Is It a Tax or a Penalty? White House Chief of Staff Debates Health Care Ruling
White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew joined Fox News Sunday to discuss the Supreme Court’s ruling on the health care law. Lew told host Chris Wallace, “One thing that’s great about our system is when the Supreme Court rules, we have a final answer. The law is constitutional – it stands. We are going to proceed as we were proceeding, to implement the law.”
Lew said the American people “want the divisive debate on health care to stop.” He continued to say that people are already seeing benefits from the law in their everyday life. Wallace asked if he thinks it’s wrong to continue debating the issue, to which he responded, “Anyone who wants to repeal is going to have to explain to the people that I just described why they’re going to lose the benefits that they’re already getting.”
Regarding the Supreme Court’s ruling that the mandate is in fact a tax, Lew said the White House welcomes that debate. He said that the health care law cuts taxes for middle class families and “the only thing in this bill that puts a burden
on individuals to pay more is a penalty for those who can afford insurance and choose not to buy it, and to be clear, that’s one percent of the population.”
Lew and Wallace went back and forth over whether the Supreme Court ruled that the penalty will be considered a tax. Lew argued, “Technically, what they said is the Congress has many powers. There’s a commerce clause, there’s taxing powers, and it was constitutional. That’s what they said.”
Wallace shot back saying, “I can’t let you go there – they specifically said that it is not constitutional under the commerce clause, they said it is constitutional under the tax.”
Lew maintained that what the law states is, “If you can afford insurance and you choose not buy it and you choose to have you health costs be a burden to others, you’ll pay a penalty so that you’ll pay your fair share … For the 99 percent of the people who buy insurance or who get it through the tax cuts that are in this act, they’re not going to be affected, you keep your insurance, you don’t pay any kind of penalty.”
Lew’s gave his final analysis of the Chief Justice John Robert’s ruling on the mandate by stating, “I would say that what the opinion said is that there are multiple powers that Congress has to make law, and this law is constitutional.”
