Here is a quote from Leader Reid’s opening statement on the Senate floor yesterday:
Leader Reid: Is that a crisis in America? 750,000 people filing for bankruptcy and about 70 percent of them filing because of health care costs, with 62 percent of those who filed for bankruptcy because of health care costs having health insurance?
I have not checked the Leader’s numbers. I have been told they are overstated, but let’s take them as facts. That would mean that 525,000 people file for bankruptcy because of health care costs.
Let’s make a wildly overoptimistic assumption that this bill would prevent half of them from entering bankruptcy. That’s about 263,000 people.
Compare that to the 16 million people whom CBO says (in 2016) would remain uninsured and yet have to pay a penalty tax because they didn’t comply with the individual mandate.
For each person who would avoid bankruptcy as a result of this bill, more than 60 would remain uninsured and have to pay a penalty tax of almost $800 per year.
Is that worth it?