Thread: The Future of Obamacare

Obama pressures Rick Perry to expand Medicaid


Posted by Michael Becker on Jul 5, 2014







The White House is on the war path about the 23 states who refused to expand their Medicaid programs, Texas being the most prominent. The Medicaid expansion was part of the ObamaCare bitter pill and 27 states swallowed it. Basically, the deal is that if the states expanded their Medicaid programs by making it easier to qualify the Feds would pick up the whole cost of the expansion. For five years. Then the states are on the hook.
Medicaid provides medical insurance to low income people and the rationale is that without Medicaid they would be using emergency rooms that are dramatically more expensive than regular care.
Here’s what the President had to say about states, again, specifically Texas, who refused Medicaid expansion.

President Obama’s Council of Economic Advisors released a report called “Missed Opportunities: The Consequences of State Decisions Not to Expand Medicaid.” It said, “One direct consequence of States’ decisions not to expand Medicaid is that millions of their uninsured citizens will not experience the improved access to health care, greater financial security, and better health outcomes that come with insurance coverage.”
The report asserted that if the federal healthcare program were expanded, 171,800 Texans would be able to afford their medical bills.

Needless to say, Texans don’t agree with the report.

Texas Governor Rick Perry’s press secretary, Lucy Nash, told Breitbart Texas, “Medicaid is a broken system that already consumes more than a quarter of our state budget. Accepting President Obama’s Medicare expansion would only increase the amount that Texas would have to pay for a system that the President himself has said is broken. It would be irresponsible to continue to pump billions more taxpayer dollars into aprogram that we know is fundamentally broken.”
[...]
“If anyone was in doubt, we in Texas have no intention to implement so-called state exchanges or to expand Medicaid under Obamacare,” Perry said in July 2012. “I will not be party to socializing healthcare and bankrupting my state in direct contradiction to our Constitution and our founding principles of limited government.”

Perry’s plan has worked out quite well for Texans. They are single largest job creator among Obama’s 57 states. No state is even close, especially California where they happily expanded Medicaid and where many of the new Texas jobs are coming from. As a matter of fact, Medicaid in Texas has not only not expanded, it’s reducing it’s numbers, down by 0.04% since ObamaCare passed the Congress with only Democrat votes.
The more interesting thing is the actual impact of Medicaid. A study was done in Oregon that looked at one of the key assumptions of Medicaid, emergency room usage. Here’s what President Obama had to say about that subject.

[T]hose of us with health insurance are also paying a hidden and growing tax for those without it — about $1,000 per year that pays for somebody else’s emergency room and charitable care…If there are affordable options and people still don’t sign up for health insurance, it means we pay for these people’s expensive emergency room visits.

- President Barack Obama, September 9, 2009

The final bill [will] make sure that people are getting the care they need and the checkups they need and the screenings they need before they get sick — which will save all of us money and reduce pressures on emergency rooms all across the country.

- President Barack Obama, December 15, 2009

You can’t get those savings if those people are still going to the emergency room.

- President Barack Obama, March 3, 2010

Oregon studied emergency room usage, and here’s what they found:

A landmark study called the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment has found that contrary to the president’s assurances (see above), expanding health insurance to low-income households does not decrease their use of emergency rooms. Results from that experiment, published today in the journal Science, show expanding Medicaid to cover these households instead increases their emergency-room use by a sizable 40 percent.
[...]
The Oregon Health Insurance Experiment is the gold standard among studies on the effects of health insurance. It followed thousands of Oregon low-income adults who had been randomly assigned to receive either Medicaid or no health insurance coverage, and measured the differences between the two groups. Such random assignment allows researchers to isolate the effects of Medicaid without interference from potentially confounding variables present in other studies.
Writing in Science, the Oregon Health Insurance Experiment researchers found that Medicaid did increase the use of preventive and primary-care services, but emergency-room use rose as well.

In other words, “if you like your doctor…” The study actually shows that emergency room usage didn’t just go up a little, it went up by 40%. “If you like your health plan…”
Candidate Barack Obama promised us the “most transparent” administration in history. He’s delivered on that promise, the Obama administration is the most transparent bunch of liars since Baghdad Bob.


Read more at http://joeforamerica.com/2014/07/oba...SG5D8s9ujjV.99

Wednesday, 16 July 2014 15:55
House Slashes IRS Enforcement Budget Almost 25 Percent

Written by Bob Adelmann



Earlier this week the House of Representatives took up the Financial Services and General Government Appropriations Act to fund the government for the next 12 months. In the process it took advantage of the opportunity to savage the IRS by cutting its funding severely, specifically its enforcement budget dedicated to “assisting” taxpayers to stay in compliance with its 74,000-page tax code.

