“One of the enduring mysteries of President Obama’s health law is how its spending constraints and payroll tax hikes on high earners can be used to shore up Medicare finances and at the same time pay for a massive new entitlement program. Isn’t this double counting? The short answer is: Yes, it is. You can’t spend the same money twice. And so, thanks to the new health law, federal deficits and debt will be hundreds of billions of dollars higher in the next decade alone.”
“As you may know, the Affordable Care Act raises taxes on pretty much everyone, directly or indirectly, in order to fund its expansion of coverage for the uninsured. Most of these new taxes are unwise policy. But one Obamacare tax increase stands out for sheer boneheadedness: the law’s tax on insurance premiums, a provision that will raise taxes paid by the government itself, and make insurance less affordable.”
“The mandate, they say, is necessary to rein in the cost-shifting to the insured caused by uninsured individuals who receive free or ‘uncompensated’ care when they visit emergency rooms and fail to pay. Will the justices buy Team Obama’s reasoning? They shouldn’t. The Administration’s argument for the mandate has it all backwards. In fact, the individual mandate will increase the amount of cost-shifting resulting from uncompensated care.”