Apparently, Senator Hatch has not read the text of the individual mandate (or...he's just fibbing)

[ProSense]

Apparently, Senator Hatch has not read the text of the individual mandate (or else he's just fibbing)

JB

Oren Hatch and his friends get the benefit of the pages of the Wall Street Journal to tell us things about the individual mandate that are not actually true.

First, the Constitution does not give Congress the power to require that Americans purchase health insurance. Congress must be able to point to at least one of its powers listed in the Constitution as the basis of any legislation it passes. None of those powers justifies the individual insurance mandate. Congress's powers to tax and spend do not apply because the mandate neither taxes nor spends. The only other option is Congress's power to regulate interstate commerce.

Is that so? Let's look at the House and Senate Bills.

<...>

The House bill is a tax on adjusted gross income. You pay the tax if you don't purchase health insurance. Put another way, if you don't want to buy health insurance you can just pay the tax.

The Senate bill is a penalty tax. If you don't want to purchase health insurance, you pay the tax. The penalty is assessed for as long as you don't buy insurance. Such taxes are quite common-- think, for example, about the penalties imposed for failing to pay your income tax on time, or a tax on polluters who fail to purchase and install anti-pollution equipment. The Senate bill can also be classified as an excise tax on an event-- failure to pay premiums in a given month.

Congress's powers to impose an income tax, a penalty tax, or an excise tax are unproblematic. The House and Senate versions of the individual mandate are clearly within Congress's powers to tax and spend for the general welfare. Nor are they direct taxes that must be apportioned by state. Under the 16th Amendment taxes on income need not be apportioned no matter what the source of the income; excise and penalty taxes are not taxes on real estate and they are not capitation or "head" taxes, taxes that are levied on the population no matter what they do. Therefore they are not direct taxes within the meaning of the Constitution and existing precedents.

Either the House or the Senate version of the tax is clearly constitutional under existing law. It is not even a close question.

The reason why Senator Hatch does not tell you what is in the bill in his op-ed is because once you read it, you will see that what he says is not true. The individual mandate is structured as a tax. And the tax is perfectly constitutional under Congress's powers to tax and spend for the general welfare.

[dkf]

1. So it is a tax increase right?

[IndianaGreen]

2. It is the largest middle class tax increase in decades!

Health Care Excise Tax = A Big Middle Class Tax Increase

Health care legislation under consideration in the U.S. Senate would raise $149 billion over ten years by imposing a 40 percent excise tax above certain thresholds on insurance company health plans and self-insured plans offered by companies to their workers. This tax would have a dramatic effect on those plans forcing steep reductions in benefits, shifting of costs to workers and a significant increase in taxes on millions of middle-class families.

Contrary to claims by proponents that it will affect only “Cadillac” health plans, like those enjoyed by Goldman Sachs executives, according to Joint Committee on Taxation(i) data the excise tax will:

• Affect 19 percent of workers with employer-sponsored health coverage in 2016.
• Affect nearly 25 million households(ii) in 2019, including one-fifth of middle-class households making between $50,000 and $75,000.
• Affect about 25 percent of health plans by 2019.
• Cost affected households an additional $7,500 in taxes on average between 2013 and 2019, or more than $1,000 a year.
• In 2019, cost affected taxpayers who are millionaires an extra $2,600 in taxes and those making between $50,000 to $75,000 an extra $1,100 in taxes, but the wealthy taxpayers’ income will be at least 13 to 20 times greater.
• Be a tax increase of 0.1 percent of income for those households affected that make more than $1 million a year and be a tax increase of 1.4 percent for those households affected that make $50,000 to $75,000.

The JCT assumes that 82.5 percent of the revenue raised from the tax will be generated by increased wages to make up for health benefits cuts and increased cost sharing. However, most employers say they will not increase workers’ wages in response:

• Only 9 percent of human resource executives in a recent Towers-Perrin survey said if health care reform reduced their benefit costs would they increase salary or direct compensation; 78 percent said they would retain the savings in the business as profit.
• Just 16 percent of health plan sponsors in a recent Mercer survey said they would convert any health care cost savings into higher pay for their workers.

http://www.healthcarevoices.org/pages/impact-of-the-excise-tax-on-the-middle-class

[dkf]

3. That isn't counting the tax imposed on people who don't buy health insurance.

[IndianaGreen]

4. And all of them will vote against those that raised their taxes

in order to enrich the health industry.

