Thursday, June 28, 2012

50 (now 46) Reasons to Repeal ALL of Obamacare NOW

 50 (Now 46) Reasons to Repeal ALL of Obamacare NOWToday the Supreme Court struck down portions of Obamacare as unconstitutional – states cannot be "dragooned" into expanding their Medicaid programs according to the law’s dictates. However, a list of 50 particularly onerous or egregious provisions in Obamacare (with sections from the statute duly noted) reveals just how much of this bad law remains. By the most generous interpretation, the Court struck down only four of the 50 egregious policies, illustrating why Congress should immediately repeal the entire measure once and for all. Among many other bad policies, the law:
1. Imposes $800 billion in tax increases, including no fewer than 12 separate provisions breaking candidate Obama’s "firm pledge" during his campaign that he would not raise "any of your taxes" (Sections 9001-9016)
2. Forces Americans to purchase a product for the first time ever (Section 1501)
3. Creates a board of 15 unelected and unaccountable bureaucrats to make binding rulings on how to reduce Medicare spending (Section 3403)
4. Pays over $800 billion in subsidies straight to health insurance companies (Sections 1401, 1402, and 1412)
5. Requires all individuals to buy government-approved health insurance plans, imposing new mandates that will raise individual insurance premiums by an average of $2,100 per family (Section 1302)
6. Forces seniors to lose their current health care, by enacting Medicare Advantage cuts that by 2017 will cut enrollment in half, and cut plan choices by two-thirds (Section 3201)
7. Imposes a 40 percent tax on health benefits, a direct contradiction of Barack Obama’s campaign promises (Section 9001)
8. Relies upon government bureaucrats to "issue guidance on best practices of plain language writing" (Section 1311(e)(3)(B))
9. Provides special benefits to residents of Libby, Montana – home of Max Baucus, the powerful Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, who helped write the law even though he says he hasn’t read it (Section 10323)
10. Imposes what a Democrat Governor called the "mother of all unfunded mandates" – new, Washington-dictated requirements of at least $118 billion – at a time when states already face budget deficits totaling a collective $175 billion (Section 2001)   Thanks SCOTUS
11. Imposes reductions in Medicare spending that, according to the program’s non-partisan actuary, would cause 40 percent of all Medicare providers to become unprofitable, and could lead to their exit from the program (Section 3401)
12. Raises premiums on more than 17 million seniors participating in Medicare Part D, so that Big Pharma can benefit from its "rock-solid deal" struck behind closed doors with President Obama and Congressional Democrats (Section 3301)
13. Creates an institute to undertake research that, according to one draft Committee report prepared by Democrats, could mean that "more expensive [treatments] will no longer be prescribed" (Section 6301)
14. Creates a multi-billion dollar "slush fund" doled out solely by federal bureaucrats, which has already been used to fund things like bike paths (Section 4002)
15. Subjects states to myriad new lawsuits, by forcing them to assume legal liability for delivering services to Medicaid patients for the first time in that program’s history (Section 2304) Thanks SCOTUS
16. Permits taxpayer dollars to flow to health plans that fund abortion, in a sharp deviation from prior practice under Democrat and Republican Administrations (Section 1303)
17. Empowers bureaucrats on a board that has ruled against mammograms and against prostate cancer screenings to make binding determinations about what types of preventive services should be covered (Sections 2713 and 4104)
18. Precludes poor individuals from having a choice of health care plans by automatically dumping them in the Medicaid program (Section 1413(a))
19. Creates a new entitlement program that one Democrat called "a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of" – a scheme so unsustainable even the Administration was forced to admit it would not work (Section 8002)
20. Provides $5 billion in taxpayer dollars to a fund that has largely served to bail out unions and other organizations who made unsustainable health care promises to retirees that they cannot afford (Section 1102)
21. Creates a tax credit so convoluted it requires seven different worksheets to determine eligibility (Section 1421)
22. Imposes multiple penalties on those who marry, by reducing subsidies (and increasing taxes) for married couples when compared to two individuals cohabiting together (Sections 1401-02)
