According to an Obama surrogate, if you are middle-class, earn enough income to have to file your taxes with IRS but not enough to pay health insurance premiums on top of your other necessities, you are a "freeloader".
Politico:
A top surrogate for President Obama insisted Friday that the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act was not a tax — despite the fact that the Supreme Court narrowly preserved the law on those grounds.
"Don't believe the hype that the other side is selling," Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick told reporters on a conference call.
"This is a penalty," Patrick said. "It's about dealing with the freeloaders."
Boston Globe gives the full quote:
“I just want to respond to the, frankly, bizarre attack, which is the claim this act represents a big tax increase on the middle class,” Patrick said. “First, this is a penalty. It’s about dealing with the freeloaders — the folks who now get their care without insurance in high-cost emergency room setting. And all the rest of us pay for it today.”
Putting aside the fact that the Supreme Court has just legally defined the individual mandate as a tax, which according to the court ruling, does not apply to those who do not make enough to require filing their income to IRS, but does apply to anyone who does earn enough to require them to file and Patrick's direct lie about it not being a tax, we are left with his "freeloader" comment.
On page 39 of the Supreme Court Decision, CJ Robert writes in the majority opinion:
The exaction the Affordable Care Act imposes on those without health insurance looks like a tax in many respects. The “[s]hared responsibility payment,” as the statute entitles it, is paid into the Treasury by “taxpayer[s]” when they file their tax returns. 26 U. S. C. §5000A(b). It does not apply to individuals who do not pay federal income taxes because their household income is less than the filing threshold in the Internal Revenue Code. §5000A(e)(2).
The individual mandate, according to the portion of the opinion above, doesn't apply to those who do not pay federal income tax. That much is clear.
So, if you are a middle class individual or family, make enough to pay federal income taxes but are battling week by week to pay your bills such as rent, food, gas, utilities and there is not any left over to pay out the high price of health care insurance, you are a freeloader by not doing so and yeah, hey, you are going to have to pay an Obama tax to boot because of the individual mandate!!!
Now just imagine the reaction from liberals had a Mitt Romney surrogate said something like that.
