“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.”

“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…”


“Criminal penalties

Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:

• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.”

http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/UploadedFiles/JCTletter110509.pdf

A subset of voluntarily uninsured people are young and healthy, who may believe they don't need health coverage or that it's a bad deal because of the low probability that they'll use it. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services estimates that 44 percent of the uninsured are between 18 and 34 years old.

Though not all young invincibles are playing the odds by choice, about 9 percent of uninsured people between the ages 18 and 24 have received affordable offers of insurance through their employers, said Lisa Dubay, a Johns Hopkins University professor. Another 14 percent could afford to buy coverage on the private market. Dubay, also an Urban Institute scholar, expects to publish a report on the topic soon. Her analysis is based on Census Bureau's health insurance data for 2008 and the percentage of person's income needed to obtain coverage. She estimates people earning two to four times the poverty line, for instance, could only afford to spend 10 percent of their income on insurance. "The young people are disproportionately uninsured, but they also have low incomes," she says.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2009/October/04/npr-voluntarily-uninsured-explainer.aspx

The same penalties happen to you if you don't pay your income tax. It's no big deal.

You are forced to buy car insurance only if you have chosen to buy a car. Health insurance is something you will have to buy if you are a human being living in the United States as a legal citizen. No choice.

Wait...I thought liberals didn't like government telling them what to do with their bodies???

Let's pretend you don't have insurance, OK? Then you do something a little stupid like jaywalk across the street at night, and you get run over by a hit and run driver. Somebody calls the cops, and they come to where you're laying unconscious. What should they do with you? What if it's one of your 3 kids laying on the street?