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I am a 92-year-old female. It's not nice for a person of my ilk to become agitated after listening to the Sunday morning “talking heads” and the half-hearted rejoinders from the Democrats!
What an insult to our intelligence when Mitch McConnell proclaims, “Obamacare is a huge tax increase” — and before sunrise on Monday it has become “the largest tax increase in history!” Then he asserts, “We have the best health care system in the world!” It's not nice to brag about your health care system when you’re preaching to the rest of us who subsidize your premiums!
While our President and other thinkers in the tank may have thought the “Supremes” would drag this matter through the commerce clause, the broad taxing authority seemed to be where it “fit” (or maybe the Chief Supreme thought their partisan “our way or the highway” mantle left the wrong legacy for that august assembly).
Wouldn’t you know that the scent of all that righteous indignation would be a clarion call to the Alaskan “Iquitarod” Sarah Palin to screech, “Obama lied!”
Now, let’s do the math. The penalty is not upon the estimated 90 percent of us who have health insurance. It is not on the estimated 9 percent of us who cannot afford health insurance and would be (horrors) subsidized! The penalty would be on the very small group of “patriots” who (a) think they don’t need insurance for their families, or (b) say, “Why should we buy insurance when the ER is free, or (c) “No ______ Liberal can tell us what we can do — or carry!”
And guess what: unlike a tax, the Internal “Revenuers” cannot prosecute these freeloaders, cannot slap a lien on them, cannot incarcerate them for penalty evasion! Its only enforcement option might be to subtract from a tax refund!
Bottom line: You can call this a tax, a penalty, or fee. But if those who can afford it accept their personal responsibility and invest in health insurance – voila! no tax, no penalty.
CARMEN
WILKERSON
Muskogee
