In a verbal spar on Sunday with ABC's George Stephanopoulos,
President Obama said, “I absolutely rejected that notion,” when pressed by
Stephanopoulos to admit that mandating health insurance for all citizens, and
fining them if they fail to buy insurance, constitutes a tax increase. President Obama promised throughout his
campaign, and since becoming president, that he would not raise taxes on any
Americans making less than $250,000 per year.
When asked to explain how the health insurance mandate and
fining system did not create a new tax, Obama provided the American people with
a “teachable moment.”
After questioning Obama over and over again about the tax
increase, Stephanopoulos finally pulls out the definition of “tax” from the
dictionary: “A charge, usually of money, imposed by authority on persons or
property for public purposes.” The
President simply finds it laughable that Stephanopoulos has proven him wrong,
and continues to say that there will be no tax increase. This teaches us that the President either
fails to understand a simple definition, is too egomaniacal to admit when he is
wrong, or has the power to change the meaning of words by decree, and expects
us to accept his new meaning.
During the interview, Obama also equates the needed mandate
for health insurance with the mandatory car insurance laws already in place, as
he has in other speeches and interviews. This statement teaches us several more lessons about President Obama.
First, President Obama does not seem to understand the laws
in the country he was elected to govern. Car insurance is not necessary, or mandatory, to drive a car everywhere
in the United States. New Hampshire
and Wisconsin
are two states that have no laws mandating car insurance.
Second, in the places where car insurance is mandatory, only
those people who choose to drive need
to purchase insurance. And those persons
who do not choose to drive do not pay
fines for not purchasing insurance which they do not need.
And finally, President Obama shows that he misunderstands
another important word: liberty. Obama
begins an important thought by saying, “If…we’re giving tax credits, we’ve set
up an exchange, you are now part of a big pool, we’ve driven down the cost, we’ve
done everything we can, and you actually can afford health insurance, but you
just decided, ‘You know what? I want to
take my chances,’ and then you get hit by a bus…,” but Stephanopoulos cuts him
off before he can finish. Obama says a
few seconds later, “You’ve gotta take a responsibility to get health
insurance.”
If the government has done everything possible to drive down
the cost of health insurance to help me out so that I can afford it, and still
choose not to buy, that is my choice! I
thought the Democrats were the pro-choice party? I guess that’s only true when they want to
choose murder for babies and old people.
The freedom to choose my own fate is the essence of liberty
itself. To mandate that every citizen
purchase health insurance in a health care system controlled by the government
makes us servants of the government, not free and independent citizens.
Maybe the government should choose to enforce the
immigration laws so millions of illegals are not plugging up our emergency rooms,
or choose to take on tort reform, or let people take their health insurance
with them when they lose their jobs, or allow people to buy insurance across
state lines. These choices would bring
down the cost of insurance, and might entice me to choose to buy a policy, rather than threatening me with a fine.
And Mr. President, imposing a fine on those of us who choose
not to purchase insurance is definitely a tax. Maybe you should look up that word again.