The evil Obamacare taxes

The intellectual godfather of the individual mandate, the Heritage Foundation, has a breakdown of all the taxes associated with Obamacare.  There are three main areas where most of the taxes are assessed; taxes on providers, taxes on the rich, and the individual/employer mandate.  All told, Heritage estimates that Obamacare will mean $503 billion in increased taxes from now through 2019.

Today I'd like to look at the taxes on providers, including health insurance companies ($60 billion by 2019), pharmaceuticals ($27 billion) and medical device manufacturers ($20 billion).  These organizations pay about 20% of all the taxes raised by Obamacare.  Yet, most of these companies supported passage.  Why would they do that?

These companies will see a huge surge in demand as a result of Obamacare.  More people with insurance means more customers for insurance companies, as well as more people able to afford pharmaceuticals and medical devices.  Should the companies be allowed to keep the entirety of the windfall resulting from Obamacare (and not from their own initiative or invention), or should they pay a portion of the added profits in taxes?  Even with the added taxes, these companies will benefit as a result of Obamacare.  They earn lots more in income, and part of that income goes to pay for the programs that led to their getting more income.  And there's the not-insignificant benefit that more American citizens will be able to have the drugs and devices they need to be healthy and productive.  It's a win all the way around.

Other paths to legality besides the military

Romney made some news today by misstating his own position on which illegal immigrants would be allowed to stay legally.  While his previously stated position was that he supported allowing illegals who serve in the military to earn a green card, he also stated that illegals with advanced degrees should be allowed to stay.  Of course this is a misstatement and nothing more.


But it's worth discussing why he might think that the only path to legality is the military.  There's this strange tendency to view serving in the military as the greatest good that a citizen can do, and it's just not always the case.  Why is it that Peace Corp volunteers, who face a death rate similar to members of the Air Force deployed to Iraq, never are asked to stand and be recognized at public events?  Why don't teachers get a national holiday?


How did Romney determine that only via military service could one earn a green card?  Does anyone really think that he sat down and did an honest appraisal of the benefits to the country that are derived from military service versus other methods of service to determine which ones should earn citizenship?  Or did he do a political calculation of which would get him elected?  Ask yourself, truly, which you think he did.

Nice to know Roberts agrees with me

I posted about an hour before the the ruling was announced lamenting that the mandate appeared to be on its way to defeat on a technicality, that although the mandate functions exactly like a tax, it wasn't written as such and would therefore be eliminated.  But Chief Justice Roberts decided "fuck it, I'll vote for it anyway under the taxing power, even though it wasn't written that way."

So good on him.

ObamaCare lives!!!

Darn near the entirety of the Affordable Care Act was upheld.  Needless to say, I'm unbelievably excited.

The only part of the Act which was not entirely upheld was the Medicaid expansion.  Under the original act, states who refused to expand their Medicaid rolls to cover everyone up to 133% of the poverty level would risk losing all their Medicaid funding they get from the government, which is billions of dollars for most states.  Today's ruling says that if they refuse to expand, they would only lose the additional funds granted under the act, not their existing Medicaid funding.

So it will be fascinating, FASCINATING, to see if governors/legislatures in deep red states choose to accept funding to expand their rolls.  The federal government would pay 90+% of the costs of the expansion, so it's essentially a shitload of free money being offered to each state, since people not covered by Medicaid would likely result in increased costs for everyone because hospitals would eat the cost of the uninsureds' care.  But if the red  state leaders accept the funding, they would run a very serious risk of being defeated in a GOP primary by a Tea Party true believer.

Have I mentioned that I'm happy?

More thoughts tonight; I guess I gotta go back to work.

Just keep in mind

No one would doubt the constitutionality of the mandate if it were done as a tax incentive instead of as a tax penalty. The government gives tax incentives for all kinds of things, like mortgage interest or college or hiring veterans. The heart of the conservative case is at best a technicality, as the exact same mandate, in real terms as they affect citizens, would certainly be constitutional. They're prepared to overrule the legislature (which supposed proponents of judicial restraint should be reluctant to do) on a major pies of legislation on a technicality.

