Criminalizing Health-Care Freedom »
Posted By RTHTGakaRoland 2 months, 3 weeks ago in Political Opinion
Obamacare supporters would use the brute force of criminal law for social engineering.
The “reformers” in the White House and the House of Representatives have made all too plain their vision of the federal government’s power to coerce individual Americans to make the “right” health-care choices. The highly partisan bill the House just passed includes severe penalties for individuals who do not purchase insurance approved by the federal government.
he Congressional Budget Office stated on October 29 that the House bill would generate $167 billion in revenue from “penalty payments.” Individual Americans are expected to pay $33 billion of these penalties, with employers paying the rest.
Who will be included among those subject to civil and criminal penalties if this provision becomes law? For starters, any family of four whose combined income in 2016 is above $102,100 ($88,200 in today’s dollars) and that chooses to pay all its medical expenses out of pocket rather than pay the $15,000 a year that the CBO says will be the lowest-priced insurance option for families. Also any healthy twentysomething in a city with high costs of living who chooses to take the risk of going uninsured. And by outlawing the popular high-deductible plans that are currently among the lowest-cost health-insurance solutions, the new law would only increase the number of Americans on the rolls of those who cannot afford insurance. The CBO itself estimates that at least 18 million Americans will still be uninsured in 2016.
The fact that the penalties for noncompliance are enforceable by criminal prosecution is a chilling abuse of the prosecutorial power, which Columbia law professor Herbert Wechsler pointed out 50 years ago is the greatest power that any government uses against its citizens. Using it to enforce one particular notion of appropriate insurance coverage is nothing less than a tyrannical assertion of raw government power over the private lives and economic rights of individual Americans.
An otherwise law-abiding American who fails to pay this “tax penalty” could be criminally prosecuted and sentenced to a year in prison if the feds deem his refusal to be a misdemeanor.
Worse, if the feds decide the refusal is felonious, the culprit may spend five years in federal prison and be fined up to $250,000. You could end up in a cell in Leavenworth even if you have paid all your family’s medical bills yourself.
By transforming a refusal or failure to comply with a government mandate into a federal tax violation, the “progressives” are using the brute force of criminal law to engage in social engineering. This represents an oppressive, absolutist view of government power.
The idea of imprisoning or fining Americans who don’t knuckle under to an unprecedented government mandate to purchase a particular insurance product should outrage anyone who believes in the exceptional promises and opportunities afforded by our basic American freedoms. The idea isn’t progressive but highly regressive, the equivalent of reinstituting debtors’ prisons, a punishment Americans eliminated 160 years ago.
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RTHTGakaRoland
"There are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by
gradual and silent encroachments of those in power than by violent ...
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RTHTGakaRoland2 months, 3 weeks ago
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Also recall that if the 0bama Regime can convict an opponent under this they will have rid themselves of an opponent not only during that individuals prison sentence, but permanently in most jurisdictions, since they would lose their suffrage as a convicted criminal. Add to the few opponents stamped out by convictions the chilling effect on so many more, and the 0bama Regime has a powerful tool for the suppression of opposition under the color of law.
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icono12 months, 3 weeks ago
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If not for the fact that prisons could and or will become 'insurance gulags' for people that can't or refuse to buy insurance this whole affair would be ludicrous.
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Yet it not ludicrous, it is pathetic and criminal that our govt would force someone by law into jail for not buying personal insurance; especially the young who traditionally do not need and or buy personal insurance. So you become a felon for not buying health insurance!!!!!!!!!.
An' yes they will lose their sufferage, and right, it is a damn good way to control the opposition under the guise of Hope, Change, and Transparency you, the American Citizen, can believe in. -
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RTHTGakaRoland2 months, 3 weeks ago
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No criminalization
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No coercion
No imprisonment
No disenfranchisement
No oppression
"Republicans’ Common-Sense Reforms"
http://gopleader.gov/UploadedFiles/Summary_of_Repu...-
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Beau78902 months, 2 weeks ago
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A one-page "Summary of Republican Alternative" is not a primary source--it's not even the actual text of the Republican alternative. And it's not an independent source. It's what the people who wrote it--Republicans--want you to remember...in other words, talking points.
