visagrunt
Polymath
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Age: 45
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 Posted: Fri Jun 29, 2012 12:46 pm Post subject: |
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| Raptor wrote: | | Will this include healthcare for pets, too? |
Asked the boy who lied about the German pirates.
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LiberalJustice
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Joined: Sep 01, 2009
Posts: 1031
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2012 12:48 am Post subject: Re: HEALTHCARE UPHELD! |
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Personally, I find it a major disappointment, as the healthcare law in its entirety is one of many violations of the Constitution and individual rights as a whole.
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aghogday
KATiE MiA
Joined: Nov 26, 2010
Posts: 4735
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2012 3:12 am Post subject: Re: HEALTHCARE UPHELD! |
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| LiberalJustice wrote: | | Personally, I find it a major disappointment, as the healthcare law in its entirety is one of many violations of the Constitution and individual rights as a whole. |
What remains of the Affordable Health Care Act, has been determined to meet constitutional requirements by the Supreme court. The government has the constitutional authority to impose excise taxes, so no individual rights will be violated in collecting the excise tax, for those that that meet criteria to purchase the insurance, that choose not to.
At this point there may be a philosophical question as to whether or not one's individual rights have been violated through the ruled constitutionality of what remains of the act, but technically it is no longer a legal one, unless someone is successful with a lawsuit in the future questioning the constitutionality of another part of the act. |
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pete1061
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Age: 43
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Location: Portland, OR
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2012 1:14 pm Post subject: |
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I had always thought that a "tax" was something applied to a product purchased, or money earned. This is a "tax" on NOT purchasing a product. They are really stretching the definition of taxation here. Do we live in some kind of a bizarro, 'down is up', 'white is black' world now?
It still walks and quacks like a penalty to me.
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visagrunt
Polymath
Joined: Oct 17, 2009
Age: 45
Posts: 5754
Location: Vancouver, BC
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2012 3:51 pm Post subject: |
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| pete1061 wrote: | I had always thought that a "tax" was something applied to a product purchased, or money earned. This is a "tax" on NOT purchasing a product. They are really stretching the definition of taxation here. Do we live in some kind of a bizarro, 'down is up', 'white is black' world now?
It still walks and quacks like a penalty to me. |
You may have thought that, but that is not the definition of a tax.
A tax is a payment by individuals to the government that is not a fee for service or a tariff. A tax may be levied as simply as by capitation, whereby individuals pay tax for no greater reason than being alive.
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ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2012 4:33 pm Post subject: |
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| It sounds more like a FINE. What will this tax be used for if it is, indeed, a tax? |
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ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
Rasta is about freedom and the living God
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2012 4:39 pm Post subject: |
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| it's obvious what government is doing...trying to get away with charging by calling the charge a tax instead of a fine. A fine is a penalty for not doing something, a tax is a mandatory payment to the government for services and upkeep. Government should be honest about the fact this is not a tax. It is a penalty for not having health insurance. |
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aghogday
KATiE MiA
Joined: Nov 26, 2010
Posts: 4735
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2012 5:03 pm Post subject: |
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| pete1061 wrote: | I had always thought that a "tax" was something applied to a product purchased, or money earned. This is a "tax" on NOT purchasing a product. They are really stretching the definition of taxation here. Do we live in some kind of a bizarro, 'down is up', 'white is black' world now?
It still walks and quacks like a penalty to me. |
No we just live in a country that has an extremely complicated tax code, that one has to wade through to understand. It keeps many lawyers employed.
An excise tax is an indirect tax. And, excise taxes are currently used as a penalty tax applied to ineligible transactions in retirement accounts. This penalty is assessed by and paid to the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).
Currently there are over 30 excise taxes in Internal Revenue Code designed as a penalty for failure to act. But, generally it is referred to as an indirect tax.
So, it's a matter of rhetoric whether one calls it an indirect tax, an excise tax, a tax penalty, or a penalty. It is technically all of these terms that can credibly be used under the definition of an excise tax.
The democrats called it a penalty for not purchasing health care, in part because many politicians and voters don't like to hear the scary words tax and politics in the same sentence.
However, one would think that penalty or tax penalty would sound scarier than excise tax, per pictures of getting in trouble, and that is apparently exactly how many are picturing this excise tax, as something that is scary, even though exclusions in the new law has taken away IRS authority or power to assess criminal penalties, levies, or liens, resulting from not paying this excise tax, under sections of US code that provide the IRS the authority and power to enforce tax laws.
http://www.investopedia.com/terms/e/excisetax.asp#ixzz1zJSJLSIh
Per the constitution congress has the power to lay and collect excise taxes for the general welfare of the United States. This excise tax is collected and used to fund health care for the general welfare of the United States.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Excise_tax_in_the_United_States
| Quote: | Excise tax in the United States is an indirect tax on listed items. Excise taxes can be and are made by federal, state and local governments and are far from uniform throughout the United States. Excise taxes are collected by the producer or retailer and not paid directly by the consumer, and as such often remain "hidden" in the price of a product or service, rather than being listed separately. This is thought to explain their appeal to many politicians.
