Hopefully, US District Judge Roger Vinson’s verdict that Obamacare is unconstitutional will begin a juggernaut to repeal the entire legislation which is dangerous, fatally flawed in myriad ways, unsustainably costly, and freedom and rights restricting and which will invest in the government overwhelming power and control over us, destroy the world’s premier medical system and legally provide certain politically connected or “correct” groups greater rights than others. Such is a system that needs to be nuked in its nascency.
As many rational experts and the average American are asking (of Obama and Congressional Democrats): “If Obamacare is so great and will provide excellent health care at a lower cost and you can keep your same doctor, why are there so many exemptions?”
Of course, we all know the answer. Obamacare is a BIG LIE. Intentionally!
It was never about affordability. Or access and availability. Or quality.
And evidently with all the waivers to politically connected or favored groups - it was never about equality and equal protection before the law.
This was ALL about government control, socialist policies and wealth redistribution.
It must be repealed by whatever means possibly!
Where's Our Waiver?
Investor’s Business Daily 01/28/2011
ObamaCare: The granting of 500 more exemptions to unions, companies and even states begs the question — why is "affordable health care for all Americans" neither affordable nor for everybody?
The Obama administration has become famous for its crony capitalism, in which companies like General Electric were rewarded while energy companies, for example, were cast into the outer darkness. Now we have what might be called crony health care, with the favored escaping the full consequences of ObamaCare while the rest of us deal with the rising costs and reduced service.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi once told us we'd have to pass ObamaCare to see what was in it. Now it turns out we have to wait for its implementation to see who is in it. The issuance of more than 500 additional waivers to its draconian mandates by Health and Human Services makes the case for repeal even stronger.
It is a system where everyone is equal, but some are more equal than others. We were told everyone had to be in it, everyone had to be forced to buy government-approved insurance for ObamaCare to work.
As Emily Litella used to say on "Saturday Night Live": "Never mind."
Unions, including the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), are particularly favored in this charade. Unions represent 6.9% of the private work force, yet 40% of the workers covered by these waivers are union members.
There are no fewer than 182 union benefit funds, one-fourth of all waivers, now exempted. And of the only 14.6 million union employees in the U.S., 860,000 are already exempted from ObamaCare's mandated coverage requirements.
The SEIU — whose former head Andy Stern was once the leading visitor to the White House, ahead of Cabinet members and heads of state — had three of its locals exempted from ObamaCare mandates in the first batch of waivers, which reached 222 total: Local 25 SEIU in Chicago, with 31,000 enrollees; Local 1199 SEIU Greater New York Benefit Fund, with 4,544 enrollees; and SEIU Local 1 Cleveland Welfare Fund, with 520 enrollees.
In the latest round of waivers, the SEIU, which lobbied mightily to force everyone else into ObamaCare, added four more locals to the waiver list, which stands at 729. There are now seven SEIU locals that have waivers, covering a total of 45,000 workers.
Other unions and labor groups have also benefited.
One of the largest waivers, for 351,000 people, went to the United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund, a New York union that covers teachers. The United Agricultural Benefit Trust, a California-based cooperative that provides such low-cost minimal coverage to farmworkers, was allowed to exempt 17,347 workers.
As columnist Michelle Malkin reports, the United Food and Commercial Workers International Union (UFCW), which trumpeted ObamaCare as "an achievement that will rank among the highest in our national experience," has secured waivers for 238 of its affiliates. Hypocrisy as a union label.
The International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW), which said that with ObamaCare "finally, affordable and comprehensive health care coverage will be available for millions of working Americans," saw eight of its affiliates get waivers.
It seems ObamaCare is neither affordable nor comprehensive.
The exemption list even includes 4 states — Massachusetts, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee — that collectively cover 2.1 million workers. As we've noted, corporations such as McDonald's are also on the waiver list, saying ObamaCare makes their plans unworkable and unaffordable.
ObamaCare is in effect repealing itself, waiver by waiver. If it's so great, the Senate should vote on its repeal without fear.
Defunding should commence, as should House hearings exposing this fraudulent power grab. By the way, these new waivers come a week after Republicans announced plans to investigate the earlier waivers granted to groups for health care reform provisions.
