health care reform

Phyllis Schlafly of Eagle Forum on Friday warned that the Obama administration has estimated that the average family will pay a minimum of $20,000 for health insurance once the health care reform law goes fully into effect.

The only problem with Schlafly’s claim is that the government never issued such an estimate.

The IRS simply used the $20,000 figure as an example for calculating the “shared responsibility payment,” or penalty, for a nonexempt family that does not acquire health insurance.

As the Annenberg Center’s FactCheck.org notes:

The IRS used $20,000 in a hypothetical example to illustrate how it will calculate the tax penalty for a family that fails to obtain health coverage as required by law. Treasury says the figure “is not an estimate of premiums.”

…

[T]he regulations weren’t a “cost analysis” at all. A spokesperson for the Treasury Department confirmed to FactCheck.org in an email that the IRS wasn’t making any declarations or projections about what prices will be.

“[Twenty thousand dollars] is a round number used by IRS for a hypothetical example,” the official wrote. “It is not an estimate of premiums for a bronze plan for a family of five in 2016.”

Schlafly wasn’t the only conservative leader to fall for the false story, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel also wrote an article arguing that a government “cost analysis based on ObamaCare regulations show[s] that the cheapest healthcare plan in 2016 will cost average American families of four or five members $20,000 per year for the so-called ‘bronze plan.’”

The Obama Administration is now estimating that by 2016 the minimum annual cost of health insurance for an average American family under ObamaCare will be $20,000. And there is no guarantee that the health insurance will actually cover all the medical treatments that the family wants and needs. $20,000 is merely the minimum annual cost; many families could face even higher premiums. Millions of Americans will be faced with the choice of buying this expensive health insurance, or paying hefty penalties to the IRS. Those who choose not to buy health insurance will be slapped by the IRS with thousands of dollars in additional taxes. Is this what Americans really want? Certainly not. $20,000 is many times more expensive than what most Americans pay for health insurance today.

It's not only families who will be hit by these enormous price increases under ObamaCare. One study predicts that a 27-year-old non-smoking male in Texas will go from paying $54 a month in health insurance premiums to a whopping $153 per month as soon as ObamaCare goes into full effect. That will be on top of the massive student debt that so many young people are already struggling to pay off. The real result may be that many Americans will choose to drop their health insurance simply because they cannot afford it. But that is the opposite of what ObamaCare was supposed to achieve.

None of this is a surprise to those who have criticized ObamaCare for years. Not a single Republican voted for this costly injection of federal bureaucracy into the American health care system, which has been the finest the world has ever known. Many businesses are decreasing the number of hours that their employees can work in order to fall below the threshold requiring employers to buy this costly insurance for their employees.

The right-wing group Gun Owners of America has for the past few years been pushing the debunked conspiracy theory that the health care reform law will be used to collect information on gun owners, information that will later be used as part of a gun-confiscation scheme.

Speaking with Family Research Council president Tony Perkins yesterday, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) echoed that theory, claiming that President Obama’s new executive actions have “language in there talking about doctors being required to report on patients and ask patients if they own guns or not.”

He warned that President Obama’s “going to use Obamacare apparently to have doctors informing on their patients to whether or not they have guns” and will put the information into “government databanks.” He added: “I’m very much opposed to this kind of information going into government databanks because I fear that the time will come when this data will be misused.”

Paul: He’s going to use Obamacare apparently to have doctors informing on their patients to whether or not they have guns.

Perkins: I mean, that’s crazy.

Paul: How exactly he’s going to make this work, I don’t know, but there is language in there talking about doctors being required to report on patients and ask patients if they own guns or not.

Perkins: I read that and I was just flabbergasted…. Senator, not everybody may know this but you’re also a physician so I think you have probably a pretty different perspective on that, not just as a patient but as a doctor. I mean do you want to ask, how are you feeling, got a little fever and by the way how many guns do you have? I mean, how do you work that into the conversation?

Paul: The whole idea that the government is going to be in between you and your doctor, that the doctor-patient relationship which is a very private relationship. In fact it’s part of our Hippocratic Oath that if you come to me and see me and I’m treating you for problems which often can become personal problems and private problems would you want me going down to the grocery store and saying, I just saw so-and-so and he’s got this. You know it’s really not the kind of relationship you want with your patients.

Same way would you want your government to know and does your government need to know what medications you take, whether you own guns. I’m very much opposed to this kind of information going into government databanks because I fear that the time will come when this data will be misused.

Paul’s interpretation of the executive action is, of course, completely off-base, as are his claims about Obamacare.

