Home
In this issue
Feb. 8, 2013

Rabbi Berel Wein: Lofty ideals must be followed with grounded applications

Clifford D. May: Letter from the West Bank
Steve Rothaus: Judge OKs plan for gay man, lesbian couple to be on girl's birth certificate
Gloria Goodale: States consider drone bans: Overreaction or crucial for privacy rights?
Environmental Nutrition Editors: Don't buy the aloe vera juice hype
Michael Craig Miller, M.D.: Harvard Experts: Regular exercise pumps up memory, too
Erik Lacitis: Vanity plates: Some take too much license
The Kosher Gourmet by Susie Middleton: Broccoflower, Carrot and Leek Ragout with Thyme, Orange and Tapenade is a delightful and satisfying melange of veggies, herbs and aromatics
Feb. 6, 2013

Nara Schoenberg: The other in-law problem

Frank J. Gaffney Jr. : A see-no-jihadist for the CIA
Kristen Chick: Ahmadinejad visits Cairo: How sect tempers Islamist ties between Egypt, Iran
Roger Simon: Ed Koch's lucky corner
Heron Marquez Estrada: Robot-building sports on a roll
Patrick G. Dean, M.D.: Mayo Clinic Medical Edge: How to restore body's ability to secrete insulin
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: 3 prostate-protecting diet tips
The Kosher Gourmet by Emma Christensen 7 principles for to help you make the best soup ever in a slow cooker
Feb. 4, 2013

Jonathan Tobin: Can Jewish Groups Speak Out on Hagel?

David Wren: Findings of government study, released 3 days before Newtown shooting, at odds with gun-control crusaders
Kristen Chick: Tahrir becomes terrifying, tainted
Curtis Tate and Greg Gordon: US keeps building new highways while letting old ones crumble
David G. Savage: Supreme Court to hear case on arrests, DNA
Harvard Health Letters: Neck and shoulder pain? Know what it means and what to do
Andrea N. Giancoli, M.P.H., R.D.: Eat your way to preventing age-related muscle loss
The Kosher Gourmet by Diane Rossen Worthington Baked Pears in Red Wine and Port Wine Glaze: A festive winter dessert
Feb. 1, 2013

Rabbi Dr. Tzvi Hersh Weinreb: Redemption

Clifford D. May Home, bloody, home
Christa Case Bryant andNicholas Blanford Why despite Syria's allies warning of retaliation for Israeli airstrikes, the threats are likely hollow
Rick Armon, Ed Meyer and Phil Trexler Ex-police captain cleared by DNA test is freed after nearly 15 years
Harvard Health Letters: Could it by your thyroid?
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: When 'healthy food' isn't
Sue Zeidler: Coke ad racist? Arab-American groups want to yank Super Bowl ad (INCLUDES VIDEO)
The Kosher Gourmet by Nealey Dozier The secret of this soup is the garnish
January 30, 2013

Allan Chernoff: Celebrating 'Back from the Dead Day'

America isn't a religious country? Don't tell Superbowl fans!
Mark Clayton Cybercrime takedown!
Germany remembers Hitler rise to power
Israel salutes U. N. --- with the one finger salute
Sharon Palmer, R.D.: Get cookin' with heart-healthy fats
Ballot riles Guinness World Records
The Kosher Gourmet by Elizabeth Passarella Potato, Squash and Goat Cheese Gratin
January 28, 2013

Nancy Youssef: And Democracy for all? Two years on, Egypt remains in state of chaos

Fred Weir: Putin: West is fomenting jihadi 'blowback'
Meredith Cohn: Implantable pain disk may help those with cancer
Michael Craig Miller, M.D. : Ask the Harvard Experts: Are there drugs to help control binge eating?
David Ovalle Use of controversial 'brain mapping' technology stymied
Jane Stancill: Professor's logic class has 180,000 friends
David Clark Scott Lego Racism?
The Kosher Gourmet by Mario Batali The celebrated chef introduces us to PANZEROTTI PUGLIESI, cheese-stuffed pastry from Italy's south


Jewish World Review July 5, 2012/ 15 Tamuz, 5772

All will feel Affordable Care Act's bite

By Jay Ambrose


Printer Friendly Version



http://www.JewishWorldReview.com | Is the crazily constructed, oppressively focused, unaffordable Affordable Care Act also the biggest tax in history? Technically speaking, no. It is a big tax hike that is already taking a toll on our economic future, but not the biggest. It is still a gouge that most of us will feel one way or the other.

The discussion got going after the Supreme Court ruled that the individual mandate could be constitutionally justified by calling it a tax. That surprised everyone in the country with common sense, seeing as how President Barack Obama himself was among those bending over backward to assert that a penalty for not buying insurance was not a tax.

The penalty was not called a tax in the legislation, either, and some political observers are arguing that if it had been — if it had been perfectly clear that here was still one more major grab at the wallets of the innocent — the legislation might not even have passed. But there were a bunch of other taxes buried in it, and the individual mandate has costs beyond the penalty. After all, the mandate is to buy insurance millions would otherwise decide not to buy.

