HC Reform Means More Power for the IRS

1. HR 3200's perverse view of universalism is to force individuals to purchase for themselves medical insurance they obviously can't afford, or to face fines if they don't

2. The fines will be calculated, imposed and collected by and thru the IRS

3. This fundamental fact has been obvious to the well informed for months, but now that the public option has so plainly expired, the national media are starting to look at it

4. Forcing folks to finagle for themselves that which they frankly can't afford in the first place is hardly the HELP they were promised by Candidate Obama, nor the relief they've been hoping for and expecting

5. This is exactly how driving is handled in California where, if you are caught behind the wheel without a policy, you are ticketed as criminal and severely fined

6. Without a public option, the only avenue open to Pelosi/Obama to extend coverage to all is the same---if you are caught BREATHING without insurance anywhere in the USA, under HR3200 you are breaking the law

7. Who else is to impose these impounds if not the IRS (whose own boss, Tim Geithner, is a tax cheat)?

8. How else to tabulate who's to receive government subsidies because their incomes are low?

9. These subsidies, by the way, for those in financial difficulty, are really rather insulting---exactly how much help is the govt gonna offer Ms Single Motherhood who's suddenly required by law---HR3200---to ante up an immediate and eternal $1000 a month?

10. Under HR3200 it becomes the responsibility of every American to satisfy IRS requirements that he or she is currently covered by an "acceptable" health insurance plan

11. Which plans are "acceptable," which are gaming the system?

12. It's up to the IRS to determine

13. Therefore, under 3200, individual insurers will be required to submit to the IRS proof of coverage, something like the 1099 form in which taxpayers report outside income

14. In CA, insurers are required to forward to the DMV copies of your operator's policy

15. HR3200 creates a new office called the Health Choices Administration charged with the responsibility of making sure all Americans are in compliance with their new requirement to cover themselves

16. To determine whether or not low earners qualify for govt assistance, the HCA must needs receive from the IRS "sensitive, confidential information from the IRS concerning individual taxpayers"

17. Under current law it is a felony for a govt official to release taxpayer data in all but the most unusual circumstances, such as informing prosecutors in criminal cases

18. 3200 changes existing codes to permit the IRS to give detailed data to Pelosi/Obama's new health care bureaucracy

19. This violation of American's privacy rights is gonna be a HUGE political problem

20. What's to ensure that such sensitive material, passed across desks, from hand to hand, emailed and e-transferred from office to office, will not be misused?

21. The politics are putrid

22. So far there has been little awareness, discussion or controversy about the IRS' inevitable role as enforcer of universal compliance

23. Expect that to change as voters become aware of this massive expansion of IRS scope and power

24. On the flip side, there is concern that the IRS is not equipped for this gigantic extension of its job description, can the already overwhelmed agency handle the prodigious duty of making sure some 300 million Americans are each carrying "acceptable" medical insurance?

25. The IRS is not particularly popular politically---how could Obama, the most incompetent politician at the national level America has ever produced, be so tin eared as not to anticipate how the story below is gonna play?

Health care reform means more power for the IRS | Washington Examiner

There's been a lot of discussion about the new and powerful federal agencies that would be created by the passage of a national health care bill. The Health Choices Administration, the Health Benefits Advisory Committee, the Health Insurance Exchange — there are dozens in all.

But if the plan envisioned by President Barack Obama and Congressional Democrats is enacted, the primary federal bureaucracy responsible for implementing and enforcing national health care will be an old and familiar one: the Internal Revenue Service. Under the Democrats' health care proposals, the already powerful — and already feared — IRS would wield even more power and extend its reach even farther into the lives of ordinary Americans, and the presidentially-appointed head of the new health care bureaucracy would have access to confidential IRS information about millions of individual taxpayers.

In short, health care reform, as currently envisioned by Democratic leaders, would be built on the foundation of an expanded and more intrusive IRS.

Under the various proposals now on the table, the IRS would become the main agency for determining who has an "acceptable" health insurance plan; for finding and punishing those who don't have such a plan; for subsidizing individual health insurance costs through the issuance of a tax credits; and for enforcing the rules on those who attempt to opt out, abuse, or game the system. A substantial portion of H.R. 3200, the House health care bill, is devoted to amending the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 in order to give the IRS the authority to perform these new duties.

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The Prof