Question: If the provisions these entities are exempt from are a hardship, then isn't the entire piece of legislation?
Philosophically, the government already claims an excessive and an ever increasing amount of our hard earned money through multifarious taxes that are not limited to income taxes. Their profligate spending is partially fueled by our representatives’ knowledge that there can and will be more money collected and more ways to obtain it from us.
This must be stopped! Enough of our spendthrift, profligate government. Much more of this money should remain with us rather than be wasted on pork or pet projects that allow these government officials to have their name plastered on some building or institution, or to be transferred to those who are irresponsible and lazy but feel that it is their right to share in the American dream. (You know these individuals: they use food stamps to buy liquor and cigarettes and their money to buy iPods, iPhones, $200 sneakers, cell phones, tattoos and gold onlays for their teeth while having numerous children by countless and nameless partners.)
We must use all means possible to let our representatives know that we want the Bush tax “cuts” to remain in effect. If they are allowed to expire, the government will be taking billions of additional dollars more from us each year – which is on top of Obama’s new taxes for healthcare.
Remember Nov. 2nd.
The Tax Tsunami On The Horizon
Investors Business Daily 07/21/2010
Fiscal Policy: Many voters are looking forward to 2011, hoping a new Congress will put the country back on the right track. But unless something's done soon, the new year will also come with a raft of tax hikes — including a return of the death tax — that will be real killers.
Through the end of this year, the federal estate tax rate is zero — thanks to the package of broad-based tax cuts that President Bush pushed through to get the economy going earlier in the decade.
But as of midnight Dec. 31, the death tax returns — at a rate of 55% on estates of $1 million or more. The effect this will have on hospital life-support systems is already a matter of conjecture.
Resurrection of the death tax, however, isn't the only tax problem that will be ushered in Jan. 1. Many other cuts from the Bush administration are set to disappear and a new set of taxes will materialize. And it's not just the rich who will pay.
The lowest bracket for the personal income tax, for instance, moves up 50% — to 15% from 10%. The next lowest bracket — 25% — will rise to 28%, and the old 28% bracket will be 31%. At the higher end, the 33% bracket is pushed to 36% and the 35% bracket becomes 39.6%.
But the damage doesn't stop there.
The marriage penalty also makes a comeback, and the capital gains tax will jump 33% — to 20% from 15%. The tax on dividends will go all the way from 15% to 39.6% — a 164% increase.
Both the cap-gains and dividend taxes will go up further in 2013 as the health care reform adds a 3.8% Medicare levy for individuals making more than $200,000 a year and joint filers making more than $250,000.
Other tax hikes include: halving the child tax credit to $500 from $1,000 and fixing the standard deduction for couples at the same level as it is for single filers.
Letting the Bush cuts expire will cost taxpayers $115 billion next year alone, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and $2.6 trillion through 2020.
But even more tax headaches lie ahead. This "second wave" of hikes, as Americans for Tax Reform puts it, are designed to pay for ObamaCare and include:
The Medicine Cabinet Tax. Americans, says ATR, "will no longer be able to use health savings account, flexible spending account, or health reimbursement pretax dollars to purchase nonprescription, over-the-counter medicines (except insulin)."
The HSA Withdrawal Tax Hike. "This provision of ObamaCare," according to ATR, "increases the additional tax on nonmedical early withdrawals from an HSA from 10% to 20%, disadvantaging them relative to IRAs and other tax-advantaged accounts, which remain at 10%."
Brand Name Drug Tax. Makers and importers of brand-name drugs will be liable for a tax of $2.5 billion in 2011. The tax goes to $3 billion a year from 2012 to 2016, then $3.5 billion in 2017 and $4.2 billion in 2018.
Beginning in 2019 it falls to $2.8 billion and stays there. And who pays the new drug tax? Patients, in the form of higher prices.
Economic Substance Doctrine. ATR reports that "The IRS is now empowered to disallow perfectly legal tax deductions and maneuvers merely because it judges that the deduction or action lacks 'economic substance.'"
