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(photo: IslesPunkFan / flickr)
Yesterday the Supreme Court ruling in favor of the Affordable Care Act was seen as a serious disappointment to Conservatives who hoped the entire law would be struck down, but they did at least get a political consolation prize from Chief Justice John Roberts.
Roberts declared that the sole reason the individual mandate is constitutional is because it is a tax and Congress has the power to levee taxes. Democrats have gone to great lengths to try to pretend the individual mandate is not a tax, even though it is new money some people will be required to pay to the IRS when they file their taxes. Democrats tried so hard to avoid this reality that they never used the word “tax” to describe it in the law, which looking at the dissenting opinion almost put the law in constitutional jeopardy.
Now that Roberts has ruled the individual mandate is officially a tax it has become even more difficult for Democrats to claim otherwise, and would now mean Democrats indirectly arguing the mandate isn’t in fact constitutional.
The individual mandate was already very unpopular before and will likely be even more unpopular now that Court has declared it a “tax.” Already Republicans have seized on this talking point to both make the law more unpopular and to prove Obama lied about not raising taxes on people in the middle class. American’s for Prosperity announced that they will spend $9 million on an ad buy to hammer this point and that is probably just the start of Conservative groups trying to exploit this issue.
While this is a solid political talking point for Republicans, like every political argument related to health care reform, its value is seriously undercut by their decision to nominate Mitt Romney. After all, if this federal mandate is a tax, that basically means the individual mandate Romney signed into law in Massachusetts was also a tax.
56 Comments
Even though I’m not really enthusiastic for RombamaCare, I still feel an urgent need to go to various media sites to taunt and laugh at the confused TPers. It’s kind of hard to avoid…
It’s a tax. //slap//
It’s a penalty //slap//
It’s a tax //slap//
It’s a penalty //slap//
It’s a tax AND a penalty.
Use of the DOR to levy a punitive financial penalty on a resident who does not have health insurance, is a Tax. A punitive financial penalty in the form tax, used to compel and coerce, people to purchase health insurance from tax exempt health insurance corporations, after the tax exempt Health Insurance Corps lobbyists, met behind close doors with the Beacon Hill Leadership? Why did not the DOJ investigate this one? BTW some of that leadership might still be in jail? How much money did the legislatures receive from the lobbyist representing the public charity health insurers?
I remember it well…..
To bad Congress and the Courts can’t slap the wrist of the monied aristocrats, raping this republic….
It’s a Constitutional catastrophe is what it is.
Just goes to prove, once again, what the practice of law is all about: turning black into white, night into day, and wrong into right. It’s about twisting and inverting the normal meaning of words to arrive at a predetermined politically motivated conclusion.
I keep getting confused between Shakespeare and Mark Twain. One said, “First we kill all the bankers” and the other said, “First we kill all the lawyers”. They were both right.
What possible response can a normal person even make about this situation?
Tax, penalty, schmenalty, I and many other Americans are no better off than before the mighty Obama and his henchman Rahm brought forth this new “prop” for corporate America. (In what they labeled a “reform” effort.)
Its the corporate fist…..
So to was the Scott decision, stating that an educated learned man was property of another, for another’s benefit, because he was black man? A constitutional cluster fuck just like this one to protect a corporate health insurers monopoly, like slave owners. Abolish private health insurance as we abolished slavery.
Single payer………
I’m beginning to like it as a tax. Now, can we talk about progressive tax rates? Maybe the tax should be part of your regular tax rates? Let the government deal with the insurance companies. I’ll just pay my taxes.
I think lots of them are already in congress and on the bench.
Do you know the differenece between a dead skunk in the middle of the road and a dead lawyer in the middle of the road???
No skid marks in front of the lawyer.
I always appreciate your contributions.
What I don;t understnad is many other countries havea simple plan that works. I’ve seen it and experienced it personally in New Zealand and Canada. Why did WE have to re-invent the wheel????
Indeed. Change the //slap// to a //whompp//
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marcia-angell-md/roberts-romney-health-care_b_1637397.html
Please note the “tax” contribution to Angell’s argument.
NOT necessarily mutually exclusive options.
(Shakespeeare was the guy with the puffy shirt, right?)
The biggest crime ever perpetrated seems to be linguistic, considering what our government has done to the English language.
Exactly. They are making the shit up as they go along to serve corporate interest.
For the sake of the anti-injunction act, it was a penalty otherwise there was no standing. When they crossed that hurdle, puff, it becomes a tax which congress can levy.
Just pure bullshit. Now, hand me that constitution so I can wipe my ass with it!
And the corporate fist is bipartisan.
That’s an excellent desciption.
Can I use that at a cocktail party??? I might be able to pickup a smart, hot chick.
Oooooooh. Parchment.
