You can't mandate that we eat broccoli, but you can tax us if we don't (vanity)

[teg_76]

There was nothing positive in this for our side, regardless of some of the articles trying to spin it that way.

Thanks John Roberts. We wouldn't want you to tarnish your "legacy" with the liberal media.

Thank GW Bush for nominating Roberts.

Why do the liberal appointees never disappoint their side? Why aren't all of our nominees reliable, like the liberals?

[Vesparado]

Logically correct, but still it seems to me that none of these are direct taxes in the sense contemplated by the framers (although, in the alternative, any of them which are paid as a part of income tax are specifically waived from the direct tax proportionality requirement).

[maxwellsmart_agent]

When a family is so poor that they can not afford health insurance, how the devil are they expected to pay the penalty? This is foolish!

[Fully Awake DAV]

Think about it....This is a tax penalty, totally different from any other tax deductions or credits. This tax penalty kicks in if one either does not purchase health insurance or a health insurance policy that “unexpectedly” does not meet “expected” requirements. This ia a catch 22 situation, basically the way the ACA is written (which can be modified by the Secretary) all policies or selected policies may be deemed ineligible.

[plain talk]

You are exactly right - on this bill. The doom and gloom on my part is because of the precedent that has been set here. The Feds can mandate we do anything they want and penalize us if we don’t comply. There is no limit to this sort of nonsense.

[csmusaret]

This tax is not a joke. It is a ground breaking precedent.If Chief Justice Roberts thought the mandate was OK under the government’s taxing power he should have said so and told them to go back and rewrite it as tax law. But no..in a classic case of judicial activism, he rewrote the law himself. In the process he opened the door to unlimited taxes levied as punitive measures or in an attempt to coerce certain behaviors. One example that comes to mind is a “Natural Disaster Insurance”. The federal government spends billions of dollars every year on disaster relief in the wake of fires, floods, earthquakes,hurricaines, tornados, etc. Just think of the money they could save if every property owner was forced to buy “National Disaster Insurance” to cover any damage from such events. If an owner declined to participate in the program, he could simply be punished with a tax disguised as a fine. The insurance companies could even be directed to pay a portion of any claims to the government to help pay for cleanups that aren’t covered by an owners policy. Surely no one could object to such a policy; after all, it is all in the interest of the “greater good” of all Americans and follows the precedent laid down by Roberts.

[Vesparado]

I agree with you. This not a tax, IMHO. But if it is, it is an unconstitutional direct tax (also IMHO -— but I’m quickly learning a lot more about this area than I ever wanted to).

Your closing point (”all policies or selected policies may be deemed ineligible”) gets, I think, to the core ideological goal: to destroy the insurance industry and force everyone into a single payer system run by the Feds.

Obama stated a desire for a single payer system well before he was elected but noted that going directly to it would be “too disruptive”. Maybe Roberts was alluding to this when he said in the decision “Its not our job to protect people from their political choices” (a lot nicer thing to say than HL Menckens’ “the people know what they want and they deserve to get it good and hard”). Unfortunately, nobody asked Roberts to protect us from “our” political choice, only to make a sound legal decision. I don’t think he did so.

[GlockThe Vote]

You think people care about that? Ends justify the means for most leftists and liberal communists.

[smokingfrog]

We shouldn’t have to pay a tax for something that should be FREEEEEE!

/S

I guess the dimwits that think 0bamacare is a good thing haven’t figured this out yet.

[Fully Awake DAV]

Exactly...this fine/penalty disguised as a tax is so ambiguous in description, since the ACA was not passed as a tax but as a penalty. I have stated previously the ACA has nothing to do with “Health Care”. The entire purpose is to decimate the health insurance industry to put the federal government in total control of health care.

[central_va]

What good is socialized medicine if you are taxed so high your quality of life sucks? Might as well die and end it quickly.

[Vesparado]

Interesting that the plan in Mass proposed by Romney and which he got mostly passed (heavily modified since by the legislature and the next Governor) also had a “mandate” (no Federal tax issue there) -— but the amounts were very low (~$350 or so, as I recall) or you could post a bond as you can do for driving liability (that, too, was pretty low). His major idea was to push private insurance with an emphasis on catastrophic protection, and there was clearly no “end game” of a single (government) payer.

[Vesparado]

OMG! You’ve tumbled onto their planned solution to the Social Security/Medicare financial crisis! :))

[Vesparado]

OMG! You’ve stumbled onto their planned solution to the Social Security/Medicare financial crisis! :))