The Patriot Post® · IRS — ObamaCare Evaders' New Nemesis?

The IRS was (and still is?) used by the Obama administration to target conservative-minded political opponents. So to argue it hasn’t a penny’s worth of integrity is a gross understatement — particularly because the chief antagonists have not been held accountable. Nevertheless, Democrats are now encouraging the agency “to identify and contact the millions of Americans who have refused to sign up for insurance and are instead paying the ‘individual mandate’ tax for going without coverage,” according to The Washington Times. This opens up the inevitable likelihood that uninsured Americans will face even harsher reproach for ignoring the law. For the record, Republicans warned this would happen too.

The penalty currently applies to some eight million tax filers, according to the latest statistics. That’s a relatively large group of Americans who find it more affordable to pay hundreds of dollars in penalties than to dole out thousands on subpar health care plans. The Times says, “IRS officials insisted they wouldn’t share any private information with other agencies but said they didn’t see any problems in helping sell Obamacare by sending letters to holdouts.” Yet Barack Obama once claimed the IRS contained “not even a smidgeon of corruption.” And we’re supposed to believe this health care “outreach” is solely for innocuous reasons?

Democrats will blame the uninsured for ObamaCare’s woes. But try as they will, the root causes extend well beyond that. Only a handful of the original 23 co-ops remain, and major insurers are being forced to conglomerate to stem major financial losses. Why? Because the law has systemic issues. That’s why millions of Americans can’t afford a health care plan — not the other way around. Going after taxpayers for understandably shunning a product they’re mandated to purchase isn’t going to fix that. The IRS could become yet another weapon in ObamaCare’s arsenal to punish those who don’t want to become slaves to the state.