Posted on 03/25/2014 6:37:06 PM PDT by Jim Robinson
Surprise! The individual mandate has been watered down by the White House to the point that it barely exists at all. That's the conclusion of a piece at Politico which confirms what many conservatives were saying about the mandate two weeks ago.
Titled "Honey, I shrunk the mandate," the piece highlights exemption 14, which was added to the list of possible hardship exemptions in December. It notes that under exemption 14 practically anyone can claim a hardship exemption and documentation is requested "if possible." In other words, documentation is optional.
While the Politico piece accurately frames these exemptions to the mandate as changes needed to "make the politics work" it overlooks the politically salient fact that the White House hid exemption 14 from the public for nearly three months. As I reported back on March 13th, the exemptions page on Healthcare.gov listed only 13 exemptions until the Wall Street Journal story made exemption 14 an issue. Even Brian Beutler at Salon admitted the White House "didn’t broadcast the fact that just about anything counts as a hardship."
Incredibly, Politico suggests the real barrier to people using exemption 14 to opt out of the individual mandate is the paperwork. Author Brett Norman writes "According to a decision this month by the administration, you may be able to escape the obligation of the mandate for the rest of the Obama presidency — if you can deal with the paperwork." Later in the piece he adds that Brian Haile from Jackson Hewitt believes "the paperwork required to claim the hardship exemption would be all but prohibitive to many people."
Really?
(Excerpt) Read more at breitbart.com ...
Aretha Franklin: Obama was ‘tired’ when he misspelled ‘R-E-S-P-E-C-T’
At a White House tribute to the “Women of Soul” last Thursday, Obama dropped the initial “E’’ when trying to spell out “respect” as the queen of soul does in her famous song. He was spelling out the word as part of Franklin’s introduction.
I wish I could agree 100% with the author, but I don’t. The IM is not dead—merely delayed by fiat. The IM is codified...which means at any moment in time (say, enough fraud in the next election to give Demon Rats a majority in both houses of Congress?) the IM could be IMMEDIATELY reinstituted.
All that is being demonstrated, as I’m sure we all know, is that Obama and his minions are ignoring the law until it is convenient for them...THEN they will enforce it to their benefit.
This is actually a fairly machiavellian ploy. By asking for an exemption you provide who, the IRS? the ability to grant or DENY the exemption. Lessee. I wonder what the political views of those who are DENIED an exemption will be? Any guesses?
Buehler?
Buehler?
Indeed. Dormant.
And what is in the other 2000 pages of the bill?
I was being snarky last night; the EITC concept boils my blood.
Spot-on with that. The really rotten aspect is that no method is yet published to ‘budget’ for Obamacare for the young n healthy...aka working poor and students. The calculators haven’t been published yet. Nor has the methodology for determining the ‘subsidy’...which, ironically, also results in the ‘penalty’ for those with too much coverage.
I will have quite a bit to write about that one when I find out, as my new career requires me to file estimated quarterly taxes and am on my wife’s health coverage...(private sector healthcare, fwiw)
“any other hardship”
Let’s see... yep, I can fit in under that!
Your political persuasion is pretty easy to determine as well, given demographics, size of family, occupation, charitalbe and political donation history.
Obama recently misspelling one of the most impossible words to misspell—Aretha’s iconic song “Respect”. Spelled it “R-S-P-E-C-T” as he introduced her at some celebrity function. Had Quayle or Bush done that, they’d have destroyed him!!
Just a silly, fun way to remind everyone what an immense f@ck-up this guy and his administration have been!
Which just goes to show that he didn’t grow up here, because if he had, he would have been singing the song in his head. If he was truly born in 1961, he would have been about 6 or 7 when it came out (and was on every AM car radio). Kids at that age memorize songs after hearing them only 1 or 2 times. If he did grow up here, he must have been living under a rock not to know that song.
“...Gotta try to head off the coming Republican landslide....”
Let’s pray it’s a Conservative/Tea Party Republican landslide, and NOT a RINO stampede.
RSPECT!
Another one of Bubba Oops misspeaks. Like Corpse instead of corps.
57 states in the US.
I found a blurb by chance on Military.com re how the ‘penalty’ is applied:
Exceptions, too.
Ted Cruz was called a saboteur and an anarchist when he filibustered against 0bammy Kare. Looks like Democrats are the real anarechsits
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