Health Care Bill Will Empower IRS

(Be sure to check out other health care "reform" posts on this blog.)

as if IRS needs any more empowering. Supporters of the administration's health care "reform", is that what you want?

Health care reform means more power for the IRS
(Byron York, 9/2/09 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."

"The presidentially-appointed head of the new health care bureaucracy" is none other than the Health Choices Commissioner, which is defined in Subtitle E Section 141 of H.R. 3200 heath care "reform" bill. Not just him/her/it, but people working in that bureaucracy would have access. And the Commissioner would not be accountable to anyone but to the president.

The article continues:

"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.

"The Democrats' plan would require all Americans to have "acceptable" insurance coverage (the legislation includes long and complex definitions of "acceptable") and would designate the IRS as the agency charged with enforcing that requirement. On your yearly 1040 tax return, you would be required to attest that you have "acceptable" coverage. Of course, you might be lying, or simply confused about whether or not you are covered, so the IRS would need a way to check your claim for accuracy. Under current plans, insurers would be required to submit to the IRS something like the 1099 form in which taxpayers report outside income. The IRS would then check the information it receives from the insurers against what you have submitted on your tax form.

"If it all matches up, you're fine. If it doesn't, you will hear from the IRS. And if you don't have "acceptable" coverage, you will be subject to substantial fines — fines that will be administered by the IRS."

and determined by the Health Choices Commissioner.

The section of H.R. 3200 this article mentions that would amend the IRS Revenue Code of 1986 is this:

TITLE IV--AMENDMENTS TO INTERNAL REVENUE CODE OF 1986
Subtitle A--Shared Responsibility
PART 1--INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY
Section 401 TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE.

(a) In General- Subchapter A of chapter 1 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by adding at the end the following new part:

`PART VIII--HEALTH CARE RELATED TAXES
`subpart a. tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage.
`Subpart A--Tax on Individuals Without Acceptable Health Care Coverage
`Sec. 59B. Tax on individuals without acceptable health care coverage.
`SEC. 59B. TAX ON INDIVIDUALS WITHOUT ACCEPTABLE HEALTH CARE COVERAGE.

The above is the cut and paste from the actual bill as posted on the Library of Congress THOMAS.

Now, this Section 59B defines the penalty tax if you don't have the coverage, and also lists exceptions. That alone makes an interesting and frustrating reading, but the section that has to do with IRS comes right after Section 59B. It's Section 6050X. (So... that's after 59B? There must be some higher order of reasoning behind numbering that I just can't perceive.) You can see, with some effort, that the information that the Washington Examiner writer gleaned out for his article is basically correct. [emphasis is mine, comments in Italic]

`SEC. 6050X. RETURNS RELATING TO HEALTH INSURANCE COVERAGE.

`(a) Requirement of Reporting- Every person who provides acceptable coverage (as defined in section 59B(d)) to any individual during any calendar year shall, at such time as the Secretary may prescribe, make the return described in subsection (b) with respect to such individual. [This is the insurer part of the deal. Your insurer will have to file a report with IRS.]

`(b) Form and Manner of Returns- A return is described in this subsection if such return--
`(1) is in such form as the Secretary may prescribe, and
`(2) contains--
`(A) the name, address, and TIN of the primary insured and the name of each other individual obtaining coverage under the policy,
`(B) the period for which each such individual was provided with the coverage referred to in subsection (a), and
`(C) such other information as the Secretary may require.

`(c) Statements To Be Furnished to Individuals With Respect to Whom Information Is Required- Every person required to make a return under subsection (a) shall furnish to each primary insured whose name is required to be set forth in such return a written statement showing-- [Then your insurer has to issue you a statement of your coverage so that you can file with your tax return. And these two'd better match.]

`(1) the name and address of the person required to make such return and the phone number of the information contact for such person, and
`(2) the information required to be shown on the return with respect to such individual.
The written statement required under the preceding sentence shall be furnished on or before January 31 of the year following the calendar year for which the return under subsection (a) is required to be made.

`(d) Coverage Provided by Governmental Units- In the case of coverage provided by any governmental unit or any agency or instrumentality thereof, the officer or employee who enters into the agreement to provide such coverage (or the person appropriately designated for purposes of this section) shall make the returns and statements required by this section.'.

(2) PENALTY FOR FAILURE TO FILE-
[This segment refers to the specific sections in the IRS Revenue Code to be changed. To see what kind of penalty awaits the insurer and you, you'd better have a courage to dig through the IRS Code.]

