Obamacare?

[edge]

OK, at first blush the conservatives lose.

Obama has always said that he is for the middle class, but just who pays the penalty?

The penalty is based on income...does a rich person have healthcare...YES!
Does a poor person have healthcare...NO, but they get it subsidized =free!

So who can't afford healthcare and now has to buy it or pay a tax...the middle class!

Unless Romney is a moron, which I can't exclude, he just got the biggest gift from SCOTUS!

edge.

[petev]

Seems like an accurate summary, from where I stand (average guy).

[Savage Shooter]

Just don't forget that there are many more poor than middle class. To keep all the poor vote it should work just as planned................just another of the steps required toward the downfall of democracy.

Where did the don't work don't eat concept go?

Democracy fails when you take from those who work and give to those who do not.........lets see......anyone remember who said that?

Just another step toward socialism.

[Buckrub]

Edge is correct. I studied this all day. I learned things today that I never knew.

I have used this example at other sites, so if I sound duplicative, I'm sorry. But my brother, aged 53, does not work. He claims he cannot find work, but he does not look. He has zero income and zero assets. He lives with our mother.

He just got food stamps (SNAP). Human Services mentioned (according to him) that he might qualify for Medicare. That is up in the air.

However, the penalty for NOT abiding by this Obamacare mandate/tax only occurs on your 1040. There is no jail. You simply owe a 1% penalty of your AGI.

If you have no 1040 to file (and my brother has not filed in 20 years, and probably never will), or if you file and you have no AGI, there is no way to pay this penalty.

Thus, as Edge has alluded, the only people to whom the penalty will apply are already working and paying income taxes.

HOWEVER, even of these working people, only 50% or less pay income tax. Some of them file, but only to claim a refund or claim the Earned Income Credit (Income Tax Welfare). Their AGI is zero. Thus, no penalty for them either.

In effect, there is no real penalty. There is no teeth in the mandate part of the law. Yes, I suspect that SOME folks who do not have it now will probably go get it. Most them will do so only after contracting terminal epizutis or some such.

This law has simply added costly provisions to health insurance, such as requiring companies to insure live-at-homes for an additional 8 years, or insuring the ones who have pre-existing conditions. Those provisions will cost a mint. That's why the cost of this is estimated by OMB to be Two Trillion Dollars. By the way, EVERY insurance company already insures pre-existing conditions. Their only caveat is that you wait one year to file any claims for those. After that, they pay, no problem.

Bottom line is that Health CARE costs (not Health Insurance costs, which is THIS topic) will continue to rise because of new treatments and drugs, which are expensive to discover and implement. I like having them, at any cost. There are no pockets in a shroud. I'll spend it all to stay alive. But we all have no choice but to pay more and more, because you are getting more and more service. Whether you pay it in premiums or taxes is what this argument is about. But any politician who says they will LOWER "health care costs" is a nutbag. And if those are not lowered, then I don't see how "health insurance costs" can be lowered.

My two cents.

[edge]

Let me add something else.

You work for a company that does NOT pay for your insurance and the NEW TAX is much cheaper for them.

What happens to the TAX MONEY?

IMO, it should go to the workers of THAT COMPANY!... but alas it goes to the IRS.

So to recap, the company that YOU work for has LESS money to give you because they have been taxed because they don't provide health care...then the IRS confiscates the money to give to the poor that basically get Medicaid ADVANTAGE...which they are taking away from Medicare...then since you don't have health insurance you get taxed extra too...AND YOU STILL don't have healthcare and you don't qualify for Medicaid!

WOW! This should make the November election an easy choice ;D

edge.

[Buckrub]

Well, at that rate, you SHOULD qualify for Medicaid before long!!

Guy on the news this morning's TV rattled off all the new taxes that were going to take effect. Many are individual, many are corporate.....but he ran out of breath before he could finish listing them all.

Hard to remember back so far....but do you remember the first really BIG slide that you went down? I mean the BIG one. From the top, you could see Japan. Remember? Halfway down, what did you feel like? I was scared to death, man. Whew. I just knew I was gonna die.

That's what I feel like right now.

Death penalty struck down in AR.
Stolen Valor Law struck down, Fraud is now protected.
AG is held in Contempt for being a jerk.
Court upholds right of the US Government to force me to buy anything they want, and in the process jack up the price of a perfectly good product that was working (for me).

Makes me want to go back to bed.