Projections for Non-Compliance with a "Mandate" to buy Grossly Overpriced Insurance in the USA

Notice above that the Massachusetts auto insurance non compliance rate is very low compared with other states. Their no health insurance percentage was also much lower than that of other states even before they started with Romney care, which is roughly what the right wing Democrats are talking about now for the entire country.

The percentage of Massachusetts residents with no health insurance has declined from about 9% or 10% to between 3% and 4% with the advent of the Romney mandate. So the uninsured have been more than cut in half, but notice that even in Massachusetts, there are still a non-negligible number of uninsured.

Other states will not see their percentage of uninsured drop by more than 50% as happened in Massachusetts. The drops will be lower in many other states for the same reasons that the number of uninsured are much higher in states other than Massachusetts to begin with. These reasons include the fact that incomes range from substantially lower to far lower in most other states as compared to Massachusetts, and the fact that the percentage of the population with incomes of, say, less than four times the poverty rate, is much higher in many other states.

All of this simply means that a much larger percentage of the population will be unable and/or unwilling to comply in other states as compared to Massachusetts.

Here is the percentage with no health insurance as of 2004-2006. Add 10-20% of these percentages to accurately gauge the current percentages. (Do not simply add 10% to 20%. I'm saying to multiply the stated percentage by between .1 and .2 and than add those results to the existing percentage to form an estimation range. For example, the current percentage of the Alabama population that has no health insurance can be roughly estimated as being between 15.5% and 16.9%, which is the 2004-2006 percentage of 14.1% plus between 10% and 20% of that.)

NO HEALTH INSURANCE PERCENTAGE AS OF 2004-2006
Alabama 14.1%
Alaska 16.7
Arizona 19.0
Arkansas 17.5
California 18.5
Colorado 16.6
Connecticut 10.4
Delaware 12.5
DC 12.4
Florida 20.3
Georgia 17.6
Hawaii 8.6
Idaho 14.9
Illinois 13.6
Indiana 13.1
Iowa 9.3
Kansas 11.1
Kentucky 13.8
Louisiana 18.5
Maine 9.5
Maryland 13.5
Massachusetts 9.0
Michigan 10.6
Minnesota 8.5
Mississippi 18.1
Missouri 12.3
Montana 17.0
Nebraska 11.1
Nevada 18.3
New Hampshire 10.4
New Jersey 14.6
New Mexico 21.0
New York 13.2
North Carolina 16.0
North Dakota 11.1
Ohio 10.7
Oklahoma 18.7
Oregon 16.6
Pennsylvania 10.2
Rhode Island 10.2
South Carolina 16.0
South Dakota 11.6
Tennessee 13.4
Texas 24.1
Utah 15.7
Vermont 10.8
Virginia 13.2
Washington 12.5
West Virginia 15.5
Wisconsin 9.4
Wyoming 14.0
United States 15.3

Source: http://www.infoplease.com/ipa/A0106394.html

It can be predicted, based on the Massachusetts situation and on differences between Massachusetts and other states, that if the Obama giveaway to the health insurance companies passes, the above state percentages will go down between 35% and 55%, depending on the state. (The 35% to 55% reduction factors in the 10% to 20% increase to reflect 2009 as opposed to 2004-2006; the actual reduction from the actual 2009 rates will be on the order of 40% to 65%, again depending on the state. All of these ballpark estimates are rounded to the nearest 5%.)

So, for example, in Wyoming, the percentage of residents paying the tax penalty, and still with no health insurance, will be between about 6.3% and about 9.1% about 3 years after implementation, which would be as of 2016.

The percentage that will refuse to pay the tax penalty is unknown but is now believed to be some unknown number in excess of 10% of those owing the penalty. How much above 10% the tax rebellion will be will depend primarily on the exact details of the penalty, especially on to what extent the penalty sweeps up low income individuals in its net. The percentage who are simply unable to or refuse to pay the penalty will rise very dramatically as the applicability of the penalty approaches individuals with incomes of close to zero. If the applicability of the penalty was limited to those with incomes of about 300% of poverty or more, a fairly large majority of the non-compliance would be those refusing to pay the penalty as opposed to those unable to pay it. However, at this time it is expected that the penalty will apply much lower down the income scale than 300% of poverty.

Whether a state will see a 55% reduction from, or more like a 35% reduction from the above 2004-2006 numbers depends on numerous variables, most notably on the incomes, unemployment, cost of housing, and homelessness situations in those various states.

Even the relatively small reductions in the percentage with no health coverage discussed above will be temporary, as costs relentlessly rise by much more than the rate of inflation every year. In as little as 12 years and in no more than 30 years, all or at least almost all of the states will be back to the same percentage with no health insurance as they had in 2004-2006!

[The above is in response to this article.]