ObamaCare Would Compel IRS to Share Tax Records with Health Care Bureaucrats

If you’ve spent even a small amount of time reading through the massive House Health Care Reform bill (H.R. 3200) you know the devil is in the details. You also know the deeper you dig the more devilish the details become… Take, for example, Sections 245, 431 and 1801 which, as  CBS’ Declan McCullagh, notes would require the IRS to share your private tax information with the new Health Choices Commissioner:

One of the problems with any proposed law that’s over 1,000 pages long and constantly changing is that much deviltry can lie in the details. Take the Democrats’ proposal to rewrite health care policy, better known as H.R. 3200 or by opponents as “Obamacare.” (Here’s our CBS News television coverage.)

Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and “other information as is prescribed by” regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for “affordability credits.”

Section 245(b)(2)(A) says the IRS must divulge tax return details — there’s no specified limit on what’s available or unavailable — to the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify “affordability credits.”

Section 1801(a) says that the Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a “low-income prescription drug subsidy” but has not applied for it.

Yikes, sec. 1801 is probably the most disturbing. Sections 245 and 431, at least require someone to apply for “affordability credits” before their tax information is shared with health care bureaucrats. Sec. 1801on the other hand gives the government the authority to simply grab everyone’s records and start searching through them, looking for Americans who may not realize they qualify for a “low-income prescription drug subsidy.”

Amazing, simply amazing… Democrats spent much of the last 8 years complaining about the Bush Administration’s alleged trampling of privacy rights and yet here they are proposing a far more direct trampling taxpayer’s privacy rights.

Ed Morrissey’s right, “… if they’re this cavalier about your privacy on tax records, just imagine what they’ll do with your health records.”

Related

• Obama’s Health Rationer-in-Chief – Wall Street Journal
• ‘Cruel and neglectful’ care of one million NHS patients exposed – Telegraph
• Markey: Medicare will take hit – The Coloradoan

Are ObamaCare’s Individual Mandates Constitutional?

The answer would appear to be no, at least that the conclusion of an op-ed by penned David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey in last Saturday’s Washington Post:

President Obama has called for a serious and reasoned debate about his plans to overhaul the health-care system. Any such debate must include the question of whether it is constitutional for the federal government to adopt and implement the president’s proposals. Consider one element known as the “individual mandate,” which would require every American to have health insurance, if not through an employer then by individual purchase. This requirement would particularly affect young adults, who often choose to save the expense and go without coverage. Without the young to subsidize the old, a comprehensive national health system will not work. But can Congress require every American to buy health insurance?

In short, no. The Constitution assigns only limited, enumerated powers to Congress and none, including the power to regulate interstate commerce or to impose taxes, would support a federal mandate requiring anyone who is otherwise without health insurance to buy it.

Although the Supreme Court has interpreted Congress’s commerce power expansively, this type of mandate would not pass muster even under the most aggressive commerce clause cases. In Wickard v. Filburn (1942), the court upheld a federal law regulating the national wheat markets. The law was drawn so broadly that wheat grown for consumption on individual farms also was regulated. Even though this rule reached purely local (rather than interstate) activity, the court reasoned that the consumption of homegrown wheat by individual farms would, in the aggregate, have a substantial economic effect on interstate commerce, and so was within Congress’s reach. Read the rest…

Ok, so if individual mandates are unconstitutional what happens to universal coverage? In short it fails, not everyone wants to buy health insurance now, and that’s unlikely to change even with individual mandates. Living in a free society means being able to make choices that others many not agree with… Including choosing not to buy health insurance.

Sarah Palin: No Health Care Reform Without Legal Reform

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin is once again wading into the debate on health care reform via her Facebook page.  Last week she raised questions about the end of life counseling provisions contained in the proposed legislation… provision that have since been removed from the Senate Finance Committee bill.

