I don’t watch MTV’s “Jersey Shore.”
Maybe it’s because I’m from Long Island (better beaches, fewer tattoos). Maybe it’s because I’m over 50 (just). But my kids (ages 19 and 23) are fans – and so are all of their friends. So, to paraphrase, “it’s the demographic, stupid.”
A recent CMPI survey was of “Millennial” voters (18-28 years old) revealed some very strong – and often contradictory – opinions a -- particularly when it comes to issue of “universal care.”
The national public opinion poll of young voters (the result of 1001completed interviews with adults 18-28 years of age who are registered to vote) shows limited acceptance for the potential consequences of greater government control over health care.
While millennial voters report to strongly support the need for reform and the concept of “universal care,” when asked if they are willing to pay higher taxes to pay for a government-run health care system, their level of support swiftly turns in the opposite direction.
Millennial voters are strongly against government-care that results in longer wait times to see a health care provider, limits to the types of treatments and medicines they can access, and the potential for the government to interfere in the decision making and relationship between doctor and patient.
Some germane findings:
* A majority (51 percent) were not in support of any health care reforms that could raise their personal tax burden;
* Sixty-two percent said they would not support any health care reforms that could increase wait-times to see a doctor or the availability of treatments and medicines; and,
* Millennial voters were also equally unsupportive (62 percent) of health care reforms that would increase the role of the government regulation and oversight in doctor-patient decision-making.
And now we can add Snooki.
Here’s an editorial that ran in the August 7th edition of the Wall Street Journal:
Democrats Against ObamaCare
The 1099 repeal fiasco, and the Snooki tax.
This wasn't a good week for ObamaCare, with Missouri voting to repeal the law and a Virginia judge refusing to dismiss a serious Constitutional legal challenge. Unlikely as it sounds, however, the repeal movement even came to include House Democrats.
To wit, the House voted last week to repeal one ObamaCare mandate. It might have been the first part of the bill to go over the side, except Democrats rigged the vote so that it failed, even though it got a majority.
The target was an ObamaCare footnote that could wreak havoc with more than 30 million small businesses. In the name of smoking out the illusory "tax gap" of unreported business income, Democrats snuck in a requirement that companies track and submit to the IRS all business-to-business transactions exceeding $600 annually. This 1099 reporting detail received no scrutiny until the IRS's National Taxpayer Advocate Nina Olson exposed the paperwork burden, which would produce no improvement in tax compliance.
Just before the House left town for August, Dave Camp, the ranking Republican on the Ways and Means Committee, offered an amendment that would have rescinded these mandates; as a "motion to recommit," it was guaranteed an up-or-down vote.
Speaker Nancy Pelosi and wingman Sander Levin were terrified that rank-and-file Democrats would defect, so they pulled their entire bill and reintroduced it a few hours later, with the basic Camp language included. In other words, not only was the House leadership unwilling to defend the 1099 provision but it took the lead in rolling it back, if only to prevent an embarrassing floor spectacle.
One catch: The bill was put on the House suspension calendar, meaning it needed a two-thirds majority to become law. In the end, the combined bill shook out 241 to 154, with 239 Democrats voting yea. Most Republicans who favor repealing the 1099 mandate voted no because the final product also included multiple new taxes. Thus Democrats can now say they voted to repeal the 1099 burden without in fact having repealed it.
This is the first of many such moments as the public discovers ObamaCare's many buried land mines. Another example got some attention last week thanks to Nicole "Snooki" Polizzi, one of the idiot savants on MTV's "Jersey Shore." The reality star complained on air that "I don't go tanning-tanning [indoor tanning] anymore because Obama put a 10% tax on tanning, and I feel like he did that intentionally for us." If you've lost Snooki, you've lost middle America.
Democrats sprung this $2.7 billion excise tax on indoor tanning sessions in the final frantic weeks before ObamaCare passed. The 19,000 very low-margin "mom and pop" businesses that comprise the tanning industry don't have much pull in D.C.
This Snooki levy was the first direct ObamaCare tax hike to take effect—the IRS started to enforce it July 1—and like the 1099 mandate, the compliance burden is drastic. The IRS estimates that it takes 36 hours to complete Form 720, which must be filed quarterly. Tanning salons are now trying to reincorporate as gyms, health clubs or "phototherapists" that are exempt from the new tax.
Democrats write all this and more off as "unintended consequences," but tell that to the intended victims. The only way to fix ObamaCare is to get rid of it.
Please pass the sunscreen.