The White House statement does discuss having doctors talk to patients about gun safety if someone in the home has mental health issues, rebutting the rumor that Obamacare prohibits doctors from asking about gun ownership.

Contrary to Paul’s claims, this neither “requires” doctors to ask patients about gun ownership nor makes doctors give government “databanks” information on who owns guns. A plain reading of the law finds that it explicitly prohibits such data collection:

‘‘(c) PROTECTION OF SECOND AMENDMENT GUN RIGHTS.—

‘‘(1) WELLNESS AND PREVENTION PROGRAMS.— A wellness and health promotion activity implemented under subsection (a)(1)(D) may not require the disclosure or collection of any information relating to—

‘‘(A) the presence or storage of a lawfully possessed firearm or ammunition in the residence or on the property of an individual; or

‘‘(B) the lawful use, possession, or storage of a firearm or ammunition by an individual.

‘‘(2) LIMITATION ON DATA COLLECTION.—None of the authorities provided to the Secretary under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or an amendment made by that Act shall be construed to authorize or may be used for the collection of any information relating to— ‘‘(A) the lawful ownership or possession of a firearm or ammunition;

‘‘(B) the lawful use of a firearm or ammunition; or

‘‘(C) the lawful storage of a firearm or ammunition.

‘‘(3) LIMITATION ON DATABASES OR DATABANKS.—None of the authorities provided to the Secretary under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or an amendment made by that Act shall be construed to authorize or may be used to maintain records of individual ownership or possession of a firearm or ammunition.

‘‘(4) LIMITATION ON DETERMINATION OF PREMIUM RATES OR ELIGIBILITY FOR HEALTH INSURANCE.— A premium rate may not be increased, health insurance coverage may not be denied, and a discount, rebate, or reward offered for participation in a wellness program may not be reduced or withheld under any health benefit plan issued pursuant to or in accordance with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or an amendment made by that Act on the basis of, or on reliance upon—

‘‘(A) the lawful ownership or possession of a firearm or ammunition; or

‘‘(B) the lawful use or storage of a firearm or ammunition.

‘‘(5) LIMITATION ON DATA COLLECTION REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS.— No individual shall be required to disclose any information under any data collection activity authorized under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or an amendment made by that Act relating to—

‘‘(A) the lawful ownership or possession of a firearm or ammunition; or

‘‘(B) the lawful use, possession, or storage of a firearm or ammunition.’’

Eagle Forum founder Phyllis Schlafy brought on conservative historian Don Critchlow, who wrote a fawning biography of Schlafly, as her guest on Saturday’s Eagle Forum Live to promote his new book, Takeover: How the Left’s Quest for Social Justice Corrupted Liberalism. He told Schlafly that President Obama and today’s Democratic Party have a “more insidious” and “much more radical agenda, actually, than what the old communists were talking about,” as they plan to take away “real rights” and “control the way we live.”

Schlafly: When Barack Obama was running for President he bragged, he said that he wanted to ‘fundamentally transform America,’ what do you think he really wants to transform?

Critchlow: I think he wants to transform the way Americans live. I think what this transformation is is a clear cut agenda to extend the federal government into all parts of our lives. What’s happened, Phyllis, is that we’ve seen the steady erosion of real rights in America today. This is a very insidious agenda that has been imposed upon us and too many Americans are going along with it.

…

Critchlow: I think the takeover of the Democratic Party, the new progressives were not communists per se. The old communists, the old Marxists were concerned with issues of production. This is a much more radical agenda, actually, than what the old communists were talking about. The new progressives want to control consumption. That’s the point of takeover — that they want to control — it’s more insidious because they’re going to control the way we live as opposed to just nationalizing a few industries as the old socialists and communists wanted.

Critchlow also didn’t rebuff one caller’s theory that Obama will soon nationalize pension plans in order to take the money from seniors after the death panels have them killed, saying that government will begin “extending its control over all kinds of things that we just can’t envision.”

Caller: One of the things that President Obama is talking about a lot right now is nationalizing the pension funds, he wants to take over all the private pension funds and have the government control them and I think give the people who should have received their pension funds give them a month annuity instead. I figure this is designed to mesh with Obamacare in the following way: sooner or later somebody getting this money that’s retired will have a medical problem, they’ll need to go see a doctor and when they go see a doctor under Obamacare they’ll be sent to the death panel and the death panel will have them euthanized and ten the government will grab up all their money and have the rest of their money, they will have only gotten tiny bit of the pension money they were saving up for and the government will have all their money. So I wanted to ask if he figures I’m right on my speculation on this point?