A third and final (for now) wave, says ATR, consists of the alternative minimum tax's widening net, tax hikes on employers and the loss of deductions for tuition:
• The Tax Policy Center, no right-wing group, says that the failure to index the AMT will subject 28.5 million families to the tax when they file next year, up from 4 million this year.
• "Small businesses can normally expense (rather than slowly deduct, or 'depreciate') equipment purchases up to $250,000," says ATR. "This will be cut all the way down to $25,000. Larger businesses can expense half of their purchases of equipment. In January of 2011, all of it will have to be 'depreciated.'"
• According to ATR, there are "literally scores of tax hikes on business that will take place," plus the loss of some tax credits. The research and experimentation tax credit will be the biggest loss, "but there are many, many others. Combining high marginal tax rates with the loss of this tax relief will cost jobs."
• The deduction for tuition and fees will no longer be available and there will be limits placed on education tax credits. Teachers won't be able to deduct their classroom expenses and employer-provided educational aid will be restricted. Thousands of families will no longer be allowed to deduct student loan interest.
Then there's the tax on Americans who decline to buy health care insurance (the tax the administration initially said wasn't a tax but now argues in court that it is) plus a 3.8% Medicare tax beginning in 2013 on profits made in real estate transactions by wealthier Americans.
Not all Americans may fully realize what's in store come Jan. 1. But they should have a pretty good idea by the mid-term elections, and members of Congress might take note of our latest IBD/TIPP Poll (summarized above).
Fifty-one percent of respondents favored making the Bush cuts permanent vs. 28% who didn't. Republicans were more than 4 to 1 and Independents more than 2 to 1 in favor. Only Democrats were opposed, but only by 40%-38%.
The cuts also proved popular among all income groups — despite the Democrats' oft-heard assertion that Bush merely provided "tax breaks for the wealthy." Fact is, Bush cut taxes for everyone who paid them, and the cuts helped the nation recover from a recession and the worst stock-market crash since 1929.
Maybe, just maybe, Americans remember that — and will not forget come Nov. 2.
In the 1950’s, Ronald Reagan warned us that health care could be used as a means to introduce and implement socialism. His words were quite prescient.
Though the public was and is vehemently against government run health care, the Obama Administration, Pelosi and Reid used bribery of corrupt politicians, and threats, lies or disingenuous arguments with feckless other in order to acquire enough votes to pass the legislation.
Again this was done in spite of overwhelming sentiment by the public against socialized medicine. It was a coup by a power hungry and ideologically driven government that disdains its citizens.
Now it is our turn …!
Obamacare Equals Socialism on Steroids
David Limbaugh May 13, 2010
We knew Obama was prevaricating when he told us his purpose to cram through Obamacare was to provide universal access to coverage and reduce costs, but how many people did he manage to fool? How many are still fooled?
He repeatedly complained that America spent more on healthcare than other nations "but wasn't any healthier." He grossly distorted the numbers of chronically uninsured. He lied about his support for a single-payer plan and in denying that the "public option" was a Trojan horse for such a plan. He misled us concerning his intention to federally fund abortions and the coverage of illegals.
He deceitfully insisted that he wouldn't interfere with the patient-doctor relationship, that patients could choose to keep their own plans, that his plan wouldn't lead to rationing and that it would increase the quality of care.
Perhaps his most cynical fraud was his line that he would not sign a bill that would add one single dime to the federal deficit. Along with the uninsured canard, this was his biggest selling point for Obamacare: Healthcare costs were skyrocketing, and he had the magic bullet to remedy that.
Well, we already have objective proof (courtesy of a delinquent Congressional Budget Office pronouncement) that this, too, was a lie.
Obama and congressional Democrats moved budgetary mountains (in the way David Copperfield moves mountains onstage) to create the CBO-supported illusion that his bill wouldn't increase federal budget deficits.
By asking the CBO to make absurd assumptions and by borrowing from other mythical funds (Medicare), Obamacrats were finally able to make the numbers balance, just long enough to give Obama cover to sign the bill.
