Thursday, October 24, 2013

Opt-Out Obamacare Penalty Can't Be Enforced -- Unless You Get a Tax Refund

RUSH: For those of us who take as long as we can to pay our taxes, October 15th was the extension filing date for 2012, and I dutifully was in there.  My accountant, who is almost afraid to be my accountant because he thinks he's gonna get targeted, too, just 'cause his name's on my return, he said, "Look, you may not know this, but you keep talking about these Obamacare fines if you don't buy a policy.  Do you know that under the law --" and I had to go look it up.  Not that I didn't believe him, but he just never gets political with me.  He stays over there.  (interruption)  No, no.  He's not lib.  It's a professional relationship.
Anyway, he said to me that, according to the law, the only way that the government can collect the fine or penalty for you not buying insurance is if you are owed a tax refund.  If you do not owe a tax refund, they cannot go into your bank account or anywhere else and get that money.  Now, the sad thing is that most people file their taxes to get a refund 'cause they think they're screwing the government, and they're not.  You're giving the government all that money all that year, but, no, look, what it means is that it can't work.  The whole point of this is the individual mandate. The guts of this are the mandate that you buy, that young, healthy people get screwed price-wise by being forced to buy insurance.  You've got to. 
And in three or four years, if things don't change, it's gonna be bad. I'll tell you, by then, if this thing goes forward, and it looks like it may not, but, if it goes forward, these are gonna be the good old days, because right now with the website broken, these kids can't find out how badly they're gonna get screwed, although some people are.  By kids I mean 18-24, 18-30.  (interruption) I know, we're gonna get to the hearings in a minute.  There's nothing wrong, folks.  Did you know the site's working?  Everything's happening as it should.  The only problem is the Republicans.  That's what I meant, we're loaded here.  I'm sorry to be hop-scotching all over the place.  I'm trying to do an hour's worth of content here in five minutes.  I really apologize.  I'm bursting at the seams here. 

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