Is the "individual mandate" a tax? (2 Viewers)

I know your fishing for me to say why would it. So go ahead explain why you will be paying 500 dollars more a year.
Not fishing at all. But nothing's for free. I don't see how implementing such a policy cannot cost the average American more in the form of taxes. The money has to come from somewhere.:idunno:
 
Seems congress has labeled it a tax.

Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance — and fining them if they don't — isn't the same thing as a tax increase. But the language of Democratic bills to revamp the nation's health care system doesn't quibble. Both the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax.

And the reason the fines are in the legislation is to enforce the coverage requirement.

"If you put something in the Internal Revenue Code, and you tell the IRS to collect it, I think that's a tax," said Clint Stretch, head of the tax policy group for Deloitte, a major accounting firm. "If you don't pay, the person who's going to come and get it is going to be from the IRS."
 
You continue to use the word tax in such a loose fashion that basically anything that ever is enacted that will require a new fee or a price increase in now a tax. Under your umbrella raising the price of stamps is a tax, charging 5 more dollars to get your license renewed is a tax, penalties for non-payments of actual income taxes is a tax etc. This is why a person can argue your stretching to make the argument fit.

Well, I tried to use "fee/penalty/tax/whatever" in that post to allow for different opinions. My reference to tax returns and tax obligations is taken from the Baucus bill.
 
i would say the individual mandate is not a tax. taxation is collecting money for government revenue, and thats not whats happening with an individual health insurance mandate. however, if the objective is to catch Obama breaking a campaign promise, its not necessary to play semantic games and make such reaches. remember he originally campaigned against the individual mandate, so he has changed his tune since the campaign, and i assume thats what you were trying to prove with this thread

any payment required by government is in effect a tax. to requirement payment for a service for service provided or backed or subsidised by the government, which would not exist without government backing, is in effect a tax.

The president can't raise taxes, all he can do is sign bills that raise taxes and forcing people to buy something they otherwise would not buy is different then "taxing" people and giving them something they don't want.

I'll give you this...the democratic leadership has learned the lesson of previous failures, that the population doesn't respond well to the word tax, so they have made a fantastic marketing campain to instead hide taxes as fees, fines, and premiums instead.
 
list of taxes that are not taxes...

--Employer Mandate Tax. $400 per employee if health coverage is not offered. Note: this is a huge incentive to drop coverage, as $400 is much less than the average plan cost of $11,000 for families or $5000 for singles (Source: AHIP)

--Backdoor Death of HSAs. By requiring that all plans (besides the few that are grandfathered) provided first-dollar coverage for most services, there would be no HSA-qualifying plans available from the Massachusetts-like exchanges

--Excise Tax on High-Cost Health Plans. New 35% excise tax on health insurance plans to the extent they exceed $21000 in cost ($8000 single)

--Report Employer Health Spending on W-2. This is clearly a setup for the easy individual taxation of employer-provided health insurance down the road.

--Cap Flex-Spending Account (FSA) Contributions at $2000. Currently unlimited.

--Eliminate tax deduction for employer-provided retirement Rx drug coverage in coordination with Medicare Part D

--Medicine Cabinet Tax. Americans would no longer be able to purchase over-the-counter medicines with their FSA, HSA, or HRA

--Increase Non-Qualified HSA Distribution Penalty from 10% to 20%. This makes HSAs less attractive, and paves the way for HSA pre-verification

--Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting. Currently, only non-corporations providing property or services for a business must be issued at 1099-MISC. This would expand the requirement to corporations doing business with other businesses. The amount of reporting needed for an average business would be huge. Paves the way for full information reporting to the IRS.

--Various industry tax grabs based on market share. $2.3 billion PhRMA; $6 billion health insurance providers; $750 million clinical labs; $4 billion medical device manufacturers

http://www.politico.com/livepulse/0909/ATR_puts_out_list_of_tax_hikes_in_Baucus_bill.html
 
If you do not have health insurance, you are required to pay. Your payment is sent to the IRS. If you do not pay, the IRS will contact you.

