Category Archives: Health Care

May 17, 2013

IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office

Posted on May 17, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

“Now more than ever, we need to prevent the IRS from having any role in Americans’ health care,” Cornyn, R-Texas, stated. “I do not support Obamacare, and after the events of last week, I cannot support giving the IRS any more responsibility or taxpayer dollars to implement a broken law.”

The Internal Revenue Service official in charge of the tax-exempt organizations at the time when the unit targeted tea party groups now runs the IRS office responsible for the health care legislation.

Sarah Hall Ingram served as commissioner of the office responsible for tax-exempt organizations between 2009 and 2012. But Ingram has since left that part of the IRS and is now the director of the IRS’ Affordable Care Act office, the IRS confirmed to ABC News today.

Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.

Grant announced today that he would retire June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office May 8, a week ago.

As the House voted to fully repeal the Affordable Care Act Thursday evening, House Speaker John Boehner expressed “serious concerns” that the IRS is empowered as the law’s chief enforcer.

“Fully repealing ObamaCare will help us build a stronger, healthier economy, and will clear the way for patient-centered reforms that lower health care costs and protect jobs,” Boehner, R-Ohio, said.

“Obamacare empowers the agency that just violated the public’s trust by secretly targeting conservative groups,” Rep. Marlin Stutzman, R-Ind., added. “Even by Washington’s standards, that’s unacceptable.”

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Posted in Health Care, Law & Courts, Tax, Tea Parties

May 5, 2013

Tea Party looks to ObamaCare for new life in 2014 election cycle

Posted on May 5, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

The Tea Party movement is preparing to use ObamaCare’s rollout to catapult itself back into political power.

Tea Party leaders have been watching closely as President Obama and other prominent Democrats predict glitches in the law’s implementation. Conservative activists see these concessions as a major boon for Tea Party candidates in 2014 as Republicans seek to hold the House and take the Senate.

“Implementation has already shown itself to be a series of political time bombs,” said Matt Kibbe, president and CEO of FreedomWorks. “The only way you fix policy is through political accountability. Those that ignore those arguments need to pay a price.”

The enactment of healthcare reform’s major provisions on Jan. 1, 2014 couldn’t come at a better time for conservative activists. On that date, the law’s state insurance exchanges will begin offering coverage, the Medicaid expansion will take effect and the bill’s consumer protections will become active.

All three developments pose major challenges to the Obama administration, and they leave nine months for the Tea Party to hammer Democrats over any bumps in the road. In interviews with The Hill, movement leaders described plans to launch aggressive event and messaging schedules centered around ObamaCare.

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Posted in Democrats/Progressives, Health Care, Obama, Tea Parties

May 3, 2013

Duke hikes fees to provide sex-change surgery to students

Posted on May 3, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

There are 37 universities in America that cover sex change operations, according to TransgenderLaw.org. Emory University is the only other college in the Southeast, besides Duke, to offer sexual reassignment surgery to students.

Duke University plans to raise its student fees in order pay for students’ sex reassignment surgery.

The private university, located in North Carolina, follows Brown and other universities in offering coverage for the controversial operation.

Administrators say they will cover the cost of the reassignment surgery up to $50,000 that will be covered with a 0.3 percent increase to overall student fees.

LGBT advocates on campus immediately celebrated the university’s decision.

“The addition of sexual reassignment surgery with a $50,000 cap makes Duke’s student health care plan one of the most, if not the most, transgender-inclusive plans in the country,” Sunny Frothingham, the outreach chair for Blue Devils United told the Duke Chronicle last week.

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Posted in Health Care

May 2, 2013

Train Wreck Ahead by John Stossel

Posted on May 2, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Maybe we will soon be like Canada, where some people wait years for treatment. A producer from my TV show went to a Canadian town where the town clerk pulls names out of a box and then phones people to say: “Congratulations! You get to see a doctor this month!”

Most Americans — even those who are legislators — know very little about the details of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, so-called Obamacare. Next year, when it goes into effect, we will learn the hard way.

Many people lazily assume that the law will do roughly what it promises: give insurance to the uninsured and lower the cost of health care by limiting spending on dubious procedures.

