A good friend urges me to “sign up” for Obamacare. He knows about the extortion letters I have been receiving from the federal thugs who are now the enforcers for the health insurance mafia – which succeeded in getting a law passed which forces us to buy their services.
Or else.
The “or else” being punishing fines – plus interest. These are called “shared responsibility” payments but – in the first place – nothing is being “shared” (I am being forcibly mulcted) and in the second place for whom am I “responsible”?
Myself, certainly.
But that is precisely the point and the fulcrum of my objection to Obamacare – to this business of being forced to be responsible for other people’s “care” at the expense of my own.
I could afford a high-deductible, catastrophic care insurance policy – something which would “cover” just that, a catastrophic and therefore not-likely event, such as a heart attack or cancer. And precisely because such an event is unlikely, the cost of such a “plan” would actually be insurance and so affordable.
I could therefore afford to be responsible for myself.
But Obamacare has turned the concept of insurance on its head. What is going on now is not insurance. It is wealth redistribution – mostly to the insurance mafia. The law forces me – and you – to pay for things we don’t need or use (for example, maternity care “coverage” for a divorced middle-aged man and “substance abuse counseling” for a man who doesn’t abuse any substances) which means no value received for the money extorted. The money lines the pockets of the mafia, which may perhaps dole out a portion to “cover” some portion of other people’s maternity care or substance abuse counseling.
I resent being mule-hitched to the insurance mafia’s profit wagon and also having the bit shoved into my mouth so that I may be forced to pull other people’s wagons rather than my own wagon – the only wagon for which I am morally “responsible.”
Which brings me back to my dilemma – and my friend’s solution.
Obamacare has made it financially impossible for me to afford “coverage” and so am not “covered,” which makes me all of a sudden a criminal for seeking to take care of myself and not filch other people’s pockets.
For this I am the object of punishment – like any criminal – except I fail to see how I am one given I’ve harmed no one. Not even myself – and even if I do harm myself, that is a matter between me and myself – the aggrieved party. Certainly I have aggrieved no one else, assuming I am not the property of someone else.
Which of course I am, apparently. And you, too. We will get to that momentarily.
At any rate, I am the object of punishment. “Shared responsibility” fines – technically, taxes – which is how the federal thugs legitimated the illegitimate, arguing that the Congress (more thugs) having empowered themselves to tax us – that is, to steal our money as and how they wish, by voting to do so – therefore has the power to vote to tax us for failing to send money to the insurance mafia as ordered by their other edict.
So, $695 so far – plus interest, accumulating. My punishment for failing to be “covered” last year. It will be another $695 plus interest for this year, too.
I cannot afford this, either – not without being unable to afford the care I actually do need, such as the old filling I just had replaced and the crown I had to have done last year, which together cost me about what my “shared responsibility” payment would be for last year and this year except I decided to be responsible for myself instead.
My friend urges me to “sign up” for Obamacare” on the “exchanges.” He says it will cost less – and by “signing up” I will avoid the “shared responsibility” fines (taxes) going forward.
This is all true – but entirely beside the point. Or rather, it is exactly the point.
If I “sign up,” I will be as Lee at Appomattox. I will have surrendered. I will have accepted the idea that I am not a sovereign individual who owns himself absolutely – and the corollary of that, which is the absolute right of others to ownership of themselves. That we are each free individuals, responsible for ourselves and our actions only.
Not for the actions of others, nor they for ours.
If we “sign up,we have accepted that we are all somehow each others’ collective property and as such are subject to being used and controlled by our owners, just like a mule or any other form of property.
That we are enslaved – to each other.
This is why I will not “sign up” – in the spirit of Giles Corey, the refusnik of Salem Witch Trials fame, who declined to go along to get along by witnessing falsely against his neighbors. More weight was all he said – with a contemptuous smile – as his tormentors attempted to get him to “share responsibility” by piling stones upon his chest.
If it comes to it, they can do that to me as well.
