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Time to Go for the Kill
May 22, 2013 | 64 comments
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Obamacare Implodes
May 15, 2013 | 41 comments
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Obama’s Rising Inequality
May 8, 2013 | 101 comments
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Downsize the Liberals
May 1, 2013 | 53 comments
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Fight Back! Privatize the FAA!
April 24, 2013 | 65 comments
The Right Prescription
The New Face of Health Care — the IRS
Obamacare has its enforcer in place and ready to roll.
When President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka “Obamacare”) goes fully into effect in 2014, the American people will only then begin to see the implications of its thorough government takeover of health care, in all its glory. But what they are not expecting is the massively expanded role of the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) in our lives, as the IRS is the chief agency responsible for enforcing the Act.
That is explained in a new paper by Dan Pilla, just published by the Heartland Institute, “Implementing the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” Pilla is a tax litigation consultant and a national leader in taxpayer rights defense, authoring 11 books on IRS defense strategies. His new paper explains “how the IRS can be expected to play an ever-growing role in your life and in the day-to-day affairs of every business in the nation as the tentacles of the PPACA wrap themselves around the most important and personal elements of your life.”
Pilla estimates that it will take a minimum of 5,000 and perhaps as many as 16,000 additional IRS employees to carry out the “massive expansion of the power and reach of the Internal Revenue Service” under the PPACA.
Perhaps the most important and complex new IRS responsibility is to enforce the act’s individual and employer mandates requiring individuals and employers to buy the health insurance not that they want, but that the federal government says they must have. This will effectively be a new burdensome payroll tax on the middle class and working people, and on job creators, as politics will force every politically correct benefit to be included in the required insurance, causing its cost to soar. That health insurance will likely cost $20,000 per year per family to start, rising rapidly after that. President Obama’s 2008 campaign promise not to raise taxes on singles making less than $200,000 a year, and couples making less than $250,000, has been thrown aside and forgotten, with the Supreme Court ruling that the individual mandate is constitutional precisely because it is a tax.
Individuals who fail to comply and buy the health insurance chosen for them by Kathleen Sebelius will be subjected to a penalty of $695 per person per year, up to a maximum of $2,085 per family, or 2.5% of household income, whichever is greater. Pilla explains that “The gross applicable penalty is pro-rated to apply on a monthly basis ‘for any month during which any failure’ to have adequate coverage exists.”
The PPACA precludes the IRS from using its levy power or filing tax liens to collect these penalties on individuals. But Pilla notes the IRS can offset the penalties against any federal income tax refund owed to you. The IRS can also seize any state or local tax refund you are due as well. And if you send any payment to the IRS that is not specifically designated in writing as applying to a specific IRS debt, the IRS can apply it to your health insurance penalty, and you will not be able to get it back.
The employer mandate is a new vicious tax on job creation that is already causing employers to cut back on hiring. Employers can either pay $20,000 a year or so for the family coverage Kathleen Sebelius chooses for them, required by the PPACA not only for their workers but for all of their dependents as well, or they can start paying the tax penalties. That includes for those with 50 or more full-time employees a penalty of $2,000 per year per full time worker (minus 30 employees), if they offer no insurance. But even if the employer does provide employee health insurance, the employer is assessed a penalty of $3,000 per employee if the worker nevertheless qualifies to purchase his or her own health insurance on a state health insurance exchange and does so.
Under these incentives, even employers who have provided employee health insurance for years are likely to drop the coverage. The bottom line is that $2,000 per worker is a lot less than insurance costing $20,000 per family, with possible further penalties of $3,000 per worker. That is why top economists are predicting that tens of millions will lose their employer-provided coverage as a result.
Former CBO Director Douglas Holtz-Eakin calculates that this will probably be the case at least for all workers earning less than $60,000 per year, because employers will figure those workers are eligible for substantial subsidies for health insurance that they’ll then go buy on the state Exchanges. That is why he is estimating that 43 million workers will lose their employer-provided health insurance under the PPACA. So much for President Obama’s promise that if you like your health insurance you can keep it.
But you can also expect employers with just a little more than 50 employees to start layoffs to get below the 50 employee threshold. Also expect many employers to reduce their work force and hire more independent contract employees not eligible for any benefits, paid under a 1099 rather than a W-2.
