As far as my understanding, you won't be affected if you already have insurance at all. If you don't have insurance, you will pay a tax of up to 1% of your income or purchase insurance and not pay the tax. The tax will be used as extra revenue and the justification is the payment of emergency room visits by those who are uninsured. Currently, there's nothing paying for those other than, well, other taxes and higher premiums on other people who have insurance. With the tax (and suggested insurance) it will drive down premiums because the insurance providers won't have to spend as much on unpaid emergency room visits, and the gov't won't have to spend as much to cover those costs. Another benefit that they hope it will have is that people will go to the doctor, rather than the emergency room, for simple sicknesses, thus alleviating those trips and providing for a healthier population overall. I can definitely see this happening.