This week she raises questions about one of the biggest weaknesses in the current House Senate reform proposals:

President Obama’s health care “reform” plan has met with significant criticism across the country. Many Americans want change and reform in our current health care system. We recognize that while we have the greatest medical care in the world, there are major problems that we must face, especially in terms of reining in costs and allowing care to be affordable for all. However, as we have seen, current plans being pushed by the Democratic leadership represent change that may not be what we had in mind — change which poses serious ethical concerns over the government having control over our families’ health care decisions. In addition, the current plans greatly increase costs of health care, while doing lip service toward controlling costs.

We need to address a REAL bipartisan reform proposition that will have REAL impacts on costs and quality of patient care.

As Governor of Alaska, I learned a little bit about being a target for frivolous suits and complaints (Please, do I really need to footnote that?). I went my whole life without needing a lawyer on speed-dial, but all that changes when you become a target for opportunists and people with no scruples. Our nation’s health care providers have been the targets of similar opportunists for years, and they too have found themselves subjected to false, frivolous, and baseless claims. To quote a former president, “I feel your pain.”

So what can we do? First, we cannot have health care reform without tort reform. The two are intertwined. For example, one supposed justification for socialized medicine is the high cost of health care. As Dr. Scott Gottlieb recently noted, “If Mr. Obama is serious about lowering costs, he’ll need to reform the economic structures in medicine—especially programs like Medicare.” [1] Two examples of these “economic structures” are high malpractice insurance premiums foisted on physicians (and ultimately passed on to consumers as “high health care costs”) and the billions wasted on defensive medicine.

Gov. Plain is right about the need for tort reform… One has to wonder why it isn’t a center piece of the health care reform proposals now before Congress the two intimately linked. Gov. Palin quotes extensively extensively from research by Dr. Stuart Weinstein of the American Academy of Orthopaedic Surgeons who notes:

Excessive litigation and waste in the nation’s current tort system imposes an estimated yearly tort tax of $9,827 for a family of four and increases healthcare spending in the United States by $124 billion. How does this translate to individuals? The average obstetrician-gynecologist (OB-GYN) delivers 100 babies per year. If that OB-GYN must pay a medical liability premium of $200,000 each year (which is the rate in Florida), $2,000 of the delivery cost for each baby goes to pay the cost of the medical liability premium.

It’s no surprise that tort reform isn’t a priority for the Obama Administration and congressional Democrats, as the Washington Examiner’s David Freddoso noted last week they’re beholden to trial lawyers:

An Examiner analysis of the 15 firms on the National Law Journal’s “2008 Plaintiff’s Hot List” shows that for 2009, their employees have contributed $636,305 to federal politicians and PACs. Only $4,875 of that amount has gone to Republicans, meaning that the nation’s top trial lawyers are giving more than 99 percent Democratic this year. The PAC for the American Association of Justice, the top trial lawyer lobbying group, has been marginally more balanced, giving Democrats a mere 96 percent of its $627,000 in contributions.

These trial lawyers are especially concentrating on the Senate. Members of those same 15 firms have given $236,000 to the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee this year. And trial lawyers know that the Senate is controlled by one of their own — Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., who faces a potentially difficult re-election. Reid has taken in some $54,000 from the top 15 firms. According to OpenSecrets, he has taken $978,000 from the legal industry as a whole.

Related

• Gov. Rick Perry: Tort reform must be part of health care reform – Washington Examiner
• Pull the Plug on ObamaCare – Peggy Noonan

Comeuppance: Thousands Quit AARP Over Health Care Reform

From CBS News:

CBS News has learned that up to 60,000 people have cancelled their AARP memberships since July 1, angered over the group’s position on health care.

Elaine Guardiani has been with AARP for 14 years, and said, “I’m extremely disappointed in AARP.”

Retired nurse Dale Anderson has 12 years with AARP and said, “I don’t wanna be connected with AARP.”

Many are switching to the American Seniors Association, a group that calls itself the conservative alternative as CBS News Investigative Correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports.

Last week alone, they added more than 5,000 new members. Our camera was there Friday when the mail came.

