How Graham Platner's Campaign Is Trying to Do Damage Control After Nazi Tattoo...
Even CNN Is Calling Out Dems Over This Lie About Trump's White House...
Is This the Most Insane Reaction to President Trump's East Wing Project
LOL: The White House Did Not Include *This* on Their Website. It's Classic...
Bernie Sanders Just Broke With His Party Over This Trump Policy
When There Are No Words: Hundreds Honor Teen Who Gave Life After Losing...
What Could Go Wrong? Scientists May Have Found a Real-Life Jurassic Park Starter...
Democrats Scraping the Bottom of the Barrel for Candidates
Trump Administration Fires Back at Hillary Clinton Over White House Ballroom Renovations
The Empire Strikes Back: Trump vs Venezuela, Columbia, Antifa, and Illegals
Zohran Mamdani Says That Muslims Were Hit Hard After 9/11
Feds Charge 33 in Philadelphia’s Most Prolific Drug Market: Weymouth Street DTO
What Charlie Kirk Understood About America’s Lost Youth
Abigail Spanberger, As Governor, You’re Supposed to Make Decisions
While Washington Imports Price Controls, China Imports Our Future
Tipsheet

Ouch: 6 Million Uninsured Americans Will Pay 'Obamatax'

Months out from the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act, and Americans bombarded by mile-a-minute election coverage, it's easy to forget that ACA implementation is creeping up on us. But today, in a great reminder of the real struggles that we'll still face after November 6th, the Congressional Budget Office released a new estimate of how many will be paying taxes for going without insurance. And, fitting the holding pattern, the number is higher than previously expected.

Advertisement

Overall, 6 million Americans will pay "Obamatax," as some have called it. These are middle class individuals, without insurance because their employer may dropped it owing to expenses, and they're unable to afford it themselves. Furthermore, they're just a sliver of the 30 million Americans who will still have zero health insurance to speak of, affordable or otherwise. The remainder of the uninsured, to whom the tax doesn't apply, either are illegal aliens (so the ACA doesn't apply to them), or they don't make enough to pay income taxes.

The agency said the government will collect about $7 billion from the tax in 2016, and $8 billion a year thereafter.

The projections apply to 2016, the point at which most of President Obama’s health care law will be implemented and the penalty for failing to buy coverage will have risen to its full amount of $695 per person or 2.5 percent of household income, whichever is greater.

The agency gave several reasons for revising its projections. For one thing, Congress has passed legislation requiring Americans to pay back more health insurance subsidies if they’re overpaid, making buying coverage less attractive.

And some low-income Americans may have less access to expanded Medicaid programs than originally expected. Several states are expected to opt out of expanding Medicaid, after the Supreme Court ruled in June that the government can’t respond by stripping away all their funding for the program.

The economy is also improving more slowly than expected, leading to lower wages and salaries that could make it harder to buy coverage.

Advertisement

Since 10% of the country still won't be insured, and a number of those people will be paying the government billions a year in taxes -- thereby costing them more money they don't have -- it's safe to say this law hasn't actually made "care" any more affordable. (Scare quotes employed because, of course, the law's premise was widely flawed in conflating "care" with the very different concept of "insurance," the issue it actually addresses.) It's just another broken promise, which does almost nothing to fix the country's still-broken healthcare system.

Join the conversation as a VIP Member

Recommended

Trending on Townhall Videos

Advertisement
Advertisement
Advertisement