[ProSense]

8. Call it what you want to, it's Constitutional. n/t

[dkf]

9. And such a political winner too!

Mark my words, it will be the most regressive tax we have ever seen.

[ProSense]

10. "Mark my words, it will be the most regressive tax we have ever seen."

There will be no mass protest. You are in for a rude awakening.

[dkf]

11. Oh the poor and middle class don't protest.

I'm not expecting that. They'll just suffer though it. Heck they don't even come out to vote, much less protest.

[ProSense]

12. "They'll just suffer though it." Nonsense.

There are 255 million Americans with private and public health plans, adding 15 million to each category is not going to spark mass protest.

[dkf]

13. Nothing sparks mass protests nowadays.

Not even unnecessary wars.

[ProSense]

14. "Not even unnecessary wars." What?

No one protested the Iraq war?

[dkf]

15. Hardly.

Not like Vietnam.

I went to protest Bush's visit here. It was kind of sad. I had my "fire the liar" sign ready though.

[ProSense]

16. Oh please, there were huge protests against Iraq

around the world even.

[dkf]

19. The world protests were more impressive than ours.

That protest in Iran over their elections was pretty impressive. I wish our people cared that much but those are a little scary too.

[Hekate]

20. Just because the MSM failed to report our protests does not mean they didn't happen. DU ran many ...

... eyewitness participant accounts -- with photos -- during that time. I was very active in my town, as were a lot of others, and eventually I went to DC three times, where at least one of the marches exceeded a million people. With photos.

Hekate

[Ozymanithrax]

5. As with most progressive programs such as Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid...

It is found in the General Welfare Clause of the Constitution...

Section 8.
The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts and excises, to pay the debts and provide for the common defense and general welfare of the United States; but all duties, imposts and excises shall be uniform throughout the United States;

He knows that will be used as the source of power for Congress. He is prevaricating through his dentures.

[IndianaGreen]

6. HCR is not a progressive program at all, but a rip off of the people

to enrich the very rich.

[Ozymanithrax]

21. Providing Health Care is the most progressive of concepts.

unless you consider Medicare an onerous burden on the public.

[IndianaGreen]

23. Keeping the for profit insurance system is not progressive

Single Payer, such as in Canada, or the UK's NHS, are truly progressive systems.

HCR is reactionary!

[Jamastiene]

25. +1

What we are getting is so far from progressive.

[dkf]

7. Except it isn't a progressive tax. It will hit lower middle income and middle income people harder

than rich people.

Only rich people who are protesting the mandate will pay the penalty. Like Keith Olbermann.

[Ozymanithrax]

22. I think Keith is a great guy, but dead wrong...

If he should refuse to pay, then he should go to jail. Except that no one will go to jail.

[jbnow]

24. Excise tax is not on the insured person but the insurance company

so if it passes as is I think everyone will pay for it.

It is a 40% tax on the amount in excess of 23K/8.5K (not whole amount).
It is on insurance company. If they raise holders premiums to pay for it all the extra premiums will add to the excess and be taxed at 40% too.

So I think they will be slower to raise rates on those policies (or raise them so crazily it will discourage their purchase) and will instead raise the rates ore on lower end policy holders (which they won't be taxed on). It would also be less profit on paper and be used as excuse to raise premiums for everyone despite safeguards built in

It's a stupid idea and the rule will be dropped or changed in compromise bill.

[Hekate]

17. Who could possibly imagine that Oren Hatch (R) would mislead or lie to us? No way!

[DrToast]

18. Definitely caught me by surprise

[Bluenorthwest]

26. So the gist of this is that not only is it mandated, which

Obama claimed to opposed, in grand and specific detail, but it is also a tax increase on those making under 250K, which Obama said pointedly and repeatedly would not happen.
So good points, both mandates and the tax increase that enforces them are the exact opposite of what Obama promised during the campaign.

[Orsino]

27. He hasn't read it AND he's lying.

He's Orrin Hatch. Senator Orrin Hatch does not read legislation, thank you very much.