Increasingly Unsettled Law: The Neverending Walkback

[rowland]

@MikeN

I do like the way Republican talking points on the CBO report have spun in two days from “Obamacare will drive 2.5 million decent hard-working Americans from their jobs” to “Obamacare will allow 2.5 million lazy shiftless takers to go on welfare on my dime” .

Ever more takers, ever fewer makers… this can’t go on forever. Greece found that out the hard way.

At a certain point, you’ve made enough money for other people.

intltax.typepad.com/intltax_blog … iates.html

[quote]Today the Treasury Department published the names of individuals who renounced their U.S. citizenship or terminated their long-term U.S. residency (“expatriated”) during the third quarter of 2013.

The number of Published Expatriates for the quarter was 560. The number of published expatriates for the first three quarters of 2013 has been 2,369 (679 + 1,130 + 560). As stated last quarter, 2013 will clearly be the year with the highest number of published expatriates ever. The highest number of annual published expatriates prior to 2013 was 1,781 in 2011.[/quote]

Not to worry. We’ll just keep borrowing money. They’ll always keep lending to Uncle Sam, won’t they?

[Mucha_Man]

Oh Christ, Greece and probably Weimar (or Zimbabwe) referenced in one post.

[rowland]

online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 … 3074082656

[quote]Most employers won’t face a fine next year if they fail to offer workers health insurance, the Obama administration said Monday, in the latest big delay of the health-law rollout.

The Treasury Department, in regulations outlining the Affordable Care Act, said employers with 50 to 99 full-time workers won’t have to comply with the law’s requirement to provide insurance or pay a fee until 2016. Companies with more workers could avoid some penalties in 2015 if they showed they were offering coverage to at least 70% of full-time workers.

The move came after employers pressured the Obama administration to peel back the law’s insurance requirements. Some firms had trimmed workers’ hours to below 30 hours a week to avoid paying a penalty if they didn’t offer insurance.[/quote]

It’s not settled law. It’s a sword of Damocles. In reverse, that is. It dangles over the common man.

[rowland]

online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB1 … 25596.html

The individual mandate. Can’t live with it, can’t live without it.

[quote]his lax standard—no formula or hard test beyond a person’s belief—at least ostensibly requires proof such as an insurer termination notice. But people can also qualify for hardships for the unspecified nonreason that “you experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance,” which only requires “documentation if possible.” And yet another waiver is available to those who say they are merely unable to afford coverage, regardless of their prior insurance. In a word, these shifting legal benchmarks offer an exemption to everyone who conceivably wants one.

Keep in mind that the White House argued at the Supreme Court that the individual mandate to buy insurance was indispensable to the law’s success, and President Obama continues to say he’d veto the bipartisan bills that would delay or repeal it. So why are ObamaCare liberals silently gutting their own creation now?[/quote]

[rowland]

The risks we all face when the law is not the law:

americanthinker.com/2014/03/foll … peril.html

[quote]So what might happen if you keep your insurance and forgo your 2014 ObamaCare tax? Regardless of reason, whether you believed Obama or were civilly disobedient, you failed to pay your taxes; however, the ObamaCare tax is special. The IRS can neither criminally prosecute you nor seize your property for refusing to pay the mandate tax, but it can place liens on your property and assess penalties, and the IRS can criminally prosecute you and seize your property for failing to pay the penalties for evading the ObamaCare mandate.

There are potentially serious consequences, so if your 2014 tax preparation software omits the ObamaCare tax, complain to the manufacturer. Find software or a preparer that includes the tax, or prepare the forms yourself. If the official IRS forms omit the ObamaCare tax, complain to or sue the IRS, and then figure it out on your own. Whatever you do, determine if you comply, and pay if you do not.

Will the IRS seek unpaid ObamaCare taxes? There is a 3 year statute of limitations for the IRS to audit a tax return and assess unpaid taxes; unless, you failed to file and the IRS prepared the return for you, or you filed a fraudulent return. There is a 10 year statute of limitations to demand any back taxes. Assuming that your failure to properly report your non-compliance is not deemed fraud, Obama will be in office for only two of those three years, so his successor will have a full year in which to order the IRS to mass audit and correct everyone’s 2014 tax returns and demand payment. This also assumes that a court fails to rule Obama’s executive order unlawful and fails to order the IRS to assess the penalty. Simply put, the Sword of Ompamocles could be hanging over your head for the next 10 years, or longer, depending on what actions the IRS and courts take.[/quote]

Don’t worry, the government’s got your back. It’s not like they ever lied to you before.

