Posted on 01/14/2014 2:23:49 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
The individual mandate, Obamacare's requirement that all Americans have health insurance that includes "minimum essential coverage," has been in effect for two weeks now. No one has noticed because nothing has happened. But it will.
The mandate is the heart of Obamacare; without it, supporters believe, the system won't work. So the Obama administration hopes millions of Americans will voluntarily comply with the mandate and purchase government-approved coverage. If they don't do it voluntarily, they'll be punished.
Starting next year, the government will collect a penalty — the administration calls it a "shared responsibility payment" — from Americans who don't go along with the Obamacare edict. The penalty starts small — just $95 per adult and $47.50 per child this year — but could conceivably reach thousands of dollars per family per year once the fee scale is fully in effect.
The threat of coercion lies behind the entire Obamacare scheme. The question for the coming year is, how coercive will the government be?
The Democrats who wrote the Affordable Care Act in 2009 gave the Internal Revenue Service power to collect Obamacare penalties. Many Americans are quite familiar with how coercive the IRS can be. Fearing public opposition to IRS threats, the law's authors forbade the IRS from bringing criminal charges or seizing houses and property from those who don't buy government-defined "minimum essential coverage." But Democrats still gave the IRS significant authority.
"Although the Act provides that the IRS may not use criminal prosecutions, notices of federal tax liens, or levies on property to collect an unpaid penalty, the IRS may employ offsets against federal tax refunds," the Obama administration wrote in its 2012 Supreme Court brief in defense of the mandate. "The IRS also may seek payment through correspondence or phone calls from IRS employees."
The main leverage the IRS will have is the refund "offset." That simply means if a taxpayer is due a refund, but has also incurred an Obamacare penalty, the penalty will be subtracted from the refund. So a taxpayer who has a $500 refund coming but incurs a $695 Obamacare penalty will receive no refund.
In addition, that taxpayer might face a letter and a phone call — or a series of them — from the IRS telling him to pay the rest. Anyone who has received a letter or phone call from the IRS knows the experience can be quite intimidating. Or, in the words of the administration's Supreme Court brief: "Offsets, correspondence, and phone calls are consistently some of the most productive tools in the federal tax collection process."
Will the government really do that? The answer is not clear, or at least not publicly clear. (In response to inquiries, IRS officials sent boilerplate, non-enlightening clips from IRS publications.) But the administration's level of aggressiveness will likely be determined by how many Americans voluntarily comply with the law.
Obamacare needs a lot of them to survive. In the last few months, discussion often focused on the prediction that the system needed to enroll seven million people by the time open enrollment is over at the end of March. But even if Obamacare reaches that goal — and it's doubtful right now — that is just the start. To work, Obamacare must keep growing. A lot.
"I think we're going to ultimately need about 20 million people for a sustainable pool," health care analyst Robert Laszewski told the Washington Post recently. "So when I hear people talk about the goal being seven million, I think, 'time out.' This needs to be 20 million people within three years."
How does it get there? Well, if Obamacare is a great deal that millions of Americans love, it will reach the goal with no problem. If, on the other hand, it presents Americans with policies that don't fit their needs, are too expensive, have cripplingly high deductibles, and narrow choices of doctors — well, many Americans will balk at buying such a product.
It's not that they will reject health coverage; it's that they'll reject health coverage that's a bad deal.
And if that happens, the question of 2015 will be how far the Obama administration will go to force Americans to buy policies they don't want. "The government will be hard-pressed to collect a fine on something lots of people don't believe has value," says Laszewski. "This is when it will become a huge political albatross."
Such a scenario could create enormous political pressure to scrap the individual mandate. And at that point, the future of Obamacare would be very much in doubt.
States are already moving to nullify obumacare. About 10 have legislation in the hopper. Another dozen will follow. The criminal fascist syndicate occupying Washington doesn’t have the manpower or the logistical means to stand up to state nullification. Joshua Chamberlain left the scene 100 years ago, and he ain’t coming back.
The law says you have to have insurance.....or pay a fine. Everything in between is just gobletygook. There are exemptions from the fine. Look them up.
No individual, company, business, nonprofit entity, or health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage shall be required to participate in any Federal health insurance program created under this Act.
I woud respectfully submit the following:
It is also not entirely unworthy of observation that, in declaring what shall be the supreme law of the land, the Constitution itself is first mentioned, and not the laws of the United States generally, but those only which shall be made in pursuance of the Constitution, have that rank.
Thus, the particular phraseology of the Constitution of the United States confirms and strengthens the principle, supposed to be essential to all written Constitutions, that a law repugnant to the Constitution is void,
and that courts, as well as other departments, are bound by that instrument.
“shared responsibility payment”
?
Thought it was a tax.
>
With all due respect, you are wrong. Keep reading:
“...and there shall be no penalty or fine imposed upon any such issuer for choosing not to participate in such programs.”
The adjective “individual” refers to an issuer, not an individual citizen.
What was the question again?
:-)
did you notice the "," in the first line that says individual"," company...
not individual company,...
Asking how they can help.
Lol!
A lotta pooping going on.
Your lips to God's ear.
Unfortunately, ObamaCare allows huge federal subsidies to the insurance companies for the first several years.
Unfortunately, when Boehner and Paul Ryan did their budget surrender a few weeks back, they funded ObamaCare in full for two years.
In other words, the leadership of the Republican Party willingly agreed to take all ObamaCare money issues off the table for the 2014 election!
My guess - in 2015, the Democrats, with Republican help, will cancel ALL insurance company subsidies and bail outs because of "public outrage."
That means most insurers will walk away from the health insurance business, and, by default, Obama and the Democrats will have the “Single Payer” government take over of our health system that they have always dreamed about.
These people in power are totalitarians, they live to control others, it's who they are, it's how they gain and maintain power for themselves.
As humorous as the bear pics are, the threat this law holds to all of us as conservatives is very real. The answer to the question in your headline is: Of course they will bully people. They will use this law to withhold rightful care because of your politics in the past and present. It's always been a law about control, They will harm us as much as they can, and use this threat to always keep us in check.
It's one of the reasons I despise those people who should have known better than to allow an avowed Marxist who wanted this kind of control over us to stay in office. They didn't understand the difference between Joseph Stalin and Humbert Humphrey when they said ALL liberals were the same. Some of them go around on this forum like they are proud of what they did, so proud of their stupidity, and they make me sick.
/rant.....
Members of Christian healthsharing ministries are exempt.
That’s the route I’ll go in order to starve the beast.
As soon as the penalty or tax or fee or whatever is commingled with other taxes owed the IRS can go for it with all of the usual methods at their disposal. Including interest accrued.
This is WHO.
offering group or individual health insurance coverage
What they DO
This refers to health insurance companies, who are not required to play.
I’m not assuming anything—the section is clearly written. Your interpretation is incorrect.
according to you, and I think you’re incorrect so we will leave it at that.
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