Healthcare non-tax now defended as tax

[Ridge]

Changing Stance, Administration Now Defends Insurance Mandate as a Tax
By ROBERT PEAR
Published: July 16, 2010

WASHINGTON — 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.

In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.

Congress can use its taxing power “even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions” of the Constitution, the department said. For more than a century, it added, the Supreme Court has held that Congress can tax activities that it could not reach by using its power to regulate commerce.

While Congress was working on the health care legislation, Mr. Obama refused to accept the argument that a mandate to buy insurance, enforced by financial penalties, was equivalent to a 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.”

Congress anticipated a constitutional challenge to the individual mandate. Accordingly, the law includes 10 detailed findings meant to show that the mandate regulates commercial activity important to the nation’s economy. Nowhere does Congress cite its taxing power as a source of authority.

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.

Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, described the tax power as an alternative source of authority.

“The Commerce Clause supplies sufficient authority for the shared-responsibility requirements in the new health reform law,” Mr. Pfeiffer said. “To the extent that there is any question of additional authority — and we don’t believe there is — it would be available through the General Welfare Clause.”

The law describes the levy on the uninsured as a “penalty” rather than a tax. The Justice Department brushes aside the distinction, saying “the statutory label” does not matter. The constitutionality of a tax law depends on “its practical operation,” not the precise form of words used to describe it, the department says, citing a long line of Supreme Court cases.

Moreover, the department says the penalty is a tax because it will raise substantial revenue: $4 billion a year by 2017, according to the Congressional Budget Office.

In addition, the department notes, the penalty is imposed and collected under the Internal Revenue Code, and people must report it on their tax returns “as an addition to income tax liability.”

Because the penalty is a tax, the department says, no one can challenge it in court before paying it and seeking a refund.

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.”

Mr. Balkin and other law professors pressed that argument in a friend-of-the-court brief filed in one of the pending cases.

Opponents contend that the “minimum coverage provision” is unconstitutional because it exceeds Congress’s power to regulate commerce.

“This is the first time that Congress has ever ordered Americans to use their own money to purchase a particular good or service,” said Senator Orrin G. Hatch, Republican of Utah.

In their lawsuit, Florida and other states say: “Congress is attempting to regulate and penalize Americans for choosing not to engage in economic activity. If Congress can do this much, there will be virtually no sphere of private decision-making beyond the reach of federal power.”

In reply, the administration and its allies say that a person who goes without insurance is simply choosing to pay for health care out of pocket at a later date. In the aggregate, they say, these decisions have a substantial effect on the interstate market for health care and health insurance.

In its legal briefs, the Obama administration points to a famous New Deal case, Wickard v. Filburn, in which the Supreme Court upheld a penalty imposed on an Ohio farmer who had grown a small amount of wheat, in excess of his production quota, purely for his own use.

The wheat grown by Roscoe Filburn “may be trivial by itself,” the court said, but when combined with the output of other small farmers, it significantly affected interstate commerce and could therefore be regulated by the government as part of a broad scheme regulating interstate commerce.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/health/policy/18health.html?_r=1

In my opinion, **** Obama.

 

[No Limit]

Again, my compliments to your awesome copy and paste skills.

 

[Ridge]

And again, great job on trolling

 

[unozero]

Well I for one am glad that I can get back on my dads insurance....don't mind paying a bit more off my paycheck or whatever.
No Limit stop being a dick please.

 

[No Limit]

Hey, atleast I'm not being a limp dick.

 

[Ridge]

Hey, atleast I'm not being a limp dick.

Seeing as you're getting bent out of shape over every thread I post, I'd say yes, yes you are.

If every thread I post offends your sensitive ideals, maybe you should stop clicking on them...

 

[No Limit]

Offended? Don't flatter yourself. I was just pointing out to you that if you are going to do a cut and paste job with every new thread you make you might atleast want to add something to it. Something as simple as bolding or quoting the parts you think are important is a fairly standard thing to do.

 

[Ridge]

This is a news article. My opinion, which is well known on these forums, is irrelevant.

 

[63]

This is a news article. My opinion, which is well known on these forums, is irrelevant.

Definitions of forum on the Web:

- a public meeting or assembly for open discussion

Your opinion is not irrelevant.

 

[Ridge]

Okay.

You want it, you got it. OP edited.

 

[Krynn72]

Aw, did I miss something funny?

That said, I disagree with their calling it "not a tax" when it obviously is a tax. One that I'm happy to pay.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

Well I for one am glad that I can get back on my dads insurance....don't mind paying a bit more off my paycheck or whatever.
No Limit stop being a dick please.

