Remember when Obama was shoving his health care plan down our throats...

[Hallelujah]

I don't get what people are complaining about. The plan itself hasn't changed. It was always clear what the administration meant when they were talking about the plan not raising taxes. It isn't as if they ran the program as one thing, then changed the plan. The plan itself is the same as ever. The only thing that has changed is what the plan means within a certain legal context. If anyone should be kicking themselves for dropping the ball, it should be the Republicans, for failing to successfully brand the mandate as a 'tax.' I don't remember the Republicans ever trying to seriously brand it that way. I remember lots of talk about the mandate being unconstitutional, and I heard that the legislation would cause taxes to go up, but I never remember hearing anyone argue against the mandate because it WAS a tax. Anyhow, the fines for failure to buy health insurance are no more a tax than the lottery and speeding tickets are taxes. Both serve a certain tax-like function, and in some contexts may even be legitimately considered a 'tax,' but no one really thinks of them that way.

Any human being with half a brain could figure out that you can't add millions to the healthcare system, improve the quality, reduce premiums and not pay for abortions. All the liberals signed on because they had a behind the curtain deals that addressed all those things. The repubs did point it out. How many news articles, programs, etc do you remember addressing any of those issues through the main stream media?

And he HAD to BRIBE people to sign on to the bill.

[PaloAltoCougar]

And he HAD to BRIBE people to sign on to the bill.

Your repeated declaration of this fact, with ALL CAPS for special emphasis, reflects a charming naiveté. Somewhere, W, Reagan, Nixon, LBJ and a great many others are having a V-8 moment with this stunning revelation that offering a quid pro quo might induce a legislator to vote a certain way.

[Uncle Ted]

I'm not personally denying that it is literally a tax. I'm saying that this is a game of semantics, because while it is technically a tax, and that is how it will be presented before the Supreme Court, to most people it will feel like a fine. At the Constitutional level, when you see how far the commerce clause has been interpreted, some of the stuff that technically qualifies as interstate commerce is mind boggling. So much of the Civil Rights Act was justified as the regulation of interstate commerce. This is similar. I don't think it was dishonest or stupid of Obama to present the fine the way he did. In the eyes of the American people, it will look, feel and smell like a fine. There are a whole different set of legalistic hoops the administration has to jump through in order to justify the government's right to levy this fine in the eyes of the Supreme Court, and one of those hoops requires technically defining this thing as a tax.

So it is both a tax and a fine. Whatever it is, its nature hasn't changed. In spite of a former Clinton aid's interview, and the WSJ picking up on that the next day, the Republican party didn't make defining the fine as a tax a central part of their strategy to defeat it. Why not? Were they too stupid?

This is like the last Amway salesman I threw out of my house long ago. As he was giving his pitch I asked him over and over again if this was Amway. Over and over again he assured me it wasn't Amway but it looked like Amway, it smelled like Amway, and it felt like Amway. But I trusted the man (he is a cousin) so I kept listening to his pitch. Finally I saw on the small print on his sales literature that it was indeed Amway. I felt deceived by own damm cousin and threw his ass out of my house. This kind of how I now feel about Obama. He promised that he wouldn't raise taxes with this health care bill "one thin dime" for those making less than $250K. He sworn up and down that it wasn't a tax but now in the small print, it is called a tax. I think a lot of Americans feel the same given Obama's recent drop in the polls and he will most likely be thrown out of the people's white house in the next presidential election. You don't promise up and down that your are not going to raise taxes, try to call it something else, and then add a tax. Just ask George H. W. Bush how that went over when he tried to get re-elected.

