Thread: President Trump, ObamaCare is not “dead” as you claim

Regardless of all the argument for and against the House passed bill, I refuse to get caught up in it because it is far from a done deal. Getting 50 out of 52 Senate Republican' to argee on anythng is going to be a very difficult task. It could take months, maybe even longer for this thing to move. Think I'll wait and see what transpires before getting caught up in this debate.

Originally Posted by johnwk

And what wording in our federal Constitution has granted a power to Congress to adopt the Social Security Act?


JWK

US Supreme Court rulings on constitutionality[edit]

Two Supreme Court rulings affirmed the constitutionality of the Social Security Act.

• Steward Machine Company v. Davis, 301 U.S, 548^[9] (1937) held, in a 5–4 decision, that, given the exigencies of the Great Depression, "[It] is too late today for the argument to be heard with tolerance that in a crisis so extreme the use of the moneys of the nation to relieve the unemployed and their dependents is a use for any purpose narrower than the promotion of the general welfare". The arguments opposed to the Social Security Act (articulated by justices Butler, McReynolds, and Sutherland in their opinions) were that the social security act went beyond the powers that were granted to the federal government in the Constitution. They argued that, by imposing a tax on employers that could be avoided only by contributing to a state unemployment-compensation fund, the federal government was essentially forcing each state to establish an unemployment-compensation fund that would meet its criteria, and that the federal government had no power to enact such a program.
• Helvering v. Davis, 301 U.S. 619 (1937), decided on the same day as Steward, upheld the program because "The proceeds of both [employee and employer] taxes are to be paid into the Treasury like internal-revenue taxes generally, and are not earmarked in any way". That is, the Social Security Tax was constitutional as a mere exercise of Congress's general taxation powers.

Other Supreme Court rulings[edit]

• Flemming v. Nestor, 363 US 603 (1960) upholding §1104, allowing Congress to itself amend and revise the schedule of benefits. Further, however, recipients of benefits had no contractual rights to them.
• Goldberg v. Kelly 397 US 254 (1970) Brennan J held there must be an evidentiary hearing before a recipient can be deprived of government benefits under the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
• Weinberger v. Wiesenfeld (1975) held that a male widower should be entitled to his deceased wife's benefit just as a female widow was entitled to a deceased husband's, under the equal protection and due process clauses of the Fourteenth Amendment.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Act

AHCA cuts $1 trillion in ObamaCare taxes

Published May 05, 2017 Fox News

The Republican-authored American Health Care Act would drastically overhaul -- again -- the nation's health insurance system.
With its passage in the House on Thursday, supporters claimed the bill would lower premiums and give struggling patients more choice. Opponents say it would leave vulnerable and elderly customers facing higher costs and lead to less coverage.

But one thing's for certain -- the bill, which still would need Senate approval, guts ObamaCare taxes. According to the White House, the cuts amount to $1 trillion.

Though most the changes won’t be implemented until 2018, at the earliest, here is an overview of some of the major taxes slated for elimination and cuts.

Individual mandate tax: If you can afford health insurance but choose not to buy it, under the Affordable Care Act, or ObamaCare, you must pay a fee called the "individual shared responsibility payment." The GOP House bill would abolish the individual mandate tax – which an estimated 8 million Americans pay every year. According to HealthCare.gov, that translates to at least $695 per adult, and often more for higher-earning households. The GOP bill would, however, allow insurance companies to impose a surcharge in some cases for lapsed coverage.

Employer mandate tax: Mid-sized and large employers currently must offer health insurance to most full-time employees or face penalties. Combined, the individual mandate tax repeal and the employer mandate tax repeal are estimated to offer a $270 billion tax cut.

Medicine cabinet tax: Nearly 20 million Americans under ObamaCare were prohibited from using their pre-tax flexible spending account and Health Savings Account dollars to purchase non-prescription, over-the-counter drugs. The AHCA abolishes the $6 billion tax.

Flexible spending account tax: Close to 30 million Americans were hit with a tax on their flexible spending accounts and 20 million more on their Health Savings Accounts. Abolishing both comes out to be $20 billion cut, according to Americans for Tax Reform.

Chronic care tax: Individuals with high health care costs can deduct those expenses, but the ACA increased the threshold from 7.5 percent of Adjusted Gross Income to 10 percent, according to the National Taxpayers Union Foundation. Abolishing this tax saves Americans $126 billion.

Excise tax: Excise taxes are paid for specific goods or services. Under ObamaCare, a 10 percent tax was tacked on to small businesses with indoor tanning services, which raked in about $600 million a year. The GOP House plan reverses this.

Health insurance tax: The health insurance tax is not imposed at a specified rate but rather set annually by Treasury to raise a specified amount of revenue. Abolishing it will be a $145 billion tax cut.

