The two-edged healthcare sword for Mitt Romney & the GOP
Mitt Romney | AP
You’re hearing a lot of crowing from conservatives today about the U.S. Supreme Court’s 5-4 decision upholding the Affordable Care Act.
They had been expecting it to go the other way, of course. But they put on a brave — and straight — face, and tried to argue that because SCOTUS has deemed that the individual mandate penalty is a constitutional “tax,” they can now campaign against it as an “ObamaCare tax increase.”
Don’t be fooled, though. The ruling is the worst possible outcome for putative GOP nominee Mitt Romney’s chances to win the White House in November. And the same can be said for Republicans in Congress.
Why? We’ll deal with the Romney question first.
The ACA is at the root a CONSERVATIVE health-care reform plan. It was devised by the Heritage Foundation in the early 1990s and promoted by Newt Gingrich as the conservative alternative to (failed) health-care reform attempts in Clinton administration.
As soon as Clinton’s efforts failed, the conservatives more or less dropped the idea like a hot potato. But over the years the need for it increased. And this was keenly recognized by none other than Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney.
At the urging of Romney backer Thomas Stemberg (founder of Staples) Romney pushed universal health coverage in Massachusetts that was modeled after the Heritage Foundation plan. He signed the bill in 2006 that made that a reality. Bigwigs in the Heritage Foundation were on hand for the bill signing and gave it hearty applause.
The Affordable Care Act is modeled precisely after that bill. And as regular Richard J. Beason already has pointed out elsewhere on this blog, Romney consulted with Congress and the White House on how to broaden his plan to the whole country. Today, that’s called “ObamaCare.”
Its enactment was going to be a huge feather in Romney’s cap. It was going to make him the father of universal healthcare coverage in America. It seemed there would be no better resume item for a White House wannabe than that.
But then a few things went wrong.
One was the rise of the Tea Party. Though the name is new, the movement is not. It’s nothing more than a renewal of the John Birch Society 50 years later. Among other things, that crew wants to undo Social Security, Medicare and hard-fought civil rights laws. They want to turn back the clock on this country to the way things were before the Great Depression.
They HATED the ACA because it was the product of government. They lied and tried to call it “government-run healthcare” even though it’s actually a government mandate that people have private health insurance (along with added regulations on those private insurers). The Tea Party Birchers made up garbage about “death panels” and other things, too. No lie was too low to sink to in their criticism of it, no matter how bald-faced.
Another thing that went wrong was recognition by mainstream Republicans that Obama had “pulled a Clinton” by latching onto a conservative plan and winning enactment of it, and getting credit too. President Clinton’s success in such maneuvers infuriated Republicans in the 1990s; they vowed then never to let another Democratic president do something like that.
But Obama had done it with healthcare, and that meant the GOP reflexively had to oppose it, just for the sake of political posturing. The well-being of the country be damned.
This was a huge problem for Mitt Romney as he approached the crowded 2012 GOP presidential primaries. It meant he had to attack “ObamaCare,” which was based on “RomneyCare,” so he wouldn’t alienate the Republican Party’s activist wing. If Romney had failed to do that, he couldn’t have won the GOP nomination.
This was not a difficult move for Romney to make, of course. He has proven over and over again that there’s no position he won’t change to score a political victory (gay marriage, cap n trade, gun control, abortion rights, etc).
So how could Mitt Romney attack his own plan? He made the quite risky choice to base the attacks on the ACA’s constitutionality. He said it was OK for states to do what he did in Massachusetts, but against the U.S. constitution for the federal government to do the same thing. He said it right here in Salem on Tuesday — that he believed in “state’s rights” when it came to healthcare. (Bonus: the phrase doubled as southern racist code, too).
And then Romney crossed his fingers and hoped dearly that the Supreme Court would agree with that position. Which they did not.
This has left Romney with no logical and consistent argument against the Affordable Care Care, which is the law he gave birth to as Massachusetts governor. Which is why Thursday’s ruling was the worst possible outcome for him. He’s stuck in the position of trying to kill his own baby for no good reason.
It’s also a bad outcome for Republicans in Congress. Because while it’s true that “ObamaCare” is unpopular, that’s based on all the lies that have been told about it. The fact is, the bill’s key provisions are very popular. And the electorate is beginning to catch onto that, and to the truth.
So this summer, Romney will be launching a full-on assault against a constitutional law that — more than any other politician — he gifted to the nation.
And Republicans in Congress, meanwhile, will be trying to repeal health-care coverage for adult offspring through the age of 26 (on their parents’ health plans); a ban on health insurance denials for people with pre-existing conditions; and a ban on insurance company caps on lifetime health coverage.
All of these key planks of the ACA are overwhelmingly popular.
Those are the reasons today’s ruling was the worst possible outcome, both for Romney and the GOP.
June 28, 2012 - 1:05 PM
How can Rmoney possibly run against the ACA with a straight face? Cannot wait to see him try.
