NATIONAL
Denton Record-Chronicle
Justices signaling support for Muslim inmate’s beard
Obtaining a health care claim By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Millions of Americans may qualify for waivers from the most unpopular part of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. But getting that exemption could be an ordeal. Community groups are concerned about a convoluted process for waivers from the law’s tax penalty on people who remain uninsured. Not everyone is complaining, however: Tax preparation companies are flagging it as a business opportunity. The law’s requirement that Americans carry health insurance remains contentious. Waivers were designed to ease the impact. But while some exemptions seem simple, others will require math calculations. Some involve sending in the application — by mail — and supporting documents, such as copies of medical bills, police reports, obituaries, utility shutoff notices — even news articles. Consumers will have to dig up the documentation — it’s not like filing the W-2s they get from employers. Two federal agencies have roles, each with its own waivers and time schedules. Some people will apply directly to the Internal Revenue Service when they file their 2014 tax returns next year. They’ll use a new Form 8965. Others can start now and seek an exemption through HealthCare.gov. If it’s approved, they’ll get a number to put on their IRS form later on. It will all come to a head this tax-filing season. Hailed by Democrats as the fulfillment of historical aspirations for covering all Americans, the Affordable Care Act has turned out to have multiple issues. The debut of online insurance markets last fall became an embarrassment for the White House. It took two
By Mark Sherman Associated Press
WASHINGTON — Supreme Court justices appeared united Tuesday as they picked apart prison rules in Arkansas that allow full Afros and mustaches, but no beards, in a case about a Muslim inmate’s claim that his religious beliefs require that he be allowed to keep a half-inch beard. The court heard arguments in its first religious liberty case since the Hobby Lobby case bitterly divided the justices in June over whether family-owned corporations could mount religious objections to paying for women’s contraceptives under the health care overhaul. There was no such division evident in the courtroom Tuesday as several justices were openly skeptical of arguments made by a lawyer for Arkansas in defense of the state’s no-beard policy, which has no exception for religious beliefs. The state has a legitimate security interest in prohibiting beards because prisoners can hide items in them and change their appearance by shaving, Arkansas Deputy Attorney General David Curran said. Justice Samuel Alito, sounding like the prosecutor he once was, suggested a simple solution to the concealment issue: Give the inmate a comb and instruct him to comb the beard. “If there’s anything in there, if there’s a SIM card in there or a revolver or anything else you think can be hidden in a 1/2-inch beard, a tiny revolver, it’ll fall out,” Alito said to laughter. Curran agreed. “That sounds like something that could be done,” he said. Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg also elicited some agreement from the Arkansas lawyer when she said, “You have no comparable rule about hair on one’s head, where it seems more could be hidden than in the beard.”
Jay LaPrete/AP file photo
In this photo taken Oct. 2, Zach Reat, director of work support initiatives for the Ohio Association of Foodbanks, sits in an office in Columbus, Ohio. Reat's group is launching a website that will help people seek exemptions from the penalties for not having health insurance. months to get the website working reasonably well. Waivers are part of the law’s complex relationship with the tax system, an area of potential complications just starting to emerge. “The process for claiming an exemption is confusing, even for people who do this every day,” said Elizabeth Colvin of Foundation Communities, an Austin, Texas, nonprofit that provides services for lowincome people. “If you are a do-it-yourself person who is going to try it on pen and paper, all I can say is, ‘God be with you,“’ said Mark Ciaramitaro, vice president of health care services at tax giant H&R Block. At Intuit, maker of TurboTax, software engineers and tax lawyers teamed up to create “Exemption Check,” a free on-
line tool for people to see if they qualify. Charges apply later if the taxpayer files through TurboTax. “I would say that it is complex,” said Sacha Adam, Intuit’s team leader. “That is where we get excited.” The requirement that individuals carry health insurance took effect this year, alongside the law’s major coverage expansion. Although an estimated10 million people are no longer uninsured, “Obamacare” remains divisive in the congressional elections. Soon after election day, HealthCare.gov’s second open enrollment gets under way. From Nov. 15 to Feb. 15, people who don’t have access to job-based coverage can sign up for private insurance that is subsidized by tax credits. As open enrollment winds down,
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tax filing season will go into high gear, and people will start seeing the new connections between health care and taxes. Those who got too big a tax credit this year through HealthCare.gov will have their tax refunds reduced to pay it back. And those still uninsured will be scrambling to check out penalty waivers. Of the roughly 30 million to 40 million uninsured people, about 20 million are estimated to qualify for one or more exemptions. That includes people in the country illegally. The penalty is sometimes dismissed as puny, just $95. But that’s an over-simplification. The penalty is actually the greater of two numbers, $95 per person in 2014, or 1percent of household income above the threshold for filing taxes.
But here Curran added that officials have a second concern, their belief that appearance can be changed more readily by shaving a beard. “The material difference there is our professional judgment is the disguise-related component of a beard and shaving that beard is more profound than one on the head,” he said. He also addressed another question about safety, saying inmates are given tamper-resistant safety razors. The state initially claimed that an inmate at a county jail used a blade hidden in his beard to commit suicide, but later conceded that he used a razor provided by his jailers. Tuesday’s case stems from 39-year-old Gregory Holt’s claim that he has a right to grow a beard under a federal law aimed at protecting prisoners’ religious rights. The law is similar to the Religious Freedom Restoration Act that the court said in a 5-4 outcome in late June could be invoked by business owners who object to paying for contraceptives. This time around, the Obama administration, religious groups and atheists alike are supporting Holt, also known as Abdul Maalik Muhammad. More than 40 states allow inmates to keep beards. Holt is serving a life sentence for a brutal assault on his girlfriend and is being held at a maximum security prison 80 miles southeast of Little Rock. His case first came to the court’s attention when he filed a handwritten plea to the court asking it to block enforcement of Arkansas’ no-beard rule. Holt argued in court papers that his obligation to grow a beard comes from hadiths, accounts of the acts or statements of the Prophet Muhammad. In one statement attributed to the prophet, Muslims are commanded to “cut the mustaches short and leave the beard.”
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