But less than two months after he signed the bill into law, the CBO, in response to Rep. Jerry Lewis' request for a rescoring based on realistic assumptions instead of the bogus ones Democrats submitted, has already admitted its estimate didn't take into account "discretionary" expenditures that will add some $115 billion worth of costs.
With the publication of this news, the administration is now making noise, threatening not to fund the bill unless Congress finds sufficient savings elsewhere to nullify that "unexpected" cost increase.
Give me a break. Just how stupid can these people think we are? They knew about these false assumptions before Obama signed the bill, and they're not about to withdraw their wholesale endorsement for Obama's crowning legislative "achievement."
But as bad as Obama's lies were about the costs of his plan, many of us warned that a greater evil in Obamacare was its guaranteed path to reducing our freedoms.
Ronald Reagan was not just issuing platitudes when he said, "One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It's very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project . . . From here, it's a short step to all the rest of socialism."
No truer words were ever spoken, and you can be sure that Obama believes it, too, which is exactly why he misrepresented almost every aspect of his plan in order to get it passed — and even then, just barely.
His real purpose, as many of us have been telling you ad nauseam, is to greatly increase the size and scope of government and government control and, in the process, further radically redistribute wealth. He's a socialist. These aren't just words. He really is.
As it turns out, we don't have to wait any longer to prove we were correct about this, too. Obama has nominated Donald Berwick to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
I discovered in research on my upcoming book that experts believe that under Obamacare, the role of the CMS will be greatly expanded to define the quality of healthcare for every insurance plan, set reimbursement rates for physicians in Medicare and Medicaid, and decide how valuable certain treatments are.
According to Robert M. Goldberg of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest, Berwick essentially "will get control of the practice of medicine."
It would be scary enough for a bureaucrat of normal sensibilities and saner politics to have such control, but RedState has uncovered the extent of Berwick's radicalism — like so many of Obama's other appointees.
Berwick is an Ivy League academic who loves wealth redistribution and believes that healthcare is an ideal vehicle to achieve it.
Berwick said: "Any healthcare funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized, and humane must . . . redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate. Excellent healthcare is by definition redistributional."
Berwick also lusts after the British system of socialized medicine, saying that America's healthcare system runs in the "darkness of private enterprise."
Pelosi to Aspiring Musicians: Quit Your Job, Taxpayers Will Cover Your Health Care
Sounds like socialism … er, communism as in communist Russia of the 1970’s.
We need to stop this transfer of wealth and killer of motivation and productivity which enslaves working individuals and forces them to pay for those who are not contributing.
The Veterans Administration Hospitals, run by the Federal government, are notoriously horrific on myriad accounts and has been so for years. Negligence, poor patient care, disarray, confusion, bureaucracy are just a few adjectives that can begin to describe the “quality” or lack thereof associated with the VA. And this is just a fraction of the size that Obamacare will be.
So Obama and Congressional Democrats really believe that they can used this along with what has been learned from the Medicare program and the Post Office to provide outstanding care that exceeds what we have now, to more individuals and for less?
Wrong!!
As we have reiterated numerous times, Obamacare is not about healthcare. It is all about government control, power and spreading the wealth around.
Obamacare must rescinded or rendered impotent!
VA Claims Office Takes SNAFU to a New Level
Jana Winter FOXNews.com April 19, 2010
Last month, a decorated Gulf War hero received a letter from the Veterans Affairs Administration that said: We are working on your claim for menstrual disorder. He was surprised -- but not as much as one might think.
Last month, a decorated Gulf War hero received a letter from the Veterans Affairs Administration that said: We are working on your claim for menstrual disorder.
There was just one problem: The claim was submitted for fibromyalgia.
Make that two problems: The claim was submitted by Glenn McBride, a 40-year-old man from Roanoke, Va., who most definitely does not get menstrual cramps.
It's a bad sign when your health insurance provider can’t figure out which gender reaches for the Midol. (Hint: it's the one without the prostate.)
The Department of Veterans Affairs is notorious for bungling health care benefits, and its Roanoke regional office, which handled McBride's claim, has long been considered among the worst.
In September 2009 a surprise inspection found the office was collapsing under the weight of its own bureaucratic incompetence. Literally.
