Bad News for Health Reform
The fines are higher than under ObamaCare, but people don’t pay them. The state is owed more than $1 billion. Officials are considering an amnesty program.
Health Care Policy and Reform Insights | NCPA
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It should be much easier to enforce mandatory auto liability insurance than mandatory health insurance.
Nice chart. It makes a statement.
The CBO is predicting that nationwide, the health care overhaul will result in insuring more than half of the uninsured. There is no way that is going to happen in Texas.
These results are rather stunning. Mandatory auto liability insurance is often held up as the model for mandatory health insurance. If it is the model, it isn’t going to work very well.
That just shows that Texas doesn’t know how to enforce the law. In NYS, if your insurance lapses, your license is suspended. When they say “more guns, less crime”, they didn’t include this sort of crime.
Nationwide, the uninsured dirvers rate is almost 15%, only a little bit below the national uninsurance rate for health care. See Greg Scandlen’s Brief Analysis on this issue here:
http://www.ncpathinktank.org/pub/ba569
artk, Texas could certainly do a better job of enforcing the auto liability mandate.
You cannot register your car in Texas without a valid proof of insurance coverage. Uninsured drivers who are caught face a fine of up to $350 (second offense and up to $1,000). Repeat offenses are subject to arrest and can also have their driver’s license suspended for two years (I doubt if this ever happens).
The police are allowed to tow the cars of uninsured drivers after they’ve been given one warning. If aggressively enforced, most county and city police do not have the resources to store all of the cars that would be impounded. Dallas supposedly impounds the cars of uninsured drivers (it was a big issue among the city council because it might hurt poor and minority drivers). In 2008 the legislature approved an insurance verification program, called TexasSure. The 200+ insurers in Texas have to provide information to Texas Department of Public Safety that is matched to vehicle license plate. Police can check the database from their cars.
Estimates of uninsured drivers in New York range from 5 to 7 percent. While faith in the power of passing laws is touching, lifting a license doesn’t stop people from driving. An estimated 3% of the drivers involved in crashes who can be identified are unlicensed.
The claim that databases make people get insurance ignores the fact that it is easy to buy insurance, register a car, and then cancel the insurance.
The belief that the federal government can actually track income to accurately determine ObamaCare subsidies is even more touching.
Perfect Linda, we should repeal every law that doesn’t have 100% enforcement. From your figures New York State is over 400% better at enforcing uninsured driver laws than Texas. So in your world, Texas try to learn from NY’s experience, rather NY should repeal it’s laws because their enforcement isn’t perfect.
Yes, even in NY it’s easy to buy insurance and register a car. However if your insurance lapses, your insurance company informs the DMV and NY suspends your license. No check when you get stopped. You just get a letter in the mail, prove your insurance is in effect or your license is gone.
NY could stand to repeal or not enforce a lot of its laws. The laws in the state have made it so difficult to work and live there that its domestic outmigration this decade has exceeded that in Louisiana after Katrina.
Perhaps if it were more like Texas in making and enforcing its law people wouldn’t have to move out just to find work.
Linda, the out migration has been from the upstate regions which have suffered along with every similar area. The high tax high regulation NYC is more dynamic that it’s ever been. There are a handful of destination metropolitan areas in the US. Interested in a career in entertainment, than its off to LA. Interested in technology, it’s the San Francisco Bay area. Interested in the art or business or finance it’s NYC. NYC in particular is the safest large city in the country because of its effective enforcement of strict gun control laws. There’s a good reason the song lyrics aren’t “How do you keep them down on the farm once they’ve seen Houston”
You may think that low taxes and low regulations are the sine qua non for living. I for one find that living in a cultural and intellectual wasteland is worse than death.
“I for one find that living in a cultural and intellectual wasteland is worse than death.”
So do I, but I for one will not equate high taxes and high regulation to a cultural and intellectual paradise.
Well, Robert, you tell me which of the low tax low regulation cities has even microscopic cultural resources compared to the high tax high regulation cities like New York or Paris or London.