How Romneycare is like Obamacare on taxes
Mitt Romney is slamming Obamacare as a huge tax increase, but his Massachusetts mandate did the exact same thing
By Alex Seitz-WaldTopics: Healthcare Reform, Mitt Romney, Politics News
While Chief Justice John Roberts dealt Republicans a blow Thursday by upholding Obamacare, he also handed them a political weapon by designating the law’s individual mandate a tax. “Obamacare raises taxes on the American people by approximately $500 billion,” Mitt Romney said in his brief remarks responding to the court’s ruling yesterday.
One Romney adviser told the Huffington Post that the decision is actually a win for Republicans, at least in terms of messaging. “Frankly, to be able to tell you your taxes have been raised by this bill and you didn’t know that, as opposed to trying to explain Congress’s powers under the commerce clause, it’s easier.”
The Republican National Committee has even mocked up a T-shirt on the tax issue, playing off Vice President Biden’s comments that health care reform is a BFD. The RNC’s shirt declares that Obamacare is “a BFTax.”
The problem here for Romney is that his health care law in Massachusetts did the exact same thing as the Roberts-tweaked version of Obamacare will do. The individual mandate Romney installed uses the same tax scheme to penalize free riders as the Affordable Care Act will, charging people who choose to not purchase health insurance a penalty through the tax code. And Romney himself has acknowledged as much — many times.
In 2008, when Romney was running for president for the first time, ABC News host Charlie Gibson asked him during a New Hampshire debate, “Governor … you imposed tax penalties in Massachusetts?” Romney replied, “Yes, we said, look, if people can afford to buy it, either buy the insurance or pay your own way; don’t be free riders.” It was the same debate in which he infamously declared, “I like mandates.”
In 2006, Romney explained in a Powerpoint presentation how the state would enforce his mandate. “We will withhold any of their tax refund” for people who don’t purchase insurance, he said. The former governor said the same thing in a 2009 interview with CNN: “There are a number of ways to encourage people to get insurance, and what we did, we said ‘you’re going to lose a tax exemption if you don’t have insurance.’”
In a way, Roberts forced the Obama administration to take Romney’s advice by swapping out the outright mandate with a tax scheme. In a 2009 op-ed in USA Today, Romney laid out some suggestions for President Obama to follow on health care. “First, we established incentives for those who were uninsured to buy insurance. Using tax penalties, as we did, or tax credits, as others have proposed, encourages ‘free riders’ to take responsibility for themselves rather than pass their medical costs on to others,” Romney wrote. That’s exactly what Roberts upheld yesterday.
And the Obama campaign is quick to point out that while Romney and other Republicans are accusing the president of enacting a huge tax increase, the penalties under Romneycare are bigger than under Obamacare. According to a study from the Center for Health Law and Economics at the University of Massachusetts Medical School, forwarded to Salon by the Obama campaign, the differences are huge. An adult over the age of 27 who makes more than 300 percent of the poverty line (about $37,000 a year) and chooses not to purchase health insurance would pay at least $695 in penalties under Obamcare. Under Romneycare, that same person would pay at least $1,530 in penalties.
Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist who helped design both Romneycare and Obamacare, said today on a conference call organized by the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund that Obama’s penalty will affect only a tiny portion of Americans. “The Congressional Budget Office estimates that about one percent of the population will end up paying this penalty. This not a broad new tax on the middle class. It is trivial. It is four, the CBO estimates it is $4 billion in revenues from this penalty. That is trivial relative to the almost $100 billion that you would get in [subsidies], once it’s phased in, in new tax credits to individuals to buy health insurance. So this is on net this an enormous tax cut for the middle class. This is not a tax increase,” he explained.
In the USA Today op-ed, Romney said his plan was affordable and reasonable. So if Obamacare’s penalties are even more modest, then the claim that it’s a huge tax increase rings a bit hollow.
Alex Seitz-Wald is Salon's political reporter. Email him at aseitz-wald@salon.com, and follow him on Twitter @aseitzwald. More Alex Seitz-Wald.
Related Stories
More Related Stories
-
Doug Henwood: Capitalism thrives on class exploitation
-
Growing, lurking threat: "Paper terrorism"
-
How right-wingers use semantic tricks to kill government
-
The conservative case for raising the minimum wage
-
Alex Gibney: Julian Assange has become like "those he despises"
-
The week in 10 pics
-
We're living in an Ayn Rand economy
-
Obstruction will ruin GOP
-
The real IRS scandal
-
Krist Novoselic: My plan to fix Congress, curb obstruction
-
RNC Chair: Don't call for impeachment without evidence
-
Power tool industry too powerful to regulate?
-
Will a GOP aide be fired over Benghazi email changes?
-
Is safe fracking possible?