In the words of Aesop, Don’t count your chickens before they hatch.
Dan…disseminating the “talking points”
LC,
I don’t mind criticism (as you probably know) but this is completely my own analysis (with a nod/some credit to Richard J. Beason). I haven’t read analysis of the decision elsewhere, and nobody’s feeding me anything to “disseminate.” Good grief — I’ve been reporting for Sunday’s column, on an entirely different subject.
#2: “Don’t count your chickens before they hatch”
Uptheriver, Lake Claytor and others vehemently disagree with you about that. They insist that we MUST count chickens from the moment the hen’s germ cell receives sperm. It’s nice to see that you recognize that actual viability comes later.
@5 Warren, so sublime, funny and wickedly true! haha
It will be easy for Romney to do away with
Obamacare on his first day in office with
no risk of downside.
He simply will keep it in place and call it Romneycares, ..locally chanted as ” Romobama..smack yo mama, feel good blues.”
The right is crying and whining and calling to impeach Chief Justice Roberts…now that’s an impeachment I could get behind. Let’s have the President sit a new Justice…
Dan, I think your assessment is right on..and as a reminder to most of the RWers on this blog – the mandate doesn’t become effective until 2014, so all their teeth gnashing is premature.
#3 I guess you haven’t seen all the right wingers disseminating the Obama “lied” talking point, LC?
@Warren…
You have a point…in fact ive seen quite a number here
that must be in their 40-s or 50-s and beyond…and a beauty
Kween or two..and they are still struggling with their own viability.
Rep. Louie Gohmert of Texas is calling for the impeachment of Justice Kagan, supposedly because she didn’t recuse herself and she was on the prevailing side in the 5-4 vote.
Apparently Gohmert hasn’t yet globbed onto the fact that if Kagan had recused herself, the vote would have been 4-4 and the law still would have been upheld. Duh.
(Unless Clarence Thomas had also recused HIMSELF, which many were calling for. Then it would have been upheld 4-3).
This thing is such a no-brainer. Romney, Obama, Justice Roberts, all like the Affordable Healthcare Act because the big insurance companies, big hospital corps, big Pharma, they all like it.
It is fun to watch everyone wetting themselves over it all like it is really some important, or horrible demonic-government thingy, when actually it is nothing but business as usual.
Rebublicans have a history of having a disdain for Security.
To them hell is the same word as tax…
and a tax is what they say it is.
http://historymatters.gmu.edu/d/8128/
BTW – this decision impacts actual people [read as not corporations] who desperately need health insurance – in all the rhetoric it shouldn’t be forgotten:
Nationwide, 17.1 percent of Americans lacked health insurance in 2011[according to the Gallup Healthways Well-Being Index.
More than one in five people are uninsured in many states, starting with:
Texas (27.6 percent),
Mississippi (23.5 percent),
Florida (22.9 percent),
Oklahoma (22.1 percent),
California (22.0 percent), and,
Nevada (21.9 percent).
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2012/06/where-uninsured-live/2403/
It isn’t a coincidence that the majority of these states, 5 out of 6, have Republican governors.
The irony in these statistics?
“Massachusetts, which boasts the lowest rate of uninsured people in the nation, at less than five percent. Massachusetts, of course, already has an individual mandate thanks to the health-care reform efforts of former governor Mitt Romney.”
http://www.theatlanticcities.com/jobs-and-economy/2012/06/where-uninsured-live/2403/
Andrew Sullivan has some great reactions and interpretations of the opinion on his blog.
http://andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com/2012/06/live-blogging-scotus-healthcare-ruling.html
So as I understand it, everyone who works and does not have (translate cannot afford) healthcare will have another $695.00 of their money confiscated by the IRS by the year 2016 to be redistributed in part to the “poor” Americans who already benefit from tax payer paid healthcare programs. How is that fair? How is this not just another tax on the middle class? I believe the reason the SCOTUS ruled the way it did is because it deemed this “penalty” to be a tax that congress had the constitutional right to impose. Is that not correct? SO average hard working Joe out there just trying to make ends meet, your tax burden just went up by $695.00 a year thanks to the king and his cronies on capital hill.
How about this Mr. President and ladies and gentlemen of the legislature,
how about passing legislation that entitles ALL Americans to the same healthcare benefits you receive? After all we are the ones paying for your healthcare. Not to mention the princesses’ vacations.
No worries, ‘weathervane’ will keep on spinning it for whatever audience he is in front of. This is much like the old game “mystery date”. We have no clue what Romney will show up at a campaign event and no idea what we will get if the lies stick and he is elected. “Open the door to your mystery” President. Wow, and you people thought Obama was an unknown! Hate is a strong emotion.
A very good read:
http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/scocca/2012/06/roberts_health_care_opinion_commerce_clause_the_real_reason_the_chief_justice_upheld_obamacare_.single.html
And gue4ss what? Virginia Rethugs were so confident that the SC would shoot down health care, that they’ve done absolutely nothing to prepare for it. Great planning.
