Via The Washington Examiner –
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H/T Glenn Reynolds of PJ Media
Back in 2009 when President Obama repeated that the Obamacare mandate was not a tax.
https://youtu.be/_0ZUBMqMnWs
Today, more Obamacare information keeps rolling out showing the fees or what the U.S. Supreme Court labeled a “tax”. Here is a brief excerpt from Forbes.com:
As millions of Americans scramble to file their tax returns, many are shocked by the full cost of ObamaCare’s individual mandate.
“Those who failed to obtain minimum essential health insurance coverage last year will have had to send the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) a check for $1,130, on average,” Doug Holtz-Eakin, former director of the Congressional Budget Office, testified today before a congressional hearing.
You can read the rest here.
Researchers at the National Taxpayers Union Foundation did a study on lost productivity in America due to our tax code. Washington Times published an article on it entitled “U.S. economy out $233.8 billion due to ‘lost productivity’ as Americans wrestle with taxes: Study”
An interesting number was in the study concerning the amount of pages Obamacare takes up on the IRS website:
the researchers also found a “staggering” 3,322 pages of legal guidance for the Affordable Care Act at the IRS website. The content includes regulations, Treasury decisions, assorted notices, revenue procedures, and revenue rulings.
As far as the study of our tax code, here are some sad numbers:
The study also notes that the estimated length of the Tax Code itself is about 4 million words. The study grimly recalls that the Form 1040 instructions were once just two pages long. “Today, taxpayers must wade through 209 pages of instructions, quadruple the number in 1985, the year before taxes were simplified,” it states.
In a report prepared for the Association of American Medical Colleges a grim outlook was given concerning physician supply in the United States. Here is what was found:
The report can be read here. Much of the shortage will be from stronger demand of people getting on Obamacare.
Obamacare for all intensive purposes is a gateway to universal healthcare via medicaid. When the ACA passed in 2010 it set up a medicaid program where the feds matched dollar for dollar states medicaid expansion. Here is a detailed explanation from the Chicago Tribune of an example in Illinois where estimated costs have ballooned from $500 Million to $2 Billion:
Original projections anticipated that 199,000 residents would sign up in 2014, potentially rising to no more than 342,000. State officials estimated a monthly, per person cost of $454, and revised that number upward to $882 in the document sent to in June to federal officials.
But through December, 540,877 joined Medicaid’s ranks. State officials said thousands more likely signed up through January.
Nationally, medicaid has exploded via Obamacare (9.7 million new enrollees) which means long term federal costs for ALL taxpayers.
Last week I reported H&R Block website had a new feel good name for one Obamacare tax. This week new analysis comes from Americans for Tax Reform about more taxes within the law:
The majority (52 percent) of Obamacare enrollees receiving an advance premium tax credit to purchase Obamacare insurance is facing the prospect of paying back $530 of that tax credit to the IRS, according to a new study from H&R Block. This clawback is reducing the refunds for these taxpayers by 17 percent this filing season.
Families of four earning less than $97,000 are eligible for a credit. So is a single mother with two children earning less than $80,000 and an unmarried/childless taxpayer earning less than about $12,000. By definition, these are the lowest income recipients of Obamacare health insurance outside the Medicaid-eligible population. Higher income taxpayers received no tax subsidy and aren’t facing this tax season surprise.
According to the study, a majority of credit recipients–52 percent–have had to pay back the IRS an average of $530, reducing their refunds by an average of 17 percent.
Read the rest here
I filed my taxes this past weekend online through H&R Block and stumbled upon the Obamacare tax. The sly government gurus have gave it a warm fuzzy college theory name of “Shared Responsibility Payment”.
Remember, under collectivism, shared responsibility also involves shared misery.
ObamaCare ads will now appear on 7-Eleven receipts at more than 7,000 stores nationwide as government health officials expand their outreach in the second year of healthcare sign-ups.
Information about ObamaCare sign-ups will appear on the bottom of receipts for anyone using a mobile payment company called PayNearMe, which allows bank-less customers to pay in stores like 7-Eleven and Family Dollar.
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell announced the new partnership with the tech start-up PayNearMe on Thursday at a store in Washington, D.C.
“Putting these reminders at the bottom of PayNearMe receipts will help get health coverage information into the hands of traditionally hard-to-reach consumers,” HHS wrote in a statement.
The partnership will help HHS “reach financially underserved and other cash-preferring consumers,” the statement reads.
The new healthcare law that passed in 2010 was more of an expansion of getting people on medicaid then getting insurance. Medicaid is the “universal health care” that most don’t realize exists and it is taking on millions of new people each year. FORBES magazine has pretty lengthy write up about this program along with medicare.
Doctors seeing Medicare patients face a 24 percent cut in reimbursements beginning January 1. But almost no one has grasped that those cuts will hit Medicaid too—thanks to Obamacare. Together both programs cover more than 100 million Americans, and the government expects about 9 million more people to join Medicaid next year.
The number of just regular doctors is drying up as new doctors coming out of med school go into specialty areas. Doctors cannot afford new Medicaid patients and here is one reason why:
Medicaid pays doctors about 59 percent of what medicare pays them—which is why doctors increasingly refuse to take new Medicaid patients.
In 2012 doctors ran to the exits in fleeing medicaid.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) recently released a document showing that 9,500 doctors who had previously accepted Medicaid patients refused to do so in 2012.
In 2013 Congress voted to increase medicaid payments at the same rate of medicare. Now that is about to get cut again. The up and down of government intrusion in healthcare as this complicated law unfolds is taking a toll on our healthcare system. The people who suffer ultimately will be the patients.
Hoosier Econ 