Its filing system — floor-to-ceiling stacks of overfilled file cabinets and loose claims folders — weighed twice as much as the building's structure allowed, threatening the lives of everyone inside. Inspectors also found missing and improperly filed, stored and processed claims, among other problems. The regional office was ordered to overhaul the health care processing center completely.
By last month, six months later, there should have been some improvement. Instead, McBride received a letter that included this perplexing request for additional information:
"On the VA Form 21-4138, Statement in Support of Claim you sent on October 8, 2009, you included menstrual disorder. Please specify what you intended to claim for this condition."
McBride, whose 14 years of Army service included a combat tour with one of the most highly decorated units during Desert Storm -- and did not include any complaints about menstrual cramps, so far as he can recall -- insists this was not just a clerical error. He says it's one more example of the VA ignoring or messing up claims in order to avoid paying benefits.
"If the VA does not actually recognize the request, they do not have to give the award," he said. "Sort of like a perverted form of 'See no evil, Hear no evil, Speak no evil.' Most people just throw up their hands in frustration and walk away at this point. That is the VA's plan."
The VA, asked to comment about McBride's complaint, issued a statement in which it said:
"The Department of Veterans Affairs' (VA) mission is to be an advocate for Veterans. VA has a responsibility to assist Veterans during the claims process. Part of that duty is to include all possible issues that a Veteran references in his or her initial claim package. VA regrets any confusion that Mr. McBride's claim may have caused. VA Regional Office employees have reached out to Mr. McBride to clarify the confusion, determine the types of issues he wants to claim, and identify any outstanding concerns that he may have."
Jim Strickland, a veterans advocate who writes a regular health care benefits column on VAWatchdog.org and has his own benefits-related Web site, said he wasn't at all surprised to learn of McBride's "menstrual" letter. "There are 57 regional offices and every one is operating in total chaos and in crisis," he said. "Full frontal mass chaos. Every day."
Contacted in the middle of the week, Strickland said he'd already received two e-mails from veterans who were mailed the records of other veterans. And he provided his most ridiculous example of a nonsensical claims letter, one that managed to try to collect debt and to discuss overpaying the same debt -- at the same time.
For Gulf War veterans who fought during a certain time period, certain health conditions are considered presumptive, meaning that such a high percentage of that group has been diagnosed with the condition it's presumed that it was caused by military service, and coverage is automatically granted. Fibromyalgia, a chronic pain condition, is a presumptive one for McBride.
Because of his years of experience dealing with the VA, McBride likes to provide as much information as possible when he submits claim forms. (He also gets a signed and time-stamped receipt upon delivery.) When he sent in his claim for fibromyalgia, he typed clearly at the top of the form: "This form is an official request for SERVICE-CONNECTION for FIBROMYALGIA." He included an extract of a VA "fast letter" regarding presumptive conditions — basically providing the VA with its own policy on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Fibromyalgia and Irritable Bowel Syndrome. "Menstrual disorder" is included in the VA's list of symptoms.
"The VA just breezed right through the facts and settled on the obscure," McBride said. "The Roanoke office clearly hasn't changed."
Strickland says the problem at the root of letters like McBride's is a bonus structure paid out to VA claims employees.
"The more work, the better the bonus is," he said. "It's strictly volume, not quality driven. There is no accountability whatsoever.
"The art of the Teflon Jacket has been perfected at our VA. They are really totally invulnerable to your criticism."
When the editor of VAWatchdog.org posted an April Fools Day joke -- "VA DOCTOR TRIES TO GIVE PROSTATE EXAM TO WOMAN
VETERAN (April Fool); VA physician: 'Nobody told me the patient was a female. How the hell was I supposed to know that?'" -- McBride sent in his "menstrual" letter.
It was posted on the same site under the heading, "Today's Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? award goes to the VA's Roanoke, Virginia Regional Office."
The site's editor describes the award:
"Every now and then we get a story about the VA that just can't be. But, it is! Because, remember, we're not dealing with regular people ... we're dealing with the VA. That's when we throw up our hands and scream at the sky:
Now that Obamacare has passed, we are discovering more of the outrageous dictates that were part of the legislation. The article below contains just a few of the tax related issues some of which were previously publicized. One tax in particular which is galling is a 3.8 % tax on all real estate transactions.
