Progressive groups unfriended Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg en masse on Tuesday, hoping to get the point across that they do not appreciate his new pro-immigration group praising senators for supporting the Keystone XL pipeline and opposing the Affordable Care Act. Led by Progressives United,…
South Carolina bill criminalizes Obamacare
The South Carolina Freedom of Health Care Protection Act, also known as the “nullification bill”, was passed 65-39 by the Republican-dominated House on Wednesday. The bill would “prohibit certain individuals from enforcing or attempting to enforce such unconstitutional laws; and to establish criminal penalties and civil liability for enforcing this article.”Even though the Supreme Court ruled that the Affordable Care Act is constitutional, the state legislation would declare the federal law “null and void” and prosecute those who try to implement it.Under the nullification bill, the South Carolina State Attorney General would be able “to restrain by temporary retraining order, temporary injunction, or permanent injunction” anyone who is believed to be “causing harm” by violating public interest and trying to implement the federal law.South Carolina residents who are forced to pay Obamacare taxes “shall receive a deduction in the exact amount of the taxes or penalty paid the federal government,” the bill states. The measure would also outlaw local governments from creating or working with non-profit health care exchanges, which the Obama administration designed in order to help small businesses provide insurance.Obamacare has been heavily criticized by in South Carolina, with Gov. Nikki Haley promising that the state will not allow its implementation.“Connecticut expanded early under ‘Obamacare’ and just reported a $190 million Medicaid deficit – in spite of subjecting their citizens to a massive tax increase,” she said during her State of the State address. “California just raised taxes in part to cover their Medicaid deficit and yet needs $350 million more to pay for ‘Obamacare’ next year. That’s not us. That’s not South Carolina.”The Affordable Care Act, Haley explained, will simply cause South Carolina taxpayers to spend money they cannot afford, “not now, not ever.”“To that end, we will not pursue the type of government-run health exchanges being forced on us by Washington,” she said. “Despite the rose-colored rhetoric coming out of DC, these exchanges are nothing more than a way to make the state do the federal government’s bidding in spending massive amounts of taxpayer dollars on insurance subsidies that we can’t afford.”The Greenville Tea Party has hailed the House passage of the nullification bill as a triumph in their fight against the Affordable Care Act, with spokesman Chris Lawton expressing his pride for the move.“This kind of victory occurs when the grassroots across the State come together and coalesce,” he told The Greenville Post. “I could not be prouder.”The nullification bill will now move to the state Senate, where the Republican Party is also the majority. Most major provisions of the Affordable Care Act are scheduled to go in effect by January 2014. … Read More
The Big Hurt – ObamaCare About to Kill Our Piggy banks as 2014 Nears
One of the largest frauds ever to hit our lives will be upon us soon, and it is going to hit us harder than a watermelon fired out of hillbilly air cannon. This damn thing will hit us whether we want it or not, sticking us with a huge fine for not getting it, or getting it and being saddled with something akin to a monthly payment on a just purchased private jet. Whether your healthy or not, your going to be shelling out the bucks, big time. All this is really, is a tax grab, pure and simple, only problem is this one is 16,000 pages long and growing. … Read More
Report: Immigration ‘black hole’ forces hospitals to fly patients home unconscious
Immigration advocates are concerned that the implementation of the Affordable Health Care act will bring with it an increase in “medical repatriation,” the practice of hospitals flying undocumented immigrants to their native countries, often while they are unconscious, the Associated…
ObamaCare, Payroll Taxes Push Tax Freedom Day Back for 2013
Start organizing your parties
today, tax haters. On April 18, we all will have handed over enough
money to the government to have paid our average total tax bill for
the year.
The non-profit think tank appropriately named the Tax Foundation
makes this calculation every year to designate
Tax Freedom Day. For 2013, the date falls five days later than
it did in 2012, thanks to some well-publicized (at least here at
Reason) culprits:
Tax Freedom Day is five days later than last year, due mainly to
the fiscal cliff deal that raised federal taxes on individual
income and payroll. Additionally, the Affordable Care Act’s
investment tax and excise tax went into effect. Finally, despite
these tax increases, the economy is expected to continue its slow
recovery, boosting profits, incomes, and tax revenues.
The Tax Foundation notes further that if federal borrowing were
included, another 21 days of handing over your income would have to
be added.
Believe it or not, considering current political battle over
government spending (the debate between “too much” vs. ”way too
much”), 2013 does not bear the distinction of latest Tax Freedom
Day. That honor goes to the year 2000, when it fell on May 1.
Well, there’s always next year.
See the Tax Foundation’s chart below the jump:
Don’t Give Up on Obamacare Yet, GOP
P.J. O’Rourke once remarked, “Feeling good about government is
like looking on the bright side of any catastrophe. When you quit
looking on the bright side, the catastrophe is still there.” With
all the doom and gloom free-market advocates must be feeling these
days, there’s one truth that should bolster their resolve about the
future: The catastrophe will still be there.