I won’t go to the “exchanges.” Will not voluntarily send a single penny of my money to the cretinous insurance mafia. I will not pay the “shared responsibility” tax, either.
I will continue to be responsible for myself.
If that makes me a criminal in a system gone criminal, so be it.
More weight.
…
Got a question about cars – or anything else? Click on the “ask Eric” link and send ’em in!
If you like what you’ve found here, please consider supporting EPautos.
We depend on you to keep the wheels turning!
Our donate button is here.
If you prefer not to use PayPal, our mailing address is:
EPautos
721 Hummingbird Lane SE
Copper Hill, VA 24079
PS: EPautos magnets are free to those who send in $20 or more. My latest eBook is also available for your favorite price – free! Click here. If you find it useful, consider contributing a couple of bucks! 
Hey Eric,
I hope you monitor these older threads. I just got my mafia notice, I was wondering what came of yours.
Funny thing, my “income” was from phantom capital gains once the wash sale rule was applied- I was already taxed on phantom monies, now I have to be pay an unenforceable tax for phantom health care that I did not receive, but illegal alien and “immigrant” neighbors did get
Market Watch runs a story every day now of AMERICANS who are fleeing the US because they cannot afford to live in Spain, Portugal, Ecuador, but we “welcome” tens of millions but need to “welcome” hundreds of millions or is it billions more with free healthcare, food, housing and sacrosanct status in academia and employment – look to Ilhan Omar and Rashida Talib as example of the system working.
I am seriously thinkig of liquidating my portfolios and taking the cash, when the IRS comes for their cut – claim to be a heroin addict with a thousand dollar a day habit..
I wonder if that is a good strategy.
If you are any sort of veteran,based on income (or not,lots of categories) you may qualify for VA care.I used that dodge myself to escape OsamaCare.Guess now it wont matter,but may again in the future.Vets,and not just retirees,get signed up it may save your bacon in the future.
Excellent, Eric!
If I may add one more objection to signing up for Obammycare, which doesn’t seem to be getting much press:
The VAST amount of personal info- virtually your life history; medical history; and every nook and cranny of one’s existence which much be submitted to the hands of federal and state government, and the insurance co.s and their “partners” to collate and use and abuse as they see fit!
Virtually, the giving up of any remaining pretext of one’s privacy- all neatly served-up in one convenient location to be forever associated with you.
I can not even conceive of doing such! Imagine: Clicking on to a gov’t website, and typing away any vestiges of privacy! Your own fingers, providing all of your personal data to the very people whom you would least want to have it!
Eric,
I read your “Obama’s Teeth” article and your accountant is correct. The IRS cannot collect a penny from you unless in a following year (or prior year if you file for a tax refund on an amended tax return) you overpaid your taxes.
To avoid any future IRS tax bills from this tax, you can claim the allowable exemption on Part III, line 8, of Form 8965.
For prior years, you should file an amended tax return on Form 1040X along with Form 8965 with code “A” as your exemption and the IRS should accept it and delete the $695 Obomacare tax on your 2017 account.
The trick is that the IRS will not question the exemption you are claiming, they do not have the staff or the audit budget. Even if they did, there is nothing they can do since the insurance is actually unaffordable. In my case, the cheapest insurance 3 or 4 years ago was unaffordable at $25,000/year premiums with a $10,000 deductible (I don’t even earn anywhere near that amount).
https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-pdf/i8965.pdf
(From page 7 of the instructions for Form 8965)
“Part III—Coverage Exemptions Claimed on Your Return for Individuals
Lines 8–13
Column (c)—Exemption Type
Use column (c) to identify the type of coverage exemption you are claiming for yourself or another member of your tax house-hold. Enter the code for the appropriate coverage exemption listed below and in the Types of Coverage Exemptions chart.
Coverage considered unaffordable (code “A”).
You can claim a coverage exemption for yourself or another member of your tax household for any month in which:
*The individual is eligible for coverage under an employer plan and that coverage is considered unaffordable, or
*The individual isn’t eligible for coverage under an employer plan and the coverage available for that individual through the Marketplace is considered unaffordable.
