Regarding the “When is a tax a tax” spar between Obama and George Stephanopoulos (link)
Are mandated health care costs to the individual in effect a tax?
Was George out of line for pushing the issue?
Is Obama trying to play Clintonesque word games (what do you mean by is)?
youtube clip
I believe that a mandate to pay for something is a form of a tax. To me a tax is when the government tells you that you WILL pay a certain amount of money for some reason. You will pay x$ toll to drive down this road. You WILL pay x$ out of your paycheck. You WILL pay x% of the value of your house. You WILL pay x% on purchases. You WILL pay x$ for a health plan.
Would that include fishing, hunting and drivers licenses?
Those are all optional expenses - not mandated
I think of those as taxes. Being optional doesn’t mean it isn’t a tax. I don’t have to pay sales tax so long as I don’t buy anything. Doesn’t mean it isn’t a tax. (I’m not arguing that it’s bad to pay taxes.)
Odesio pretty much said what I was going to. And another example, I don’t smoke, so I don’t pay any cigarette taxes, but they’re still taxes. So yes, I consider licenses a form of taxation.
To answer your question:
Yes, Obama’s plan will replace a portion of health care costs with a new tax.
No, Obama can’t admit this. If you gave someone ten bucks in exchange for accepting a 5 dollar tax, they would vote against it. Americans hate taxes, and will resist new taxes with determination only matched by your daughter’s prom date, no matter how the new tax is sold to them. If you want to raise taxes to do something good for someone, you gotta trick them into accepting it.
It isn’t out of line for someone to challenge this particular issue. It’s politics. If politicians called a duck a duck, nothing would ever get done.
If the government nationalizes the power company, does your power bill suddenly go from being a fee to being a tax?
If the power company is later privatized, do your taxes go down even though you are paying the same amount?
If the answer to these questions is yes, how could the tax burden in one jurisdiction ever be compared with that of any other jurisdiction?
Again, I think it’s an issue of mandate. Last I checked, citizens aren’t required to maintain utility service.
If the rate you pay now depends on your income, then yes.
Yes. Unless they also charge you according to your income, presumably because the government grants them a monopoly that enables them to do this, or because the government requires them to do this. In which case, it’s a tax.
It is complicated. But if the government takes over the provision of every damn thing, then all we pay are taxes, not prices. Especially if the the government can discriminate in the pricing, which is precisely what is being proposed for health care. If you make more money, you pay more in a penalty. If you make less money you get more of a subsidy. It looks like a progressive tax (though within some very small limits) and acts like one.
Sorry to you and TheMightyAtlas for taking so long to reply. It’s like I have time for one post a day.
As others have pointed out, you’re not mandated to own property but most people call property taxes “taxes”. Indeed it would be strange to argue that they’re anything else. Are you sure the tax issue is real issue you want to address or is it just that you don’t think health insurance should be mandated?
My reply to this is the same as my reply to flickster except different.
Your definition of tax could work but it’s hard to know what use it would be. Anyway, it seems that your problem is not with this health care proposal at all - it’s with progressive taxation in general. Why not address that directly instead of hiding behind this “definition of ‘is’” thing?
I’m trying to think of examples of taxes in which the funds don’t go to the government. That, to me, is the sine qua non of a tax. If someone can point out taxes that aren’t paid to the government, my mind can be changed.
On edit: The mandate to get health insurance doesn’t mean a mandate to buy a government issued plan. From what I can tell, if someone wants to maintain a health savings account plus high deductible plan, or buy the most tricked out plan with no deductibles, both would count as coverage. I’m not buying this “the more you earn, the more you pay” argument. Unless I’m missing something, rich people could buy a crappy high deductible plan and not have to pay more for it.
I am saying that it is difficult to distinguish between a fee or price for a service and a tax, if you are paying the government. But one of the factors that helps you distinguish is if the price/fee is dependent on your income. Especially if a very large segment of the users of some essential service are exempt based on their income and/or net worth.
I am definitely not opposed to progressive taxation with highest marginal rates much higher than we have in the US now (like 50% or 60% or even more) and a simplification of the tax code. I live in Massachusetts, where we have a personal mandate, which is the model for some of the proposed plans. It should be telling that the penalty is assessed on your state income tax form. The whole point is to make those who do not want to purchase health insurance purchase it. The reason they do not want to purchase it is that they have not enough assets to worry about going bankrupt if they suffer some catastrophic illness or injury. They are also generally young people with incomes 4X or more than the poverty level who are working in jobs that don’t provide health insurance.
One problem is that the penalty on employers who do not provide insurance is only $575 or something, and most small businesses are exempted entirely. The compromises made to get “UHC” implemented doomed it to failure. What you really need is a comprehensive employer mandate or a personal mandate with real teeth. Of course this means that no full time employee could cost less than $30k a year, because below that level, either you don’t make enough to be able to afford the premiums or your employer has to pay $10k in either premiums or a penalty. This would send the employers scurrying to set up shop in New Hampshire and Rhode Island, even more than has already happened.
Just another reason this has to be done at the national level.
Government forces you to buy a health policy = No tax, but it is coersion.
Government charges you a penalty for not having insurance = tax
Very well said.
Here’s the thing that bugs me about this issue, although it’s not that big a deal, since politicians do this all the time. I don’t remember the exact phrasing Obama used, but he said a lot more than that he wouldn’t raise taxes on people making less than $250k. He said something like: there will be no fees, no added expenses, yada, yada, yada. He was purposes trying not to hide behind the word “tax” in a strict sense, but now he seems to be doing the opposite.
Just my 2 cents. If someone recalls what he actually said, I’d be interested in seeing it. Could be that my memory is faulty.
