ObamaCare

ObamaCare, more formally known as "The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act," was passed by Congress into federal law on March 21, 2010, and signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23. This law began the process to socialize America's health care system. Through legislative mandates, ObamaCare requires private citizens to purchase health insurance, involuntarily fund abortions, and pay for sex offenders to use Viagra under the threat of legal sanctions if they do not. The new law imposes penalties that will increase to 2.5% of one's income if he fails to purchase government-approved health insurance.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates the unconstitutional revenue generating device could produce as much as $36 billion over ten years. The fines are euphemistically dubbed "shared responsibility payments." Employers would be required to deduct the penalties from employees paychecks.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) points out that there are no redeeming provisions of Obama's health care plan and offers a number of criticisms of Obama's health care plan. The AAPS maintains that Obama's health care plan will significantly increase the overall cost of health care to United States public plus reduce the quality of care that the system provides. Political analyst and commentator Dick Morris has asserted that Obama's health care plan will lead to the significant use of rationing senior health care which will decrease the life span of senior citizens.

The State of Massachusetts has had a similar program in place for several years, and many have elected to pay the penalties rather than purchase insurance, and many remain uninsured.

Obamacare will do more than detrimentally impact healthcare accessibility. According to the Heritage Foundation, Obama is intentionally sacrificing millions of jobs at a time when unemployment is around 10% with the Medicare surtax without any objective expection of increases in revenues.

Basic Requirements

Beginning in 2014, Americans will be required to buy government-approved, private health insurance or else pay a penalty.

Health insurance companies will be required to spend on medical care at least 80% of the premium payments they receive from individual and small-group plans (and at least 85% from large group plans). The federal government will define what constitutes medical care.

Immediate Impact in 2010

Creating temporary high-risk pool with subsidized premiums for certain people with pre-existing conditions.

Imposing new taxes on some facilities, such as tanning parlors.

Requirements for Insurance Companies

Prohibit bans on pre-existing health conditions in children, lifetime and annual limits on expenses, and limits coverage exclusions of pre-existing health conditions in adults.

Requires family policies to include children up to age 26.

Does allow states to form compacts in order to allow the interstate sale of insurance.

Requires direct access to obstetrical and gynecological care, which might include abortion.

Creates (by 2014) health insurance exchanges or marketplaces that will be state-based and state-administered, but states can opt out of this if certain conditions are met; insurance can be sold within the exchange only if government-approved, but insurance can be sold outside of the exchange.

Prohibits health plans from discriminating against providers, but plans are not required to contract with any provider.

Requires health plans to develop politically correct language services, community outreach and cultural competency trainings.

Employer Requirements

Requires employers having more than 50 full-time employees must provide health insurance or pay a penalty.

Employees having 25 or less full-time employees and average salaries of $50,000 or less can apply for tax credits to provide health insurance to their employees.

Medicaid

ObamaCare expands Medicaid (medical care for the poor) to everyone (under the Medicare age of 65) who has income less than 133% the federal poverty level. States must pay this enormous new burden, but federal government promises to reimburse costs of newly eligible patients under this program from 2014 to 2016.

New Bureaucracy

Establishes a new Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP) program with the goal of creating non-profit, member-run health insurance companies in every state

Basis for Legal Challenges

ObamaCare includes an "individual responsibility requirement" compelling persons to buy health insurance or pay a penalty. The legal justification for this requirement by Congress is the Commerce Clause:

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The individual responsibility requirement provided for in this section ... is commercial and economic in nature, and substantially affects interstate commerce, as a result of the effects described in paragraph (2). ... [Paragraph (2) states,] The requirement regulates activity that is commercial and economic in nature: economic and financial decisions about how and when health care is paid for, and when health insurance is purchased.

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Apparently uncertain that this would withstand legal scrutiny as a valid exercise of Commerce Clause authority, on March 21 (the same day as passage) the Joint Committee on Taxation released a 157-page "technical explanation" of the bill. This "explanation" grounded the justification for the bill in the tax authority of Congress, and nowhere mentioned commerce. As Professor Randy Barnett explained in an article on April 29, 2010 in the Wall Street Journal:

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The word "commerce" appeared nowhere. Instead, the personal mandate is dubbed an "Excise Tax on Individuals Without Essential Health Benefits Coverage." But while the enacted bill does impose excise taxes on "high cost," employer-sponsored insurance plans and "indoor tanning services," the statute never describes the regulatory "penalty" it imposes for violating the mandate as an "excise tax." It is expressly called a "penalty."

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Professor Barnett then explained that in Bailey v. Drexel Furniture (1922), "the Supreme Court struck down such a penalty saying, 'there comes a time in the extension of the penalizing features of the so-called tax when it loses its character as such and becomes a mere penalty with the characteristics of regulation and punishment.'" A subsequent Supreme Court decision, U.S. v. Kahriger (1953), upheld a punitive tax on gambling based on an express statement in the law that Congress was exercising its power to tax. No such statement exists in ObamaCare. See also Sonzinsky v. U.S. (1937) ("Inquiry into the hidden motives which may move Congress to exercise a power constitutionally conferred upon it is beyond the competency of courts."). Professor Barnett noted that the penalty is not enforced as a tax in a customary manner, providing further evidence that ObamaCare is based on the Commerce Clause and not on any taxing authority.

It has also been pointed out that because the penalty applies to inactivity, it is beyond the powers authorized by the Sixteenth Amendment anyway.

