Obama Health Care Plan: Tax or Non-Tax Law?

Drudge Report has linked a story citing President Obama defending the Obama Health Care Mandate as a tax. Why is that headline news on the Drudge Report? Most of us saw it as a new tax, even though it wasn't defined as such.

All during the process, supporters adamantly refused to call the health care mandate a tax, although the financial auditing and penalties would be administered by the IRS. Folks not supporting the administration's health care mandate claimed it was a tax. Obama, to get the bill passed politically, was very clear that this was not a tax. He stated that the mandate would be paid for through other means. (Laughable.)

Now that the bill has passed, several states have indicated they will sue in Federal court to opt out of the mandate.

If the courts agree that this mandate is in fact a (new) tax as now being suggested by the president, then the cases will be thrown out. Actually they won't be thrown out; they won't even be heard; they will have no legal standing.

The Tax Anti-Injunction Act of 1867 says that a federal tax cannot be challenged in any court (not just state court).

The health care act of 2010 was passed politically as a non-tax mandate. Now that it has passed and some states look to opt out through lawsuits, the administration is going to define the bill as a tax. And federal tax laws cannot be challenged in court.

So, there you have it.