Coverage is considered unaffordable if the individual’s required contribution (described later) is more than 8.16% of household income.
Use the Affordability Worksheet, later, to determine whether this coverage exemption applies to you or another member of your tax household for one or more months of the year.
To claim this coverage exemption, enter code “A” in Part III, column (c), and identify the months to which the exemption applies as described under Columns (d) – (p)—Calendar Months, later.”
Hi GiveMeLiberty,
Thank you for this info! My accountant – who shares our point of view – will also find this helpful. It’s just a shame that America has been reduced to this; that the government is now bullying people over such things – things which are so contrary to any legitimate function of government (if any such thing exists) that it beggars belief.
My worry is that, having found the power to force people to buy health insurance, the next thing will be life and home and gun insurance, too. There is no logical counter argument, once the logic (such as it is) of Obamacare has been accepted.
Eric, check it out. You’re on the Zero Hedge lineup.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-29/health-insurance-mafia-heroin-signing-obamacare
Hat tip, Ed!
I’m quite tired of all these long winded explanations as to why the current system is corrupt. It is corrupt for one reason and one reason only: we have accepted the use of fake money as if it were real. Nothing else matters because everything else is a symptom of our embracing fake money as if it were real.
Also, every single thing that our corrupt government says and does is backed up by the use of deadly force. Let’s say you decide not to pay some levy (be it property taxes, obamacare shared responsibility payments, etc.). After going through some level of bureaucratic threats, it ALWAYS ends in men with guns coming to force you to comply. ALWAYS. This is not new. Might makes right in the USA and in this G_dless, lawless world in which we live. So don’t bother doing something unless you have the MIGHT to see it though or the understanding that you will end up in a gunfight with a larger and more powerful opponent.
That does not mean that the people are without hope; far from it. But unless you can get critical mass of people to see things your way AND to risk their lives in a gun battle with government then be warned about the path you are taking. It is much better to just wait until the herd has had enough and then, only when the herd is ready, to assert your intellectual leadership and to make your move. Otherwise, the corrupt powers that be will kill or jail you and then laugh about it.
Hi Anonymous,
I won’t argue with any of that – because you’re right. However, I will write, speak and act to the extent I am able against the evils we both agree exist, even at the expense of my physical safety. The one upside to the end of my marriage and the lack of any kids is that it just doesn’t matter anymore to me. I don’t have to pull any punches, out of concern for the well-being of the family I don’t have. I am responsible for myself only and I am tired.
Not tough.
Just tired.
“That we are enslaved – to each other.”
No, we are enslaved to the nobility. The nobility takes from the productive promising to take care of everybody while enslaving, claiming ownership of everyone.
You must have medical insurance, but to afford medical insurance you must be a dependent of the state or working for the government-corporate system.
Managed superintendency is for the power of the managers.
Morning, Brent!
I think we are both right. Yes, enslaved to the nobility. But also to most of our neighbors, who support it and vote for it and without which the slavery would be either impossible or require fangs-bared authoritarianism.
Example: Most of my neighbors support “the schools.” That is, they support robbing me to pay for the warehousing of their kids in government schools. They get angry when I ask why and how it is that other people’s decision to have sex and produce children imposes an obligation enforceable on me (and others) at gunpoint to provide schools or anything else for them.
This scales.
Millions of Americans believe they have a “right” to “health care.” That is to say, a right to make others pay for their care. Etc.
The vast majority of property taxes nationwide go to local public schools. Get rid of public schools (and their debt), we could get rid of most of the property taxes.
That’s why roads never seem to get fixed, because of school debt and the huge cost of the payroll (school districts often are a communities largest “employer”).
My own town’s school district debt is about 80 million, and the current debt won’t be fully paid until 2032! And they keep borrowing more. I have lived here since 1993, and the district for the second time is doing major renovations on the buildings. The debt from the last time is still not paid off. We are still paying for stuff from the first reno, that has been removed by the second reno……..
