Didn’t buy a policy? Go to jail.
Bookworm on Nov 06 2009 at 5:08 pm | Filed under: Crime and punishment, Health
Aside from being unconstitutional, I somehow doubt that the following is a winning formula as far as the American voter is concerned:
PELOSI: Buy a $15,000 Policy or Go to Jail
JCT Confirms Failure to Comply with Democrats’ Mandate Can Lead to 5 Years in Jail
Friday, November 06, 2009Today, 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.”
Key excerpts from the JCT letter appear below:
“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1]
- – - – - – - – - -
“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…” [page 2]
- – - – - – - – - -
“Criminal penalties
Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:
• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.
• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]
When confronted with this same issue during its consideration of a similar individual mandate tax, the Senate Finance Committee worked on a bipartisan basis to include language in its bill that shielded Americans from civil and criminal penalties. The Pelosi bill, however, contains no similar language protecting American citizens from civil and criminal tax penalties that could include a $250,000 fine and five years in jail.
“The Senate Finance Committee had the good sense to eliminate the extreme penalty of incarceration. Speaker Pelosi’s decision to leave in the jail time provision is a threat to every family who cannot afford the $15,000 premium her plan creates. Fortunately, Republicans have an alternative that will lower health insurance costs without raising taxes or cutting Medicare,” said Camp.
According to the Congressional Budget Office the lowest cost family non-group plan under the Speaker’s bill would cost $15,000 in 2016.
Related posts:
- Making the world safer
- Deconstructing the Obama health care plan
- Karl Rove sums up the health care bill’s fiscal effect
Email This Post To A Friend
7 Responses to “Didn’t buy a policy? Go to jail.”
Leave a Reply
You must be logged in to post a comment.
>>and imprisonment of up to five years.>>
But your health care will be free…!
MESSIAH MONOPOLY
Do Not Pass GO
ACORN Community Chest
Fat CHANCE
Railroads (too late Warren Buffet controls them)
Electric Company (Crap & Trade)
Water Works (Sierra Club)
Get Out of Jail Free Card (Congress has concession on them)
GO DIRECTLY TO JAIL (No problem)
I don’t think they’ve thought this through.
I’ll just pay the 2.5% penalty. If I get sick, I’ll buy insurance, since they can’t refuse coverage or charge a premium for pre-existing.
This might be cheaper than when I had insurance.
This will be cheaper than my wife’s employer plan, where our portion of the premium would be about $600 per month.
That’s $7200 a year plus co-pays and deductible. My penalty would be $2500. The difference will more than pay for doctor visits, medicines, physicals, etc.
I guess you could think of the penalty as sort of catatrophic insurance. If a catastrophy happens, I’ll buy better coverage.
Whoops, I didn’t read the last section.
“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…” [page 2]
I doubt they’d throw me in jail for 5 years, but I could image bureaucrats do this:
• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.
OK, I’m confused. Is the “willful failure to pay” related to not buying health insurance or not paying the 2.5% penalty?
OK, I’m confused. Is the “willful failure to pay” related to not buying health insurance or not paying the 2.5% penalty?
Does it matter? Either way, it’s FINE with them.
Senator Judd Gregg says it will cost $3 trillion dollars. Heritage says it will “only” cost $2.4 trillion.
CBO says it will cost $1.7 trillion. That assumes Congress will made the additional $600 billion cuts to medicare.
I have two questions for those who favor government run health care.
Name a government program that didn’t cost more, much more than claimed at the beginning?
If this health care is good enough for us, why isn’t it good enough for Congress?
As Heritage analysts noted earlier in the week, the Congressional Budget Office released its preliminary score of the bill (H.R. 3962) but too many in the media have not been reporting its true cost. The true cost is not the net spending on only the coverage related provisions ($897 billion) but rather the total gross spending for the coverage provisions ($1.05 trillion) as well as any additional spending in the bill (approximately $217 billion). That would raise the plan’s price tag to about $1.5 trillion when including the roughly $210 billion cost of the “doc fix” is included. The “doc fix” refers to the undoing of the flawed Medicare payment update formula, which Congress created but has routinely stopped from being enforced. Under current law, that formula would result in a 20 percent reduction in doctors’ pay under the Medicare program.
The real story about the true cost is even more dramatic. The bill is front loaded with taxes, and back-loaded with spending in the first ten years. Since most of the spending in the House bill does not fully go into effect until 2014, the 10-year cost estimates based on the preliminary CBO score (for years 2010 through 2019) only account for six years of new spending under the plan. Once it is implemented (over a full 10-year window from years 2014 to 2023), the giant House health bill carries a price tag of $2.4 trillion, or as much as $2.6 trillion with the “doc fix.”
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/11/07/gregg-cbo-cost-estimate-of-pelosi-plan-3-trillion/
I don’t think they’ve thought this through.
Think + Congress = Oxymoron