23. Extends the Medicare "payroll tax" to unearned income for the first time ever, including new taxes on the sale of some homes (Section 1402)
From the Office of U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) www.demint.senate.gov Page 2 24. Impedes state flexibility by requiring Medicaid programs to offer a specific package of benefits, including benefits like family planning services (Sections 2001(a)(2), 2001(c), 1302(b), and 2303(c)) Thanks SCOTUS
25. Requires individuals to go to the doctor and get a prescription in order to spend their own Flexible Spending Account money on over-the-counter medicines (Section 9003)
26. Expands the definition of "low-income" to make 63 percent of non-elderly Americans eligible for "low-income" subsidized insurance (Section 1401)
27. Imposes a new tax on the makers of goods like pacemakers and hearing aids (Section 9009)
28. Creates an insurance reimbursement scheme that could result in the federal government obtaining Americans’ medical records (Section 1343)
29. Permits states to make individuals presumptively eligible for Medicaid for unlimited 60-day periods, thus allowing any individual to receive taxpayer-funded assistance
30. Allows individuals to purchase insurance on government exchanges – and to receive taxpayer-funded insurance subsidies – WITHOUT verifying their identity as American citizens (Section 1411)
31. Gives $300 million in higher Medicaid reimbursements to one state as part of the infamous "Louisiana Purchase" – described by ABC News as "what…it take[s] to get a wavering senator to vote for health care reform" (Section 2006)
32. Raises taxes on firms who cannot afford to buy coverage for their workers (Section 1513)
33. Forces younger Americans to pay double-digit premium increases so that older workers can pay slightly less (Section 1201)
34. Prohibits states from modifying their Medicaid programs to include things like modest anti-fraud protections (Section 2001)  Thanks SCOTUS
35. Includes a special provision increasing federal payments just for Tennessee (Section 1203(b))
36. Allows individuals to purchase health insurance across state lines – but only if politicians and bureaucrats agree to allow citizens this privilege (Section 1333)
37. Allows the HHS Secretary and federal bureaucrats to grant waivers exempting people from Obamacare’s onerous mandates, over half of which have gone to members of union plans (Section 1001)
38. Creates a pseudo-government-run plan overseen by the federal government (Section 1334)
39. Removes a demonstration project designed to force government-run Medicare to compete on a level playing field with private plans (Section 1102(f))
40. Gives the Secretary of HHS an UNLIMITED amount of federal funds to spend funding state insurance Exchanges (Section 1311(a))
41. Creates a grant program that could be used by liberal groups like ACORN or AARP to conduct "public education activities" surrounding Obamacare (Section 1311(i))
42. Applies new federal mandates to pre-Obamacare insurance policies, thus proving that you CAN’T keep the insurance plan you had – and liked – before the law passed (Sections 2301 and 10103)
43. Prohibits individuals harmed by federal bureaucrats from challenging those decisions, either in court or through regulatory processes (Sections 3001, 3003, 3007, 3008, 3021, 3022, 3025, 3133, 3403, 5501, 6001, and 6401)
44. Earmarks $100 million for "construction of a health care facility," a "sweetheart deal" inserted by a Democrat Senator trying to win re-election (Section 10502)
45. Puts yet another Medicaid unfunded mandate on states, by raising payments to primary care physicians, but only for two years, forcing states to come up with another method of funding this unsustainable promise when federal funding expires (Section 1202)
46. Imposes price controls that have had the effect of costing jobs in the short time since they were first implemented (Section 1001)
47. Prohibits individuals from spending federal insurance subsidies outside government-approved Exchanges (Section 1401(a))
48. Provides a special increase in federal hospital payments just for Hawaii (Section 10201(e)(1))
49. Imposes new reporting requirements that will cost businesses millions of dollars, and affect thousands of restaurants and other establishments across the country (Section 4205)
50. Codifies 159 new boards, bureaucracies, and programs
ad infinitum (Section 2303(b)) The Supreme Court may have struck some of these onerous provisions, but the only way to ensure that ALL these provisions are eliminated – and never return – is to repeal ALL of this unconstitutional law immediately.

From the Office of U.S. Senator Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) www.demint.senate.gov Page 1