Of course that is what the neighbors want. They want the burdens of life to be taken by others. That’s what the nobility have always promised and then leveraged to make slaves of everyone. Look how very easily the descendants of slaves were so easily conned by the welfare state. If anyone should have known better.
The very worse thing about this other than it is basically a communistic scheme at heart is that if forces you into the allopathic medical system. The “insurance” does not cover vitamins, yoga, supplements, pure food and water or anything other than FDA approved treatments. Most of these “treatments” are toxic and cause worse problems than the ones you are trying to solve.
Myself; I am 64 years old, have not taken a prescription drug since I got out of the Navy in the 70’s ( and that was a course of antibiotics for a battle wound in Viet Nam that flared up from metal left in my leg)
Since that time I have battled and defeated prostate cancer all on my own, and do not will I ever have blood pressure or cholesterol problems or anything else. I credit that to staying away from the AMA style of “medicine” Many if not most men my age take a dozen or more prescriptions, they start with one to get you in the system then the side effects of the first and the general health degradation requires another then another in an endless cycle.
I am with you Eric, I ay the fine mainly because I do not need the hassle they can bring down on my business, I consider it a Mafia protection racket that is less costly to comply with than to fight. It is strictly a business decision on my part.
I applaud you Eric. If .1% of the American people simply said “no” this would collapse in on itself as the state has no way to enforce it against that many. Instead, sheeplike Americans take their free Lipitor and go on their way.
This is not freedom, it is merely a way to keep the sheep in line – take your flu shot or else, Sadly most Americans no longer represent or even understand the concept that American has always been known for and is liberty, independence, self-sufficiency, family values, faith and charity. The state over a period of decades had bred it out of Americans.
May their chains rest lightly.
God bless you Eric Peters. Stay the course. A small donation coming your way, I hope it helps.
Thanks, Alex!
In re health generally: I practice the same method. Granted, things can happen. I know I am not bulletproof; no one is. However, I have noticed that simple lifestyle choices seem to have a tremendous effect on one’s health and I’ve grown very suspicious of the pill-popping practices and regimens of modern medicine, which seem to be focused on masking symptoms rather than treating causes.
In any event, whether because of good luck, good genetics or good habits (or some combination) I am healthy and have no need for doctoring and thus paying for it (actually, not even that… paying for “coverage”) strikes me as a bad deal.
By way of analogy:
I stopped buying homeowner’s insurance 12 years ago because I weighed the pros and cons and found the pros very lacking. What are the odds of a total loss? They are extremely small. The odds of a tree limb falling on the roof are slightly higher – but that is something I can afford to pay out of pocket because I no longer pay for insurance, which at the time of cancellation was $1,400 annually. I have already saved nearly $17,000!
I will not be surprised if the home insurance mafia gets a law passed to make home insurance mandatory, too. Then Life insurance and gun insurance. After all, why not?
People in the main have been conditioned to be neurotically risk-averse. It is the keystone of the Safety Cult.
It is also what is bankrupting the country as well as demoralizing it and also rending whatever shreds of liberty remain to us.
Freedom is risk. The right to assume risk – and to accept the rewards as well as the costs (if any). Take away the right to take risks and you take away freedom. And, ironically, even a super max prison on lock-down, where risk-aversion is a religion…..is still not very saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaafe!
Thanks for the kind words, Alex – and the support!
If you join up with Christian Healthcare Ministries at $45 per month (Bronze) (https://www.chministries.org/programs.aspx), you’ll get catastrophic coverage (from $5k to $125k) and will then be EXEMPT from the Obamacare BS (https://www.chministries.org/affordablecareact.aspx).
http://fortune.com/2017/12/20/tax-bill-individual-mandate-obamacare/ ?
I joined https://www.libertyhealthshare.org/ (hat tip to Tom Woods for this) when I lost my job a few year ago and became a contract (W2/1099) employee so I was exempt from the “Affordable” Care Act. Dropped it when I got a job with pretty good benefits. If/when I leave this gig, I will re-join if the new place doesn’t have decent benefits.