I do not care about the source of this legislation. A bad idea is a bad idea.
John Birch Society?? I know that I think that most of the government programs introduced over the last 100 years have not been good. That does not mean that I think that the ideas behind them are necessarily bad. Why does the federal government have to do everything?
You see, there is this think called rule of law. Words also have meaning. I do not need a lawyer to tell me what is and is not constitutional.
For Dan to imply that advocates of smaller government wish to somehow reinstitute seperate lunch counters and slavery and the like is very reprehensible.
The proper way to amend the constitution is through the amendment process and not judicial fiat.
If a law is too large to fit on a sheet of notebook paper, it is too complex. The tax code is complex beyond belief. There is no need for that.
I said it earlier, be careful what you wish for, you may get it.
Where does it end Dan? How much of your life are YOU willing to let government take care of and control? For a government to do something for someone, it must have some control. Why can’t you see the gradual encroachment of government upon our individual liberty? No matter how well intentioned, a law can and will be bent to it’s own worst end. This health care law has a few thousand pages to it. It will have ambiguities that can be interpreted to mean anything. My goodness, we have people that can’t seem to understand a sentance. The right of the people to bear arms shall not be infringed. That ONE sentence is debated. Imagine what can and will be done with the ACA!!
The facts are:
A person has life.
That life has only so much time.
The person spends that time to aquire property.
The form of the property is immaterial.
Government is the aggregate of the individual right to self defense.
Self defense is the defending of person and property against those who would take it.
Government’s place is to protect life and liberty. Life includes property because life must be spent to obtain that property.
A person taking property by force from one to whom the property belongs is a thief.
Our government is doing things way beyond the scope of aggregate self defense….while all the while ignoring that job.
So government is taking money from one person to give it to another. That has nothing to do with proper government. That is a perversion of government.
Dan,
Are you a promoter of looters? Do you advocate the theft of life?
The difference between us is that I want less government so that we can each do as we will in matters. You want more government so as to force me to do as you think I ought.
How many BILLION people do we have in this country? Does anyone think it is right that every facet of our lives be dictated to us by fewer than a thousand??
This whole thing has nothing to do with republicans and democrats. This whole thing is a question of the place of the individual relative to government. Dan….YOUR liberty?!!!??!! Why would you sacrifice an iota of it?? Don’t you know it is precious?
Just for being alive, if I do not pay for health insurance, I am penalized. If I do not pay that penalty. my property is seized. If I still do not comply, I am jailed.
We have mess built upon mess. All these things are so embedded that to rid ourselves of them would be very painful. Add this one to the pile.
Where does it all end?
It ends when there is no more money to steal.
We are very close to that now. As the house of cards falls down, the totalitarianism will come to the fore. There will be bloodshed. There will be terrible terrible suffering.
Dan, I do not hate you. It is not your fault. You don’t know any better.
will – you are full of misinformation:
“Tens of millions of uninsured Americans will gain coverage. Senior citizens will get billions of dollars of prescription drug benefits. Everyone with insurance will get preventive services at no cost. Roughly 60,000 people now covered by the new Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan will still have that coverage, even though they are actually sick and thus might actually use it. We all still have the guarantee that our policies won’t be canceled when we get sick. And our adult children can stay on our health plans until they’re 26.”
“On Aug. 1, [men and women will have] unfettered access to diabetes screenings, annual well-woman visits, HPV testing, domestic violence screenings, breast-feeding support, and, contraception.”
http://www.slate.com
Read the language of the ACA law – it says the government CANNOT ENFORCE A PENALTY. If you have insurance you are already paying for those who don’t when you pay your premium. If you don’t have insurance, you will have coverage that allows you to seek and get preventive medical attention
It does not ask you to change your provider; just outlines how your insurance company cannot boot your kids when they become of age; just outlines how your insurance company cannot boot you or raise your premiums just because they want to. It in fact, benefits everyone, including those who are already insured. What the heck is the down side?
Dan, I was giving you credit for them. Just that you were disseminating YOUR talking points. Relax.
Admittedly, I have only read the “Roberts” opinion, but it seems to me the “act” is now a tiger with no teeth.
I am also impressed with the limits the opinion puts on the commerce clause, state mandates and taxing penalties.
I first wanted this thing to be 86’d, but I am now wondering if I was not wrong in that desire.
I look forward to the entire analysis of the opinion…
Dan, you make legitimate points about the health care debate. The problem with your contention is that the GOP will still attack Obamacare, especially when funded by groups such as the Koch brother’s foundation. The other problem is that a majority of the electorate in this country has the attention span of a two year old on Red Bull. They respond to 60 second commercials, fifteen second sound bytes, and bumper sticker slogans. Anything more nuanced bores them.
