Obamacare: Taxpayers Must Report Personal Health ID Info to IRS
When Obamacare’s individual mandate takes effect in 2014, all Americans who file income tax returns must complete an additional IRS tax form.
The new form will require disclosure of a taxpayer’s personal identifying health information in order to determine compliance with the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate.
As confirmed by IRS testimony to the tax-writing House Committee on Ways and Means, “taxpayers will file their tax returns reporting their health insurance coverage, and/or making a payment”.
So why will the Obama IRS require your personal identifying health information?
Simply put, there is no way for the IRS to enforce Obamacare’s individual mandate without such an invasive reporting scheme. Every January, health insurance companies across America will send out tax documents to each insured individual. This tax document—a copy of which will be furnished to the IRS—must contain sufficient information for taxpayers to prove that they purchased qualifying health insurance under Obamacare.
This new tax information document must, at a minimum, contain: the name and health insurance identification number of the taxpayer; the name and tax identification number of the health insurance company; the number of months the taxpayer was covered by this insurance plan; and whether or not the plan was purchased in one of Obamacare’s “exchanges.”
MORE: http://www.atr.org/obamacare-taxpayers-must-report-personal-health-a7611
February 2013:
Micro Chip Implant Coming March 23, 2013--The New Health Care (Obama care) law H.R. 3590 Also HR 4872 requires all US citizens to have the RIFD implanted. This evil plan is being launched by America. its a micro chip injected in your hand. it will contain all your personal data heath and bank accounts etc. its also a GPS device being monitored. they can deactivate it at any time if they find you suspicious or not loyal to their government or go against them or their system and you will lose everything you ever had. soon this device will be made common just like they did credit cards, turning paper money into digital money. means nothing is physically in your hand. it will be made a must for every citizen with time according to their plan and then they will spread it outside America so they can monitor and control as many people as they can and turn them into slaves with their digital technologies. This device is the future or slavery
STATES LACK DOCTORS TO MEET OBAMACARE DEMAND--As California moves to expand healthcare coverage to millions of Californians under President Obama's healthcare law, it faces a major obstacle: There aren't enough doctors to treat a crush of newly insured patients. Some lawmakers want to fill the gap by redefining who can provide healthcare. They are working on proposals that would allow physician assistants to treat more patients and nurse practitioners to set up independent practices. Pharmacists and optometrists could act as primary care providers, diagnosing and managing some chronic illnesses, such as diabetes and high-blood pressure.
Obamacare To Make Mislabeling Nutritional Facts On Food A Federal Crime, Guilty Could Face Jail Time--If the Food and Drug Administration gets its way, your trip to the grocery store could get a tad pricier. Supermarket owners argue a pending federal food-labeling rule that stems from the new health care law would overburden thousands of grocers and convenience store owners — to the tune of $1 billion in the first year alone. Store owner Tom Heinen said the industry’s profit margins already are razor thin. “When you incur a significant cost, there is no way that that doesn’t get passed on to the customer in some form,” he said.
January 2013:
IRS: Cheapest Obamacare Plan Will Be $20,000 Per Family-- In 2010 Barack Obama said insurance premiums will decrease by 3,000% so you should get a raise when Obamacare passes. The president also stated, “we can cut the average family’s premium by about $2,500 per year.” In 2012, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) went so far as to say about Obamacare, “everybody will have lower rates.” A simple question. Do any of these people have conversations with one another before they spout off with this nonsensical twaddle?
How To Avoid The Obamacare Death Trap--We are less than one year out from healthcare tyranny under the oligarchy-endorsed Obamacare. It’s very deceptive to call Obamacare socialized medicine. The law has nothing to do with healthcare. It’s just the opposite. It’s sickness care. The Nazis had their gas chambers and America has “medical care,” which is the most sophisticated killing machine that demented minds can create. Americans are mentally dependent on the “medical” brainwash. When our dumbed-down people hear the trigger word “medical care,” they go blind and hyperventilate. They do not know a scam from a sham. They will go unanimous for anything with the term “healthcare” in it.
CONTINUED: http://personalliberty.com/2013/01/28/how-to-avoid-the-obamacare-death-trap/
Obamacare Could Mean Higher Premiums for Medicaid Recipients-- The Obama administration, in hopes of persuading states to expand Medicaid coverage to more people, is proposing to allow states to make recipients pay higher co-payments and other premiums, leading to higher bills for millions of low-income people. Obamacare extended Medicaid to many people who were not eligible before, but the Supreme Court said that states would have the option, rather than be required, to expand the program to more people, the New York Times reports. The administration said state Medicaid officials could offset the costs of expansion by charging higher co-payments and fees for doctors' care, making recipients pay more for prescription drugs and non-emergency visits to emergency rooms.
THE UGLY DOWNSIDE TO SOCIALIZED MEDICINE...FEWER DOCTORS...LONGER WAITS-- More than 90 percent of its residents already had health insurance, but the state hoped to cover nearly everyone by plugging as many holes as possible in its system, short of a so-called single payer option.
What resulted was a state law that became the blueprint for the 2010 federal Affordable Care Act signed by President Barack Obama. Now, as other states begin grappling with the intricacies of the federal health care overhaul, many are looking for lessons from the largely successful Massachusetts model as well as from its limitations and remaining challenges. Officials from Wisconsin, Minnesota, Colorado, West Virginia and Rhode Island have worked with Jonathan Gruber, an MIT economics professor who helped craft both the state and federal laws, to set up their exchanges.
CHECK OUT THIS GREAT WEBSITE:
http://www.obamacaretruthsquad.com/
Health Insurance Exchanges Explained--One important component of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) is the creation of statewide “exchanges” or organizations that will oversee the sale and purchase of health insurance, mainly for people outside of the employer-sponsored insurance market. The law invites, but does not require, states to create exchanges for their residents. In December 2012, states had to decide if they would establish and manage their own exchanges, or if they would refuse. Eighteen states and the District of Columbia elected to run their own exchange. Seven states agreed to operate their exchanges as federal-state partnerships. The federal government will step in and create exchanges in the remaining 25 states. CONTINUED--FULL REPORT: http://iwf.org/publications/2790280/Health-Insurance-Exchanges-Explained
Medicaid: Obamacare Makes A Bad Program Even Bigger--“…In the aftermath of the 2012 election, it is uncertain how this process will play out, but what the states decide will play a critical role in the future of the U.S. health care system.
…More than half the governors opposing expansion predicted that the federal government would renege on the generous terms of the ACA and scale back its share of Medicaid spending. Newly elected Governor Mike Pence (R-IN) compared the expansion to “the classic gift of a baby elephant. . . . The federal government says, ‘We’ll pay for all the hay — for the first few years.’ ”
…governors expressed concern about the lack of state flexibility or their belief that Medicaid may foster dependence among beneficiaries… Others argued that Medicaid itself is the problem, calling it a “broken program”… Rick Perry (R-TX) said that adding uninsured Texans to Medicaid is “not unlike adding a thousand people to the Titanic.”
