Staggering costs. Gross mismanagement. Delays. If these current problems with Obamacare aren’t enough to persuade you to support its full repeal, maybe this latest revelation will: The Federal Data Services Hub
What is this Hub, and how is it related to Obamacare? According to the folks over at Rare.com
“The Data Hub is a comprehensive database of personal information being established by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement the federally facilitated health insurance exchanges. The purpose of the Data Hub, according to a June 2013 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report, is to provide “electronic, near real-time access to federal data” and “access to state and third party data sources needed to verify consumer-eligibility information.”
As Rare.com astutely points out, “in these days of secret domestic surveillance by the intelligence community, rogue IRS officials and state tax agencies using private information for political purposes, and police electronically logging every license plate that passes by, the idea of the centralized Data Hub is making lawmakers and citizens nervous”.
What kind of information will be stored in the Federal Data Services Hub? Why sorts of your…data. This inlcudes “income and financial data, family size, citizenship and immigration status, incarceration status, social security numbers, and private health information. It will compile dossiers based on information obtained from the IRS, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense, the Veterans Administration, the Office of Personnel Management, the Social Security Administration, state Medicaid databases, and for some reason the Peace Corps”
And who will be in charge of your secure info? The government has it all figured out. They even have a catchy name: “Navigators”: “The hub will be used on a daily basis by so-called Navigators, which according to the GAO are “community and consumer-focused nonprofit groups, to which exchanges award grants to provide fair and impartial public education” and “refer consumers as appropriate for further assistance.” Thousands of such people will have unfettered access to the Data Hub, but there are only sketchy guidelines on how they will be hired, trained and monitored”
So there you have it. A completely intrusive, centralized information database combining health, financial, and citizenship information, overseen by officials no more professional than the current TSA. If Obama can artibrarily ignore the PPACA starting date of January 1, 2014 for businesses, than the House and Senate need to takes the reigns and push for a delay (or better yet — a full repeal) of Obamacare for individuals as well.
There is too much to risk — financially and personally — to keep Obamacare on the books.
Three major Unions, including James P. Hoffa of the International Brotherhood of Teamsters, wrote a letter to Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid this past week. In the letter, they echoed the sentimeng of millions of Americans who are concerned about Obamacare.
The opening salvo is scathing. “When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act, you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat,” letter said. “Right now, unless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour workweek that is the backbone of the American middle class.”
The reason why this letter is attention-grabbing is the fact that the Unions have been the staunchest supporters of Obama through thick and thin. And interestingly, they acknowledge that in this letter. They write, ” We have also been strong supporters of you. In campaign after campaign we have put boots on the ground, gone door-to-door to get out the vote, run phone banks and raised money to secure this vision. Now this vision has come back to haunt us.”
Ouch.
If you don’t want to read the letter in its entirety, Wall Street Cheet Sheet does a quick little analysis. “The letter lists three complaints. First, that the law creates an incentive for employers to keep workers’ hours below 30 hours per week. Second, that millions of Americans, including a great majority of union members, are covered by nonprofit health insurance plans. But with the implementation of Obamacare, union workers will be “treated differently and not be eligible for subsidies afforded other citizens.” Finally, the letter argued that while union, nonprofit plans will not receive the same subsidies, they will be taxed to pay for those subsidies”
The interesting questions is — will Obama respond? Will changes happen? The Unions don’t seem too sure. In fact, they charge that “Unless changes are made, however, that promise is hollow”.
This strongly worded letter is all too revealing. Obama used the Unions to get elected, and how he’s folding on them since they’ve outlived their usefulness. For the Unions to deride Obamacare in this fashion is encouraging. If even the big Unions refuse to get behind Obamacare anymore, it gives more weight for Congress to work with, especially in the Senate, when considering the law and its repeal.
Obamacare was sold to the public as universal health insurance. Insurance, in and of itself, is an exchange of a premium payment in return for a guarantee against specific loss criteria — such as damage or death. Prime examples of this are home and life insurance. And yet, health insurance in our country is not merely a guarantee against loss due to ill health; it encompasses much, much more. In this way, health insurance doesn’t follow the examples of other insurance industries, and therein lies a major reason for Obamacare’s growing economic difficulties ($1.85 trillion) and growing opposition.
Typical health insurance plans nowadays function by providing both insurance and coverage of certain medical costs. With ObamaCare comes the individual mandate, which most people understand the meaning to be that everyone is required to purchase for themselves a health insurance policy (hence the idea of “universal coverage”). The rationale in favor of the individual mandate is to safeguard against societal calamity — that if someone doesn’t have health insurance and they get into an accident or get sick, he doesn’t become a burden on society.
