As The New York Times pointed out in its Saturday edition, Monday is the supposed deadline for American citizens to buy health insurance, through Barry's exchanges or otherwise, to ensure that they have health insurance coverage by January 1, 2014, as Obamacare requires. If folks are not covered by acceptable health insurance in 2014 -- acceptable to Barry, not acceptable to the consumer -- they will have to pay a penalty that the Supreme Court decided was a tax and everybody else knows is a penalty.
I will not comply.
My citizenship is not dependent upon whether I have purchased health insurance. My employer does not provide health insurance that is acceptable in Barry's world, so for many years now I have been what I euphemistically call "self-insured." That's a polite way of saying that when I go to the doctor, I pay for it. When I need a prescription filled, I pay for it. And yeah, my family has a number of prescriptions each month that I have to pay for. But because I live in Maryland, which mandates that health insurance cover, among other things, abortion, port wine stain removal and a gazillion other things -- the most mandates in the country, last I heard, although I guess BarryCare has levelled that playing field -- I have been unable to afford family coverage. It is cheaper for me to pay as I go. I couldn't buy the catastrophic-only coverage I wanted in Maryland before BarryCare, and now I think it is not an option, although the administration keeps arbitrarily changing the rules, so I'm not sure what I can buy anymore. But I do know that whatever I can buy is not affordable, the name of the Affordable Care Act notwithstanding.
So I will not comply.
I really don't care if the IRS wants to impose a penalty on me when I file my 2014 taxes, because that penalty, even once it reaches its highest level in a couple years, will be far lower than the cost of purchasing BarryCare. At its current level, the penalty is laughably smaller than the cost of a BarryCare policy.
So I will not comply.
Even if the penalty were larger, the IRS is only able to collect the penalty if you are stupid enough to pay it when they ask you to, or by confiscating part of your tax refund. I am already adjusting my withholding to ensure that I don't get a refund -- which everyone should do, by the way, because it makes no sense to give an interest-free loan to someone who is already picking your pocket -- so I am not worried about the confiscation part.
So I will not comply.
I don't give two shakes of a rat's patootie what John Roberts said, this isn't a tax, it is a penalty in an attempt to enforce an unconstitutional mandate for American citizens to purchase a private-market product as a condition of their citizenship. If they ordered me to buy Brussel sprouts, I wouldn't do that, either, because I don't want them and the goverment doesn't have the authority to order me to do that. It doesn't have the authority to order me to buy insurance, either, John Roberts be damned.
I will not comply.
I don't know who will be exempted from this mandate tomorrow. As it stands, apparently people who had insurance they liked before BarryCare but had it cancelled because of BarryCare are now exempt from the mandate to purchase the required insurance -- not sure what part of the law says Barry can do that, but whatevs. Now those people are allowed to purchase very expensive, really bare-bones policies that they eschewed before in favor of more comprehensive policies that are no longer acceptable under BarryCare. Of course, they are now allowed, apparently, to not buy any of that crap and not pay a penalty. But I'm not sure, because I don't think Barry is sure. And everything will probably change tomorrow anyway. Plus, Barry's munificence in arbitrarily, unilaterally changing the law does not extend to my situation. Or at least not yet.
So I will not comply. Hell, I don't even know what I'm not complying with yet. It keeps changing.
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