NWV News - New Year's Tax to Help Ration Obamacare

NEW YEAR'S TAX TO HELP RATION OBAMACARE

By NWV News Writer Jim Kouri
Posted 1:00 AM Eastern
January 6, 2012
© 2011 NewsWithViews.com

As Americans start the new year, they face a new Obamacare tax – that’s scheduled double in 2013 -- will kick in to fund “comparative effectiveness research” that will supposedly help the government save money by finding ways to ration healthcare.

Critics of Obamacare are up in arms over this since Obama promised his new health care program wouldn't cost American citizens "a dime to cover the costs nor would they face rationing of services," said political strategist and attorney Mike Baker.

"Nancy Pelosi told us the health care bill had to be passed and then we'd find out what was contained in it. Well, it passed and so far all we hear are its costs," Baker stated.

The new tax follows the transfer of about $500 billion dollars from the already decreasing Medicare to the new Obamacare, Baker stated.

This latest semi-secret tax is being levied so the feds will have the necessary cash to pay bureaucrats to examine everyone’s health records and, in turn, the government can save money by cutting back on care. The official plan, as noted by Judicial Watch's blog this week, is to conduct research to find out which drugs, medical procedures, tests and treatments work best.

"It’s part of a “little-known provision” of the president’s socialist takeover of the nation’s healthcare system," wrote the Judicial Watch blogger.

The new tax will create a new quasi-governmental agency (Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute or PCORI) created by Obamacare to provide information about the “best available evidence to help patients and their health care providers make more informed decisions.”

PCORI claims its research is intended to give patients a better understanding of the prevention, treatment and care options available.

To conduct this valuable work, PCORI needs cash. That’s where the new, little-known tax kicks in. Beginning in 2012, Uncle Sam will charge insurance companies a new fee to fund the PCORI’s research. The tax will be $1 per person in 2012 and will double in 2013 and increase with inflation in the following years. Insurers will soon receive guidance on the new tax from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

As with other corporate taxes, Americans can expect to have the additional fees passed on to them through either higher premiums or reduced coverage.

Obama has already given this sort of medical effectiveness research a big chunk of change. In fact, his disastrous 2009 economic stimulus bill included more than $1 billion for this kind of work through a different government agency.

When his Affordable Care Act passed, the newly created PCORI became the official center to find ways to more “effectively and appropriately” prevent, diagnose, treat, monitor and manage health conditions.

Most Americans are opposed to Obama’s hostile takeover of the nation’s healthcare system and two separate federal courts -- in Florida and Virginia -- have ruled it unconstitutional. The Virginia ruling came in 2010 and the Florida decision, referred to as “another legal blow” by a mainstream newspaper, came last year.

The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case in March 2012.

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Judicial Watch has been a leader in comprehensively investigating Obamacare and has uncovered details related to secret healthcare meetings between powerful unions and Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, waivers to companies and unions exempting them from inconvenient provisions of the new law and the regulation and funding of Obamacare in general.

Judicial Watch also obtained internal Justice Department documents that suggest Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan helped coordinate the Obama Administration’s legal defense of the healthcare law while she served as Solicitor General. JW has long believed that Kagan could be Obama’s political operative on the Supreme Court. After all, she is a liberal activist with a thin resume, little legal experience and no absolutely no judicial experience.