Buy health insurance, pay a fine if you don’t, or go to jail?
Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.
Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it “Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold.”
note to Senator Ensign
Politico goes on to say the note was a followup to a question during markup. Ah, yes, the question as to whether or not the IRS would come after you if you didn’t buy health insurance. Here’s what he was told about that:
Under questioning from Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), Barthold said the IRS would “take you to court and undertake normal collection proceedings.”
Ensign pursued the line of questioning because he said a lot of Americans don’t believe the Constitution allows the government to mandate the purchase of insurance.
“We could be subjecting those very people who conscientiously, because they believe in the U.S. Constitution, we could be subjecting them to fines or the interpretation of a judge, all the way up to imprisonment,” Ensign said. “That seems to me to be a problem.”
If it looks like a tax increase and talks like a tax increase and walks like a tax increase…
Unfortunately an amendment from Sen. Jim Bunning (R-Ky.) to eliminate the individual mandate was rejected.
Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) was the only Republican to vote with Democrats to preserve the mandate.
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