By Mitch Gurney

November 15, 2009

The other day KAW posted an article about the League of Voters article about going to jail if you don’t have health insurance:

The League of Voters made the following statement:

The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation reported that the House version of the healthcare bill specifies that those who don’t buy health insurance and do not pay the fine of about 2.5 percent of their income for failing to do so can face a penalty of up to five years in prison!

The bill describes the penalties as follows:

* Section 7203 — Misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.

* Section 7201 — Felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]

That anyone should face prison for not buying health insurance is simply incredible

I’d like to point out that “Pelosi’s” health care bill HR 3962 only goes up to Section 3205, (pg 1989 – pg 1990). The bill has a total of 1990 pages. Anyone familiar with the content in the bill would see this information as misleading since Sections 7203 and 7201 are not in the HR bill itself.

The Section 7203 and 7201 are IRS codes as explained by FactCheck.org:

“These are not sections of the House bill itself. Rather, they are sections of the current Internal Revenue Code, laying out the consequences of willful tax nonpayment. (Here’s section 7203, section 7201, and an additional section that sets a higher fine than 7201…”

Let’s take at another of their statements:

That anyone should face prison for not buying health insurance is simply incredible.

Most of the 50 states mandate drivers to have auto insurance and there are consequences for failure to comply. Do we find this so incredible? I think most of us understand the financial necessity to ourselves and others for this. 

This misinformation is also being pedaled by Patriot Update in their November 13^th email alert with this “report”:

Nancy Pelosi and 219 of her colleagues just voted to force you to buy government-mandated health insurance or go to jail.
You read that right. According to a chilling analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) , the health care “reform” bill that Speaker Pelosi rammed through the House of Representatives requires you to purchase a government-approved plan or :

Face a penalty of up to 2.5 percent of your income (collected by the IRS, of course) if you fail to maintain “acceptable health insurance coverage.”

And refusal to pay the penalty “is punishable by a fine of up to 250,000 dollars and/or imprisonment for up to five years.”

Let’s take a look at their statement:

Nancy Pelosi and 219 of her colleagues just voted to force you to buy government-mandated health insurance or go to jail

There are taxes built into the HR 3962. We all know if we evade paying taxes we could be seriously fined or even sent to jail (usually jail is the last resort)…this is an IRS regulation. But there is no specific provision in the bill that specifically states failure to have “medical insurance” will result in jail. There is a provision (Sec 501) that if you do not have medical coverage individuals could be tax 2.5% of adjusted gross income (people at or below poverty level may be exempt)

While there is some bases of truth contained in both statements as made by the Patriot and the League of Voters they are misleading and do us a huge disfavor in failing to adequately inform us with the facts so we can make a more informed and less emotionally charged decision on this issue. The potential of going to jail is a failure to comply with IRS regulations by evading paying your taxes and has nothing to do with what some people speculate Pelosi or her colleagues have in mind for any of us on a personal level.   

These statements as delivered will certainly get an emotional response from most ill-informed people who may go off half cocked rather than to first ASK; HOW SO and SHOW me the facts.

If for example the Patriot had said:

HR 3962 has taxes built into it and stipulated by IRS codes if we evade paying taxes we could be seriously fined or even sentenced to jail time.

That statement would perhaps not get much of a reaction from most of us…some might say, what else is new…paying taxes is a way of life!

Mitch Gurney

Posted on November 15th, 2009 by m_gurney
Filed under: Mitch Gurney, Tracking the Health Care Debate