People (especially my fellow Bostonians) are probably already aware of this, but it's still pretty remarkable that Massachusetts will require residents to have health insurance. While that sounds scary, the structure of the legislation is interesting:

Individuals who can afford private insurance will be penalized on their state income taxes if they do not purchase it. Government subsidies to private insurance plans will allow more of the working poor to buy insurance and will expand the number of children who are eligible for free coverage. Businesses with more than 10 workers that do not provide insurance will be assessed up to $295 per employee per year.

Basically, it seems that a lot of individuals and businesses not paying for insurance will be fined, with those fines going back into insurance. This will then subsidize people who actually can't afford insurance.

I'm not entirely sure how I feel about "requiring people who can afford insurance to buy it," but at the very least, this sounds like an interesting experiment. Plus, it sounds like they've been doing they're homework on this issue:

Eric Fehrnstrom, the governor's communications director, said that for those people with incomes above 300 percent of poverty, "our assumption was that these would be mostly single mothers who just did not have the wherewithal to get insurance. It turned out it was mostly young males. In some cases they are making very attractive salaries. These are people who just don't imagine themselves needing care, but of course when they break a leg when they're out bungee jumping they go to the hospital and we end up paying for their care anyway."

Yes, I know the sentiment all too well. I like to think of it as machismo, although I suspect others would just call it being a damned fool.

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