Obamacare tax collection begins, Democrats try to lie and deny it

It's pretty clear no one here has any experience with estimated taxes. You're only required to pay based on last year's tax liability to avoid any penalties. He can choose to incorporate his Obamacare penalty, but he's under no obligation to do so. If he owed $10k in total taxes last year, he only has to pay $2500 per quarter this year - even if it turns out out that he owes $50k this year.

Nice try, though. I guess it does work on the gullible.

 

I think this is largely correct. The self-employed and businesses under certain conditions are required to pay quarterly taxes. That said as the IRS notes there is no penalty yet so paying for the ACA penalty isn't required. Drudge could just go ahead and estimate what he would pay fo the penalty and go ahead and pay it. At the moment though he isn't actually paying for the penalty but just paying more in estimated quarterly taxes. Barring if he doesn't have to pay any penalties when he files his 2014 taxes he will just get it back as a refund.

Basically though it is disingenuous of Drudge to claim he is paying a penalty. It would be like me paying more for a building permit anticipating that I will do something in violation of building code when I build. The penalty wouldn't be assessed until it was actually built.

Also Drudge and others like them are idiots for not getting health insurance just because of ideology. They better hope they don't get sick or in an accident. As another poster noted this is especially bizarre for the party that claims to be for personal responsibility. What does that say when they would rather not have health insurance but instead risk imposing their medical burdens on hospitals that have to provide emergency medical care whether you can pay or not?

The whole sad thing about ACA and the Romney program is that a mandate is even required. People should be responsible enough in the first place to have adequate health insurance.

Especially since most red states take in more in Federal money than they pay out in taxes.

 

LOL...methinks we won't see a response to this question as he has painted himself into the proverbial corner...

 

For that to happen a number of things would change. Number one it would be mandatory as others pointed out. Two it would no longer be employer based but individual based. Three EMTALA would have to be repealed, in other words no more going to the ER unless you can cover that $40,000 surgery cash upfront. I mean c'mon a body shop won't fix your car for free so the hospital won't fix your body for free either. Fourth only true catastrophic injuries will be covered. Auto insurance doesn't cover oil changes but health insurance does cover checkup maintenance type care. Poof that's gone. No biggee except routine healthcare is significantly more expensive than routine auto care. Finally and most importantly any preexisting conditions are automatically excluded. If your car is wrecked you can't exactly call Geico and get them to cover a wreck that happened while uninsured. We all get that but if my body is wrecked I can go get a job and demand that insurance cover it. So if I'm born with heart defects, diabetes, etc I can never ever ever change insurance or a "wreck" that's not my fault but is my problem will forever be my cost out of pocket.

Are you beginning to understand why health insurance conceptually is a farce? It costs too much for even routine healthy care for an individual to bear the risk. And the risk profile that an individual must pay higher premiums for is not based on their actions but often because of their genetics. Not to mention if you repealed EMTALA you'd have individuals likely children dying from burst appendix in hospital parking lots because their parents didn't have that $30k. Even Reagan understood that which is why he signed the bill.

Other countries figured all this out decades ago and have cheaper and better systems than we do.

It's not rocket science.

 

Only liability insurance is mandatory, not personal auto.

The question to answer is 1)Why is automobile insurance not employer provided? 2) Why is health insurance largely employer provided?

Legally, there is nothing stopping either from being offered.

Fine with repealing EMTALA, but either way, emergency room visits by the uninsured are not a huge driver of health care costs.

Insurance is not for routine care, by definition. It is a hedge against an unlikely event.

Again, this is a misapplication of what insurance is for. Namely, events that have not yet occurred.

Whether one is entitled to treatment for a preexisting condition is a good debate to have, but that's not the function of insurance.

 

For the gullible and people who will try and spin things to fit their agenda rather than just looking at the truth.

 

Auto insurance is mandatory to protect the other person. In healthcare it must be mandatory because insurance pools cannot discriminate and charge higher premiums to those who have more claims. If you had three DWIs and 4 at fault accidents your car insurance would just drop you or raise your premiums so high it would be unaffordable. In employer based pools you cannot drop or raise the premiums on those with the most claims. Everyone in the pool proportionally eats that cost. To make the pool sustainable everyone must participate. Otherwise yes make it voluntary and those who generate all the claims would endure being dropped or skyrocketing unaffordable premiums. Then their employers would have to fire them or drop coverage for everyone. Ultimately the difference is a bad driver pays more because those accidents are his fault. A sick person should perhaps pay more because they smoke, drink, don't exercise? What if they have a history of cancer, MS, diabetes in their family? They should pay more as well? Not their fault in that case.

