Free Republic

Six million Americans will pay the health care tax rather than obtain coverage under President Obama’s health care law, according to a new Congressional Budget Office estimate Wednesday — a 50 percent increase over CBO’s estimate of just two years ago. CBO also said there will be 30 million people without insurance, though all but the 6 million will be exempt from the tax. The exempt Americans are a combination of illegal immigrants and those with incomes too low to pay income taxes. The agency said the government will collect about $7 billion from the tax in 2016, and $8...

(CNSNews.com) - Thanks to an Obamacare regulation that took effect on Aug. 1, health care plans in Oregon will now be required to provide free sterilizations to 15- year-old girls even if the parents of those girls do not consent to the procedure. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finalized the regulation earlier this year. It says that all health care plans in the United States--except those provided by actual houses of worship organized under the section of the Internal Revenue Code reserved for churches per se--must provide coverage, without cost-sharing, for sterilizations and all Food and Drug Administration-approved...

The Left, by its very nature, is ideologically driven. Ideology has a tendency to crowd out reason for the sake of vision. Witness the fact that certain members of the Left now want Americans to believe the Obama abortion pill mandate—which violates religious freedom—is, in fact, an exercise of religious freedom. Rabbi Arthur Waskow articulates this clearly in a recent Huffington Post column . In Waskow’s words, those who oppose the mandate requiring employers to provide insurance covering abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception for their employees—whether doing so violates their consciences or not—are actually “attacking religious freedom in the guise...

Here’s the blueprint for how the states can eviscerate three central pillars of Obamacare, crippling it, and set the stage for replacing it if Mitt Romney takes the White House and the GOP takes the Senate this November. Many are focusing on whether Congress will refuse to fund all the provisions of Obamacare that require federal money. While very important, this is only one barrel of what must be a double-barreled approach. The other is what states can do to dismantle Obamacare. And if we pursue both of these simultaneously, we can defeat Obamacare and safeguard the greatest healthcare system...

Jacob J. Lew, the White House chief of staff, on Sunday defended President Obama‘s health care law but rejected the “tax” label that the Supreme Court, in a ruling that mostly upheld the law last week, used to describe the penalty payment required for those who choose not to buy health insurance. The Supreme Court affirmed the so-called individual mandate to buy health insurance on the ground that it might be “reasonably characterized as a tax.” Since the ruling, Republican leaders have denounced the White House for raising the tax burden on Americans with the law, and they have called...

Question for legal tweeps: Obama campaign is now denying that administration SG ever argued that Obamacare mandate is a tax. Looking at oral arguments, SG Verrilli said mandate is 'justifiable under its tax power.' Can't find him saying 'It is a tax'… So therefore: Is Obama hiding behind legal hairsplitting, arguing mandate is constitutional under tax power but is not actually a tax?

What? The former Speaker is saying ObamaCare is a penalty, not a tax, that is enforced by the tax code...or something. Gregory: Is it a tax? Pelosi: No no, no no. Pelosi: Right, ObamaCare Is Constitutional Under Taxing PowerIs this what Pelosi meant by "passing the bill to see what's in it?" The Supreme Court saw what was in ObamaCare, ruled it a tax, and she, along with top White House officials, are saying it's a tax. It is very clear the Democrats have their talking points together. And yet, DNC Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz is accusing Republicans of being...

Since the U.S. Supreme Court upheld the Obama health law on Thursday, I have received a number of messages from listeners and readers arguing that because the Justices found the individual mandate was a tax, it was unconstitutional, as that plan didn't start in the House. "Article 1, Section 7 of the Constitution states that 'All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House,'" is what the Constitution says, these readers argue. They go on to say that since the mandate was added in the Senate, and not in the House, the entire plan should have been found unconstitutional....

CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: Why didn't Congress call it a tax, then? SG VERRILLI: Well - CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS: You're telling me they thought of it as a tax, they defended it on the tax power. Why didn't they say it was a tax? SG VERRILLI: They might have thought, Your Honor, that calling it a penalty as they did would make it more effective in accomplishing its objective. But it is — in the Internal Revenue Code it is collected by the IRS on April 15th. I don't think this is a situation in which you can say - CHIEF...

Axelrod spinning

Back in 2010, Georgetown Law professor Randy Barnett, who has been described as the legal architect behind challenges to the health care law,.......Yet in the wake of the Chief Justice John Roberts’ majority decision to uphold the mandate on taxing power grounds, Barnett has been downplaying the legal significance of that precedent, especially relative to the Court’s ruling that the law was not allowable under the Commerce Clause.......“Chief Justice Roberts rewrote the (health care) statute to change this from a requirement, or mandate, to an option to buy insurance or pay a penalty,” Barnett explained. “This is far less dangerous...

A lot of reasonable musing has been done as to whether or not Barack Obama is advantaged politically by the Supreme Court striking down or upholding ObamaCare. But it is plausible that the ultimate liberal goals for the nation are advanced the farthest by a split decision -- i.e., the much-discussed scenario where the Court strikes down only the individual mandate, while leaving the rest of the law in place. Certainly the mandate -- as drawn up in ObamaCare -- is the most blatantly unconstitutional part of the bill, and therefore it is rightfully considered the low-hanging fruit of legal...

Just passed by a large anti-Obamacare rally at Government Center in downtown Minneapolis. Looked like 250 - 300 people there, all well behaved but vehement in their opposition to this unconstitutional infringement on our liberties. Turnout was easily five to ten times the maximum any of the OWS rallies drew.

Social networking has its advantages and disadvantages. Among the latter are the occasional dispute one gets dragged into with someone you think is an imbecile; perhaps an intelligent imbecile, but an imbecile nonetheless. That's a harsh judgment, and I'm sure I'm wrong about the person I disputed with, who I don't even know. But, uses of government power inspire passions for and against, and those who meet the outrage of those imposed upon with "tut-tut-you've-got-it-all-wrong" protestations are apt to provoke a reaction. I fell into the trap the other night on a facebook friend's post--another person I don't know--and want...