Thanks to Lois Lerner (former director of the Exempt Organizations Unit of the IRS and potential future inhabitant of a federal penitentiary for her role in ordering the illegal scrutinizing and delaying of conservative groups’ applications for tax-exempt status and then covering up those orders by conveniently losing potentially incriminating e-mails), members of the House had a field day piling on amendments to the bill. Along the way they relieved themselves of some of the frustrations they have felt as the IRS has rebuffed and stalled them during various House committee investigations into those matters.

To start with, the House Appropriations Committee passed the initial bill, cutting some $340 million from the budget of the IRS compared to last year. When that bill hit the floor, however, the emotions hit the fan. The first bid to open came from Rep. Paul Gosar (R-Ariz.), who offered to cut $350 million from the $5-billion enforcement budget of the IRS. He declared, "The use of a government agency to harass, intimidate, and threaten lawful, honest citizens [is] the worst form of authoritarianism."

When it passed overwhelmingly by voice vote, Gosar exulted: "I am ecstatic that the House of Representatives supported my efforts today to pass a vitally important amendment which will save hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars."

Rep. Bill Huizenga (R-Mich.) upped the ante by proposing to cut another $780 million from that same enforcement budget. He added:
The IRS has been targeting American taxpayers, as we’ve learned, for their political beliefs for the last four or five years. During this period, a culture of shading the truth was fostered and developed by directors [such as Lerner] and administrators throughout the IRS.

That proposal also passed overwhelmingly by voice vote. Once those first olives were out of the bottle, the others came more easily. Amendments from Reps. Bill Posey (R-Fla.) and Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) to make further cuts passed by voice vote. When the bidding ended late Monday night, a total of $1.144 billion had been cut from the agency’s $5-billion enforcement budget — a slash approaching 25 percent.

There were protesters, of course, but their plaints were modest and flimsy. The Democratic floor leader favoring the bill (before the amendments, that is), Rep. Jose Serrano (D-N.Y.), didn’t oppose the motion to call for a voice vote on the amendments, but insisted that "the answer is not to cut the IRS to bare bones.… The deficit will continue to grow because we won’t be able to do the proper collecting of tax dollars in this country."

The Huffington Post predictably chimed in as well, with its complaints that the House cuts will reduce further the number of IRS employees enforcing its labyrinthine laws. Wrote HuffPo:
The IRS has about 10,400 (11 percent) fewer employees than in 2010, even as its workload has grown. For instance, the number of individual income tax returns has grown by an average of 1.5 million each year over the past decade.

Many of those former employees used to be in the enforcement division, too, complained the Post, and so there will be fewer audits, and thus, less money mulcted from taxpayers:
The number of IRS staff devoted to enforcing tax laws has dropped by 15 percent since 2010. As a result the IRS is conducting fewer audits. The annual audit rate for individual taxpayers is now below 1 percent, the lowest since 2006, and revenue collected through IRS enforcement actions has fallen by more than $4 billion over the past four years.

Weakening IRS enforcement ultimately hurts the entire budget.

The left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) issued a report in late June explaining in detail why the IRS needed more money rather than less. It listed the reasons, and then expanded on each of them. Here’s a summary:

• Even with full funding per the Obama administration’s proposed budget, the IRS would still be below the level it enjoyed back in 2010. After adjusting for inflation, full funding would be more than 7 percent below where it was five years ago.
• The IRS has already been forced to cut back training for its existing employees.
• Its computer system is very old, so old in some cases that Microsoft isn’t supporting the software that’s on them.
• The IRS plays “a crucial role," according to the CBPP, “helping taxpayers comply with the tax code and ensuring that the nation’s tax laws are enforced fairly and credibly.” Nothing was mentioned in the report about Lerner’s contribution to that effort.
• It’s profitable to hire more enforcement people because the return on investment is so great: for every $1 spent in enforcement, the IRS is able to squeeze $6 out of the unfortunate taxpayer caught in its web.
• Cuts to enforcement result in increases in the deficit.
• Without additional funding, efforts by the IRS to match 1099s with individual tax returns “to help track down underreported income” will be stalled. And its plans to replace its outmoded “Return Review Program” with its fancy new and costly “Electronic Fraud Detection System” designed to search for and seek out “fraudulent” returns will also be delayed.
• Without additional funding the IRS will not be able to handle effectively the additional responsibilities piled onto it by ObamaCare and FATCA. The passage of FATCA has already resulted in more than 77,000 financial institutions in 70 countries around the world now acting as de facto data collection centers for the IRS. (The details on FATCA and its impact can be found at The New American here.)
  

In its plea for more funding for the IRS rather than less, the CBPP concluded:
Collecting taxes is one of government’s most essential functions, yet budget cuts in recent years have made it harder for the IRS to enforce tax laws, and the ACA and FATCA have added to the agency’s responsibilities.

