• Will the IRS be able to collect the #Obamacare tax?

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• To get young people to buy health insurance when it's more expensive than it already is, there must be real consequences.

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• Though the #ACA imposes a tax, the law explicitly neuters the IRS's ability to collect it.

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Generally speaking, if you owe money to the IRS, they will get it from you-with the possible exception of the ObamaCare tax.

Now that the Supreme Court has decided that ObamaCare's mandate to buy health insurance is a tax, will the IRS be able to collect it?

Generally speaking, if you owe money to the IRS, they will get it from you-with the possible exception of the ObamaCare tax. Though ObamaCare's individual mandate imposes a tax on people who do not purchase government-approved health insurance, the law explicitly neuters the IRS's ability to collect the tax.

Bizarre? Yes. And it matters. If policymakers expect uninsured young people to buy health insurance when it is even more expensive than it is today, the threat of serious consequences for not doing so must be real. Yes, the threat that the IRS might come after you if you do not do what you are told looks real at first glance. But Democratic politicians, fearing public backlash for making the mandate too intrusive, pulled its teeth.

Read the full article at the American.

Joseph Antos is the Wilson H. Taylor Scholar in Healthcare and Retirement Policy at the American Enterprise Institute, where Michael R. Strain is a research fellow.

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  Mr. Antos's research focuses on the economics of health policy-including Medicare and broader health system reform, health care financing, health insurance regulation, and the uninsured-and federal budget policy. He has written and spoken extensively on the Medicare drug benefit and has led a team of experienced independent actuaries and cost estimators in a study to evaluate various proposals to extend health coverage to the uninsured. His work on the country's budget crisis includes a detailed plan to achieve fiscal stability and economic growth developed in conjunction with AEI colleagues.  

  
  

  Joseph Antos is also a commissioner of the Maryland Health Services Cost Review Commission and a health adviser to the Congressional Budget Office.  Before joining AEI, Mr. Antos was Assistant Director for Health and Human Resources at the Congressional Budget Office.

  
  
  
  
  
  Watch Mr. Antos in an interview with Bill Erwin of the Alliance for Health Reform on "Will Health Reform Reduce the Federal Deficit?"
  
  

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• Phone: 202-862-5938
  Email: jantos@aei.org
• Assistant Info Name: Catherine Griffin
  Phone: 2028625920
  Email: catherine.griffin@aei.org

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  An empirical microeconomist, Michael R. Strain's research fits broadly within labor economics and public policy. Specifically, he has written on the causes of labor market earnings volatility, how earnings volatility varies across workers, the effects of single-sex classrooms on students' education outcomes, job loss and its effects on workers and firms, and the welfare effects of payday loans. Strain began his career in the research group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Before joining AEI, he managed the New York Census Research Data Center, a U.S. Census Bureau research facility. As an economist with the Census Bureau's Center for Economic Studies, Strain was part of the research staff of the Longitudinal Employer-Household Dynamics Program.

  
  
• Phone: 202-862-4884
  Email: michael.strain@aei.org
• Assistant Info Name: Regan Kuchan
  Phone: 202-862-5903
  Email: regan.kuchan@aei.org