How to prevent tax cheating? That comes in the following sections under Sustitle D, particularly Section 453:

Subtitle D--Other Revenue Provisions
PART 2--PREVENTION OF TAX AVOIDANCE
SEC. 451. LIMITATION ON TREATY BENEFITS FOR CERTAIN DEDUCTIBLE PAYMENTS
SEC. 452. CODIFICATION OF ECONOMIC SUBSTANCE DOCTRINE
SEC. 453. PENALTIES FOR UNDERPAYMENTS

(a) Penalty for Underpayments Attributable to Transactions Lacking Economic Substance-

(1) IN GENERAL- Subsection (b) of section 6662 of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 is amended by inserting after paragraph (5) the following new paragraph:
`(6) Any disallowance of claimed tax benefits by reason of a transaction lacking economic substance (within the meaning of section 7701(o)) or failing to meet the requirements of any similar rule of law.'.

(2) INCREASED PENALTY FOR NONDISCLOSED TRANSACTIONS- Section 6662 of such Code is amended by adding at the end the following new subsection:

`(i) Increase in Penalty in Case of Nondisclosed Noneconomic Substance Transactions-

`(1) IN GENERAL- In the case of any portion of an underpayment which is attributable to one or more nondisclosed noneconomic substance transactions, subsection (a) shall be applied with respect to such portion by substituting `40 percent' for `20 percent'.

`(2) NONDISCLOSED NONECONOMIC SUBSTANCE TRANSACTIONS- For purposes of this subsection, the term `nondisclosed noneconomic substance transaction' means any portion of a transaction described in subsection (b)(6) with respect to which the relevant facts affecting the tax treatment are not adequately disclosed in the return nor in a statement attached to the return.

`(3) SPECIAL RULE FOR AMENDED RETURNS- Except as provided in regulations, in no event shall any amendment or supplement to a return of tax be taken into account for purposes of this subsection if the amendment or supplement is filed after the earlier of the date the taxpayer is first contacted by the Secretary regarding the examination of the return or such other date as is specified by the Secretary.'.

So, the section is saying that if IRS thinks there's is not enough disclosed, it would double the penalty, whatever the penalty currently is in that particular section in the IRS Code.

I can really see now that the government is indeed trying so hard to blow as many bubbles as possible to resuscitate the economy. It is already successfully blowing and growing the bubble in government-sponsored and subsidized subprime lending. Cash for clunkers "worked" well enough for the first week of the program; it achieved the result of bringing the sales forward, if that's what they wanted to achieve just to get 3Q GDP into green.

But the most tantalizingly promising bubble is the bubble of fast-growing, self-replicating and self-referencing bureaucracy. If the administration manages to pass its health care "reform", climate change bill (aka cap and trade) and vast financial "reform", imagine how many people can be employed by government agencies to be created! And to think we will be asked to participate in these grand schemes by paying for them!

I highly recommend that you go to the linked article and read the entire article. If the townhall meeting is still ongoing in your area, ask about this IRS further intrusion into private life. The last thing I wanted to quote from the article:

"In either scenario, the IRS would be the key to making the system work. Before you could receive any subsidy, whether through the IRS or not, the Health Choices Administration would have to determine whether you are eligible for it. To do so, the bills under consideration would give the Health Choices Commissioner the authority to demand sensitive, confidential information from the IRS about individual taxpayers. The IRS would have to provide it.

"Under current law, it is a felony for a government official to release taxpayer information in all but the most limited of circumstances. One such exception is for law enforcement; the IRS is allowed to give taxpayer information to prosecutors in criminal cases. The information can also, in some instances, be released to the Social Security Administration and the Veterans' Administration for the determination of benefits. The health care bills would change the Internal Revenue Code to permit the IRS to give similar information to the vast, new health care bureaucracy."

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CBS Raises Questions on Health Care "Reform" Bill H.R. 3200

Even the mainstream media seems to have started to read the health care "reform" bill H.R. 3200 and started asking some relevant questions.