Prescription drug tax: Drug companies hit the jackpot in the House-passed health care bill. They had been pushing to eliminate a tax on prescription drugs. An analysis by the Joint Committee on Taxation estimated that over a decade, repealing the prescription drug tax would cost $25 billion.

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017...are-taxes.html

Trump Health Care to Hurt Seniors aged 50-64

OBAMACARE IS NOT DEAD.

The Senate hasn't even voted on it yet.

Nothing has changed yet.

"By repealing Obamacare's Medicaid expansion and replacing it with a flat tax credit that doesn't provide enough assistance to the working poor, millions with incomes above the poverty line are going to lose their insurance..." Avik Roy, who advised Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, wrote in a column for Forbes.
========================

MAY 5 2017, 4:46 PM ET

Deep Medicaid Cuts Drive Backlash to House Health Care Bill

by BENJY SARLIN

The House Republican health care bill's massive cuts to Medicaid, often skimmed over in the last-minute drama over pre-existing conditions, are fast emerging as a critical source of opposition in the Senate.

President Donald Trump said in his speech announcing his 2016 campaign that he would not cut Medicaid and bragged on Twitter that he was the first candidate to do so. He didn't keep that promise: The bill's Medicaid cuts, which the Congressional Budget Office estimates at $839 billion over 10 years, are arguably its most sweeping change. They're also critical to financing the bill's tax cuts for high-income Americans and medical industries, which require the savings to offset the loss in revenue.

Leading patient advocacy groups are warning the combination of less spending and a restructuring of the program will threaten coverage for millions of vulnerable Americans, including seniors, people with disabilities, and children. The top medical industry groups representing doctors, hospitals, and insurers are raising similar concerns, along with key Republican senators whose support will be needed to pass a bill.
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GOP uses health care as means to tax cuts5:16


Cuts could force tough choices

About 73 million people receive coverage through Medicaid. The program covers low-income Americans and was expanded under the Affordable Care Act. All but 19 states have accepted the additional federal funding, which covers people with incomes up to 138% of the federal poverty line.

The House bill would gradually do away with the expansion, but would go much further than simply rolling back Obamacare's changes. It would also transform Medicaid from a program that provides guaranteed matching funds to states to one that provides a fixed per-capita amount for every recipient or a block grant to cover total spending. The Congressional Budget Office has estimated these changes will leave 14 million fewer people covered by the program after a decade.

Conservative supporters argue the caps on spending will encourage states to find more efficient ways to deliver care. But the scale of cuts will inevitably force tough choices: With fewer funds available states could be forced to reduce eligibility, scale back payments to providers, or provide fewer benefits.

"You could have tens of millions of people removed from the program or entire classes of services eliminated from the program or both," Sara Rosenbaum, a professor of health law and policy at George Washington University, told NBC News.

Medicaid serves more functions than is often realized, and affected groups are rushing to publicize them now that the health care bill is back in play.

AARP is concerned the cuts could jeopardize approximately 10 million people who are eligible for both Medicare and Medicaid. Medicaid notably covers long-term care services, including home aides and nursing facilities, that Medicare does not. Thirty-six percent of total Medicaid spending goes to patients who also have Medicare, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

"The impact of such a huge loss of federal Medicaid funds on people with disabilities and poor seniors will be devastating," Lynda Flowers, a Senior Strategic Policy Adviser with the AARP Public Policy Institute, wrote in a post for the group's website.

The disability community has responded fiercely as well, highlighting potential cuts to special education programs at schools and to services that help Medicaid recipients — about 10 million of whom qualify due to disability — live and work independently. The bill, National Disability Rights Network executive Director Curt Decker warned in a statement, "will compel States to ration health care for children, including important mental health services."

Unexpected obstacles

While per-capita Medicaid spending rises with enrollment under the House plan, health experts warn it could create difficulties for states if they have to respond to a health crisis or account for new treatments that raise the average costs per person.

One example is the recent opioid epidemic. Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), whose state has been among the hardest hit, said Thursday in a statement that he opposed the House's bill because he feared its Medicaid rollback would affect treatment for drug abuse.

Sens. Shelley Moore-Capito (R-WV), Dean Heller (R-NV), Susan Collins (R-ME), Cory Gardner (R-CO), and Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), among others, also have raised concerns about the impact on their constituents and their state's budgets.

Supporters of the House plan argue that the bill smooths the transition by grandfathering people who received Medicaid through the expansion until they leave the program. "Nobody on Medicaid is going to be taken away," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on CNN Thursday. But Medicaid has a high turnover rate, meaning their eligibility is likely to lapse quickly.

Conservative health experts supportive of transforming Medicaid into a per-capita or block grant program argue these recipients should be on private insurance instead. But there's concern even among some advocates of this approach that the bill's other provisions, namely its steep reductions in subsidies to help older low-income customers afford insurance, will leave them without any options.

