“Once again, the President’s health care rhetoric doesn’t match reality. The massive tax increases working families will see under the Democrats’ costly government takeover of health care aren’t hidden in the fine print. The President should be straight with the American people and admit that his health care plan requires significant tax hikes in the middle of a deep recession. The President’s inability to meet his own standard of not repeating ‘bogus claims’ about health care reform is yet another indication it’s time to hit the reset button and start working together on a bipartisan plan the American people can support and afford.”

RHETORIC

REALITY

President Obama: “For us to say you have to take responsibility to get health insurance is absolutely not a tax increase.” (ABC’s This Week, 9/20/09)

“STEPHANOPOULOS: But you reject that it’s a tax increase?

OBAMA: I absolutely reject that notion.” (ABC’s This Week, 9/20/09)

From p. 169 of H.R. 3200, as amended:

“SEC. 59B. TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE. (a) TAX IMPOSED.—In the case of any individual who does not meet the requirements of subsection (d) at any time during the taxable year, there is hereby imposed a tax equal to 2.5 percent of the excess of — (1) the taxpayer’s modified adjusted gross income for the taxable year, or (2) the amount of gross income specified in section 6012(a)(1) with respect to the taxpayer.”

President Obama: “Nobody considers that a tax increase." (ABC’s This Week, 9/20/09)

Sherry Glied, Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, Department of Health and Human Services: “The individual mandate offers new options, but it also introduces risks. The mandate is in many respects analogous to a tax. …[T]he mandate will act as a very regressive tax, penalizing uninsured people who genuinely cannot afford to buy coverage.” (New England Journal of Medicine, 4/10/08)

Larry Summers, Director of the National Economic Council: “Economists have generally devoted little attention to mandated benefits – regarding them as simply disguised tax and expenditure measures.” (American Economic Review, May 1989)

Then-Sen. Barack Obama: “In order for you to force people to get health insurance, you’ve got to have a very harsh penalty.” (Democratic presidential debate, 2/21/08)