“MANDATE TAX” INSUFFICIENT FOR COVERING COSTS
U.S. President Barack Obama has a big problem on his hands as his second term gets underway … and it’s not just the ongoing sluggishness of the American economy.
In order for his signature socialized medicine law to work as planned, millions of Americans must be compelled to purchase health insurance. That’s precisely why “Obamacare” included a controversial provision mandating the purchase of health insurance – forced marketplace participation which has been (erroneously) approved by the U.S. Supreme Court as a proper extension of the government’s right to tax.
Here’s Obama’s problem, though (well aside from the crippling impact of tax hikes on economic growth). For most income earners, paying this tax will be cheaper than paying for insurance – thus removing the incentive for millions of them to do precisely what Obama needs them to do.
“In 2014, the first year that the tax will be collected, the tax is $95,” reports Adam Bitely of Net Right Daily. “It will increase to $325 or 2 percent of your income in 2015. In 2016, it will increase to its highest amount of $695 or 2.5 percent of your income. Even at its highest point, the tax is cheaper than health care in some cases.”
What does this mean? Unless Obamacare’s individual mandate “tax” is raised during Obama’s second term in office, there’s no way this monstrosity is going to stay afloat.
This is no secret … in fact it was a point raised repeatedly during the “debate” over the passage of this legislation.
Of course it wasn’t raised during Obama’s reelection because the Republican nominee, Mitt Romney, was also a supporter of socialized medicine – along with the right of government to mandate the purchase of health insurance.
How does Obama intend to address this discrepancy? By raiding your wallet/ pocketbook for additional funds, of course … the same way he paid for all that economic “stimulus” we’re currently enjoying.
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30 comments
Romney said he’d repeal Obama-Care immediately…
Yet: FITS told us there was no difference in Romney and Obama…now FITT’s playing this side of the fence…
Liars are the problem. They empower corrupt politicians…and if you believe the dis-honest (and voted for Obama)…blame yourself..
FITS is trying to throw cold water on Obama.
Sorry, FITS but you Republicans lost.
Well it was Romneycare before it became Obamacare.
Anyway, T thought you would out celebrating the day.
Just like the LTRO repayments yesterday, I think that hints/actions from the Fed towards canceling QE will initially be seen as bullish by the market — a sign of normalization. However, it will be a disaster for Bonds/Fixed Income which could rapidly put us right back into another global financial crisis. I always thought that there would be one more crash before the paper currency collapse — sooner than this but the Fed/ECB/BOJ interventions have kept delaying it.
Now that they are commited to printing to block any downturn it seems like the obvious thing to do would be to keep printing – the course they are on. It’s obvious to us here that the Fed can never unwind now without a disaster in bonds, but it was also obvious to most of us that housing was in a bubble in 2006. These things might not be so obvious to the Fed. Certainly the bond bubble doesn’t seem to be on their radar right now. Of all the actions possible to increase the severity of the final collapse, a prolonged period where huge govt debts are run up supported by money printing, only to end in another liquidity crisis when the Fed stops easing seems to be the worst. It’s almost like someone is making sure there are no solvent institutions anywhere when the next crisis hits.
…the harder you work, the more the government steals from you…
so, why bother to work?
What a joke. I am certain you receive far more in benefits than you pay in taxes. The entire state of SC receives more money from the Feds than we pay the feds. At today’s historically low tax rates no one, except the very lazy, are forgoing income opportunities because of the taxes.
Jan, my federal income tax witholdings alone are over $82K this year. I work about 100+ hours/week. I’m not 40 yet, so all those “social security” and medicare fees are just taxes, as the symstems will be completely broke by the time I will be in my sixties…and yes, I give a hell of a lot more than I “receive” from the federal gubmint…But, maybe it’s time a quit working a go on the dole…it just doesn’t pay to be a hard worker these days…heck maybe I’ll be able to use unemployment benefits and buy a flat-screen!
I agree, you should quit. You will probably lead a much better life. Let me know when you do. I’m still searching for that high income earner who is willing to give up his income and live on the public benefits they believe are out there to support them.
By the way, in determining how much you receive how did you value your access to the federal highway system. How did you value you share of the military? How did you value your access to air travel? How did you place a value your access to safe water and clean air? How did you value your Internet access? How did you value your access to satellite technology and national and international communication? How did you value a court system to protect your contract and property rights? How much money would you make this year if all of those things disappeared tomorrow?
