Thread: Not even a government shutdown can stop Obamacare now

H2 Note: Source link disabled (socialist salon web site)

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Salon
Thursday, Sep 26
By Ricardo Alonso-zaldivar

Translation: Obamacare’s good to go.

That’s pretty much how a former top GOP congressional budget expert sees it too. “A government shutdown, absent any legislation, does not fundamentally alter the Affordable Care Act.”

Not even a government shutdown can stop Obamacare now
Program falls under mandatory funding exempt from shutdown


WASHINGTON (AP) — Republicans pulling on the budget thread can’t neatly unravel President Barack Obama’s health care law.

A partial government shutdown next week would leave the major parts of the law in place and rolling along, according to former Democratic and Republican budget officials, as well as the Obama administration itself. Health care markets for the uninsured would open as scheduled on Tuesday.

Deleting the money to implement the law, the GOP’s dream scenario, would indeed cripple Obamacare. But that’s much less likely to happen than a government shutdown. Obama wouldn’t allow the ruin of his hard-fought namesake legislation.

Part of the reason a shutdown wouldn’t stop the health care law is that government doesn’t grind to a halt. National defense, law enforcement, air traffic control and other activities involving the safety of human life and the protection of property continue.

Ditto for big entitlement programs such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid, whose “mandatory” funding does not have to be renewed annually by Congress. The Affordable Care Act is the newest addition to that club of budget heavyweights.

The employees who administer such programs may also be considered essential. During the Clinton-era shutdowns, Social Security brought back nearly 50,000 employees to handle claims work after initially giving them furloughs.

“Many of the core parts of the health care law are funded through mandatory appropriations and wouldn’t be affected,” Gary Cohen, the Health and Human Services Department official overseeing the health care rollout, told reporters this week.

Translation: Obamacare’s good to go.

That’s pretty much how a former top GOP congressional budget expert sees it too. “A government shutdown, absent any legislation, does not fundamentally alter the Affordable Care Act,” said Bill Hoagland, now a senior vice president at the Bipartisan Policy Center, an advocacy group that’s trying to bridge the political divide in Washington.

Economist Douglas Holtz-Eakin, chief economic adviser to 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain, concurs. “As a policy matter, it won’t succeed in stopping Obamacare,” he said of a government shutdown. “We have put much of the government on cruise control.”

The main benefits of the health care law – tax credits and expanded Medicaid – are mandatory spending and cannot be unwound through an annual funding bill for government operations. As for implementation money, much of it was provided under the law itself. Core functions such as operating call centers and building online systems are being handled by private contractors, not government employees. When money has run short, the administration has been able to divert unspent funds in other accounts.

In a report for Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla., the Congressional Research Service concluded it’s likely the administration would continue to rely on alternative sources of implementation funding in the event of a shutdown.

So why are some Republicans prepared to go through with it? They’re betting that the public will blame Obama for being stubborn, although polls don’t bear that out. GOP party elders in the Senate are calling it a foolhardy strategy.

Defunding the 3-year-old health care law and thus preventing its full implementation, as the House has voted to do, would be a different story.

“If you take away the money, the rest of the law isn’t going to work,” said Paul Van de Water, a former top official of the Congressional Budget Office, currently with the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, which advocates for the poor. Without subsidies to help the uninsured, the law’s requirement that virtually all Americans get coverage would be unreasonable.

But over the past three years, the many and varied requirements of the Affordable Care Act have become part of the way the government does business. Reversing course is not impossible, but it could be excruciating.

It would be messy because a host of mandates, taxes and regulations would remain on the books, and Medicare payment systems could get jumbled up.

Would insurers still be required to cover people with health problems? What about taxes that are already being collected and Medicare cuts that have gone through? Most employers still would have to cover dependent children of their workers up to age 26 and provide birth control free of charge as preventive care.

“It is chaotic,” said Van de Water. “Legally, how that mess gets resolved, I wouldn’t hazard a guess.”

http://xxx.salon.com/2013/09/26/not_...obamacare_now/

House Conservatives Warn GOP Senators: Vote for Cloture ‘Same As a Vote for Obamcare

In the mean time!!!!

IRS Misplaces $67 Million in Obamacare Funding

The Internal Revenue Service, which is charged with making sure every single taxpayer complies with new Obamacare regulations or pays a fine, is unable to account for $67 million in a fund intended to pay for Obamacare implementation costs.
According to a report from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration, the IRS made no effort to account for the $67 million, which was allegedly spent between 2010 and 2012 on "indirect" costs of Obamacare.
Indirect costs would include things like computer technical support, office rent and telephones.
Normally when the IRS has to implement new laws, it pays for the costs through its general fund, then makes a request for additional money through the budget cycle.
But when Congress approved the Affordable Care Act, it gave Health and Human Services a $1 billion Health Insurance Reform Implementation Fund so that it and other agencies, including the IRS, could start spending immediately (very thoughtful of Congress), without going through the normal budget process.
The IRS reported that it spent $488 million from the HIRIF from 2010 to 2012 for Obamacare implementation "direct" costs, which included 1,272 full-time employees.
Despite still having access to the HIRIF, the IRS actually requested funds in its fiscal year 2013 budget to hire an additional 800 agents and did not receive an approval.

Some of the missing $67 million apparently went to cover travel expenses for at least 38 employees.
Even with $67 million burning a hole in its pocket, the IRS requested an additional $360 million just for FY 2013. The request was denied.
The inspector general's report also found that IRS tracking of spending was not always properly documented and recorded costs were often inaccurate.
If the IRS is already screwing up its accounting for the Affordable Care Act, and its budget requests for additional funds and employees are being rejected, how can Americans be expected to believe that the IRS is up to this task of implementing Obamacare accurately and fairly?
The truth is it can't. Obamacare is a writhing mass of red tape and bureaucracy being dumped on an already overwhelmed agency that doesn't seem to be able to do anything correctly, except for intentionally targeting conservatives for harassment.
Obamacare and the IRS itself should both be dumped, and the government should get itself out of people's lives. The healthcare would take care of itself.

Read more at http://politicaloutcast.com/2013/09/irs-misplaces-67-million-obamacare-funding/#IF6YAcedPDTiVsQP.99


A wake yet????

Michelle Malkin: Obama Lied, My Health Plan Died

Read More: http://goo.gl/XEd0M6

Originally Posted by kathyet2

In the mean time!!!!

IRS Misplaces $67 Million in Obamacare Funding

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Reminds me of when the DoD LOST over ONE B-I-L-L-I-O-N during the outset of 'Iraqi Freedom.'

Obamacare is the single biggest power grab in American History since the Federal Reserve Act of 1913. My opinion....