WASHINGTON • President Barack Obama's health care law owes its survival to the Supreme Court's finding that the act's individual mandate is a tax, and therefore constitutional.
But while the White House cheered the ruling, the administration is assiduously avoiding the word "tax."
White House chief of staff Jack Lew, appearing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," sought to characterize the mandate as a penalty, not a tax.
"For Americans who buy health insurance or who can't afford it and get it through a government program, there is no penalty," Lew said. "It covers 99 percent of the American people. In Massachusetts where they had a plan like this under Gov. Romney, 1 percent did not take insurance, and they paid the penalty."
"Let's be clear about who that 1 percent is," Lew said. "Those are people who can afford health insurance who choose not to buy it and then, when they get sick, they go to the hospital and the costs gets spread amongst all the people paying for insurance. So the law set it up as a penalty for people who make that choice. The court found it constitutional. Frankly, what you call it is not the issue."
Lew would not budge from calling the mandate a penalty, despite Chief Justice John Roberts' description of the mandate as a tax.
But while the White House cheered the ruling, the administration is assiduously avoiding the word "tax."
White House chief of staff Jack Lew, appearing Sunday on ABC's "This Week," sought to characterize the mandate as a penalty, not a tax.
"For Americans who buy health insurance or who can't afford it and get it through a government program, there is no penalty," Lew said. "It covers 99 percent of the American people. In Massachusetts where they had a plan like this under Gov. Romney, 1 percent did not take insurance, and they paid the penalty."
"Let's be clear about who that 1 percent is," Lew said. "Those are people who can afford health insurance who choose not to buy it and then, when they get sick, they go to the hospital and the costs gets spread amongst all the people paying for insurance. So the law set it up as a penalty for people who make that choice. The court found it constitutional. Frankly, what you call it is not the issue."
Lew would not budge from calling the mandate a penalty, despite Chief Justice John Roberts' description of the mandate as a tax.