Don’t count on it.

Consider just the complexity: The act itself is more than 906 pages long, and again and again in those 906 pages are the words, “the Secretary shall promulgate regulations …”

“Secretary” refers to Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius. Her minions have been busy. They’ve already added 20,000 pages of rules. They form a stack 7 feet high, and more are to come.

Our old health care system was already a bureaucratic and regulatory nightmare. It had 16,000 different codes for different ailments. Under our new, “improved” system, there will be more than a 100,000.

Government likes to think regulations can account for every possibility. Injured at a chicken coop? The code for that will be Y9272. Fall at an art gallery? That means you are a Y92250. There are three different codes for walking into a lamppost — depending on how often you’ve walked into lampposts. This is supposed to give government a more precise way to reimburse doctors for treating people and alert us to surges in injuries that might inspire further regulation.

On Government-Planned World, this makes sense. But it will be no more successful than Soviet central planning.

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Posted in Canada, Democrats/Progressives, Health Care, John Stossel, Obama, Radicals

April 17, 2013

Roofers union calls for Obamacare’s repeal

Posted on April 17, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

The United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers is reportedly the first union to officially call for repeal of the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare.

The health care law is prompting some serious buyer’s remorse in Big Labor, which worked hard on behalf of the administration to pass it:

The union’s statement can be found here. The full text is below:

United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers International President Kinsey M. Robinson issued the following statement today calling for a repeal or complete reform of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act (ACA):

“Our Union and its members have supported President Obama and his Administration for both of his terms in office.

But regrettably, our concerns over certain provisions in the ACA have not been addressed, or in some instances, totally ignored. In the rush to achieve its passage, many of the Act’s provisions were not fully conceived, resulting in unintended consequences that are inconsistent with the promise that those who were satisfied with their employer sponsored coverage could keep it.

These provisions jeopardize our multi-employer health plans, have the potential to cause a loss of work for our members, create an unfair bidding advantage for those contractors who do not provide health coverage to their workers, and in the worst case, may cause our members and their families to lose the benefits they currently enjoy as participants in multi-employer health plans.

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Posted in Health Care, Law & Courts, Obama, Unions

April 2, 2013

Rick From “Pawn Stars” Rants: Government is Destroying Us

Posted on April 2, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

“I truly believe that if government just stepped out of the way, we’d have a trade surplus, we’d be energy independent, we would have full employment, and there’d be so much money out there that basically like it used to be in this country, there would be charitable hospitals all over this country… I’m a total libertarian.” Rick Harrison

I love the TV show Pawn Stars. I’ve watched every episode at least once. The show is on the History Channel, and is about a small business based in Las Vegas, a pawn store that sees people bring in stuff to pawn or sell. The show covers history, interesting facts, and shows the main stars haggle with other people over buying and selling. It’s an interesting mix of pure capitalism and history — it’s a great family-friendly show.

Apparently, Rick Harrison, one of the owners of the small business, is a “total libertarian” who called in to Mark Levin’s show to basically vent after being quiet for several years. He went off, compared America’s left to Lenin, and said that the Obamacare judges should all be impeached. I love it.

Interview linked here.

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Posted in Free Speech, Government, Health Care

March 17, 2013

Oklahoma House of Representatives Passes ObamaCare Nullification Bill

Posted on March 17, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

“They fail to understand how the country is supposed to operate,” State Representative Mike Ritze added. “As Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist, No. 33: ‘It expressly confines this supremacy to laws made pursuant to the Constitution.’ Alexander Hamilton got it right. Congress and the Supreme Court got it wrong.”

Standing as a bulwark of liberty, the Oklahoma House of Representatives passed a bill protecting citizens of the Sooner State from the unconstitutional provisions of ObamaCare.

By a vote of 72-20, the state House of Representatives passed House Bill 1021, a bill that if signed into law would stop the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (known as ObamaCare) at the borders of the sovereign state of Oklahoma.

The bill’s primary proponent is State Representative Mike Ritze (R-Broken Arrow). A board-certified family practice physician and surgeon, he is particularly aware of the threat to liberty and good health care posed by ObamaCare.