Conventional wisdom says that
Republicans need a major attitude adjustment on cultural and social
views in both substance and tone. That may very well be true. But
the concern from Democrats regarding the GOP’s miseries has a
tendency to inject one exceptionally terrible piece of advice into
the mix: namely, that conservatives should stop griping about
Obamacare.
As you all know, there is no such thing in Washington as a
flawed government program, only a desperately under-funded one.
Ideological rigidity, despite what you may have heard, is not a
monopoly of the right. Nevertheless, a law so poorly conceived will
surely be poorly implemented. Those who support it will be spending
political capital defending it for many coming years.
Obamacare isn’t popular today, and there’s no reason to believe
its appeal will grow. Let’s start with the expectations of
supporters. For those gullible enough to believe that politicians
can make them healthier while constructing more efficient and less
expensive systems, there is the promise of dissatisfaction. And for
those who support the Affordable Care Act for less ideological
reasons, they’ll soon realize that the infinite promises of the
theoretical Obamacare can’t match reality.
Even government officials seem worried about the future of
things like the government-run exchanges, an integral component for
the future expansion of Obamacare (which most of you will have no
choice but to join). Henry Chao, an official at the Centers for
Medicaid and Medicare Services charged with administering the
technology used by the exchanges, recently tasked himself with the
lofty goal of making sure “it’s not a Third World experience.”
Way to dream!
Then there is the cost — and not the government debt, but the
cost we really notice. President Obama guaranteed that Obamacare
would “lower premiums by $2,500 per family per year.” Yet, national
health expenditure projections from the CMMS estimate that premiums
climbed by 8 percent in 2012. Though the law is not even
implemented, companies are passing through the price of mandates
and taxes. The Society of Actuaries predicts that individual
premiums will spike at around 32 percent on average. This week,
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told
Americans not to worry too much because there are always subsidies
available.
Jobs? According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, there are
around 5.5 million fewer full-time American workers now than when
Obamacare was passed. On the other hand, there has been an
explosion of part-time workers. If you’re lucky enough to own a
business with 50 or more full-time employees, you’ll soon be
mandated to offer affordable health coverage to all workers or pay
a $2,000 fine for each uninsured employee. You are, in other words,
incentivized to hire fewer full-time workers and more part-timers.
No doubt, this will do wonders for the labor market.
These are just a few of the struggles facing Obamacare. With
mission creep and thousands of pages to go, the catastrophe will
grow. Perhaps the relentless opposition to Obamacare in Congress
feeds into a broader perception of GOP obstructionism
(alternatively known as “representing your constituents”). And no
doubt, Republicans have to do a more effective job of offering
their own reforms to the public. But there is no compelling reason
to stop objecting to its existence — despite the helpful advice of
Democrats. … Read More
Tennessee residents try their luck at ‘healthcare lottery’
The unusual system is open to those individuals who would not normally qualify for Medicaid’s low income requirements, but still face desperate financial conditions in the face of stacking medical bills. Applicants must either be elderly, blind or otherwise disabled, or the caretaker of a child who does qualify for Medicaid. Call volume is high, and even getting through is no guarantee of qualification – only a shot at applying.The individuals who try their luck in this sort of “healthcare lottery” can come from a variety of backgrounds, but all are desperate for some form of healthcare coverage. Many callers are hoping to qualify for state programs such as a ‘spend down,’ which calculates an applicant’s qualifying income after subtracting medical costs from total earnings, The New York Times reports.The ‘spend down’ program has enough funding for 3,500 people – a tiny sum in a state of 6.4 million – though only 1,000 are ever enrolled at one time due to the complexity of the program’s screening process.Over a million people are already covered under TennCare, as Medicaid is called in Tennessee, at a cost of $9 billion per year to the state and federal government; more than half are children. In 2005, the state was forced to cut 170,000 state residents from the program due to spiraling costs, and opponents of the new Affordable Care Act (ACA, commonly known as Obamacare) pushed through by the Obama administration believe the government cannot afford the expansion.Tennessee, which is currently represented by Republican majority in its state senate, is not the only state legislature resisting the ACA. As of mid-March, at least 14 other governors, many of them Republicans, had no plans to participate in Medicaid expansion, with another three undecided but leaning towards not participating. On March 22 the phone bank opened at 6 p.m., though calls did not begin to get through until 6:38 p.m. due to a technical issue, and the maximum of 2,500 calls was reached by 7:23 p.m. One particular caller, Ida Gordon of Nashville, attempted calling in at least 50 times before getting through:“In her small brick home on the city’s north side, Ms. Gordon also heard the recording that enrollment was closed,” The New York Times reported on the event. “But she, too, persisted, never looking up from the phone in her hand. Dusk fell and the room grew dark; she was too focused to bother turning on a light.” … Read More
