Pay the Mob or go to Jail By Nikki Alexander + Larry Kalb on Healthcare Reform

By Nikki Alexander
Featured Writer
Dandelion Salad
http://nikkialexander.wordpress.com
October 11, 2009

The Senate Finance Committee is set to vote Tuesday on a health care bill that has gained preeminence over four other health care bills that have emerged from House and Senate committees. The Senate Finance bill does not include a public insurance option to compete with private insurers. Nor does it allow Medicare to use its bargaining power to negotiate lower drug prices.

Under the Finance Committee bill, Americans would be required to buy corporate health insurance or pay an “excise tax” of $1,900. If you don’t pay that tax, the IRS could punish you with a $25,000 fine or up to one year in jail, or both. Read that again.

Under questioning last week, Tom Barthold, the chief of staff of the Joint Committee on Taxation, admitted that the individual mandate would become part of the Internal Revenue Code and that failing to comply “could be criminal.” Mr. Barthold noted in a follow-up letter that the willful failure to file would be punishable by a $25,000 fine or jail time under Section 7203. Failure to pay the mandate would be enforced as tax evasion.

In the 1994 health care reform farce, the Congressional Budget Office called the individual mandate “an unprecedented form of federal action. The government has never required people to buy any good or service as a condition of lawful residence in the United States.”

The federal government has no constitutional authority to fine or imprison US citizens for refusing to buy a corporate product. This insurance mandate is a protection racket run by organized crime.

Call your representatives today – (202) 224-3121 – and tell them extortion is a felony.

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[DS added the video]

Larry Kalb on Healthcare Reform and Single Payer, HR 676 and S 703

talkingsticktv
October 10, 2009

see

Congressman Grayson: I Will Not Apologize!

Countdown Special Comment: The Fight Against Death

Stand Up! Fight Back!

from the archives:

Comparing Single-Payer with the Public Option! + Single-Payer Teach-In

Why Single-Payer is the ONLY Sensible Health Care Reform (Explained in Plain English)

First-of-Its Kind Study: Medicare for All Single-Payer Reform Would Be Major Stimulus for Economy