The latest upshot from ObamaCare: There will apparently be a fee--perhaps of 3.5 percent--levied against any insurer who chooses to sell healthcare insurance on the upcoming federal exchange. From The Washington Post: And the link to the entire article: Want to sell insurance on the Obamacare exchanges? Theres a (3.5%) fee for that. It should go without saying that this "user fee" would not ultimately be paid by the various insurance carriers, but by their customers, as this fee would be passed along in the form of higher rates. But the left, presumably, will just ignore those higher rates, or pretend they are the result of mere avarice on the part of rapacious insurers...
http://fellowshipofminds.wordpress.com/2010/09/22/obamacares-3-8-real-estate-sales-tax/ http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/201...includes-tax-on-home-sales-for-all-americans/ This isn't hidden, nor latest. I have no idea why you brought this up, and more importantly based upon an opinion page.
What percentage of Americans, do you suppose, will realize that they are being charged this additional fee, when they puruse the pertinent website in search of healthcare insurance?
Say what???... Surprise: New insurance fee in health overhaul law 10 Dec.`12 WASHINGTON (AP) Your medical plan is facing an unexpected expense, so you probably are, too. It's a new, $63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul.
only 3.5%, under bush it was raising 15% per year "Wal-Mart Memo Suggests Ways to Cut Employee Benefit Costs " 2005 http://www.nytimes.com/2005/10/26/business/26walmart.ready.html?pagewanted=all "Wal-Mart executives said the memo was part of an effort to rein in benefit costs, which to Wall Street's dismay have soared by 15 percent a year on average since 2002. Like much of corporate America, Wal-Mart has been squeezed by soaring health costs. The proposed plan, if approved, would save the company more than $1 billion a year by 2011." "Ms. Chambers acknowledged that 46 percent of the children of Wal-Mart's 1.33 million United States employees were uninsured or on Medicaid."
That's an "additional" 3.5%. I and my employees are facing a 20+% rise on the first of the year. When things get bad you can always count on the govt to make it worse.
Well, I consider myself a news junkie; and I did not know about it until just the other day, when I read about it in the article posted in the OP. In any case, my question stands: What percentage of Americans who will be going to the federal-exchange website to search for insurance, in your opinion, will be aware that they are being hit with this surcharge?
Well there is an alternative since the ACA was largely upheld the Federal government could set these up and force the costs onto the states they do it for, since they would have no choice as Federal law and constitutional. Just set them up and bill the states and if they refuse to pay up legally go after the money the IRS is good at that.
So now the government is telling people what they have to spend their money on? When did the government start telling people what they had to buy, start dictating what insurance plans a private company is allowed to offer, and punish them with tax penalties if they do not comply? Seems like a huge power grab by the government, and the workings of the law seem far too complex. Is the healthcare system going to be burdened by all these complicated mandates dictating how the private sector can operate? I am not completely against taxpayers helping pay the cost of healthcare, but all this just makes me sick. I just hope the public blames who is responsible when the mandatory insurance costs shoot through the roof, and people can no longer afford other things like a car or housing. The government does not believe consumers know how to spend their own money, so now it tells them how they are allowed to spend it.
When Barack Obama became president. It is. (Egypt's Mohamed Morsi and Venezuela's Hugo Chavez have nothing on Barack Obama, when it comes to the matter of a lust for power...) Yes, it is the Government Knows Best Theory, so beloved by the left...
There is a major difference over Egypt, the Supreme Court our independent courts last appeal declared much of the Affordable Care Act aka Obamacare CONSTITUTIONAL on the grounds the tax penalty being a tax in the case of the swing vote. The people you know the voters returned Obama to office, added to the Senate Majority so that was the nail in the coffin the people chose to not repeal the law by making sure it can't be repealed. There was no power grab people like myself voted in OUR best interests, along OUR moral values and decided this so now its decided. Our Democratic Republican form of government at work should be acceptable to even conservatives it was all by the constitution!
The above observations appear to assume that "even conservatives" should recognize the SCOTUS as the supreme authority in matters of constitutional law. Frankly, I do not. The US Supreme Court has given us such gems as Dred Scott v. Sanford (1857), Plessy v. Furgeson (1896), and, more recently, Kelo v. City of New London [Connecticut] (2005). These examples are good indications of why I would much prefer a resurgence of the niniteenth-century doctrine of nullification, with each state Supreme Court being made the ultimate authority for all constitutional matters, within state boundaries. And I would very much like to see each state assert this right, and simply ignore the pontifications of all federal courts in the future. (Oh, for the record, there is a delicious irony in the fact that the SCOTUS declared ObamaCare to be constitutional, on the grounds that it amounts to a tax--which is precisely what the Obama administration had argued that it is not, when it was attempting to have the incipient law enacted...)
