Just a day after the Supreme Court’s Obamacare decision relying on the federal government’s taxing power, an Obama campaign surrogate, Massachusetts governor Deval Patrick, still adamantly insists that the individual mandate will not impose a tax. Politico reports:
“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.”
The Supreme Court upheld the entirety of the health care law Thursday on narrow grounds, declaring that the individual mandate was legal under Congress’ taxing powers. . . .
The White House has repeatedly insisted that the mandate is not a tax, with President Obama telling ABC in 2009 that he rejected that notion.