Stephanopoulos: "You Reject That It’s A Tax Increase? " Obama: "I Absolutely Reject That Notion"

[Huey P. Long]

From ABC

STEPHANOPOULOS: You were against the individual mandate…

OBAMA: Yes.

STEPHANOPOULOS: …during the campaign. Under this mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don’t. How is that not a tax?

OBAMA: Well, hold on a second, George. Here — here’s what’s happening. You and I are both paying $900, on average — our families — in higher premiums because of uncompensated care. Now what I’ve said is that if you can’t afford health insurance, you certainly shouldn’t be punished for that. That’s just piling on. If, on the other hand, we’re giving tax credits, we’ve set up an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we’ve driven down the costs, we’ve done everything we can and you actually can afford health insurance, but you’ve just decided, you know what, I want to take my chances. And then you get hit by a bus and you and I have to pay for the emergency room care, that’s…

STEPHANOPOULOS: That may be, but it’s still a tax increase.

OBAMA: No. That’s not true, George. The — for us to say that you’ve got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it’s saying is, is that we’re not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase. People say to themselves, that is a fair way to make sure that if you hit my car, that I’m not covering all the costs.

STEPHANOPOULOS: But it may be fair, it may be good public policy…

OBAMA: No, but — but, George, you — you can’t just make up that language and decide that that’s called a tax increase. Any…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Here’s the…

OBAMA: What — what — if I — if I say that right now your premiums are going to be going up by 5 or 8 or 10 percent next year and you say well, that’s not a tax increase; but, on the other hand, if I say that I don’t want to have to pay for you not carrying coverage even after I give you tax credits that make it affordable, then…

STEPHANOPOULOS: I — I don’t think I’m making it up. Merriam Webster’s Dictionary: Tax — “a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes.”

OBAMA: George, the fact that you looked up Merriam’s Dictionary, the definition of tax increase, indicates to me that you’re stretching a little bit right now. Otherwise, you wouldn’t have gone to the dictionary to check on the definition. I mean what…

STEPHANOPOULOS: Well, no, but…

OBAMA: …what you’re saying is…

STEPHANOPOULOS: I wanted to check for myself. But your critics say it is a tax increase.

OBAMA: My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I’m taking over every sector of the economy. You know that. Look, we can have a legitimate debate about whether or not we’re going to have an individual mandate or not, but…

STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it’s a tax increase?

OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.

--

http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2009/09/obama-mandate-is-not-a-tax/

[SunsetDreams]

1. oh ok

[Motown_Johnny]

2. Because the $900 we are already paying will be redirected toward

the cost of insurance for those who do not have it.



They are not talking about taxing people who don't have health insurance.

[sinkingfeeling]

3. I agree. It's only for the horses who won't drink the water after

being led to it.

[uponit7771]

4. BULLSHIT, THERE'S NO COLLECTION ENFORCEMENT OF THE "TAX" UNDER ACA

[former9thward]

6. B.S. back at you.

The IRS will collect the tax. They have already said they will hire up to 16,000 agents for that purpose. If you don't pay they will seize any refund you have coming or any other payment you get from the federal government such as SS when you are eligible. Drink some more kool aid.

[leftstreet]

9. Holy Shit! So THAT'S the new Jobs Program!

They have already said they will hire up to 16,000 agents for that purpose

[Inuca]

10. I do think you have wandered in the wrong place... n/t

[former9thward]

12. Why because I answered a poster with a fact?

Perhaps you should add some of your own instead of posting snark.

[sinkingfeeling]

14. Taken word for word from the GOP Ways and Means Committee report.

http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/DocumentSingle.aspx?DocumentID=176997

“If the Democrats’ health care bill becomes law, the IRS could have to hire more than 16,000 additional agents, auditors and other workers just to enforce all the new taxes and penalties,” said Ways and Means Ranking Member Dave Camp (R-MI). “It is a dangerous expansion of the IRS’s power and reach into the lives of virtually every American.”