There’s not enough of that document left to do the job, and you can’t use the Bill of Rights because that’s been superseded the Patriot Act.
The SCOTUS captitulated to monied interests, the MIC, the Bush Crime Syndicate & other 1%ers with Bush v. Gore, and Roberts was “annointed” to its fearless “leader” by all of the above.
The SCOTUS is just as bought & sold as almost all other pols, esp at the fed level. What the SCOTUS engaged in here is probably some of the “best” Kabuki Show since Bush v. Gore.
It’s totally & insanely bogus, but the “masterful” reach-around by Roberts to BigIns, BigPharma, BigHosp, et al, is quite breathtaking. In terms the sheer chutzpah value, I have to give it: two thumbs up.
Anyone who believes that Roberts was fallowing the US Constitution or anything remotely related to US “Rule of Law” is either ignorant, not paying attention, totally brainwashed or all of the above.
Kabuki Show. Brought to you by the Koch Brothers & their rapacious pillaging pals.
Yes, wingnut heads are exploding right on cue. Of course, they are being misled to believe it’s the “fault” of the uppity black black black fella in the white house who is the root-cause of all eeevul in the universe. Which of course is a neat trick and reliably blinds conservatives to how badly they’ve been had by “their own.”
OTOH, I’ve been inundated with emails since early yesterday from nearly every “Democratic” pol in the book, plus loads of Veal Pen organizations, *regaling* me with how fantabulous ACA is, and Barry ZERO WON!!!! Hooray for our Team! USA USA USA!!!!!!!
My trad-Dem voter pals were in *absolute BLISS* last night over Obummer’s “masterfulness.”
Who’s been brainwashed more?
By all means. I won’t tell your wife. Just be sure not to pull an Anthony Weiner; no incriminating sexting.
I’ve also heard the version where it’s a rattler, not a skunk.
A female friend of mine showed me an inappropriate sexting she got from her gym trainer, no less.
I am getting ooooolllddd. I was rather shocked by the photo… erk.
I certainly think that this fee should be a tax, and if I recall correctly, both Jane and Marcy doubted its constitutionality.
Republican think tanks are constantly coming up with ideas to turn things that should be taxes into something else: mandates, cap-and-trade, etc. But now the Tea Party GOP is repudiating all of those. And Obama got caught in the switch-over.
When folded, it’s like 2-ply.
I long for the day I can use the Patriot Act like they are using the constitution right now.
Say what?
So, all Obama has to do is propose a tax holiday.
yes…………..
From day one I have been saying that wigwam…
you know, if the president chose this avenue for discussion;
“since people who are not insured costs everyone else when they go to the emergency room, we have to fund those visits, we are going to do it not by charging anyone with insurance by by determining the costs involved for those who do not have insurance and charging them that cost”
“it is not reasonable for individuals to expect other people pay their bills and we have to put an end to it”
I might have gone along with the reasoning as it amounts to single payer and might even pave the way
Flip a coin? I’ll take heads!
That’s not a reliable symptom of aging. A response of total indifference would be an indication of that.
The reason why the tax exempt providers are considered public charities is to provide that care free of charge???? WTF, charge the 5 year old $1000.00 dollar for 5 stitches in a ER? Maybe the problem is if the providers and insurers had a fucking tax liability there would be some pubic hairs to extract from their collective scrotum and their would be a mechanism to control then as the Court seen fit to use the tax code as a gauntlet a club against the governed. Once again people need access to healthcare not servitude to a fucking corporation!!!!
Fuck Wall Street, Fuck the Oil Whores, Fuck the Bankers and NOW fuck the tax exempt and for profit corporate health insurer…..
I cannot argue against your points james
I like it when you get me fired up…. Mad Man
I cant type…. can’t spell can’t think!!!!
Yes its a “tax” and just in case you were thinking the decision was anything but an absolute, complete and total victory for the Market State, the supremes DID remove the fed authority to force states to expand medicare ie.,the only thing about the law that might have actually helped anyone.so there you go.the plan worked like a charm..and why wouldnt it?
A minute tax on all Wall Street transactions
A tax on Banks
A tax On the Oil Industry
Pay for the uninsured via them and recognized their actions collectively. Myopic self interest resulted in the fucking of this nation, while they made trillions and bought congress with the monies extracted from the governed and the republic, to fuck us again…..
An insured has more in common with an uninsured, than he does with a corporation! Smucks…
I see the situation thusly: The Corporatists have always looked for ways to make the middle class pay for the care of the poor. While they pay nothing.
In the current economic climate, with more and more slipping into poverty, this strategy no longer seems possible. Maybe they can steal from Social Security to pay for medical care for the poor.
Meanwhile, they give trillions of dollars to insolvent banks.
