The Coming Rationing and Control of Obamacare

As the Obamacare drama continues to unfold, I have done ongoing research about the new law’s contents.  Bit by bit, the real truth about this gestapo legislation is emerging.  Here is an update on the law’s contents:

Although she was ridiculed, I suspected Sarah Palin was correct in saying there would be death panels; it turns out Ms. Palin was right.  The health care reform law establishes a Medicare commission, the Independent Payment Advisory Board.  This Board will yield “an enormous amount of potential power”, as stated by Peter Orszag, the White House budget director.  Speaking at the Economic Club of Washington, Orszag said “that we can no longer afford to just pay for quantity”.  The Independent Payment Advisory Board “has the power and the responsibility to put forward proposals to hit a pretty aggressive set of targets over the long term”.  The proposals “take effect automatically, unless Congress not only specifically votes them down, but the President signs that bill”.

The Board is comprised of unelected non-doctor bureaucrats, whose purpose is to limit the amount of resources going to Medicare patients.  Richard Poe, a New York Times best-selling author wrote “The numbers make clear that most of these cuts will have to come at the expense of those who need health care the most–the elderly, the disabled and the gravely ill.”  So at last we have it:  Care absolutely will be rationed, and rationed at the expense of those who need it the most.

Additional changes in the tax code will cause monstrous problems.  Consumers using flexible spending accounts (FSA) or health savings accounts (HSA) will no longer be able to use these pre-tax accounts to pay for needed over-the-counter medications.  The new heath care law will only authorize prescription drugs or insulin.  HSAs and FSAs are exempt from both income taxes and 15.3% payroll tax for Social Security and Medicare; together, these can reach more than 40% of an employee’s salary, making the effective tax increase on over-the-counter medicines more than 40%.  It will actually be cheaper to see a doctor and get a prescription than to buy an over-the-counter drug, even for conditions like a simple headache.  This tax change will cost the health care system billions more dollars in needless spending to the government and private insurance plans.

Also slipped into the new health care law is the new little-known IRS mandate regarding businesses issuing 1099s.  Current law requires businesses to issue 1099s in a limited set of circumstances, such as paying outside consultants.  The new requirement will force businesses to issue 1099s to every other business, including all vendors, where any amount over $600 in a tax year has been paid for any goods and services.  For example, a shop owner paying rent would have to send a 1099 to the landlord and the IRS; a business paying a cleaning service, buying office supplies, a car for their business, etc., would be legally required to collect all these businesses’ Taxpayer Information Numbers for the issuance of the 1099s.  Businesses are required to withhold payments to any other supplying business that does not give out their Taxpayer Information Number.  Millions, possibly billions, of new 1099s will be generated and have to be matched with businesses’ existing accounting records; there’s bound to be gigantic numbers of errors and mismatches with all this new paperwork, and needless burdens and expense on America’s already suffering business world.

I fervently hope that you join me in November to vote out all those responsible for creating this “health care” nightmare.  The America we know and love cannot continue to exist in such a police state, and possibly our very lives are at stake, unless Obamacare is repealed.