IRS Charity
Once your employer dumps you
on the Exchange, where you will have to find and pay for your own
health insurance to comply with the individual mandate, you will be
eligible for Obamacare tax credits to help you pay that $20,000 a
year in insurance costs. But to do that you will have to prove you
qualify under the new definition of “household income” enforced by
the IRS, which is not the same as your taxable income on your
return. As Pilla explains, household income includes the income of
all other members of the “household” that live with you, which
means anyone who qualifies as a dependent under IRS Code section
151. That can include the income of a mother-in-law or
grandchild.
Pilla explains that the “exchange, not the IRS, determines who is eligible for the credit and the amount of the credit. Thus, under the PPACA, citizens have to apply for coverage and in doing so, report to their respective exchanges their family size and household income. They will have to provide copies of their tax returns and whatever other additional information the exchange requires.”
In addition, “The IRS must verify household income and family size. But these things change on an ongoing basis.” Consequently, you are “required to report to the exchange any changes during the year as they happen.” If the IRS later determines that your tax credit was too large, you will have to pay the excess back. Or the IRS will go after you to collect it. Pilla warns that “citizens will likely end up talking with [IRS] computers about their health insurance issues to an even greater extent than we currently talk with IRS computers about tax problems.”
IRS Data
To enforce all of
these obligations, the IRS will need mountains of new data. The IRS
must determine whether the health insurance you have satisfies all
of the requirements of the individual mandate. Therefore, Pilla
explains, “the IRS must proactively engage in collecting data from
private insurance companies — something never before done.” The
IRS will need at a minimum:
• The costs and benefits under your policy;
About the Author
Peter Ferrara is Director of Entitlement and Budget Policy at the Heartland Institute, General Counsel of the American Civil Rights Union, Senior Fellow at the National Center for Policy Analysis, and Senior Policy Advisor on Entitlements and Budget Policy at the National Tax Limitation Foundation. He served in the White House Office of Policy Development under President Reagan, and as Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States under President George H.W. Bush.
Letter to the Editor View all comments (39) | Leave a comment
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JamesDrouin| 8.17.12 @ 6:48AM
Well, what a surprise ... Provisions in ObamaDeathCare for 16,000 IRS agents but not a single solitary additonal doctor, nurse, medical technician, or even an ambulance driver.
Only the mentally retarded left wing liberal Democrats would "believe" nationalised health care is a good idea.
Von Mises Jr| 8.17.12 @ 7:04AM
You won't be able to find a doctor since there will be far less doctors if ObamaCare stands. Medicaid pays about thirteen cents ($0.13) on the dollar after reimbursements (probably near half the money is stolen or pays for the bureaucracy) plus basic office costs. So doctors are already refusing Medicaid. In New Jersey some 4,300 doctors were surveyed and 60% said they will not take Medicaid under the expansion with ObamaCare to 138% of the poverty line.
So you will be forced as in Canada to go to the Emergency Room and wait a minimum of 8 hours to up to 36 hours for treatment, dependent upon severity of the emergency.
The end result is that DC will have virtually all your money and control your life. That control does not include health care.
Von Mises Jr| 8.17.12 @ 7:06AM
Under ObamaCare, Medicare reimbursements will decline to mirror the levels of Medicaid. So essentially Medicare becomes Medicaid for all.
Jacob McCandles| 8.17.12 @ 8:04AM
Hadn't heard about that-are you referring to the "doc fix" that congress has kicked down the road for 16 years?
CJW| 8.17.12 @ 8:21AM
Obama is taking 716 Billion from Medicare to fund his pet project obamacare.
Dems are now referring to the 716 Billion Heist as "savings" in Medicare. Simply stated, as Von explained, Medicare will pay less to doctors and hospitals to by at least 716 Billion.
Obama wants you to believe that the doctors will just accept it and work for much less. Not even Obama believes that.
The aim is to drive out private health insurance. There will be a crisis because hospitals and doctors cannot treat patients for pennies on the dollar. Then obamacare will be amended to require all health plans to pay the same reimbursement as obamacare/medicare so doctors and hospitals have no choice, and we will have a single payor system, with private plans driven out of the market.
TLP| 8.17.12 @ 8:43PM
Nice article, but you forgot to mention the Thousands of Shotguns that The Muslim has procured for his Shadow Army, under the guise of the IRS, as well as the Social Security Department, and the Agriculture Department, with all of their Hundres of Thousands of HOLLOW POINT BULLETS, that they've just snapped up for God knows what reason.
Anybody Scared, yet?
It's too bad we don't have anybody in The Secret Service, that is willing to HONOUR THEIR OATH, and put this DOMESTIC ENEMY down.