Winds light and variable…
He may be out of the hunt..
but at least he gave us a whiff of the
right direction to the aimless trail.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0xj-loQTvso
Yesterday I posted a link to the RCP website showing President Obama’s lead in nationwide polling at 3% . 24 hrs later he’s up to 3.6%
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html
Opps.
Why? We’ll deal with the Romney question first.
The ACA is at the root a CONSERVATIVE health-care reform plan
That’s easy. ACA is nothing like the original highly-limited voluntary plan.
As if Romney needed it, this is yet another gift thrown in his lap. It mobilizes ALL conservatives and most of the independents into one force like nothing else could have, giving the GOP a super landslide and control of both Houses. If you think the biggest Democrat-whitewash in 124 years was incredible two years ago, wait until this fall.
Here’s how it will go:
1) Mr. 0bama, you stated repeatedly you wouldn’t raise taxes on anyone making under $200,000. But 0bamacare is a tax on the middle class. How do you explain your lie?
A: Uh….uh…..
2). Mr. 0bama, you said premiums would go down the minute 0bamacare was implemented. Today, people’s premiums have gone up. How do you explain your lie?
A: Uh…..uh….
3) Mr. 0bama, you claimed everybody would be covered under your plan, but today many small companies are saying they will hire part time workers or lay off workers in order not to have to pay for 0bamacare. How do you explain your lie?
A. Uhhh……uh….
It’s been a lovely day to be a Democrat. Watching the Suzified wingnuts squirm like eartworms dropped into a bottle of alcohol is weel woth the price of admission I paid with my donation to the Obama campaign this week!
“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired, signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed.”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Finally the poor will start paying for health insurance instead of sponging off the rest of the country.
“I guess you haven’t seen all the right wingers disseminating the Obama “lied” talking point, LC?”
You are not wrong gdad.
http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/ticket/obama-rejected-characterizing-insurance-mandate-tax-2009-150602242.html
That is what they are disseminating. The question is why. Surely Obama lying isn’t still considered news. Now if he told the truth one day, that would be front page stuff.
“And guess what? Virginia Rethugs were so confident that the SC would shoot down health care, that they’ve done absolutely nothing to prepare for it. Great planning.”
They were SUPREMELY confident. It’s been a little nauseating, frankly, watching the self-satisfied smirks on all the RWer faces. Few if any of them every believed that John Roberts would “betray” them so badly. Some of them were suspicious of Kennedy, though.
#20 “How many BILLION people do we have in this country?”
Um, David in Salem, we don’t have even ONE billion people inn the U.S. Maybe one-third of 1 billion. Given that you’re unaware even of that, I think we can judge the rest of your stuff accordingly, particularly your predictions of blood in the streets.
“The facts are:
A person has life.
That life has only so much time.
The person spends that time to aquire property.
The form of the property is immaterial.”
This is possibly the most depressing and reductive explanation of “life” I’ve ever read enjoy amassing your pile of crap there, David. I hope when I’m at the end I have better stuff to show for my life.
I guess this is the difference between RWers and Lwers.
“How many BILLION people do we have in this country?”
Get out the net.
Dan…
I frankly believe that the opinion might be a “fair” analysis. Particularly as is pertains to the constitutional analysis. It might be a great victory for the states…
“Yesterday I posted a link to the RCP website showing President Obama’s lead in nationwide polling at 3% . 24 hrs later he’s up to 3.6%”
Precisely. Romney’s goose is cooked. He could get a 1-week bump from the convention if he chose Palin as his running mate. But as soon as she opened her mouth his numbers would drop like a rock.
BTW, I was at a cocktail party/reception tonight where I met a bigtime filmmaker who has some experience with Sarah. His diagnosis: She’s an unmedicated/bipolar, of the fast cycling variety, who switches from charm to volcanic anger at the flip of a switch. It was interesting, hearing that description.
“charm to volcanic anger at the flip of a switch”
Now imagine It with the nuclear codes.
I think the determining factors that will decide 2012 are where the polls are a week from today and the outcome of the 1st debate. There is still a mathematical chance Romney can win but its increasingly improbable.
He cared about the toad…
Toads amongst us unite!
,…this from 2005.
http://watchingwashington.blogspot.com/2005/07/hints-at-judge-roberts-rulings.html
BTW, I was at a cocktail party/reception tonight where I met a bigtime filmmaker
LOL. Right. Unless it was the dude with the bigtime belly, Michael Moore.
I don’t think a life of sponging off others and raising maladjusted kids is a legacy I’d want to leave. I’d prefer a legacy where I created jobs for hundreds of people over a 30-40-year time span, a legacy where I made the lives of desperately poor people much better, and a legacy where I fought for the cause of individual liberty at every turn.
Dan, perhaps another to describe Palin would be ‘high maintenance diva’, which equates to roughly the same thing your filmmaker said, only in less clinical terms. I choose to believe her behavior is something she can control through mature and rational thought, without having to resort to medication to suppress.
