Once upon a time, not that long ago - like Just Last Week - Fox's Eric Bolling was going tit-for-tat back and forth with Jon Stewart over the issue of "rampant" Food Stamp Fraud and Abuse.
Stewart : Food Stamps are used for Food. It's a fact you can remember with this little pneumonic I used. F.O.O.D. It stands for "Food Stamps Can Only be used for Food. Oh Oh. Dummy."
Bolling: Well let me School you Mr. Stewart, a lot of clowns are withdrawing cash from their EBT Cards and then spending it on other things like Booze, Weed and Lap Dances. You're welcome to come on the show anytime to debate it. Dummy.
See there how Bolling really hate, Hate,
Hates the idea of people taking unfair advantage of the system, particularly using Tax-Payer Money, for their own personal benefit? Their buying "
Lap Dances with E.B.T. Cards." Yeah, it's not like the Lap Dancer, who more often than not has a young father-less child to feed, is taking her lap dance money and buying
Food for her Kid with it. (Ahem, uh, It's not like I know any lap dancers personally, ok, well, not a that many... just the ones my ex-boss used to date- but I digress...)
Today apparently, Mr. Bolling has a completely different view on just how young people should go out and game the system to their financial advantage, cuz, why not?
“What does the president think of young people?” Hoenig asked. “That they’re knuckleheads, that they don’t know a good deal, that they’re idiots. In fact, almost 90 percent of young people find it’s cheaper not to sign up for Obamacare and take the penalty, and of course, none of it has anything to do with free markets or a free society.”
“Fiscally speaking,” Bolling replied, “young people probably should take the penalty.”
Wow. Just wow, that moral flip-flop was just a blur.
So for Eric Bolling if you take your Food Stamps and go out and buy, like, Steak - you. are. a. bad. person. If you buy fresh seafood? You are a low-down sonavabitch!. If you qualify for General Assistance and you recieve cash benefits that allow you to buy like - a Hooker - or a Stereo - or Weed?
God. DAMN. You!
Because clearly, you only care about yourself and not any of the hard working tax payers who provided the Toil and Sacrifice that made your benefits possible.
That's Our Money, ya Bastich!
But on the other hand...
If you can GET AWAY WITH A DEAL by going without actual Health Insurance and instead play the fun and exciting game of Emergency Room Roulette tm.. well, why the fuck NOT?
Just go for the Liberty Tax, like your good pal and friend Matt the Drudge who was so, so Proud that he did - and boy did he Save, Save, Save!.
Or not.
https://www.healthcare.gov/...
If your single person household income is below $10,150 then you pay No Penalty. How you can have a single person Household for that amount, I have no fracking idea - but if you do, Eric Bolling thinks you should Go For Broke because if you get sick - YOU WILL BE.
Broke that is.
If your single person household income is only $19,650 - then your penalty is only $95. Which seems like a great deal, except a person in that income range would also be eligible for Medicaid WHICH IS FREE. So yeah, sure, not having any coverage where anything that happens to you has to be paid for out of your own pocket and also paying a fine on top of that is better than - um - "Free". Uh, sorta.
If you earn more than that, the penalty is based on 1% of your income minus $10,150. So if you earn $30,000 it would be (($30k - $10.15k) * 1%) or a mere low low blue Light Special cost of only $198.50 per year. This would increase by $25 for each $10,000 of income, which continues until you max out at the national yearly-average for a bronze plan which is currently $3,152 (without subsidies), making that the applicable penalty if you're 30-40 years old and earn more than $325,000 per year.
So sure, 90% of young people won't pay the maximum penalty because 90% of young people aren't in the top 5% of wage earners. But then again, if they are 26 years-old or younger, they're getting healthcare through their parents plan - so the expectation here is that once they turn 27, they'll just learn to live without insurance and take their chances while paying a measly $95-$3,152 per person TAX penalty depending on their income and age, plus the cost of any REAL care they might actually wind up needing, isn't completely unbelievable.
It's kinda thick-as-a-brick dumb, since a person that young and making that little in the right state just might be able to get subsidies for a plan on the exchange for as LITTLE as that penalty, or even LESS, but not unbelievable.
But that's not all, Bolling was actually correct - for once - that the Penalty will go up in future years.
The penalty increases every year. In 2015 it’s 2% of income or $325 per person. In 2016 and later years it’s 2.5% of income or $695 per person. After that it's adjusted for inflation.
Hm, that "Deal" is just looking worse and worse as time, and the rate of inflation, goes on.
So sure, if you're over 26 and not eligible for Medicaid and not making too much money overall, going without insurance and only paying the tax penalty is a "deal" for you for the first year, as long as nothing at all ever happens to you, you won't face the situation of going Bankrupt from a traumatic Emergency Room visit for, like, a surfing accident with a sharp reef, shark attack, sky diving mishap, snow-boarding crash, skate-boarding with rusty trucks, bungie-jump gone wrong, bad oyster, sour ecstasy, broken roller-coaster, badly cut meth, Tosh.0 Video Stunt that came out sideways, have a BABY, surprise mosh pit in the center of the rave, any half of the shit that went down in those "Final Destination" Movies, have your baby GET SICK, a vicious sorority hair-pulling/5" heel kicking match, or a bachelor party in Vegas with a surprisingly dead-hooker ("Hey, who put that there and why is my pee pee turning green with spots?"), let alone having the sorority girlfriend find out about the Vegas trip (Oh, Shizn#T!) - then, sure, GO. TO. TOWN if you happen to be believe in the idea that 90% of young people should be taxed to pay for those damn middle-elderly Freeloaders who are just binging on that free "Healthcare Steak and Seafood".
Y'know people like Cancer Patients, and Heart Patients and stuff. Bollling this week believes that most young people Should BE TAXED to pay for those selfish-S.O.B.'s who spent their entirely lives guzzling Salt, and Steak, and Shrimp, and Kristal and now need a Heart and a Liver and Spleen transplant.
I mean, who ELSE is gonna pay for it? Obviously that means YOU Junior so get cracking.
Plus you get a "Deal" on it (as long as you ignore the fine-print about possibly going into debt for several lifetimes - which is again, the "fun" part!)? Whose gonna say "No" to that?
That is unless the Eric Bolling from this week happens to meet the Eric Bolling from last week - and after the Time-Space-Continuum upchucks a Golino from the ensuing Quantum Paradox Vortex - clearly Eric of last week will emerge from the Amok Time Death Pit/Cage Match to change his mind back again to thinking that those bloody Health Stamp Recipients on the Exchange, Medicare & Medicaid need to go on a serous crash diet. No. More. Free. Cancer, Screenings. For. You!
Or something else, if different orders come down from Roger Ailes Office on the new Conservative I-Hate-Obama "Meme of the Day".
Yeah, something like that.
Vyan