Cobalt| 8.17.12 @ 8:56AM
People should be aware of some of the terms used to refer to rationing of healthcare.
QALY (quality-adjusted-life-year) and "Complete Lives System"
http://examiner.com/article/ob.....u-hope-for
C. Vernon Crisler | 8.17.12 @ 2:21PM
"But Pilla notes the IRS can offset the penalties against any federal income tax refund owed to you."
The IRS IT people will simply code this into the IRS computer system, so that it will automatically catch refunds from people who owe on the "mandate." It won't require a vast new army of IRS agents. Best way to resist is simply to owe a little bit each year; then there's no way they can collect the "mandate."
You can thank that idiot Roberts that Americans who love freedom have to resort to such tactics. Let's call it the Underground Tax Railroad.
Occam's Tool| 8.17.12 @ 4:00PM
James: Magnificent pick up, sir.
As a former NHS Senior Consultant in New Zealand, I am used to having to explain the difference between Guaranteed Health Insurance and Guaranteed Health Care. Obamacare provides the first, not the second. Indeed it advocates AGAINST the second, as does Britain's NHS, and every other NHS I know of.
But you caught that magnificently well. G-d Bless, and have a great weekend.
ElGordo| 8.19.12 @ 12:25AM
Obama's Gestapo.....I.R.S. Enforcement
.
In a TV interview interview on ABC with Jake Tapper, President Obama not only acknowledged that one third of his ObamaCare bill was paid for by cuts ($716 Billion Dollars) taken from Medicare, but that he would veto attempts to undo those cuts.
..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....e=youtu.be
..
$716 BILLION REMOVED from MEDICARE to SUBSIDIZE ObamaCare & Rationing in Medicare
.
.....15 Man Death Panels Set up ... Euthanasia....... Enforcement by I.R.S.
Appleby| 8.17.12 @ 7:05AM
Anybody who wants to see Socialist Medicine in action is welcome to spend a weekend in Toronto at any of our emergency rooms. People have been known to die in those ERs waiting for somebody to treat them. And forget about Socialist Medicine paying your bills -- I paid $85 for blood pressure meds this week; only those over 65 get their medications "free".
Occam's Tool| 8.17.12 @ 4:02PM
Appleby: should you find your way to Northern Minnesota, I have a very good primary MD friend who might be able to examine you inexpensively and then give you samples of anti-HTN meds. He takes Medicare. Let Ken know, if you wish. G-d Bless, Madam.
JamesDrouin| 8.18.12 @ 12:49PM
It's worse, far, far, FAR WORSE than that.
Since the introduction of national health care in Canada, that system has inadvertently killed in it's hospitals far more Canadians than ALL CANADIANS KILLED IN ALL OF IT'S WARS..
Mimi | 8.17.12 @ 7:19AM
Peter...THANKS ! ........Oh..Oh...Oh..So many do's and don'ts, must haves...musts... and do's up the GAZOO !!! Now we know how badly we need to win this election
Everything that this President conjures up is relegated & delegated....and this he does not do WELL. ie Nancy/Stimilus...wasted cash!...the health-care act/party partisan control freaks.
Who on earth can follow a 3000 page law to the "T"? The biggest fear, those 15 people who will tell the elderly who will get what... and who will live or die. The Dems need to quit discussing Medicare care changes...its just small potatoes compared to this unjust LAW they inflicted on the American People against their well being and far too costly.
TW in SC| 8.18.12 @ 12:41AM
When I try very hard to put any kind of a positive spin on this, I think of prohibition. A stupid law, largely ignored, with some people getting into serious trouble and the government's heavy hand spurring the growth of organized crime.
It's a bit of a stretch but possibly, there will be some docs out there who will provide services for cash-on-the-barrelhead. A black market for medical care. Same for prescription meds. Americans just don't like being told "you can't do that". Especially when it's such a stupid law to begin with and when the fecal-fan interface unit goes into overdrive in 2014...and people see what it REALLY does, more will elect to operate outside the law. Prohibition took 13 years to be recognized as the failure it was.
Dumbass-care may take longer because the socialists are so entrenched and can deploy several tactics to keep it alive. But once it's recognized that our once-incredible medical system is degraded to Cuba-style "care" the gloves will come off.
Stephie| 8.17.12 @ 7:52AM
And what do the non-working parasites pay for their health insurance coverage? Oh, that's right, I'll have to pay for theirs, right?