I can tell you people this. Right now, our company is holding off hiring full-time employees for as long as we can. We’d like to hire, and under normal circumstances we would, but we are waiting to see if 0bamacare will survive. I can tell you conclusively there are many many business leaders thinking the exact same thing.
My husband said yesterday if conducting business becomes too much of a hassle, he’s shutting it down and retiring. You short-sighted nuts would do well to consider unintended consequences.
The Christmas before last I was talking with the owner of a high-tech research company in Northern Va. He said if the law survived he’d drop health insurance for his employees and pay the penalty the law prescribes, about $8k per employee. He also said that would be cheaper than his end of the insurance he’s paying now.
I told him I thought that was an idle threat, and that it would drive away all the scientists and engineers he employees. He vehemently denied bluffing and said all the other companies would do the same thing, so he wouldn’t lose his most valuable employees.
Assuming he wasn’t BSing (which I don’t believe he was) and that he knew what he was talking about (which I sincerely question), Hubby could do the same things, Suze, and save a boatload of money.
My husband said yesterday if conducting business becomes too much of a hassle, he’s shutting it down and retiring. You short-sighted nuts would do well to consider unintended consequences.
Comment by Suzie — June 29, 2012 @ 7:07 am
I’m sure his former competitors will gladly pick up his employees and business Suzie Q!!
Why aren’t the Republicans, who normally run about shouting “personal responsibility”, happy to have the ACA upheld? The ACA in fact codifies their personal responsibility mantra – ACA makes individuals responsible for carrying their own insurance – relieving the burden placed on all those “winners” already insured.
People who choose not to purchase health insurance [by 2014] will pay the penalty/tax – this is the greater of $695 per year or 1% of income per family. BTW, this penalty/tax does not begin at $695. It begins as $95 in 2015 and increases to $695 by 2017. Plenty of time for uninsured to find a plan that will cover them. So why are republicans not in favor of “penalizing” those they view as “losers” who welch off the “successful”? Probably for the same reason they minimized the killing of bin Laden – it shows the President as a leader and defeats their primary purpose of making him a “one term president”.
Historically, Republicans have been dragged kicking and screaming into a progressive realm where not just millionaires benefit from government. They wailed and gnashed their teeth at Social Security, they howled at Medicare, and now the republicans are screeching over the ACA.
Has there ever been a time when the country was moving forward and the republicans did not dig in their heels and refuse to move ahead? Their beliefs are closer to the robber barons of the 1800′s.
Speculation is a beautiful thing.
“My husband said yesterday if conducting business becomes too much of a hassle, he’s shutting it down and retiring. You short-sighted nuts would do well to consider unintended consequences.”
You know, if I was a charity-minded owner of a top-25 company in the Roanoke Valley and had all the money I would ever need, and I wanted to retire, I wouldn’t simply shut the business down and put all my employees out of work, and leave my customers in the lurch. What a rotten, shortsighted, childish and egomaniac move that would be.
I would sell it the company. That way, there were be continuity for customers, continued employment for the loyal conservative-minded employees I had hired over the years, and I would have a pile of money from the sale that I could donate to starving Zimbabweans.
#45 Of course he would, Oliver. He wouldn’t sell it (if it exists at all) and make millions or tens of millions, he’d just shut it down out of spite and lose all that cash. Makes sense.
#45 As for the first part of your post, thanks for further demonstrating the tremendous damage the Rethugs are willfully doing to the U.S. Because they keep vowing to fight to either change or gut the law, business owners can’t be sure what will happen. More proof the right wingers don’t care about the U.S.
“43.I don’t think a life of sponging off others and raising maladjusted kids is a legacy I’d want to leave. I’d prefer a legacy where I created jobs for hundreds of people over a 30-40-year time span, a legacy where I made the lives of desperately poor people much better, and a legacy where I fought for the cause of individual liberty at every turn.”
And sadly…you have neither!
#45 most ill-informed posted, “I can tell you conclusively there are many many business leaders thinking the exact same thing. ”
So the reactionaries you know, and without any real knowledge of what is in the ACA, will close their doors…yes a brilliant financial strategy. Yes, run and hide, the ACA bogeyman is coming to get you. Sheesh.
Knowing suzie, maybe he is that short sighted and selfish, not to mention stupid to just shuttered a successful business instead of selling it.
Dan….
Here’s that ad I was telling you about.
You better believe it will be effective.
TAX is a bad word, that EVERYBODY understands. It’s why Obama denied it so fervently.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=99KFGiBc7Vw&feature=player_embedded
That’s the thing, Dan. Suzie was making a BS idle threat, in her husband’s voice, with little recognition of the value of the employees her husband’s supposed company employs. Just as your acquaintance during Christmas was. Neither regard any worth derived from employees, yet screech for the ‘worth’ provided by their management philosophies. The disconnect from reality is amazingly large.
How much time does this blog need to dedicate to SuzieQ’s fictitious “business”. Sheesh.