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Looking at the language of the bills is the only way to judge for oneself what is in the bills. All else is someone's opinion. Why didn't they teach you this in school?
Now, if you want a nonpartisan analysis from the independent Congressional Budget Office of the Republican alternative, that's available. The CBO has determined that their alternative proposed in the House would cover 3 million of the 47 million uninsured in this country. Why bother with a "reform" that doesn't do what it's supposed to do?
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RTHTGakaRoland2 months, 3 weeks ago
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No criminalization
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No coercion
No imprisonment
No disenfranchisement
No oppression
"The Whole Foods Alternative to ObamaCare
Eight things we can do to improve health care without adding to the deficit."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702042... -
newsguy2005Comment removed: Hard Banned
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fjgalt2 months, 3 weeks ago
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From The Fountainhead - the soul of a collectivist
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"What do you want Ellsworth?"
"Power, Petey. I want to rule. I shall rule."
"The world of the future. The world I want. A world of obedience and of unity. A world where the thought of each man will not be his own, but an attempt to guess the thought of the next neighbour who’ll have no thought – and so on, Peter, around the globe. Since all must agree with all. A world where no man will hold a desire for himself, but will direct all his efforts to satisfy the desires of his neighbour who’ll have no desires except to satisfy the desires of the next neighbour, who’ll have no desires – around the globe, Peter. Since all must serve all. A world in which man will not work for so innocent an incentive as money, but for that headless monster – prestige. The approval of his fellows – their good opinion – the opinion of men who’ll be allowed to hold no opinion. An octopus, all tentacles and no brain."
"What of us, the rulers? What of me, Ellsworth Monkton Toohey And I’d say, Yes, you’re right. I’ll achieve no more than you will. I’ll have no purpose save to keep you contented. To lie, to flatter you, to praise you, to inflate your vanity. To make speeches about the people and the common good. Peter, my poor old friend, I’m the most selfless man you’ve ever known. I have less independence than you, whom I just forced to sell your soul. You’ve used people at least for the sake of what you could get from them for yourself. I want nothing for myself. I use people for the sake of what I can do to them. It’s my only function and satisfaction. I have no private purpose. I want power. I want my world of the future. Let all live for all. Let all sacrifice and none profit. Let all suffer and none enjoy. Let progress stop. Let all stagnate. There’s equality in stagnation. All subjugated to the will of all. Universal slavery – without even the dignity of a master. Slavery to slavery. A great circle – and a total equality. The world of the future." -
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NoWayMan2 months, 3 weeks ago
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its hilarious that you guys actually think people will go to jail (they won't) and pay some ginormous fine (there's no such fine) for non-compliance.
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you guys will buy into anything.
no matter how ridiculous.
as long as it falls under the category of "hate obama"-
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fjgalt2 months, 3 weeks ago
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The IRS will be collecting the money. They have the power to fine and imprison anyone not paying.
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Nancy Pelosi Supports Prison Time For Not Having Health Insurance
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=82ktMQnuRcE -
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fjgalt2 months, 3 weeks ago
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A somewhat better link
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Nancy Pelosi Admits Jail is Perfectly Acceptable for Refusing Socialized Healthcare
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9TJb7trBXk8=PlayLis... -
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RTHTGakaRoland2 months, 3 weeks ago
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Additional Source 1:
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"Pelosi’s Healthcare Vision: Government Mandate or Jail"
"Failing to purchase “acceptable health insurance coverage” could result in a fine punishable “up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” Those are direct quotes from a letter of analysis done by the Joint Committee on Taxation, a non-partisan analysis committee in Congress. While that policy may not be one of Nancy Pelosi’s main talking points about her healthcare takeover legislation, it is an undoubtedly destructive portion of her healthcare bill, part of the reason it passed with only two votes to spare."
http://biggovernment.com/2009/11/18/pelosis-health... -
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RTHTGakaRoland2 months, 3 weeks ago
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Also the 0bamacare proposals contain language stripping IRS of their current discretion to reduce or eliminate fines and imprisonment in cases of mistake or to acknowledge cooperative defendants.
