Health Insurance Mandate a Tax after all, who knew?!

Not forgetting that people are not guaranteed to keep their health insurance per the President's foolish promise, the New York Times reports that the Obama administration will defend the ObamaCare mandates as part of its power to tax, despite Barack Obama’s contentious debate with George Stephanopoulos when Obama denied it was a tax at all:

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.

Remember when asked about the mandate, President Obama's response:



That is exactly what the mandates do — regulate individual behavior in an area where the federal government has no jurisdiction and punish those who don’t exhibit favored choices, in this case buying comprehensive health insurance regardless of whether it makes sense for anyone. This court will almost certainly take a dim view of the same attempt that the 1922 court struck down as a gross overreach by the government.