Tuesday, September 22, 2009

AP to Obama: It's a tax

San Diego Union Tribune:

The president, appearing on ABC News on Sunday morning, discussed his proposal to require everyone to have health insurance that meets government approval:

For us to say that you've got to take a responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase. What it's saying is...that we're not going to have other people carrying your burdens for you anymore.

Right now everybody in America, just about, has to get auto insurance,. Nobody considers that a tax increase.

You just can't make up that language and decide that that's called a tax increase.

This is bunk, says The Associated Press, the largest U.S. news-gathering organization and one of the world's leading suppliers of news.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Memo to President Barack Obama: It's a tax. Obama insisted this weekend on national television that requiring people to carry health insurance -- and fining them if they don't -- isn't the same thing as a tax increase. But the language of Democratic bills to revamp the nation's health care system doesn't quibble. Both the House bill and the Senate Finance Committee proposal clearly state that the fines would be a tax.

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