The Day after Tomorrow

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More than likely the fact that Obama was a constitutional expert, colored the way the law was written that provided the ability of Chief Justice Roberts to call the mandate what it really is a tax. If it was a real mandate it would be mandatory to pay the penalty or one would face legal consequences, levies, or liens. Highly unlikely that many will take an out, by avoiding to pay what will now be correctly called a tax, that is constitutional, than an opposition to paying the tax based on principle that an unconstitutional requirement of a mandate was ruled constitutional.

Call it street smarts or what have you, but it was genius to call a tax a mandate, in order to pass a law that will save many American lives, and is already insuring 3.1 million more young adults between the ages of 19 to 25. It was also genius to not include a severability clause, that would have indicated that the law could have worked without the mandate/tax.

If that "mandate" had been struck down unconstitutional as a mandate, there was an almost assurance that all insurance rates would skyrocket, to cover the costs rather than people paying an across the board smaller amount to insure that most everyone would be able to afford and have access to coverage.

It's not a matter of we will all be paying a lot more for health insurance, the fact of the matter is we are paying too much already. The reality of this plan is that it provides limits as to how much one will pay, based on income, and ability to pay, and provides subsidies to cover amounts that are not reasonable, through the requirement that everyone must purchase insurance, other than those whom meet the requirements of the clause exempting them.

There is no question that health care is going to be cheaper with this supreme court defined tax, that without it.

I've already provided examples in this thread where individuals are paying close to 50% of their take home pay for health insurance if they can afford $7,000 a year for a family, when they are making close to minimum wage.

The Health care reform act provides a similar couple without the ability to purchase insurance, even if they make $31,000, no premiums under medicaid coverage, and less than $3,000 a year for coverage for a family of 4 making the median income in the US of $47,000 a year.

The current average cost for all Americans, as evidenced earlier in a previous post, is close to $14,000 a year for coverage.

$0 is less and so is $3,000, per each of these examples. There are millions of other examples just like this that could easily be investigated with the calculator provided below.

If one doesn't think anyone supports the bill, go to the USA today Website linked below, and look at the hundreds of comments there overwhelmingly supporting the bill, per this supreme court decision. I suppose that many that supported the bill had become disheartened at predictions made world-wide that the "mandate" would be overturned, at 75% probability, but some of those people are charged with enthusiasm now, that justice prevailed, not partisan politics.

Perhaps the most interesting part of the response to the decision was Mitt Romney attempting to defend a bill that is going to reduce costs for individuals and save lives, with the usage of the term Obamacare, instead of what the legal title of the bill is, the Affordable Health Care Act. It made him sound more like a fox news broadcaster instead of a presidential candidate. But, he didn't show nearly the conviction for his points in his tone of argument, as true to affect, as a fox news broadcaster would have done.

I've already presented the numbers in a previous thread, and provided a link to a calculator that allows anyone to put in their private information, to come up with a figure of how much they will pay for insurance under this plan. I challenge anyone to put their numbers in and come back and report that they are going to be paying more in the system, than they would if they attempted to buy full coverage on their own.

There are going to be lower level full plans and catastrophic plans made available for young adults, that will be less expensive, however the fact of the matter is that the family of 4 that makes $47,000 a year, that could not afford insurance before that currently averages $14,000 for a family, will now have the ability to enroll in a good family plan for $3,000 a year, with the government picking up over $9,000 dollars of the tab. That's an incredible savings. And there is no evidenced way to minimize it by suggesting that everyone is going to pay more.

Part of problem at this point is many people aren't paying attention to the details of the plan that does have the potential of benefiting most of the population. One can bet that now that the plan is set in stone, that those details are going to continue to be pushed toward the public from now until election day.

Close to half of the country does not pay federal income taxes and there are those that make a great deal of money that do not cover themselves with insurance by choice or do not have the capability to do so with preexisting conditions.

Federal income taxes are already extremely low in the US, by historical standard. If this was the only way to raise an additional $500 Billion dollars a year in taxes, to cover most people with health care, it has now been proven to work, through an ingenious tactic of rhetoric, to finally break the gridlock of congress.

Here is the link below to the USA today comments that now exceed over 280. The support for the Supreme Court's decision is overwhelming.

And here is the subsidy calculator link, for those that don't have insurance to determine what they would have to spend, in 2014, to purchase insurance coverage, under a good full coverage plan, as well as how much they will be able to save if covered under private plans.

This is the only time in history where a tax increase has been passed, defined as such by the Supreme court, where an individual has the opportunity to buy something of value to their life, rather than paying the tax, by their own choice along with the ability to avoid paying the tax through a clause that allows exemptions, or avoid paying the tax without a criminal penalty, lien, or levy, by adjusting their withholding taxes. Once one does the calculations and net benefit personal analysis, it's not likely many are going to choose a route of avoidance, in providing health care for themselves, and their family if they have one.

http://healthreform.kff.org/subsidycalculator.aspx?source=QL

http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/judicial/story/2012-06-28/supreme-court-health-care-ruling/55888742/1

The usual way. By invoking regulation of interstate commerce and invoking the general welfare clause. There is not one single aspect of our lives that Congress cannot regulate.

ruveyn

I noticed there is a loophole for "religious beliefs". Doesn't that pretty much let everyone off? And will there be a box on the income tax form for people to check, claiming they are Quakers or whatever they need to say to escape the "tax"?

That is not correct, the mandate aspect of this decision was not upheld, the decision sets no further precedent to control further aspects of the lives of Americans. It has been determined by the supreme courts as a tax not a mandate.

No. it doesn't apply to all religious beliefs. It does apply to the Amish, but one will have to provide evidence, for affiliation to apply for an exemption, it's not going to be like ticking of checks on a box.

Wrong!



The Supreme Court simply decides whether the law is permissible within the constraints US constitution. Unless you can identify a specific legal error, you have nothing.

If the Supreme Court had said "no" to the tax, then quite a lot of other things would potentially be going out the door.