[RobinFinderson]

This is like the last Amway salesman I threw out of my house long ago. As he was giving his pitch I asked him over and over again if this was Amway. Over and over again he assured me it wasn't Amway but it looked like Amway, it smelled like Amway, and it felt like Amway. But I trusted the man (he is a cousin) so I kept listening to his pitch. Finally I saw on the small print on his sales literature that it was indeed Amway. I felt deceived by own damm cousin and threw his ass out of my house. This kind of how I now feel about Obama. He promised that he wouldn't raise taxes with this health care bill "one thin dime" for those making less than $250K. He sworn up and down that it wasn't a tax but now in the small print, it is called a tax. I think a lot of Americans feel the same given Obama's recent drop in the polls and he will most likely be thrown out of the people's white house in the next presidential election. You don't promise up and down that your are not going to raise taxes, try to call it something else, and then add a tax. Just ask George H. W. Bush how that went over when he tried to get re-elected.

From everything I have read, the Average middle class American will have a lower tax bill come election time. This is only a tax for those people who elect not to buy insurance for some reason. When it comes time to crunch the numbers, I'll bet more middle classers will be better off under Obama. It will be a small tax for those people too cheap to buy government subsidized health insurance. No one else will see it. Only those already predisposed to vote against Obama are going to see this as a critical issue. His real problems are the wars and the economy, not health care.

[Uncle Ted]

From everything I have read, the Average middle class American will have a lower tax bill come election time. This is only a tax for those people who elect not to buy insurance for some reason. When it comes time to crunch the numbers, I'll bet more middle classers will be better off under Obama. It will be a small tax for those people too cheap to buy government subsidized health insurance. No one else will see it. Only those already predisposed to vote against Obama are going to see this as a critical issue. His real problems are the wars and the economy, not health care.

First of all, the health care bill will raised taxes and not just on the rich:

The tax increases range from hundreds of billions of dollars in new Medicare levies, including one that taxes investment income such as capital gains and dividends for the first time, to a 10 percent excise tax on indoor tanning services that will raise less than $3 billion over the next decade

[...]

But even the proposal sitting before the Senate, which taxes these "Cadillac plans" less than the bill signed into law, expects to raise $32 billion during the 2018-19 period. The "fix" heavily penalizes health-insurance plans costing more than $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families — imposing a 40 percent excise tax on the value above those amounts.

Many of these "Cadillac plans" are held by union workers in the private sector and by state and local government workers. Most families of both groups earn well below $250,000.

While the excise tax will be directly paid by the insurance company, economists of all persuasions expect the costs to be passed along to policyholders.

Middle- and working-class Americans, Republicans say, also can expect to pay a big portion of the numerous fees that the health care bill will impose on the pharmaceutical industry ($27 billion from 2011 through 2019), on medical-device manufacturers ($20 billion from 2013 through 2019) and on health insurance providers ($60.1 billion from 2014 through 2019), and on indoor tanning services (a 10 percent excise tax).

The new law also limits deductions for medical care, requiring people, including middle-income households and seniors, to have spent more of their own money on health care expenses before they become tax-deductible. Currently, expenses above 7.5 percent of adjusted gross income can be deducted for tax purposes; the bill Mr. Obama signed raises that threshold to 10 percent of income.

The legislation imposes mandates on employers with more than 50 workers to provide health insurance to their workers and on individuals and families to carry health insurance. The bill would impose penalties on those employers ($52 billion from 2014 through 2019) and households ($17 billion from 2014 through 2019) who do not comply with the mandates.

In part because these penalties would be administered and enforced by the Internal Revenue Service, Republicans consider them taxes and violations of Mr. Obama's campaign pledge.

The White House declined to respond to a request for comment on the charge that the president broke his promise not to raise taxes on middle-income households.

Of course, these new and effective health care taxes may not be so obvious to the average american. From what I have read recently, it may be very hard for Obama to keep his tax promise with respect to more obvious taxes as well...

Rep. Steny Hoyer says middle-class tax breaks may not be affordable long-term

Tax cuts that benefit the middle class should not be "totally sacrosanct" as policymakers try to plug the nation's yawning budget gap, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said Monday, acknowledging that it would be difficult to reduce long-term deficits without breaking President Obama's pledge to protect families earning less than $250,000 a year.

