I understand that the auto insurance analogy sucks. You have to buy liability insurance if you use a car, but you don’t have to use a car in the first place. Same goes for homeowner’s insurance. Those things are privileges, not rights – unlike our right to life. So I understand that forcing health insurance is a lot like trying to impinge on rights. I get all that, sure.
But then how is SS constitutional? It is an insurance payment too for retirement, is it not? Why can’t we simply put healthcare into our tax system? What’s the difference? Why is one constitutional but the other is not?
SS is a tax. If you aren’t employed, you don’t pay it. Simple as that. And there are even exceptions among the employed. It’s not true that everybody has to pay into it.
I’m sure the issue of the individual mandate will go up to the Supremes, but there is definitely a difference between it and SS.
As I understand it, you would continue to receive health insurance even if you weren’t working. If you weren’t working and couldn’t afford it, it would be purchased for you with other people’s taxes. There would be no way to not “buy” health insurance.
Essentially, yes. Everybody would be covered by some sort of health insurance and would be forced to purchase some kind of insurance if not covered but able to afford it or else suffer a penalty.
For Social Security, you don’t have to pay into the system at all if you don’t work. And actually, there are a number of exceptions for paying into the system even if you do work (incredibly low income, alternate retirement benefits for state/local employees, federal work-study students, etc). As a direct percentage of your income, it’s very clearly structured as an employment tax. So, you could choose not to work and not to pay into Social Security at all.
With the health care mandate, it’s a trickier argument. The government’s argument for legality for mandatory coverage may actually be constitutional. The Appeals court decision isn’t the final one in the matter. But it’s not nearly as clear cut a matter as Social Security.
Just like all the taxes you pay, the money is not saved for your own use. The money you pay into SS is not to pay for your retirement. It is to pay for benefits to people who currently need them. The Medicare tax pays for anyone currently on Medicare and the federal income tax pays for things all over the country. So it’s not like the government is forcing you to put your money towards your own retirement fund. You are contributing to the government’s current expenses, some of which happen to be payments to retired people. You will be retired one day and hopefully you’ll get some benefit money too.
A more analogous situation would be if the government said you had to have an IRA or 401K fund and contribute a minimum amount every year. People would be upset since the government is dictating how the people should save for retirement.
Keep the current system we have before the Obamacare law takes effect or institute an actual tax that will pay for some form of health care for everyone (like Medicare for the whole country, basically.) Obamacare in my opinion is the worst of both worlds, it hurts middle class families and it has insufficient tools to control costs any better than our current system.
I’m a very conservative person but I would embrace a public option over the mandated health care purchase scheme.
Legally I would say the major difference off hand between SS and this law is Social Security is a tax, this is a penalty for not buying something. If it was just a straight tax that paid for universal health coverage I don’t think it would be any different legally than Medicare, but it isn’t. Instead you suffer financial penalties if you meet certain criteria and do not make the decision to purchase health insurance.
I never understood this “nobody forces you to drive a car or to work so you can opt out of these taxes” argument. Nobody forces you to live in a home, so you could avoid property taxes by squatting in a wilderness area. But you would need some clothing or weaponry to survive, and would need money to purchase those. Plus if you got sick you would need money.
So, I guess if you are independently wealthy and keep that money in rolls of cash, own no taxable possessions, don’t work or drive a car, and live in the wilderness, then you have made the free choice to be free from government coercion.
But, I agree with the OP. What is my realistic choice besides working or owning property (or driving a car in most parts of the country)? Just because you can theoretically do it in some half-baked scenario, why is forcing property tax, SS tax, or property tax somehow “better” or constitutional whereas a direct order to buy health insurance is wrong?
Is it the word “tax”? If Obama simply said you must pay a flat “health care tax” regardless of income, would that be better? How is it functionally different?
I guess because a government is allowed to raise taxes to pay for the services it provides. So if it provides roads, a big military, retirement and healthcare benefits, it is entitled to raise enough taxes to provide those benefits.
But it seems to me the government is crossing a line when it tells you that you have to buy certain things. If the government says everyone must have health insurance, then it seems like that’s something the government should provide (and generate the funds to pay for it).
The difference is because of the precise wording of our Constitution. Under our system, states can force their citizens to do pretty much anything, including forcing them to buy insurance. But Congress does not have a “general police power.” Instead, our Constitution only permits Congress to do a few things outlined in Article I, Section Eight. One of those is the power to “tax and spend for the general welfare.” So Medicare for all would have been constitutional, as Social Security is. But forcing citizens to make a purchase they otherwise wouldn’t (private health insurance) is beyond Congress’s power—unless the Supreme Court accepts the argument that it is part of a scheme to regulate Interstate Commerce (one of Congress’s other Section Eight powers).