Companies Prepare for Health Law--The Affordable Care Act (ACA) seeks to reshape the health care industry to provide care for all. However, this comes at significant costs to individuals and several companies. A particular major provision that will take effect next year is likely to hurt companies around the country, says the Wall Street Journal. By January 1, 2014, employers with 50 or more workers will have to pay penalties if they don't cover full-time employees. The penalties can range from $2,000 to $3,000 per uninsured employee. However, some companies are willing to pay the penalty because of how expensive it would be to cover every full-time employee. The law will impact small businesses disproportionately since most major companies already offer their employees rich benefits that include health insurance. Small companies, or ones that are trying to grow, have little room to spend on lavish benefits for their employees. Many of the benefits they may already offer could be deemed inadequate by the new law.
BUSINESS WINS RELIEF AGAINST CONTRACEPTIVE MANDATE, BRINGING NUMBER OF INJUNCTIONS TO 10--Another business won temporary relief Thursday from the Obamacare mandate to provide contraception against its religious convictions, bringing the total number of injunctions against the mandate to 10.
Health Insurers Raise Some Rates By Double Digits--But…but.. “Affordable Care Act”? Even the NY Times is reporting on the failures of Obamacare. Health insurance companies across the country are seeking and winning double-digit increases in premiums for some customers, even though one of the biggest objectives of the Obama administration’s healthcare law was to stem the rapid rise in insurance costs for consumers.
MORE EVIDENCE OF ‘DEATH PANELS’ IN OBAMACARE--They're finally getting around to reading President Obama’s health-care legislation, and ... oh, boy! Are you ready for preferential treatment based on race, ethnicity and so-called life preferences? Here's what WND has found in largely unreported sections ...
December 2012:
ALG’s Nathan Mehrens discusses ObamaCare regulations on Fox News--Americans for Limited Government’s Nathan Mehrens appeared on Fox News to discuss the comment period on major ObamaCare regulations. The interview occurred on December 18, 2012.
HOBBY LOBBY: We Intend to Defy ObamaCare--An attorney for Hobby Lobby Stores said Thursday that the arts and crafts chain plans to defy a federal mandate requiring it to offer employees health coverage that includes access to the morning-after pill, despite risking potential fines of up to $1.3 million per day. Hobby Lobby and religious book- seller Mardel Inc., which are owned by the same conservative Christian family, are suing to block part of the federal health care law that requires employee health-care plans to provide insurance coverage for the morning-after pill and similar emergency contraception pills.
The companies claim the mandate violates the religious beliefs of their owners. They say the morning-after pill is tantamount to abortion because it can prevent a fertilized egg from becoming implanted in a woman’s womb.
Ring in the New Year with your New Healthcare Taxes-- Most of the new healthcare taxes will fall on high income earners, but the middle class and medical device industry will also take a hit. Directly impacting taxpayers is the Medicare tax hike on high income wage earners, higher taxes on investment income, lower contributions to flexible spending accounts and a higher threshold for deducting medical expenses from income tax.
Washington Times EDITORIAL: Obamacare’s costly new year, Taxpayers to start feeling law’s unhealthy effects-- The re-election of President Obama means Uncle Sam is only going to grow larger. As the New Year arrives, Americans are likely to see with their own eyes the consequence of their choice of chief executive as health care costs escalate thanks to Obamacare.
Provisions of the law that take effect in the New Year will reveal the true price tag of the president’s signature health care system in the form of five new taxes. Starting Jan. 1, a 2.3 percent medical device tax will be imposed on the miracles of modern medicine such as heart pacemakers, stents, prosthetic joints and diagnostic scanners. The levy will apply to sales, not profits, so startup firms that might be just breaking even could be pushed into the red by Obamacare. With 80 percent of medical device companies employing fewer than 50 people, the tax is a disincentive for small firms to stay in business — exactly the opposite of the effect needed to jump-start the nation’s flagging economy.
Rep. Fred Upton: States should have Medicaid flexibility--Obamacare is a seriously flawed law that makes health care coverage less affordable, costs taxpayers more than advertised and fails to deliver on most of its other grand promises. Because of the results of the presidential election and the Supreme Court’s decision last summer, repealing it during the next two years is highly unlikely. Yet there is one thing that could ameliorate some of the damage and loosen Washington’s grip on the massive new law — providing governors additional flexibility in how it’s implemented. So far, the level of cooperation the Obama administration has demonstrated to the states has been most disappointing. Moving forward, however, governors may have more leverage than they think. They can count on congressional Republicans as allies in their efforts to secure as much flexibility as possible. For a variety of reasons, including Obamacare’s basic design and the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn part of it, states will play a pivotal role in the future of the new health care law.
Five 'ObamaCare' provisions to watch in 2013-- 2013 will be a big year for President Obama's signature healthcare law. By next New Year's, almost all of the law's major provisions are scheduled to be fully in effect. And that means 2013 will represent a mad dash to get ready — both in the states and in the Health and Human Services Department. In addition to the intensive preparation for 2014, next year will see several key provisions take effect, among them some of the law's most controversial provisions, including new taxes that will hit millions of employees.
Video: Aetna CEO Says ObamaCare Could Double Health Insurance Premiums--Aetna CEO says ObamaCare could double healthcare premiums.
In 2013, Millions Of Americans Face Obamacare Tax Hikes--As part of the negotiations over the fiscal cliff, Congress and President Obama are battling over whether to raise marginal tax rates at the very top of the income ladder. Regardless of how these talks turn out, millions of Americans are already facing tax hikes thanks to Obamacare. Obamacare’s authors chose to offset about half of the trillion-dollar cost of the law through higher taxes. Since the Supreme Court upheld the law’s individual mandate and allowed states to opt out of its Medicaid expansion, though, the cost estimate has swelled to $1.76 trillion between 2012 and 2021.
COURT: FEDS PROMISED NOT TO ENFORCE 'MANDATE', 'We take the government at its word and will hold it to it'--Religious organizations and business owners who object to Obamacare’s mandate to pay for abortifacients have been handed a huge victory, with a court concluding the government already has promised it never will enforce those provisions against them. “The government … represented to the court that it would never enforce [the mandate] in its current form against the appellants or those similarly situated as regards contraceptive services,” said an order released by U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The three-judge panel said the government said there will be “a different rule for entities like the appellants … and we take that as a binding commitment.”
American Thinker: ObamaCare: Game On for Physicians--Do the "we know best" government bureaucrats who birthed ObamaCare think doctors will simply stay still in the wake of this beast… The health care fix is now set to be law. The federal government stepping into administration and provision of medical services is creating a lot of uncertainty and concern among those of us that provide health care service. We know that there are inequities, cost issues, and other problems with the current system. But there is a lot of angst involved in thinking that the government is up to the challenge of appropriating control over one sixth or more of the economy, especially when we see how government has managed what it attempts to control now. Patients suffering from illness desire accurate diagnoses in a timely fashion with the best treatment options available. The massive bureaucracy of the Affordable Care Act ensures none of this, sacrificing the above in an attempt to ratchet down costs and increase the availability of care to the uninsured...or so the law is advertised. Perusing the bill shows that it is more a bureaucracy to ensure the expansion and power of government. Nowhere has thought been given as to how we physicians can be made to feel like partners in the success of "ObamaCare." Nowhere is the patient the focus of the bill, unless you count the fantasy that care is provided "free of charge."
