Affordable Health Care For America Act?

H.R. 3962: Affordable Health Care for America Act is repressive rather than progressive. There was no referendum to pass this 1,990 page restructuring of 15.3% of our economy. If health care is the problem, insurance is not the cause, and bigger government is not the answer.

Fortune 500 shows that last year's profits for the ten largest private insurance companies in America were eight billion-altogether. Medicare lost to faud 20 times the profit of the most profitable insurance company

It has little to do with making health care affordable for Americans and great deal to do with usurping personal choices by empowering the American Government. It is health care being delivered by the U.S. Postal Service and administered by the Internal Revenue Service.

Do you want your medications delivered to you the way this government misdelivers the mail of other people to you. Do you want your health care administered by the IRS under the Department of the Treasury? If you like how the IRS determines deductions and hunts down taxpayers for missing payments, you will love how they determine benefits and demand premiums.

Imagine another 111 bureacracies that only ultimately must listen to the Secretary of the Treasury - another "service" of which is the IRS.


This huge bill was not created because of a lack of ideas from Republicans in readable segments with alternative bills. It is inspite of them. The Democrats do not fight corruption. They reward it with trillions of dollars in pork. Medicare is failing, but wait until they make it look like ACORN.

The REPUBLICAN Affordable Health Care For America Act would be MAKING HEALTH Care Affordable For EVERY AmeriCAN.

Besides the connection to all of H.3932 above, there are connections for detailed summaries and a comprehensive list of tax hikes at the end.

Just to start with, you can start and listen to the videos at the end while you read the this:


Affordable Health Care for America Act Section by Section Analysis

Detailed Summary of Affordable Health Care for America Act

AMERICANS FOR TAX REFORM has checked this for new taxes and found a:

COMPREHENSIVE LIST OF ALL TAX HIKES IN HOUSE GOVERNMENT HEALTH BILL

Employer Mandate Excise Tax (Page 275): If an employer does not pay 72.5 percent of a singleemployee’s health premium (65 percent of a family employee), the employer must pay an excise tax equal to 8 percent of average wages. Small employers (measured by payroll size) have smaller payroll tax rates of 0 percent (<$500,000), 2 percent ($500,000-$585,000), 4 percent ($585,000-$670,000), and 6 percent ($670,000-$750,000).

Individual Mandate Surtax (Page 296): If an individual fails to obtain qualifying coverage, he must pay an income surtax equal to the lesser of 2.5 percent of modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) or the average premium. MAGI adds back in the foreign earned income exclusion and municipal bond interest.

Medicine Cabinet Tax (Page 324): Non-prescription medications would no longer be able to be purchased from health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible spending accounts (FSAs), or health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs). Insulin excepted.

Cap on FSAs (Page 325): FSAs would face an annual cap of $2500 (currently uncapped). Increased Additional Tax on Non-Qualified HSA Distributions (Page 326): Non-qualified distributions from HSAs would face an additional tax of 20 percent (current law is 10 percent). This disadvantages HSAs relative to other tax-free accounts (e.g. IRAs, 401(k)s, 529 plans, etc.)

Denial of Tax Deduction for Employer Health Plans Coordinating with Medicare Part D (Page 327): This would further erode private sector participation in delivery of Medicare services. Surtax on Individuals and Small Businesses (Page 336): Imposes an income surtax of 5.4 percent on MAGI over $500,000 ($1 million married filing jointly). MAGI adds back in the itemized deduction for margin loan interest. This would raise the top marginal tax rate in 2011 from 39.6 percent under current law to 45 percent—a new effective top rate.

Excise Tax on Medical Devices (Page 339): Imposes a new excise tax on medical device manufacturers equal to 2.5 percent of the wholesale price. It excludes retail sales and unspecified medical devices sold to the general public.

Corporate 1099-MISC Information Reporting (Page 344): Requires that 1099-MISC forms be issued to corporations as well as persons for trade or business payments. Current law limits to just persons for small business compliance complexity reasons. Also expands reporting to exchanges of property.

Delay in Worldwide Allocation of Interest (Page 345): Delays for nine years the worldwide allocation of interest, a corporate tax relief provision from the American Jobs Creation Act.

Jobs Creation Act Limitation on Tax Treaty Benefits for Certain Payments (Page 346): Increases taxes on U.S. employers with overseas operations looking to avoid double taxation of earnings.

Codification of the “Economic Substance Doctrine” (Page 349): Empowers the IRS to disallow a perfectly legal tax deduction or other tax relief merely because the IRS deems that the motive of the taxpayer was not primarily business-related.

Application of “More Likely Than Not” Rule (Page 357): Publicly-traded partnerships and corporations with annual gross receipts in excess of $100 million have raised standards on penalties. If there is a tax underpayment by these taxpayers, they must be able to prove that the estimated tax paid would have more likely than not been sufficient to cover final tax liability.

