I’m finally getting around to doing last year’s taxes. I filed for an extension because, in my vast insanity, I kept believing those Republicans who said they were going to get rid of Obamacare. Now, I’ve finally given up.
So, last night, as I was filling in all those nasty blanks, I flashed back to Glenn Beck’s new book, It IS about Islam. As a general rule, I avoid horror. But I needed content for another article in a slow local government week, and my boss had bought a copy that had been sitting here on the desk.
Anyway, I didn’t know before that conquering Islamists (Beck’s term to distinguish the radicals from the pious practitioners of Islam) give infidels the choice to convert, pay a tax, or die. It was appalling. Of course, I thought that, given the choices, I would have to die. I refuse to live a lie, and paying a tax would mean I was just a gerbil spinning in a wheel to generate energy for the voracious beast of tyranny.
And now I have this Obamacare penalty. I could convert to big-government, welfare-state Socialism; be a gerbil and pay the penalty; or – I was thinking of dying for lack of medical attention, but I’m finding out that is synonymous with paying the penalty. As we learned yesterday, along with penalty payment come out-of-pocket expenses for upcoding, overbilling, and contribution margins. It will be a miracle if I ever afford another trip to hospital.