Religious schools claim ‘major victory’ after ruling on contraception mandate-- Two religious-affiliated colleges claimed a “major victory” Tuesday after a federal appeals court ordered the Obama administration to verify that it is revising the so-called contraception mandate in ObamaCare. The decision out of the D.C. Court of Appeals effectively reinstated a challenge that had been dismissed by lower courts. Wheaton College and Belmont Abbey College were arguing against the federal health care overhaul rule that requires employers to provide access to contraceptive care. The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, which has represented several plaintiffs challenging the rule, hailed the court decision. “The D.C. Circuit has now made it clear that government promises and press conferences are not enough to protect religious freedom,” Kyle Duncan, general counsel for the Becket Fund, said in a statement. “The court is not going to let the government slide by on non-binding promises to fix the problem down the road.” The court ruling did not overturn the contraception mandate. Rather, it effectively put the court case on hold while requiring the Obama administration to follow through on its pledge to revise the mandate as it pertains to religious-affiliated groups.
Let’s Be Honest – Medicare Is Insolvent And Doctors Soon Won’t Accept It-- Now that campaigning is finished, it is incumbent on our elected government to face up to Medicare’s problems and implement thoughtful solutions. Pretending that Medicare is financially solvent while ignoring the facts about the declining acceptance of Medicare and the future of health care access for seniors under the ACA is worse than misguided policy, it is outright dishonesty. Instead of fixating on ideological differences, the first step is to agree about the urgency of the situation, so that we can keep Medicare for the long term in a form consistent with America’s core. Regardless of the outcome of the 2012 elections, the facts about Medicare have not changed. Medicare is spiraling into bankruptcy, owing to both the demographics of America and the realities about health care. Every year for the next two decades, roughly 3 to 4 million seniors become newly eligible for Medicare as the baby boomer generation ages. Elected officials of both parties do not dispute the seriousness of the problem described in the 2012 Medicare Trustees Report, which estimated Medicare’s unfunded obligations to be almost $38 trillion and a hospital insurance trust fund that will become insolvent in 2024.
The post-election deluge of Obamacare regulations-- Despite the states’ multiple requests for answers on Obamacare implementation, from September 2012 through most of November 2012, the Obama Administration published only one Obamacare regulation. It quickly became clear that Obama was holding back on regulations to avoid any potential pre-election controversy. Many began predicting a deluge of regulations after the election. And they were right. Since November 26, 2012, nine Obamacare regulations have been published using a third of a million words on 1,148 pages. Four of those regulations deal with taxes—taxes on Medicare, health insurance policies, medical devices, and certain investment income. A fifth regulation proposes rules for health plans that want to create wellness programs for their policy holders. The remaining four have a comment period of only 30 days. That means that if you want to tell the Obama Administration what you think of them, you need to act now. At the very minimum we encourage you to protest these unusually short comment periods. Here is a brief summary of each of the four regulations:
Dominos Pizza Founder Sues Obama Admin Over HHS Mandate--The Catholic businessman who is the founder and former owner of the Domino’s Pizza chain has filed a lawsuit over the HHS mandate that forces religious employers to purchase drugs that may cause abortions for their employees. Tom Monaghan calls requiring businesses, schools and other religious places to pay for such drugs a ‘gravely immoral’ practice and filed suit late Friday in federal court for Domino’s Farms, a business development complex he owns.
Business Loses First Fight Against HHS Mandate, Battle Continues--An Illinois-based business lost its first battle in court against the HHS mandate on Friday. An Illinois federal district court denied a preliminary injunction sought by a for-profit construction business claiming that its First Amendment rights are being violated because it does not want to be forced to pay for drugs for their employees that may cause abortions.
Tenth Amendment Center: Jail Time for Enforcing Obamacare? South Carolina Bill proposes 5 years for federal agents. South Carolina joins three other states currently considering bills nullifying ObamaCare - top to bottom. The state legislatures of Maine, New Jersey, and Oklahoma have also had bills introduced aimed at stopping ObamaCare at the state border.
Obama Voters Find Their Hours Being Cut In Order To Avoid “ObamaCare Bankruptcy”-- It is the ultimate example of how you reap what you sow: Huge numbers of American workers who voted for Obama are now seeing their own jobs slashed below 30 hours a week as employers desperately try to avoid “Obamacare bankruptcy.”
Obamacare mandates for businesses only apply to those working 30 hours a week or more, and while many businesses do not want to cut workers’ hours, they are being forced to in order to stay afloat. This necessary action is causing businesses to lose money and become less competitive while at the same time destroying American jobs.
Some businesses are also slashing job positions in an effort to get below the 50-employee threshold above which Obamacare mandates kick in. So across the country, we’re not only seeing workers lose hours thanks to Obamacare; we’re also seeing workers losing their jobs. At least health care costs are dropping, right?
Big ObamaCare Setback: Little-Noticed Court Ruling Lets Church Challenges Proceed-- Here’s an encouraging update on the nationwide legal challenges to ObamaCare by religious institutions that will be forced to provide insurance coverage for such things as abortion drugs, birth control and sterilizations that violate their beliefs. This story is a week old, actually. Strangely, you haven’t seen any real coverage of this development in mainstream media, perhaps because it concerns a crucial legal setback for Barack Obama and Kathleen Sebelius in a New York federal court.
Exchanging Medicaid for Private Insurance--Converting Medicaid into block grants would allow states the flexibility in designing programs that fit their individual needs, says Devon M. Herrick, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis... The Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act (ACA), but not without striking down a provision that would refuse federal Medicaid funds to states that didn't expand their Medicaid programs. Other provisions of the ACA will give sliding-scale subsidies to low-to-middle income individuals for the purchase of private health coverage in a health insurance exchange that will be set up in each state beginning in 2014, says Devon M. Herrick, a senior fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis. The health insurance exchanges will be set up by either the state or the federal government. People that do not receive health plans through their employers or Medicaid are eligible for exchange subsidies.
Repairing ObamaCare--The Affordable Care Act is a deeply flawed law, but there are five essential changes that could fix it, says John C. Goodman, president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis... After the recent election, virtually all commentators quickly concluded that the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) is safe; Republicans are powerless to stop it. The trouble is: ObamaCare is a deeply flawed law. Here are five essential changes that could fix it, says John C. Goodman, president and CEO of the National Center for Policy Analysis, and a research fellow with the Independent Institute.
Obamascare? Blue Shield of Calif. Mulls Proposal to Boost Premiums as Much as 20 Percent--Consumer advocates are asking Blue Shield of California to not increase rates on its 300,000 customers by an average of 12 percent (effective in March) and to instead use its $3.9 billion reserves to help offset the expected costs of The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The company has proposed a maximum increase of 20 percent. Consumer advocates argue that Blue Shield is sitting on plenty of cash and, therefore, it has no reason to increase rates. “Blue Shield is sitting on a huge surplus that is beyond what is required or necessary,” Laurie Sobel, a senior attorney for Consumers Union in San Francisco, told the Los Angeles Times. “It should be used to hold down rate increases when it hits these extraordinary levels.”
