A tax or not a tax, that is the question

 

~ Under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), individuals who choose not to buy health insurance in 2014 or after will need to make a “shared responsibility payment,” which is called a “penalty” in the ACA.

~ While I agree with most of the Court’s holdings, I do not agree with the finding that the penalty is a tax and is therefore constitutional.

 
~ In my opinion, the Supreme Court’s ruling on the ACA is unfortunate, as it could legitimize less transparency in legislating rather than more…. Continue at source:

A tax or not a tax, that is the question

Health care reform and the impact for the municipal investor

On Thursday, the Supreme Court voted to uphold the 2010 legislation for health care reform signed by President Obama. Many other news outlets are weighing in on the impact of the law on society and politics, but we thought it may be useful to provide a high level update for what it means to a municipal bond investor.

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Health care reform and the impact for the municipal investor

Affordable Care Act: A crisis wasted?

In 2008, when President Obama was then president-elect, his chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” People on the right excoriated him for taking such a Machiavellian view of politics, but he had a good point. In fact, Franklin Delano Roosevelt used the pain of the Great Depression to transform the U.S. economy, and Ronald Reagan used extremely high unemployment in the 1980s to drive through tax reform in 1981. A crisis can often be a catalyst for significant change.

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Affordable Care Act: A crisis wasted?