Now if a significant amount of people would do the same, the system would collapse.
I am hoping they will – many may just because (like me) cannot afford either to be “covered” or to pay the “shared responsibility” fine…
The problem one has when getting older is once you reach the “magic” age of 65 just about every medical plan assumes you will be on Medicare and only offers supplementary coverage. I’m well beyond that age but refuse to participate in Medicare since it’s just more stolen goods taken at gunpoint from others by a motley gang of sociopathic thugs.
I have an eye on one medical sharing concern that says they don’t require Medicare participation if an older applicant has a significant religious or ethical problem with it. However the monthly contribution is pretty high (more than I can afford) and seems to be higher each time I check on it.
This is understandable since older people in general require more medical care. (Though I’m currently in very good health with no significant issues, something will go wrong at some point and sooner than with most younger people. That’s just the way life is.) The real problem is the insane cost of medical care since gunvermin involvement has short-circuited normal market forces.
“I’m well beyond that age but refuse to participate in Medicare since it’s just more stolen goods taken at gunpoint from others by a motley gang of sociopathic thugs.”
I kind of moved out of that attitude over the years. I used to despise “tax cheats”. I railed against all the socialist schemes. Now I come close to cheering on all the deadbeats and “cheats” (despite still detesting them) because I think the sooner this entire system collapses of its own weight, the better. After all, the longer it lasts, the better weapons they develop to keep us in line. Poor places like Cuba or Venezuela only have old-fashioned things like guns. We can handle guns……
Hi ARYLIOA,
For me (and your mileage may vary) it is critical to stand my ground on this business; if I were to “sign up,” I’d lose whatever credibility I have to fight this business in the way I am most able to fight it. I am not a Rambo. But I can write – and speak. My method of fighting. And for that to be effective, I cannot join them to beat them.
Eric,
I do not consider the stand-your-ground attitude on ACA to be “cheating”. It is laudable. If folks had done that when payroll withholding started, we would not be in the mess we are in now.
My comment “(despite still detesting them)” reflects that I am disgusted on the one hand that that there are people who make their living off other folks by milking the system. I pay for those deadbeats and cheats, in advance, every quarter. Yet my gut tells me that they are doing good works by pushing the ultimate collapse forward in time. It has to come, so let’s bring it on. Then maybe we can clean up the mess.
And yeah, my model year and mileage varies significantly from yours. They really can’t hurt me as long as they can you if actuaries are anywhere near correct.
My stock broker friend has told me the same thing “sign up” – despite living in a $1Million + condominium and having significant assets, but little income – he was given 0care for “free.” He has been telling me to sign up too.
Yeah, I do not consent to be “mulcted” (thank you for that addition to my mental thesaurus) and I will not hand any information over to a government that routinely tells me that I am not wanted in “their” state, city and nation.
The whole thing makes the mafia look like choir boys. I live on a block that once housed the grandson of ‘Big Paulie’ Castellano and his ostentatious mansion that saw FBI agents siting in front of it in a chromless beige Buick 24 hours a day with two agents sittin in the car reading newspapers and drinking coffee. Now, the house is surrounded by the mansions of ‘honest’ Russian medical clinic owners whose mansions make Paulie Castellano’s grandson’s look like a trailer home.
What I don’t understand is why you told the Government the truth in the first place. If, by chance, you were ever audited regarding coverage, you could make up some excuse/proof why you ticked the box saying you had insurance. If worse came to worse, you could always claim ignorance. This is what the slaves (and afterward their dark counterparts of the South) did when confronted by those whose thumbs they were living under. Defiance will get you into trouble but what can be done to someone who is just dumb?
I learned long ago, one never ever, ever, EVER tells the Government the truth – or at least the whole truth. There is less to be gained than lost.
Hi Doug,
I thought about it, probably should have… maybe this year.