Obama's Health Care...Buy it Or Else!

Did you know that under the President’s Health Care Plan you will be required to purchase health insurance. Further, should you fail to purchase the insurance you will be fined and could actually go to jail.

Critics of the plan (including myself) argue that legislation requiring fines for failure to purchase health care is just a pretense of adding yet another tax on the American people. After all, a “tax” is defined as "a charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or property for public purposes."

This past Sunday on during an interview with ABC’s George Stephanopoulos the President was asked, “Under this mandate, the government is forcing people to spend money, fining you if you don't. How is that not a tax?” Obama responded,

“No. That's not true, George. The -- for us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is, is that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore than the fact that right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance. Nobody considers that a tax increase…. My critics say everything is a tax increase. My critics say that I'm taking over every sector of the economy. You know that.”

Stephanopoulos concluded by asking, “…But you reject that it's a tax increase?” and Obama responded. “I absolutely reject that notion.”

Later during the week on Thursday, Thomas Batrthold, the Chief of Staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation told Senator John Ensign of Nevada that Americans who fail to pay the penalty for not buying insurance would face legal action from the Internal Revenue Service. Barthold said the IRS would "take you to court and undertake normal collection proceedings" to collect the individual mandate penalty which could cost as much as $1,900.

Senator Ensign asked Mr. Narthold if he could be more specific about the IRS’s involvement in this health insurance penalty. Shortly therafter Mr. Barthold provided Senator Ensign with the below signed, handwritten note on letterhead from the Joint Committee on Taxation of the Congress of the United States.

Dear Senator Ensign,

Sec 7203 of the code provides that if there is a willful failure to file, pay, maintain appropriate rcords and the like that the taxpayer may be charfed with a misdemeanor with a penalty of up to $25,000 and not more than year in jail. Felony tax evasion provides for restitution and a fine of up to $100,000 for an individual and up to five years in jail.

Sincerely,

Thomas A, Barthold

This is one reason why President Obama is rapidly losing his credibility with the American people.

You remember the American people don’t you, they’re those “misinformed, right wing, not terribly bright white people.”
Obama appears on every television show that will have him to push his health care policy and when asked if this penalty actually constitutes yet another new tax, he looks at the cameras with a straight face and states “I absolutely reject that notion”, yet at the same time he has charged the IRS as the collection agent for assessed penalties for those Americans who choose not to purchase health Care?

Not to mention the fact that the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, is doing her best to ram this health care bill through the Congress for a vote as quickly as possible. That way, by the time we all actually discover what's hidden in the midst of this massive bill, it will be too late to do anything about.
I am still attemting to read the entire house version of their health care plan but it is becoming almost imossible as now many members of congress are trying their add their individual member items ("pork") to the bill which makes the task ornerous.

Peter J. Mahon