There’s a point where “doing business” is a net loss, folks. People don’t create a business to break even.
LC @56 posted, “TAX is a bad word, that EVERYBODY understands. It’s why Obama denied it so fervently. ”
If you mean “everybody” – you’re wrong – I don’t think “TAX” is a bad word because:
1. I like my roads and bridges safe and in good repair.
2. I want veterans to be supported upon homecoming – both mentally and physically.
3. I like free education for American children
4. I like a quality Sheriff’s Dept and Police force
5. I like free library services
6. I like free parks for family recreation and clean beaches.
7. I like the thought that house fires and forest fires will be tackled by a staffed fire department. and so many more reasons.
Do you complain about those taxes too? Get real, if you don’t have insurance you will pay a penalty. If you don’t pay your credit card on time, you will pay a penalty. If you don’t pay your water or sewer bill on time, you will have to pay a penalty. Speed and get caught, you will pay a penalty. Not a TAX, a penalty for not conforming to the rules.
If you want to live in a “free from taxes society” move to Somalia. I don’t think, however, you will find any of the above services…
and bring your own clean water.
Here’s something to chew on:
The Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will hit about 4 million Americans, about 1 percent of the population with a penalty paid by people who choose not to purchase insurance.
Those projections were released Thursday in a report from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. The CBO said that collections from the penalty will total $4 billion a year over the 2017-2019 period.
http://money.cnn.com/2010/04/23/news/economy/cbo_health_care/index.htm
The rightwing conservatives here are pretty famous for their “If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it, don’t invest in it, don’t have children, etc.” lectures, along with “it’s your own fault if you don’t work for an employer who helps with your health insurance, and it’s your own fault for not planning ahead for contingencies and buying your own health insurance, etc.”
As far as business owners go, this same ‘philosophy’ applies to them. If you went into business not planning for future changes in technology, regulations, and laws, tough titty says this kitty. You should’ve taken your own advice. If the ACA is what’s going to put you out of business, you’re probably not all that profitable anyway.
How many of you posting here will now have to purchase health insurance as a result of this ruling? I suspect none of you. What are you whining about? One number I heard floated yesterday said that this all might cost the average person who is already insured $90/yr. Hell, I’ll pay that to get everyone into the program because it will bring down costs for all of us in the longer term.
Way I see it, you can pay for this in a “tax” or you can pay a helluva lot more when the uninsured show up in the ER. Oh, wait. We’re already doing that.
Oh boo hoo, ol David said billion instead of 311.some million. It still does not change the fact that it is silly to think that less than a thousand in DC can ever properly represent that type of a population. Progressives get to be as vague and generalize all they wish. If a libertarian calls them on it, why how mean. Yet if a conservative or libertarian doesn’t have it all down to perfection….look out!!
Kristen,
I was not attempting to expound upon the spiritual side of life. I was not detailing the joys of raising children. I was explaining how your property is quite literally part of your life. If you think property is oh so passe, then I will be quite willing to relieve you of it.
Gdad,
Does not history tend to repeat itself? Do not the same actions taken in the same way tend to produce similar results? Historically, when citizens cede liberty to government, the process continues until there is totalitarianism. Along the way, many die in protests and attempts at throwing off said totalitarianism. Unless you and others like you learn the proper place of government, we will all go the way of totalitarianism eventually. To cede ANY control or say so about my healthcare to anyone else is so foreign to my eyes. Why do you want that? I know you want to bathe in a sea of glorious warmth thinking you are doing well for the uninsured. However, you are empowering government to seize other people’s money to do it. Agreed, some of that happens now with higher bills that roll in those who do not or can not pay. So why does government have to be the charitable institution? Why not donate money to charities that assist with medical bills?
Why does it seem that the progressive always turns to government? Is it because you DO want to force everyone to do as you wish?
Kristen,
In the grand scheme of existence far beyond the mortal plane, the property gained here will be as nothing. Meanwhile, while in this existence, we do need things, work for them, earn them. Why should someone that chooses not to earn things get to take some of my things??
As I said before, this actually will likely benefit me. That does not make it morally right.
I love all this chatter about shutting down their business or stopping their practice. What a joke. A Doctor making $800,000 plus a year is goiing to stop practice because he might only make $780,000 a year, or a businessman closing down because he has to provide his employees the option to buy health insurance (50 or more employees only). The business owner merely takes it out of raises or wages to pay the additional cost if indeed they did not have health insurance before. The ACA also provides a tax credit to the company to help pay any additional costs.
This talk is just BS.
The one area where a lot of employees will be hurt is if the State refuses to take on the additional medicaid as McDonald has threatened.
For instance, the ACA provides medicaid for workers up to 130% of the poverty level – i.e. waiters and waitresses, minimum wage workers etc. If McDonald refuses to accept the medicaid, then these workers unless their company has more than 50 employees will have to buy health insurance or pay the tax penalty.