The liberal Urban Institute puts the precise number of those who will have to pay something at 18.2 million. It says 10.9 million of those will get government assistance in footing their insurance bills, while 7.3 million will be on their own. Various analyses predict 4 million people instead will opt for the penalty, forking over something like $27 billion over the next decade. That leaves 14.2 million forced to pay insurance premiums known to exceed the cost of T-shirts at Walmart, the last time I looked.

Meanwhile, there are other big taxes in Obamacare, not the least including a Medicare hike that starts next year. Rejoice! It probably won't hit you. Congress is smart enough to aim taxes at relatively small groups with relatively few votes, and it therefore says this hike of 0.9 percent in payroll taxes will apply to only those with incomes of $200,000 and more, or $250,000 for married couples. If these folks happen to be making money on investments — which is what retired people often hope to do — they will pay an extra 3.8 percent on that income.

The Tampa Bay Times, which says in its June 29 PolitFact.com column that the income from this Medicare tax will be $210.2 billion over the next 10 years, lists still other Obamacare taxes. One applies to expensive insurance plans affording extensive coverage. Starting in 2018, they'll get hit with a whopping 40 percent excise tax. A new fee on pharmaceutical manufacturers and importers began last year (meaning prescription drugs will cost more). A couple of years down the road, health insurers will have to pay more (meaning still higher premiums, friends).

Here's a tax that some say is having deleterious effects already, even though it does not kick in until next year: a 2.3 percent tax on medical devices. Washington Post columnist George Will has argued that it "will mean not only fewer jobs but also fewer pain-reducing and life-extending inventions."

As evidence in a May 9 column, he noted that Cook Medical has abandoned plans for a new U.S. factory and that layoffs already are taking place in other companies. He wrote that even Elizabeth Warren, a liberal Democratic candidate for the Senate in Massachusetts, has said this tax should go because of its nasty impact on small businesses in that state.

The American people should care about all of this because taxes have consequences, often unintended consequences of a destructive nature. Even if Obamacare does not set a new record, it is one of the 10 largest federal tax hikes since 1951, according to Washington Post columnist Ezra Klein. There are still other costs that will get you if you don't watch out. Or even if you do.

Every weekday JewishWorldReview.com publishes what many in in the media and Washington consider "must-reading". Sign up for the daily JWR update. It's free. Just click here.

Comment by clicking here.

Jay Ambrose, formerly Washington director of editorial policy for Scripps Howard newspapers and the editor of dailies in El Paso, Texas, and Denver, is a columnist living in Colorado.


Previously:


07/02/12: A social solution --- homes with dads
06/27/12: Being a 'nation of immigrants' is not an excuse
06/20/12: Barack Obama the autocrat
06/18/12: Bradbury's lessons for today
06/13/12: Should this leaking administration sink?
06/11/12: Simpson bashes back on reform
06/05/12: Legalize sugary drinks, ban dangerous drugs
06/04/12: Keep America from going Greek
06/01/12: Don't believe in Obama's fairy tales
05/30/12: Writing a book? Beats prison
05/23/12: Student loans fail students
05/21/12: Europeanizing America into crisis
05/16/12: Obama a bully, too
05/15/12: Walker recall vote could swing national pension policy
05/07/12: Bumbling, fumbling, benighted, old Washington near tipping point where freedom is done for
05/02/12: The Communists cannot be happy
04/30/12: There's no objective truth, least of all concerning behavior
04/25/12: Forgive the extremist?
04/23/12: Educational excellence is a game
04/18/12: Obama's interventions help a few by the most autocratic, complicated, ineffective means possible, yet hurt many more
04/16/12: Overregulation strikes again: The nanny state threatens to turn us into children
04/11/12: Obama is not bonkers
04/04/12: Will America vote against authoritarianism?
04/02/12: 'Tipping point' on federal restraint approaches
03/28/12: Obama truth from an open mike
03/21/12: The progressive campaign for voter fraud
03/19/12: Public pensions will get us if we don't watch out
03/14/12: Politics needs reporting, not speculation
03/12/12: Home of the free, the brave, the endangered
03/07/12: Obama used Limbaugh as scapegoat
03/05/12: Campaign substance lost in media melodrama
03/01/12: When Big Brother drowns
02/24/12: Obama goes gaseous on gas
02/22/12: Political tears for trust in personal empowerment --- except in the bedroom
02/17/12: Of cut-off ears and silenced mouths
02/15/12: Obama is a joke whose antics aren't funny
02/10/12: An energy boom looms, despite Obama
02/08/12: Obama's assault on faith
02/03/12: Can Romney get serious?
01/27/12: Obama is like an Italian ship captain
01/25/12: Newt Gingrich's first 100 days
01/20/12: Obama's Keystone pipeline lies
01/18/12: Critics worse than urinating Marines
01/13/12: Ron Paul is a cartoonish character
01/11/12: Newt Gingrich upset by Mitt Romney's brilliance
01/09/12: How about regulating presidents, too?
01/04/12: How America smothers itself
12/30/11: A tax break that helps break the nation
12/28/11: Watch out for the banana peel, Newt
12/21/11: A tale of two men
12/16/11: Strange happenings in Russia
12/14/11: Tim Tebow is a man of character
12/09/11: A populist, envy-mongering fraud divisively exacerbating resentment among different groups of Americans
12/07/11: Tax games threaten nation
12/05/11: Why Wal-Mart serves us better than Barney Frank
11/30/11: Not writing off Newt
11/28/11: Answers to the Iranian threat
11/23/11: Failure of the incumbency investment
11/18/11: Occupiers: Chop off their heads!
11/16/11: Obama asks jobless to sacrifice
11/09/11: Michael Moore's insufferable occupation
11/04/11: Political tipping point is coming
11/02/11: Idealogues versus 7 billion
10/28/11: Obama games on student loans
10/26/11: Wit and quick moves v. humanity and thoroughgoing honesty? It's no contest —- or at least shouldn't be
10/07/11: Baptists, bootleggers and Wall Street protesters
10/05/11: Federal law will get you even if you watch out
09/28/11: Leftist bugbears on the march
09/23/11: Still hope for coal to help us
09/21/11: Obama's Madoff ploy
09/19/11: U.S. can't afford to wait until it happens
09/14/11: Defending -- and strengthening -- gung ho collectivism
09/12/11: A pipeline to better times
09/08/11: Obama just keeps destroying jobs
09/06/11: Ultra-feminists thwarting justice
08/31/11: Corporations are people? Yes, Count the ways
08/26/11: What an earthquake tells us about debt
08/25/11: The tyranny of scientific consensus
08/23/11: Fracking hardly a public health threat
08/17/11: Why Obamacare won't control births
08/15/11: Balanced budget amendment unbalanced idea
08/10/11: Kerry's war on citizen speech
08/05/11: Upside to the compromise leaving the door open for obnoxious maneuvers
08/03/11: The people who may save America
07/29/11: On making deals, Obama is no LBJ
07/27/11: The threat behind the debt
07/23/11: Mean opposition to means-testing
07/20/11: Leftist babble makes debt crisis even worse
07/18/11: Time to raise demagoguery ceiling
07/13/11: Obama treating treaties badly
07/08/11: Is decline of U.S. exaggerated?
07/05/11: Not math deficiency, but demagoguery