Dems Ask for Delay to Obamacare Med Device Tax They Voted for in the First Place—(These people are a big joke. They just voted to tax the devices. Now they want to delay it. I quess they finally read some of the obamacare bill.)--Medical Device Tax is just one of 20 Obamacare Taxes. In a letter to Majority Leader Harry Reid, 18 Democrat senators and senators-elect have asked for “a delay in the implementation” of the Obamacare medical device tax. Like most of the significant tax increases in Obamacare, the medical device tax is scheduled to take effect on Jan. 1, 2013, conveniently after the 2012 presidential election. Each of the 18 Democrat signatories voted for or supported Obamacare in the first place. And now they want a sweetheart exemption from one of its most onerous provisions. Even in Washington DC, that shows a lot of gall. The signatories to the letter are as follows: Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.); Kay Hagan (D-N.C.); Al Franken (D-Minn.); Herb Kohl (D-Wis.); Barbara Mikulski (D-Md.); John Kerry (D-Mass.)………
SEBELIUS AWARDS OBAMACARE EXCHANGE CONTRACT TO ‘FRIEND’...Many states are wisely signaling that they aren’t interested in doing the Obama administration’s bidding on Obamacare. As a result, many if not most of Obamacare’s insurance exchanges - the heart of the beast - will have to be set up and run .
ObamaCare Increases Medical Costs…For Your Pets--Do you love fuzzy little puppies? Me too, but taking your cuddly creatures to the vet will now cost more thanks to the medical device tax in ObamaCare. Lachlan Markay over at Heritage has more: According to a rule published Friday by the Internal Revenue Service, some medical devices used in veterinary practices will be hit by Obamacare’s 2.3 percent device tax. Many of their manufacturers are expected to hike prices, meaning higher veterinary costs for the nation’s pet owners.
Deal or No Deal, ObamaCare Taxes Poised to Hit Next Month--Even if lawmakers somehow stop the Bush-era tax rates from expiring, taxes are still expected to rise on Jan. 1 — thanks to a trio of new fees tied to the federal health care overhaul. The IRS this past week published rules for some of the first major taxes meant to help pay for President Obama’s massive insurance coverage expansion. Together, they will raise investment and income taxes on top earners and impose a separate — and controversial — tax on medical devices.
The bundle of fees has been largely overlooked as lawmakers and the White House bicker over the Bush tax rates, with Republicans demanding they be extended for everyone and Obama insisting rates rise for top earners. But that same group of earners is already in the crosshairs under the ObamaCare tax rules published this week.
Starting Jan. 1, investment income for individuals earning over $200,000 and households earning over $250,000 will be subject to a new 3.8 percent tax. Further, regular income above those thresholds will be hit with a .9 percent Medicare surtax. Should the Bush tax rates expire for those workers, those increases will be compounded.
The $63 Obamacare Cost You Probably Didn’t Know About--TheBlaze has brought you the top five worst taxes that would come with Obamacare in 2013, but there’s another expense that could also to hit close to home. It’s a new, $63-per-head fee to cushion the cost of covering people with pre-existing conditions. The charge, buried in a recent regulation, works out to tens of millions of dollars for the largest companies, employers say. Most of that is likely to be passed on to workers. Employee benefits lawyer Chantel Sheaks calls it a “sleeper issue” with significant financial consequences, particularly for large employers.
“Especially at a time when we are facing economic uncertainty, [companies will] be hit with a multi-million dollar assessment without getting anything back for it,” said Sheaks, a principal at Buck Consultants, a Xerox subsidiary.
Obama’s Dirty Little Tax Secret: He’s Already Raised Taxes on the Rich (CHART)--The one glaring omission in President Obama’s fiscal cliff demands for higher rates on top earners is that he’s already raised their taxes. That’s right! When he signed Obamacare into law, he raised tax rates on families earning more than $250,000—his definition of rich. He has done so by including in the 18 separate Obamacare tax hikes an increase of the tax rates on income and investment. Obamacare raises the hospital insurance (HI) portion of the payroll tax on wage income over $250,000 from 2.9 percent to 3.8 percent. And it applies that 3.8 percent rate to investment income—capital gains and dividends—for those with incomes above that level. This is a massive policy change, since it represents the first time the payroll tax will apply to investment income. And even though this investment income HI tax would apply only to top earners, it is a dangerous step down a slippery, tax-hiking slope.
Will The Illegal “Re-writing” Of ObamaCare Never End? Chief Justice John Roberts rewrote the Affordable Care Act (ACA) in order to rescue it from the Constitution. The IRS rewrote the law in order to rescue it from financial oblivion. And the leftist scribes who authored ObamaCare claim none of this illegal, post-legislative tampering really matters. For they contend that what they wrote in the law is not as important as what they really meant! John Roberts stunned and angered “fellow” conservative justices on the Supreme Court when he deliberately ignored the actual language of the Affordable Care Act in ruling the law Constitutional. For although the law’s authors were careful to avoid any use of the word TAX, Robert’s ruled the individual mandate to be just that, allowing him to find the mandate Constitutional under the congressional power to tax. It was this dishonest interpretation of Congress’ “intent” that has permitted ObamaCare to continue on.
Mike Huckabee—Clarification--If you thought Obamacare would create jobs, boy, were you wrong. Obamacare’s critics warned that its new mandates and deep cuts in Medicare and Medicaid reimbursements would result in up to 93,000 jobs being lost in the health care field alone. Well, it’s already starting. This week, Orlando Health, a major Florida not-for-profit health care network, began cutting up to 400 jobs, the biggest cutback in its history. And we’ve already heard about the downsizing and reductions in hours at small businesses coast to coast. But at least Obamacare will create jobs in one industry: tax law. This week, the IRS issued the first of many, many Obamacare-related rules to come. They’re to clarify the new 3.8 percent tax on investment income to help fund health care. And they run for – brace yourself - 159 pages. Only the federal government could call 159 pages of gobbledygook a “clarification.”
Morning Bell: Businesses Cutting Hours, Bracing for Costs of Obamacare--It seems that every day now brings another business owner in the news talking about cutting workers’ hours or making other cost-cutting moves in anticipation of Obamacare’s impact in 2013. Here are just a few of the business owners’ comments on the health care law:
IRS Finalizes New Tax For Medical Devices Under ObamaCare--The U.S. Internal Revenue Service on Wednesday released final rules for a new tax on medical devices, products ranging from surgical sutures to knee replacement implants, that starts next year as part of President Barack Obama’s 2010 healthcare law. The 2.3-percent tax must be paid, effective after December 31, by device-makers on their gross sales. The tax is expected to raise $29 billion in government revenues through 2022.
