Two Years On: Obamacare

Not to be a pest, here, because this is decidedly not my area. But it does seem as if this isn't the slam dunk case you're making it out to be. Further, it seems, to me, a bit convenient to label facets of the argument that you don't like as "political" and facets of the argument you do like as "obvious."

 

The penalty is a tax. You get a tax credit if you buy insurance. It's like buying a Prius. The end.

 

I don't think the commerce clause argument is political. I think it is interesting.

I think that basing the decision on the commerce clause argument, striking it down based on the commerce clause argument, is political. This is a tax.

 

What makes you so sure that the court will rule it as a tax? The Solicitor General was not even sure when he presented.

 

The law doesn't call itself a tax because it is politically inconvenient to call it a tax. It is a ballet that Obama and a Democratic Congress are trying to perform.

I can call my dog a cat. That doesn't mean it's not a dog.

 

Then why should The Supreme Court call it a tax then?

 

A tax is a penalty. You get a tax credit for buying a penalty. In other words, you get punished for not buying a Prius. You say tomato, I say tomat-oh.

 

Because what it's called doesn't matter.

What it does matters.

To go Michelle Bachmann on you guys: "Where in the Constitution" does it tell us how a tax must be structured?

 

But, you don't get a tax credit for purchasing insurance. "Cash for Clunkers" gave out tax credits, but it didn't require anyone to buy a new car or levy a tax penalty on anyone who did not.

They could have written a bill that taxed everyone and gave out tax credits if you showed you had purchased private insurance. They didn't.

You want to dismiss all of this as semantics. They are not. The differences change everything.