Policymakers should give the IRS sufficient resources to carry out its mission.

Thanks to Lois Lerner, however, the House has overwhelming cut the enforcement budget of the IRS. The matter now goes to the Senate, where Democrats are no doubt waiting to restore much of the agency’s funding. If the Senate fails to do so, the president has promised to veto the bill as it stands, putting the matter right back where it was on Monday morning before the bidding opened. So this is the first inning of a nine-inning game, with the final score indeterminate. What’s likely, however, is that the IRS will have to muddle through the best it can with less funding — perhaps significantly less — than it had last year.

Thanks to Lois Lerner, that disingenuous loser of e-mails and enforcer of illegal scrutiny of conservative groups, audit ratios are likely to diminish further, enforcement will suffer, and compliance with ACA and FATCA will be delayed.

These are all unblemished advantages to the beleaguered taxpayer, are they not?

A graduate of Cornell University and a former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at www.LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at .'; document.write(''); document.write(addy_text23829); document.write('<\/a>'); //-->\n


http://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews...7660-287785873


Could this also mean the end of Obamacare too????

#Allergies

Amish children are remarkably immune to allergies! http://www.naturalnews.com/046055_na...iry_farms.html

DOCTOR'S ORDERS

Top lawmakers: 'Beginning of end' for Obamacare

Court gives conservatives fresh hope and new ammo

Published: 20 hours ago





WASHINGTON – Conservatives appeared to smell blood in the water after a big ruling by a federal court against Obamacare, and they unleashed a fresh torrent of scathing indictments of the beleaguered law.


Liberty Counsel Founder and Chairman Mat Staver said the adverse ruling exposed Obamacare as a “bureaucratic nightmare” that “has been a disaster since Day 1,” and it is clear “Americans do not want this socialistic-driven agenda.”
Obamacare actually scored both a win and a loss Tuesday, with two federal appeals courts reaching opposite conclusions after looking at one set of facts.
But that makes the glass half-full for many conservatives, and a cause for celebration, because the contrary rulings mean the health-care law is now almost certain to go to the Supreme Court for another big showdown.
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., zeroed in on the significance of the discrepancy, saying, “The very fact that we could have two contradictory outcomes on the same day is testament to how overly complicated and convoluted the Obamacare law is.”
Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn.

Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., also saw the divided opinion as a sign the law cannot stand, saying the conflicting rulings “reaffirm my belief that this law ultimately will fall apart.”
As do many conservatives, Rubio believes the law is doomed because it “was poorly conceived, poorly written, and has been poorly executed by an Obama administration that believes it can just make up and change the rules as it goes.”
The stage was set today when, first, a federal appeals court in Washington, D.C., ruled that the federal government can give subsidies only to people enrolled in the state run health-care exchanges, not the federal health-care exchanges.
Just hour later, the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia, came to the opposite conclusion, ruling the subsides are legal.
A full 4.7 million of the 8 million people the administration claims have signed up for Obamacare are using the federal exchange and receiving billions in subsidies. But the appeals court ruling wouldn’t just affect them; it would also prevent tens of millions from being able to afford Obamacare under the employer mandate when it kicks in at the end of this year.
Bachmann called it a “bombshell day for Obamacare” because the appeals court ruling showed it was “written by a lawless president for politically desired outcomes,” and she expressed hope that the day would mark “the beginning of the end of this unworkable, unaffordable law.”
Also calling the law unworkable, Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C., said the ruling was “a clear reminder of why legislation should never be shoved through Congress without input from both parties and a clear understanding of what exactly is in the bill.”
Rep. Marsha Blackburn, R-Tenn., said, “With today’s rulings the courts have dealt yet another blow to Obamacare – this time relating to federal subsidies. The Obama administration’s double-speak on enforcing this law might finally be coming to an end. This law is coming apart at the seams. The D.C. Circuit Court was clear in its determination that the IRS rule making went beyond their authority and it is looking more and more like this will go to the Supreme Court, where we believe that opinion will prevail.”
Rep. Mark Meadows, R-N.C.