A mandate to buy health insurance might not sound so terrible on the surface to some, because it dictates the purchase of something that just about everyone wants to buy anyway since it is sensible to do so. But what makes Obamacare’s individual mandate so odious is that it it forces people to buy a product comprised of both insurance and a slew of pre-selected, prepaid medical care – which includes paying for stuff they don’t need. This intentionally misuses people’s ability to buy their own reasonably priced insurance. And because the mandate requires coverage to be universal, you have to include everything and everyone, such as preexisting conditions, high risk, etc. Therefore, the individual mandate requires an-insurance-that-is-not really-just-insurance, making reality very different than what it is thought to be.
From an economic standpoint, the individual mandate is a terrible idea because its sole purpose is to obfuscate the true cost of caring for those persons whose circumstances or risk, such as preexisting conditions or age, would result in paying more for health insurance. By controlling the prices through artificial means instead of private competition, the individual mandate creates a misallocation of resources, which is a failure of the fundamental principles of Economics 101.
A second major problem with the individual mandate as it is written is that you can forgo coverage in lieu of paying a penalty and then if you develop a condition, you can still get coverage without being denied due to a pre-existing condition. Unfortunately, this only serves to make prices more expensive for those who are healthy because there must be funds to cover those who are not.
I would argue that having health insurance coverage should not be a mandate in the strict sense of the word; i.e, one should not be required to purchase it. That being said, I also think that people should regard the ownership of a health insurance policy (a “true insurance”) as a basic necessity for proper living. The attitude toward health insurance coverage –- by citizens, legislators, and insurance companies alike —- truly needs a paradigm shift if health care is to be reformed for the better. The health insurance sector must be restructured to resemble other insurance industries such as life, fire, and home; in doing so, they will create a more competitive and dignified system as well as fulfill the purpose of safeguarding against an unforeseen disaster. Therefore, the actual components of what comprises “health insurance” (currently insurance and pre-paid medical care) must change.
The idea of helping everyone to carry health insurance sounds like a lofty goal. However, the individual mandate is the wrong way to attain this. From human point of view, the idea that all persons have coverage may be good, but imposing the mandate is bad for liberty. Turning basic economics on its head, it incentivizes the wrong things and creates most expensive health care possible.
The government has never been efficient with other people’s money. The economics of the current health care law will only serve to reduce the quality of health care for our citizens because it lacks free market competition. A health care reform solution could be focusing on providing a ” true insurance” product that everyone could have – one that protects against having an extraordinary event happen whose economics is more than can be afforded. Obamacare is not an insurance; it is pre-paid medical care system whose product provides for all at all costs. Imposing an individual mandate for such a program is ultimately economically unsustainable. The current health care law should be overturned for the sake of the economic health of this country.
As a CPA who has practiced for four decades, I can say without hesitation that the IRS conduct was severely overreaching. The cherry-picking of organizations and the burdensome scrutiny that was administered by IRS official is utterly beyond the scope of anything they should, and are allowed, to do.
The likelihood that the White House coordinated with the IRS (as well as the media) is strengthened based on the well-researched timeline provided by Kim Strassel at the WSJ. She demonstrated that the IRS attacks on conservative groups happened at the same time the Obama Administration and the media began chiding activity by ominous “shadowy groups”. In one specific example, Americans for Prosperity — a conservative 501c4 — was derided by the White House and media while also simultaneously being subject to intense scrutiny by the IRS.
Part of the issue stems from the difference between a 501c3 and a 501c4. A 501c3 engages in charitable, educational or religious activity, and donations are tax-deductible. Not so with a 501c4, whose main purpose is social welfare, and whose donations are not deductible.
It must be noted that tax-exempt social-welfare groups organized under section 501(c)(4) of the Internal Revenue Code are allowed to engage in some political activity, but the primary focus of their efforts must remain promoting social welfare. That social-welfare activity can include lobbying and advocating for issues and legislation, but not outright political-campaign activity.
But some of the rules regarding 501c4s leave room for IRS officials to make judgment calls and probe individual groups for further information. This is how the IRS justified their targeting, except that they went way beyond what is normal and customary procedure.
In reality, the concept of being a “tax-exempt” organization really has little to no meaning. Despite what the Left has been trying to portray or insinuate, being “tax-exempt” does not mean tax evasion in any way, but rather that the particular organization simply generates no income. And if it does not generate income, it cannot be taxed. But there is nothing untoward about an organization being “tax-exempt” (except perhaps that the government laments this category as “lost revenue”).