Critchlow: Well what we’re going to see in this financial crisis that we’re experiencing, government extending its control over all kinds of things that we just can’t envision. Obamacare is an unaffordable and cockamamie plan that now the Supreme Court has ruled is constitutional. So we’re going to see this full blown agenda being fulfilled as this crisis worsens.

The leader of the Religious Right gun group Gun Owners of America is warning that the government, through the health care reform law and a new service program, is going after everyday Americans. Larry Pratt, the organization’s executive director who has ties to white supremacists, appeared on VCY America’s Crosstalk to float a number of conspiracies. Pratt alleged that the left is to blame for the Benghazi attack because of its “profound dislike of self-defense” and refusal to “believe in self-defense either personally or as a matter of national self-defense.”

Later, he also spoke to a caller about the latest right-wing conspiracy that FEMA Corps, a program dedicated to training “young volunteers to physically and psychologically handle the demands of working in hazardous areas,” is actually an armed brigade that may be used to persecute political opponents.

Caller: They have this website, “FEMA Corps First Graduating Class,” somebody found it on ItMakesSenseBlog.com and it was like 231 kids and they’ve got 2,500 armored fighting vehicles ready to go, I was just wondering if you have spotted any of that information yet.

Pratt: Now that is very interesting that FEMA would have armored personnel carriers, that is what it sounds like you are describing, is that helpful in fighting the aftermath of a Hurricane? That’s really amazing. It shows the total disconnect of the federal government from the Constitution.

But Pratt wasn’t done yet, as he went on to say that Obamacare will help the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives to “take away your guns.”

There’s a big one that doesn’t get much attention as a gun measure but it is, and that’s Obamacare. Obamacare among its many unconstitutional aspects, I’m sorry Supreme Court, has made privacy something that only applies between consenting adults but not certainly our relationship with the government. It says that all of our medical records are available to be pawed through by bureaucrats somewhere in Washington, looking for a reason to disenfranchise gun owners, to say ‘oh you have a medical diagnosis that means you might be a danger to yourself or others so we’re going to come and knock on the door for the BATF to take away your guns.’

Of course, the law that screens out people such as mentally ill individuals through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System to prevent them from purchasing guns was signed by President Bush, and the health care reform law [PDF] explicitly does not allow for a gigantic gun owner database or discrimination against people who own guns:

‘‘(c) PROTECTION OF SECOND AMENDMENT GUN RIGHTS.—

‘‘(1) WELLNESS AND PREVENTION PROGRAMS.— A wellness and health promotion activity implemented under subsection (a)(1)(D) may not require the disclosure or collection of any information relating to—

‘‘(A) the presence or storage of a lawfully possessed firearm or ammunition in the residence or on the property of an individual; or

‘‘(B) the lawful use, possession, or storage of a firearm or ammunition by an individual.

‘‘(2) LIMITATION ON DATA COLLECTION.—None of the authorities provided to the Secretary under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or an amendment made by that Act shall be construed to authorize or may be used for the collection of any information relating to— ‘‘(A) the lawful ownership or possession of a firearm or ammunition;

‘‘(B) the lawful use of a firearm or ammunition; or

‘‘(C) the lawful storage of a firearm or ammunition.

‘‘(3) LIMITATION ON DATABASES OR DATABANKS.—None of the authorities provided to the Secretary under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or an amendment made by that Act shall be construed to authorize or may be used to maintain records of individual ownership or possession of a firearm or ammunition.

‘‘(4) LIMITATION ON DETERMINATION OF PREMIUM RATES OR ELIGIBILITY FOR HEALTH INSURANCE.— A premium rate may not be increased, health insurance coverage may not be denied, and a discount, rebate, or reward offered for participation in a wellness program may not be reduced or withheld under any health benefit plan issued pursuant to or in accordance with the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or an amendment made by that Act on the basis of, or on reliance upon—

‘‘(A) the lawful ownership or possession of a firearm or ammunition; or

‘‘(B) the lawful use or storage of a firearm or ammunition.

‘‘(5) LIMITATION ON DATA COLLECTION REQUIREMENTS FOR INDIVIDUALS.— No individual shall be required to disclose any information under any data collection activity authorized under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or an amendment made by that Act relating to—

‘‘(A) the lawful ownership or possession of a firearm or ammunition; or

‘‘(B) the lawful use, possession, or storage of a firearm or ammunition.’’