ACA provides help for these employees, but the GOP at the state level is refusing to help these people out and trying to blame Obama.
What a sad bunch of sore losers your Plutocrats are!
“Tax” is only a bad word for freeloaders.
DavidinSalem, I read what you wrote. And for all the weirdness about “raising children”…I never actually wrote about that. Don’t take your cues from SuzieQ…it’s a straight trip to fail.
@shrillary – Don’t you know that RWers don’t care about facts? Facts just get in the way. They are all howling about a tax increase when it would only affect those that choose not to buy insurance. Saintbridge is correct that the “tax” is about $90 per year for the first two years.
Re: Comment by Ron — June 29, 2012 @ 8:34 am
What evidence is there to support even the existence of such an establishment, that it’s meeting a need, or its viability?
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Re: Comment by 13 Suns — June 29, 2012 @ 11:26 am
Outstanding analogy.
The RWers so into the term tax and saying Obama lied should look at the fees and penalties their party has added to the law. Each is a tax by the same definition.
Richard @65
“I love all this chatter about shutting down their business or stopping their practice. What a joke. ”
Which reminds me of a lesson learned from a friend of mine in Franklin County. She told me that growing up, before equal pay laws, the factories in Franklin County always paid black folks a nickel less than what what folks earned. (She is black, by the way.) Even though it was only a nickel, it symbolically showed that whites were still higher on the wage totem pole than blacks and kept the archaic social order of the south that good Christian folk in County had come see as moral and ethical.
Your example illustrates the same point: people are not going to close businesses or quit jobs that provide them good incomes, this is particularly true of people who do really well, and whose egos love the security, if not the notoriety of having more than the median income. As long as someone has the perception of being above the some other income group, they are generally satisfied.
Ain’t nobody killing a cash cow because of the ACA. As long as their income is a nickel more than everyone else, they’ll walk around like they hung the moon and stars.
#71 Heck, look at the fees and penalties and unfunded mandates Virginia’s Repubs have handed down. And then claimed they didn’t raise “taxes.”
72. Mike Scott – for sure!
Note the Congress all of a sudden got together to pass protections for student loans and the transportation bill. Election pressure!
Sure wish the press would check into ol Mitt being on the Board of Directors of the Marriott Corporation while they hire illegal aliens. Seems like a contradiction to having them self deport. Of course, they often use employee leasing but that really is the same thing when the leasing company provides the illegals.
7. – and of course, my source indicates that illegals are paid not only less than the other employees when hired, they are paid less than minimum wage.
@45
What a load of crap.
Richard Beason: A friend of mine, who is a salaried manager for a restaurant, found out today her health insurance through her employer will increase by $100/month, her share. She says this is the biggest increase she’s seen. She feels like it is due to the ACA. Is she correct? What is your take on situations such as hers?
Contra,
Do we know if the percentage picked up by the employer is constant? Or are they cost-shifting (requiring employees to pay a higher percentage)? There’s a lot of that going on.
In other cases, employers are maintaining the percentage but requiring employees to pay a higher deductible.
Both are back-door pay cuts.
77. Contra,
as Dan stated as well as the fact health care continues to go up. I have seen rates go up in the 200 and 300 dollar range before ACA as well. ACA by itself would have kept the kept the increase less not more.
Health care costs have been going up for decades even before the ACA. Happens every time a company has to renegotiate their employee benefits.
There is a sizable population of people who work in the food industry, hardly any are insured. One my friends, a free loader of the highest order, fits into that category. He recently had triple bypass surgery. That happens when tobacco and alcohol abuse meet the ripe old age of 50. Course he didn’t have any insurance, but he got the same standard of care that I would. Every insured reader on this blog in the in the ROV paid for this service too.
I for one, am hopeful that folks in his position do have to put up something in the health care costs. It’s a service they will, inevitably use. It especially important that young, healthy people get into the insurance pool. This one conservative idea that I really agree with.
It hasnt even gone I go effect yet. Look to a bunch of employers to offload their expenses onto their employers and use ACA as cover.
That should have been “into effect”. Sorry.
I find it hard to believe the RWers don’t have something bad to say about their candidate being on Marriott’s corp board while they hire illegal aliens for less than minimum wage.
69.Re: Comment by Ron — June 29, 2012 @ 8:34 am
What evidence is there to support even the existence of such an establishment, that it’s meeting a need, or its viability?
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Comment by Dave Hicks — June 29, 2012 @ 1:51 pm
Dave,
Unfortunately, I have no proof of its existence. In this instance, I’m taking Suzie Q at her word.
Dan & Richard, thanks for your replies. I haven’t talked to her since I posted my original post. She has toldl me that in the past, her increases were along the lines of $20-25/month. She wonders if this increase is in anticipation of ACA going into full effect. At this point, I don’t know how much her company is covering. I may tell her to post her questions here, since she has the specifics. But I don’t want to come across as trying to solicit professional advice for free from Richard.
