Obamacare watch...Supreme Court Decision

[Foxrac]

Supreme Court says the mandate is a tax in order for it to be constitutional. The Obama team is now trying to spin that it is not a tax. Wait...what?

See #139.

Not having a health insurance is very irresponsible.

 

[Jiro]

It is not fear of the unknown - it is the fact that people will be "penalized" for not purchasing a product. This has set a precedence that Congress can force citizens to do whatever they wish now.

It is putting the Federal Government between you and your Doctor.

actually.......... it falls on your state government since it's more of an expansion of Medicaid program.

 

[Jiro]

Supreme Court says the mandate is a tax in order for it to be constitutional. The Obama team is now trying to spin that it is not a tax. Wait...what?

because it isn't.

Chief Justice Roberts is only saying that Congress can but Obama won't do it. It is you and Conservative pundits who are frothing and hyperventilating over certain keyword like "tax" that didn't even happen.

In case you forgot, you are already paying for Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security taxes automatically withdrawn from your income.

 

[Jiro]

Harlan Green: Obamacare -- What Loss of Freedom?

Hallelujah. The Supreme Court of our land has given Obamacare a clean constitutional bill of health, thanks to Chief Justice Roberts, who says government does have the power to tax those who can afford to buy health insurance, but won't.

Republicans framed Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, as a loss of individual freedom. But the only freedom lost is the freedom to be treated without having to pay for it, which is what the uninsured do when they have to go to emergency rooms. Most of us have health care, of course, if we have family and children to care for. Individual responsibility really means one should have to pay for their own health care, rather than taxpayers or the already insured.

So why are Republicans so adamantly against it, when they claim to believe in individual responsibility, and the constitution? It is because they might be taxed more, and of course they maintain all taxes are fundamentally evil. They say they abhor any kind of government aid or regulation as if they lived 100 years ago, when everyone had to take care of themselves -- or suffer the consequences. But that was when birth and death rates were far worse than today, and we lived shorter lives. Are there any Republicans who would like to return to those days? Please stand up!

More Americans will be healthy, both physically and financially, since medical bankruptcies will become rarer and serious disease rates should drop, since preventative health care will be encouraged. And simple math tells us that with some 30 million more insured due to the mandate requirement, health care costs will be spread among more users of health care.

So know that health care premiums will drop, since as with Medicare, administrative costs will be severely restricted -- 85 percent of premiums have to be spent on health care -- so that providers cannot as they currently do use more than 25 percent of their premiums just for marketing, which means overselling all those medicines (like erectile dysfunction aids) that choke our daily television screens.

Actually, the real results of what is not yet a universal health care system with 20 million are not being openly discussed, at least yet. It should release a surge of consumer spending, for instance, according to economists such as Robert Shiller. Consumers will no longer have to put so much aside for those sick days because they no longer have to worry so much about budget busting medical bills. They might even enjoy more vacation days to spend with their families, if they take advantage of available preventative care measures for such things as obesity and bad diets.

Yale Economist Robert Shiller has been advocating just such universal insurance for years in books such as The New Financial Order, Risk in the 21st Century, and Finance and the Good Society. It is part of his thesis that with the information age's ability to collate huge amounts of information we can level the playing field against risky outcomes, such as loss of income, or value in one's home, or even serious illness, by insuring against such outcomes.

"If firms and individuals cannot insure themselves against bad outcomes, they will be necessarily cautious; the economy will grow more slowly than it should," says a New York Times book review of Finance and The Good Society. "A company will not invest in a new factory if it cannot hedge against swings in exchange rates that might render its investment unprofitable. An individual will not consume to the full extent of his capacity if he cannot insure his house or health."

o at least we are on the way to a better health care system. It's a start.

 

[Jiro]

FactCheck.org : How Much Is the Obamacare ‘Tax’?

Q: How much will the “tax” penalty be for going without health insurance?

A: The minimum assessment will be $695 per person (but no more than $2,085 per family) in 2016, when fully phased in. The amount can be higher depending on income. But there are exemptions for low-income persons and others.

Is It a Tax or a Penalty?

We will be using the terms interchangeably from now on. Whatever you call it, it’s the functional equivalent of a tax, and the Supreme Court has ruled that it is an exercise of the taxing power of Congress.

The law labels the assessment a “penalty” (see Section 5000A) and avoids using the term “tax.” But Chief Justice John Roberts, writing for the five justices in the majority, said the penalty can be considered a tax that is within the power of Congress to impose.

His reasons are set out starting on page 33 of the opinion. Among other things, Roberts concluded that the penalty was not intended to be a criminal fine, because those who choose to pay it, rather than honor the mandate to obtain health insurance, would be in full compliance with the law. He also noted that the amount is not prohibitively high:

Chief Justice John Roberts: [F]or most Americans the amount due will be far less than the price of insurance, and, by statute, it can never be more.