History of Mandatory Coverage

One of the early proposals (a predecessor to the one enacted) would create a system to require adults (over age 19, U.S. citizens, not incarcerated) to enroll themselves and dependent children in a plan through the state-wide Health Help Agency (HHA) unless they provide evidence of enrollment or coverage through Medicare, a health insurance plan offered by the Department of Defense, an employee benefit plan through a former employer (i.e. retiree health plans), a qualified collective bargaining agreement, the Department of Veterans Affairs, or the Indian Health Service. There may by a religious exemption under this proposal. Each adult would have the responsibility to enroll each child in a plan. Dependent children include individuals up to age 24 claimed by their parents for deductions in the tax code.

If an individual fails to purchase coverage and does not meet the exceptions or the religious exemption, then under Obamacare a financial penalty may be assessed for non-indigent individuals.

History of Penalty for Failure to Purchase Coverage

If an individual fails to purchase coverage and does not meet the exceptions or the religious exemption, then a financial penalty will be assessed for non-indigent individuals. Under an early proposal for mandatory care, the penalty was calculated by multiplying the number of uncovered months times the weighted average of the monthly premium for a plan in the person’s coverage class and coverage area, plus 15 percent.

Fines were to be paid to the HHA of the State in which the person resides. That agency also may establish a procedure to waive the penalty if the penalty poses a hardship. Each State would determine appropriate mechanisms to enforce the requirement that individuals be enrolled.

The law that was enacted replaced the state-based approach with a direct penalty to be paid to the United States.

Privacy Rights

Section 163 of the America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009 would allow the government real-time access to a person's bank records - including direct access to bank accounts for electronic fund transfers.

Rationed Care

Some doctors have said they anticipate more people waiting in the waiting-rooms, more phone calls, people upset because they want to be seen now. Doctors will be overbooked. As the health care system brings in more and more patients, the system will be overwhelmed. ObamaCare will be a tremendous burden for doctors in the United States. Many conservatives feel that only those who can afford insurance should be allowed to see doctors, and those who cannot afford to pay do not deserve treatment. Obama's proposal flies in the face of this thinking.

ObamaCare will shorten the amount of time Doctors have with each patient, and lengthen the amount of time patients will have to wait. Dr. Sreedhar Potarazu said that the current bill passed into law will create a scenario where the supply cannot meet the demand. Because the necessary health care reform needs are not included in ObamaCare, there are still no protections for physicians in the medical industry, and doctors are going into the profession to work harder to earn less.

There will be an oversight board where the government looks at what should and shouldn't be given to patients, regardless of medical need. There is going to be rationing of care, according to Dr. Sreedhar Potarazu. Some doctors have agreed there will be "rationed care" under ObamaCare. Care is rationed under current law by denying it to those who are unable to pay (due to unemployment, for example). Under ObamaCare, all patients will still have the right to pay for any care the government does not provide, so the wealthy will still have access to a higher standard of care.

Misinformation

A webpage at whitehouse.gov entitled "Reality Check" claims that the president's program "would be fully paid for over 10 years, and it would not add one penny to the deficit." The CBO is mandated to prepare cost estimates and to show how individual legislative proposals would change spending or revenue levels under current law. A July 15 2009 letter from the CBO made this assessment,

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enacting the proposal would result in a net increase in the federal budget deficits of about $1.0 trillion over the 2010-2019 period."

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However, CBO analyses of the House and Senate versions of the health care reform bills show that they would reduce the federal budget deficit by $109 billion and $81 billion respectively.

Obama Administration health care plan and liberal elitism

Barack Obama

See also: Barack Obama and liberal elitism and Barack Obama and uncharitableness

In 2007, when Obama was running for the office of President of the United States, he promised Americans "health care that is as good as the health care that I have as a member of Congress." However, recently when a newspaper reporter pressed Obama on whether he would commit to Americans having the same health care as congressmen, Obama repeatedly refused to commit to his previous promise of Americans having the same coverage as members of Congress. President Obama merely claimed Americans would have health care coverage that would "largely match up" with what members of Congress have. President Obama also stated he is constantly followed around by a personal physician. The Obama administration's liberal elitism is not unusual when it comes to health care. For example, Belinda Stronach, a former Member of the Canadian Parliament, chose to have a surgical treatment in the United States rather than be treated in Canada for her condition (Canada has a socialized medicine system of health care).

Congressman John Fleming has offered a legislative amendment that would require United States congressmen and senators to take the same health care plan they try to force on others (under proposed legislation they are curiously exempt). Congressman Fleming is encouraging people to go to his website and sign his petition.

Treatment of Elders

Some critics, including former Vice-Presidential hopeful Sarah Palin, have accused Obama of planning on setting up "Death Panels" to judge the worthiness and "cost effectiveness" of keeping certain people alive, such as senior citizens. No provision that would do any such thing actually exists in the law as passed, nor did it exist in any version considered in either house of Congress.

See Also

• Socialized Medicine
• Obamunism
• Obama's Medicare/Medicaid Administrator
• Essay:47 million Americans without health insurance lie

External Links

• The Obama health care press conference: The Public Option
• Collectivism and Obama, McCain, featuring David Boaz, CATO Institute Daily Podcast, June 10, 2008.
• White House Snaps Fingers and Triggers End of Private Insurance, Rush Limbaugh on how the Obama Administration just issued new rules requiring health insurance companies to provide free coverage.