Thread: Did The IRS Kill Obamacare?

Did The IRS Kill Obamacare?

August 21, 2013 by Bob Livingston

PHOTOS.COM

Article I, Section 8 of the U.S. Constitution ascribes to Congress the sole “Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises” on the American people. Somebody at the Internal Revenue Service didn’t get the memo.
Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (the deathcare trap we call Obamacare), legislation allows States to choose whether they want to set up State-run health insurance exchanges. Twenty-six States declined, prompting the Federal government to move to set up exchanges in their place.
Under the State exchanges, States are able to fine employers under the employer-mandate penalty. Those fines are then given back to employees in the form of subsidies to purchase healthcare insurance through the State-run exchange.
As the law was written, the employer-mandate penalty did not apply under Federal exchanges. But the IRS, at President Barack Obama’s direction, decided the penalty had to apply to Federal exchanges as well. Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt filed suit last year challenging the IRS on the rule change.
Essentially, Pruitt believes the employer mandate penalty does not apply under a Federal-run exchange, and the State’s policy decision not to set up an exchange should protect employers from the penalty. Pruitt is alleging that the IRS is violating the Administrative Procedures Act, which prevents an agency from exercising powers it doesn’t have. He claims the IRS has altered the effect of the law through regulation and implementation.
Last week, a Federal judge in Oklahoma ruled that the State had the legal standing to sue the Federal government over the employer mandate. The case will now make its way to the U.S. Supreme Court, where it should be struck down as unConstitutional.
But if SCOTUS just rules the IRS actions illegal, Obamacare will be left in a bigger pile of debris than it currently is. Without the penalties on employers, the exchanges will be bereft of money.

Hat tip: Benswann.com

Filed Under: Conservative Politics, Freedom Watch, Hot Topics


http://personalliberty.com/2013/08/2...ill-obamacare/

Obamacare Gets To Go Forward With Changes To Destroy People Financially

The story is not from the Onion but from the New York Times: “In another setback for President Obama’s health care initiative, the administration has delayed until 2015 a significant consumer protection in the law that limits how much people may have to spend on their own health care. The limit on out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles and co-payments, was not supposed to exceed $6,350 for an individual and $12,700 for a family. But under a little-noticed ruling, federal officials have granted a one-year grace period to some insurers, allowing them to set higher limits, or no limit at all on some costs, in 2014. The grace period has been outlined on the Labor Department’s Web site since February, but was obscured in a maze of legal and bureaucratic language that went largely unnoticed. When asked in recent days about the language — which appeared as an answer to one of 137 ‘frequently asked questions about Affordable Care Act
implementation’ — department officials confirmed the policy.” Is there any act of cruelty that this Administration can do that will actually cause media criticism? People are about to lose hundreds or thousands of dollars and this is a “setback” for the President. Seriously? No, it is a setback for the people who were promised financial protection and are having it taken away at least until 2015, and maybe longer. How do we know that the Administration will ever make them abide by the law? Presenting the changes as if it were the delay of a “consumer protection IN the law” is propaganda. Keeping healthcare affordable IS the law—it is the “Affordable Care Act,” after all! Notice what has happened. Obama’s promise that he was going to let us keep our insurance was a lie from the beginning. People are being herded into these exchanges where they were supposed to be protected, but there is no protection available. Obamacare is basically a giant fork that is shoving people into the maw of a few giant insurance companies. 2014 is their year of shaking down families. Will 2015 be any different? It seems Obamacare is not even really a law. It doesn’t mandate anything. It simply gets bureaucrats unlimited power to decide our fate. The NY Times articles refers to a “ruling” which makes it sound like Federal Judges heard a case. But nothing of the kind is going on. All we know is that bureaucrats simply did insurance companies a favor by forcing consumers into a food trough for those same companies. If Obamacare is not yet ready to provide affordable care, then why not just delay the whole thing until the insurance companies are able to meet the demands of the law? Did the big insurance companies know that “the affordable care” in the Affordable Care Act was an expendable part of it? Did Pelosi and Obama plan this all along? I’m not saying I know the answer to that question. But I do know that, if Obama can get away with such outrageous cronyism that basically forces consumers to become “customers” with no options, then there is no reason not to investigate whether or not he did it on purpose.

Read more at http://lastresistance.com/3011/obama...bsDSilMdVVj.99