How Much?

The minimum amount — per person — will be $695 once the tax is fully phased in. But it will be less to start. The minimum penalty per person will start at $95 in 2014, the first year that the law will require individuals to obtain coverage. And it will rise to $325 the following year.

Starting in 2017, the minimum tax per person will rise each year with inflation. And for children 18 and under, the minimum per-person tax is half of that for adults.

However, the minimum amount per family is capped at triple the per-person tax, no matter how many individuals are in the taxpayer’s household. So, for example, a couple with one child over 18 (or two children age 18 or under), and no coverage, would pay a minimum of $285 in 2014, $975 in 2015 and $2,085 in 2016. And that would be the minimum no matter how many uninsured dependents a taxpayer has.

The tax would be more for persons with higher taxable incomes. When phased in, it will be 2.5 percent of household income that exceeds the income threshold for filing a tax return. For 2011, those thresholds were $9,500 for a single person under age 65, and $19,000 for a married person filing jointly with a spouse. So, to give a rough calculation, a couple with $100,000 of income might pay a tax of $2,025 if they choose to go without coverage.

But the penalty can never exceed the cost of the national average premiums for the lowest-cost “bronze” plans being offered through the new insurance exchanges called for under the law. We have no way of knowing what that average rate might turn out to be in 2014, but there is reason to think it could be quite high. For example, the total cost of a basic Government Employees Health Association plan currently offered through the Federal Employee Health Benefit program (the model for the state insurance exchanges) totals $9,459 per year for a family plan, and $4,159 for individual coverage.

Update, June 29: The cost of a “bronze” plan could be higher, however. In January 2010 the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office issued this estimate:

CBO, Jan. 11, 2010: Overall, CBO estimates that premiums for Bronze plans purchased individually in 2016 would probably average between $4,500 and $5,000 for single policies and between $12,000 and $12,500 for family policies.

Who Collects?

The penalty will be collected by the Internal Revenue Service, which is one reason the chief justice cited for considering it to be a tax. In fact, the penalty is spelled out in Title 26 of the U.S. Code — the “Internal Revenue Code” — under Subtitle D — “Miscellaneous Excise Taxes.”

Partial Coverage

A tax is assessed for each month that a person is not covered. It is pro-rated, so that a person who is not covered for only a single month would pay 1/12th of the tax that would be due for the full year.

So, for example, the minimum tax per person for failing to get coverage would be $7.92 for each month of 2014, $28.75 for each month of 2015, and $57.92 for each month of 2016, when fully phased in.

Refusal to Pay

The law prohibits the IRS from seeking to put anybody in jail or seizing their property for simple refusal to pay the tax. The law says specifically that taxpayers “shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty” for failure to pay, and also that the IRS cannot file a tax lien (a legal claim against such things as homes, cars, wages and bank accounts) or a “levy” (seizure of property or bank accounts).

The law says that the IRS will collect the tax “in the same manner as an assessable penalty under subchapter B of chapter 68” of the tax code. That part of the tax code provides for imposing an additional penalty “equal to the total amount of the tax evaded, or not collected.” It also requires written notices to the taxpayer, and provides for court proceedings.

So it may turn out that the IRS will be suing those who fail to pay the tax for double the amount. But so far, the IRS has not spelled out exactly how it will enforce the new penalty with the limited power the law gives it.

Who’s Exempt?

The law makes a number of exemptions for low-income persons and hardship cases.

“Individuals who cannot afford coverage”: If an employer offers coverage that would cost the employee more than 8 percent of his or her household income (for self-only coverage) that individual is exempt from the tax.

“Taxpayers with income below filing threshold”: Also exempt are those who earn too little to be required to file tax returns. For 2011 — as previously mentioned — those thresholds were $9,500 for a single person under age 65, and $19,000 for a married person filing jointly with a spouse, for example. The thresholds go up each year in line with inflation, so those cut-offs will be higher in 2014, when the tax first takes effect.

“Hardships”: The Secretary of Health and Human Services is empowered to exempt others that she or he determines to “have suffered a hardship with respect to the capability to obtain coverage.”

Other exemptions: Also exempt are members of Indian tribes, persons with only brief gaps in coverage, and members of certain religious groups currently exempt from Social Security taxes (which as we’ve previously reported are chiefly Anabaptist — that is, Mennonite, Amish or Hutterite).

How Many Will Pay?

In his opinion, Chief Justice Roberts cited an estimate from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office that 4 million would pay, and cited that as a further reason to consider the assessment a tax rather than a penalty. “Congress did not think it was creating four million outlaws,” he suggested.

However, since then, CBO has increased its estimate. In an estimate released in March of this year, CBO projected that the tax would yield $6 billion for the government, up from the $4 billion it estimated two years earlier. That’s a 50 percent higher total, and would seem to imply that CBO now expects about 6 million will be paying. But CBO didn’t give a specific figure for the number of persons it now expects to pay.