Much less than the $82K in federal income taxes alone I’m paying…Maybe I should have hosted an Obama fundraiser and gotten some sweet tax breaks in return…lol! Buffett and those rich Google execs have it all figured out…
Jan, your points are stupid. Almost all of the things you cite are things that could have been provided by the private sector at a substantially reduced price. Further, I’m one of those individuals who believes that “progressive” taxation violates the 14 amendment to the constitution which deals with equal protections. It’s so incredible that property taxes and sales taxes are based solely upon equality of payment; however, not the income tax with its higher rates for higher income levels. The concept is so Un-American and unconstitutional.
Sound lik a plan ta me!
Gas price today is almost double that of 4 years ago…
Exon “donated” $250,000.00 to the coronation festivities…
Hope and change, people.
Hope and change.
The super rich are getting richer, and the poor and Middle Class are getting poorer…
Gas price today is almost double that of 4 years ago…
And gas prices today is only a few cents higher than this day 5 years ago.
Whoops.
Gas prices are almost a $1.00 a gallon less than they were in September of 2008, under George Bush.
So why is the price gas so high these days? No Hurricane Katrina… Why are so many Americans on Food Stamps? Why did Warren Buffett get a pass on paying $2 billion in back taxes? Why did Google and GE and Hollywood all get tax breaks? Hmmm…
Why are the super rich getting richer and and Middle Class and poor folks getting poorer?
I was ‘told’ that the Democrats were for the “Little Man.”
Buffet and other other billionaires like him should not be on the receiving end of tax breaks while the Middle Class shrinks.
But then again, the Middle Class doesn’t have the money to fill campaign coffers or host million dollar fundraisers…
The system itself is broken and needs a drastic overhaul, regardless of how you think it should be accomplished. Obamacare isn’t perfect, nor is it a complete fix, but ending lifetime maximums and banning the practice of dropping people for pre-existing conditions bullshit is something that should be pursued, as should be expanding access to affordable health care.
The primary focus of the health care industry should be providing health care, not making a profit by any means necessary. If we are going to stay with a system of private, for-profit health insurance companies, we must adopt a system that makes it more competitive and regulate the companies appropriately to make sure it fills the needs of the people. And yes, in some cases, that does involve removing part of government’s current involvement, and in other cases the opposite.
There was no single-payer plan brought up and the public option was dropped. The Obamacare that we now have was all that was left, but even then it was staunchly opposed. Republicans never ran their own competing plan, have not suggested one plan that would accomplish even half of what Obamacare tries to do, and have instead tried to dismantle Obamacare over 30 times with no solid plan of replacement. Just broken logic of how tort reform will fix everything and empty lies of how high-risk pools do a great job covering the uninsurables even though it isn’t available in every state, is terribly expensive, and can even exclude coverage on certain things.
Given the options of keeping the reforms that were passed and going back to the entirely broken system we had, possibly for another 20 years before this conversation even comes up again, I’d rather stay where we are until someone comes up to the table with suggestions of how to fix or improve the crappy parts of the ACA, or a full-on replacement that does as good of a job or better at addressing the issues with our health care system.
Just one small question:
Who gets to decide what doctors make in this utopia you paint?
No one gets to decide what they will make. The Government, like any other insurer, will tell the Doctors what they are willing to pay for the services the Doctors will render. If the Doctors do not want to work for that price they will not participate. You can always pay your doctor privately for his services.
That will not happen by the way. Today doctors are on average, and by a significant margin, the highest paid professionals in the country. So there are on the average no more lucrative job for them to obtain. In addition, on an inflation adjusted basis, doctors today make significantly more than doctors made in the 1950s and 1960s.
Finally, if American doctors are unwilling to work for the fees, there are doctors from low income countries with excellent training who would be willing to come here and practice. A supply sider answer to the problem. Increase the number of doctors.
“The Government, like any other insurer, will tell the Doctors what they are willing to pay for the services the Doctors will render. If the Doctors do not want to work for that price they will not participate. You can always pay your doctor privately for his services.”
It will be interesting to see what doctor shortage crop up. Currently the system you describe is in place in Canada, the U.K., Australia, New Zealand, and Germany…
They all have one thing in common….doctor shortages.
They have a lot more than that in common. Including, healthier citizens, longer life expectancies, lower infant mortality rates, and their people are happier with their health care than Americans are.
And to top that all except one of the countries you named have one other thing in common. Forbes Magazine says they are better places to do business than the US.
Who gets to decide what doctors make in this utopia you paint?
That isn’t a requirement to fixing our system of health care if we go with fixing the private system and/or offering a public option. With those options, doctors would still be in a private system.
Government would obviously have a severe influence on doctor pay in a single payer system, and while doctors in countries with single payer do typically make less, they still make pretty decent money.
They all have one thing in common….doctor shortages.
We do too, particularly in primary care. What country doesn’t have doctor shortages?
