On August 14, 2009, I tried to sound the alarm as to where Democrats’ health care proposals were heading.
At that time I was dealing with the precursors to what became Obamacare. The congressional language distinguishing the mandate as a penalty and the political arguments that it was not a tax had not yet coalesced.
The Supreme Court’s decision upholding the mandate as a tax proves me to have been more right than I realized at the time:
IRS The New Health Care EnforcerPeople often joke that government-run health care will have the efficiency of the motor vehicle department, and the compassion of the Internal Revenue Service. This joke will become reality if present Democratic health restructuring proposals are enacted.Under both the House and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee bills released to the public, the Internal Revenue Service will play a key role in monitoring and enforcing health care mandates against individual taxpayers. Yet the introduction of the IRS into the health care system has received scant attention….These provisions should have people interested in privacy greatly concerned. While income information already is reported to the IRS, the IRS traditionally has not received personal health care information about individuals.The IRS involved in health care monitoring and enforcement. Somehow, I doubt that most supporters of Democratic health care restructuring concepts will like this detail.
My follow up post was Taxing Your Mere Existence:
What a bizarre concept is a tax to enforce a health care mandate. If you buy a computer at a store, you expect to pay a sales tax; but do you expect to pay the tax for not buying a computer? If you earn income at a job, you expect to pay taxes on the income; but do you expect to pay taxes for not working?
Meet the new health care enforcer:
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