Not that much right away. My understanding is that the penalty is phased in over a few years. A couple hundred dollars the first year, little more the next....Eventually it will be $2,500.
But notice, even when it gets to $2,500, it is still *significantly* cheaper than buying a health-insurance policy. This is by design:
Nobody will purchase insurance until they are sick (they'll pay the cheaper penalty). Then, when they get sick, they will purchase a policy, since no company can deny them for pre-existing.
Within a few years, all insurance companies will go broke, with no healthy people paying in. Or the companies will see the writing on the wall, and just get out. Either way, all that will be left for us is "public" health insurance.
Right now, my portion is around $80/mo and my company pays about twice that. So if I round it out, I’m at just under $1000 contribution and total of $3000 to cover just one person (family has long since grown and gone) and that’s at the middle coverage offered. Dr visits cost $45, cannot quite remember the deductible but co-pay is 70%. $2500 penalty doesn’t sound all that bad, all things considered.
I still don’t know how whatever steps Oklahoma took will figure into this whole thing.