live a life on the government dime, because the government has my dime and your dime to give them?