Posted on 12/11/2013 10:10:19 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Why is this man smirking?
OK, not really praise; Roberts’s failure to strangle the Obamacare baby in its crib when he had the chance will go down alongside the Dred Scott decision as one of the greatest moral disasters in the history of the republic. The man in charge of enforcing the Constitution blinked when confronted with a triumphalist party and a then-popular president, forgetting that he, Roberts, would likely be in Washington long after Obama was gone. In an attempt to save the Supreme Court’s reputation and standing, he destroyed it.
Still, even if inadvertently, Roberts got one thing right: the Patient Deflection and Unaffordable Care Act is a tax, and nothing but a tax. A punitive, regressive tax, to be sure — but a tax nonetheless. A tax on ideological stupidity, as its supporters are just now learning. Just wait til the “employer mandate” kicks in.
Remember that the PDUCA has nothing whatsoever to do with “health care.” That was just the heartstring-tugging pretense to mask a breathtaking power grab by the Democrats. No one’s health will be improved by the passage of this law, although many may well be adversely affected. Nor it is even really about “insurance.” For how can we call covering pre-existing conditions “insurance”? You can only insure against something in the future, not something that’s already occurred. Call it a socialized risk pool, or some such, but don’t call it “insurance.”
No, what Obamacare is — and was always meant to be — is an onerous tax on the middle class, wearing the usual Leftist disguise of “compassion.” With soaring deductibles and higher premiums for all, but “subsidies” for some, it’s a huge transfer of wealth from those who can least afford it, prostituting the insurance companies (through which the monies will flow) in the service of a governmental enterprise both unasked for and constitutionally uncalled for.
In effect, what Obamacare does is destroy the concept of insurance completely: if your deductible soars to $6,250 (the “bronze” plan) — meaning the amount you will have to pay out of your own pocket — then you might as well not have “insurance” at all, and simply pay a fee for service, at much lower rates. Meanwhile, your “premiums” become an entirely new, unplanned-for expense that will net you… nothing you didn’t already have before. Far better to simply buy catastrophic insurance and otherwise pay as you go.
What big teeth you have, Grandma
But that would defeat the whole point of Obama’s enterprise. As I wrote over at NRO’s The Corner in March 2012:
Does anyone — on either side — really think that the Patient Deflection and Unaffordable Care Act is about health care?
For if it’s about “health care,” aren’t there a myriad of ways in which the system could be improved without a “comprehensive” top-down solution? At a time of extreme economic dislocation, was there a nationwide clamor to make “health care” the top priority of the new administration?
Or is it really about the exercise of raw governmental power, to teach the citizenry an object lesson about the coming brave new world, one that surely will get even worse once Obama is safely past the shoals of his last election?
To believe in the “good intentions” of the former — as soft-headed conservatives are sometimes wont to do when crediting the hard Left with anything but sheer malevolence toward the country as founded — is to have to pretzel one’s mind around the internal contradictions of the bill itself (it’s a tax! It’s not a tax!) and the way in which it was imposed just a couple of years ago by a one-party Congress that no longer exists, having been rebuked and sent packing by an outraged electorate.
Far easier to believe in the latter — that Obamacare is just the canary in the coal mine of what’s coming next. That, once having established the hammer, the administration will use Obamacare (should the law be found constitutional) as the anvil upon which to smash the Republic once and for all. And the “progressives’s” Long March through the institutions will finally end in the all-powerful centralized government for which they’ve long yearned.
Sure, it’s fun to watch Obamacare implode — but it helps to remember that its very impracticality is a feature, not a bug. For the cure for “Reform” is always more “Reform,” not less. This isn’t the end. It’s only the beginning. Maybe the next time the Roberts Court has a chance to put this thing out of its misery, it’ll take it.
This is a fine albeit taxing argument.
Embarrassment……I think he’s ashamed…….
Is GWB still an admirer or Roberts, the way Gerald Rudolph Ford, Jr., was of John Paul Stevens?
Note the comment stating that Roberts hasn't broken any American laws, even if the adoptions thesis is valid. Only Irish laws. But of course it risks very bad publicity for Roberts.
This has been on FR, I know.
I wasn’t aware about the same tax on the “first” amount of money. What a friggen scam.
Frankly he should be, I hope you’re right. Anything substantial other than a guess?
now come on…you know by now that my guesses ARE substantial!!!
(LOL - its a hunch)
:-)
That's the rub. Finding that catastrophic insurance is easier said than done--it doesn't meet the new minimum standards. Second, the cash market is not well-developed--even if you find the catastrophic insurance, you could wind up paying vastly inflated prices unless you have the energy to bargain.
Remember, the insurance companies have "negotiated" discounts from the walk-in rate. "Negotiated" is in quotes, because a more accurate description of the club pricing deal is that they have colluded, with the government's approval, to set rates against an inflated non-insured list price. To fight for the real, non-list price can be difficult when you are ill, and don't have time to search for a reasonable deal.
BAZINGA!!
+1
I must disagree. A tax is meant to raise revenue. A fine is meant to change behavior. So the Obamacare penalty is a fine.
You’re confusing purpose and effect. Roberts need not read minds to determine the purpose of the Obamacare fines; the president was quite adamant in declaring their purpose was not to raise revenue, but to punish a failure to act.
Contrarily, to believe that the purpose of the income tax is to punish people who earn large amounts of income, then you must presume that the government does not want to raise income, since if people complied with what you perceive the wishes of government to be, no-one would pay taxes.
We routinely impose taxes to change behavior. High "Sin taxes" which we've used for over a hundred years on things like alcohol and cigarettes are an excellent example.
I was lucky that my mostly catastrophic only policy was grandfathered in….and it’s low cost, low paperwork….very high deductible….but with the premium savings, it more than works out for us. But you’re right, finding one now is very hard to do….and yet, it’s the only long term solution.
People have to get back to what “insurance” is - or we’ll never solve this.
Wonder what Roberts sees when he looks in his mirror? All the Americans who will die because of his ruling?
Amerika won't last that long.
Roberts and his infamy will be covered in the same dust as the rest of us, along with the bleached bones of civilization's greatest attempt at individual liberty.
But purpose isn't often legally operational. When it comes to law, we instead check what a thing does or how it behaves to see what it is.
If you read any collection of statutes you'll see they're full of definitions and tests.
Now whatever the purpose of the fine in Obamacare is, it still passes the test (unfortunately) for a tax on income.
I think we missed the boat by not having a State file suit on the part of Obamacare which allows HHS to set standards for all health insurance policies sold in the US. Regulation of Insurance has been recognized as a State responsibility, protected by the 10th Amendment, for over 200 years.
In fact, I believe a State could pass a law rejecting HHS guidance, and returning insurance regulation back to the State.
Hell, it has worked for Marijuana, why not health insurance?
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