Now I’m a little confused, well really, I’m more than a little confused.

The Senate health care bill has a $750 fine (read tax since it’s to “offset” the cost of health care) if you don’t buy health insurance. As far as I know this is the only situation where we have to pay money to the government solely because we are alive and live in the U.S. Let’s call it a being alive tax. Of course this is incredibly ironic… the government is trying to increase the number of people with good health but being alive is taxed. Yep, I read that twice, that’s correct.

Where am I wrong? You only pay income tax if you have income (although about 50% of the people with income pay NO income tax), you only pay capital gains tax if you have a gain, you only pay property tax if you have property, you only get a parking fine if you park where you shouldn’t.

But if you are alive and in the U.S. you owe $750  per year (or you can buy your way out of the $750 fine by paying $3,000 for insurance..ummm, that doesn’t sound like good logic). How bout this analogy… “Hey Dan, you have a parking ticket for $40 but you can get out of it by paying $350.” Uhh?

How ’bout this. You are 20 years old, you chose to live in a cabin in the Colorado wilderness, you never come down from the mountain, you don’t use running water, sewer, electricity, you don’t go to doctors, you grow your own food (this is starting to sound good). You live there 20 years, never see a doctor. You start as a healthy 20 year old and come down from the mountain a healthy 40 year old.

Bingo, you owe $15,000 (20 years x $750/yr) plus penalties, interest and subject to arrest.

Is this really where America is today? I hope not.

So what do you think? How do you think we can make the health care system better?