Healthcare Absent Under Obamacare? One physician wonders if any doctors will be practicing once ObamaCare is fully implemented, and he continues to question the quality of care patients will receive. In an effort to provide comprehensive healthcare reform, Dr. G. Keith Smith, an Oklahoma-based board-certified anesthesiologist, says officials have failed to recognize human behavior. Lawmakers assume that doctors will continue to work under ObamaCare, even if they are being paid less for their services. “Whatever the exchange is between the patient and the physician, if it’s not financially mutually beneficial, then that exchange tends to not occur,” he notes.
7 things that scare your doctor with ObamaCare on the horizon--As the Affordable Care Act is in full swing, there’s a lot of apprehension and perhaps, sometimes, enthusiasm about what is truly in store for the medical profession. The last time you visited your doctor you may have noticed that he or she was more apprehensive, cautious, and yes, maybe more overwhelmed. The fact of the matter is that the health care profession is undergoing the most significant renovation to ever happened in the history of the United States. Here are many things that keep many doctors awake at night:
Study: Drug coverage to vary under health law-- A new study says basic prescription drug coverage could vary dramatically from state to state under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. That's because states get to set benefits for private health plans that will be offered starting in 2014 through new insurance exchanges. The study out Tuesday from the market analysis firm Avalere Health found that some states will require coverage of virtually all FDA-approved drugs, while others will only require coverage of about half of medications.
Consumers will still have access to essential medications, but some may not have as much choice. Connecticut, Virginia and Arizona will be among the states with the most generous coverage, while California, Minnesota and North Carolina will be among states with the most limited. (Now aren't you glad you voted for Obama and his health care plan???)
Washington Examiner Editorial: Obamacare's new tax on health insurance--"We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it," then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., famously said of Obamacare. This seems more and more like an understatement as fresh facts dribble out about President Obama's national health care law.
Now that the election is out of the way, the Obama administration is able to reveal more about its regulatory plans for implementing that law. On Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services released 373 pages of new Obamacare regs, and buried deep within is a 3.5 percent "user fee" -- that is, tax -- on premiums from health plans sold on Obamacare's soon-to-be-established federal exchanges. This tax comes above and beyond Obamacare's $100 billion excise tax on insurers.
ObamaCare Fallout: Walmart Ends Insurance For New Hires-- And so the government takeover of our health care system begins: Walmart, the nation’s largest private employer, plans to begin denying health insurance to newly hired employees who work fewer than 30 hours a week, according to a copy of the company’s policy obtained by The Huffington Post. …
Obamacare Fallout: Hospitals Will See Massive Layoffs-- Hospitals are expected to cut some 93,000 jobs in 2013 in anticipation of ObamaCare. A former presidential candidate and conservative advocate says America needs to prepare for major changes in the medical industry. Orlando Health, a not-for-profit network of community and specialty hospitals, is just one example of the massive layoffs expected in the coming year. Officials with the Central Florida-based healthcare services provider announced on Monday that the largest staff reduction in its nearly 100-year history will result in cutting up to 400 jobs, starting immediately.
ObamaCare: A Law That The Feds Never Intended To Implement By Themselves!
The signature power grab of the left may be the “law of the land” as conceded by ever-conciliatory House Speaker John Boehner, but getting the massively complex statute up and running will be far more difficult than getting it passed. When Democrats rammed ObamaCare through Congress in 2010, their intent was to literally acquire the power of life and death over the American people, not create a workable healthcare plan. And this becomes increasingly apparent as the requirements of the 2700 page behemoth are gradually made known. Those who wrote the law believed that elected officials in the 50 states would eagerly invest an untold number of taxpayer millions for the creation of ObamaCare exchanges within their borders, dramatically increase state Medicaid outlays, and permit the federal bureaucracy to legislate everything for which the state treasury would be responsible in perpetuity!
Obama Slaps Fine on Red States That Don't Comply-On Friday the Obama administration announced a heavy fine on states that do not create state health exchanges. Users of the federal health exchange will have to pay a 3.5% fine added to their insurance premiums.
Is there still a way to stop Obamacare? - FreedomWorks Takes Action--Here is a short video on ObamaCare. As states decide whether to opt in or out of the exchanges, we have the very real opportunity to block implementation.
Chuck Norris: CHOKE THE LIFE OUT OF OBAMACARE-- Now that Obama has been re-elected and Democrats control the Senate, Republicans no longer have the chance to repeal Obamacare. But all is not lost. There’s still an opportunity for America to stop this disaster by choking the life out of the federal monstrosity. Obama’s signature legislative achievement is likely headed back to the Supreme Court.
Domino’s: Obamacare Requires 34 Million Pizza Nutrition Signs-- New Obamacare regulations will force pizza chains like Domino’s to post up to 34 million nutrition signs in its stores — one for every pizza combination the company makes. The rules require fast food and grocery stores that have more than 20 stores to require labels for each product they produce. Jenny Fouracre-Petko, the legislative director for Domino’s, said mandated signs will cost Domino’s nearly $5,000 per store. Even worse, the cost will get passed down to the consumer, many of whom will never see the signs since “10 percent of pizza customers never enter a Domino’s store” because they use Domino’s exclusively as a delivery service.
November 2012:
Five New ObamaCare Taxes Coming January 1--Although some of the “fiscal cliff” taxes can be avoided through a deal made in Congress, new ObamaCare taxes are guaranteed to kick in on January 1, amounting to $268 billion tax hike. From Americans for Tax Reform:
The Obamacare Medical Device Tax – a $20 billion tax increase: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. In addition to killing small business jobs and impacting research and development budgets, this will increase the cost of your health care – making everything from pacemakers to prosthetics more expensive.
The Obamacare “Special Needs Kids Tax” – a $13 billion tax increase: The 30-35 million Americans who use a Flexible Spending Account (FSA) at work to pay for their family’s basic medical needs will face a new government cap of $2,500 (currently the accounts are unlimited under federal law, though employers are allowed to set a cap).
HOUSE COMMITTEE DISCUSSES WAYS TO PREVENT HEALTHCARE FRAUD, REPUBLICANS TARGET OBAMACARE--The government is struggling to contain fraud and waste throughout the health care system and Medicare is especially vulnerable to abuse, according to a House Energy and Commerce subcommittee hearing Wednesday. The Medicare system loses an “estimated $60 million annually” to fraud, abuse, and waste, said Health Subcommittee chairman Rep. Joe Pitts (R., Pa.) in his opening remarks. “There’s a broad spectrum of fraud that’s committed,” testified Kathleen King, health care director for the Government Accountability Office.
August 2012:
Can we stop calling ObamaCare the Affordable Care Act now? A Young America's Foundation activist forwarded an email from the Vice President for Finance at his school, Guilford College (Greensboro, NC), informing him that, "For the 2012-13 academic year, the annual cost of the student health insurance is increasing from $668 to $1,179. This insurance premium has been charged to your student account." Why the increase? "Our student health insurance policy premium has been substantially increased due to changes required by federal regulations issued on March 16, 2012 under the Affordable Care Act." Guilford College has been forced to raise their student premiums 75 percent, yet this administrator still insists on calling it the Affordable Care Act. Seems a bit ironic, to say the least.
July 2012:
Video: Brain Surgeon Confirms ObamaCare Rations Care, Has Death Panels!