The principle issue driving seniors away from the AARP appears to be the proposed cuts to Medicare and the Medicare Advantage program. The American Seniors Association pulls no punches in its opposition to ObamaCare and the cuts to Medicare and the Medicare Advantage program. The AARP on the hand insists they haven’t endorsed any plan but as the CBS News report notes AARP’s VP for Social Impact, Cheryl Matheis, can’t find anything to quibble with, including the cuts to Medicare and the Medicare Advantage program, saying:

“We haven’t seen provisions in legislation yet, so we’re going to reserve judgment until we see them,” said Matheis.

Heh… You don’t need to see the final bill, as Ms. Matheis suggests, to know it’s a bad deal for seniors.

The ASA is a bit of an unknown, but any reduction in the influence of the AARP is good thing. They’ve effectively become and extension of the federal bureaucracy and are just as out of touch with the people they claim represent as the President and members of Congress.

If there’s one thing that the health care reform debate has made crystal clear, it’s that many seniors believe that the quality of care they’ll receive under ObamaCare will decline. The AARP foolishly thought they could slip that past they’re and now they’re paying a price for their arrogance.

Arrogance: Hoyer, Pelosi Call Protests Against ObamaCare “un-American”

I’ve seen politicians say more than a few amazingly stupid things in my time but this really takes the cake… For House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer to take to the pages of a major American newspaper and call those who disagree with them un-American is beyond the pale:

However, it is now evident that an ugly campaign is underway not merely to misrepresent the health insurance reform legislation, but to disrupt public meetings and prevent members of Congress and constituents from conducting a civil dialogue. These tactics have included hanging in effigy one Democratic member of Congress in Maryland and protesters holding a sign displaying a tombstone with the name of another congressman in Texas, where protesters also shouted “Just say no!” drowning out those who wanted to hold a substantive discussion.

These disruptions are occurring because opponents are afraid not just of differing views — but of the facts themselves. Drowning out opposing views is simply un-American. Drowning out the facts is how we failed at this task for decades.

Health care is complex. It touches every American life. It drives our economy. People must be allowed to learn the facts.

That type of rhetoric is as inappropriate and misplaced now as it was when some on the right used it against those who opposed the war in Iraq. It has no place in mainstream political discourse and for the Speaker of the House and House Majority Leader to resort to it raises serious question about their qualifications for the positions they hold.

Hillary Clinton was right when she passionately declared :

“I am sick and tired of people who say that if you debate and you disagree with this administration somehow you’re not patriotic. We should stand up and say we are Americans and we have a right to debate and disagree with any administration.”

Speaker Pelosi and Majority Leader Hoyer would do well to re-read the first amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.

Americans had every right to question and disagree with the Bush Administration just as we have every right to question and disagree the Obama Administration… For national political leaders to question the patriotism and/or motives of those who passionately disagree with them makes it undeniably clear that they are not interested in debate.

H/T: Cuffy Meigs via Hot Air.

Related

• Boehner Slams Pelosi’s “Un-American” Op-ed – Weekly Standard
• Uh oh: Even Liberals in Massachusetts having a Hard Time at Town Halls – Wizbang

Health Care This and That: Barney Frank Lets the Truth Slip About the Public Option, and Much More…

Lets get started… First up here’s a great video of Congressman Barney Frank letting the truth about the so called “Public Plan” slip:

Yes you heard him right, a public plan will lead to a government takeover of health care… While your at it be sure to check out this video from Naked Emperor News of Pres. Obama in his own words taking about how  his health care plan would eliminate private insurance.

Second, Keith Hennessey provides a  great counterpoint to President Obama’s health care reform email:

Dear Taxpayer,

If you’re like most Americans, you like the health insurance you have today but think the system needs improvement.  You would like things to work better, but are aware of the threats that arise from politicians who promise you something for nothing.

President Obama is correct that the underlying problem with health care is rising costs.  Because of this problem, your paycheck grows more slowly, millions of Americans cannot afford to buy health insurance, and the escalating costs of Medicare and Medicaid will force enormous tax increases onto you and your children.  The President wants to slow the growth of health care spending, and so do I.

