http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/health/policy/18health.html?_r=1&ref=politicsWASHINGTON — When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”
And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.
Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.
Under the legislation signed by President Obama in March, most Americans will have to maintain “minimum essential coverage” starting in 2014. Many people will be eligible for federal subsidies to help them pay premiums.
Oh snap, guess what, Obama and Co. now admit, they just gave EVERY AMERICAN A BIG FAT NEW TAX.“For us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase,” the president said last September, in a spirited exchange with George Stephanopoulos on the ABC News program “This Week.”
When Mr. Stephanopoulos said the penalty appeared to fit the dictionary definition of a tax, Mr. Obama replied, “I absolutely reject that notion.”
You mean uninsured people will have to start paying for some of the health care they receive in the emergency room? Dang. That's terrible.
I'm also not sure I'd describe $695/year for the uninsured as "big" or "fat" or "everyone."
But yes, there's a $695 tax penalty for not carrying insurance. Is this a surprise to you? Did you not pay any attention at all during the last 18 months?
Under the Constitution, Congress can exercise its taxing power to provide for the “general welfare.” It is for Congress, not courts, to decide which taxes are “conducive to the general welfare,” the Supreme Court said 73 years ago in upholding the Social Security Act.
Jack M. Balkin, a professor at Yale Law School who supports the new law, said, “The tax argument is the strongest argument for upholding” the individual-coverage requirement.
Mr. Obama “has not been honest with the American people about the nature of this bill,” Mr. Balkin said last month at a meeting of the American Constitution Society, a progressive legal organization. “This bill is a tax. Because it’s a tax, it’s completely constitutional.”
These are from your own article. Obama will win this battle in court easily.
You should have read more carefully over your article and realized that this had nothing to do with Obama flip flopping over whether or not it was a tax, rather that Obama has found a perfectly viable legal argument for showing that the Constitution was perfectly fine with forcing people to pay for health insurance.
You stepped in your own bear trap. And I could care less about what Obama flip flopped about he's a politican and both sides of the isle have been doing that since day one.
Its a stupid idea for the tea parties to try and make the notion that Obama is violating the constitution. He's a constitutional scholar and former constitutional professor along with a brilliant lawyer who deeply respects the document and will wipe the floor with anyone trying to use it as leverage over his administration.
These are from your own article. Obama will win this battle in court easily.
You should have read more carefully over your article and realized that this had nothing to do with Obama flip flopping over whether or not it was a tax, rather that Obama has found a perfectly viable legal argument for showing that the Constitution was perfectly fine with forcing people to pay for health insurance.
You stepped in your own bear trap. And I could care less about what Obama flip flopped about he's a politican and both sides of the isle have been doing that since day one.
Its a stupid idea for the tea parties to try and make the notion that Obama is violating the constitution. He's a constitutional scholar and former constitutional professor along with a brilliant lawyer who deeply respects the document and will wipe the floor with anyone trying to use it as leverage over his administration.
Its not a product or service it promotes the general welfare of people in the country. Forcing people to purchase insurance lowers the cost of insurance for everyone. Forcing people to pay for insurance and have free check ups prevents many emergency room visits that put a strain on the healthcare industry and raises the prices of insurance for people.
You're not going to beat Obama at his own game. Constitutional law is his domain.
If you look at the victories and failures of the civil rights movement and its litigation strategy in the court, I think where it succeeded was to invest formal rights in previously dispossessed people, so that now I would have the right to vote. I would now be able to sit at the lunch counter and order and as long as I could pay for it I’d be OK
But, the Supreme Court never ventured into the issues of redistribution of wealth, and of more basic issues such as political and economic justice in society. To that extent, as radical as I think people try to characterize the Warren Court, it wasn't that radical. It didn't break free from the essential constraints that were placed by the Founding Fathers in the Constitution, at least as it's been interpreted, and the Warren Court interpreted in the same way, that generally the Constitution is a charter of negative liberties. Says what the states can't do to you. Says what the federal government can't do to you, but doesn't say what the federal government or state government must do on your behalf.
And that hasn't shifted and one of the, I think, tragedies of the civil rights movement was because the civil rights movement became so court-focused I think there was a tendency to lose track of the political and community organizing and activities on the ground that are able to put together the actual coalition of powers through which you bring about redistributive change. In some ways we still suffer from that.
You don't understand at all. They already showed that such a concept was constituional with social security, in which they took a small portion of your pay check away each time until you retired. They've already shown that it will hold up in court. The article is showing that Obama found has already found a legal solution on the anticipation that the mandate would be challenged as unconstitutional.
No, the MANDATED cost, is a TAX. Learn to read articles.
You mean uninsured people will have to start paying for some of the health care they receive in the emergency room? Dang. That's terrible.
I'm also not sure I'd describe $695/year for the uninsured as "big" or "fat" or "everyone."
But yes, there's a $695 tax penalty for not carrying insurance. Is this a surprise to you? Did you not pay any attention at all during the last 18 months?
I said it was a tax. Did you miss that?
Learn to understand what the bill entails.
If you do not have insurance, you will have an additional $695 tax assessed on your tax return. (or a pro-rated amount if you had insurance for part of the year)
If you do have insurance, you will not have this additional tax.
Why this tax? Two reasons:
1) The pre-existing conditions deal. To force insurance companies to take unhealthy customers requires that you also give them additional healthy customers. The "mandate" pushes people to purchase insurance who might not otherwise have done so
2) The uninsured going to emergency rooms without the ability to pay for their treatment are already a burden on the rest of us, both via tax dollars and higher insurance premiums. The tax penalty ensures that those people are at least chipping something into the pot.
YAWN.
We aren't talking about the TAX for not carrying insurance.
We are TALKING ABOUT THE MANDATE YOU MUST CARRY INSURANCE. THAT is a TAX.
The "mandate" is the $695 penalty.
You are not actually dragged to an insurance salesman and forced to buy. You can simply elect not to purchase insurance. You have that option. It will cost you $695, assessed on your tax return.
You really should actually read up on what the bill entails.
Thanks to the bill many companies are looking into dropping health insurance for employees since it's cheaper to pay the tax and saves them money overall while shifting the costs to underpaid workers.
This does not refute anything I said.
Are you and MrV under the impression that people are actually forced to purchase health insurance? Like what, at gunpoint or something?
This does not refute anything I said.
Are you and MrV under the impression that people are actually forced to purchase health insurance? Like what, at gunpoint or something?
You either pay a tax to the Gov't, or you pay for a service you may or may not want. The point being you are being FORCED to pay for not doing as you are TOLD by Washington. I know people like you love to be told how to live, but we adults are kinda tired of folks like you ruining our country.
So you're conceding the point I made. The $695 I talked about is the mandate.
I explained the reasons why the mandate exists. You disagree on principle, that's fine, but personally I am tired of footing the bill for people who can afford insurance but choose not to purchase it. It raises my premiums and costs the taxpayers money.
Your last sentence is just useless personal attacks and adds nothing to the discussion.
No, the mandate is you have to purchase insurance or you pay a tax. That is the mandate.
No, the mandate is you have to purchase insurance or you pay a tax. That is the mandate.
....yes, that's precisely what I said. You either purchase insurance or pay $695. Are you even reading these posts?
Don't waste too much time on Duece, he's not worth the effort. He'll spend three pages on the word IF, should you let him. He's going to hang his hat on the $695, and a few sad folks here will rally with him, the rest can read the article, and see Obama and Co. are arguing their right to force the choice between a Tax and Insurance isn't really that, it's a Coisntitutional Power to Tax and people just decide which tax they want to pay.
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