A claim debunked here: http://www.factcheck.org/2010/03/irs-expansion/

[former9thward]

15. Factcheck is using assumptions of their own.

In fact, reading through it, one wonders why anyone pays taxes at all --- afterall the IRS is just a friendly agency out to help you! So they reduce the 16,000 figure which I have seen in various news reports down to 5000 and not all of those will be enforcement agents. Whew!

To get to the meat of the matter if you don't have insurance and don't pay the tax you can have your refund or other government payments taken. The IRS currently will not be able to go to court to file liens but they can stop money from coming to you. The original poster I replied to was wrong. From the IRS Commissioner himself: People will get letters from us. We can actually do collection if need be. People can get offsets of their tax returns in future years. http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/prescriptions/2010/04/maybe_the_individual_mandate_is_enforceable.html

Interesting how factcheck left that out of its little 'debunking'.

[a kennedy]

20. I heard on faux that someone in the repub party said that won't allow for the money to be given

for those agents. So they'll defeat the ACA by voting not to fund it.

[progressivebydesign]

5. I absolutely agree with Obama on this. We are paying more NOW for uninsured...

..through taxes and higher costs. Only an idiot couldn't see this. It's not at tax, it's not a freakin' tax. sheesh. So odd that reasonably intelligent people (i'm being generous) think that it's better for taxpayers to pay for the uninsured, for insurance customers to pay for them, and health care consumers to pay for them... but this is bad??

[HiPointDem]

7. we'll see how it shakes out.

[Igel]

13. That's the claim.

That's not what happened in the one experiment.

One claim is that by having health care emergency room visits will plummet, reducing costs; the general health of the population will increase and make up in greater productivity what the health care costs.

The reality is that emergency room visits decreased by a trivial amount. The increase in productivity attributed to the new law was trivial. President Obama said that he wouldn't sign it if it increased the deficit by even "one dime", but that was over and above a budget projection that already included a rather large deficit. The idea was that instead of a deficit for one reason we'd simply repurpose the deficit. The consequences of the repurposing were decreed by law: The decrease in costs were stipulated and therefore it was incumbent upon the CBO to use them. In the one experiment, costs actually increased. A lot. The CBO was implicitly critical by saying in detail its assumptions for its projection and that it didn't need to agree with them.

In the experiment it was found that enough people went to physicians to sharply increase the demand for doctors. This was satisfied by hiring doctors from out of state, and still the average length of wait time for an appointment more than tripled.

I figure that the response must be that by 1/1/2014 we triple or quadruple the amount of doctors that complete their 2-year program and their year of residency, plus any fellowships to make them specialists. That's manageable--that gives us 18 months or so for a mere 32 months' worth of training.

[leftstreet]

17. Impoverished people are NOT getting free healthcare

Federal and state subsidies for social services have been GUTTED continually for decades. Your 'taxes' are buying Wall Street bailouts and Bombs.

Impoverished and working poor people are lucky to get emergency service coverage, if at all.

People are going without healthcare.

Stop spreading the this version of Reagan's Welfare Queens in Cadillacs.

[SammyWinstonJack]

18. Thank You!

[Initech]

8. There's no staging any sort of logical debate with the Fox Ministry Of Propaganda, Obama.

[hue]

11. A great demonstration of staunch conviction & leadership skills by President Obama!

This is one of the many things I love about our President!

[Huey P. Long]

16. The constantly changing story and positions, and people seem to go right along.

[ecstatic]

19. He didn't change his position. The SCOTUS interpreted the mandate in that way

for whatever reason.

[PoliticAverse]

27. The Obama administration argued before the court that it was a tax. n/t

[NYC Liberal]

21. Really? So Obama stating a position and the Supreme Court saying something else

means OBAMA is "changing" something?