I already addressed this. If we did not have employer based insurance that could not deny you based on preexisting conditions then those chronically ill would be screwed. The PPACA took the position to deal with this by eliminating that discrimination even in individual cases. But that doesn't work unless you have the young healthy in the pool kicking in premiums and not generating claims offsetting those whose bodies are already "wrecked."

Completely, totally, and ridiculously inaccurate.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/administration/eop/cea/TheEconomicCaseforHealthCareReform

http://www.mn2020.org/issues-that-matter/health-care/you-already-pay-for-charity-care

Your blanket assertion of the idea that 40-50 Billion dollars of unpaid medical bills doesn't increase costs to the rest of us just proves you have no idea what you are talking about.

Exactly. Which is why the concept of health insurance doesn't work. We use it for routine costs because the routine costs are already too expensive to pay out of pocket. If we did away with insurance covering routine checkups costs would seemingly fall. However that smart money says people would just forgo preventative care due to not having the money same as putting off that brake job your car needs. But just like a car putting off maintenance means more expensive care once your body breaks down.

Exactly. Which again is why the concept of health insurance doesn't work. We use it when we are already sick which we cannot help when we are born sick. Good that you are recognizing that and I would expect you would not continue to support a concept you just pointed out is inherently flawed.

 

Car insurance isn't mandatory. Ride a bike, skateboard, bus, train, walk, jog.

Why do people think owning a car is mandatory. The government needs to stop handing out drivers licenses like candy. So many people who cannot drive are on the roads killing themselves and others.

But without drivers the government is without a multitude of taxes.

 

If you want an entitlement to pay for preexisting conditions and routine care, fine (I don't endorse that but whatever).

Problem is using insurance for that purpose. Insurance is for events that have not occurred and are uncertain to occur. Most ailments occur later in life and are not known before hand (just like your car). So that creates an obvious role for insurance (just like your car).

If the concept of health insurance didn't work, people wouldn't purchase it, and that would be fine. I'm not interested in forcing anyone to (unlike most here).

It's so pathetic watching Obama hawk insurance like that guy from Groundhog Day ("you know, you really should be covered. Have you thought about your health?"). The god damn President making sales pitches for insurance companies. Only this is worse because we have no choice in the matter.

I'll ask again. Why do you think most health care is purchased/provided through an employer (unlike auto insurance)? The answer goes back to WWII.

Easiest way to fix health insurance:

(1) make plans purchasable across state lines
(2) make all health care and/or insurance expenses tax free, eliminating any advantage to getting insurance through one's employer

Give individuals more freedom and more of their own money, and good things will always happen. No planning or control is needed.

 

People purchase it because there is no other option. We stupidly continue to plod along with outrageous costs for terrible results because we do not have a single payer system.

The President never wanted this either. He wants a single payer system. He introduced the concept of a public option but Republicans like to restrict consumer choices and eventually got it removed. So since the GOP wanted healthcare to remain in the hands of the insurance companies Obama is just going along. God forbid the man desire people to have coverage to protect their families which results is lower healthcare costs and taxes for the responsible among us who are covered. Again I can't quite understand conservatives complaining about food stamps and housing yet are all for the responsible paying the medical bills of those who won't buy insurance.

Lol you forgot tort reform in your GOP handbook of simplistic talking point solutions. Similar to credit card companies in South Dakota, the insurance companies would just move to whatever states allowed them the most freedom for profit caps and preexisting condition restrictions.

Your missing the point on employer based insurance. It's not the tax advantage that's key it's the inability to be denied coverage for preexisting conditions that forces people to use it rather than go on their own.

 

The purpose of health insurance isn't to just cover the unforeseen, but to help you pay for any health-related expense. The delivery of health services can and often is expensive, and depending upon your financial situation, the costs of even routine care can be difficult. So it just doesn't help when there is a significant health issue (eg. ongoing care for my oldest daughter that had transposition of the great vessels at birth), but even ongoing health management (eg, Synthroid I take daily for hypothyroidism).

The tired GOP health solutions like interstate policies are not even legal at this time and would only allow insurance companies to move their offerings to states with the least regulatory control and thus the worst protection. And hoping that tax benefits at the end of the year to cover medical expenses that may occur any time in the prior year? Seriously, you see that as a solution? Perhaps to wealthy people that can pay for medical care out of pocket... oh wait, I forgot, this is the GOP proposal...

 

Just one more example of why no one takes the GOP seriously anymore.

 

Car insurance isn't mandatory... if you don't drive a car.

Health insurance isn't mandatory... if you're not alive.


Good comparison.

 

Can we get Skip Bayless' prediction? If we are using espn I want their "premier" guy.

 

That is optional. If you want, you can pay it twice a year, or once a year. That is not mandated.

 

OK, 1940 called, it would like its reality back.

 

[BREAKING] bigtexxx humiliated in his own thread, desperate to change the subject.