A broad front of GOP lawmakers, from the House to the Senate, focused like a laser on what they saw as the law’s shoddy design.
“Democrats did an awful job writing this law – and have done an even worse job implementing it … The court rightfully refused to allow the president to continue ignoring and redefining his signature law,” opined Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyo.
He added, “The president and Democrats in Congress have no one but themselves to blame for the ongoing legal implications of their decision to force this unpopular and unworkable law upon the American people. ”
The D.C. Appeals Court did “exactly what our judicial system is meant to do,” according to Rep. Paul Gosar, R-Ariz, because, “Their ruling highlights the sloppy drafting that went into crafting the law.
“The Obamacare ‘death spiral’ will continue to get worse until this law is replaced with a free-market, patient centered health care system free of government overreach,” he added.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, was thrilled, calling the decision “a repudiation of Obamacare and all the lawlessness that has come with it.”
“This decision restores power to Congress and to the people and if properly enforced, should shield citizens from Obamacare’s insidious penalties, mandates, and subsidies,” he added.
Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas

Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, said the ruling is another instance of the courts holding the Obama administration accountable for ignoring the rule of law, because the president has “has demonstrated time after time his desire to unilaterally change the laws passed by Congress.”
“We need to set politics aside” and scrap this law, said Sen. Mike Johanns, R-Neb., noting that, “Just weeks ago we learned the government awarded billions of dollars in subsidies without any way to verify eligibility.”
“It is time for the nonsense to stop. This administration is too busy doling out dollars to see the train wreck ahead for American families.”
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said the ruling exposed just another example, in which, “As it has on so many occasions, the Obama administration simply ignored the law and implemented its own policy instead.”
Also focusing on the president’s penchant to act without Congress, Rep. Pete Sessions, R-Texas, said the ruling meant, “The Obama administration cannot unilaterally ignore or change the plain wording of laws passed by Congress.”
House Speaker John Boehner focused on the big picture, calling the ruling “further proof that President Obama’s health-care law is completely unworkable. It cannot be fixed.”
Tea Party Patriots President Jenny Beth Martin

Jenny Beth Martin, co-founder of the Tea Party Patriots, made a unique legal argument, stating it was critical to understand the purpose of the challenge.
“[T]he plaintiffs sued to prevent an illegal tax from being collected. In order to prevent the illegal tax from being collected, the illegal subsidies had to end. By ruling that the subsidies are illegal, the Court is simultaneously ruling that the taxes are illegal.”
If the Supreme Court were to tackle that argument, it could give Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts an opportunity to revisit his pivotal opinion, reviled by conservatives, that Obamacare imposes a tax, not a penalty.
It was Roberts’ decision to call the penalty imposed by those who do not sign up for Obamacare a tax, and that allowed him to join the liberals on the high court in finding the individual mandate in the health-care law to be constitutional.
In an interview with Radio America’s Greg Corombos, Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, said, “This is a hugely important decision. The government has now lost a case that really addresses the heart and soul of what this law is supposed to do.”
She added, “The law specifically says, at least seven times, that the subsidies are only allowed through an exchange established by a state. It was part of Congress’ coercion to try to get the states to set up their own exchanges. The states basically called their bluff and said, ‘Nope, we’re not doing this.’ So when the law says seven times that tax credits for health insurance can only be distributed through an exchange created by a state, the court said, ‘The law must mean what it says and we’re going to rule that way.’ Congratulations to them for upholding the rule of law.”
Listen to the WND/Radio America interview with Grace-Marie Turner:

video at link below


The administration is appealing the decision of the three-judge panel to the full D.C. Circuit, which includes seven Democratic appointees and four selections by GOP presidents. According to Turner, precedent suggests the full, or en banc, court will not be interested in second-guessing three of their colleagues, but she said there is a tinge of politics on the bench that did not exist until recently.
“The judges really respect each other. They don’t want to overrule one another, although the Obama administration has been stacking this court with several new appointees. They very likely would have the votes to overrule the three-judge panel, but it would look very, very political and would likely discredit future decisions,” said Turner, who noted it is vital for one full appeals court to rule in line with the three judges.
“It is consequential, because in order for this to go to the Supreme Court, you would then have to have different rulings in the different appeals courts. There are four similar cases going through the courts. So you’d have to have another court decide the same as the D.C. Circuit Court panel has today for the Supreme Court to hear it. If there are no conflicts in the appeals courts’ decisions, then the Supreme Court would less likely take it up,” Turner said.
If the Supreme Court were to declare subsidies obtained through the federal exchange illegal, Turner said it would give great incentive for lawmakers to take a smarter approach to health-care reform.
“Congress would then have to go back to the drawing board. I think people that opposed this law all along would actually have more bargaining power now to be able to move to a place where we can actually get subsidies that are structured the right way, not this ‘mother may I,’ 159 new government rules and commissions that are basically running our health sector,” Turner said.
She said urgent action would be needed to help people trapped in a system where they had to buy health insurance but could not get any help in paying a much higher than expected price tag.
“They’re not going to leave the millions of people who’ve been thrown out of their coverage out in the cold,” she said. “They’re going to try to figure out how to come up with a better solution, but one that gives people and doctors choices, not government bureaucrats and politicians.”
Follow Garth Kant on Twitter@DCgarth

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/07/beginning...6HOvThDgotH.99

A Huge Day for the Rule of Law


Posted on July 23, 2014




A judge who can read. Amazing!
Check it out:

Yeah, it’s big. It’s very, very big, but what the heck? Obama could just rewrite the law again if he wants to. He’s already done that 71 times. That’s the official count. It’s either 41 or 71. I’m not sure, one of the two, probably 71. All the waivers, all the delays, all the rewrites, 71 executive changes to Obamacare, if you count the IRS and their interpretation of things. Anyway, it’s a big ruling, if it holds, ladies and gentlemen.

