Guilty As Charged: It Is A Tax
Except it isn’t sinister, and the only thing tricky is the math conservatives are again using to criticize their own health reform plan. In 2011, the average price for an individual plan was $2,196 per year. According to the standards of the individual mandate, individuals making less than $27,500 ($2,196 is 8% of $27,500) would be exempt from the mandate. Median individual income in 2011 was $26,364. For those of you who either don’t like statistics (most of you if you are normal), or are used to conservomath, this means that fully half of the wage earners in the United States would be exempt from the mandate.