7: Obama Accounting: "A House Divided" - Obamacare v. 36 States

"A house divided against itself cannot stand". (Abraham Lincoln, 1858, Old State Capitol, Springfield, IL)

Barack Obama echoed the words of Abraham Lincoln when announcing his candidacy for the Democratic nominee for President of the United States on February 10, 2007.

There are differences. Lincoln, a Republican, campaigning for IL Senator to the US Congress, lost to Democrat Stephen A. Douglas. In the debates with Douglas, Lincoln and his views became well-known. Lincoln's primary goal in this tumultuous time was the preservation of the United States, "the Union". His position on slavery was negotiable and pragmatic.

In the debates, Douglas identified "local control" as the key to maintaining Southern agricultural wealth. Farm wealth included slaves which aded $150-400 to the farm value and kept labor affordable in a barter economy dependent on exchanging work for room, board, and some farm products.

Two (2) years later, in 1860, Lincoln would campaign and win to become the 16th President of the US.

Those words, "A house divided", were prophetic for the new President Lincoln. Southern Democrats, believing Lincoln would be hostile to the South, began to withdraw from the USA. South Carolina adopted the Ordinance of Secession on December 20, 1860 to protest Lincoln's election with only 40% of the popular vote.

By March 4, 1861, seven (7) states had seceded to form the Confederate States of America (CSA). The Confederacy attacked a Union rescue expedition at Fort Sumter, in Charleston Harbor, on April 12, 1861. The Civil War had begun.

Barack Obama's challenge to individual freedom, including each American's right to buy or not buy health care insurance also has provoked a battle over "local control", "state sovereignty" 150 years later.

Idaho began a legal challenge on March 18, 2010, before Congressional passage of Obamacare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of March 23, 2010 (PPACA). Less than an hour after the Act was signed into law, 13 states, FL, AL, CO, ID, LA, MI, NE, PA, SC, SD, TX, UT and WA, filed a lawsuit in Pensacola, FL challenging the Act. Later 4 additional states joined the lawsuit (AZ, IN, MS, ND). VA has filed a separate lawsuit involving a recently enacted state law. In MO, a ballot initiative about exemption from Obamacare provisions has passed. At least 36 states have objected to this federal intervention into health care.

Obamacare demands each citizen buy insurance or register for the welfare medical card, Medicaid, if eligible, or be charged an IRS assessed and collected penalty.

Obamacare passes the cost of health care back to the individual and to the states. Ohio estimates budget increases of $444.00 for each of the 554,000 new welfare enrollees, $237 million dollars, during an expected budget deficit of over $8Billion dollars in the next 2-year budget.

Federal Congressional support for the Act was partisan. The Senate voted 60-39 with all Democrats and Independents voting for and all Republicans against on December 24, 2009. The Act passed in the House of Representatives by only 7 votes, 219-212 with all 178 Republicans plus 34 Democrats voting against, with 4 vacancies.

Public opinion has been largely negative. CNN polls of March 19-21, 2010 reported 59%opposed to it while 39% supported it. Bloomberg LP found only 4 of 10 supported it. Only a USA Today/Gallup poll had different results. 49% viewed it as "a good thing, while 40% viewed it "badly", wth +/- 4% error. However, senior citizens opposed Obamacare while those younger than 40 supported it.

Rasmussen Reports polled 59% opposed. After passage, 55% of Americans favored repealing Obamacare.

Rep. Steve King(IA) introduced HR 4972 to Repeal Obamacare.

Not often mentioned by Obama and the Democrats, or the media, is the IRS assessed and collected penalty for not purchasing insurance. Obama et.al. did mention penalties against businesses, employers who do not provide health care coverage benefits. However, seasoned employees will know that employer plans usually require a payroll tax deducted contribution by the employee.

Nor did Obama et.al. mention "rationed" medical care under the Obamacare plan. Obama appointed and Department of Heath & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius backed "rationed" medical care advocate Harvard Medical School Dr. Donald Berwick to be Director of Medicare and Medicaid Services.