How are you? Great to be back with you. Rush Limbaugh here at the Limbaugh Institute for Advanced Conservative Studies.
“A federal appeals court –” it’s a DC circuit “– on Tuesday struck down the subsidies available to consumers in states where health coverage is purchased on insurance exchanges established by the federal government.” Here’s the way the law, as written in the LA Times — it’s just a glitch in the wording. Come on, people.

It’s not a glitch in the wording! It is the way law was written. The only way you can get a subsidy for purchasing insurance for Obamacare is through a state exchange. Well, not all the states set up exchanges. Some of the states opted out. They didn’t want anything to do with Obamacare. They were trying to do what they could to stop it, delay it, and so the Feds came in and started their own exchanges, and that’s what HealthCare.gov is. And it is not a state exchange.

So everybody who has purchased Obamacare through HealthCare.gov, the federal exchange, essentially, and has gotten a subsidy is now disallowed. That’s it, in a nutshell. And that’s the law. This is a huge day, at least temporarily, for the rule of law. Folks, the law couldn’t be plainer. And this poor writer at the LA Time (imitating writer), “It’s just a glitch in the wording. Come on, people, it’s just a glitch.” Glitch in the wording? The law is the law and Obama hasn’t liked it 71 different times and has changed it, in order to protect Democrats at election time. Everybody that’s paying scant attention knows this.

It’s a huge day for the rule of law here. The DC circuit, 2-1 vote — now, there are a number of different ways this can go. It’s by no means over. The losing side, in this case the Regime, can ask for an en banc ruling or hearing. That means ask for every judge to hear and vote on the case at the DC circuit which would — I don’t know how many judges are on that circuit, usually 12, 13, it could be up to 20, I just don’t know the number. But every case starts with a three-judge panel, and then the losers can ask for en banc, and then after that you go to the Supreme Court, if they take it.

Continue Reading on www.rushlimbaugh.com ...

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Read more at http://conservativebyte.com/2014/07/...6BEi6VgwQ3K.99

Stunning Setback to Obamacare

by Phyllis Schlafly

July 30, 2014

Obamacare has proven again to be the biggest legislative failure in history, with last week’s ruling that its subsidies are illegal. These subsidies induced some 5 million Americans to sign up for Obamacare, but are prohibited by law as held by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit in Halbig v. Burwell.

This humiliation to the Obama Administration was a devastating setback to legislation already disfavored by a 59-40% margin among the public, according to the latest CNN poll. Twice as many Americans say they are being hurt rather than helped by Obamacare.

Officially known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, Obamacare is neither affordable nor protective of patients. It promised subsidies for millions of Americans to buy new health insurance and to pay costly premiums that have driven insurance company stock values to record highs.

People in households making between 100% and 400% of the federal poverty line (between $11,670 and $46,680 per year for one-person households) have been getting subsidies to buy insurance on health insurance exchanges. A staggering 90% of those who signed up for this Obamacare insurance did so in reliance on these subsidies, which the Court just ruled are illegal.

These health insurance exchanges are much more than marketplaces, like Travelocity or Expedia, to make it easier to shop for and buy health insurance. They are also the vehicle for dispensing subsidies and imposing penalties, while also building Big Brother-like databases about Americans.

The liberal central planners inside the D.C. Beltway thought the 50 States would comply with Obama’s demand that they set up these health insurance exchanges, at costs estimated to be as much as $100 million per exchange. As an incentive for States to set up these exchanges, the law provided substantial subsides to people who sign up for a State-established exchange.

The central government planners thought the subsidies would coerce States to establish their own health insurance exchanges, similar to how the federal government coerces States to obey D.C. commands in other fields such as education. But States balked after they saw how much control they would be giving to the federal government by establishing a State exchange, and how expensive they would end up being.

Nearly two years ago, noted patient advocate Twila Brase, R.N., explained why “a state-established exchange is a federal takeover center.” State exchanges would be required to obey federal regulations, report annually to the federal Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS), and comply with a list of federally mandated Essential Health Benefits as dictated by the Secretary of HHS.