Suzie on her desired legacy:
“..and a legacy where I fought for the cause of individual liberty at every turn.”
Did the poster child for RW authoritarianism just say that?
OBAMATAX (yes Dan, I bastardized another word for you) will kill small business. Come back in 6 months and see how many have shut down, and how job growth will be at zero.
Obama lied AGAIN (Joe Wilson was right). The middle class, and everybody else will now live further in poverty.
#87 And I’m predicting that Bob’s predictions won’t be any more accurate than suzie’s.
Re: Comment by Bob — June 30, 2012 @ 11:58 am
“…kill small business. Come back in 6 months….”
———————–
Six months? You don’t have to pay a tax penalty until 2014.
Are you insult our US small business owners? Are you saying that they won’t find work-arounds, ways to pass on the cost, ways to shift the cost to employees by reducing wages, etc?
FWIIW, the law might increase profits for some small business. On average, small businesses pay about 18% more than large firms for the same health insurance policy– as small businesses lack the purchasing power that larger employers have. The health care law provides tax credits and soon – the ability to shop for insurance in Exchanges that help close this gap — for those businesses providing insurance.
Then you have the fact that employers with 50 or fewer workers would be exempt from coverage provisions. Even Rants & Raves (w/lies) claims they will stop hiring for some reason. Wonder why?
Ever been to Europe? Ever talked to small business owners there? Many own more that one small interlocking business — often different “companies” whose sole customer is another company owned by the same small businessman. Say five small businesses make components of something that the sell (for a profit) to another company that assembles them and sells them (for a profit) to yet another company that retails them (for a profit).
Why, many laws in Europe have exemptions for “small” businesses.
—–
For example:
Germany:
• If more than 20 people are employed, a firm must have 5% of positions filled by a disabled person – firms can be fined if they do not comply.
• If employee numbers are greater than 21, a social plan must be produced in any downsizing.
France:
• If there are more than 21 employees, a quota of 6% must be disabled.
• Over 50 employees – a compulsory profit sharing scheme must be implemented.
Sweden:
• Where employee numbers are in excess of 10, the firm has a duty to draw up an ‘equality plan’ to remove differences in pay and benefits based on gender.
• Where employee numbers are greater than 50, a safety committee must be created.
——
Come on now, you don’t think US small business owners are not creative. Do you?
Contra, I heard Dr. Aaron Carroll on the Radio (he is pretty well an expert on the ACA), he said that anyone who blames any premium increase on the ACA is being disingenuous. That is also entirely too large an increase in premium. What is likely is that the employer has decided to pay less of the premium for employees. Which many employees may see more of as retaliation for standing up has always been swift and harsh.
OTOH, I know servers who can make 200.00 a night in some places.
Interesting article, but an even more interesting video of a Tea Party leader’s reaction to the Supreme Court’s decision on the ACA. These are the people Suzie Q, pamala and others on this blog think should be running our country. Sheesh!!!!!
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/06/30/tea-party-leader-calls-for-violent-overthrow-of-government-over-health-care-ruling-video/
#87 Bob,
I see you and Mr. English language haven’t been introduced yet…
Seriously do you right wingers think you are representing? How sad. Hating Obama has made some of you unhinged. No way around it.
I could go through a long list of companies who have folded in the valley in the last couple of year, and there will be many more with the looming OBAMATAX. I really don’t need the extended pseudo intellectual babble from Dave, nor could I give an Obama about what I may or may not spell correctly or put into “proper” English.
Out of the corner of my eye, I see RON is accusing the Tea Party of SOMETHING THAT WILL NEVER HAPPEN. Occupy are the fiolthiest scum I’ve ever seen, and you’re dang skippy, they will bring more violence to Philadelphia, Charlotte and Tampa. The idiots in Elmwood Park are just harmless goofballs.
Bob never met a. Rw delusional talking point that he couldnt quote.
dave. Go google Occupy. Plenty of trash,VIOLENCE, mayhem, rape, drug use, crapping on cop cars and the list goes on. Do your own work ……… FLEABAGGER!
Delusional? No sir. FACT!
#94 Gee, Bobby, companies fold all the time. It’s one of the chances you take.
#94 Oh, and BTW, Bobby, give us that list of companies that folded. We’re waiting. After that I’ll give you one 10 times as long of ones that HAVEN’T.
McConnell is a callous, heartless bastard…
http://hamptonroads.com.nyud.net/2012/07/really-how-sen-mitch-mcconnell-feels-about-health-care-americans
who,representing the interests of the United States of America,would repeal a law that would provide health care,to every individual, that is a citizen,or registered guest tax payer,with no more shame,fear of financil, ruin,.and very much like oh canada,cept were more breaded up. if my #1wife would agree to a 50-50 split, ill pay half the national debt. legal low estimate in 1986 was 112trillion.count your beans. Ms.Twain?