(See 5: and 6: Obama Accounting for blogs on rationed health care and IRS penalties for the "non-compliant".)

Photgraph: Abraham Lincoln with Allan Pinkerton (left) and Major General John A. McClernard (right) following the battle of Antietam, October 3, 1862. Photograph by Alexander Gardner/Library of Congress. In Encyclopedia of the American Civil War, DS Heidler & JY Heidler, Editors, ABC-Clio, California, USA, 2000.

Other references: Wikipedia, CNSNews.com, National Press Club archive video.

email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com to request an email of http://monthlynotes.four.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotes.blogspot blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff.

6: Obama Accounting: Levying Taxes & Liens Under the Pretense of "Consumer" Health Care Reform?

The pie chart to the left describes the "Federal Dollar": 47 cents of each dollar comes from individual taxpaying Americans. This is the light-blue shaded right half of the circle. An additional 35 cents also comes from individuals who pay "social insurance payroll" taxes. 82 cents of every US federal government dollar comes from individual income and payroll tax deduction taxpayers.

The underlying plan of ObamaCare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, March, 2010, is to increase federal revenue with penalties, fees, and fines paid to the IRS by the individual taxpayer who does not want to buy insurance or cannot afford the insurance mandate and who does not want to risk losing home and assets to insolvency by "signing up" for the welfare medical card, Medicaid.

The House of Representatives Ways and Means Committee staff recently estimated the IRS would need to hire 16,500 new agents over the next decade and spend an additional $10 Billion dollars to enforce the health care insurance mandate.

IRS representatives speaking at the National Press Club, posted by CNSNews.com, April 7, 2010, stated the IRS would work with both the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and insurance companies to investigate Americans for compliance with the insurance mandate. The IRS plans to require taxpayers to attach a "Yes/No" insurance form from their insurance provider to their annual tax return. The IRS then "will run a matching program around that". If the taxpayer doesn't have coverage, the IRS will notify the taxpayer how much is owed to the IRS for the insurance mandate penalty.

Changes in health care companies or coverage, even among those who comply, could create financial nightmares for taxpayers as the IRS seeks to maximize penalties, fees, fines, and interest for Department of Treasury/IRS revenue through health care insurance coverage issues. IRS could initiate liens and levies against taxpayer bank accounts, homes, and other assets.

Obama's promise of "universal health care" has been broken. There always has been universal "access" to health care. Every American can buy health care insurance, at regular or "high-risk" rates, or apply for the welfare medical card known as Medicaid.

Nor has Obama been "transparent" in discussing health care reform. The implication of "universal health care" as free, available to everyone, unlimited free-market state of the art and science medical care, was an empty promise enticing financially pressured voters to the polls to vote for Obama and the Democratic Party.

"Free universal health care" continues to be available only to welfare recipients. Now working and middle class Americans have been given an ultimatum to purchase health care coverage or risk the financial embarrassment of IRS levy and lien, or risk insolvency and loss of house and assets by "signing up" for welfare Medicaid.

Most working and middle class Americans who earn less than $100,000 already do have government-monitored and managed health care insurance Medicare accounts. These employees "pay in" to Medicare through the payroll tax deductions taken from their paychecks by their employers, which are to be forwarded to the federal Medicare fund. No mention is made of how these paid Medicare premiums would be credited or factored in to the insurance mandate.

The proposed change from "free market" to a vague "rationed" health care system through Medicare and Medicaid makes the insurance mandate an even less attractive health care plan to the average taxpayer as patient/client/customer.


Graphic: The US Federal Government Dollar from the World Book Encyclopedia, 2003.
Where the federal dollar comes from:
47 cents Individual income taxes,
35 cents Social insurance payroll taxes
10 cents Corporate income taxes
03 cents Excise taxes
04 cents Other

Other references: CNSNews.com, National Press Club video archives.

email mkrause@381gmail.com or mkrause54yahoo.com to request a copy of this blog or other blogs posted by mary for monthlynotesstaff on http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com on www.google.com.

