If this doesn’t make you pick up your pitchfork nothing will.
Pass this on!
Personal Requirements You’ll be required to buy a ‘qualified’ health plan. A family earning $102K a year will pay $1,700 a month in premium and out-of-pocket expenses. ‘Willful’ failure to buy a plan will result in a fine of up to $250,000 and ‘imprisonment of up to five years’. Illegal immigrants are exempt from fines and imprisonment.
Business Requirements Every business in America must provide a ‘qualified plan’ for employees and pay 72.5% of the cost. Failure to do so results in an 8% payroll tax.
Like many Americans, I’m very concerned about the efforts underway to rush through the 2,000 page Pelosi health care bill this weekend. Why the rush? That’s a lot of pages to read. Why not give everyone the chance to read it and debate it?
How much will this bill cost us? It’s unclear because the figures coming out of Washington keep changing – and always in the direction of costing more, not less. The latest numbers show it will cost more than a trillion dollars over the decade, but when has a government program ever come in on or under budget?
How will we pay for it? Taxes, of course – and not just on the “rich” (you know, the people who spur the economy by buying goods and running companies that employ people), but also on just about everyone, especially small businesses – the job-creating engine of our economy. One of the points of health care reform was to help small businesses with the cost, but this bill hurts them – and right at a time when so many Americans are out of work and need the jobs that small businesses produce.
What’s in this bill? The “death panel” provision is in it. Medicare cuts are in it. Coverage of illegal immigrants is in it. And federal funding for abortion is in it. I commend the many Republicans and Blue Dog Democrats who are taking a principled stance to fight this.
I had a message for Speaker Pelosi in a speech I gave last night for the Wisconsin Right to Life – “please, please don’t break the ‘transparency promise’ by prohibiting at least a vote of your colleagues on funding abortion-on-demand.”
Speaker Pelosi has already broken many promises thus far in this “reform” exercise. She promised that this would be a bi-partisan effort, but the bill she’s pushing isn’t bi-partisan. She promised that the final version of the bill would be posted online 72 hours before it comes to a vote so that the American people could clearly see what’s in it and how we will pay for it. But she broke that promise too when she decided to rush the bill to a vote this weekend.
The speaker must be held accountable for her broken promises. Now is the time for Americans who believe in the free market and who believe that we need policies that promote job growth instead of job loss to say once and for all, “Enough!” Stand up and make your voices heard before it’s too late. Call and email your representatives and tell them to vote “no” on Pelosi’s train wreck of a health care bill, or else we will vote “no” to sending them back to Washington when we go to the polls in less than 12 months.
– Sarah Palin
PS: For an idea of the bureaucratic maze that the Pelosi bill would create, take a look at this new chart put out by the Joint Economic Committee.
There’s something very wrong here. The last I heard Obama, Pelosi and Congress had no intention of subjecting themselves to whatever Health Care Bill they pass. Aren’t our rulers supposed to be subject to the same criminal law as the rest of us?
If and when “Pelosi/Obama Care” becomes law, we simple folk will be forced to accept it even though we don’t want it any more than she does. This would force most of us to accept inferior Health Care along with higher taxes and a lower standard of living.
Can you say UNCONSTITUTIONAL?
Today, Ranking Member of the House Ways and Means Committee Dave Camp (R-MI) released a letter from the non-partisan Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) confirming that the failure to comply with the individual mandate to buy health insurance contained in the Pelosi health care bill (H.R. 3962, as amended) could land people in jail. The JCT letter makes clear that Americans who do not maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage” and who choose not to pay the bill’s new individual mandate tax (generally 2.5% of income), are subject to numerous civil and criminal penalties, including criminal fines of up to $250,000 and imprisonment of up to five years.
In response to the JCT letter, Camp said: “This is the ultimate example of the Democrats’ command-and-control style of governing – buy what we tell you or go to jail. It is outrageous and it should be stopped immediately.”
Key excerpts from the JCT letter appear below:
“H.R. 3962 provides that an individual (or a husband and wife in the case of a joint return) who does not, at any time during the taxable year, maintain acceptable health insurance coverage for himself or herself and each of his or her qualifying children is subject to an additional tax.” [page 1] – – – – – – – – – –
“If the government determines that the taxpayer’s unpaid tax liability results from willful behavior, the following penalties could apply…” [page 2] – – – – – – – – – –
“Criminal penalties
Prosecution is authorized under the Code for a variety of offenses. Depending on the level of the noncompliance, the following penalties could apply to an individual:
• Section 7203 – misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.
• Section 7201 – felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]
When confronted with this same issue during its consideration of a similar individual mandate tax, the Senate Finance Committee worked on a bipartisan basis to include language in its bill that shielded Americans from civil and criminal penalties. The Pelosi bill, however, contains no similar language protecting American citizens from civil and criminal tax penalties that could include a $250,000 fine and five years in jail.
“The Senate Finance Committee had the good sense to eliminate the extreme penalty of incarceration. Speaker Pelosi’s decision to leave in the jail time provision is a threat to every family who cannot afford the $15,000 premium her plan creates. Fortunately, Republicans have an alternative that will lower health insurance costs without raising taxes or cutting Medicare,” said Camp.
According to the Congressional Budget Office the lowest cost family non-group plan under the Speaker’s bill would cost $15,000 in 2016.