Her conclusion: “Just say no” because “refusing to build the state exchanges is key to stopping Obamacare.” More than 2/3rds of the States – 36 of them – have done just that.

States do not work for Barack Obama, which he has been slow to figure out. Democrats were crushed in the landslide midterm elections after the passage of Obamacare in 2010, and a repeat performance looms large with the next midterm elections barely three months away.

Back in 2010, Obama was riding high and then-House Speaker Nancy Pelosi demanded passage of Obamacare by declaring, “we have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it!” But now Democrats are angry at what the D.C. Circuit told them is really in the bill.

Perhaps Obama and his lieutenants should have read the bill before railroading it through Congress. The text of Obamacare expressly states that the subsidies for the purchase of health insurance on an exchange are available only for an “Exchange established by the State,” and the Obama Administration broke the law by subsidizing the purchase of health insurance over federal rather than State exchanges.

The D.C. Circuit admirably upheld the law as it was passed, and properly rejected attempts by the Obama Administration to rewrite it now. The Court admitted that “our ruling will likely have significant consequences both for millions of individuals receiving tax credits through federal Exchanges and for health insurance markets more broadly,” but confined its ruling to interpreting the law rather than rewriting it as Obama seeks now.

Adding to the chaos, on the very same day as this defeat of Obamacare in the D.C. Circuit, another federal appellate court upheld it. That is like one umpire calling a pitch as a “ball” after another umpire had declared it a “strike.”

Chief Justice John Roberts testified during his confirmation hearings that a judge should limit himself to the role of an umpire, calling the balls and strikes without changing the rules of the game. It is refreshing that a panel of judges on the D.C. Circuit did exactly that in applying the law as it was written, not rewriting it as Obama now wishes he had written it.

http://www.eagleforum.org/publicatio...obamacare.html

Ellison Barber Explains Obamacare Premium Confusion

BY: Washington Free Beacon Staff

August 5, 2014 1:11 pm

The Washington Free Beacon’s Ellison Barber appeared on Fox News to discuss new rises in insurance premiums, and how they will affect people who enrolled in insurance through Healthcare.gov.

Although premiums typically rise, Barber explained, people may not realize that their subsidies have also changed at the same time, leaving them open to unexpected charges at the end of the year. “Say you saw that your plan was increasing and you were in one of those states, Virginia or Maryland, you thought, ‘okay well I see that my plan is increasing, but I have a 20% subsidy, so that’s fine. I like my plan, so I’ll just keep it and pay maybe a little more.’ But the problem is, if you’re basing that on what your percentage now is for your subsidy, then that wouldn’t be accurate.”

In order to find out what their subsidies are, Barber said, people will have to go back into Healthcare.gov and redo the process of enrolling. “They are not automatically notified that their subsidy is changing.”

“Otherwise the IRS is going to bill you at end of the year, and say either you paid too much or you paid too little. And you’re going to owe them money, or maybe if you’re lucky you’ll get a check back.”

http://freebeacon.com/issues/ellison...ium-confusion/

also

Ellison Barber: Medicare Advantage Cuts will Hurt Dems in Midterm Elections

Published on Apr 1, 2014
Ellison Barber: Medicare Advantage Cuts will Hurt Dems in Midterm Elections
April 1, 2014
www.FreeBeacon.com

But wait here we go again


Medicare Advantage Cuts Cancelled Due to MidTerm Elections Coming

Published on Apr 9, 2014
http://SeniorSavingsNetwork.org

Medicare Advantage was set to be cut due to the Affordable Care Act.
However, due to strong lobbying from the senior lobby , no thanks to AARP, the cuts have been delayed.
AARP actually calls Medicare Advantage payments "excessive" and lobbied FOR the Affordable Care Act which cut funding to Medicare. See: http://www.aarp.org/health/health-car...

A postponed tsunami of discontent awaits ObamaCare, just around the time the president exits office.



The Looming Tsunami of Discontent with Obamacare
Reason

Win or lose Halbig, Obamacare wars will continue.


The Looming Tsunami of Discontent with Obamacare

Win or lose Halbig, Obamacare wars will continue.

Shikha Dalmia | August 5, 2014


Halbig's odds of being upheld are low, not because its legal argument is "stupid" or "criminal," as its opponents claim, but because of courtroom politics. Halbig was issued by a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, but the full court tilts heavily liberal, and it is likely to reverse the decision.