According to the American Family Association’s Sandy Rios, the 2010 health care reform law may be “the beginning of dhimmitude.” Rios, who spent much of her Friday radio program defending Michele Bachmann’s remarks on her show about Muslim Brotherhood “deep penetration” of the US government, warned that Muslims intend to “overpopulate and overtake” communities in order to establish “dhimmitude.” After discussing a tax that Christians and Jews could pay to receive protection and religious autonomy under Muslim rule, Rios claimed that the health care reform law “says that Muslims will be exempt from the government mandate to purchase insurance.”

Of course, this is not true.

According to FactCheck.org, the law does include religious exemptions for groups that are “currently considered exempt from Social Security payroll taxes,” such as the Amish, and “no Muslim group, and indeed no non-Christian group, has ever qualified for an exemption under the statue used to define exempt religious groups in the health care law.”

But by pushing such anti-Obama myths, Rios is simply doing what every other AFA radio host does on a daily basis.

Do you know what dhimmitude is? I wish I could see your hands. How many of you know what dhimmitude is? Dhimmitude is the system under Islam where Muslims go into communities and at first operate within a system and then overpopulate and overtake, and when they become the majority they begin to exercise dhimmitude, which means dhimmi, which means that everybody—the other—anybody that’s not Muslim will be subservient to them in terms of taxes that you would have to pay, taxes as non-Muslims in exchange for being allowed to live there with them, so that’s part of dhimmitude. I’ve heard this before but somebody just sent it to me again, on page 107 of the Obama health care bill it says that Muslims will be exempt from the government mandate to purchase insurance because they believe insurance is gambling and risk-taking, so they will not have to buy it but the rest of us will, and the accusation is that this is the beginning of dhimmitude.

Indeed, the only group arguing for a religious tax appears to be…the American Family Association, as AFA spokesman Bryan Fischer endorsed a tax on non-churchgoers:

Rep. Tom Price (R-GA) appeared on WallBuilders Live today alongside hosts David Barton and Rick Green to discuss the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the health care reform law. The congressman maintained that the law “removes the very freedom and liberty that our founders fought for at its very core” and if it is implemented then America will no longer be “the America that you and I love” and that “our founders fought for.” Price went on to cite a sham, Tea Party study heralded throughout conservative media, to claim that “around eighty percent of the physicians surveyed would say if this comes to its full conclusion, that is Obamacare becoming fully implemented, they don’t see how they could practice.” He said that doctors following rules under the reform law will be violating their professional oath, representing the “subjugation of a free citizen, a formerly free citizen.”

Green: It’s allowing government to take over these very personal decisions.

Price: It removes the very freedom and liberty that our founders fought for at its very core. Nothing is more personal, as a physician I can tell you when I would treat patients they understood that it was either an insurance company or the state or federal government that were dictating to them what might be available to them in terms of treatment or diagnosis, they’d bristle, as would I. This is just turning that into the system for every single American and that is a system where Washington decides what you can get, what kind of treatment you can get for yourself and for your family. That’s not America, that’s not the America that you and I love, that’s not the America our founders fought for, that’s not the America that recognizes that our liberty and our freedom comes from God almighty and not from the federal government.

Green: Amen. It looks like as the White House begins to spin this it looks like we’ll be where we were in 2009 where both sides are trying to say whether or not this is a good idea as we go into the 2012 elections. It looks like a lot of doctors are actually saying, ‘If this thing goes forward I’m out of here, I can’t even practice medicine under this system.’

Price: You all have been following this very closely and there’s a recent survey that puts it at somewhere around eighty percent of the physicians surveyed would say if this comes to its full conclusion, that is Obamacare becoming fully implemented, they don’t see how they could practice. The reason is, it’s important for people to appreciate the reason for this, it’s not that things just get too difficult it’s that as a profession we take an oath, physicians take an oath, to provide the highest quality care they are capable of for their patients. If the federal government is going to come in and say ‘we know that you believe Mrs. Smith deserves this and needs this for her treatment but we don’t believe that that’s what Mrs. Smith needs and we will tell you what to give Mrs. Smith,’ that’s no longer a profession, that’s a subjugation of a free citizen, a formerly free citizen, that physicians will not tolerate and I think that’s why you’re seeing that kind of response that you’re seeing from doctors across the land.