Democratic Health Care Bill Divulges IRS Tax Data
(Declan McCullagh, 8/26/09 CBS News)

"One of the problems with any proposed law that's over 1,000 pages long and constantly changing is that much deviltry can lie in the details. Take the Democrats' proposal to rewrite health care policy, better known as H.R. 3200 or by opponents as "Obamacare." (Here's our CBS News television coverage.) "

After that preamble, the article goes on to actually list specific sections of the bill H.R. 3200 and discuss potential problems: [emphasis is mine]

"Section 431(a) of the bill says that the IRS must divulge taxpayer identity information, including the filing status, the modified adjusted gross income, the number of dependents, and "other information as is prescribed by" regulation. That information will be provided to the new Health Choices Commissioner and state health programs and used to determine who qualifies for "affordability credits."

[And remember, this Health Choices Commissioner is to be appointed by the President, and accountable only to the President. No confirmation by Congress is required, ever.]

"Section 245(b)(2)(A) says the IRS must divulge tax return details -- there's no specified limit on what's available or unavailable -- to the Health Choices Commissioner. The purpose, again, is to verify "affordability credits."

"Section 1801(a) says that the Social Security Administration can obtain tax return data on anyone who may be eligible for a "low-income prescription drug subsidy" but has not applied for it. "

Whether they want to apply for it or not.

"Over at the Institute for Policy Innovation (a free-market think tank and presumably no fan of Obamacare), Tom Giovanetti argues that: "How many thousands of federal employees will have access to your records? The privacy of your health records will be only as good as the most nosy, most dishonest and most malcontented federal employee.... So say good-bye to privacy from the federal government. It was fun while it lasted for 233 years."

"I'm not as certain as Giovanetti that this represents privacy's Armageddon. (Though I do wonder where the usual suspects like the Electronic Privacy Information Center are. Presumably inserting limits on information that can be disclosed -- and adding strict penalties on misuse of the information kept on file about hundreds of millions of Americans -- is at least as important as fretting about Facebook's privacy policy in Canada.)

"A better candidate for a future privacy crisis is the so-called stimulus bill enacted with limited debate early this year. It mandated the "utilization of an electronic health record for each person in the United States by 2014," but included only limited privacy protections."

Bingo.

A very important component of the so-called health care "reform" by the administration is already SIGNED INTO LAW, because it was buried in the so-called "stimulus" (so far all it has stimulated is government, local, state and federal) bill that no one read (and the Democratic Congressman of my area actually expressed pride in not having read it - that would be so below him). In other words, the administration/Democrats can make any concession to please Republicans and skeptical Democrats regarding the privacy issue in the health care bill, and the concession is basically irrelevant.

The opponents of this bill and the health care "reform" as presented by this administration and Democratic Congress should start thinking about ways, if any, to repeal this part of the stimulus bill. (I will discuss the particular segment of the stimulus bill that is related to health care in a later, separate post.)

The writer concludes:

"If we're going to have such significant additional government intrusion into our health care system, we will have to draw the privacy line somewhere. Maybe the House Democrats' current bill gets it right. Maybe it doesn't. But this vignette should be reason to be skeptical of claims that a massive and complex bill must be enacted as rapidly as its backers would have you believe. "

Well, it's not given that we will have to have such government intrusion. But I am glad to see the mainstream media like CBS News is starting to ask questions, instead of simply being a spokesperson for the government like certain other networks (the one that starts with "N" comes to mind, whose parent company starts with "G").

If you go to the linked site, be sure to check out the comment section. The writer is bombarded with the supporters of the bill and/or the administration's "reform" calling him all sorts of names, but there are opponents to the bill who seem rather surprised that CBS has allowed this article to be published at all.

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(Talk about health... Sorry for tardy posting today. There were many topics that I wanted to write about, but I couldn't concentrate enough to write anything while those drummers on the beach (not the beach right nearby but several blocks away) just bonging and bonging, creating low-frequency sound wave that physically pressured my skull and my heart, making me ill. Think twice before you consent to a power-generating wind turbine near you.)

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Health Care "Reform" in the Hands of "Deadly Doctors"?

This blog mentioned Section 141 of H.R. 3200, a.k.a. heath care reform bill, which will set up a Presidential appointee as Health Choice Commissioner with vast authority without accountability. And here are two candidates who should never be considered for the position (and for that reason I have a sinking feeling that it will happen), according to New York Post.

DEADLY DOCTORS - ADVISERS WANT TO RATION CARE
(Betsy McCaughey, 7/24/09 New York Post)

"THE health bills coming out of Congress would put the de cisions about your care in the hands of presidential appointees. They'd decide what plans cover, how much leeway your doctor will have and what seniors get under Medicare.