A 501c4 operates by collecting money to do things in a collective manner, meaning as a group — as opposed to individually. This organizational status then allows them to function as a group and lets the IRS know that monies collected are for its own non-taxable (non-income generating) purposes.
The fact that there was a coordinated effort by the White House, media, and DCCC to try suggest that conservative-formed 501c4s might be operating in an illegal or clandestine manner is chilling. What’s worse is that low-information voters bought into the narrative because they cannot even recognize anymore whether or not they like a particular idea or position on an issue without knowing where it comes from.
We have freedom of speech and freedom of assembly in this country guaranteed under the First Amendment. If the Left truly believed that their ideas were right and true, those ideas should survive on merit. But that is not what has happened in this country. To go beyond the usual “talking points” that happens in the normal course of politics and use a function of the government in such an overreaching manner is alarming. It is anathema to many Americans that the Left has gone to such great lengths to try to silence or intimidate those who may have viewpoints counter to that in the White House. Such actions are disdainful and they are not the American Way.
Senator Barack Obama at Woodrow Wilson Center on Terrorism, 8/1/07:
“This Administration puts forward a false choice between the liberties we cherish and the security we provide…I will provide our intelligence and law enforcement agencies with the tools they need to track and take out the terrorists without undermining our Constitution and our Freedom”.
“That means no more illegal wiretapping of American citizens, no more National Security letters to spy on American citizens who are not suspected of a crime. No more tracking citizens who do nothing more than protest a misguided war. No more ignoring the law when it is inconvenient”
How does Obama go from being the smartest person ever to be elected President to learning about important stuff going on by watching the news?
One of the key components of Tea Party ideology is the championing for smaller government. As the IRS scandal targeting the Tea Party, Conservatives, and pro-Israel Jews continues to fester, a quick glance at the various figures involved in the wrongdoing have resorted to finger pointing and the blame game. According to Obama and others officials themselves, we have an answer: “Not Me” did it.
“The IRS used inappropriate criteria that identified for review Tea Party and other organizations applying for tax-exempt status based upon their names or policy positions instead of indications of potential political campaign intervention. Ineffective management: 1) allowed inappropriate criteria to be developed and stay in place for more than 18 months, 2) resulted in substantial delays in processing certain applications, and 3) allowed unnecessary information requests to be issued”.
“During interviews with Determinations Unit specialists and managers, we could not specifically determine who had been involved in creating the criteria. EO [Exempt Organization] function officials later clarified that the expanded criteria were a compilation of various Determinations Unit specialists’ responses on how they were identifying Tea Party cases”
Former IRS offical Doug Shulman testified before the House Ways and Means Committee that he was “dismayed and saddened” when he learned about the IG report, and suggested that the IRS is burdened.
“Given the challenges the agency faces, it does its job in an admirable way the great majority of the time. Men and women of the IRS are hardworking, honest public servants. While the inspector general’s report did not indicate that there was any political motivation involved, the actions outlined in the report have justifiably led to questions about the fairness of the approach taken here. The effect has been bad for the agency and bad for the American taxpayer.”
Yet those same (nameless) hardworking, honest public servants are the ones that Shulman blames for the activity. He said, “I agree that this is an issue that when someone spotted it, they should have run up the chain, and they didn’t.
Recent IRS head Steven Miller concurred during his testimony that “I’m not going to disagree with your characterization at all of bad management here.”
So, where is the accountability within the levels of the IRS? Ultimately, the IRS falls under U.S. Department of the Treasury, which is part of the Executive Branch. But you wouldn’t know it talking to this Administration.
When the IRS scandal was erupting, Jay Carney and Obama both stated publicly (Jay on Friday, May 10, and Obama on Monday, May 13) that the IRS was an “independent agency”. This is patently untrue.
The Federalist Society reminds us that there are two types of agencies: One is an “independent agency” which is not part of an Executive Branch department (thinks Boards and Commissions). They are headed by a Cabinet Secretary and are “independent of presidential control, usually because the president’s power to dismiss the agency head or a member is limited”.
The other type of agency is the one kind that the IRS falls under. It is headed by a Senate-confirmed Presidential appointee, and is directly part of the Department of Treasury (in the same way that Federal Bureau of Investigation is part of the Department of Justice). The particular IRS Commissioner position was created in 1997, (26 USC 7803), and the confirmed appointee serves a five-year term.
Our President is counting on either ignorance from the general public ,or else he does not understand how his own government operates. “Not Me” is in charge.
The President and those with whom he has surrounded himself have not been leaders. They have abrogated the basic responsibilities of leadership by refusing to take ownership of the problem and deal with it. It is short on accountability and long on blame. Rich Lowry aptly noted this week that the corruption in our administration” is the distortion of our form of government by sidestepping democratic procedures and accountability and vesting authority in bureaucrats”.