The greedy, corrupt tentacles of the federal government are reaching everywhere for more money to feed its spending addiction.
(Note: The following article was written in Washington State so "Washingtonians" refers to residents of that state)
Health law’s heavy impact
Paul Guppy March 28, 2010 The Spokesman-Review Washington State
In the days leading up to the dramatic late-night vote on President Barack Obama’s health plan, Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it …” Now that ObamaCare has passed, it is slowly dawning on people what the new law means for the country and for Washington state.
ObamaCare sweeps away a host of state regulations and permanently alters our state’s insurance market. From now on, the federal government will manage the health care of all Washingtonians. The 2,700-page law contains a complex web of mandates, directives, price controls, tax increases and subsidies.
Federal officials will now decide what kind of insurance people in Washington must have, what medicines will be covered, what treatments are allowed and which are not. Early reports indicate, however, that President Obama, Vice President Biden, the Cabinet, senior members of Congress and leadership staff are exempt.
The new law falls well short of universal coverage. ObamaCare will leave about 6 percent of Washington residents without coverage. The measure is conservatively expected to cost $2.4 trillion in its first full decade. Thousands of older Washingtonians will lose their Medicare Advantage coverage, and the state’s 120,000 Health Savings Account holders may need to buy new policies or face stiff penalties.
Washington residents will begin paying ObamaCare taxes this year, while most benefits don’t start until 2014. The law includes some 19 new taxes. Here’s a rundown of what Washingtonians can expect in the coming years.
Penalties on individuals. Individuals will pay a yearly penalty of $695, or up to 2.5 percent of their annual income, if they cannot show they have purchased a government-approved health policy.
Penalties on families. Families will pay a yearly penalty of $347 per child, up to $2,250 per family, if parents cannot show they have purchased a government- approved policy.
Penalties on employers. Business owners with more than 50 employees must buy government- acceptable health coverage or pay a yearly penalty of $2,000 per employee if at least one employee receives a tax credit.
Tax on investment income. ObamaCare imposes a 3.8 percent annual tax on investment income of individuals making $200,000 or more and on families making $250,000 or more. The new tax is not indexed to inflation, so more people will fall under it each year. Seniors on fixed incomes and people with IRAs and 401(k) plans will be hit particularly hard.
Tax on “Cadillac” health plans. Starting in 2018, imposes a 40 percent annual tax on health care plans valued at $10,200 for individuals and $27,500 for families.
Medicare tax increase. Requires single people earning $200,000 or more and couples earning $250,000 or more to pay an additional 0.9 percent in Medicare taxes.
Tax on Home Sales. Imposes a 3.8 percent tax on home sales and other real estate transactions. Middle-income people must pay the full tax even if they are “rich” for only one day – the day they sell their house and buy a new one.
Tax on medical aid devices. Creates a new 2.9 percent tax on medical aid devices. Certain items intended for personal use are exempt.
Tax on tanning. Imposes a 10 percent tax on services at tanning salons. Business owners will collect the tax from customers and send it to the federal government. This appears to be the first federal sales tax in the United States.
ObamaCare will be enforced by the Internal Revenue Service. The tax agency plans to hire 16,500 new auditors, agents and investigators, and to increase enforcement audits. The IRS can confiscate tax refunds, place liens on property and seek jail time if health-related penalties and taxes are not paid.
President Obama had said people could keep their coverage if they want, yet the Congressional Budget Office estimates that under ObamaCare 8 million to 9 million people will lose their employer-provided coverage.
The ObamaCare law passed over bipartisan opposition in Congress. Republicans say they will run on a “repeal and replace” platform this fall, and Washington has joined 12 other states in a lawsuit challenging the federal government’s power to force state residents to buy a product – insurance – from private companies. The long-term prospects of ObamaCare are unclear. In the meantime, Washingtonians should prepare for major changes in their tax burden.