5: Obama Accounting: Why Pay Mandated Obamacare Insurance Premiums for Rationed Medical Care?

Barack Obama has selected Harvard Medical School Professor, Dr. Donald Berwick, as Director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the federal agency which manages Medicare and Medicaid. Dr. Berwick is an unconfirmed "recess" appointee, appointed without the usual Senate confirmation.

Dr. Berwick, also CEO of Institute for Healthcare Improvement, is a very aggressive opponent of free-market medicine. He advocated rationed care in Great Britain. Berwick praises the socialized British government-run health care system for spending only 9% of GDP (Gross Domestic Product) on rationed health care, rather than the current 17% of GDP spent in the United States.

Kathleen Sebelius, Cabinet Secretary, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), gave full support to Dr. Berwick as the "right leader at this time" for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid in a videotaped question and answer session at the National Press Club posted May 26, 2010.

ObamaCare (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, March, 2010), mandates insurance premiums to be paid by taxpayers earning above the poverty level. Americans below the poverty level must register for Welfare medical care, Medicaid. Americans will be required to provide "proof of insurance" or pay IRS fees, fines, and penalties for "non-compliance".

Why mandate insurance premiums for anyone in a proposed rationed health care system? Who will receive the mandated insurance premiums or the services paid for by these premiums in a rationed health care system? What care will be available under a rationed health care system? Was rationing covered in the over 2,000 page Obamacare Act voted on by Congress? Is this a late, but very significant Obama Administration modification?

Medicare is a "pay-in" plan for workers deducted from payroll checks by employers for payment to the federal "Medicare" account for that employee, to be available to that employee when eligible as a "senior citizen". Over 40 million Americans now participate in Medicare.

Medicaid is the welfare medical card, providing over 30 million welfare recipients with free medical care. Medicaid is referred to as "insurance", a Federal Guaranty Insurance Corporation-type plan, the stated purpose of which is to repay medical centers and providers for caring for welfare patients. Medicaid in the past made projected payment plans of only 10-11% of health care expenses incurred at "usual, reasonable" rates. This creates enormous losses for welfare medical centers and providers.

This is another Democratic Party "redistribution of wealth" plan, a socialist term as startling in American politics now, as when first uttered by former President William J. Clinton. Who is the wealth to be redistributed to?

The obvious possible answer is to the welfare population, currently covered under Medicaid. The "pay-in" Medicare premiums, because of the combination of "pay-in" health insurance with "free Medicaid", are used to subsidize welfare health care. This obscures an accounting of the actual cost of providing Medicaid welfare health care. How much does the Medicaid welfare card health care cost? (Total current Health and Human Services cost $414.9 Billion.)

The less obvious possible answer is the premiums will be used to subsidize other government budget items proposed by the Obama Administration. Despite his spoken commitment to "transparency" in government, Obama has begun a process of moving funds from one department to another or involving multiple departments in a single, complex piece of legislation, obscuring the source and location of the money. Obama already has set record budget deficits, $458.6 Million in 2008 and 1.8 Trillion in 2009, doubling the national debt under Bush in 2002 from $6 Trillion to $12.9 Trillion or more.

Obama et.al. are planning to subsidize hiring a large number of IRS agents to investigate and collect penalties, fees, fines, and needed tax refunds from Americans who do not chose to buy health care insurance or become insolvent, risking loss of home and assets, by signing up for welfare.

email mkrause381@gmail.com or mkrause54@yahoo.com for a copy of this blog or other blogs posted by mary for http://monthlynotes.blogspot.com or http://monthlynotesfour.blogspot.com.

Photograph: Higggins Eye Pearlymussel, Unionidae, an endangered species of freshwater mussel since 1976, in IL, IA, MN, MO, WI, from Beacham's Guide to the Engangered Species of North America, 2001.

References: CNSNews.com. NYT Almanac 2008, 2009, 2010.