Penalty reality: The reason for the fee is simple; program costs skyrocketing

Experts told them before they started work on the health care insurance program that there were going to be issues -- chief among them the fact that the health care initiative needed young, healthy individuals to buy in.

Without those people paying into the system -- and not using the services -- there would be no way to cover the enormous health care costs of the sick.

So, if you know that background, you know why there is so much concern about the slowing sign-ups and why those who do not sign up face a $695 penalty assessed on their taxes.

And you also understand why premiums are expected to rise this year as well.

Someone has got to pay for this fiasco.

Once again, we categorically state that there needs to be some kind of rein on not only health care costs, but on insurance costs and coverages as well.

There should not be an American choosing between food and basic health care.

But the problem with a law that is fashioned as much as a political tool as it is a piece of meaningful legislation is that it gets done too quickly, too haphazardly.

And that is what we have today.

Health care reform has not been accomplished. A few more wrinkles have merely been added to a still perplexing problem.

This is not going to be a quick fix.

Published in Editorials on October 19, 2015 10:56 AM