SHOCK REPORT: Obamacare punishes both marriage and work with thousands of dollars in a year in penalties

PJMedia's Tom Blumer has been doing yeoman's work investigating the true economic and tax implications of Obamacare. In his latest op-ed, he illustrates several "bugs" in Obamacare: (a) it is now extremely profitable for married couples to divorce; and (b) families making as little as $46,000 a year can face instant tax penalties of $10,000 if they earn a single dollar too much.

...let’s start with the 60-year-old married couple with no children...

...If they have identical earnings totaling $65,000, which will usually net down to $50,000 or below after all income and payroll taxes, their Obamacare exchange Silver Plan premium next year with the same earnings will be $16,382, or about one-third of what used to be their take-home pay. (And they call it the “Affordable Care Act”?)

What can this couple do? Well, they could decide to earn a few thousand dollars less, which will negate the five-figure premium hit. Encouraging ordinarily willing workers to put in less effort isn’t good in any economy, but especially not this one. But if either spouse’s earnings are unpredictable or hard to precisely track, they could still “mess up” and get socked with a premium they can’t afford.

...Let’s look at the situation of a 40-year-old couple with two children. The spouses’ annual earnings are $70,000 and $23,000, respectively:

The couple’s annual unsubsidized premium while married is $11,547 (OFA’s vaunted “tax credits” disappear at $92,401 for married couples with two children). But if they divorce and shack up while giving custody of both children to the lower-earning spouse, their combined annual premiums, at $4,317, will be over $7,200 lower. That’s over $600 a month. As was the case in the previous example, the savings from divorce will gradually increase every year. Parents will be torn between doing what Western civilization has considered morally right for millennia and their children’s financial well-being as never before.

There may be contrary examples, but in all of my research..., I was unable to find a single instance where staying married led to a lower net healthcare premium compared to divorcing and living together. Clearly, many couples who are considering marriage, especially after several years of seeing formerly married couples regress to cohabiting, will look at Obamacare’s “wedding tax” and say, “Never mind.” The effect on society will be incalculable, and certainly not for the good.

I would assume that Roll Call's ludicrous hack Taegan Goddard approves.

I would assume that Roll Call's ludicrous hack Taegan Goddard thinks central planners make better decisions than individuals working in their own self-interest.

I would assume that Roll Call's ludicrous hack Taegan Goddard enjoys the pitiful cries of unions, insurers, hospitals, health systems, doctors, and small businesses who are shedding jobs, kicking people into part-time jobs, and dumping employees into ill-defined state exchanges.

I would assume that Roll Call's ludicrous hack Taegan Goddard wants the IRS enforcing the 20,000 pages of law and regulation that make up Obamacare with thousands of new pages added each month.

I would assume that Roll Call's ludicrous hack Taegan Goddard wants the federal government controlling a massive, super-secure database of every American's most confidential health data.

All of those assumptions must be true, because Roll Call's ludicrous hack Taegan Goddard is President Obama's Leni Riefenstahl.

And just what the hell is a Taegan?

The more we find out what is in this law (now that we passed it, Nancy), the more we can conclude that Obamacare is the work of the devil. It is antithetical not only to America's history and traditions, but also to Western civilization itself.


Hat tip: BadBlue News.