[rowland]

WaPo has noticed that the individual mandate is under the bus, but can’t quite bring themselves to face the implications just yet:

washingtonpost.com/national/ … story.html

[quote]Under the new rules, people will be able to qualify for an extension by checking a blue box on HealthCare.gov to indicate that they tried to enroll before the deadline. This method will rely on an honor system; the government will not try to determine whether the person is telling the truth.

The rules, which will apply to the federal exchanges operating in three dozen states, will essentially create a large loophole even as White House officials have repeatedly said that the March 31 deadline was firm. The extra time will not technically alter the deadline but will create a broad new category of people eligible for what’s known as a special enrollment period.

The change, which the administration is scheduled to announce Wednesday, is supported by consumer advocates who want as many people as possible to gain insurance under the 2010 Affordable Care Act. But it’s likely to be criticized by Republicans who oppose the law and have denounced the way the administration is implementing it.[/quote]

Now, who could possibly criticize such a thing? And on what grounds?

We’re on course for the death spiral. Thanks to a fanatical cockpit crew and a lack of communication, US health care is headed for the bottom of the ocean. How’s that for a risk pool? Okay, good night.

[fred_smith]

Individual mandate was a Republican idea and supported by Republicans until it became part of Obamacare. I believe overall that an individual mandate is a good idea. I question however what the final costs and success of Obamacare will be. I would rather see less federal government involvement and send this all back to the states to decide. Federal government is generally less responsive, less productive and far more bureaucratic and expensive.

[rowland]

@fred smith

Individual mandate was a Republican idea and supported by Republicans until it became part of Obamacare. I believe overall that an individual mandate is a good idea.

Uh… it’s a bad thing no matter who thought of it. Onionoffailcare will die faster without it than with it, but it was doomed either way. At least this way the collatoral damage will be a bit less.

It’s a sure bet they’re killing it off for a reason. A desperate reason.

[rowland]

nypost.com/2014/12/02/the-presid … law-again/

In any case, last week’s changes, like the president’s previous fixes, create new losers as well as winners — the sort of tradeoffs that legislators are supposed to weigh in our system of government. The basics:

 Obama will require large employers to provide more coverage than the Affordable Care Act specifies. The move disqualifies plans now offered by 1,600 employers to 3 million workers, according to Kaiser Health News. Those employers will have to find a way to cover the higher costs — and some will surely do so by stopping coverage for spouses or part-time workers.
 The new rules suddenly treat state high-risk pools as adequate coverage under the Affordable Care Act — a 180 from what the law actually says.
When the ACA became law, these plans for people with chronic illnesses were offered in 35 states. Winners will be those who live in the 10 states that haven’t yet phased out their high-risk plans. Losers: the many thousands in 25 states that already gave up their plans to comply with the ACA’s mandates.
 The rules tell insurers to give new enrollees a 30-day grace period during which they can continue to use doctors not in their plan’s network. Winners: people who need time to switch to in-network doctors. Losers: taxpayers — who’ll be obliged to bail out the insurers clobbered with the extra cost.
 Speaking of bailouts, Section 1342 of the law promises taxpayer-funded bailouts to insurers that lose money selling plans on ObamaCare exchanges. But the bailouts can’t happen unless Congress appropriates the money, something the GOP-controlled Congress won’t want to do. Yet the new Federal Register notices explicitly double down on the administration’s pledge to make insurers whole if losses are bigger than expected.

By repeatedly contradicting the letter of the Affordable Care Act, these new rules add to a pattern of lawlessness in implementing the health law — even as the administration’s boldest misreading of the law is before the Supreme Court.

[rowland]

Also relevant to the Elections 2016 thread… and the Elections 2014 thread:

nytimes.com/2015/02/01/us/po … ubles.html

WASHINGTON — Obama administration officials and other supporters of the Affordable Care Act say they worry that the tax-filing season will generate new anger as uninsured consumers learn that they must pay tax penalties and as many people struggle with complex forms needed to justify tax credits they received in 2014 to pay for health insurance.

The White House has already granted some exemptions and is considering more to avoid a political firestorm.

Mark J. Mazur, the assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy, said up to six million taxpayers would have to “pay a fee this year because they made a choice not to obtain health care coverage that they could have afforded.”

But Christine Speidel, a tax lawyer at Vermont Legal Aid, said: “A lot of people do not feel that health insurance plans in the marketplace were affordable to them, even with subsidies. Some went without coverage and will therefore be subject to penalties.”

But… it’s such a success!