By Alan
Caruba
Prior
to the November elections, I received an email that was chilling. It was about
the new Obamacare rules. Before I discuss the Obamacare taxes that are kicking
in this year and next, I want to share excerpts from it.
The
email was from an individual whose son-in-law has a brother who is a surgeon at
Emory Hospital in Atlanta. It is ranked high among American hospitals. This is
what he related:
“A
group of non-doctors, from 'our' country's Department of Health arrived last
week at Emory for a two day session and is on their rounds around the country to
make sure every hospital fully understands the new rules (which start in
December (after the elections) concerning treating all patients over 70 years of
age.”
“This group
informed the staff Emory and all the doctors present that they will very soon
not be allowed to operate on anyone over 70 (no matter how urgent or life
threatening the situation is), without first having it approved by a board of
eight doctors. Failure to comply will result in a huge financial burden to the
hospital and more than likely the doctor will lose his/her ability to practice
medicine anywhere in the country.”
“This
board is to be established at every hospital in the country and the board
members will only work eight hours a day…the DOH group almost got lynched at
this point by the doctors who were present. The point that got the Emory doctors
so upset originally was that the "Death Board" will be available only 8 hours
during the day. And once their 8 hour shift is up, they may have to wait 16
hours to get in touch with them and another hour or two or three to get a
decision and permission to operate.”
This
is, however, anecdotal. Despite efforts to confirm whether this is a new,
official policy, no confirmation could be found and, it should be noted that
there have been numerous efforts to debunk what former Alaska Governor Sarah
Palin dubbed “death panels.”
If
the report of the visit to Emory Hospital is accurate, fears of death panels are
true. If you or a member of your family is over age 70, Obamacare could lead to
denied service and even death. According to an article in a December issue of U.S.
News and World Report, this process, is also likely to include women seeking
mammograms to detect breast cancer and even premature babies and infants in need
of preventative treatment for a virus. So every American is now at risk if they
have life-threatening health care needs.
If
this seems fanciful, consider reports out of the United
Kingdom where they have had socialized medicine for decades. There, both the
elderly and sick babies are at risk of being abandoned by National Health
Service hospitals.
Officially
called the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Obamacare will surely migrate into a
bureaucratic death sentence for an American healthcare system once deemed the
best in the world.
In
the course of the “fiscal cliff” negotiations Congress actually repealed a
section of the ACA, the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports
affecting people who need long-term care. It is likely that as the 2,000-plus
pages of ACA are examined in greater detail by Congress, further dismantling
will occur. It needs to be entirely repealed, something the House voted for, but
which was deep-sixed in the Democrat-controlled Senate, and Obama would surely
veto any effort to do so.
Obamacare’s
taxes have arrived and they include another investment tax increase for
taxpayers with taxable income exceeding $250,000 ($200,000 for singles). There
is also another payroll tax increase of 0.9 percent in the hospital insurance
portion of the payroll tax. There is a new tax on medical devices of 2.3 percent
affecting manufacturers and importers on all their sales. This increase will be
passed along to consumers.
There
is a reduction in the income tax deduction for individual’s medical expenses and
the elimination of the corporate income tax deduction for expenses related to
the Medicare Part D subsidy and a limitation of the corporate income tax
deduction for compensation that health insurance companies pay to their
executives.
These
ACA tax increases are in addition to a variety of other deductions that
taxpayers have previously been allowed to take; in addition to a death tax
increase there was the elimination of full expensing of capital
purchases.
The
news about Obamacare just keeps getting worse. Actuaries at the management
consulting firm Oliver Wyman are predicting that the law’s age rating
restrictions could mean a 42 percent hike in premium costs for people aged 21 to
29 when buying individual coverage.
After
the Supreme Court ruled that ACA is a tax, the Congressional Budget Office did
an update of its scoring of the law and concluded that Obamacare will spend $1.7
trillion over ten years on its coverage expansion provisions alone, including a
massive expansion of Medicaid and federal subsidies for the new health insurance
exchanges. This translates to federal health spending by 15
percent.
Infants,
the young, middle aged and older, all will find their costs for medical care
increase or even be denied. There is nothing “affordable” about Obamacare. It is
a draconian threat to every American.
©
Alan Caruba, 2013
3 comments:
Bloomberg wants to ban or severely restrict the painkillers which makes hiring the fellow with the gun look like a realistic alternative. But wait! He also wants to ban the fellows gun and take yours away from you. What's a person to do in such a state?
I guess elections DO have consequences, eh?
http://news.emory.edu/stories/2012/09/hoax_email_response/campus.html
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