Posted on 07/06/2012 2:19:49 PM PDT by markomalley
President Obama, confronted with the issue of the Supreme Court upholding his health care law by declaring the individual mandate a tax, contradicted the court by saying that the individual mandate “penalize[s]” Americans rather than taxes them.
“You have to take responsibility, and if you don’t, you’re going to be penalized for it, and that’s the right thing to do,” Obama told WDTN-NBC while defending the individual mandate. He also denied that the court’s ruling means that he has raised taxes through Obamacare. “I have consistently kept my promise not to raise taxes on people [making] under $250,000 a year.”
Obama effectively contradicted Chief Justice John Roberts. “[T]he shared responsibility mandate may for constitutional purposes be considered a tax, not a penalty,” Roberts wrote in the majority opinion, before concluding, “It is reasonable to construe what Congress has done as increasing taxes on those who have a certain amount of income, but choose to go without health insurance.”
The president argued that “it’s estimated that less than one percent of the people throughout the United States will be impacted by this so-called individual mandate.” Obama explained that “whether you call it a tax, a penalty, a mandate — whatever you call it, what it is, is, if you can afford to buy health insurance don’t dump those costs on someone else. You have to take responsibility, and if you don’t, you’re going to be penalized for it, and that’s the right thing to do.”
By saying that the individual mandate is necessary because failure to get health insurance harms society, the president made the basic Commerce Clause argument that Chief Justice John Roberts ruled unconstitutional. “People, for reasons of their own, often fail to do things that would be good for them or good for society,” Roberts wrote. “Under the Government’s logic, that authorizes Congress to use its commerce power to compel citizens to act as the Government would have them act. That is not the country the Framers of our Constitution envisioned.”
OK so stop penalizing Americans who just want to be left alone. Whether it’s a penalty or a tax, it still sucks.
“Liar Liar Pants On Fire”
And the income tax rate will never exceed 2 percent.
Penalty or tax, I guess it is what ever works best with politics.
So now we’re having a word war using a thesaurus, as though a re-naming of a coercive government action makes it less oppressive.
Our daughter used to play that game. We would correct her for hitting her sister. She said, I didn’t hit her; I slapped her.
Not very original on the part of America’s Chief Executive; Stalin, Hitler, and Mao all said - and certainly believed - exactly the same thing.
When is someone going to realize that the people getting screwed the most are the young people who wouldn’t buy health insurance if they didn’t have to.
That is who the biggest part of this tax increase falls on.
How many young workers won’t start new businesses because their health insurance costs were the difference between deciding to take a chance or play it safe?
When is someone going to realize that the people getting screwed the most are the young people who wouldn’t buy health insurance if they didn’t have to.
That is who the biggest part of this tax increase falls on.
How many young workers won’t start new businesses because their health insurance costs were the difference between deciding to take a chance or play it safe?
The recent healthcare decision affects us all in different ways. But, let’s consider a very real person named Joe. Now, Joe is a nice fellow who lost his job during this recession and now works two jobs rather than rely on welfare. Joe is also a heart patient, and he does have limited but affordable catastrophic insurance. He hears on television that Obamacare will require him to buy a comprehensive policy that costs almost three times what he is paying now, and that his much less expensive catastrophic insurance will be outlawed. Everyone must be the same. Joe works hard at his two jobs, and his salary is just enough to pay his mortgage, put food on the table, and purchase gas for his car, but it is too high for him to qualify for government subsidies under Obamacare. He cannot afford this new insurance, but Joe hears Democrats on television telling him that he is “selfish” and a “free-rider” if he does not buy insurance because clearly, in their arrogant presumption, “he can afford it.” He must pay a tax-penalty, one that will rise from 1% of his income to 2.5% over three years. Joe sees that these Democrats have no idea how hard he has worked all his life to have a home, how much his mortgage payment is, and know nothing about anything else in his life. They just blindly assume that he can afford their expensive new insurance, a form of insurance that covers Joe for pregnancy, birth-control pills, and pediatric services, none of which he will ever need. And, the cheapest of these more expensive plans offered to him will cover only 60% of costs, anyway. Joe reads that Obamacare imposes a big tax on medical device companies, who are laying off people. Joe’s retirement plan contains stock in two of those companies, stock now losing value. Then Joe hears that even if he were to buy this new insurance, he will not be able to deduct it as medical expense on his tax return, as he usually does, because under Obamacare the income threshold for medical deductions will be raised from 7.5% to 10%, a very difficult level to reach. This will cost Joe about $2,500 on top of the $1,500 tax-penalty he will have to pay if he does not buy insurance. Joe then learns that some woman named Kathleen Sibelius has added an abortion-services surcharge to every month’s premium in all but the most limited of plans offered to him. Joe is a pro-life Catholic. And he doesn’t think he should have to read the fine print just because he is Catholic. In the end, it seems, this new insurance will require him to sell his home and, if he is not careful, to violate his conscience. Joe does not buy this expensive new insurance and lives without any health insurance at all, having lost the affordable catastrophic insurance he once had. Joe decides to vote Republican.
You pretty much nailed it. The left wants nothing more than to draw us into a war over terminology and semantic hair splitting.
If the IRS collects it, it’s a tax.
How can it be the right thing to do to penalise me for anything?
In essence they are penalising me for existing.
I exist, I don’t want health insurance ,so they penalise me.
I exist, I don’t want to buy a Volt, They penalise me?
I exist I don’t want to vote democrat they penalise me?
What gives the Government the right to penalise me.
That right does not exist anywhere but in the minds of Obamacare enforcement Officers posing as IRS agents.
I can’t believe they still haven’t started referring to it as a tax deduction/credit for having health insurance.
"So eat your peas, little peons!! 'Cause if you don't, you'll be penalized."
By saying that the individual mandate is necessary because failure to get health insurance harms society
Makes me think of the Borg Collective. Forget the Borg Queen. We have the Borg King.
"You will be assimilated into Obamacare or you'll be penalized."
Anyone good with photoshop who could maybe make a pic of Obama as the Borg King?
I can see hannity and his running dog lackeys out there 10 years from now demanding that the Individual Mandate be raised to "total net worth' on non payers, and they'd be saying "they need some skin in the game ~ take all their stuff".
The Supreme Court just said Congress does not have the authority to impose a penalty. They can only impose a tax.
If it's a penalty, then then Congress doesn't have any authority to impose it, and the IRS none to collect it.
It’s not just the young people getting screwed, it’s all of us. I’m over 65, opted not to get Medicare but have a private insurance plan. It’s inexpensive, has a high deductible and I have it to cover any possible hospitalization. The rest of my medical needs I can cover out of my pocket.
But my insurance carrier can’t sell me that policy any more because although it is what I want, it doesn’t agree with what the government says I need. I already had one set of parents I don’t want or need the government trying to fill that role, particularly when it’s my money we are talking about.
What level of benefits does one receive if they go the penalty route instead of buying one of the insurance plans? Does anyone know the answer to this... I can’t seem to find anything that addresses that.
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