I can't believe this has come to fruition. It's truly heartbreaking our nation has slid this far into socialism.
Jacob McCandles| 8.17.12 @ 8:10AM
The parasites who are on Medicaid have a very small co-pay for office visits, around 4 dollars I think (that's a pack of smokes!). One of the reasons they abuse the ER is because the there is NO copayment for ER care. It does cost the government around 4X as much however. Another reason for ER abuse is the fact that you simply walk in- no appt necessary. For those who would go through the trouble to make an appt and pay 4 bucks- good luck because the doctors in the private clinics will not see them.
MelvinNC| 8.17.12 @ 8:12AM
Will Harry Reid use Obamacare? Absolutely not. Will Nancy Pelosi use Obamacare" No, but hell no. Will Barny Frank & Chris Dodd use Obamacare? Not on your life.
So we see that those who perverted our Constitution by the passage of this, "Thing," will not have to suffer through waiting in an emergency room for treatment by a shotgun toting IRS agent, or having to look into the eyes of a loved one who has just been denied treatment because it isn't cost effective for the government and the government won't get a good return out of your loved ones remaining working years.
We'll spend billions and billions of dollars on those who want to cut our throats in th middle of the night, but let some poor schlep here need a medical procedure, "Oh hell no, you lived a live of smoking, drinking, overweight, now it's payback buddy."
Or we'll allow John Corzine from MF Global to lose, steal, skim other peoples money to the tune o billions of billions of dollars and the wheels tout him as a global financial giant.
Then we get some guy from wherever the hell he is from touting fairness. Yea, fairness, crap in one hand and look for fairness in the other and see which one fills up first. Thats your fairness.
C'mon Man!| 8.17.12 @ 2:26PM
It amazes me that gov't rips business for doing cost-benefit analysis on things, when that is exactly what gov't is doing, but with our lives.
And they work for us? That is a thing of the past. It needs to change.
merlin| 8.17.12 @ 8:56AM
I did not finish the article, but I suspect that there is nothing in the rest of it that will make me less angry.
Either Romney/Ryan nulify Obamacare as promised or may be time to just say NO to thugs.
Pecos Pete| 8.17.12 @ 9:10AM
Repeal ObamaCare or it will be time for lock and load.
By the way, don't overpay withholding taxes to obtain a refund. Why give the gobmint your money before you have to?
Houdini| 8.17.12 @ 10:30AM
Welcome to Orwell's worst nightmare.
Bob James| 8.17.12 @ 10:15PM
In response to the last three comments, that is the sole reason I'm voting for Romney/Ryan. If they lose, it's time to lock and load.
Ballot box, jury box, cartridge box. We're dangerously close to the third option.
Stkman| 8.17.12 @ 11:05AM
All that has to be done is for Congress to not fund it, any of it. So why have'nt Boehnor and the Republicans done that??????????? The House holds the purse strings, not the Senate, so Boehnor has some splainin to do as far as I'm concerned.
Houdini| 8.17.12 @ 11:18AM
The house may hold the purse strings but the speaker is deathly afraid of a shutdown which is their only option considering that the senate will not even take up any legislation designed to obstruck Obamacare. I feel your frustration.
Kwan| 8.17.12 @ 11:30AM
Once ObamaCare kicks in and the Death/Execution panels begin handing out death-sentences to voter's relatives, friends, co-workers, and neighbors the Democrat Party's chances of survival will be nil and none. The Democrats will have to instigate a coup d'etat (coup d'etats are common in Africa) in order to replace our Constitutional Republic with a dictatorship or face oblivion when sick-and-tired voters toss all Democrats out of office.
Marie| 8.17.12 @ 12:01PM
The democrats have all kinds of "dead" voters, so they may still be able to win elections.
Petronius| 8.17.12 @ 11:48AM
just wait until some poor shlub who refuses to buy insurance gets prosecuted and convicted over this law. Not only will he get fined. He will then be a Felon: Disenfranchised and DISARMED.
Kwan| 8.17.12 @ 12:11PM
We better start constructing more of those FEMA Concentration Camps looks like those that don't want to follow the directives of HHS Oberfuhrer Sebelius will need to spend some time in the rock quarry turning big-rocks into little-rocks.
Marie| 8.17.12 @ 12:00PM
I have not been able to figure out if a person will have access to healthcare if they elect to simply pay the penalty.
George S| 8.17.12 @ 12:03PM
You are wrong in your assessment that the IRS cannot use its levy power or file tax liens to collect the mandate penalties on individuals.
