Slashdot Mirror
800,000 Using HealthCare.gov Were Sent Incorrect Tax Data
mpicpp sends this report from the NY Times:
About 800,000 taxpayers who enrolled in insurance policies through HealthCare.gov received erroneous tax information from the government, and were urged on Friday to hold off on filing tax returns until the error could be corrected. The Obama administration, under heavy pressure from congressional Democrats, also announced that it would give several million people more time to buy health insurance so they could comply with federal law and avoid tax penalties. The incorrect insurance information is used in computing taxes. Consumers can expect to receive corrected data in the first week of March. With the new data, officials warned, some taxpayers will owe more and some will owe less. Officials said they did not know why the error had occurred.
You know, I used to warn people against the Govt being so involved with our healthcare. I likened it to putting the DMV in charge of you if you got the flu. The long wait times, the surly and non-helpful govt employees there staring more at the clock than worried about you getting new plates.
But hell, I will at least admit the DMV does tend to get its mailings out on time and in proper fashion.
I know its a pipe dream, but I wish we could move the govt (especially the Feds) back more to their constitutionally mandated responsibilities. At the very least, my dealing with them could and should pretty much only be once a year.
1. Tell me how much tax to pay (simplify this).
2. Leave me the fuck alone.
I'd be 101% supportive of my federal overlords if they could just get to this point in their interactions with me. I'll be fine on my own to haggle and negotiate for my jobs, and my bill rates. I'l be happy to manage my own health care, and know what is important to save for (retirement, routine health needs, medical insurance for catastrophic needs, etc).
I seriously don't need you to play nanny state with me, I don't need you to suck up so much of my money and waste it.
I don't need you spying on me.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Oh, no. There were tons of us saying our government could not be trusted with shit this important, and we were right. "But Europe!" they said. Well, we don't have a European government. We have an American government, with all the heft and agility of the Titanic. Crony-capitalism under a veneer of pretend-socialism and you have a recipe for guaranteed disaster. Now, is it the end of the world? Not really, just for the poor marks that bought Marketplace insurance plans.
Whoa there. Just because we don't want the government running every little detail about our health care, doesn't mean we want anarchy.
I'll put it the way a friend put it to me: "Regulations aren't bad. Bad regulations are bad." The ACA is a regulation that has good parts but where the bad outweighs the good.
Not only is it bad, but it's not likely to get better. It was passed in such a polarizing fashion that nobody wants to fix it; the Republicans want nothing except to repeal it completely, and the Democrats feel it is so sacred that it should not be touched.
All my liberal friends think I'm a conservative, all my conservative friends think I'm a liberal.
But that doesn't mean that we are supposed to turn into Somalia.
I love how the idea of reducing the size of the federal government is always compared to Somalia. Guess what? In addition to a federal government, most people are also under a state, county, and city/township government. Removing power from the federal government isn't going to result in bands of roving warlords and pirates. It would simply shift the balance of services provided from a bloated federal government back to the state & local level, where they belong and people have more opportunity to provide input.
Taking guns away from the 99% gives the 1% 100% of the power.