Obamacare Mandate Question

One quick aside before we dive into this: it's Obamacare. If you don't like it being called Obamacare and think it should be called the ACA, then I'll wait for you to stop saying "Bush tax cuts" and always refer to them by their full name.

My question is for those who support Obamacare. The mandate, well, mandates that people buy healthcare coverage within certain parameters or pay a fine - actually a tax. A tax for not buying a product.

Now I think it's unconstitutional - I see no basis in the Constitution for requiring the non-contingent purchase of a product, and the tenth amendment means that without specifically designated authority in the Constitution, the federal government does not have the authority to do it.

However, many people support Obamacare, and see no problem with charging everyone a tax if they do not purchase a product. Here's my question - if the Obamacare mandate is unconstitutional, then would there be anything unconstitutional to say charge an 8% income tax surcharge to anyone that doesn't purchase a firearm?

I'm not asking about whether it's a good policy - just whether you think it's unconstitutional.

 

FYI





5 American cities that require you to own a gun


https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.ao...merican-cities-that-require-you-to-own-a-gun/

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Thanks. At least now no one can see its an absurd hypothetical and just try to avoid the question.

Well. They can, but it's be obvious evasion.

 

I think it would be because some people are prohibited from owning firearms. You are basically putting an 8% tax in perpetuity on convicted felons.

 

Hmmm!

The presumption inherent in the OP question implies that healthcare is a right similar to that of the 2A.

I am sure that wasn't intentional on the part of the OP but it does throw a curve on how to answer the question.

But rather than deflect from the topic let's instead address the issue as though it were just a matter of taxation instead,

Does the government of We the People have the authority to levy taxes and collect income taxes? Yes, we passed the 16th Amendment to expand the Constitutional taxing powers in Article 1. Therefore taxation is constitutional.

The second part of the question addresses the taxation that applies to ObamaCare. (Yes, I like the name so it doesn't worry me in the least.) The tax is a form of equalization so that everyone contributes to healthcare costs. If you already have a different type of healthcare coverage you are not obliged to pay the tax at all.

It is worth noting that everyone pays Medicare taxes even though only a subset of the population benefits from Medicare. If Medicare were to be modified into a universal Single Payer plan by removing the age restriction then yes, it would be a constitutional means by which everyone has healthcare coverage. In essence it would be impossible to argue that paying taxes for Medicare is constitutional but ObamaCare is unconstitutional. The argument would have to be made to negate both. The fact that the taxation for Medicare is Constitutional even though only a subset are the beneficiaries parallels the ObamaCare tax mandate.

As far as the argument about being "taxed for not purchasing a product" goes that is a fallacious comparison. A gun is a product that the government cannot prevent you from owning. Healthcare insurance is a product more akin to having a fire dept or a public library in your local community. You don't have a right to refuse to pay the local property taxes for the fire dept or the library. Your fellow taxpayers decided that having those services were a good idea and whether you ever use them or not is irrelevant. You are obliged to pay the property taxes that pay for them.

Same argument applies to public schools. I no longer have a child in the school system but I still have to pay for the schools. Am I being charged a tax because I haven't any children?

In summary taxes are Constitutional irrespective of whether or not you are a direct beneficiary of the services those taxes provide.

ObamaCare taxes are no different to the payroll taxes that pay for Medicare.

 

Take your opinion to Justice Roberts because he and the SC ruled it to be Constitutional. Roberts is a conservative and it's a conservative court

 

Of course it's unconstitutional it has Obama's name attached to it but besides that there's nothing in the Constitution that states that citizens may be forced to purchase health insurance or any other consumer product. This is the kind of gangster mentality that Obama brought to the White House. It's like the mafia shaking down businesses for protection money. Anyone who thinks there was anything besides politics behind Obamacare is nuts. Obamacare was playing to his base, the delusional extreme left whose Marxist yearnings for a time seemed to have found a venue and a champion. Obama and Co. were preparing America for some very dark times. Fortunately there was a collective epiphany amongst the electorate,eight years of lie upon lie, stagnation and uncertainty opened eyes to the certain train wreck that was coming.

 

So how is that unconstitutional?

 

So according to Trumpers...anything with Obama's name on it (and as explained this doesn't) is unconstitutional.

Unfortunately they and Trump want to get rid of anything that Obama did...regardless.

It's just pure hatred.

 

I am guessing the courts are not going to support the legislature peeing on their tree.

 

Please tell me one thing that Obama did that benefitted America.

 

Put us on the path of recovery from the disaster that Republicans caused last time they held power

 

HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA, Oh Please!!!!!!!!

 

Jesus. Why do I bother with Obama haters.

Look at ANY economic measure from mid 2008 and compare it to 2016 when Obama left office.

 

Background, before the hyper-partisan assault upon "ObamaCare":

Romney declared his individual health mandate the ultimate “conservative idea":

“The idea for a health care plan was not mine alone. The Heritage Foundation — a great conservative think tank — helped on that. I’m told Newt Gingrich, one of the very first people who came up with the idea of an individual mandate, did that years and years ago.”