The greatest irony in this debacle is that the Tea Party has been vindicated. It concern about a government-too-big has proven to be unequivocally and terrifyingly true.
As each day passes, the various facets of Obamacare are getting implemented in order to be fully operational by 2014. And we are beginning to hear about difficulties in the implementation caused primarily by either 1) people or companies trying to avoid the “penalties” or 2) people wanting to pay the penalties in order to avoid having to pay for intentionally overpriced health “insurance”.
In order to achieve adequate and targeted enrollment in Obamacare those representing the Government have begun to be aggressive. They are choosing to use all methods at their disposal to pressure, cajole, and otherwise push people to “do the right thing” and buy the mandated insurance product. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has millions now at her disposal to dispatch “navigators” and “in-person assisters” to help enroll more Americans into Obamacare. But the very act of doing so may be rendering Obamacare unconstitutional.
It is worthwhile to remember that the only way in which the law of Obamacare was saved from being declared unconstitutional was the that that there is no penalty associated with Obamacare. It was ruled to be a “tax” derived from not purchasing the mandated health coverage. In reaching his conclusion, Justice Roberts accepted the Administration’s position that there is absolutely no negative interference whatsoever on anyone opting to pay the “tax” rather than buy the product.
Therefore, any attempt by the administration or any of the implementing bodies to pressure, threaten or even imply some sort of wrongdoing by those choosing to not buy insurance would be clearly unconstitutional.
If those implementing Obamacare are properly following the Supreme Court’s mandate, they should be telling prospective insurance purchasers that they should be deciding for themselves whether they would be better off with the insurance or the penalty. We know this is not happening. At the macro level, governors have been hustled to implement the exchanges in their states. And at the individual level, Obamacare officials are pushing for more enrollees to ensure a steady flow of premiums paid by healthy patients in order to cover those who are high-risk and high-cost.
What can be done? If we are vigilant in not allowing individuals and businesses into being compelled to buy Obamacare, can we starve the beast? Are the tactics and funding unconstitutional? If so, Obamacare may just die of its own deficiencies.
There is an erroneous sentiment perpetuated by the media that our government gives corporate tax breaks for moving jobs overseas, implying that our tax laws favor countries like China and India over the United States. This is simply untrue. Expenses that companies and businesses incur while doing business are rightly deductible (“a tax break”) but no specific tax benefits exist in our tax code for companies who relocate outside of our country.
What you don’t hear in the media, however, is that the real reason jobs are moving overseas is because of terrible business policies here at home. Companies operating abroad can undersell us — not so much because wages and costs are lower, but more importantly because their ability to conduct day to day business is not burdened by a) government at all levels hampering their every move, b) very high tax rates, and c) courts that allow frivolous and anti-business litigation to become a significant cost of doing business. We are part of a global economy now, but the foreign countries are rapidly becoming more user friendly than our own.
We are overburdening our businesses with convoluted tax codes and paperwork. The host of local, state, and federal regulations and taxes becomes a cost of every product we make and every service we sell. Additionally, the costs of our legal system itself — not just the direct costs of dealing with frivolous lawsuits but also the need to defensively organize business records and processes — constitutes a large and growing tax on conducting business.The end result makes it more expensive to produce a job here and many companies must move overseas to a friendlier business environment in order to remain financially solvent.
I have a close relative who is an owner and executive of a substantial manufacturing operation that he started in Shenzhen, China because of its business friendly environment. I’ve heard from him many times that he went into business, not to comply with government regulations, but to make things. The wages he pays and his operating costs are much lower than they would be here in the US, but that is substantially offset by less skilled workers and high transportation costs. But his taxes are much less than what they would be in the US, and his total legal expenses would be at least 50 times higher here. And he has not suffered a single expensive lawsuit since he started business in China 25 years ago! Is there any wonder why China’s economy is thriving while ours is stagnating?
Simply put, due to government interference, if a company is going to lose money here, it is going to leave. The real reason for jobs moving overseas is that higher taxes, expensive and complex regulations, and stifling legal environment have rendered the United States less globally competitive. Without major changes, we are destined to become a declining force in the business world.
Back in 2009, Obama gave a speech at Arizona State University and joked about using the IRS to audit unsavory people. In a jolting forecast nearly four years ago, Glenn Reynolds wrote a response in the WSJ, saying,
“Should the IRS come to be seen as just a bunch of enforcers for whoever is in political power, the result would be an enormous loss of legitimacy for the tax system”.
