What If I Don’t Buy Insurance?

The only exception I take is the comparison to automobile insurance. It’s NOT the same.

What happens if I don’t buy health insurance?

Under the health care overhaul passed Sunday, most individuals would be required to buy a minimum health insurance policy — just as most drivers today are required to have car insurance. This policy won’t kick in until 2014, however.
After then, if you don’t buy insurance, you would have to pay a penalty on your annual income taxes. The reconciliation bill in the Senate would start with a flat penalty of $695 per member of your household each year. The maximum penalty would be 2.5 percent of your household income. (That’s $1,300 for a family making $52,029 a year, the median household income in 2008.) The penalty would rise with the cost of living in future years.

– Ryan Teague Beckwith, Congress.org