Free, universal healthcare would SAVE MONEY, as is demonstrated by the rest of the civilized world.
What’s wrong with this picture?
I don’t trust anything said on Corporate Media but while watching the today show they laid out what the tax/penalty for non compliance
2014 – $65 or $95 per uninsured family member
2015 – $265 per ditto; IIRC
2016 – $695!!!
“Roberts declared that the sole reason the individual mandate is constitutional is because it is a tax and Congress has the power to levee taxes. Democrats have gone to great lengths to try to pretend the individual mandate is not a tax, even though it is new money some people will be required to pay to the IRS when they file their taxes. Democrats tried so hard to avoid this reality that they never used the word “tax” to describe it in the law, which looking at the dissenting opinion almost put the law in constitutional jeopardy.”
I think I made that point yesterday?
JamesJoyce commented on the blog post Congress Reacts to Supreme Court Upholding Affordable Care Act
2012-06-29 01:32:19
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If an appellant on appeal makes a different argument than than initially argued at lower court level he loses, correct?
I’m having difficulty with the fact that a law from congress drafted in a certain way,(ICC) to justify individual mandate, is basically shot down, but upheld by the Court because a Judge’s rational that the tax and spend power of the congress makes the mandate, constitutional, but the law as presented to Justices, says the penalty in the ACA is not a tax! Twisted logic in my eyes. Roberts finds the law constitutional, on language not contained in the law? Something is not right here. Basically Roberts is being given a free pass to put forth a rational, to justify the mandate, not contained in the law. So appellant should be able to make new argument, on appeal and win? This is what Roberts has done. Its like approving a zoning by law change that is essentially “spot zoning,” for a corporation. Better yet a case of infectious invalidity when issuing a building permit?
Just as Jefferson feared… Corporations winning all the time and grinding the governed into bone meal.
Follow the money…..
Meanwhile Romney pulled in 3 million dollars in 24 hours
It is called Greed… Like that of a King and his corporate cohorts in colonial crime. The type of greed that sparks a revolution, Johnnyred? Seems like America is right back to square fucking one, except this time it is our government, which has been hijacked by the corporate Aristocrats in Congress and the Courts. It not a foreign government. That is what make this so egregious, and Jefferson warned US! Happy 4th of July to you and your family!
“Free, universal healthcare would SAVE MONEY, as is demonstrated by the rest of the civilized world.
What’s wrong with this picture?”
There’s no such thing as free. Someone has to pay for it (and I’m guessing you wouldn’t like it to be you).
Why not bring back fucking poll taxes!!!!!!!!
I mean free in the sense of no up-front costs. Of course taxes will have to pay for services. As I said the rest of the world already does this successfully. There is no mystery about “will this work”?
I would be happy for it to be me. If the insurance premiums I paid my whole life had been paid in the form of a reasonable, progressive tax and gone to Medicare for All, 3% of the money would have gone to administrative costs, instead of 20% to an insurance company for profits, marketing, lobbying, campaign contributions, executive compensation, and staffing to review claims to find loopholes for denying the claims.
Even without additional cost savings that can be realized within a Medicare for All system, such as prescription drug price negotiation, as every other industrialized country has, 4 other people and I could have funded insurance for life for a poor person, though with everybody in the pool, the premiums would probably have been lower (the US spends more on healthcare than any other country, with usually worse outcomes.)
And we would have the added and priceless bonus of knowing we were living in a country that provided medical care for all its people.
It’s an Approved Loan that you don’t get until after you have paid it off first.
Simple… because here in the US someone has to get rich off of sick people. Right now, that would be insurance companies.
Shakespeare did not say “First we kill all the lawyers” himself. He put those words — or something very like them — in the mouth of an unsympathetic character, Dick the Butcher, a supporter of Jack Cade’s Rebellion, which also went after everyone who was literate — something Shakespeare surely did not support.
It’s a Tax on Free-Loaders, so what’s the big deal!
Oh! Oh wait… I get it now… Republicans are the free-loaders that the new Tax targets, and That’s why they are so incensed!
Thanks for the correction. But even though he put the line into a character’s mouth, he still authored it, the same way Carl Gottlieb authored “We’re gonna need a bigger boat” in JAWS.
And if Dick the Butcher was in favor of killing off lawyers, I wouldn’t necessarily judge him “unsympathetic”. All those lawyer jokes exist for good reason.
“What are 500 dead lawyers at the bottom of the ocean?”
“A good start.”
Hi Perris. Is this what Obama actually said? Do you have a link?
This is exactly the right-wing answer, “cut them off” or “let them die.”
IMHO, that hypothesis is dead wrong: in fact, people do have a right to expect other people (i.e., their government) to fund their health care. Full stop!
I’ve got to say that lawyers are among the few who are willing and trained to stand up to this bullshit.