On Fox News Sunday, White House chief of staff Jack Lew was repeatedly grilled on whether President Obama concedes that the health care law’s individual mandate amounts to a tax hike on the middle class.
Lew pushed back on the contention and argued that the fine for not purchasing insurance will apply to “very few” people. “This penalty says you cannot be a free-rider,” he said.
“It was set up and it was not called a tax,” Lew added. “But there are powers that Congress has and you can justify a law in multiple ways. The court took that route. It is a penalty. It was defined as a penalty in the law. And it’s something that people choose whether or not to be subject to.”
