Conservative
Type 40
OMB director undercuts legal case for Obamacare
Sounds like they are trying to sink their own case.
Testifying before Congress this morning, President Obama's acting budget director Jeffrey Zients directly undercut one of the administration's key legal defenses of its national health care law as it nears a hearing before the Supreme Court.
In a hearing of the House Budget Committee Rep. Scott Garrett, R-N.J., pressed Zients on whether the penalty that the health care law imposes on individuals who do not purchase health insurance constitutes a tax. Eventually, Zients said it did not.
Now the administration is making both arguments simultaneously. Before Congress, Zients is arguing that it is not a tax. But before the Supreme Court next month, the administration will argue that it is, in fact, a tax.
"The practical operation of the minimum coverage provision is as a tax law," reads the administration's Supreme Court brief filed last month. "It is fully integrated into the tax system, will raise substantial revenue, and triggers only tax consequences for non-compliance."
Sounds like they are trying to sink their own case.