"It was seen as a conservative idea to say, you know what? People have a responsibility for caring for themselves if they can. We’ll help people who can’t care for themselves, but if you can care for yourself, you gotta take care of yourself and pay your own bills."

The Heritage Foundation attended Romney's signing ceremony and described Romney's mandate as “not an unreasonable position," one that is "clearly consistent with conservative values." It would prevent the massive medical expenses of the uninsured being dumped on the taxpayer via the uncompensated care pool.

In 2007, Gingrich had embraced the ultimate conservative idea: “Personal responsibility extends to the purchase of health insurance. Citizens should not be able to cheat their neighbors by not buying insurance, particularly when they can afford it, and expect others to pay for their care when they need it. An individual mandate should be applied when the larger health-care system has been fundamentally changed.”

On Fox News, Tea Party darling Phil DeMint enthised that RomneyCare was "something that I think we should do for the whole country!” ​

Thus, before RomneyCare was nationalized, the "individual mandate" had been acclaimed as exemplifying a rock-ribbed Republican rubric: personal responsibility - individuals taking prudent measures to prevent their personal medical expenses being foisted onto the people.

The individual health insurance mandate is constitutional. The Supreme Court has so ruled.

Could an American be fined for not purchasing a firearm? Firearms in the hands of many people are a danger to society, and the consequences of possessing a firearm are, demonstrably, quite mixed, whereas each American taking reasonable steps to avoid being a financial liability to society is a very different matter.

Until, the US can overcome the powerful special-interest middle-man and the hardcore ideologues to adopt the inclusive, far less costly paradigm of advanced nations, the ACA shall endure, and until the enormous taxpayer subsidy that allows the privileged covered under employer-administered plans is eliminated and each American participates in the free market in the hope of finding an insurer that judges their family insurable at an affordable premium, the prospect for significant progress is bleak.

 

If you don't want to discuss legal questions of politics, no one is forcing you to participate in this thread.

You didn't catch the sarcasm? It was laid on thicker than molasses.

 

No, that's just you saying some crazy nonsense.

So if no one hears a tree fall, does it still make a sound? Can pizza boxes go in recycling? How many licks does it take to get to the center of a tootsie pop? Please, answer some other irrelevant questions that no one asked.

At no point in your response did you come even close to a rational answer. CONSTITUTIONAL. If you want to make some silly comparisons, saying that insurance isn't a product that people buy on the private market (like a gun) but a public service, whatever, that's just evading.. Obamacare levies a tax for not purchasing a product. What is the reason why requiring purchase of health insurance is constitutional but requiring purchase of a firearm is not? Just saying something to the tune of, "well I think they're different" is not an answer, it's evasion.

Please, tell me where the Constitution says the federal government can mandate the purchase of a product, but only if Derideo_Te thinks its more comparable to having a public library.

Oh really? So if I get my own health insurance, I don't have to pay medicare taxes?

 

So in answering a CONSTITUTIONAL QUESTION, Natty Bumpo starts by calling the question a "hyper-partisan assault on Obamacare", and immediately starts parroting partisan talking points about Romneycare. lmfao

If you want strawmen, you've shown that you're perfectly capable of making them. What I asked is simple: if you believe the individual mandate in Obamacare is constitutional, then is there any reason why mandating firearms purchases/ownership would be unconstitutional? You have failed to provide any reason why it would be. Though I'm sure everyone appreciates the totally not at all hyper-partisan kneejerk to a strawman about Romney.

You've said that the individual mandate is constitutional - you have provided no >>>>>constitutional<<<<< basis whatsoever for a firearm mandate to be unconstitutional.

 

This was sarcasm?

 

The ACA Mandate rationale was provided by the Roberts' court

 

Just based on precedence, I don't see how that would be substantially different than the healthcare mandate. People were unable to get insurance (in that case, because couldn't afford it), and they were taxed 8% for it. I don't see why felons being taxed 8% for it would be constitutionally different.

But then even if that were the case, would it be correct to gather from your statement that its your opinion that - with an exception carved out for felons and other people already prohibited - such a mandate and tax would be fine?

 

So you think that a firearm mandate, and an 8% income tax surcharge for failing to comply, is constitutional?

 

Apparently the OP has no interest whatsoever in addressing the CONSTITUTIONALITY of the ObamaCare mandate even though it is the CENTRAL PREMISE upon which the question was based!

If the CENTRAL PREMISE is FLAWED then doesn't that INVALIDATE the question which is to address whether or not the hypothetical is "unconstitutional"?

And judging from the responses above I am not the only one who has spotted the glaring flaw in the OP.

 

Lol, this is so sad it's pathetic. The question in the thread is simple - if you think the individual mandate and tax for failing to purchase a specified product is constitutional, then is there any reason why a similar mandate for purchasing a firearm would be unconstitutional. No one has even tried to give a CONSTITUTIONAL reason why.

 

It would, if the central premise was flawed. You've just failed trying to make a strawman so you can avoid the question. You think the individual mandate is constituonal - and you don't like the idea of an individual firearm mandate - but are unable to find anything in the Constitution that would make it unconstitutional.