Posted on 03/10/2017 6:58:05 AM PST by pgkdan
The Affordable Care Act was based on government coercion of individuals and redistribution of wealth. So, too, is the Republican plan to “replace” it.
“An applicable individual shall for each month beginning after 2013 ensure that the individual, and any dependent of the individual who is an applicable individual, is covered under minimum essential coverage for such month,” said Obamacare.
This section of the law was clinically entitled: “Requirement to Maintain Minimum Essential Coverage.”
It was not a choice the government offered individuals. It was a command. It said the “individual shall.”
If the “individual” did not comply with this dictate, what did the government do?
“If an applicable individual fails to meet the requirement of subsection (a),” the law said, “…there is hereby imposed a penalty with respect to the individual in the amount determined under subsection ©.”
In his infamous ruling upholding this law, Chief Justice John Roberts concluded correctly that the Commerce Clause does not empower the government to force people to buy health insurance.
But Roberts then determined that the Obamacare mandate was not really a mandate, and that the “penalty” the government imposed for failing to follow this mandate was not really a “penalty.”
It could be construed as a tax, Roberts argued.
Therefore, he concluded, the government could constitutionally use its taxing power to penalize people who failed to buy the health insurance the government did not have the constitutional power to force them to buy.
Thus a Republican-appointed chief justice preserved the most coercive element of Obamacare.
In redistributing wealth, Obamacare not only expanded the already existing Medicaid program, it also created a wholly new form of federal subsidy aimed at middle-class Americans who earned too much money to qualify for even the expanded version of Medicaid — but earned less than 400 percent of the poverty level.
Under Obamacare, this class of Americans would receive a subsidy to buy health insurance in the government’s insurance exchanges.
That meant that Americans who did not qualify for Medicaid or the Obamacare subsidy — because they earned more than 400 percent of poverty or bought insurance through their employer — would be forced to subsidize the health insurance of those who went on the expanded Medicaid rolls or bought insurance through the exchanges.
This system of redistribution doubled the coercive nature of Obamacare: Not only did the government force people to buy insurance for themselves and their dependents, it forced them to help buy insurance for people they did not know.
Once this system of compounded coercion was enacted, the bureaucracy added yet another layer to it. The Department of Health and Human Services issued a regulation ordering individuals to buy health insurance that covered abortion-inducing drugs and devices and employers to provide insurance that covered these things.
The Obama administration even sought to apply this rule to Christian business owners, Catholic schools and orders of Catholic nuns.
That is where freedom stood in Obama’s America.
Then the nation elected a Republican House, Senate and president pledging to repeal and “replace” Obamacare.
This week, the Republican House unveiled its legislation to do just that.
The bill, says a summary published by the House Ways and Means Committee, “would reduce the penalty to zero for failure to maintain minimum essentially coverage; effectively repealing the individual mandate.”
But the Republicans would replace the Obamacare penalty with their own penalty — politely called the “Continuous Health Insurance Coverage Incentive.”
This Republican “incentive” would give Americans 63 days to buy health insurance — or else.
“Beginning in open enrollment for benefit year 2019,” says a summary published by the House Energy and Commerce Committee, “there will be a 12-month look back period to determine if the applicant went longer than 63 days without continuous health insurance coverage. If the applicant had a lapse in coverage of greater than 63 days, issuers will assess a flat 30 percent late-enrollment surcharge on top of their base premium based on their decision to forego coverage.”
The Republicans intend to replace the Obamacare subsidies with a “refundable tax credit” — which can be paid to someone who owes no tax.
This subsidy, according to Ways and Means, will be determined by age and income, rising from $2,000 per year per person for individuals under 30 to $4,000 per year per person over 60. Individuals will be eligible for the full credit if they have incomes up to $75,000, and joint filers will be eligible with incomes up to $150,000.
“The credits are additive for a family and capped at $14,000,” says the committee’s summary.
So, one family that does not pay taxes could get up to $14,000 in cash — from families that do pay taxes or from newly issued government debt — to buy insurance the government insists they must buy in 2019 or face a 30 percent surcharge when they do.
Americans who work, support themselves and do not take government subsidies are not the beneficiaries of this Obamacare repeal — or, that is, this Republican “replacement.”
My expectation is whatever is passed will be SNAFU. They will declare victory and give some people that buy their own insurance some modest relief and undo some of the more outrageous aspects of Obamacare.
What passed when?? It’s three parts, which part are you talking about?
When the final product is passed.
This is not health care reform. Nor is it insurance reform. It is government program reform.
That is unlikely to happen. Do you think a Congress person is going to vote to raise their own taxes?
I agree it is unlikely to happen—and I agree that Congress goes for even the small-bore financial gains for itself when it sees the opportunity.
That determination was not his to make.
Even the gov’t argued before him that it was not a tax. He chose to make his own findings not based on the law.
None of the above?
Your representation of what happened there is misleading — maybe unintentionally. The government may have claimed that it wasn’t a tax in its oral arguments, but by that time they had already submitted hundreds of pages of written briefs that argued many other — often contradictory — points. It’s a tax, it’s not a tax, it might be a tax, it doesnt matter if it’s a tax, etc. You can’t look at the oral arguments as if they are the sum total of all the evidence considered by the court.
Oh goody congress promising to do something later if we just do this now.,.that has always worked out so well in the past....
It IS a hot mess
It would also cause a firestorm with workers that get the break. In the past, my employer periodically relayed how much my coverage was worth. They just make an educated guess because they are self insured. It was a group price figure and not based on age. I think it was the Cobra cost. If they would have taxed me on that it would have the royal shaft in my younger days. For a family of 4 in the 25% tax bracket, it would be a ~$7.5K tax increase today.
https://www.scribd.com/document/98542275/Scotus-opinion
See page 17 et al.
Roberts inverted logic and twisted himself into a pretzel to call the penalty a tax because he thought it should be one.
Scalia in dissent which should have been the majority opinion skewered that idea.
All water under the bridge now...but its a tax because Roberts said so.
To be fair then, Employee Insurance Plans must all be paid for with after tax $
The benefit amount must be stated on a new 1099 HI that must be treated as income on the 1040.
That is what it should be, a tax deduction.
It was “forbidden” to be collected like a tax. They could not garnish for it they could not penalize you for not paying it...it was not to be considered a tax.
Until Roberts said it was.
Even Ginsburg in her ruling used the commerce clause as justification to rule the law constitutional. She said that yes the government could compel you to act because you would eventually act[need healthcare] and this was too important. Words to that effect. [Scalia said that was analogous to saying you might one day buy another car: the government cannot compel you to do so right now.]
His dissent was masterful..
It was "forbidden" to be collected like a tax. They could not garnish for it they could not penalize you for not paying it...it was not to be considered a tax.
The U.S. Supreme Court didn't forbid anything. That's the way the statute was written ... which was just one of many incoherent, idiotic things the law contained.
Thats correct: the SCOTUS did not forbid anything. The SCOTUS said it was a tax after the law went out of it way to say it wasn’t.
Poorly written, yes. But that was one of the arguments: it wasn’t called a tax so it wasn’t: the law laid out defined taxes and the mandate penalty as not one of them. Roberts saw fit to say it was and then ruled it legal.
Near as I can recall and I am not a legal eagle, that is why this mess is still with us today.
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