Opponents of the law petitioned the Supreme Court last week to rule on the legality of the subsidies while the lower courts are still split. But the politically squeamish Chief Justice John Roberts might prefer to let matters play out at that level rather than jump into a partisan mud fight. (Theoretically, the four conservative justices would be enough to grant certiorari, but unless they know that Roberts will rule with them eventually, they wouldn't risk egg on their face.)
But that doesn't mean that Obamacare supporters can take a victory lap. The program's biggest vulnerabilities are still down the road. And that's no accident.
The administration postponed implementation of the more painful aspects of the program till after the president is safely out of office—partly through the original law and partly by altering the law through executive fiat.
Thanks to lobbying by labor, the law delayed taxing so-called Cadillac Plans, which benefit union households, till 2018. Likewise, it doesn't require states participating in the Medicaid expansion to pick up any of the tab for their added costs till 2016.
The penalty for the individual mandate, which starts at $95 per individual and $285 per household, will soar to $695 and $2,085, respectively, by 2016.
But the real danger is the "risk corridor" provision that was meant to backstop the losses of insurance companies so that they don't pull out, prompting Obamacare's collapse.
"Risk corridors" essentially cap both the profits and losses that insurance companies can make. A company whose profits are higher than the capped amount has to fork over the excess to one that incurs losses.
In theory, this program, which is also due to expire around 2017, is supposed to be financed by the insurance industry. But the problem is that if the industry as a whole doesn't make enough profits to offset its losses, then a federal bailout may be necessary when these programs are phased out and their final bill comes due.
The likelihood of a bailout is not as remote as liberals claim, given that 71 percent of the exchange enrollees are older and not as healthy, about 11 points more than optimal according to the administration's own projections. Indeed, even before many insurers reported lower-than-expected earnings this week, Moody's had downgraded its outlook for the industry to "negative."
But the insurer bailout is not the only appropriation battle brewing. In the fairytale that the president told the public, Obamacare wasn't going to cost taxpayers a "dime" because all of the necessary funds would be obtained from drastic Medicare reimbursement cuts to doctors and hospitals. How drastic? So drastic, notes Forbes analyst Chris Conover, that by 2030 Medicare would be paying providers 60 percent less than what private plans do.
But everyone knows this will never happen. Congress has avoided these statutory cuts for 15 straight years. So at some point, Obamacare diehards will either have break this streak and make the cuts—or ask Republicans for the necessary funds from elsewhere in the budget.
And then, of course, there is the impending reckoning over the two dozen or so illicit changes, as per the Galen Institute's count, to the law that the president has unilaterally made.
In the face of the massive public outcry, he allowed insurers to reinstate canceled policies for two years that don't comply with Obamacare's requirements. And for two years in a row he has suspended the employer mandate requiring companies with more than 50 employees to pay a fine if they don't offer prescribed coverage.

http://reason.com/archives/2014/08/0...with-obamacare

Key ObamaCare official likely deleted emails now sought in House probe

Published August 08, 2014

A key ObamaCare official involved in the rocky rollout of Healthcare.gov likely deleted some of her emails that are now being sought as part of an investigation into the problems by a House committee, Fox News confirmed Thursday.

The Department of Health and Human Services informed House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa in a letter Thursday that some of the emails belonging to Marilyn Tavenner, who leads the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, may not be “retrievable.”

The missing emails belonging to Tavenner, whose agency runs the ObamaCare exchanges, were first reported by msnbc.com.
Issa, whose committee is also dealing with a missing email problem in its probe into the IRS’ targeting of conservative groups, said it “defies logic” that multiple Obama administration officials are “ignoring” federal rules on records-keeping.

“Yet again, we discover that this administration will not be forthright with the American people unless cornered,” he said.

HHS also informed the National Archives, which preserves government records, about the missing emails from Tavenner in a letter.

In that letter, the HHS said that since Tavenner receives as many as 12,000 emails a month, she would sometimes delete emails after either forwarding or copying the email to her staff to keep. However, some of these emails never made it to her staff, but the department believes that was due to sloppy records-keeping not an attempt to conceal information.

An HHS spokesman told Fox News that the department has confidence that the “vast majority” of Tavenner’s emails can be retrieved, and they have already located more than 70,000.

“There are no significant chronological gaps and we are working to compile the most complete email record possible for her,” the spokesman said.

The HHS discovered the missing emails when gathering documents to comply with a subpoena issued by the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee last year, as part of its investigation into the problems with the rollout of Healthcare.gov.

FoxNews.com

video at link below

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014...n-house-probe/


OH NO SAY IT ISN'T SO!!!!

August 25, 2014

Why Do the People Abuse Themselves by Empowering Government?


By Ron Lipsman

There is nothing in the Constitution that grants the federal government the authority to regulate the health care industry, much less the right to actually administer any portion of it. Of course, the same statement can be made about education, disability, retirement, insurance, employment, housing, and so many other key aspects of our society and the U.S. economy. That hasn't stopped the feds from assuming control of these enterprises – sometimes partial, increasingly total. Moreover, all three branches of the government have colluded in the lawlessly unconstitutional usurpation of the people's rights in these matters.