In an exclusive conversation with The New American, Dr. Ritze reported that the debate in the House was passionate and included testimony from a partially paralyzed colleague who stands to lose his medical coverage as a result of the mandates of ObamaCare.

Ritze praised the speaker of the State House of Representatives, T.W. Shannon (R-Lawton), for resisting political pressure and placing the bill on the calendar, allowing it to be voted on by the body of the House.

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Posted in Government, Health Care, Law & Courts

March 5, 2013

GOP Governors Continue Caving In to ObamaCare Mandates

Posted on March 5, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

As the AP story explains, “Seven states led by Republican governors are pushing to expand their Medicaid program under Obama’s health care law. Such a move once was considered anathema in the party.”

Republican governors once so ferocious in their fight against ObamaCare now seem content to roll over and play dead.

Perhaps their new agreeable attitude is inspired by the fact that President Obama was reelected in November while their own political futures remain in jeopardy. As the Associated Press reported last Sunday, “nearly two dozen GOP governors elected in 2009 and 2010 could face the voters again.”

The conciliatory spirit among the GOP executives was strong at the annual winter meeting of the National Governors Association held February 22-25 in Washington, D.C.

Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker (shown), once one of the most brazen bulldogs in the Republican kennel, reflects the new pragmatism prevalent among the GOP governors in comments he made at the governors meeting.

“People may agree or disagree with my position on this social issue or that social issue, but as long as I’m not rubbing it in their face all the time and instead talking about jobs and balancing the budget in a way that’s relevant to their lives, that’s where the real focal point is,” Walker said.

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Posted in Government, Health Care, Obama, Republicans/Neo-Cons

February 27, 2013

RINO-Lution: Christie Caves on Obamacare, Will Take Federal Medicaid Funds

Posted on February 27, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie will agree to expand the state’s Medicaid program under Obamacare on Tuesday.

According to the Newark, NJ-based Star-Ledger, Christie will announce the expansion when he unveils the governor’s new budget in a 3 p.m. speech to a joint session of New Jersey’s Legislature on Tuesday.

Christie joins Florida’s Rick Scott and Virginia’s Bob McDonnell as two Republican governors who have completely reversed course on the issue after rejecting addition Medicaid funds.

As recently as last summer, Christie had suggested that he would refuse the Medicaid expansion. As he told Fox & Friends in July: “Medicaid is pretty well expanded in our state already because of the legacy of previous Democratic governors. So, I don’t think there’s a lot for us to do in New Jersey in that regard.”

Likewise, McDonnell had said in July: “Expanding Medicaid without fixing Medicaid is a terrible idea.”

Christie and McDonnell were both elected in 2009 in the first wave of Tea Party-supported Republican campaigns. McDonnell is leaving office after this year; Christie is widely favored to win re-election.

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Posted in Democrats/Progressives, Government, Health Care, Obama, Radicals, Republicans/Neo-Cons

February 25, 2013

Report: Out-of-State Athletes Cashing in on CA Workers’ Comp

Posted on February 25, 2013 by ifnm| Leave a comment

Professional athletes, even those who had played as little as one game in California because they played for out-of-state teams like the Dallas Cowboys and the Denver Broncos, have used California’s workers’ compensation system to get six-figure payouts in addition to lifetime medical services.

The Los Angeles Times reports California’s workers’ compensation system has paid “an estimated $747 million to about 4,500 players since the early 1980s.”

Some of these players include:

– NBA star Moses Malone, who was awarded $155,000;

– Dallas Cowboys great and wide receiver Michael Irvin, who was awarded $249,000;

– and Denver Broncos running back Terrell Davis, who received $199,000.

The athletes are taking advantage “of a provision in state law that provides payments for the cumulative effect of injuries over years of playing.”

Taxpayers are not on the hook for these payments since workers’ compensation is an employer-funded program, but these types of payouts show why California’s businesses, debilitated by out-of-control regulations, are fleeing the state to better economic climates.

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Posted in Entitlements, Health Care, Sports