Fact Check: Tim Walz Says Insurance Markets Would ‘Collapse’ Without Obamacare’s Individual Mandate (Which Was Deactivated 7 Years Ago)

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CLAIM: Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz (D) during the vice presidential debate on Tuesday defended the Obamacare individual mandate, saying that insurance plans would “collapse” without a penalty for Americans who opt out of buying health coverage.

FACT CHECK: False. The Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate was effectively repealed under former President Donald Trump, and in the past seven years, the lack of an individual mandate has not caused any market collapse.

Walz said that Republicans “fought tooth and nail” to eliminate the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) individual mandate to purchase health insurance.

Vance then asked Walz, “You think the individual mandate is a good idea?”

Walz responded, “I think the idea of making sure the risk pool is broad enough to cover everyone, that’s the only way insurance works. When it doesn’t, it collapses.”

The Trump Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, which Republicans and Trump signed in 2017, repealed the individual mandate — or, more technically, it reduced the penalty for not having insurance to $0.

Walz claimed that, without the Obamacare individual mandate, the Obamacare marketplace would collapse.

It has been over seven years since Republicans repealed the individual mandate and the Obamacare marketplace has not collapsed.

This backing of the individual mandate would appear to go against Harris’s pledge not to raise taxes on those making less than $400,000 per year.

Breitbart News’s John Nolte has noted that the Obamacare mandate soaked the middle class with its tax of $675 for not purchasing health insurance. Middle-class Americans primarily paid the Obamacare individual mandate surtax.

Nolte explained:

It works like this: If you are not covered by health insurance, if you do not buy something you are obligated by our fascist government to buy simply for the sin of being born, the federal government penalizes you with a tax of $675 for each adult in your household, plus an additional $347.50 for each child or a maximum penalty of $2085. Or… You will pay 2.5 percent of your adjusted gross income if that comes out to a higher amount than the per person penalty.

According to Forbes, the IRS reports that 6.67 million families are getting soaked by the Obamacare mandate. A full 5.3 million (or 80 percent) of those make less than $50,000 a year. Almost all of those families, 6.6 million of the 6.67 million, make less than $200,000 annually.

He added, “The average tax paid by those making less than $50,000 was $340.”