Why should your the company your father works for be required to support you with insurance past the age of 18? You're an individual of your own now- a seperate adult. Most companies (before this law) were gracious enough to allow offspring up to age 21 remain insured so long as they were a student- that's the right thing.

Look, it's great that you're insured now. But why should the owner of that business have to pay for you until age 26 now?



This law is wrong in that it FORCES people to do things. You are forced to BUY something (insurance) even if you do not want to, or you will be fined or jailed. Completely wrong.

 

[Warped]

I think I have the cheapest Health Care Plan from work, its like $12 a paycheck. I never go to the doctor anyway, but its just in case I need something. Also I will probably die of something that hasn't been checked out yet

 

[Ridge]

Why should your the company your father works for be required to support you with insurance past the age of 18? You're an individual of your own now- a seperate adult. Most companies (before this law) were gracious enough to allow offspring up to age 21 remain insured so long as they were a student- that's the right thing.

Look, it's great that you're insured now. But why should the owner of that business have to pay for you until age 26 now?



This law is wrong in that it FORCES people to do things. You are forced to BUY something (insurance) even if you do not want to, or you will be fined or jailed. Completely wrong.

Also your father gets taxed for the healthcare you get, which means he is bringing less money home to support the family...

 

[unozero]

Also your father gets taxed for the healthcare you get, which means he is bringing less money home to support the family...

he makes over $130k a year he''l be fine.

 

[Krynn72]

Also your father gets taxed for the healthcare you get, which means he is bringing less money home to support the family...

And spending a lot less when someone in his family needs health care.

This law is wrong in that it FORCES people to do things. You are forced to BUY something (insurance) even if you do not want to, or you will be fined or jailed. Completely wrong.

Just like we're FORCED to buy new roads! Just like we're FORCED to pay our Senators, Congressmen, Governors and Mayors! Just like we're FORCED to pay for invading other countries! At least they're FORCING us to do something actually good for ourselves (like the roads). Surprise, surprise! The government must FORCE people to do things in order to be a functional government!


FORCE!

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

Also your father gets taxed for the healthcare you get, which means he is bringing less money home to support the family...

It's not so much that which bothers me. It's the forced insurance. In practice I'd take a socialist medicine system with the option to opt out over Obamacare, because it's not compulsory. I am against BOTH, but its the lesser of two evils if the country has to choose one. Personal freedom for me will always come before government economics. People don't realize this has set precedent for Congress to use the commerce clause to regulate anything they damn well please in Americans personal lives solely because they used goods or services in the regulated action.

And spending a lot less when someone in his family needs health care.

I already spend very little on healthcare and I get sick fairly often and have been in the hospital & ER multiple times in the past 2 years. I have insurance because I'm responsible. I was worried about getting laid off, got quotes for individual insurance, and even with preexisting condition (chronic bronchitis) was given a very affordable monthly quote (<$100)

This is wrong. They're applying auto insurance logic to healthcare.

 

[Ridge]

People don't realize this has set precedent for Congress to use the commerce clause to regulate anything they damn well please in Americans personal lives solely because they used goods or services in the regulated action.

That argument wont get you far on these boards...seems like most of the people here are content to sit back and let the government tell them what they can and cannot do, or spend their Credits on...

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

Just like we're FORCED to buy new roads! Just like we're FORCED to pay our Senators, Congressmen, Governors and Mayors! Just like we're FORCED to pay for invading other countries! At least they're FORCING us to do something actually good for ourselves (like the roads). Surprise, surprise! The government must FORCE people to do things in order to be a functional government!


FORCE!

I'm not forced to buy new roads or anything like that so I dont know what you're talking about. I've never bought aggregate or asphalt nor payed for road labor, nor have I ever hired a congressmen or senator for anything.

I pay taxes in a SET BRACKET and the government does with those funds what it will (although the income tax being constitutional is an entirely different issue for a different thread.) And my property tax pays for roads, not income tax. I'm not FORCED to own property- although I choose to do so and pay the tax on it.

This is the first time the government has FORCED individual citizens to buy a goods/service from a private company, or face consequences for not doing so. You may NOT just sit around and not buy it. An individual is considered to be breaking the law simply by doing nothing.

And dont try to make the auto insurance comparison. It does not compare because having auto insurance is a requirement of using the public highway system. If I want to have a car with no insurance on my own property I can do so and drive as crazy and fast as I wish to and even wreck with no legal consequences so long as I only injur myself and no one else nor property.

 

[staticprimer]

This is the first time the government has FORCED individual citizens to buy a goods/service from a private company, or face consequences for not doing so.

So you're saying that if they had provided a public option, you would not be whining now?