Contents
Constitutional law
The U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1789, gave the federal government authority to tax, stating that Congress has the power to
"... lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States."
Tariffs between states are prohibited by the U.S. Constitution and all domestically made products can be imported or shipped to another state tax free. In the U.S. constitutional law sense, an excise tax is essentially an event tax[1] (as opposed to a state of being tax). |
Romney called the mandate and penalty in his state "an individual responsibility program", another piece of rhetoric to smooth things over with his fellow politicians and to take some fear out of the penalty rhetoric for the general public.
Romney is going to have a hard time eating these words again in the coming months. Because, for those states that choose not to accept 100% medicaid reimbursement from the federal government for their citizens living in poverty, the responsibility of emergency health care, for those that cannot possibly afford coverage below the poverty level, who will not receive subsidies, falls back on the rest of the citizens of the state to pay through higher medical costs.
This is currently the case in most states, resulting in higher and higher insurance premiums in these states, as well, to cover those higher unfunded medical costs. Gingrich used a similar Romney rationale in supporting a mandate in the 90's as an alternative to the Republican feared Universal health care/public option alternatives.
| Quote: | | As governor in 2006 Mr. Romney called his own mandate and penalty an "individual responsibility program." And in 2008, attacked by Republican rivals in a presidential debate, he replied, "Here's my view: If somebody can afford insurance and decides not to buy it and then they get sick, they ought to pay their own way as opposed to expect government to pay their way. And that's an American principle. That's a principle of personal responsibility." |
http://www.post-gazette.com/stories/news/us/tax-or-penalty-both-campaigns-are-quick-to-define-courts-health-care-ruling-642690/ |
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aghogday
KATiE MiA
Joined: Nov 26, 2010
Posts: 4735
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2012 5:46 pm Post subject: |
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| ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote: | | it's obvious what government is doing...trying to get away with charging by calling the charge a tax instead of a fine. A fine is a penalty for not doing something, a tax is a mandatory payment to the government for services and upkeep. Government should be honest about the fact this is not a tax. It is a penalty for not having health insurance. |
The tax laws are complicated enough, where five people can call the same basic tax process different terms denoting potential different actions. As delineating in my previous post, depending on whom one talks to it would be accurate to describe this as a tax, an excise tax, an indirect tax, a penalty, or a tax penalty. It's complicated enough where it took the supreme court, and an extremely intelligent chief justice to provide a ruling on what it is, per the law.
But, it is not a criminal penalty, which was key in the fact that no one is being forced by the government through potential criminal enforcement to purchase health care insurance. Unfortunately there are still many right wing pundits that continue to describe it as such, in hopes to instill enough fear in their supporters for them to make their way to voting booth in November.
It's now the governments job to squash the rumors, but so far they haven't effectively done this.
If the tax code and legal code, in general, wasn't as complicated as it is, one could have provided a better prediction on the ruling of the supreme court. It all comes down to interpretation of the laws as they exist and past legal rulings that have set precedents.
The law was written that it was a penalty instead of a tax, but the Supreme Court ruled that it could be viewed as a tax and a penalty, per applicable tax code and past rulings. |
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ruveyn
Phoenix
Joined: Sep 22, 2008
Age: 76
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Location: New Jersey
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2012 9:18 pm Post subject: |
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How is a legal mandate to purchase something a tax?
The penalty associated with the mandated purchase of insurance is a fine, not a tax.
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aghogday
KATiE MiA
Joined: Nov 26, 2010
Posts: 4735
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2012 10:36 pm Post subject: |
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| ruveyn wrote: | How is a legal mandate to purchase something a tax?
The penalty associated with the mandated purchase of insurance is a fine, not a tax.
ruveyn |
The mandate penalty is not defined as a fine in the supreme court ruling, but that is an appropriate synonym for penalty, per a monetary penalty.
The government's alternate argument to the supreme court was in Congress' power to tax. That argument was found acceptable per the opinion delivered by Chief Justice Roberts linked and quoted below.
The bolded excerpt from the quote below states "the ACA 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 section 5000A as punishing unlawful conduct." The opinion of Justice Roberts also states "it may also be read as imposing a tax on those who go without insurance."
In addition per Chief Justice Roberts opinion bolded below:
"Such an analysis suggests that the shared responsibility payment may for constitutional purposes be considered a tax."
The court ruled in favor of this opinion, so for constitutional purposes the shared responsibility payment is considered a tax. It can still be referred to as a mandate penalty per non-constitutional purposes but within those constitutional parameters per Congress's authority to tax, it is defined as a tax by the Supreme Court.