A brain surgeon on the Mark Levin show confirms that Obamacare will indeed ration healthcare, and will include panels to decide whether patients (or “units,” as they are referred to) are eligible to receive critical care. The inhumanity is unbelievable.July 15, 2012:
Whoops: Obama Describes Individual Mandate as a ‘Tax’
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/obama-describes-individual-mandate-as-a-tax/
ObamaCare's First Casualty--News that the Department of Health and Human Services was promulgating a rule that would destroy about 35% of the Health Savings Account market comes as no surprise to Tea Party activists who warned everyone who would listen that ObamaCare would kill the private insurance market.
The rule known as the "Medical Loss Ratio" rule would deny private and small business issued policies from being sold on the ObamaCare health care exchanges. There are currently five million people who have small business and individual issued policies. Those policies will be ripped from their hands should the rule go into effect.
Obamacare to Cost $2.6 Trillion over First Decade--A new government report found that Obamacare will be far more expensive than the president originally promised. The Senate Budget Committee study says spending will come in at $2.6 trillion in the first full decade of the new law. President Obama said it would cost around $900 billion. The report came as the Republican-controlled House voted Wednesday to fully repeal the law, continuing the ongoing debate over the best way to overhaul America's health care system.
The President’s $8 Billion Coincidence—Obama’s Affordable Care Act is funded by taking from Medicare and Medicare Advantage Cuts! (Video—YOU MUST WATCH)
WSJ--Obamacare toll: Doctors quitting medicine.
The practice of medicine is the Obama health-care law's biggest loser.--The Affordable Care Act will damage that most crucial of all life relationships, that between an ill person and his physician. Barack Obama's assertion that we all can keep our doctors is false.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304708604577505210356532588.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEADTop
Obamacare: How Many of the President’s Promises Have Been Broken?
Yesterday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) almost called Obamacare’s individual mandate a tax, stopping mid-word to call it a “penalty”. White House Chief of Staff Jack Lew and other spokespersons echoed this talking point. This is in spite of last week’s Supreme Court ruling that deemed the mandate unconstitutional under both the Commerce Clause and the Necessary and Proper Clause, but ruled that it could stand as part of Congress’s authority to “lay and collect taxes.”
Dubbing the individual mandate a tax saved the President’s health care law, but it’s a concept that President Obama himself has strongly denied. In a 2009 interview, President Obama argued that his individual mandate was not a tax increase, stating, “I absolutely reject that notion.”
But after last week, President Obama must now admit it’s a tax or admit the mandate is unconstitutional. It’s can only be one or the other.
The mandate is in fact a tax, and it’s just one of many new taxes that hit the middle class in Obamacare. Lo and behold, another broken promise. President Obama claims that the mandate is holding people responsible, keeping with that spirit, here’s a reminder of the other promises the President and his health care law are responsible for breaking:
READ THE BROKEN PROMISES HERE!
June 2012:
COMPLETE LIST OF OBAMACARE TAXES
Taxes that took effect in 2010:
1. Excise Tax on Charitable Hospitals (Min$/immediate): $50,000 per hospital if they fail to meet new “community health assessment needs,” “financial assistance,” and “billing and collection” rules set by HHS. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,961-1,971
2. Codification of the “economic substance doctrine” (Tax hike of $4.5 billion). This provision allows the IRS to disallow completely-legal tax deductions and other legal tax-minimizing plans just because the IRS deems that the action lacks “substance” and is merely intended to reduce taxes owed. Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 108-113
3. “Black liquor” tax hike (Tax hike of $23.6 billion). This is a tax increase on a type of bio-fuel. Bill: Reconciliation Act; Page: 105
4. Tax on Innovator Drug Companies ($22.2 bil/Jan 2010): $2.3 billion annual tax on the industry imposed relative to share of sales made that year. Bill: PPACA; Page: 1,971-1,980
5. Blue Cross/Blue Shield Tax Hike ($0.4 bil/Jan 2010): The special tax deduction in current law for Blue Cross/Blue Shield companies would only be allowed if 85 percent or more of premium revenues are spent on clinical services. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,004
6. Tax on Indoor Tanning Services ($2.7 billion/July 1, 2010): New 10 percent excise tax on Americans using indoor tanning salons. Bill: PPACA; Page: 2,397-2,399
CONTINUED: http://atr.org/full-list-obamacare-tax-hikes-a6996
U.S. Supreme Coury Ruling on Obamacare
The Constitution and America were dealt an awful blow today! But there may be a silver lining in this very dark cloud! Read the following 2 articles.
Five Reasons Why the Obamacare Decision Might Not Be As Bad As You Think
Ever since the shocking ruling by the Supreme Court today that labeled Obamacare’s highly controversial individual mandate a “tax” was handed down, conservatives have been reacting with a mixture of depression and cold fury, especially toward the man who made it possible, Chief Justice John Roberts. Branded a “coward” in some corners, and a traitor by many, Roberts has been relentlessly criticized for a decision which many see as eroding the last obstacle to an overpowered government, and which certainly has the potential to do just that if the political philosophy that has so dominated the current administration continues unabated.
However, sympathetic though we are to these admittedly weighty fears of increased state power, we think one fact may have been a bit obscured by this response – this is still a decision by John Roberts. And John Roberts is still a Bush appointee, with a judicial philosophy that makes hardcore judicial liberals cringe, albeit a little less now. As such, since the decision was released, a steady drumbeat of commentary has gone up from everyone from Reason Magazine to Charles Krauthammer to Erick Erickson to George Will to even Ken Cuccinelli, one of the people who lost in the case, claiming the decision might be a sleeper victory. With a list of people like that believing they’ve secretly won, we figure we owe it to them to at least try to sum up the case for the Obamacare case being a success. Here are the top five reasons we can see why the Obamacare case might come back to haunt the Left and make the Right cheer:
CONTINUED: http://www.theblaze.com/stories/five-reasons-why-the-obamacare-decision-might-not-be-as-bad-as-you-think/
American Thinker: The Chief Justice Done Good-- Chief Justice John Roberts has handed a remarkable victory to American conservatives by threading the judicial needle with perfect precision. The initial disappointment collectively felt by Americans who had hoped for a Supreme Court ruling that would overturn Obamacare soon will be replaced, upon further reflection, by the excitement that will come with a fuller appreciation of what the Chief Justice has wrought. First, almost completely unnoticed, the Chief Justice voted with his four conservative colleagues in drawing an unprecedented red line against Washington wielding the Constitution's Commerce Clause in the future to justify federal intrusion into the personal lives of Americans. This decision will restrict American Presidents and future Congresses for a generation and more.
CONTINUED: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/the_chief_justice_done_good.html
March 2012
Video: The Whole Truth (About Obamacare from AmericanDoctors4Truth.org)Charts: ObamaCare In 5 Pictures--ObamaCare & Things the Federal Government Can’t Do – The left circle lists things ObamaCare does. The right circle lists things the federal government cannot do. The individual mandate? Both circles.
