Saturday, June 30, 2012

Romneycare vs. Obamacare: Who's The Real Taxer?

My colleague Jeff Simpson already pointed to the fact that the Affordable Care Act was based on what Mitt Romney did as governor in Massachusetts.

Now that it's been shown to pass legal muster, the teahadists and the Republicans, but I repeat myself, are screaming like stuck pigs that ACA, or Obamacare if you must, is a TAX! The biggest one EVAH!

But then again, there's this interesting tidbit regarding the difference in tax hikes in Romneycare vs. Obamacare which should get their heads exploding all over again:
And the Obama campaign is quick to point out that while Romney and other Republicans are accusing the president of enacting a huge tax increase, the penalties under Romneycare are bigger than under Obamacare. According to a study from the Center for Health Law and Economics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, forwarded to Salon by the Obama campaign, the differences are huge. An adult over the age of 27 who makes more than 300 percent of the poverty line (about $37,000 a year) and chooses not to purchase health insurance would pay at least $695 in penalties under Obamcare. Under Romneycare, that same person would pay at least $1,530 in penalties.

Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist who helped design both Romneycare and Obamacare, said today on a conference call organized by the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund that Obama’s penalty will affect only a tiny portion of Americans. “The Congressional Budget Office estimates that about one percent of the population will end up paying this penalty. This not a broad new tax on the middle class. It is trivial. It is four, the CBO estimates it is $4 billion in revenues from this penalty. That is trivial relative to the almost $100 billion that you would get in [subsidies], once it’s phased in, in new tax credits to individuals to buy health insurance. So this is on net this an enormous tax cut for the middle class. This is not a tax increase,” he explained.

In the USA Today op-ed, Romney said his plan was affordable and reasonable. So if Obamacare’s penalties are even more modest, then the claim that it’s a huge tax increase rings a bit hollow.
Don't you just hate it when the truth gets in the way of their propaganda?

3 comments:

  1. Anything that is pro-consumer is a good thing.


    With all the administrative stuff, billings departments, insurance discounters, insurance co-pays, restrictive HSA bank accounts, "approved" covered expenses, insurance-company "authorized" procedures, private hospital over-building causing a surplus of beds that lead to a need to raise costs to cover those empty beds, ..... etc., etc.,..

    Man, I tell ya, you want to start cutting costs.... !

    I can't believe people wouldn't want to invest in their infrastructure.

    I suppose, it's all about the "self" for these conservative cowboys, mine, mine, mine, right?

    I watch some of these folks just about kill people as they have to wait a minute for their drive through coffee drink.

    A whole minute, and then they have drive around a delivery truck, and then the traffic light slows them down, and then those crummy construction workers make a road one-lane, and then they gotta park an extra 20 feet away.....

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  2. Obama is not only the king of taxes but he is a liar. What a poor excuse of a man who has no idea what he is doing in DC. The man really is a clown.

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    Replies
    1. Again, you have misspelled Scott Walker and now you've misspelled Madison as well.

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