The president, appearing on ABC News on Sunday morning, discussed his proposal to require everyone to have health insurance that meets government approval:
For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is...that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore.
Right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance,. Nobody considers that a tax increase.
You just can't make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase.
Memo to President Barack Obama: It's a tax. Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance -- and fining them if they don't -- isn't the same thing as a tax increase. But the language of Democratic bills to revamp the nation's health care system doesn't quibble. Both the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax.
No one needs to buy auto insurance to own a car. The insurance is required to drive the vehicle on public roads. A correct example is homeowner's insurance. It is not required if you pay cash for the property. If you borrow the purchase funds the lender has the right to demand insurance for his property. Not the same set of facts.Obama is obfuscationg with his auto insurance analogy. The purpose of mandatory auto insurance is to make sure the owner or operator of the vehicle while driving on a public roadway is financially responsabile for any damages he causes to someone else on a public roadway. Not to insure himself or his property, that is an add-on. What Obama is attempting to do is analagous to a Manhattanite with a valid drivers license being required to buy auto insurance even though he does not own a car. For the public good to help lower car insurance premiums for everyone else. Of course it is a tax, a fine would require a legal proceeding to have it imposed. So much for the value of a Harvard law degree.
Interesting thought: if Obama followed his own logic about being financially responsible for one's self instead of being a public charge, he would abolish welfare.
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