Technically per the ACA, the penalty is collected as an excise tax covered by IRS code that enforces collection of excise taxes, with the exclusion that no criminal penalties, levies, or liens will imposed. As already evidenced above excise taxes are generally considered indirect taxes, and sometimes are referred to as tax penalties, of which about half of those excise taxes in the internal revenue code are designed as penalties for failure to act.
http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/11pdf/11-393c3a2.pdf
| Quote: | 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 “shared responsibility payment” as a “penalty,” not a “tax.” That label is fatal to the application 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,“disregarding 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 penalties 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 payment 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 unlawful. 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 insurance. See New York v. United States, 505 U. S. 144, 169–174. Pp. 35–40.
(c)
Even if the mandate may reasonably be characterized as a tax, it must still comply with the Direct Tax Clause, which provides:“No Capitation, or other direct, Tax shall be laid, unless in Proportion to the Census or Enumeration herein before directed to be taken.” Art. I, §9, cl. 4. A tax on going without health insurance is not like a capitation or other direct tax under this Court’s precedents. It therefore need not be apportioned so that each State pays in proportion to its population. Pp. 40–41. |
It appears that a careful wording of the act was provided to both avoid the political fallout of tax rhetoric, as well as designing per substance what was labeled as a mandate penalty as a tax per how it would be collected by the IRS. It was a bit of a risky move, in how the courts might determine constitutionality, if the mandate penalty language was challenged, but there really was no other choice to do it this way, for any potential passage of the act.
It provides evidence that the Supreme Court Chief Justice was not consciously biased in this decision per a partisan element, which 75% of those offering professional odds seemed to count on, at least in part.
I suspect that Obama understood completely, when he signed the bill, that it could be found constitutional based on legal code and legal precedents as they stand, based on Congress's power to tax, if the mandate was challenged, and could only hope that justice would prevail if that alternative argument was necessary.
The fact that he was a constitutional law professor at Harvard, would have certainly lent the expertise to form an opinion of his own. Most politicians don't have that personal advantage.
Obama was the right President at the right time, Pelosi was the right speaker of the house at the right time, and Chief Justice Roberts was the right Chief Justice at the right time. Take away any of these three evidenced unusual figures in history and we wouldn't likely be having this conversation now.
While you or I might not agree with all of Obama's policies, and what resulted as health care reform, I would not underestimate his intelligence or his street smarts; he and the rest of the democrats made a gamble and it paid off. Now their challenge is to convince the majority of the public that this is a good thing.
That's going to require more than intelligence or street smarts, it's going to require a concerted effort at communication that everyone can understand, including those that are not as advantaged in life as others.
This is where the expertise of right wing radio hosts/Fox media hosts come in to play. The democrats need an advantage like that to spread a message to reach more people, but so far the major target audience appears to be those on the internet; some people are likely falling through the cracks, that right wing radio show hosts/Fox still dominant. |
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AardvarkGoodSwimmer
Phoenix
Joined: Apr 27, 2009
Age: 50
Posts: 4890
Location: Houston, Texas
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| Posted: Sat Jun 30, 2012 10:56 pm Post subject: |
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The summer when I was 16 and a half, when I was away at Philmont Scout Ranch, our house got flooded. My parents were perhaps moving toward divorce. My mom may have decided this was not the time to get a divorce. The flood added to the stress. The fact that the insurance company was delaying and low-balling added to the stress.
My dad became violent again. My mom asked him to move out. He tricked her. He said, "______, it's not worth it. Call ______." [the contractor my mom wanted to use, what they had been arguing about before he committed violence]. Well, that's not why she asked him to move out. She asked him to move out because he committed violence. But my mom got stuck, being aspie and logical, she focused on the specific content of what he had just said. She didn't have a general statement such as, 'I'm asking you to move out.'
I despise insurance companies.
No, I can't entirely blame the goddam insurance company for my dad's violence, or evenlargely blame them. But when they run the common practice of delay and giving a low-ball settlement figure, they are attempting to take advantage of a person's or family's desperation, and that is dirty business. As a teenage boy what I wanted to see was the CEO of the company hauled before a judge and publicly dressed down. And in a more just business system that may actually happen. Or, the judge could just eyeball the situation and the claim and set a reasonable figure. And if the company slightly overpays us, Oh well, they could sue us and go the long way where the case comes to court two years down the road. |
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ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo
Rasta is about freedom and the living God
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Joined: Jun 19, 2008
Posts: 7998
Location: Babylon
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2012 12:00 am Post subject: |
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| aghogday wrote: | | ooOoOoOAnaOoOoOoo wrote: | | it's obvious what government is doing...trying to get away with charging by calling the charge a tax instead of a fine. A fine is a penalty for not doing something, a tax is a mandatory payment to the government for services and upkeep. Government should be honest about the fact this is not a tax. It is a penalty for not having health insurance. |
The tax laws are complicated enough, where five people can call the same basic tax process different terms denoting potential different actions. As delineating in my previous post, depending on whom one talks to it would be accurate to describe this as a tax, an excise tax, an indirect tax, a penalty, or a tax penalty. It's complicated enough where it took the supreme court, and an extremely intelligent chief justice to provide a ruling on what it is, per the law.