-
How a fight with Rick Santorum made an IRS commissioner
-
Cornel West: "You can get killed out here trying to tell the truth!"
-
Berlusconi's parties featured women dressed as Obama
-
Human Rights Watch: Syrian government practiced torture
-
Allen West lands a gig at Fox News
-
Deficit reduction can't save us
-
ABC's Benghazi problem festers
Featured Slide Shows
The week in 10 pics
close X- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Thumbnails
- Fullscreen
- 1 of 11
- Previous
- Next
-
Lisa Montgomery embraces her nephew Thursday after a tornado tore apart her home in Cleburne, Texas. The twister killed six people and destroyed entire swaths of the North Texas town.
Credit: AP/LM Otero -
Jack McMahon, the defense attorney for abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, speaks outside the Criminal Justice Center Philadelphia Tuesday. His client was convicted of killing three babies in his clinic, and will serve multiple life sentences.
Credit: AP/Matt Rourke -
A photo taken Monday captures Vice President Joe Biden's response to a Milwaukee second-grader's innovative proposal to end America's epidemic of gun violence. This guy!
Credit: AP/Jenny Aicher -
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., flanked by a grouper-eyed Michele Bachmann, addresses the IRS' admission that it targeted Tea Party groups in advance of the 2012 election. In an op-ed for CNN Thursday, the Kentucky senator slammed the president for his faux outrage.
Credit: AP/Molly Riley -
Ousted IRS chief Steven Miller is sworn in on Capitol Hill Friday. Miller testified before the House Ways and Means Committee on the extra scrutiny the agency gave conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status.
Credit: AP/J. Scott Applewhite -
Attorney General Eric Holder pauses as he testifies on Capitol Hill before the House Judiciary Committee Wednesday. Holder is under fire, among other things, for the Justice Department's gathering of phone records at the Associated Press.
Credit: AP/Carolyn Kaster -
O.J. Simpson sits during an evidentiary hearing at Clark County District Court in Las Vegas, Nev., Thursday. Simpson, who is currently serving a nine-to-33-year sentence in state prison for armed robbery and kidnapping, is using a writ of habeas corpus to seek a new trial.
Credit: AP/Las Vegas Review-Journal/Jeff Scheid -
Major Tom to ground control: On Sunday astronaut Chris Hadfield recorded the first music video from space, a cover of David Bowie's "Space Oddity."
Credit: AP/NASA/Chris Hadfield -
When it rains it pours. President Barack Obama speaks during a news conference Thursday with Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, inexplicably inspiring an #umbrellagate Twitter meme.
Credit: AP/Jacquelyn Martin -
A smoke plume rises high above a road block at the intersection of County A and Ross Road east of Solon Springs, Wis., Tuesday. No injuries were reported, but the the wildfire caused evacuations across northwestern Wisconsin.
Credit: AP/The Duluth News-Tribune/Clint Austin -
Recent Slide Shows
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Mobile Entertainment: 9 Amazing Drive-In Movie Theaters Still Standing
-
The week in 10 pics
-
- Share on Twitter
- Share on Facebook
- Thumbnails
- Fullscreen
- 1 of 11
- Previous
- Next
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Mobile Entertainment: 9 Amazing Drive-In Movie Theaters Still Standing
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Netflix's April Fools' Day categories
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
The week in 10 pics
-
Slideshow: Nerd Obama
Related Videos
On March 21, 2010, the House voted to approve a healthcare bill intended to overhaul the system and guarantee Americans access to health insurance. The vote was 219 to 213. Problem solved? Hardly.
Most Read
-
Revenge, ego and the corruption of Wikipedia
Andrew Leonard
-
Obstruction will ruin GOP
Jonathan Bernstein
-
Jaron Lanier: The Internet destroyed the middle class
Scott Timberg
-
Is Reddit censoring openly racist users?
Fidel Martinez, The Daily Dot
-
My "truly remarkable" cancer breakthrough
Mary Elizabeth Williams
-
The man behind Abercrombie & Fitch
Benoit Denizet-Lewis
-
We're living in an Ayn Rand economy
Paul Buchheit, AlterNet
-
When the IRS targeted liberals
Alex Seitz-Wald
-
Krist Novoselic: My plan to fix Congress, curb obstruction
Krist Novoselic
-
Photographed secretly at home: Is it art?
Mary Elizabeth Williams
Popular on Reddit
links from salon.com

47 points48 points49 points | 3 comments
From Around the Web
Presented by Scribol
-
Republican Virginia Lt. Governor Nominee: Obama Sees World "From A Muslim Perspective" -
Rep. Issa Aware Of IRS Investigation Since Last July -
French President Hollande Signs Marriage Equality Bill -
Obama Group Braces For Progressive Backlash Over Keystone - The 8 Best Edits To Wikipedia From A CIA IP Address



Comments
41 Comments