 

[No Limit]

It's not so much that which bothers me. It's the forced insurance. In practice I'd take a socialist medicine system with the option to opt out over Obamacare, because it's not compulsory. I am against BOTH, but its the lesser of two evils if the country has to choose one. Personal freedom for me will always come before government economics.

This is the funny thing to me, even you would take a public option over what was passed. 70% of americans supported such an option (which means Ridge supports it too since he thinks polls are what government decisions should be based on). Yet our idiotic government weakened the public option the first chance they got and even then they couldn't pass it.

Having a public plan where profit is not involved along side private insurance is common sense and most people would support it. But no, that makes way too much sense for our government.

But your argument that you will always take personal freedom over government getting involved is absurd, I can't believe people actually believe that. Do you know what life in america was like in the early 1900s?

 

[Sulkdodds]

I pay taxes in a SET BRACKET and the government does with those funds what it will (although the income tax being constitutional is an entirely different issue for a different thread.) And my property tax pays for roads, not income tax. I'm not FORCED to own property- although I choose to do so and pay the tax on it.

You know, I was just thinking - after trying and failing to be bothered to read the OP - that this all seems remarkably complicated and that you should just try having public health care. Taxes go in, health comes out like a stream of RED ENERGY from a medic's medigun (this is how it works). Anybody...? No?

 

[Eejit]

RED ENERGY?

Goddamn pinko commie bullshit science.

 

[ríomhaire]

You know, I was just thinking - after trying and failing to be bothered to read the OP - that this all seems remarkably complicated and that you should just try having public health care. Taxes go in, health comes out like a stream of RED ENERGY from a medic's medigun (this is how it works). Anybody...? No?

Red energy? I didn't realise you were on that team Sulk. I am disappointed.

 

[Ridge]

You know, I was just thinking - after trying and failing to be bothered to read the OP - that this all seems remarkably complicated and that you should just try having public health care. Taxes go in, health comes out like a stream of RED ENERGY from a medic's medigun (this is how it works). Anybody...? No?

Better dead than red...

 

[Druckles]

Taxes go in, health comes out like a stream of RED ENERGY from a medic's medigun (this is how it works). Anybody...? No?

Red Energy gives you wings.

 

[CptStern]

Also your father gets taxed for the healthcare you get, which means he is bringing less money home to support the family...

if you're trying to speculate what it would be like to have governent provided healthcare then at least do it accurately. in canada there is no "healthcare tax". you pay income taxes; part of that goes to things like education and healthcare. so instead of paying for deadly excursions into places like Iraq that money could be diverted to things like providing americans with what the rest of the civilised world takes for granted

 

[Ridge]

if you're trying to speculate what it would be like to have governent provided healthcare then at least do it accurately. in canada there is no "healthcare tax". you pay income taxes; part of that goes to things like education and healthcare. so instead of paying for deadly excursions into places like Iraq that money could be diverted to things like providing americans with what the rest of the civilised world takes for granted

It is specifically stated in the healthcare law that employers are to put down their costs for the healthcare as income on their employee's tax forms.

 

[No Limit]

It is specifically stated in the healthcare law that employers are to put down their costs for the healthcare as income on their employee's tax forms.

And you are against this? I don't get health insurance from work, so when I have to go and pay insurance out of my own pocket I don't get to deduct that. So how come people that get $7,000 worth of benefits from their work get to have that income tax exempt when I don't?

 

[Ridge]

I still believe it's not the government's place to provide services that were being handled by private companies. And now you are going to go on about the billions of people screwed over by insurance companies because insurance is gambling and they are too high risk and the insurance companies dont want to take the gamble.

 

[No Limit]

Umm...Ridge...I asked you why you believe it's fair for people to get tax free income if they are provided with health insurance by their employer when I don't get a tax exemption for buying my own insurance.

Do you need me to write slower?

 

[unozero]

if you're trying to speculate what it would be like to have governent provided healthcare then at least do it accurately. in canada there is no "healthcare tax". you pay income taxes; part of that goes to things like education and healthcare. so instead of paying for deadly excursions into places like Iraq that money could be diverted to things like providing americans with what the rest of the civilised world takes for granted

Not to mention if something were ever to happen to me then that would be really screw my family over if I wasn't covered I work a part time job right now abd full time hours I get 0 benefits...That's just how it's gonna be for a bit. can't help it.

 

[Ridge]

Umm...Ridge...I asked you why you believe it's fair for people to get tax free income if they are provided with health insurance by their employer when I don't get a tax exemption for buying my own insurance.

Do you need me to write slower?

That is not what you asked. And again, I'll say, the government should have no right to make us pay for this. Especially since they have completely reversed their direction on what this is, trying to sell the bill to the people by saying it wont raise taxes, when it does exactly that.

