Posted on 11/11/2013 3:09:57 PM PST by NYer
WASHINGTON, D.C., November 11, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Would you pay $10,000 a year to stay married to your spouse? Some American couples are being faced with exactly that decision as they consider their health insurance options under ObamaCare.
One of the most controversial provisions of ObamaCare is that it requires all Americans to purchase health insurance, whether they want it or not, or face hefty fines. To facilitate enrollment, the government has set up health care “exchanges” in all 50 states and Washington, D.C., where people can compare and purchase insurance plans. The government has promised subsidies to help those who cannot afford the higher premiums, but the way the subsidies are calculated mean they could pay up to $10,000 more per year.
The marriage penalty is a result of the way the government calculates poverty. While the poverty line for a single person’s income is $11,490 per year or less, a married couple is considered above the poverty line if their combined income exceeds $15,510. People are eligible for subsidies under ObamaCare if they make up to four times more than the federal poverty limit – $45,960 for a single person, or $62,040 for a married couple. But unmarried couples living together will have their incomes assessed separately – meaning that as long as each of them makes less than the individual cutoff, they can remain eligible for subsidies while bringing in a joint income of up to $91,920.
In 2010, the Heritage Foundation warned of this hidden marriage penalty in a report criticizing the ObamaCare bill for its “profound anti-marriage bias.” They also pointed out that focusing on the yearly penalty misses the bigger picture: the penalty is assessed over and over again throughout the couple’s life, meaning the real cost of marriage is much, much higher.
According to the group’s calculations, a married couple who remained married throughout their lives might pay more than $200,000 in penalties under ObamaCare.
“Most people feel that marriage is a healthful institution that society should encourage and strengthen,” wrote Robert Rector, the report’s author. “Inexplicably, [ObamaCare] takes the opposite approach. At nearly all age and income levels, the bill profoundly discriminates against married couples, providing far less support to a husband and wife than to a cohabiting couple with the same income.”
Rector said that ObamaCare’s passage means that “married couples across America will be taxed to provide discriminatory benefits to couples who cohabit, divorce, or never marry.”
Leanna Baumer, a senior legislative assistant for the Family Research Council, told LifeSiteNews.com that ObamaCare’s marriage penalty is a giant step in the wrong direction, one that could negate years of hard-won tax reforms aimed at encouraging marital stability.
“Not only do these penalties discourage couples from marrying, they ignore the bipartisan work that has occurred in the past decade to decrease marriage penalties in the tax code,” Baumer told LifeSiteNews.
“Providing further disincentives for marriage means that we make family instability more likely for some couples,” Baumer told LifeSiteNews.
Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich told CNN it’s possible the GOP overlooked the marriage penalty during the debate over ObamaCare, buried as it was in over 11,000 pages of regulations. "It's both an anti-marriage and pro-divorce provision,” Gingrich said. “I don't think anybody even knew it was in there."
The threat is more than theoretical. Nona Willis Aronowitz and Aaron Cassara of New York City are one such couple. Married for four years, they told NYC’s local CBS affiliate that while they are still very much in love, they are considering divorcing, at least on paper, because staying married will cost them thousands of extra dollars per year.
“After ObamaCare has rolled out, we realized that we would save thousands of dollars if we got divorced,” Aronowitz told CBS. She explained that the two of them combined make just over $62,000 a year, which is the cutoff for health care subsidies for a married household with no children. But if they divorce, even if they still live together, their incomes will be assessed separately, making them both eligible for federal aid.
Baumer told LifeSiteNews that discouraging, or breaking up, happy marriages harms more than just couples.
“That result ultimately harms children, who have the best educational, financial, and social outcomes when they grow up in homes headed by their married mom and dad.”
Yet one more reason why your children will not marry, ping!
We need to get that repealed as soon as we can take over. God almighty!
That’s one of the reasons they forced this through. Destroy the natural family and replace it with the state.
Yet one more instance of this being a tool of the enemy, as he uses moderates, liberals and the uninformed (swing dingbat voters) to destroy the family
It’s always a barometer for whether someone is in service of THE enemy - do they serve to destroy the family?
And for married couples to get divorced and live together.
Of course. Did anyone really think that the assault on the American family would stop once we got the gays to "marry"?
Destroying marriage, now only gays will be married, how ironic
The guy just keeps stirring it more and more. All I can say is payback is probably going to very brutal. Its just the way the system works whether you believe in God or not.
> Thats one of the reasons they forced this through. Destroy the natural family and replace it with the state.
My thoughts too. Its obvious his footsteps are being guided by the great deciever.
It would be interesting, if not frightening, if we could get a visual glimpse of what the end product would look like in Obama’s imaginary Utopia. Would all sexual distinctions have been erased, and would this allow asexual reproduction the same way snails do? Maybe this is what he really wants to bring us to. All the gestating snails would be force fed nutrients ,tended, then harvested in a safe confined area. Shelled creatures are not known for their maternal instincts, so there would need to be a complete de-evolution of some members of our species.
They should think of an additional credit for gays that cohabit.
Then add a bonus for being in a union - or a government worker.
And maybe political party affiliation should bear on the subject?
Bump
They’ll never be married in the eyes of the One who created marriage in the first place. Unless of course he or she marries a member of his or her opposite sex.
Homosexual "social justice" ....
Thats one of the reasons they forced this through. Destroy the natural family and replace it with the state.
Absolutely. The entire point of "gay marriage" </off oxymoronic cant >.
ANYTHING to eff* Christians. ANYTHING.
Sensing exemptions for homos.
I have two minds here:
Sickened by obamA’s attempt to destroy traditional marriage
and
Have a perverse pleasure that “homosexual marriage” people are being screwed
“And maybe political party affiliation should bear on the subject?”
They’ll get the transplants and non-generic drugs, special protocols and newest, best equipment and docs.
I mean ... what is care anyway and who provides it to whom?
OK ... I break my leg and go to a hospital.
I'm seen by a doctor
He sets my leg
Writes a script
and sends me home
Where's the gummint in all that ?
Would a doctor never get paid if he relied solely on cash?
Would the ones that beat him be any different than what it is now ?
OK ... NO ONE signs up for Lucifercare.
Agencies have been invented
Agents have been hired
rules and regs have been written
And I break my leg
I go to doctor
we agree on a cost/price
he sets my leg
and doesn't tell anyone
I mean ... unless it is some kind of forced payment like SS or income tax .. from your check before you get it ...
Who cares if some guy comes to my house to try and collect a thousand dollars I don't have.?
All this talk about something that doesn't exist ... like compounded interest.
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