Obamacare 2015

MIT professor Jonathan Gruber has produced a firestorm of controversy over remarks made in various settings about the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) and how drafters like himself relied on the “stupidity” of voters in passing the legislation.

  Jonathan Turley

And, true to American form, the controversy seems to be around Gruber calling us stupid, not around what he’s revealing about the so-called ACA.

Once given millions to advise the federal and state governments on their health care system, he is now persona non grata.

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Gruber stated in 2009 that Obamacare lacked cost controls in it and would not be affordable for many.

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That view of the likely impact of the ACA was not only never shared by the Administration, it is in direct contradiction with the statements made by the White House on how costs would decline and people would be able to keep their policies if they liked them.

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Gruber had already previously attracted controversy with statements where he endorsed the theory [...] that the federal funding provision was a quid pro quo device to reward states with their own exchanges and to punish those that force the creation of federal exchanges.

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Gruber then was back in the news with an equally startling admission that the Obama Administration (and Gruber) succeeded in passing the ACA only by engineering a “lack of transparency” on the details and relying on “the stupidity of the American voter.”

Look for the GOP to be ripping the White House this year even more over ‘Obamacare.’

And, beginning in 2015, the IRS is going to be collecting fines from those of us who can’t afford the affordable care…and those fines are going to rise sharply.

Don't have health insurance? Get ready to pay up.

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According to government figures, tens of millions of people still fall into the ranks of the uninsured.

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The ObamaCare-mandated fines for not having insurance are rising in 2015 -- and for the first time, will be collected by the Internal Revenue Service.

The individual requirement to buy health insurance went into effect earlier this year. But this coming tax season is the first time all taxpayers will have to report to the IRS whether they had health insurance for the prior year.

The fines for the 2014 year were relatively modest -- $95 per person or 1 percent of household income (above the threshold for filing taxes), whichever is more.

But insurance scofflaws face a sharp increase if they don't get covered soon. The fine will jump in 2015 to $325 or 2 percent of income, whichever is higher. By 2016, the average fine will be about $1,100, based on government figures.

  FoxNews

Spaulding should have such a good racket.

...but hey, do what you want...you will anyway.