But, it is not a criminal penalty, which was key in the fact that no one is being forced by the government through potential criminal enforcement to purchase health care insurance. Unfortunately there are still many right wing pundits that continue to describe it as such, in hopes to instill enough fear in their supporters for them to make their way to voting booth in November.
It's now the governments job to squash the rumors, but so far they haven't effectively done this.
If the tax code and legal code, in general, wasn't as complicated as it is, one could have provided a better prediction on the ruling of the supreme court. It all comes down to interpretation of the laws as they exist and past legal rulings that have set precedents.
The law was written that it was a penalty instead of a tax, but the Supreme Court ruled that it could be viewed as a tax and a penalty, per applicable tax code and past rulings. |
I think it's the wrong approach. Give people what they want and they will buy it. Do not try to force them to buy stuff they think is overpriced and poor quality. The Supreme Court should have taken that into consideration.
President Obama said he created the Affordable Health Care Act because he thought it would help people and make the world a better place and it might help certain ones but it also will create a lot of expense the middle class might not be able to afford. |
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aghogday
KATiE MiA
Joined: Nov 26, 2010
Posts: 4735
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2012 12:51 am Post subject: |
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| AardvarkGoodSwimmer wrote: | The summer when I was 16 and a half, when I was away at Philmont Scout Ranch, our house got flooded. My parents were perhaps moving toward divorce. My mom may have decided this was not the time to get a divorce. The flood added to the stress. The fact that the insurance company was delaying and low-balling added to the stress.
My dad became violent again. My mom asked him to move out. He tricked her. He said, "______, it's not worth it. Call ______." [the contractor my mom wanted to use, what they had been arguing about before he committed violence]. Well, that's not why she asked him to move out. She asked him to move out because he committed violence. But my mom got stuck, being aspie and logical, she focused on the specific content of what he had just said. She didn't have a general statement such as, 'I'm asking you to move out.'
I despise insurance companies.
No, I can't entirely blame the goddam insurance company for my dad's violence, or evenlargely blame them. But when they run the common practice of delay and giving a low-ball settlement figure, they are attempting to take advantage of a person's or family's desperation, and that is dirty business. As a teenage boy what I wanted to see was the CEO of the company hauled before a judge and publicly dressed down. And in a more just business system that may actually happen. Or, the judge could just eyeball the situation and the claim and set a reasonable figure. And if the company slightly overpays us, Oh well, they could sue us and go the long way where the case comes to court two years down the road. |
While it has been widely reported that health insurance lobby supported supported health care reform and a mandate over the potential of universal health care or a public option, there is evidence that at the same time they covertly lobbed against the health care reform act to avoid the Medical Loss Ratio MLR provision of the ACA projected this August to require Insurance companies to refund 1.1 Billion dollars back to their customers.
The health insurance lobby covertly spent over a 100 million dollars to fund efforts against the passage of the legislation.
| Quote: | The total rebates under the law that will shortly be refunded to insurance customers are estimated to total $1.1 billion for 2011 alone—clearly motivation for the insurers to defeat the law although one wonders if it wouldn’t be easier for these companies to simply follow the law and spend according to the MLR.
Any industry group is free to take whatever position it believes to be in the best interests of its members. However, to present itself as being supportive of critically important proposed law while secretly spending over $100 million to defeat the very same legislation is the ultimate in duplicitous behavior and should make very clear just what the health insurance industry is all about.
Whether you support or oppose the Affordable Care Act, I cannot imagine that this type of behavior would be acceptable to any American and stands as a shining example of the corruption big money imparts to our political system.
If the insurance industry lacks sufficient spine to take a legitimate stand on a piece of legislation that is critical to its interests—and ours— how do you imagine they are going to behave when you find yourself depending on these people to come through for you during a medical emergency?
To borrow a phrase from Keith Olbermann (remember him?), these have to be the worst people in the world. |
http://www.forbes.com/sites/rickungar/2012/06/25/busted-health-insurers-secretly-spent-huge-to-defeat-health-care-reform-while-pretending-to-support-obamacare/2/ |
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pete1061
Phoenix
Joined: Nov 13, 2011
Age: 43
Posts: 958
Location: Portland, OR
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| Posted: Sun Jul 01, 2012 1:35 am Post subject: |
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So, I guess if no criminal penalties, levies, or liens will imposed, people can tell the government to piss off and not pay the fine,tax or whatever legalese they want to call it.
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