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Rep. Bill Huizenga On Affordable Care Act Ruling: Health Care Tax Hurts Middle Class
MLive Op-Ed
Congressman Bill Huizenga
Thursday, June 28, 2012, 10:12 PM


HOLLAND, MI — In his guest column below, Rep. Bill Huizenga says the Supreme Court made one thing clear on Thursday: The individual mandate component of President Obama's health care plan is a tax.
Huizenga says the Affordable Care Act imposes a "job-killing tax increase on middle-class families."

"The bill in its entirety amounts to a disastrous experiment," writes Huizenga, a Republican representing Michigan's 2nd Congressional District, which covers much of West Michigan.


By Rep. Bill Huizenga

The United States Supreme Court handed down one of the most important decisions in its history, and one that is sure to reverberate throughout our nation's judicial and policy-making bodies for generations.

After President Obama spent much of his first term insisting that his biggest legislative priority was being mischaracterized as a "tax," the Court has decided that the individual mandate included in Obama's health care law is just that — a tax on every single American citizen.

The Congressional Budget Office has found that at least 75 percent of those affected by the mandate tax in "ObamaCare" will be hard-working middle class families making less than $250,000 per year.

President Obama campaigned on the promise that if you make less than $250,000, your taxes won't increase a single penny. In fact, in October of 2008 while speaking in Newport News Virginia, President Obama proclaimed health care "should never be purchased with tax increases on middle-class families because that is the last thing we need in an economy like this. Folks are already having a tough enough time."

Mr. President, I couldn't agree more. Unemployment has been above 8 percent for nearly your entire term in office, which begs the question: Why are you leveling a job-killing tax increase on middle-class families?

While I have consistently argued that this law would dramatically increase taxes on all Americans, I strongly believe that the author of the dissenting-opinion, Justice Anthony Kennedy, still made a compelling case for why the entire law is diametrically opposed to America's founding principles of individual liberty and limited government.

I have been philosophically opposed to President Obama's health care law since its inception, beyond simply its constitutional grounds. The bill in its entirety amounts to a disastrous experiment containing not only a tax on every American to buy health insurance, but also thousands of pages of new regulations, additional tax increases and further mandates on individuals and businesses that will only exacerbate the root cause of our current health care crisis: the cost of care.

While settling the case of whether or not the health care law is in fact one colossal tax increase, it has also opened up even more questions. For example, now that we know it is a tax, we must ask ourselves, "In a period of persistently high unemployment and such minimal economic growth, should we levy such a massive tax on the entire populace?"

I say no.

Additionally, this will forever beg the question, "Just what, if anything, can the federal government not force citizens to buy?" Based on this ruling, almost nothing.

While I am disappointed in the decision of the Supreme Court, please know that my position has not changed. In the aftermath of this landmark ruling, House Republicans will again state strong opposition to the health care law and vote again to fully repeal it on July 11.

Moving forward, we will continue to advocate addressing the cost of health care through an incremental approach of common-sense solutions that puts patients, not Washington bureaucrats, in charge of their own health care decisions and allows employers the flexibility they require to provide coverage.