Middle-Class Tax Boost Is Broached

President Barack Obama as a candidate pledged to make some of the cuts permanent, while allowing breaks for families making $250,000 or more to expire. Democrats in Congress have made the policy a cornerstone of recent budgets. The policy would come at a heavy cost to the federal government—more than $2 trillion over the next decade, by some congressional estimates.

On top of that Obama agreed to get the deficit under control at the G-20 summit...

Deficit hawks score points at G-20

Leaders of the world's most important economies agreed to ambitious targets for getting deficits under control, pledging to cut them in half by 2013, according to a statement made following the G-20 summit this weekend in Toronto.

I believe he also made a similar promise to China about reducing the deficit. Therefore, there may be a lot of pressure to tax the middle class to make this happen.

[RobinFinderson]

Ultimately, Obama will have kept many promises, and broken others. This would be true of any politician, and in the internet age, it is relatively easy to keep score: PolitiFact does just that.

Since no candidate except an incumbent can know for certain what the executive can realistically accomplish, and because changing situations might demand alternate approaches to solving social problems (we still want a president to be flexible, right?), and because candidates have a tendency to base promises on the most optimistic future outlook, 'broken promises' are par for the course here. Maybe all I really take exception with here is the idea that this is anything more than business-as-usual. Obama has proven to be a good politician, but only a fraction of the charismatic liberal many of us were hoping he would be. As far as keeping score with campaign promises, it would be interesting to see how he stacks up against past presidents (pre-politifact tracking). I would guess he isn't so bad off.

Also, I think this healthcare thing could become popular before the next election. Republicans continue to bet on its unpopularity (people always have reservations about the unfamiliar). This might be a dangerous game for R's.

[statman]

Of course you can avoid the health-care fine/tax. Just buy insurance. Then you won't get a fine. If you can't afford insurance, the government will help put it within your reach, even making it free for people making less than a certain amount. Everyone will be able to afford health insurance, and if the private market is unable to find reasonable insurance products within the reach of all people (even with some government assistance) then we now have a system in place to transition toward a single-payer system. Look, everyone needs health care. As a people we are saying that we are both capitalists but also humane. We are using our government to shape the free marketplace so that it will sell affordable products something that we ALL need. If there is no reasonable market solution, then health care will naturally become something like roads, bridges and all of the other things that we provide for the public where a private alternative has proved to come up short of our civilization's best interests. But it isn't a traditional tax, and it is avoidable. If the program is able to coax the marketplace into creating the products we want (more affordable health insurance) then only society's Scroogiest gamblers will get the fine. In this sense it is like both lotteries and speeding tickets.

Anyhow, lets not forget that a mandate to buy health insurance (something everyone should buy), is less a government imposition on our personal liberty than is the requirement to enroll in the Selective Service System. One is just some money, every year, for something you should be buying anyway. The other is the government literally claiming ownership of your life.

Ummm - if you currently buy insurance, YOU WILL BE TAXED to pay for those who don't. The increase in taxes is unavoidable. And premiums WILL go up. Obama clearly lied on both points. And he knew he was lying. Ecomonically, there simply is no way to roll out an expensive medical benefit to an additional 15% of the population, and somehow get it for free. But I guess he was banking that we'd all Hope for enough Change that maybe human nature and supply an demand would be suspended...

[il Padrino Ute]

Ummm - if you currently buy insurance, YOU WILL BE TAXED to pay for those who don't. The increase in taxes is unavoidable. And premiums WILL go up. Obama clearly lied on both points. And he knew he was lying. Ecomonically, there simply is no way to roll out an expensive medical benefit to an additional 15% of the population, and somehow get it for free. But I guess he was banking that we'd all Hope for enough Change that maybe human nature and supply an demand would be suspended...

Well, we were stupid enough to elect him in the first place, so he couldn't be blamed for thinking that.