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"Tax Penalties and the Health-Care Bill
Under the House legislation, taxpayers will be fined for honest mistakes."
"One would change the law to mandate that the Internal Revenue Service slap penalties on honest but errant taxpayers.
Under current law, taxpayers who lose an argument with the IRS can generally avoid penalties by showing they tried in good faith to comply with the tax law. In a broad range of circumstances, the health-care bill would change the law to impose strict liability penalties for income-tax underpayments, meaning that taxpayers will no longer have the luxury of making an honest mistake. The ability of even the IRS to waive penalties in sympathetic cases would be sharply curtailed."
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB100014240529702035... -
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RTHTGakaRoland2 months, 3 weeks ago
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Additional source 2:
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"Democrats' health care bill has mandates and penalties"
"Would I have to have health insurance?
Yes, or pay a penalty of 2.5 percent of your income. Hardship and religious waivers would be available, and some very low-wage earners would be exempt. The requirement would begin in 2013.
People who don’t get insurance and don’t pay the penalty face fines and possibly jail time."
http://www.kansascity.com/105/story/1556149.html-
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Beau78902 months, 3 weeks ago
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No one will go to prison. How many people go to prison for not paying taxes?
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The requirement to buy insurance is necessary to keep insurers from having to cover only the least healthy, who are the most expensive to insure. The idea behind reform is to keep costs down and to cover more people, remember?
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fjgalt2 months, 3 weeks ago
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The government was supposed to offer a better option than the insurance companies. I'm not a fan of insurance companies but they can't fine you a quarter of a million dollars, put you in jail for five years, and take away your power to vote.
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What else is in the 2,000 page senate usurpation of power? -
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Tasine2 months, 3 weeks ago
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FTA
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Worse, if the feds decide the refusal is felonious, the culprit may spend five years in federal prison and be fined up to $250,000. You could end up in a cell in Leavenworth even if you have paid all your family’s medical bills yourself.
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Tell me again how this improves health care? I must be really dense. It sound solely like POWER, not even disguised POWER, but naked POWER.
I read this morning that all 40 Republican Senators plan to filibuster this monstrosity. If they do, we know who is on the side of the American people. I hope the 1-2 Democrats who have voiced displeasure with the bill will also filibuster. Then we will have that monkey off our backs for a while. -
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RTHTGakaRoland2 months, 3 weeks ago
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Additional Source 3 reporting these criminal penalties:
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" JCT Confirms Failure to Comply with Democrats’ Mandate Can Lead to 5 Years in Jail
Friday, November 06, 2009
Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.
In response to the JCT letter, Camp said: “This is the ultimate example of the Democrats’ command-and-control style of governing – buy what we tell you or go to jail. It is outrageous and it should be stopped immediately.”
http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/News/Doc... -
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RTHTGakaRoland2 months, 3 weeks ago
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Additional Source 4 reporting these criminal penalties:
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"Failure to get health insurance could bring fines, possible jail"
"Failure to get health insurance could bring fines and possible jail time under a health care reform bill being considered by the U.S. House of Representatives.
But mandates for federal plans or private insurance worry civil libertarians worried about the dictums helping expand government power and insulate for-profit providers from competition.
“Individual mandates are a form of corporate welfare, forcing people to buy what they do not need or want and often can’t afford. The push for individual mandates does not emanate from concern over people who are uninsured, but from a desire to create a new funding pool to subsidize health care for others. To the extent it taxes marginal earners, it is Robin Hood in reverse,”Clint Bolick, Goldwater Institute litigation director. The Phoenix-based group favors limited government."
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