Actually you did read the whole reply I said SCOTUS declared the law largely constitutional and on ,I agree, taxation grounds. Justice Roberts though did make a statement its not his job to say if the law was good or not just if its constitutional and its up to Congress to change it. The court on this level of legislation usually leans to the Federal government you know this if there was a way to get it to be fine they would take it. But I stated the second and higher reason to be for it if a conservative the people of the United States you know the VOTERS the PEOPLE of the UNITED STATES as in the CITIZENS voted the Democrats back into the Senate gaining two seats for their caucus in fact and returned Obama to office and took some seats in the House. Overall the people said Obamacare is fine we want it to stay with many other policies of the former administration so stay the course. In other words the final authority of our government and that seat which it comes from you, your neighbor, my neighbor, and myself and others voted and so that should make this fine with conservatives. Are you going to now second guess the entire basis of our form of government one person gets one vote I would think we all agree in the end that is where the power should be? (And the doctrine of nullification was shot down by the Federal Courts and never had any standing that held it seriously, the civil war killed what steam it had. And if any state opted to ignore Federal Court action and states did in the civil rights fights the Federal Government can step in and you know they did through presidential actions Ike, Kennedy, LBJ and so forth. You can't invoke a power that doesn't exist.)
I believe that Chief Justice Roberts went out of his way to ensure that the decision did not appear to be "political" (i.e. a 5-4 split decided precisely along conservative-versus-liberal lines). We do not live in a plebiscitary democracy (well, except in California, perhaps, with its ubiquitous referenda), but in a constitutional republic; which is to say, the popular will is circumscribed by constitutional restraints. And I believe ObamaCare to be clearly unconstitutional, irrespective of what five SCOTUS justices declared last June... And with this, you have adapted the question-begging stance that the federal courts should be considered the ultimate authority in such matters... And here, we have yet another example of the American left's (increasingly trite) mantra: The Civil War (from about 150 years ago) forever "killed" the idea of nullification... What if 15 or 20, or even more, states, were to ignore the federal courts? States as geographically diverse as Georgia and Montana; Alabama and Utah; Mississippi and Idaho; South Carolina and Alaska; Texas and North Dakota?
If you consider yourself a news junkie, it's obvious you missed this. This regurgating old news because the author couldn't think of something new to write about. That's it.
Yes, how dare the government tell us what to do. It's not like they already do so through taxing alcohol, cigarettes, or having police officers fining "tickets" when I go over the speed limit or run past a stop sign.
I have already asked you an important question (for the purposes of this discussion) twice; and you have adroitly tap-danced around it, both times. I will not bother to ask again; rather, I will just assume that you have no good answer for it...
And with this, you have sidestepped my central question (just as another poster did), in order to get in a cheap shot...
The federal government has never told us that we must purchase "alcohol" or "cigarettes." And the traffic citations that are issued by police officers (with those citations' attendant fines) are in accordance with the laws set down by our local governments. (No one is required by government, at any level, to ignore the posted speed limit or to run through a stop sign or a stop light.)
What? That you have a story that should be from 2010, instead of 2012? If you want me to take your posts seriously, then bring up new information.
So quick question. Doesn't that modify our behavior? Knowing that I have to pay more for booze, wouldn't that make me less likely to buy it, thereby making it so the govt. told me what to do? 1. It doesn't matter if it's the federal, state or even local governments telling us what to do. The government is telling us what to do. No questions. 2. You're right. The government can't tell us to do anything. It can only punish us if we do something that would break the contract we have with them. That idea of course being no different from Obamacare taxing you if you refuse to buy health insurance.
And I believe ObamaCare to be clearly unconstitutional, irrespective of what five SCOTUS justices declared last June... Well believe what you want the fact is the SCOTUS did find the law constititutional your own belief in this not being the case doesn't change the fact the court declared it constitutional so it is now. What if 15 or 20, or even more, states, were to ignore the federal courts? States as geographically diverse as Georgia and Montana; Alabama and Utah; Mississippi and Idaho; South Carolina and Alaska; Texas and North Dakota? You mean those governors and officers of the state ignoring their oaths to the Federal constitution and decided to commit sedition if not treason against the US government, I would think depending on the gravity of the offense you would be looking at arrests of said officers and perhaps Federal forces in these states to enforce the laws of the nation. They tried this in fact over 150 years ago and there was a war and that did decide this pretty much when the Confederacy fell. After that the Civil Rights fight always ended with the Federal government intervening when needed. You think any state would go there now? I'm not an idealist like you pragmatic concerns are the Federal government IS in charge and is the level of government that matters most, only a fool would say otherwise, but not without restraints from the courts and the voters the final and highest authority is one man or woman and their one vote. Its not like the states lost in the Obamacare appeal the medicaid expansion is now a choice the states can turn down all that money or not, but its a lot of money for the poor to turn down. SCOTUS clearly was not fully favoring Obamacare when it really would be an issue for the states in an abusive way.
No, you didn't. What you claimed, in that post, is that "probably most of the people who paid attention to news back in 2010 would know" about the 3.5 percent surtax. That does not address the question as to what percentage of Americans would be likely to know about that tax; which is precisely what I asked in post #3 in this thread (to which you were responding in post #4), and which I reiterated in post #8 in this thread...
