Obama Administration Now Arguing Insurance Mandate is a Tax

So much for 'penalty, not a tax'. It appears they fear the challenges have serious merit; something I believe and have been talking about. Head over to http://volokh.com/2010/07/18/so-much-for-frivolous-commerce-clause-challenge-to-individual-mandate for some analysis of the pitfalls of this new argument.

http://www.nytimes.com/2010/07/18/health/policy/18health.html

"When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government’s “power to lay and collect taxes.”

And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce.

Administration officials say the tax argument is a linchpin of their legal case in defense of the health care overhaul and its individual mandate, now being challenged in court by more than 20 states and several private organizations.
...
In a brief defending the law, the Justice Department says the requirement for people to carry insurance or pay the penalty is “a valid exercise” of Congress’s power to impose taxes.

Congress can use its taxing power “even for purposes that would exceed its powers under other provisions” of the Constitution, the department said. For more than a century, it added, the Supreme Court has held that Congress can tax activities that it could not reach by using its power to regulate commerce.

While Congress was working on the health care legislation, Mr. Obama refused to accept the argument that a mandate to buy insurance, enforced by financial penalties, was equivalent to a tax."