CBO: 4 million to lose employer insurance by 2016--White House Dossier A new report by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office states that by 2016, Obamacare will result in 4 million people fewer people getting health insurance coverage from their employers. The estimate is a vast increase from the CBO prediction just a year ago that 1 million would no longer obtain coverage from their employers. The estimate is a vast increase from the CBO prediction just a year ago that 1 million would no longer obtain coverage from their employers. And it raises substantial questions about the veracity of one of Obama’s key pledges in selling the health care law — that everyone who wants to keep their current health insurance plan and doctor could do it.
New CBO health law estimate shows much higher spending past first 10 years
Side Effects: Doctors Fear Obamacare--The American public doesn’t support Obamacare, and a new survey shows that doctors have an even worse opinion. No one has a better grasp on the state of the health care system than physicians, and according to the Doctors Company survey, 60 percent of them believe that Obamacare will have a negative impact on overall patient care. This survey is consistent with the findings of another doctor survey taken in October 2010, which also showed doctors’ lack of confidence in Obamacare. The survey was conducted to unveil physicians’ concerns about health care reform. The Doctors Company, which is the largest insurer of physician and surgeon medical liability in the nation, received more than 5,000 surveys, including all specialties and every region in the country. The results weren’t good for the President’s signature piece of legislation.
The 10 Terrible Provisions of Obamacare You May Not Have Heard Of Obamacare includes such a variety and volume of negative policies that it’s hard to keep track of them all. Here is a list of 10 terrible provisions that every American should be aware of:
1. It increases taxes on families earning over $250,000. [2] In 2013, the employee portion of the Medicare payroll tax will increase from 1.45 percent to 2.35 percent for families earning $250,000 or more and individuals earning $200,000 or more. The income threshold is not indexed for inflation, so more and more middle-income families will be hit by the tax hike as time goes on.2. It adds a new tax to investment income. [2] The increased payroll tax rate is also applied to high-earners’ investment income for the first time beginning in 2013. It will hit capital gains, dividends, rents, and royalties, discouraging investment and harming economic growth.
3. It puts new limitations on those with HSAs and FSAs. [3] Starting in 2012, Obamacare restricts the products that consumers may purchase with a Health Savings Account (HSA) or Flexible Savings Account (FSA)—such as over-the-counter medications—and increases the penalty for such non-qualified uses of HSAs. It also limits the amount taxpayers may deposit into an FSA to $2,500 a year in 2013.
CONTINUED: http://blog.heritage.org/2012/03/07/the-10-terrible-provisions-of-obamacare-you-may-not-have-heard-of/?utm_source=Newsletter&utm_medium=Email&utm_campaign=Heritage%2BHotsheet
JANUARY 2012:
ObamaCare Ups Premiums $1300
We Need Medicare Reform, but Not Obamacare
Obamacare Ends Traditional Medicare, but the Wrong Way: Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed that the health law protects Medicare. The truth: Obamacare makes massive changes to the program. Obamacare contains more than 160 provisions for Medicare that increase government’s control over the delivery of care, hit doctors with unsustainable payment cuts, and leave taxpayers with higher deficits.
Obamacare Continues an Outdated Model for Reform: Obamacare expands central planning and tightens price controls on providers. These recycled mechanisms have yet to show any success in driving down costs without harming patients’ access and quality of care. Even the program’s chief accountant says many Medicare providers cannot survive the cuts.
Obamacare Undermines the Doctor–Patient Relationship: On top of the severe payment cuts facing physicians that will threaten seniors’ access, the law weakens the doctor–patient relationship by linking payment not to patient outcomes but to adherence to government protocol.
FOR MUCH MORE CLICK HERE!
A cheery op-ed in a recent Washington Post by Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is titled, “The Affordable Care Act: helping Americans curb health-care costs.”She claims that ObamaCare is helping to lower health costs “in three ways: by increasing insurance-market competition, assisting those who can’t afford coverage, and tackling the underlying cost of medical care.”
The law is doing exactly the opposite. The president repeatedly promised the American people he would cut a typical family’s premium $2,500 a year before the end of his first term. But costs are rising now even faster than before the law was enacted in March 2010.
A Kaiser Family Foundation survey found that premiums for a family policy topped $15,000 a year in 2011, increasing an average of $1,300 in the last year — three times faster than the year before.
The many ObamaCare mandates to come will raise premiums even further. Health insurance is consuming a bigger share of employer budgets, pre-empting pay raises and pushing higher costs onto employees, the Kaiser survey found.
CONTINUED: http://www.conservative.org/acuf/issue-196/issue196news3
No Death Panels? They Are Here Now. When critics of Obamacare warned of death panels, the government dismissed all such talk as scaremongering. There will never be such panels. You have the government’s word. Oh yeah? Tell it to this mother.
I am going to try and tell you what happened to us on January 10, 2012, in the conference room in the Nephrology department at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
We arrived for our regular Nephrology visit with Amelia’s doctor who has seen her for the last three years. She examines Amelia and sends us for labs. I ask about the transplant and she says we have about six months to a year until she needs one. She tells us she reserved the conference room and when we get back from labs, we can meet with the transplant team and he can tell us about the transplant process.JANUARY 18, 2012: Obamacare implementation continues to grind forward--
Obamacare is likely to find its way into the national debate continuously throughout 2012 as the Supreme Court takes the constitutionality of the law up, while the regulatory mechanisms for enforcing the law continue to be put into place.
Americans for Limited Government Foundation has put together some key upcoming dates when actions will occur that impact American’s healthcare. Some will get major news media coverage, others will be ignored in the legacy media. But all of these dates represent transformative changes that will change the way the government is involved in healthcare forever.
2011:
AAPS News January 2012 - ObamaCare: More Power Means More Corruption -- Once big government reaches a critical mass, it may be impossible to turn back. It picks the winners and the losers. The elite in both parties have accepted the premises of the welfare state, central planning, and fiat currency—and in medicine, third-party payment. Being contrary to the laws of economics (human nature), these ideas are historical losers, leading always and everywhere to corruption, oppression, poverty, and death.
Beware of the “repeal and replace” mantra—the result might simply be a reshuffling of special interest groups, the temporary winners, while Americans lose their Republic.
Craig Cantoni suggests a frightening analogy: “Unfortunately, voters are now like capos in a Mafia family. Knowing that the other party, or family, is headed by a ruthless don, they feel they have no choice but to elect an even more ruthless don to protect their family from being plundered by the other family.” This has been the pattern throughout history, he notes, as republics “morphed into empires and then into theft rings.”
Republican and Industry Complicity
Republicans and Democrats, or industry (including the AMA) and government may do a lot of mutual finger-pointing, but the current system is based on bipartisan legislation and on public-private partnerships (a.k.a. fascism). These include the private fiscal intermediaries that administer the Medicare program, and the managed-care companies that use Medicaid as a cash cow.