Distraction of the day

I'm trying to avoid thinking/worrying about Obamacare all night, as the decision will almost certainly come tomorrow just after 10am Eastern.  If you're looking for a distraction, here's a report from Fortune, which is hardly a liberal rag, which attacks the conservative perception of Fast and Furious, a "scandal" in which guns were supposedly allowed by the ATF to flow into Mexico so that Obama could take away our guns, or whatever.  The report states that the ATF wanted to seize the guns, contrary to the Republican talking points on the issue, but was prevented from doing so by toothless gun laws as well as a desire to not appear to be overzealous, a charge the ATF has faced since Waco.

It's a long report, but it's worth a read.

Huge day on Thursday

It looks like the Supreme Court will announce its ruling on Obamacare on Thursday, the last day of its session.  They might decide to add extra days to the session, if Chief Justice Roberts, or whoever is writing the opinion, needs more time, and they could even push it back to October or further, but it's almost certainly going to happen Thursday.  So it's time to assess my hopes and expectations for the decision.

I think the mandate and guaranteed issue (i.e., no more exclusions for pre-existing conditions) are probably gone, and I'm not devastated by that, assuming the rest of the law survives.  If the Medicaid expansion, health insurance exchanges, and subsidies to lower the cost of insurance are upheld, that's a lot of good, which will result in millions more people with insurance.  Without a mandate bringing more people into the insurance market, and without guaranteed issue, many people will still be excluded from the market, but it would not be the worst outcome, and certainly an improvement over the situation prior to reform.

But I really do hope the entire thing is upheld.  It would be silly if we were to find ourselves living in a world where the government can take whatever percentage of your income they want to take, spend it on whatever it wants, send you to war, execute American citizens abroad and yet not be able to impose a fine of a few hundred bucks if you put yourself in a position where you might force the system to pay millions of dollars on your behalf.

Supreme Court term limits

Why does it matter to our entire system of government that Anthony Kennedy is 76, or that Ruth Bader Ginsburg is 79 and has a history of cancer?  Whether either is able to continue breathing for the next four years will likely determine the future of abortion, gay marriage, campaign finance and any number of other issues, as another Roberts/Alito Justice replacing Ginsburg or a Kagan/Sotomayor replacing Kennedy would shift the balance of power on the Court.

Why not have a Supreme Court term of something like 10 or 15 years, after which they ride off into the sunset?  The pressure to nominate someone young and healthy prevents older but more-qualified judges from  reaching the Court.  I suppose one could argue that you wouldn't want a tremendous justice's potentially-longer term to be wasted by kicking them out after a decade or so, but the same argument could be made for Presidents, who are put out to pasture after 8.  And it's not (so far as I'm aware, anyway) like the current Justices have such far-and-away better legal minds than other judges.

It's important that Justices not be eligible for appointment to another term, as that would politicize the Court. But taking biology out of the picture by limiting Justices' stay on the bench would make for a better Court.

Voters' rights and responsibilities to know the candidates

The President of the United States is uniquely positioned to have tremendous influence over billions of people. He can send soldiers and nuclear weapons anywhere in the world. He can form a one-man super-filibuster which requires 2/3 of both houses of Congress to override. He (according to current practice, anyway) can order the execution of anyone outside the US. So how is it that both parties have gotten uncomfortably close to putting people (John Edwards and Sarah Palin) who appear to be psychologically disturbed a heartbeat away from the office?

Given the tremendous power entrusted to one individual, voters need to know, and be allowed to know, important details of the candidates' lives.  If Barack Obama wants to keep his finger on the button, it's bullshit that voters aren't allowed to know about his college years, which (presumably) were important to his formation as a person.  It's similarly unacceptable that Romney's religion is off-limits, or that the allegation that he forcibly cut the hair off of a classmate in high school was minimally discussed.  These facts about the men who seek to lead the free world are vitally important, as the peculiarities of their personalities change the course of history.


So it was with great dismay that I read a Gallup poll which shows that only 34% of voters can correctly identify the President as a Christian.  This fact is both frequently in the news and extremely important to Obama's job.  It matters if the guy with his finger on the button believes that his side is destined by God to emerge victorious, just like it matters if he is a Marxist or if he's a bully.

Only 34% know Obama's a Christian

I'm working on a longer post, but it's not done. The impetus for it is a new poll from Gallup which reveals that only 34% of voters can correctly identify Obama as a Christian. I'll be discussing that this is completely unacceptable.