[leftstreet]

22. I took it to mean when Obama once opposed the mandate

but then changed his position

But maybe that's not what s/he meant

[NYC Liberal]

25. Maybe so. However, just for anyone who is thinking that re: it being a "tax"

I'll post an excerpt from the opinion that Roberts wrote, in which he explains it was clearly not *intended* to be a tax but still is for the purposes of the Constitution:

4. CHIEF JUSTICE ROBERTS delivered the opinion of the Court with respect to Part III–C, concluding that the individual mandate may be upheld as within Congress’s power under the Taxing Clause. Pp. 33– 44.

(a) The Affordable Care Act describes the “{s}hared responsibility payment” as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” That label is fatal to the appli- cation of the Anti-Injunction Act. It does not, however, control whether an exaction is within Congress’s power to tax. In answering that constitutional question, this Court follows a functional approach, “{d}isregarding the designation of the exaction, and viewing its substance and application.” United States v. Constantine, 296 U. S. 287, 294. Pp. 33–35.

(b) Such an analysis suggests that the shared responsibility payment may for constitutional purposes be considered a tax. The payment is not so high that there is really no choice but to buy health insurance; the payment is not limited to willful violations, as penal- ties for unlawful acts often are; and the payment is collected solely by the IRS through the normal means of taxation. Cf. Bailey v. Drexel Furniture Co., 259 U. S. 20, 36–37. None of this is to say that pay- ment is not intended to induce the purchase of health insurance. But the mandate need not be read to declare that failing to do so is un- lawful. Neither the Affordable Care Act nor any other law attaches negative legal consequences to not buying health insurance, beyond requiring a payment to the IRS. And Congress’s choice of language— stating that individuals “shall” obtain insurance or pay a “penalty”— does not require reading §5000A as punishing unlawful conduct. It may also be read as imposing a tax on those who go without insur- ance. See New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 169–174. Pp. 35–40.

[Puzzledtraveller]

23. This will played non stop in every swing state.

[Honeycombe8]

24. I view it as a kicking in for partial payment of your med. bills, since you refuse to kick in like

since you refuse to kick in like the rest of us.

It's not a tax in the normal sense, since it is tied to something specific that you are required to do, but refuse to do. It's not a punishment, but it's a kicking in to help pay for your medical bills that you can't pay....because you WILL at some point have medical bills you can't pay, if you don't have insurance. Which means that I and others will be forced to pay your bills, which you possibly could have afforded more easily than I could, to begin with!

But it is in actuality a tax I guess since it's on the tax form.

OTOH, the IRS doesn't have authority to go after you for it, so it's not a REAL tax, in that sense.

It's a puzzlement. But it doesn't affect that many people

[DCBob]

26. your point??

[DearAbby]

28. Okay...

your point? Does it really matter what it's called? Did Obama sign the fucking Norquist Pledge or something???

When the Republicans THOUGHT up this idea, they didn't view it as a tax...

Does it somehow make anything different, what it's called?

Why should a healthy person, roll the dice, risking our money bankroll him, what if he should CRAPS OUT? He took the risk, by not purchasing insurance? Why should we have to make good his risk?

Isn't that what the Wall street bums did? Risked our money, rolling the dice? It wasn't responsible in that situation, and this person isn't being responsible in this situation...the guy needs to learn a lesson in civic responsibility...what better way?

The Majority of Americans will not be affected, wanna know why?

I have never met anyone who didn't want healthcare insurance. THEY WANT IT. Most cases, they could no longer afford it. They had pre-existing illness, could no longer afford it. Or they had a child with a chronic illness, insurance company dropped them. They had reached their lifetime limit. The child's condition became pre-existing, therefore they couldn't afford it.

I have never met anyone who has said ...."Nope, I don't want it, let me bleed, then charge me out the A$$ for it, because I am a glutton for punishment."

Or:

"I am an Ayn Rand follower, and if nature deems I should get cancer. I wont look to that other individual to help me. If I can't take out my McGyver knife and carve that tumor out of myself. Then I'll die. Suck it up & die."

I have just never met that individual.

[sadbear]

29. What difference does it make what you call it?

Well, I know it makes a difference to the simple-minded.