So, under this theory, the government could “tax” me $5000 per year and then turn around and give a “grant” of $5000 to Blue Cross/Blue Shield under the condition that they provide me health coverage. This would be okay.
But for the government to force me to pay Blue Cross/Blue Shield $5000 in exchange for health coverage would be unconstitutional?
Sounds like a ridiculous semantic difference. If that’s the case, then why can’t a state institute a $75,000 newspaper tax, a $100,000 “attending church tax”, or a $50,000 tax on every abortion performed in state? They aren’t outlawing a fundamental right, just their plenary taxing power.
Agreed. The whole deal should have been single-payer or bust, in my opinion. I’m not convinced one way or the other that mandatory health insurance will be found to be constitutional, but just adding a new tax for government health insurance would have been a slam dunk.
Politically, though, it would’ve probably been a slam dunk the other way; the sales pitch used was that it wasn’t a new tax, and there was presumably a reason they consistently emphasized that palatable claim.
I understand it seems like a ridiculous semantic difference to you, but this is the Constitution and law we are talking about. I hope you understand that in those arenas specific wording has specific meaning, and just because two things may have the exact same impact does not mean they are the exact same thing, legally.
As for the crazy taxes you postulated about, many State constitutions would make those illegal and the realities of politics would make them impossible in all 50 States. Further I would argue all of those taxes would be unconstitutional in general. You can’t use taxation as an end run around the First Amendment and start instituting $75,000 newspaper and church taxes. That’s sort of the way poll taxes worked, you used them to make sure poor blacks couldn’t vote. I don’t know if there is a relevant SCOTUS case but given their logic in regard to poll taxes I do not believe SCOTUS would allow massive like you proposed because they would be solely in existence to deny fundamental constitutional rights.
Essentially if you look back through American history it has always been the case that government can take money through taxes. Either through tariffs and excise taxes or through income taxes (income taxes had to be specifically allowed on the Federal level through a constitutional amendment), government’s ability to tax is essentially hard wired in the constitution at the Federal level. Government’s ability to make you buy something just simply doesn’t exist at the Federal level. It may seem like a minor semantic difference to you, but there are significant and good reasons the SCOTUS might not want the Federal government giving itself more power than it is entitled under the constitution.
It may seem like a semantic difference with this specific issue, but the SCOTUS is supposed to think about our Constitution and how a specific law holds water under the Constitution, they are not supposed to make decisions based on the principle that “well if Congress just worded it differently they could still do this anyway, so who cares”, their job if the law is unconstitutional is to strike it down and it is Congress’s job to rewrite it in a way that would pass muster.
The Federal government’s ability to take money from us and then decide how to use it is as old as our constitution (in the form of tariffs/excise taxes) and almost a hundred years old in regards to direct income taxes. There isn’t really a precedent for the Federal government telling us how we must spend our money. There has always been the understanding that government can take some of our money and make it public money and spend it as it sees fit, that’s part of the deal with having a government. There has never been an understanding that once money is in our wallet they should be able to decide for us how we must spend some of it.
The one legality that may make this whole thing Constitutional is the specific means of making people pay the penalty. My understanding is it’s actually the case that if you comply with the law you get a tax credit, and if you don’t, you don’t get the tax credit. This has the effect of raising your tax bill. So technically it isn’t a fine for not doing something, it is just “you can’t claim this credit if you don’t do this.” I don’t think anyone is particularly surprised courts have come down on both sides of this issue, it’s entirely reasonable that a court might view it as a de facto fine and courts can indeed decide with that sort of rationale. The question now is really one that must be settled by the SCOTUS, because you have different appellate courts ruling in different ways.
Thank-you. I’m really getting tired of having to post this over and over and over again on this MB. You cannot automatically assume that whatever the States may do, the Feds may do.
If it were that simple we would not have had several states courts affirm it and several reject it. It is obviously more complicated than that.
It will go to the Supreme Court. Why, if you think it is so obvious?
We know what this court will do. Not out of respect for the law, but due to the apparent pro rich and pro corporate leanings.
I don’t know gonzo, I think the insurance companies have done the math, and they see a huge upside to mandating health insurance coverage. The question is which wealthy interest group will the court side with?