Democrats have been pleading with Americans trying to convince us non-stop that water is not wet. They are claiming that Obamacare is not a tax.
Wasserman-Schultz said it’s not a tax.
“When it came to championing the health care legislation, President Obama made sure that al though everybody — the vast majority of Americans have health insurance coverage, we want to make sure that if you’re a free rider, if you roll the dice and get sick and use the emergency room as your primary access point for health care. Those health care costs are going to get shifted to all of us. And if you choose not to carry health insurance, this legislation says you’re going to pay a small penalty so that we don’t have to pay for you rolling the dice,” DNC chair and Congresswoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.) said on MSNBC today.
“That’s what the health care reform law says and the Republicans are engaging in deception if they say anything else,” she said.
Pelosi almost said it was tax:
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi conceded in an interview aired Sunday that a key penalty in the health care law is assessed under the Tax Code — nearly calling the fee a tax, too, before stopping mid-word.
“It’s a penalty that comes under the Tax Code,” Pelosi said on NBC’s “Meet The Press” as host David Gregory pressed her to say whether she agreed with the Supreme Court, which deemed the law constitutional because the fee used to enforce the individual mandate amounts to a tax, or with President Barack Obama, who has maintained the fee is not a tax.
“It’s a ta—; it’s a penalty for free riders,” Pelosi said, nearly uttering the dreaded T-word before cutting herself off.
Maxine Waters doesn’t know what to think:
TheDC asked Waters if she agrees with Chief Justice John Roberts that the provision requiring all Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a fine is a federal tax.
“What I have not decided is whether or not it’s better to call it a tax or a mandate. What I have decided is it’s absolutely necessary that it be paid for, that if we’re going to cover all of these preexisting conditions that I just alluded to, we have to have the income by which to do it and so I have not decided that one may be better than the other,” she told TheDC. “I’m going to think about that and I’m going to review and perhaps I’ll have a different opinion on it later on, but right now I’m just happy.”
The Obama Truth Team says it’s not a tax:
Already, Mitt Romney and Republicans are out with outright falsehoods about Obamacare — their favorite distortion being that this is somehow a broad tax on the middle class. In reality, this is all about personal responsibility — and the “tax” they are trying to scare everyone about is actually a penalty for the 1 percent of people who can afford insurance but still choose not to buy it, leaving the rest of us to pay for their health care when they head to the emergency room.
Just like they did when the bill was before Congress, Republicans are playing fast and loose with the truth, making up scary consequences to keep you from knowing all the good things Obamacare does. They’re not telling the truth about what this reform means for millions of middle-class Americans, so I need you to help get the facts out there.
That’s curious given the President’s lawyer arguments before the Supreme Court, as posted here.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8pWQ2oi-LfM[/youtube]
Lew’s exchange with Chris Wallace was highly amusing and an exercise in denial. In the video Solicitor General Donald Verrilli is heard arguing that Obamacare is a tax and he said this:
“…this court has an obligation to construe it as an exercise of the tax power if it can be upheld on that basis.”
That was Roberts’ exact ruling. Roberts bought the argument directly from Verrilli.
That Obamacare is a tax has traction and democrats know it. They are greatly concerned and want to distract Americans away from it.
With just over four months to go before the election, and Republicans ravening to make health care a frontline issue, the Obama campaign still appears to be pursuing a “wishful thinking” strategy. They are simply wishing that the Affordable Care Act, the president’s signature domestic achievement, would go away now that the Supreme Court has delivered what they hope is a “final answer,” to quote White House Chief of Staff Jacob Lew. “I don’t think the American people want to have this debate again,” Lew said on Fox News Sunday, reflecting the “let’s move on” approach reported by National Journal’s Major Garrett, among others.
But the Republican Party clearly does intend to have this debate, all the way into November, and Lew’s tepid talking-points are a warning sign that the White House is, yet again, surrendering the message war on a central issue that even Obama partisans admit was poorly marketed the first time around, before and after ACA was signed into law in 2010.
So now the Doug Plan is in effect.
Exit question: If there’s only 1% who are out there without insurance but can afford it and there are 50 million uninsured, guess who’s going to pay for the rest? And somehow this is going to cost us less?
SQUIRREL!
DrJohn has been a health care professional for more than 30 years. In addition to clinical practice he has done extensive research and has published widely with over 70 original articles and abstracts in the peer-reviewed literature. DrJohn is well known in his field and has lectured on every continent except for Antarctica. He has been married to the same wonderful lady for over 30 years and has three kids- two sons, both of whom are attorneys and one daughter on her way into the field of education.
DrJohn was brought up with the concept that one can do well if one is prepared to work hard but nothing in life is guaranteed.
Except for liberals being foolish.