Operation Rescue president Troy Newman reiterated his pledge not to comply with the health care reform law while speaking with Janet Mefferd on Friday, telling Mefferd that like the leaders of the American Revolution who protested British taxation he will not “chip into this ungodly health care system.” While speaking about the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the Affordable Care Act, Newman said people “experienced this day like we did 9/11” and must now think about how people might have acted under Nazi Germany, warning that “we are all moving down the road toward complete annihilation”:

As an employer, we’re going to be forced to chip into this ungodly health care system and we are not going to pay. I am going on the record; we will not send the federal government a dime. Now, if they send the IRS on us then it’s not a health care issue then it’s simply a failure to pay our tax, as John Roberts said, this is now a tax. Well, what did we have a revolution for: taxation without representation. We went to war and real Christians picked up real guns and defeated a real army. I’m not calling for an insurrection or to take up guns but I’m saying that they thought it was so serious that they pledged their lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor to have a land that we live in, which is three greatest experiment in human liberty based on Christian principles the world has ever known, and all of that is at stake.

…

You know we always get surprised at what happened in Nazi Germany and we say, ‘if I had been there I wouldn’t do that,’ or we think back and think, ‘that was sixty or seventy years ago, how could that have happened, that was all in the past, all that draconian, totalitarian, socialist actions were in the past.’ Here we have a decision, a landmark ruling which will go down in history and every single person listening to this radio program was alive and experienced this day like we did 9/11. The question is, what will our response be?

…

The courts are not the answer. There’s checks and balances in this country and there is no check and there is no balance. We are all moving down the road toward complete annihilation. Some people want to go at 100 MPH and some people want to go at 30 or 40 or 50 MPH, but I think this is a wakeup call. The entire Supreme Court should be impeached, the entire Congress should be impeached, we should replace the president in November.

While most readers found the recent Time Magazine profile of Justice Anthony Kennedy to be an innocuous piece about the justice who has emerged as a deciding vote on some of the more divisive Supreme Court decisions, Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-MN) sees a surreptitious effort by the media to convince Kennedy to uphold the health care reform law.

While speaking to Sandy Rios of the American Family Association earlier this week, Bachmann warned that if Kennedy is “succumbing to flattery in the media” then “he could potentially be persuaded to go the way of the left,” as liberals “are not above doing anything that they can to influence that one swing voter.” She insisted that if the ruling is upheld, potentially due to media influence, it will mean “the end of our Constitution and the end of our Republic as we know it” in addition to “one of the final so to speak nails in the coffin to our country.”

Listen:

Rios: I’ve been out of the country Michele but when I came back one of the first things I did was spotted TIME Magazine, I don’t know if you saw this, but Anthony Kennedy’s face, they did an entire, many, many, many pages profile of Anthony Kennedy with his picture on the cover, a very flattering profile as you can imagine. I thought at the time, that was just last weekend, I thought, ‘this doesn’t seem appropriate to me.’ They are getting ready to make all these major decisions and they are talking about that he is the main vote on the court because he is the swing vote, this is what they always say, and they do this total puff piece on him, didn’t you think that was a little unseemly?

Bachmann: I think that what we need to recognize is that the left is committed to outcome-based Supreme Court decisions, they want what they want, bottom line, the end justifies the means, they want socialized medicine, they want the government to control it and so they are not above doing anything that they can to influence that one swing voter. By everyone’s estimation, Anthony Kennedy is the justice who will make the decision if we have socialized medicine, which in my opinion will be the end of our Constitution and the end of our Republic as we know it. It will bankrupt us, there is no question Obamacare will do that, and it will change our relationship to government forever. I think it will be one of the final so to speak nails in the coffin to our country. If he makes that decision and if he is succumbing to flattery in the media, and these are human beings we’re talking about, he could potentially be persuaded to go the way of the left, that could be, and I think that’s why it wouldn’t surprise me at all that we are seeing these big, flattery pieces.

On today's "Faith and Freedom" radio program, Matt Barber and Shawn Akers were positively incensed by President Obama's "shameless attack on U.S. Supreme Court Justices," by which they meant his remarks from a few weeks ago that it would be "unprecedented" for the Supreme Court to  strike down health care reform legislation.

Despite the fact that President Bush made a very similar point during his presidency, Barber was particularly outraged at the idea that Obama would dare to call it "judicial activism" because, as he explained, not striking down health care reform would be judicial activism by omission:

Any judge that is not an Originalist is acting in a counter-constitutional manner. We have four Justices currently sitting, at least, on the bench of the United States Supreme Court that buy into this living, breathing model of the Constitution, that it is whatever we say it is whenever we say it is. So clearly this was a disingenuous portrayal of what is or what is not judicial activism on the part of this president. If the United States Supreme Court fails to overturn Obamacare, that would be judicial activism through an act of omission.