"By repealing Obamacare's Medicaid expansion and replacing it with a flat tax credit that doesn't provide enough assistance to the working poor, millions with incomes above the poverty line are going to lose their insurance..." Avik Roy, who advised Mitt Romney's presidential campaign, wrote in a column for Forbes.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/cong...e-bill-n755626

Supporters of the House plan argue that the bill smooths the transition by grandfathering people who received Medicaid through the expansion until they leave the program. "Nobody on Medicaid is going to be taken away," House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy said on CNN Thursday. But Medicaid has a high turnover rate, meaning their eligibility is likely to lapse quickly.

Sounds very reasonable to me. Why would Medicaid eligibility be changed to subsidize a failed Obamacare to underwrite a corrupt insurance industry that's exempted itself from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, that did the opposite of what it promised to do? This system called Obamacare is bankrupting the country, encourages illegal aliens to sign up their anchor babies, covers all these immigrants, legal and illegal, birthing in our country, covers all their low-income wage life-styles and forces citizens and businesses to pay for it.

Obamacare has got to go. Obamacare covered twice the number of people through Medicaid Expansion than it did through its stupid "exchanges" and forced citizens like MonterrySherry and her husband to pay $1,300 a month in insurance premiums with huge deductibles and 80% coverage instead of $422 a month for $20 co-pays and 100% coverage. (Hope I got that right, MonterreySherry).

DemoQuacks need to realize, Americans have listened to your lies about our health insurance industry since HillaryCare. We're done with it. The people have spoken in 30 states and by the end of this health care debate, that 30 state number will grow to 40 states at least.

Sure it will take awhile for the truth to come out and all the DEMS LIES to be vetted, but it will come out and all their lies will be exposed, the new bill that repeals the tax mandates, the key to restoring liberty, choice and freedom in our country, will pass as will the repeal of McCarran, ending the insanity of DEMS who thought exempting 1/5 of the US economy from the Sherman Anti-Trust Act was a great idea when it was the worst possible idea, and both will become law in a short matter of weeks, depending solely on how many weeks the Congresscritters walk off the job for their homey breaks.

They're all gone now on an 11 day break for "graduation", so they'll be back on the job in 2 weeks, and I predict this bill will be the focus of their attention throughout the month of May.

The US Senate has had 7 years to study this disaster and arrive at a solution. We're tired of "all talk", we want ACTION, and we want it NOW.

Governors uneasy over Medicaid changes in GOP health care bill

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

Originally Posted by johnwk

And what wording in our federal Constitution has granted a power to Congress to adopt the Social Security Act?


JWK

US Supreme Court rulings on constitutionality[edit]

Two Supreme Court rulings affirmed the constitutionality of the Social Security Act....

I didn't ask anything about opinions written by the Supreme Court. My question is, what wording in our federal Constitution has granted a power to Congress to adopt the Social Security Act?


JWK




The whole aim of construction, as applied to a provision of the Constitution, is to discover the meaning, to ascertain and give effect to the intent of its framers and the people who adopted it._____HOME BLDG. & LOAN ASS'N v. BLAISDELL,290 U.S. 398 (1934)

Originally Posted by Judy

Originally Posted by johnwk

And what wording in our federalConstitution has granted a power to Congress to adopt the Social Security Act?

I presume the Preamble, the Commerce Clause, and the 16thAmendment which allowed for the income tax that is used to fund the SocialSecurity Act, because labor is part of commerce.

In accordance with the rules of constitutional construction, the Preamble expresses general objectives while the body of the Constitution details the limited specifics to accomplish the general objectives.

Regarding the 16^th Amendment, I find nothing in its wording granting a power to Congress to create the provisions of the Social Security Act. Its wording is very limited and simply allows Congress to lay and collect taxes on “incomes” without having to apportion such a tax ___ a power which Congress possessed prior to its adoption. See Flint vs Stone Tracy, 1909. Keep in mind the 16^thAmendment never repealed the provision in our Constitution that “direct taxes” are required to be apportioned.

Finally, with regard to Congress’ power to regulate “commerce among the States” I cannot imagine how such wording was intended to allow Congress to enter the States to regulate commerce within a State’s borders.

It should also be pointed out that the meaning of “commerce” within our Constitution, refers to the transportation of goods from point A to point B, and has nothing to do with the manufacturing of products or the growth of produce within a State’s borders which are then exported beyond its borders.

I think one of our failures ___ those who see our constitutionally limited system of government being dismantled by those who took an oath to support and defend it ___ is a failure to learn the fundamental rules of constitutional construction which is absolutely essential to preserving and defending our system of government.


JWK



At the close of the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia on September 18, 1787, a Mrs. Powel anxiously awaited the results and as Benjamin Franklin emerged from the long task now finished asked him directly, `Well, Doctor, what have we got? A republic or a monarchy?' `A republic, if you can keep it,' responded Franklin.