Legal Commentary

BaucusCare's Mandate Tax

By Big Tent Democrat

The Beltway "progressives" have discovered there is only so much get along from actual progressives in their drive to pass an Health Insurance Industry Profits Protection Act. This puts them in an awkward position. For example, they have to, as Matt Yglesias does here, ignore, even misstate, the fact that the BaucusCare they are championing does in fact include an "excise tax" (Max Baucus' phrase, not mine) for those Americans unable to afford to purchase health insurance. Yglesias calls the Baucus excise tax "regulation" -- "Not being a politician, I can just note that we generally speak the English language in the United States and we’ve never previously taken the word 'tax' to include all regulations that increase some people’s costs of buying stuff."

Ahem, it is rather ridiculous to complain about BaucusCare being described as containing an excise tax when in fact Max Baucus himself included a provision titled "Excise Tax," that provides for taxing people unable to afford to buy health insurance. That is the reality of the mandates without a public option. It is a tax on the less well off created to insure the profits of the health insurance industry. That is the reality. Deal with it Beltway Villagers.

Speaking for me only

Full post as published by TalkLeft on September 21, 2009 (boomark / email).