I’m sure the wait time to get seen in some countries sucks compared to ours, but for some people, getting seen at all would be better than the “treatment” they can afford here. Canadians may schlep over here to get their MRI done quickly, but Americans can’t flock to our friendly neighbors to the north to get cancer treatments that the hospitals here refuse to give them.
It’s all pros and cons, but many other systems do a far better job of treating a greater percentage of citizens.
“Including, healthier citizens, longer life expectancies, lower infant mortality rates, and their people are happier with their health care than Americans are. ”
Welp, obviously you aren’t ging to cite sources for everything you just posted…but regardless of whether you’ve committed a causation fallacy or not I eagerly await the full force of gov’t in the health care marketplace.
I can not wait for prices to go down and quality to go up.
It’ll be like that “credit fairy” commercial I hear on the radio all the time…the gov’t magic fairy dust and its army of bureaucrats will git er done and we’ll all be healthier.
Btw, you know one way to make the population healthy? Have gov’t outlaw soda. Make it mandatory for everyone to eat 1 salad a day, etc. Also, euthanize all the sick people and suddenly you have a healthier population.
There are so many things gov’t can do to create a healthier population.
Standing in line the other day to buy a handgun, chatting with a surgeon while they did our background checks.
He tells me that the Greenville Hospital System is and has been buying up other area systems, no big revelation there.
Then he goes on to tell me that the system is currently in the process of establishing their own insurance company to compete with the likes of Blue Cross and others.
Think about it.
So, currently we pay about 4 grand through our employers plan and they match it for full package of healthcare for our family of four. 8K.
If we drop out and pay only the fine, will we be denied care at the hospital based on having too much income? I’m thinking they would provide the care and then figure out the rest later.
If so, how is this supposed to work again? As it stands, the provider would come after us for unpaid bills and we would take care of said bills to protect our credit. Wouldn’t they still come after the money?
This entire plan is illogical. Currently hospitals provide indigent care. I assume they attempt to collect from these un-insured folks but get the finger. Hence, the insured pay via higher premiums and higher charges for services.
I just cannot figure this one out. The indigent are still indigent. So, with Obamacare, am I supposed to believe that I will pay the same to participate but somewhere the GOVM’T is going to distribute the money more effectively than the private market did?
It may be me, I’m still trying to figure out why we pay farmers to NOT grow corn and tobacco.
Republicans Praise Obama for Offering Bold Vision to Thwart
WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report) — Congressional Republicans heaped fulsome praise on President Obama’s second Inaugural Address today, saying that it had given them a detailed list of things to thwart over the next four years.
“My big fear was that the speech would be full of vague platitudes that wouldn’t be helpful to us in plotting against him,” said House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio). “Once he started offering details of what he actually hoped to accomplish, though, I realized we had hit the mother lode.”
Speaker Boehner praised the President for citing such specifics as hiring math and science teachers, building roads, and reducing health-care costs: “Now that we know that’s what he’s got in mind for his second term, we can hit the ground running to stop him.”
“My takeaway from the speech was, if we work hard enough, there’s nothing we can’t keep him from doing,” he said.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Kentucky) praised Mr. Obama for injecting humor into a usually somber address: “I loved that joke about ending political name-calling.”
Hey …gotta great idea….in the same line of thinking as obamacare….let’s pay cheap fine (tax) until I get seriously sick and then get insurance so BCBS foots the bills….they can’t deny pre-existing. Let’s not get homeowner’s insurance but instead pay a fine and then when my house burns to the ground I call Farm Bureau to get a policy to cover my loss. I think I am on to something. This is gonna be a great country.
@: – smirks/who/fran/cool/gasman/jan/nocom../?
,,,, read and initialed
The worst part of all this is it is not going to stop. Now the government can tax us into doing just about anything and this right of government has been validated by the Supreme Court. Therefore, the perpetuation of such mandates will permeate our society more and more every generation.
But do not give up hope!
The only way to stop this is to take the right away from government, and the only way to take this right away is to specifically and directly outlaw it by amending our Constitution.
This is a very difficult task but what else can we do? Leave this to our children? Once the Roberts’ decision has permeated our society and the dependency on Obamacare becomes more and more prevalent, there will be no turning back.
There is a movement underway that is building steam but we need help. It is an amendment to the US Constitution that reads:
“Congress shall make no law mandating the purchase of a product or service from a private entity”
This is simply, straight forward, and nearly impossible to opposed. What are politicians going to say? Corporations should have that much influence upon them?
We started coalitions in Massachusetts, California, and Hawaii but we need one in every state. Please Google Mandate Amendment and find us on Twitter and Facebook. We need your help TODAY.
….It’s a complex problem that can be boiled down to an equitable resolution in one word—-
“INTELLIGENT THINKING”