Jail Time for NOT Purchasing Health Insurance?

Glen Beck, conservative websites and e-mail continue to insist that you will go to jail if you don’t purchase health insurance. This half-lie clearly is intended to inflame, not illuminate. Was there any such outrage when auto insurance was made mandatory? Media Matters, has done a nice job of stating the facts!


The bottom line is that if you do not secure health insurance AND refuse to pay the tax of 2.5% of your income (That's relatively cheap for access to our healthcare system), like ALL tax evaders, you COULD face jail time. However, the Healthcare Reform Bill goes out of its way to compensate for those who are financially marginalized. For someone to chose not to have health insurance AND refuse to pay a fitting tax for your access to healthcare (it’s not a punishment), it would have to be a willful act to make some sort of point.

Fact: Penalty for failure to purchase insurance is a tax, NOT jail time.

As Media Matters noted, a reporter's question to Pelosi was based on a false talking point. Section 501 of the House health care reform bill provides that an individual must be "covered by acceptable coverage at all times." "Acceptable coverage" includes "qualified health benefits plan coverage," "grandfathered health insurance coverage," "Medicare," "Medicaid," coverage provided to members of the armed forces and their dependents, "coverage under the veteran's health care program," people who receive health care "through the Indian Health Service," or other coverage deemed acceptable by the Secretary of Health and Human Services. If a person does not have acceptable health care coverage, Section 501 imposes a tax on that person "not to exceed the applicable national average premium."

Fact: Willful failure to pay taxes of any sort can result in civil or criminal penalties

A press release by Rep. Dave Camp (R-MI) relying on a letter from the Joint Committee on Taxation states that "Americans who do not maintain 'acceptable health insurance coverage' and who choose not to pay the bill's new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years." That section of the letter dealing with "civil and criminal penalties for noncompliance" specifies that Camp asked the committee to "discuss the situation in which the taxpayer has chosen not to comply with individual mandate and not to pay the additional tax." Thus, the letter is not discussing the penalties for failure to buy insurance, but the penalties for both failing to buy insurance and failing to pay the tax. The committee's letter explains that the tax code provides penalties to prevent tax evasion of any sort: "The Code provides for both civil and criminal penalties to ensure complete and accurate reporting of tax liability and to discourage fraudulent attempts to defeat or evade tax." [Joint Committee on Taxation letter, 11/5/09]

At the end of the day, our National Healthcare Bill does everything possible to be fair to everyone.