(Paul Guppy is vice president for research at the Washington Policy Center, a research organization with offices in Spokane, Seattle, Olympia and the Tri-Cities ( www.washingtonpolicy.org).)
Many Democrats are revealing what countless opponents of Obamacare were claiming: the legislation had far more to do with wealth redistribution than it did with healthcare. This is not about quality of care or access or even reducing total medical care costs. If it were, malpractice reform would have been implemented and there would not have been an additional 159 new federal agencies created or the provision to hire almost 17,000 new IRS agents.
That is why the numbers never added up, the legislation was written in secrecy, negotiations were conducted behind locked doors by Democrats only with Republicans being totally excluded, opponents were gratuitously charged with racism, etc.
Obamacare was mainly aimed at redistributing wealth
By: Byron York Chief Political Correspondent
April 2, 2010
It hasn't attracted much notice, but recently some prominent advocates of Obamacare have spoken more frankly than ever before about why they supported a national health care makeover. It wasn't just about making insurance more affordable.
It wasn't just about bending the cost curve. It wasn't just about cutting the federal deficit. It was about redistributing wealth.
Health reform is "an income shift," Democratic Sen. Max Baucus said on March 25. "It is a shift, a leveling, to help lower income, middle income Americans."
In his halting, jumbled style, Baucus explained that in recent years "the maldistribution of income in America has gone up way too much, the wealthy are getting way, way too wealthy, and the middle income class is left behind." The new health care legislation, Baucus promised, "will have the effect of addressing that maldistribution of income in America."
At about the same time, Howard Dean, the former Democratic National Committee chairman and presidential candidate, said the health bill was needed to correct economic inequities. "The question is, in a democracy, what is the right balance between those at the top ... and those at the bottom?" Dean said during an appearance on CNBC. "When it gets out of whack, as it did in the 1920s, and it has now, you need to do some redistribution. This is a form of redistribution."
Summing things up in the New York Times, the liberal economics columnist David Leonhardt called Obamacare "the federal government's biggest attack on economic inequality since inequality began rising more than three decades ago."
Now they tell us. For many opponents of the new legislation, the statements confirmed a nagging suspicion that for Barack Obama and Democrats in Congress, the health fight was about more than just insurance -- that redistribution played a significant, if largely unspoken, part in the drive for national health care.
"I don't think most people, when they think of the health care bill, instantly think it's a vehicle to redistribute wealth," says pollster Scott Rasmussen. "But we do know that people overwhelmingly believe it will lead to an increase in middle class taxes, and we do know that people are concerned that it will hurt their own quality of care, so I think their gut instincts point in that direction."
By talking openly about redistribution, Baucus and others have gone seriously off-message. Democrats knew there was no way they could ever sell a national health care bill to a skeptical public by basing their case on income inequality.
That's one reason they went to such lengths to argue -- preposterously, in the view of most Americans -- that the bill could cover 32 million currently uninsured people and still save the taxpayers money.
After Baucus' statement, I asked a Democratic strategist (who asked to remain nameless) whether fighting income inequality was one of his goals in supporting the legislation. Never, he said. "That's what the tax code is for."
"It was not to take something away from rich people, it was to provide something to people without coverage," he continued, making a distinction between striving for universal coverage and seeking to redistribute income. But he quickly saw that Democrats talking about redistribution could be politically damaging, echoing the controversy that erupted when candidate Obama famously told Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher that "when you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody."
" 'Redistribution' is an easy charge to make," the Democrat said. "I'm not surprised that it's an argument critics make; what I'm surprised at is that Democrats are making it."
This week the DNC group Organizing for America offered a commemorative certificate to supporters who helped pass the health care bill. The certificate said, "We achieved the dream of generations -- high-quality, affordable health care is no longer the privilege of a few, but the right of all."
The privilege of a few? It is widely accepted that about 85 percent of all Americans have health care coverage, and the overwhelming majority are happy with it. There's simply no way anyone could plausibly claim that health coverage is the privilege of a few.
And yet that is the bedrock belief of some who supported the health care makeover. So it's no wonder that we're hearing about health care as the redistribution of income. Of course, we're only hearing it after the bill has passed.
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