"Yet at least two of President Obama's top health advisers should never be trusted with that power."

Who are they?

One of them is the brother of Obama's Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel: Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel.

Dr. Emanuel is already working closely with the White House Budget Director on health care reform. (He also happens to be a proponent of VAT, Value-Added-Tax.) What irks New York Post?

"Savings, he writes, will require changing how doctors think about their patients: Doctors take the Hippocratic Oath too seriously, "as an imperative to do everything for the patient regardless of the cost or effects on others" (Journal of the American Medical Association, June 18, 2008).

"Yes, that's what patients want their doctors to do. But Emanuel wants doctors to look beyond the needs of their patients and consider social justice, such as whether the money could be better spent on somebody else.

"Many doctors are horrified by this notion; they'll tell you that a doctor's job is to achieve social justice one patient at a time.

"Emanuel, however, believes that "communitarianism" should guide decisions on who gets care. He says medical care should be reserved for the non-disabled, not given to those "who are irreversibly prevented from being or becoming participating citizens . . . An obvious example is not guaranteeing health services to patients with dementia" (Hastings Center Report, Nov.-Dec. '96)."

So, Dr. Emanuel wants medical doctors to administer social justice by withholding medical care from the disabled, the non-productive and the old. I think I've seen something similar before. It was called eugenics and it was practiced in the U.S. in early 20th century and in Nazi Germany, among other places.

And who is the other one that New York Post hates to have as the Presidential health care Commissioner?

He is Dr. David Blumenthal.

"He recommends slowing medical innovation to control health spending." And that view is shared by Dr. Emanuel, who criticizes "Americans for being too "enamored with technology" and is determined to reduce access to it", according to the article.

"Blumenthal has long advocated government health-spending controls, though he concedes they're "associated with longer waits" and "reduced availability of new and expensive treatments and devices" (New England Journal of Medicine, March 8, 2001). But he calls it "debatable" whether the timely care Americans get is worth the cost. (Ask a cancer patient, and you'll get a different answer. Delay lowers your chances of survival.)

"Obama appointed Blumenthal as national coordinator of health-information technology, a job that involves making sure doctors obey electronically deivered guidelines about what care the government deems appropriate and cost effective.

"In the April 9 New England Journal of Medicine, Blumenthal predicted that many doctors would resist "embedded clinical decision support" -- a euphemism for computers telling doctors what to do."

So this good doctor wants to withhold new health care technology from patients and he is in charge of nationally coordinating the health-information technology?

I wonder if he ever heard of Moore's Law.

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Subtitle E Section 141 of H.R. 3200 Health Care "Reform" Bill

establishes a Health Choices Administration in the executive branch and an unelected Health Choices Commissioner. [emphasis is mine]

Subtitle E--Governance

SEC. 141. HEALTH CHOICES ADMINISTRATION; HEALTH CHOICES COMMISSIONER.

(a) In General- There is hereby established, as an independent agency in the executive branch of the Government, a Health Choices Administration (in this division referred to as the `Administration').

(b) Commissioner-

(1) IN GENERAL- The Administration shall be headed by a Health Choices Commissioner (in this division referred to as the `Commissioner') who shall be appointed by the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

--------------------------

Great. An(other) unelected official, a(nother) czar, appointed by and answerable only to, the über-czar, uhh, President, will decide on your health care. His/her mandate? That's in Section 142:

--------------------------

SEC. 142. DUTIES AND AUTHORITY OF COMMISSIONER.

(a) Duties- The Commissioner is responsible for carrying out the following functions under this division:

(1) QUALIFIED PLAN STANDARDS- The establishment of qualified health benefits plan standards under this title, including the enforcement of such standards in coordination with State insurance regulators and the Secretaries of Labor and the Treasury.

(2) HEALTH INSURANCE EXCHANGE- The establishment and operation of a Health Insurance Exchange under subtitle A of title II.

(3) INDIVIDUAL AFFORDABILITY CREDITS- The administration of individual affordability credits under subtitle C of title II, including determination of eligibility for such credits.

(4) ADDITIONAL FUNCTIONS- Such additional functions as may be specified in this division.

Basically, the whole aspect of this health care "reform".

Don't turn around.. The Commissar in town, Oh uh...

Here's a take by the Heritage Foundation, posted on 7/29/09.

By the way, does this chart (created by GOP, to be sure) look like the "reform" will save money or reduce cost?

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