First, it is not the IRS that is enjoined from filing a tax lien, it is the Secretary of HHS. From the law itself (26 USC 5000A):
(g) Administration and procedure
(1)
(2) Special rules
Notwithstanding any other provision of law—
(A) Waiver of criminal penalties
In the case of any failure by a taxpayer to timely pay any penalty imposed by this section, such taxpayer shall not be subject to any criminal prosecution or penalty with respect to such failure.
(B) Limitations on liens and levies
The Secretary shall not—
(i) file notice of lien with respect to any property of a taxpayer by reason of any failure to pay the penalty imposed by this section, or
(ii) levy on any such property with respect to such failure.
Second: From the Tax Code 6331(a):
"If any person liable to pay any tax neglects or refuses to pay... [the IRS can levy] all property and rights to property..."
Rights to property includes your future wages, so while the IRS cannot lien or attach your property (i.e., bank account) they can attach your future wages.
Where in the law does it exempt "right to property"? You think Congress is stupid or forgot to give the IRS enforcement power?
Suzyqpie| 8.17.12 @ 12:45PM
The democrats passed for us a health care buracracy that they didn't want for themselves. That doesn't work for me. Our president is so fond of fairness. And this is considered fair? Now that the mandate has been identified as a tax, we are right back where we started in 1774, taxation without representation. We are subject to a tax that exempts certain special people.
cicero| 8.17.12 @ 2:47PM
Houdini - It always amazes me that the Republicans are afraid of the threat to shut down the Fedderal government. All entitlement checks, such as Social Security, Military pay, pensions, etc., go out automatically. If the government shut down during a newspaper strike, no one would even know it. I say, defund Obamacare, and let the govt. shut down.
The Republicans have one more shot at this. Either they bring the spending under control, or they will be thrown out on their asses. At that point, either the conservatives will take over the party, or a thind party will have to rise to protect this nation.
The Dems actually believe that if they bankrupt the country, it won't affect them. They have bought into the old Progressive rant that the government can spend endlessly to stay in pawer by the simple expediency of printing more money. The Fed Res. has been buying all of the new T-bills issued, and calling it quantitative easing. That is like borrowing money from yourself, and printing paper dollars to pay it back with. Only a fool . . .
George True| 8.18.12 @ 12:14PM
"The Fed Res has been buying all of the new t-bills issued, and calling it quantitative easing..."
Well said. And that is the crux of the problem. Our government is currently, every month, printing monopoly money for 40% of its expenditures. And that is before adding in the trillions of additional dollars that Obamacare will cost if implemented (may it be strangled in its crib).
Who will pay for all this? Why, we will of course. When our currency becomes debased by 30, 40, 50, 60 percent or more, the government will have successfully passed the cost of its massive deficit spending folly to all of us. When the currency we all get paid in and depend on to buy what we need each month buys only half or a third as much, and when any savings we have is devalued by an equal amount, then the true cost of all this will have been visited upon all of us in the form of financial ruination to all of us individually.
If Romney/Ryan do not use a Republican controlled house and senate to dramatically scale back government, the resulting financial devastation will be blamed on them, and the Dems will retake power in 2016.
KamilBourne13| 8.18.12 @ 3:01PM
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KamilBourne13| 8.18.12 @ 3:03PM
what Kenneth implied I am alarmed that any body able to make $8023 in 1 month on the internet. did you see this webpage EarlyRich(dot)com (Click "Home" on the menu bar)
ElGordo| 8.18.12 @ 5:59PM
In a TV interview interview on ABC with Jake Tapper, President Obama not only acknowledged that one third of his ObamaCare bill was paid for by cuts ($716 Billion Dollars) taken from Medicare, but that he would veto attempts to undo those cuts.
..
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v.....e=youtu.be
..
$716 BILLION REMOVED from MEDICARE to SUBSIDIZE ObamaCare & Rationing in Medicare
.
.........15 Man Death Panels Set up ... Euthanasia
topcat52| 8.19.12 @ 11:57AM
I guess Ms. Pelosi was correct when she said they'd have to pass it to know what was in it. I wonder if the President has any idea of what he's wrought.
delahaya| 8.19.12 @ 2:06PM
It was my understanding that many thousands of new IRS agents have already been hired. It sure seems that way. A large number of my friends, and myself, have gotten "review" notices from the IRS for the first time in our lives. Guess they are being put to work until Obamacare gets fully started.