Health Insurance

Questioning Death and Taxes

woman holding pink sign with black text: "Taxes For Healthcare NOT Warfare"

While there has been some comparison of military spending versus medical costs, it seems as though many are less willing to address the issue of societal sickness caused by military spending. It needs to be named, identified, and articulated. And even fewer people refuse to stop paying for death and destruction. At a recent webinar with U.N. officials, the Vatican called for disarmament in light of the health crisis experienced as a result of the coronavirus from a humanizing perspective: “The pandemic offers us a precious opportunity… prompts us to question how much the huge military expenditures are really able to guarantee the security of individual populations, of how much these resources could and should be allocated to investments to […]

Military Budget of Little Comfort to Healthcare Workers

The most visible role of the U.S. military in the past year has been the fly overs of extremely expensive military bombers to express appreciation to healthcare workers beginning in May of 2020 and showing up at the Superbowl, typically a big advertising opportunity for the military. Even the sportscaster Joe Buck pointing out the obvious of “That’s your hard earned money and tax dollars at work!” and  questioned the amount of jet fuel used for the flyover. Health care workers sat in place of the cardboard cutouts at the Superbowl in an attempt to alleviate or distract from the tremendous toll taken on health care workers including  93% of health care workers were experiencing stress, 86% reported experiencing anxiety, […]

Tax Resistance, Self-Employment and Health Insurance

DECISIONS, DECISIONS It’s a thorny problem when the complications of obtaining health insurance intersect with the desire to remain a nonfiling tax resister. This is exactly where I found myself when my luck ran out on the premium tax credit. As a self-employed freelancer, I have to purchase my own health insurance. For the past few years I was able to prove to the state’s insurance marketplace that my income was low enough to qualify by sending copies of my properly filled out but not filed tax forms. I knew it was a risky move when I started, and after the first year I thought I was in the clear. But now they’ve caught up with me and it’s not […]

Tax Overhaul – First Look for WTRs

How will the new tax bill affect war tax resisters (WTRs)? This is something we will all be learning by experience in the next couple years. One thing that is clear: the IRS is pretty overwhelmed by all the new work and continued budget cuts. That makes it harder for them to enforce collection (although personally, since I resist as a protest, I’d just as soon not be totally ignored). So, for a first look, here are a few things that come to mind: If you don’t file, you probably get to ignore the whole thing, at least as far as tax details and forms go, unless you’re a wage employee (see below). You might not ignore the fact that […]

Health Care, Inheritance, and Miscellaneous Questions

Recent questions to the war tax resistance hotline (aka, the NWTRCC office, 800-269-7464) have been about inheritance and health care. It just so happens that we have updated the booklet in our Practical War Tax Resistance Series that deals with these topics. Look for #7, Health Care and Income Security for War Tax Resisters. As anyone who has applied knows, the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) has not made shopping for health insurance easy for those of us not covered by an employer, Medicare, or other plan. In addition, what makes it hard to counsel war tax resisters is that the options vary from state to state. Luckily we do have a network of counselors and contacts who can be called […]

Update on the Affordable Care Act as War Tax Redirection

by Robert Randall Note: This is a follow-up to Robert’s previous post from June 2014. Having now had a chance to further experience the Affordable Care Act (ACA, often called Obamacare) and see how it really works tax-wise, I wish to both correct some errors in my previous post and further expand on its potential usefulness as a way to redirect federal income taxes from war to something less awful. A reminder: this information is only relevant to you if you are eligible to receive assistance from the feds in obtaining health insurance or if, as a war tax resistance contact or counselor, you would like to be knowledgeable about and assist others in achieving clarity concerning this new way […]

Affordable Care Act As War Tax Redirection

(This article appeared in the June/July 2014 edition of More than a Paycheck, NWTRCC’s bimonthly newsletter, but several links have been added.) By Robert G. Randall II Several of you have written about your own experiences with the Affordable Care Act (ACA, I call it Obamasurance rather than Obamacare, because, other than the free preventive care included in each policy, it really is not care; it’s only an opportunity to wrestle with an insurance company over who will pay for what care; that’s better than nothing, but we all know that real care will only come with some kind of single-payer or socialized medical system.) Because my wife and I have had a good experience with ACA, I think I […]

The Health Care Conundrum

Within the war tax resistance network we’ve been following Obamacare for a while, but a tax day article in the New York Times added to my own concerns/suspicions/disgust about the new health care law, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), commonly known at Obamacare. The article, “Tax Preparers’ New Role: Health-Coverage Advisers,” makes obvious the connection that war tax resisters have been concerned about: the central role of the IRS. Provisions of the law such as the requirement to have health coverage and the management of the subsidies are written into the tax code. Next year’s tax forms will have new lines to track this information. Now it’s not “death and taxes” but “health and taxes,” among other issues. “It’s a […]