Sounds like a tax to me.:idunno:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090922/ap_on_go_co/us_health_insurance_tax_fact_check
if you do not have health insurance, you can go to the private company of your choosing and purchase a plan. the government wont get once cent of the money, and that satisfies the requirement of an individual mandate. so how is it a tax?
 
if you do not have health insurance, you can go to a private health insurance company and buy it. the government wont get once cent from you. how is that a tax?

When are you suddenly ok with the goverment forcing people to buy something from a private company?
 
when did i say i was ok with it?

You used it as a counter argument.

I still don't think the government should be able to tell you that you MUST buy anything from a private company. Where in the constitution is this mentioned? I imagine if somebody wanted to fight it they could get the laws mandating motor vehicle insurance overturned.

Something makes me believe that Obama had a meeting with the insurance companies after the election and agreed to have a mandate to force people into buying coverage. How can this not be a payday for insurance companies.
 
You used it as a counter argument.

I still don't think the government should be able to tell you that you MUST buy anything from a private company. Where in the constitution is this mentioned? I imagine if somebody wanted to fight it they could get the laws mandating motor vehicle insurance overturned.

Something makes me believe that Obama had a meeting with the insurance companies after the election and agreed to have a mandate to force people into buying coverage. How can this not be a payday for insurance companies.

all i said was that a health insurance mandate is not the same as a tax. because it isnt. as long as people are allowed to buy health insurance from private companies and the government wont see a penny of it, it cant be considered a tax. it represents an additional expense for the uninsured, yes quite possibly. but a tax, no it is not. anyway i agree with you somewhat on this issue. i've consistently opposed the individual mandate and said so from the moment Obama decided to endorse the idea

the insurance industry loves this. i dont. during the campaign Obama rejected this idea and i agreed with him.

http://www.saintsreport.com/forums/showpost.php?p=2053682&postcount=4

i think he could have changed his position because of lobbying from health insurance companies. i oppose the health insurance mandate because health insurance companies add billions to the cost of health care, and i think we should reform the system by cutting out the unnecessary expenses.
 
We can argue the semantics all day but at the end of the day, the facts will remain. We will continue to pay and probably pay more to insure those that can not insure themselves. Call it a tax, fee or pink grapes, it is going to come out of our wallets. And waht we know and agree on today could all change tomorrow. Just as the discussion about if Obama lied about covering illegals. What if three months after passing the health care bill, he decides to offer amnesty for all illegals currently in the US and therefore would get free care. In theory, he did not lie, his health care plan did not cover illegals. In reality, our wallets get lighter. Politicians are known for being masters of word deception.
 
if you do not have health insurance, you can go to the private company of your choosing and purchase a plan. the government wont get once cent of the money, and that satisfies the requirement of an individual mandate. so how is it a tax?

That portion is NOT a tax, you are correct. The tax comes into play when you decide you do not want insurance, or can't afford it and you pay the "fine" for not being insured.
 
No that's a penalty on your taxes. Not remotely the same. If you don't pay that, you will be subject to criminal prosecution. Failing to pay taxes is a crime.

Now, if you fail to pay for your insurance, you are assessed a "penalty". If you fail to pay that penalty, you will be assessed a fine. If you fail to pay that fine you will be subject to criminal prosecution. Another crime.

It works just as much that way as well. Your making a semantics argument. And for what?

Your grasping and looking all over the place to try and show that Obama is going to supposedly raise taxes on some people. But whats the point of attempting that? Sure it works for a nice empty political gotcha moment but what purpose does it serve beyond that? It neither addresses the more pertinent question of whether this penalty(tax, whatever you want to label it) is the right policy to enact and it side-steps the larger issue of addressing the pros and cons of legislating some sort of penalty for people refusing to buy insurance. Lastly it takes away from the even larger question, the question of whether a mandate to buy insurance should be included at all in a healthcare reform bill.
 
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