 

[Mogi67]

I can't wait until Ron Paul is elected

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

Umm...Ridge...I asked you why you believe it's fair for people to get tax free income if they are provided with health insurance by their employer when I don't get a tax exemption for buying my own insurance.

Do you need me to write slower?

The solution is to give those people a tax exemption for buying insurance, not to take it away from everyone.

Also the 1900's comment. I understand I'm not clear (due to the internets and text) with how I believe personal freedom trumps government intervention. I am not saying companies should be able to flat out defraud people, etc.

I am dead set against the government forcing people to do things, though. Conscription, prayer, purchasing things, carrying papers, etc.

Being completely idle should not be a crime in itself. That's where I draw the line. This law doesn't do much at all to help people, it's driving insurance costs up and healthcare has gotten worse. My mother uses Medicaid (and paid massive amounts into it her whole life) and has Blue Cross/Blue Shield as secondary for insurance. You know what's happening? Doctors won't take her now, because of the new healthcare legislation. It's not worth it to them because they make less. I'm also hearing from my HR department that we should brace for benefits cost increases. Wow, thanks Democrat controlled Congress- that's awesome news!

Read here, this article just came out today with the state saying the same thing

http://www.azcentral.com/business/a...a-workers-to-see-insurance-fees-increase.html

"State and university employees with families can expect to see their monthly health-insurance costs rise as much as 37 percent next year, depending on the type of plan they choose.

Figures provided by the Arizona Department of Administration show that health plans for families and single adults with children will shoulder the most-expensive monthly premium increases beginning Jan. 1, while individuals will pay modest increases.


The Department of Administration cited federal health reform as the reason the state's health plans will carry "greater expenses and higher premiums for members," according to a June 30 letter sent to about 135,000 state and university employees and their dependents.

The letter named two provisions that the state expects will drive health-insurance costs higher. One is a requirement that insurance plans provide coverage for dependent children up to age 26. The other is the federal legislation's ban on lifetime limits, an insurance-industry practice that cuts coverage once an individual's medical expenses exceed a set amount over their lifetime.

Because the state is one of Arizona's largest providers of health insurance, its estimates could provide an early glimpse of how large employers will pass along health-reform costs to their employees."

Like I said- I'm against socialized medicine, but I'd take that over THIS corporatist nightmare. This doesn't do a damn thing to improve healthcare services or costs in the least. All it does is actually increase profitibality for the insurance companies. People have mistaken Obama as a socialist when he is really the most hardcore CORPORATIST we've seen in a long, long time. Capitalism peppered with a bit of regulation (for a fairer market) is good. Corporatism is not the same thing, don't confuse them at all- I've done a lot of research on it well before I ever heard of Obama and it's worse than socialism.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism#Fascist_corporatism


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_nationalism

 

[No Limit]

That is not what you asked. And again, I'll say, the government should have no right to make us pay for this. Especially since they have completely reversed their direction on what this is, trying to sell the bill to the people by saying it wont raise taxes, when it does exactly that.

That's actually exactly what I asked. Maybe you already forgot, but this is what I posted:

And you are against this? I don't get health insurance from work, so when I have to go and pay insurance out of my own pocket I don't get to deduct that. So how come people that get $7,000 worth of benefits from their work get to have that income tax exempt when I don't?

So what possible other meaning did you get from this question? Like I said, do you need me to write slower?

RakuraiTenjin, you know the sad part? I probably agree on atleast half of what you said. And I'm about as liberal as we come.

 

[RakuraiTenjin]

RakuraiTenjin, you know the sad part? I probably agree on atleast half of what you said. And I'm about as liberal as we come.

I know, and we hardly ever agree but we have been lately. People are idiots, they saw the public option go away and they were sedated, and gladly accepted a compulsory rule. Terrible, and possibly unconstitutional trade.

If compulsory insurance enrollment is struck down in court with the state lawsuits I will still banter against a socialist system. But if a system like Canada's ended up being implemented in its place I would be glad that compulsory enrollment is gone. If I HAD to choose between either compulsory enrollment or socialized medicine I would choose the latter.

My fear is that the interstate commerce clause will now be abused heavily.

Kagan, when being grilled for Supreme Court Nomination, said she would not strike down a law that forces Americans to eat three vegetables a day (hypothetical law.) Why you may ask, when its clearly unconstitutional? Because she knew if she said the interstate commerce clause cant force an individual to DO or BUY something that she'd be saying compulsory insurance is just as illegal. She chose her words very carefully but ended up sounding ridiculous because of it.

PLEASE watch below. She is basically saying the US Government has the power to tell the American people what they HAVE to do, rather than what they may not.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVJkC2Et8FU