But the people are complicit. By repeatedly electing politicians who boldly proclaim their intention to enhance federal power, the people knowingly empower those who rob the people of their rights. By not recalling judges who ratify the government's implementation of unconstitutional authority, the people acquiesce in the curtailment of the rights granted to them in our founding documents. By supporting statist policies and programs that assign responsibility for managing the mundane details of their lives to Uncle Sam, the people surrender the liberties envisioned for them by their forefathers and enjoyed by their ancestors.

Why do people do these things? Three reasons: greed, laziness, and ignorance. Perhaps greed is too strong a term. But people want stuff – be it quality and affordable health care, a nice home, an outstanding education, a good job, or a comfortable retirement. It can be difficult to secure these things. If the federal government is willing to help, doesn’t it make sense to allow it? Or even to encourage it?

Again, perhaps laziness is too strong a word. But life is hard. Aside from the high cost of obtaining the aforementioned items, the act of doing so is often impeded by difficult family matters, incidental illness or injury, haphazard crime or natural disaster, and unsympathetic friends and co-workers. It's enough to discourage one from even trying. A little help from a benevolent government can make a difference.

And that is where ignorance comes in. All of these obstacles were anticipated by our Founders. They knew, therefore, that our system of government – structured for a free people to govern themselves – would work only if the people were moral, disciplined, well-educated, responsible, self-reliant, modest, and respectful of their neighbors. Alas, the progressives, who have taken control of all the opinion-molding organs of American society over the last century, have done their best to undermine in the populace all of the virtues required by the Founders' recipe. Too many people no longer understand that relinquishing to the government the responsibility for running their own lives leads to tyranny. As the famous saying – mistakenly attributed to Jefferson – goes, "A government that is big enough to give you everything you need is also strong enough to take from you everything you have." (The actual Jefferson quote is "The natural progression of things is for liberty to yield and government to gain ground.") It is in the natural order of things for governments to take far more than they give – for they have nothing to give John but what they take from Sam.

And so through Medicare, Medicaid, SCHIP, the VA, and, of course, ObamaCare, the government has taken nearly complete control of the health care industry in America. The polls say that most people are unhappy about that development. Well, they have only themselves to blame. They put Obama and the Democrats in a position to impose on us the Frankenstein monster known as ObamaCare. It’s not like Obama and the Dems hid, before the 2008 election, their intention to do it. The people elected them anyway. Greed, laziness and ignorance!

We are told that ObamaCare was modeled after its precursor Romneycare in Massachusetts. Now, several state governments have decided that ObamaCare does not go far enough in controlling the people's health care. For example, there is Martin O'Malley, the governor of Maryland. O'Malley has deemed that even though individuals are now dependent on government for their health care, they are still behaving in an irresponsible fashion. They eat too much, get fat, become sick and then spend too many health care dollars. Or they ignore health warnings (like high blood pressure, diabetes, or a family history of cancer) and fall prey to expensive illnesses. Worst of all, they don't follow the instructions of their physicians. Well, O'Malley will put a stop to that nonsense. Henceforth, all health insurance policies for state employees and retirees (and others soon, doubtless) will entail a contractual agreement among the state, the health insurer, and the insuree. Everyone will have to undergo an initial medical assessment – presumably by a doctor of his or her choosing. The doctor is obliged to perform a health evaluation on the insuree and then provide a plan of health care maintenance. If the insuree adheres to the plan, various discounts for medical services will ensue. If the insuree violates the doctor's plan, then fees and financial penalties will be assessed on the individual. How often the assessment must be performed is unclear.

The mechanisms for administering and enforcing this government diktat are buried in a document, which, although not as long, is just as obtuse and impenetrable as the ObamaCare bill. One more layer of individual freedom is peeled away by a supposedly benevolent but, in fact, misguided and ultimately insidious government.

"But," say the new mandate's supporters, "this is for your own good, and anyway, government has to do something to rein in health care costs." Well, it is not Big Brother's place to tell me what is good for me. As long as I don’t harm anyone else, my health concerns are none of government's business. And if the government were not running health care, it would not be incurring any costs that it felt the need to control.
If we are to halt government's increasing encroachment on our freedoms, we must find a way to overcome the greed, laziness, and ignorance instilled by the progressive-controlled opinion-molding organs of society. If conservatives do not contest the liberal cultural hegemony and ultimately reassert control of those organs that drive the culture, then you can kiss the good old USA goodbye.

Ron Lipsman, Professor Emeritus of Mathematics at the University of Maryland, writes about politics, culture, education, science and sports at http://ronlipsman.com. Follow him on Twitter @rlipsman.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2014/...#ixzz3BPvewhHb
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