Hopefully the country will pull its head out in November and '12 and replace the progressive Marxist bastards with conservative capitalist bastards.

[Uncle Ted]

Well, we were stupid enough to elect him in the first place, so he couldn't be blamed for thinking that.

Hopefully the country will pull its head out in November and '12 and replace the progressive Marxist bastards with conservative capitalist bastards.

Maybe if the country is bankrupt by then we can replace both sets of bastards with free market libertarians.

[FMCoug]

Maybe if the country is bankrupt by then we can replace both sets of bastards with free market libertarians.

They'd turn into free market libertarian bastards soon enough.

[il Padrino Ute]

Maybe if the country is bankrupt by then we can replace both sets of bastards with free market libertarians.

That would work well for me.

[RobinFinderson]

Ummm - if you currently buy insurance, YOU WILL BE TAXED to pay for those who don't. The increase in taxes is unavoidable. And premiums WILL go up. Obama clearly lied on both points. And he knew he was lying. Ecomonically, there simply is no way to roll out an expensive medical benefit to an additional 15% of the population, and somehow get it for free. But I guess he was banking that we'd all Hope for enough Change that maybe human nature and supply an demand would be suspended...

I'm not sure what you are referring to. Is this part of the reform itself? Or are you just putting 2 and 2 together and reaching these conclusions based on economic principles?

Yes, ultimately it will cost money. But hopefully there will also be savings, since many of the currently uninsured will stop using ER's as their primary care, which is an extremely expensive way to care for the poor, and that expense also gets passed on to the taxpayers. Premiums might go up... we'll see. Blue Cross in CA recently had a premiums increase (anticipating results of the overhaul) denied, because it had failed to sufficiently show that the increase was directly related to increases in real costs. Furthermore, the overhaul stipulates that 80% of every premium dollar must be applied to patient care. Of course the insurance lobby is now fighting to broadly define what money goes toward patient care (they want agent commissions to count toward the 80%, LOL!), but if the administration is able to keep that 80% honest, premiums might not get inflated so significantly.

Like I said before, if the private market isn't able to produce affordable products under the new regulations, then we will edge closer toward a single-payer system, or maybe something like what they have in Singapore.

[doctorcoug]

Anyhow, lets not forget that a mandate to buy health insurance (something everyone should buy)

I disagree with this statement. There are people in this world that won't benefit from the insurance, since they are such a low risk. Not everybody should have insurance.

One more thing...what good is insurance if you can't see a doctor? The state I work in is 8 months behind in medicaid payments. 8 MONTHS! This is robbery. If I were this late in my taxes, I'd be charged a penalty. So, my practice is the ONLY practice in town that accepts new medicaid patients. Half of the pediatric groups no longer accept medicaid. Needless to say, we are swamped with work, yet we aren't getting paid. Because of this, the people in my area have poor access to healthcare.

[wuapinmon]

One more thing...what good is insurance if you can't see a doctor?

I feel the same way about our much-vaunted healthcare system. If you don't have access to medical care, who cares about the "role the freemarket plays" in making our system "#1?"

My wife has no health-care coverage because we can't afford it. We pay for what she uses out of pocket, but if something bad happens, perfututum sumus.

[il Padrino Ute]

I disagree with this statement. There are people in this world that won't benefit from the insurance, since they are such a low risk. Not everybody should have insurance.

One more thing...what good is insurance if you can't see a doctor? The state I work in is 8 months behind in medicaid payments. 8 MONTHS! This is robbery. If I were this late in my taxes, I'd be charged a penalty. So, my practice is the ONLY practice in town that accepts new medicaid patients. Half of the pediatric groups no longer accept medicaid. Needless to say, we are swamped with work, yet we aren't getting paid. Because of this, the people in my area have poor access to healthcare.

Your comments are an example of what it will be like across the country should Obamacare not be repealed. It's a huge disaster that is coming our way.