The sustained growth rate (SGR), the prime target of multi-million dollar AMA lobbying efforts, is from a bipartisan (Clinton-Gingrich) deal. The Texas Medical Association, in ads reminiscent of Al Gore’s scary cartoons with greenhouse gas villains beating up on poor Mr. Sun, feature a little girl’s voice worrying about how Big Bad SGR Man is going to hurt her grandma (http://tinyurl.com/8x5ez4n). In the background we see mathematical formulas and the weird equation “beets + clock = wagon,” reminiscent of the logic behind the resource-based relative value scale (RB-RVS), implemented through AMA’s lucrative coding monopoly and secretive “RUC” committee.
Leading Republican Presidential contenders Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney are trying to distance themselves from ObamaCare, but both are big-idea, big-government men (“visionaries”) and have some inconvenient history. CONTINUED.
A List of Obamacare Abominations--President Obama says his health care “reform” will be good for business. Business has learned the truth. Three successful businessmen explained to me how Obamacare is a reason that unemployment stays high. Its length and complexity make businessmen wary of expanding. Mike Whalen, CEO of Heart of America Group, which runs hotels and restaurants, said that when he asked his company’s health insurance experts to summarize the impact of Obamacare, “the three of them kind of looked at each other and said, ‘We’ve gone to seminar after seminar, and, Mike, we can’t tell you.’ I think that just kind of sums up the uncertainty.” Brad Anderson, CEO of Best Buy, added that Obamacare makes it impossible to achieve even basic certainty about future personnel costs: “If I was trying to get you to fund a new business I had started and you asked me what my payroll was going to be three years from now per employee, if I went to the deepest specialist in the industry, he can’t tell me what it’s actually going to cost, let alone what I’m going to be responsible for.”
Obamacare’s MLR ‘Bomb’ Will Create Private Insurance Monopolies--My Forbes colleague Rick Ungar has caused a stir by arguing that medical loss ratio regulations contained in Obamacare have put us “on an inescapable path to a single-payer system for most Americans and thank goodness for it.” Rick’s glee at this alleged development is interesting. However, the bottom line is that Obamacare’s MLR regulations won’t deliver us a utopia of government-run single-payer health care. Instead, they will usher in a new era of private insurance monopolies and significantly drive up the cost of health insurance, things that neither liberals nor conservatives should cheer.
What is a medical loss ratio? Investors in managed care stocks have long used medical loss ratios, or MLRs to understand the economic health of insurers. Insurers collect premiums from their beneficiaries, and then spend money paying out claims for health care expenses on behalf of those beneficiaries. The medical loss ratio is the percentage of premiums paid out in health expenses. So, if an insurer has had a bad year, in which expenses were greater than premiums collected, MLR can be higher than 100 percent. On average, depending on the type of insurance, MLRs are in the range of 70 to 85 percent.
Morning Bell
"What you permit, you promote." (On good authority from DC)
Next up for implosion? The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports Act, otherwise known as the “CLASS Act,” which creates a government-run long term care insurance program too costly to sustain. At a time when entitlement programs in America have spun out of control, liberal proponents of Obamacare were pushing a new one that had no hope of staying afloat. Now, they are trying hide the fact that they were wrong as another bungling layer of Obamacare is exposed.
The per person Medicare insurance premium will increase from the present monthly fee of $96.40, rising to: $104.20 in 2012; $120.20 in 2013; And $247.00 in 2014. These are provisions incorporated in the Obamacare legislation, purposely delayed so as not to 'confuse' the 2012 re-election campaigns. Send this to all seniors that you know, so they will know who's throwing them under the bus. REMEMBER THIS IN NOVEMBER 2012 & VOTE ACCORDINGLY.
Obamacare Limits Children’s Access to Care--Last Wednesday, the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee released a grim report showing a reduction in the availability of child-only policies for parents looking to purchase health insurance for their children. They findings show that, “Of the 50 states, 17 reported that there are currently no carriers selling child-only health plans to new enrollees. Thirty-nine states indicated at least one insurance carrier exited the child-only market following enactment of the new health care laws.”
Researchers: Obamacare cost estimates hide up to $50 billion per year- Federal payments required by President Barack Obama’s health care law are being understated by as much as $50 billion per year because official budget forecasts ignore the cost of insuring many employees’ spouses and children, according to a new analysis. The result could cost the U.S. Treasury hundreds of billions of dollars during the first ten years of the new health care law’s implementation.
CATO INSTITUTE: The Individual Mandate--An Unprecedented Expansion of Federal Power-- *Before I go further, let me explain that I use the term "Obamacare" simply because people colloquially refer to it that way — probably because it's easier to say than "PPACA," "Affordable Care Act," or any other more cognate. While thought in some quarters to be pejorative, I've never understood how that is (unless said with a sneer, but by that standard anything can be pejorative). Even the leading academic supporters of Obamacare's constitutionality, such as Yale law professors Akhil Amar and Jack Balkin, use the term, as did Time magazine's managing editor Richard Stengel in his recent cover story about the Constitution. The one semi-accurate criticism I've heard is that the law was mostly written by Congress, not the White House (for which the president got plenty of heat from the left). But that just means it would be better to call it Pelosi-Reid-care, which presumably is no more or less pejorative. In any event, that ship has sailed. CONTINUED:
http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=13512
The Future of Private Health Plans under Health Reform
The new health reform law creates incentives for state and federal politicians and bureaucrats to exert direct control over the premiums of health plans. However, because health plans largely pass through costs from medical providers, artificially limiting increases in premiums cannot actually result in lower health costs. Instead, it results in reduced access to care and threatens the solvency of health plans, says John R. Graham, director of health care studies at the Pacific Research Institute.
The health reform law also introduces at least five critical uncertainties that make it difficult to estimate future medical costs accurately, and suggest that the reform law will be much more disruptive to health insurance than the Obama administration has advertised:July 21, 2011: Healthcare law may leave families with high insurance costs -- A major provision of the healthcare reform law designed to prevent businesses from dropping coverage for their workers could inadvertently leave families without access to subsidized health insurance.The problem is a huge headache for the Obama administration and Democrats, because it could leave families unable to buy affordable health insurance when the healthcare law requires that everyone be insured starting in 2014. http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/172765-healthcare-law-may-leave-families-with-high-insurance-costs
- It encourages the establishment of so-called Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs). ACOs will lead to consolidation and cartelization of medical providers, thereby increasing medical costs more than anticipated.
- Health plans must offer policies designed on a standard health plan that offers government-approved benefits. They can vary their offerings only by how much of the actuarial value of the policy is indemnified by the health plan. Even expert actuaries cannot yet agree on the actuarial value of the policy.
- The law anticipates that some Americans will receive coverage through Health Benefits Exchanges. Independent analyses, however, conclude that many millions more will be enrolled in exchanges than the federal government anticipates.
- The health reform law imposes federal control over an accounting calculation called the Medical Loss Ratio (MLR), which equals the proportion of premium that is spent on medical costs. However, there is no evidence that individuals or groups choosing health plans believe the MLR is important.
- The law, which purports to maintain a significant role for private health plans, is not the desired end-state of many of its proponents. Many proponents would prefer a so-called "single payer" government monopoly health system. It is reasonable to anticipate that as the reform law fails, these politicians will seek to shift blame and liability to the private health plans, in order to minimize their role and continue progress towards this final goal.
