From the department of "You Can't Make This Shit Up"
Remember that pesky individual mandate contained within the Affordable Care Act? The one that compels you to either purchase health insurance or face a fine? The same mandate that has been lambasted by Republicans and conservative judges as "unconstitutional?"
It turns out the Paul Ryan healthcare plan also has an individual mandate with similar mechanics and essentially the same outcome.
The Ryan budget would reshape Americans' access to health insurance mainly through two provisions, both of which pressure people to purchase private health insurance to an extent and through mechanisms that are materially indistinguishable from the supposedly toxic Obamacare mandate. One of these Ryan budget proposals—as yet little noticed by pundits or politicians—is almost an exact copy of its equivalent in the Affordable Care Act. It would repeal the current exclusion from employees' income of employer contributions to their health insurance premiums, thus terminating the subsidized employer-sponsored group health regime that covers nearly 60 percent of all Americans. In its place, the Republican plan would substitute a refundable tax credit, to be provided to individuals who purchase health insurance (or to employers who purchase health insurance for their employees). When this new arrangement takes effect in 2022, the tax credit would be set at $2,300 per adult and $1,700 per child, not to exceed $5,700 per family. [...]
Under both provisions, the result is the same: People who choose to carry health insurance have a lower tax bill than they would if they chose not to. In terms of their respective potential impact on individuals' bank accounts and tax liability, the manner in which they affect individuals' financial incentives, and hence the constraining effect on individuals' financial choices to either buy or forgo health insurance, the two "mandate" provisions are identical. (Indeed, in most cases, the financial difference for the individual taxpayer made by the Republican tax credit would be greater—i.e., more "coercive"—than the ACA tax penalty.)
So placing a tax-penalty on those who have the means to purchase health insurance, and chose not to, is unconstitutional, but disguising the penalty as a condition-based tax-credit isn't?
Just to be clear -- the so called "individual mandate" which Republicans say is unconstitutional, the same mandate which most of their attacks on the Affordable Care Act are based on, is also contained in the Paul Ryan plan. The same Paul Ryan plan which the Republican controlled House of Representatives unanimously voted in favor of passing. The mandate included in the Ryan plan is simply disguised as a condition-based tax-credit rather than an outright penalty.
The penalty for not purchasing health insurance under the Paul Ryan plan is also steeper than the Affordable Care Act. Does that make it the double-secret, unconstitutional version?
via Slate