By Chris Frates and Mike Allen,Politico
Obama lies on Sunday TV about tax in healthcare bill
In the most contentious exchange of President Barack Obama’s marathon of five Sunday shows,he said it is “not true” that a requirement for individuals to get health insurance under a key reform plan now being debated amounts to a tax increase.
But he could look it up — in the bill.
Page 29,sentence one of the bill introduced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont) says:“The consequence for not maintaining insurance would be an excise tax.”
And the rest of the bill is clear that the Finance Committee does,in fact,consider it a tax:“The excise tax would be assessed through the tax code and applied as an additional amount of Federal tax owed.”
The bill requires every American,with few exceptions,to carry health insurance. To enforce this individual mandate,the Senate Finance Committee created the excise tax as a penalty for people who don’t have insurance – and it can run as much as $3,800 a year per family.