Look at this!
Under the new law, the penalties will be phased in starting in 2014. By 2016, those who must get insurance but don't will be fined $695 or 2.5 percent of their household income, whichever is greater.
After 2016, the penalties will be increased by annual cost-of-living adjustments. People will not be required to get coverage if the cheapest plan available costs more than 8 percent of their income.
The penalties will be collected by the Internal Revenue Service through tax returns. However, the IRS will not have the authority to bring criminal charges or file liens against those who don't pay.
Nearly 4M people could pay without health coverage - Yahoo! Finance
Now does anyone buy that the IRS won't be given that authority by the time all is said and done??????????
Won't raise taxes and won't have to pay a fine.
WHERE IN THE CONSTITUTION DOES IT GIVE THE GOVERNMENT THE RIGHT TO FINE ME FOR NOT BUYING HEALTH INSURANCE???????
And then dumbass liberals wonder why we now have a tea party??????
Yeah, it's just because Obama is black the tea partiers are against Obama. Riiiiiiiiiiiiight!
Idiots!
Dear TPS: Why do you think so many people (on the left and right) were either personally distressed or publicly outraged when this thing passed? I heard a caller to KPFT public radio complain that if he didn't pay to add his wife to his insurance (which she DOES NOT WANT OR NEED) he'd have to pay up to 2.5% of his 200K salary by 2016. How did the "public option" turn into "mandated private insurance" -- go ask big politics to answer for that one!
Not just on the right, but also Michael Moore and Ralph Nader were both slamming supporters of this bill for not doing anything the public had asked for, it doesn't cover all the people in need, it does not provide a public option or singlepayer to cut out the bureaucracy, but pays the professional insurance interests to be directly involved, who would clearly benefit by forcing everyone to buy their plans (with no guarantee or controls on how the premiums would go up in price, and any increase in costs or losses are carried by the taxpayers).
The question that bothers me is how can "pro-choice" Democrats who traditionally oppose ANY legislation that starts to infringe on a women's free choice to abort a pregnancy (up to 3 months or more) -- refusing ANY threat to restrict, punish, fine, or penalize "free choice" -- justify passing this bill that penalizes people by fines or 2.5% of their salaries for making the choice "NOT to purchase health insurance."
How can you legally penalize people for "choosing NOT to buy insurance," but reject any form of legislation that regulates the right to choose something as SERIOUS as abortion??? It seems the SAME arguments that pro-life advocates use to defend the lives of the unborn (even against the consent of opponents to such legislation) are now used by Democrats to justify protecting high risk pools of uninsured WITHOUT the consent of opponents to this bill! How can they justify IMPOSING health coverage against the consent of taxpayers penalized for "not choosing" to buy insurance, but DENYING protections in the case of abortion "for the sake of free choice." ???
That argument, framed in terms of pro-choice politics, exposes the hypocrisy and biases. If passing this legislation, flaws omissions and all, was so urgent to save lives, then the SAME arguments justify pro-life legislation to protect life at the expense of "free choice." Those Democrats had no problem not only ignoring but deliberately violating "free choice" with this bill! And it looks like the SAME people who denounced Bush' Patriot Act as overreaching and unconstitutional, and even defended the "human rights" of NONCITIZEN combatants, seem to have no problem with an unconstitutional bill denying rights of law-abiding US CITIZENS!
If anyone benefits, it is the pharmaceutical companies pushing drugs to handle the sheer insanity, traumatic stress and grief, chronic anxiety and rage induced by this nonsense. Unless they issue a public apology, correction or retraction, the Democrats who voted for this bill, for the sake of political expediency or gain, should all be fired or impeached for political fraud in breach of public duty and contractual obligations, and hardly deserve the courtesy of being voted out of office.