© 2011, SCRIPPS HOWARD NEWS SERVICE

Insight (Our Columnists)

 Arnold Ahlert
 Mitch Albom
 Jay Ambrose
 Michael Barone
 Barrywood
 Lori Borgman
 Stratfor Briefing
 Mona Charen
 Linda Chavez
 Richard Z. Chesnoff
 Ann Coulter
 Greg Crosby
 Alan Douglas
 Larry Elder
 Suzanne Fields
 Christine Flowers
 Frank J. Gaffney
 Bernie Goldberg
 Jonah Goldberg
 Julia Gorin
 Jonathan Gurwitz
 Paul Greenberg
 Argus Hamilton
 Victor Davis Hanson
 Betsy Hart
 Ron Hart
 Nat Hentoff
 Marybeth Hicks
 A. Barton Hinkle
 Jeff Jacoby
 Paul Johnson
 Jack Kelly
 Ch. Krauthammer
 David Limbaugh
 Kathryn Lopez
 Rich Lowry
 Michelle Malkin
 Jackie Mason
 Ann McFeatters
 Dale McFeatters
 Dana Milbank
 Jeanne Moos
 Dick Morris
 Jim Mullen
 Deroy Murdock
 Judge A. Napolitano
 Bill O'Reilly
 Kathleen Parker
 Star Parker
 Dennis Prager
 Wesley Pruden
 Tom Purcell
 Sharon Randall
 Robert Robb
 Cokie & Steve Roberts
 Heather Robinson
 Debra J. Saunders
 Martin Schram
 Culture Shlock
 David Shribman
 Roger Simon
 Michael Smerconish
 Thomas Sowell
 Ben Stein
 Mark Steyn
 John Stossel
 Cal Thomas
 Dan Thomasson
 Bob Tyrrell
 Diana West
 Dave Weinbaum
 George Will
 Walter Williams
 Byron York
 ZeitGeist
 Mort Zuckerman

'Toons
 Robert Arial
 Chuck Asay
 Baloo
  Lisa Benson
 Chip Bok
 Dry Bones
 John Branch
 John Cole
 J. D. Crowe
 Matt Davies
 John Deering
 Brian Duffy
 Everything's Relative
 Mallard Fillmore
 Glenn Foden
 Jake Fuller
 Bob Gorrel
 Walt Handelsman
 Joe Heller
 David Hitch
 Jerry Holbert
 David Horsey
 Lee Judge
 Steve Kelley
 Jeff Koterba
 Dick Locher
 Chan Lowe
 Jimmy Margulies
 Jack Ohman
 Michael Ramirez
 Rob Rogers
 Drew Sheneman
 Kevin Siers
 Jeff Stahler
 Scott Stantis
 Danna Summers
 Gary Varvel
 Kirk Walters
  Dan Wasserman

Lifestyles
 Mr. Know-It-All
 Ask Doctor K
 Richard Lederer
 Frugal Living
 On Nutrition
 Bookmark These
 Bruce Williams