Congress has gone in the opposite direction.  Rather than changing incentives to reduce the cost of health insurance, they are trying to shift those costs onto someone else:  you.  The facts are not in dispute.  The bill being developed in the House of Representatives would mean:

• No reduction in the growth of average private health insurance premiums;
• More than $1 trillion of new government spending over the next decade;
• $239 billion more debt in the short run, with ever-increasing additions to the deficit forever; and
• More than $500 billion of tax increases, including higher income tax rates on successful small businesses.

Read the rest…

Third, the National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) provides a list of 10 Surprising Facts about American Health Care:

Fact No. 1: Americans have better survival rates than Europeans for common cancers.[1] Breast cancer mortality is 52 percent higher in Germany than in the United States, and 88 percent higher in the United Kingdom.  Prostate cancer mortality is 604 percent higher in the U.K. and 457 percent higher in Norway.  The mortality rate for colorectal cancer among British men and women is about 40 percent higher.

Fact No. 2: Americans have lower cancer mortality rates than Canadians.[2] Breast cancer mortality is 9 percent higher, prostate cancer is 184 percent higher and colon cancer mortality among men is about 10 percent higher than in the United States.

Fact No. 3: Americans have better access to treatment for chronic diseases than patients in other developed countries.[3] Some 56 percent of Americans who could benefit are taking statins, which reduce cholesterol and protect against heart disease.  By comparison, of those patients who could benefit from these drugs, only 36 percent of the Dutch, 29 percent of the Swiss, 26 percent of Germans, 23 percent of Britons and 17 percent of Italians receive them.

Fourth, the Telegraph reports on one of the side effects of government run health care:

Patients forced to live in agony after NHS refuses to pay for painkilling injections

Tens of thousands with chronic back pain will be forced to live in agony after a decision to slash the number of painkilling injections issued on the NHS, doctors have warned.

By Laura Donnelly, Health Correspondent
Published: 7:45AM BST 02 Aug 2009

Tens of thousands with chronic back pain will be forced to live in agony after a decision to slash the number of painkilling injections issued on the NHS, doctors have warned.

The Government’s drug rationing watchdog says “therapeutic” injections of steroids, such as cortisone, which are used to reduce inflammation, should no longer be offered to patients suffering from persistent lower back pain when the cause is not known.
Instead the National Institute of Health and Clinical Excellence (NICE) is ordering doctors to offer patients remedies like acupuncture and osteopathy.

Specialists fear tens of thousands of people, mainly the elderly and frail, will be left to suffer excruciating levels of pain or pay as much as £500 each for private treatment.

Finally, Lee Cary, has a terrific series of articles at American Thinker on the questions you should be asking your Congressperson about Obamacare:

Here’s the first installment in a series of questions you might ask your member of the House of Representatives concerning H.R. 3200 – also known as Obamacare.

The two-thousand, five-hundred and forty-one (2,541) sections of the bill can be found here. The emailed version my congressman’s office sent me covers 1,026 pages and is written in the typical legislative labyrinth of gobbledygook, replete with multi-layered, mind-numbing, cross references. There must be a software program called Obfuscate 2Max that cranks this stuff out.

Anyway, below is the first in a series of questions you might ask your congressperson if they’re either undecided about Obamacare, or support it.

Question 1: According the Section 113(b)(1)(C)&(D), “The Commissioner (appointed by the President) in cooperation with the Secretary of Health and Human Services and the Secretary of Labor, shall conduct a study of the large group insured and self-insured employer health markets. Such study shall examine the following:

(C) The financial solvency and capital reserve levels of employers that self-insure by employer size.

(D) The risk of self-insured employers not being able to pay obligations or otherwise becoming financially insolvent.”

SO, self-insuring companies will be subject to government auditing of their books to adjudicate their ability now, and in the future, to self-insure?  Will that information be made available to the Department of the Treasury, including the Internal Revenue Service?

You can read the full seven part series starting with part one here. Part two is here, parts 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7 are  here, here, here, here and here respectively.