First, a word of caution: wait. Wait and see what transpires in health care reform. Whatever I write today will probably change this year, next year, or the year after. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare, is being challenged by most states. The latest kerfuffle was initiated by the Thomas More Law Center. It filed suit because the law stipulates that people who choose not to participate can be taxed under the Internal Revenue Code.
Did you get that? If you do not want to engage in commerce, in this case the purchase of a product of insurance, the government has the power to tax and punish you. Not exactly freedom of choice, is it? One of the dissenting judges in the Sixth Circuit said, "If the exercise of power is allowed and the mandate upheld, it is difficult to see what the limits on Congress's Commerce Clause authority would be." (Italics mine.)
Indeed.
In January 2011 federal judge Roger Vinson quoted President Obama declaring in 2008, "It a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house." Clearly the President uses flexible thinking when it's pet project. Nevertheless, 27 states have sued over the Act. At heart lies the right of states to determine for themselves what their citizens can do. Never before has anyone suggested that the federal government can force people to purchase something against their will.
The egregious behavior only begins there. How would you like to be the enforcer of this twisted law? As a business owner, you would be. Here is the mechanism, as outlined by the Congressional Budget Office that estimates revenues of $36 billion, yes billion, in a decade. You would have deduct the penalty payments from your employees' paychecks.
Massachusetts uses a similar program now and the state discovered there are people who are more willing to pay the fine than to be forced to purchase insurance they do not want.
Those of us who sell insurance and tell our potential customers that we will never try to sell them something they neither need nor want will find this impossible to swallow. Those of us who are business owners definitely do not want to become collectors of fines for the feds. No matter how you dice it, this is not what most of us signed on to. If you're bothered by this, for any reason, make your opinion known. In the mean time, attorneys general in the states are filing suit. Health insurance is one thing; forcing people to engage in purchasing products against their will is something else. Today the issue is insurance. What will tomorrow bring?
Patricia Woods
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