SCHULTZ: Well, what we do know is that both Mitt Romney and President Obama agree that the penalty in the Affordable Care Act for deciding to be a free rider, deciding to be irresponsible and not carry health insurance coverage, which costs every American more in their overall health care costs, that that is a penalty and not a tax.
In fact, Mr. Romney's spokesperson, Eric Fehrnstrom this morning specifically said that he agreed with President Obama, this is a penalty. What would happen is that you have a lot of folks -- it's about 1 percent of Americans that choose deliberately to be irresponsible and cost us all more money by using the emergency room as their primary access point for health care.
They roll the dice and when they show up to the emergency room, we all pay for their health care costs. That's why tongue depressors are $50 and hospital paper gowns are 85 bucks. And so what the penalty says is that, you know, we're not all going to pay for your being irresponsible.
No that is not why tongue depressors are $50 in hospitals. Please kill me.