 

[Foxrac]

because it isn't.

Chief Justice Roberts is only saying that Congress can but Obama won't do it. It is you and Conservative pundits who are frothing and hyperventilating over certain keyword like "tax" that didn't even happen.

In case you forgot, you are already paying for Medicaid/Medicare/Social Security taxes automatically withdrawn from your income.

Also, in Alabama, the Medicaid got funds from state income tax and sale tax, addition to federal funds.

 

[Reba]

"Also exempt are members of Indian tribes, persons with only brief gaps in coverage, and members of certain religious groups currently exempt from Social Security taxes (which as we’ve previously reported are chiefly Anabaptist — that is, Mennonite, Amish or Hutterite)."

Interesting.

 

[rolling7]

Much more interesting is....

"For most Americans the amount due will be FAR less than the price of insurance, and, by statute, it can never be more."

In other words, the insurance industry will go broke having to cover the cost while receiving less than the cost.

Sock It To Me!!!!!!

 

[Jiro]

Much more interesting is....

"For most Americans the amount due will be FAR less than the price of insurance, and, by statute, it can never be more."

In other words, the insurance industry will go broke having to cover the cost while receiving less than the cost.

Sock It To Me!!!!!!

*shrug* so?

karma, you know? they have gone far too long screwing people to bankruptcies.

 

[rolling7]

*shrug* so?

karma, you know? they have gone far too long screwing people to bankruptcies.

Nice try to point the blame in another direction, which you are now famous for.

Nope, karma is the American people waking up to realize they should have had insurance coverage when they were spending money on cell phones, movies, fast food, having kids they could not insure nor feed, etc. Yes, karma has caught up with these folks.

 

[Jiro]

Nice try to point the blame in another direction, which you are now famous for.

Nope, karma is the American people waking up to realize they should have had insurance coverage when they were spending money on cell phones, movies, fast food, having kids they could not insure nor feed, etc. Yes, karma has caught up with these folks.

nice try to point the blame on American people. why are you protecting private insurances? you've been on government system since Day 1.

You must be related to "Keep Your Government Hands Off Medicare!" lady.

 

[rolling7]

nice try to point the blame on American people. why are you protecting private insurances? you've been on government system since Day 1.

You must be related to "Keep Your Government Hands Off Medicare!" lady.

Nope, I'm related to the guy who pushes personal responsibility and accountablity. These are the two things that you are protecting many, many people from being responsible for.

You must be realated to the "Why work, when I can get everything free from the government" guy.

 

[Foxrac]

nice try to point the blame on American people. why are you protecting private insurances? you've been on government system since Day 1.

You must be related to "Keep Your Government Hands Off Medicare!" lady.

He used to work at USPS before so USPS is part of government.

I think it is time for rolling7 to give up his government pension and he can whine about everything what he wants, even full of bullshit stories.

 

[TXgolfer]

Yall realize Rolling's pension was part of his compensation, not a handout, right?

 

[Reba]

He used to work at USPS before so USPS is part of government.

I think it is time for rolling7 to give up his government pension and he can whine about everything what he wants, even full of bullshit stories.

There is no reason why rolling7 should give up a retirement pension that was earned.

 

[rolling7]

Thank you to my defenders

There are members on AD that refuse to give credit to those folks whom worked long and hard for every penny these workers earn, all on top of paying a fair share+ of taxes. My pension is totally earn and my savings are the result of saving and investing wisely.

On the other hand there are AD members whom will defend to the grave the entitlement programs to those who invested not a penny and not a sweat for these benefits.

 

[Foxrac]

Yall realize Rolling's pension was part of his compensation, not a handout, right?

There is no reason why rolling7 should give up a retirement pension that was earned.

USPS is part of government and there is no point for him to be anti-government.

If you don't like government so don't work for government or collect the pension from government.

That's part of my opinion.

 

[Foxrac]

Thank you to my defenders

There are members on AD that refuse to give credit to those folks whom worked long and hard for every penny these workers earn, all on top of paying a fair share+ of taxes. My pension is totally earn and my savings are the result of saving and investing wisely.

On the other hand there are AD members whom will defend to the grave the entitlement programs to those who invested not a penny and not a sweat for these benefits.

Well, my opinion is still stands.

If you hate our government so time for you to give up the pension that you earned for work at USPS.

If you get pension from private companies so none of my business.

 

[Foxrac]

Thanks to my best friend.

 

[Reba]

USPS is part of government and there is no point for him to be anti-government.

If you don't like government so don't work for government or collect the pension from government.

That's part of my opinion.

People who have worked for the government have more insight into how it operates behind the scenes.

Also, people who work for the government are still taxpayers and citizens, so they have a right to speak up about how it is run and who runs it.