As the IRS problems continue to unfold, it’s pretty clear that confidence from all sides is low right now.
With that in mind, one question should definitely be discussed: Should we delay the implementation of Obamacare? Obamacare is designed to be enforced by….the IRS.
“Get ready for the Internal Revenue Service to play a dominant role in health care. When Obamacare takes full effect next year, the agency will enforce most of the laws involved in the reform — even deciding who gets included in the health-care mandate.”
and further:
“In its 5-4 ruling last year, the Supreme Court upheld the law’s mandate that Americans have health insurance, saying that Congress can enforce the mandate under its taxing authority and through the IRS.
As a result, the agency has to administer 47 tax provisions under Obamacare. They include the right to levy a penalty against businesses and individuals who don’t provide or acquire insurance. Noting that the IRS will collect the penalties, the decision labeled them a tax.
The IRS also has to determine how to distribute annual subsidies to 18 million people who make less than $45,000 a year and thus qualify for subsidies in buying health coverage, as well as how to deliver tax credits to small businesses that buy coverage for workers”.
Obviously we currently have incompetency, partisanship, and trust issues in the IRS. And don’t forget about financial — IRS head Shulman asked for more money (prior to leaving in November 2012) in order to handle Obamacare in 2014. And on top of it all, the head of the IRS, Steven Miller, resigned yesterday.
At this point, the targeting has swelled to 500. Can the IRS be trusted anymore in implement Obamacare in a fair and just manner?
Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office. This was confirmed today by the IRS.
A fresh Op-Ed this morning by IRS head Steven Miller reveals the lengths to which the IRS and the White House are going to spin the on-going scandal.
“The agency was simply trying to manage the explosive growth in applications for 501(c)(4) status that started pouring in to the IRS in 2010. The Internal Revenue Service recognizes that we should have done a better job of handling the influx of applications by advocacy groups,” Miller wrote.
We saw the shoots of this line of thinking yesterday both from David Plouffe and Nancy Pelosi. Trying to suggest that all these groups that have sprung from the Citizen’s United ruling clogged up the IRS, who was then somehow reduced to scrutinizing groups in order to manage this problem. If only Citizen’s United could be overturned!
David Plouffe, former WH Adviser observed on Twitter “What IRS did dumb and wrong. Impt to note GOP groups flourished last 2 elections, overwhelming Ds. And they will use this to raise more $.”
“We need accountability at the IRS, of course, as to how this happened. But we’ve really got to overturn Citizens United which has exacerbated the situation. So I’ve called for DISCLOSE, that’s a dare, disclose… I’ve been calling for it for over a year, disclose, who are these people? Transparency, amend the constitution to overturn Citizens United, reform the political system, let’s take money down as far as possible. Public financing of campaigns, clean campaigns and empowerment of people because people feel very left out of the loop“.
However, the organizations who were subject to additional scrutiny were applying for either 501(c)3 or 501(c)4 or others, as revealed in this timeline put out by the WSJ on May 13th. but the apologists are counting on citizens to not know the different. By focusing on the 501(c)4 side of it, they can focus on calling out and blaming Citizens United.
Now back to Steven Miller. Further down his Op-Ed, he writes
“Mistakes were made, but they were in no way due to any political or partisan motivation,” he wrote. “We are — and will continue to be — dedicated to reviewing all applications for tax-exempt status in an impartial manner.”
Except, of course, when it comes to the Barack H Obama Foundation.
I have not found this elsewhere, so you’re seeing it here first.
Let’s go back to May 8, 2011, right in the thick of the IRS targeting activity. The NY Post writes a revealing piece about the Barack H Obama Foundation, run by Obama’s half-brother Malik:
“President Obama’s half-brother runs an off-the-books American charity that claims to support poor Kenyans — but it lies about its federal status and no one knows how it spends its money.” … “Malik started his charity the year his brother ran for president. The foundation claims to be a tax-exempt, federally recognized nonprofit. It is not. Nor are there any filings of its expenditures, which the IRS requires of larger charities. Alton Ray Baysden, a former State Department employee at whose Virginia home the charity was founded in 2008, admitted the organization has not even applied for tax-exempt status”
Oh and incidentally, the National Legal and Policy Center, a Washington, DC, watchdog group, made a formal complaint to the IRS and US Post Office about the Foundation that prior week in the beginning of May 2011.
The result? This sunlight on the foundation means that the The Barack H Obama Foundation hurriedly applied for and received tax exempt status in an unprecedented 30 days. The letter of their approval is currently available on the foundations’ website.It was signed Lois Lerner, the senior IRS in the middle of this scandal, of all people. On top of it, the status was made retroactive to December 2008.