OTHER ISSUES:

Page 94—Section 202(c) prohibits the sale of private individual health insurance policies, beginning in 2013, forcing individuals to purchase coverage through the federal government

Page 110—Section 222(e) requires the use of federal dollars to fund abortions through the government-run health plan—and, if the Hyde Amendment were ever not renewed, would require the plan to fund elective abortions


Page 111—Section 223 establishes a new board of federal bureaucrats (the “Health Benefits Advisory Committee”) to dictate the health plans that all individuals must purchase—and would likely require all Americans to subsidize and purchase plans that cover any abortion


Page 211—Section 321 establishes a new government-run health plan that, according to non-partisan actuaries at theHULewin GroupUH, would cause as many as 114 million Americans to lose their existing coverage

Page 225—Section 330 permits—but does not require—Members of Congress to enroll in government-run health care


Page 255—Section 345 includes language requiring verification of income for individuals wishing to receive federal health care subsidies under the bill—while the bill includes a requirement for applicants to verify their citizenship, it does not include a similar requirement to verify applicants’ identity, thus encouraging identity fraud for undocumented immigrants and others wishing to receive taxpayer-subsidized health benefits

Page 297—Section 501 imposes a 2.5 percent tax on all individuals who do not purchase “bureaucrat-approved” health insurance—the tax would apply on individuals with incomes under $250,000, thus breaking a central HUpromiseUH of then-Senator Obama’s presidential campaign

Page 313—Section 512 imposes an 8 percent “tax on jobs” for firms that cannot afford to purchase “bureaucrat-approved” health coverage; according to an HUanalysisUH by Harvard Professor Kate Baicker, such a tax would place millions “at substantial risk of unemployment”—Uwith minority workers losing their jobs at twice the rate of their white counterparts

Page 336—Section 551 imposes additional job-killing taxes, in the form of a half-trillion dollar “surcharge,” more than half of which will hit small businesses; according to a model developed by President Obama’s senior economic advisor, such taxes could cost up to 5.5 million jobs

Page 520—Section 1161 cuts more than $150 billion from Medicare Advantage plans, potentially jeopardizing millions of seniors’ existing coverage

Page 733—Section 1401 establishes a new Center for Comparative Effectiveness Research; the bill includes no provisions preventing the government-run health plan from using such research to deny access to life-saving treatments on cost grounds, similar to Britain’s National Health Service, which denies patient treatments costing more than £35,000

Page 1174—Section 1802(b) includes provisions entitled “TAXES ON CERTAIN INSURANCE POLICIES” to fund comparative effectiveness research, breaking Speaker Pelosi’s promise that “UWe will not be taxing [health] benefits in any bill that passes the HouseU,” and the President’s promise not to raise taxes on families with incomes under $250,000

Republican Response to Democrat Health Care Bill-10/29/09



SenJohnCornyn
Sen. Cornyn's Floor Speech on the Pelosi Health Bill and its Impact on Jobs



John Boehner quoting NTUF blog on the wording of the America's Affordable Health Choices Act

The Error In ARRA

I emailed my U.S. Representative, Kurt Schrader, regarding the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (ARRA) to indicate my lack of confidence in the claims being made.

Rep. Schrader claimed in his email he suported this act "because the cost of inaction is far too great." He provides no proof of that. It seems that the serious of the economic crisis is justification, even if it causes inflation and more unemployment.

The reports are that this bill would bring 44,000 jobs to Oregon and in his email he states, "In Oregon alone, the unemployment rates are a staggering 9%." The challenge for him, which was in my email, is if that 9% unemployment is not reduced by 44,000 jobs that he either resign his office or remit his salary to the people of the U.S.

He claims the bill includes "targeted funding support for: education for the 21st century; clean, efficient, American energy; modernizing roads, bridges, transit and waterways, lowering healthcare costs; saving public sector jobs, creating new public sector jobs, and protecting vital services; transforming our economy with science and technology."

The percentages of the total money for those in the bill are small indeed. They certainly do not cover the losses to state revenues due to the economic downturn. The bill includes less than 10% for state fiscal relief to key services. Regarding modernizing roads, bridges, and other transit construction, less than 11% of the bill is infrastructure building.

The "clean efficient American energy" is mostly for the "Smart Grid," and weatherization. The rest comes in the form of tax cuts for renewable energy. All of this portion is less than 8% of the bill. There are real investments in energy production that reduces our dependence on foreign oil as President Obama promised. We increased energy production even more than roads or bridges.

In fact, the cost of government spending while decreasing taxes results in wild increases in inflation. By the end of the year, inflation will be in the double digit figures to go with double digit figures in unemployment.

He claims, "Indeed, economists testifying before my budget committee stated that our long term ability to deal with our debt burden would be much worse if we allow the nations economy to sink without any support."

Obviously, it depends on which Nobel prize winning economist you listen to.

Before this, in the campaign speeches of Candidate Obama, he claimed he would get that cost of the Federal government back down to 18.5% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) that was under Reagan. I would debate that figure and his pick of a model.

The better model would be under Speaker of the House, Newt Gingrich. The budget surpluses at the end of the 1990s were due to slowing the increases in spending to keep the pace more in keeping with the growth of the economy. Even 18.5% is too high, but it was 21% before the 111th Congress passed ARRA.

The $787 billion ARRA will cost us, our children and their children about $1.14 trillion. That is about $30,000 in new debt for each American household. Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) asked the Congressional Budget Office to estimate the cost of permanently extending the twenty most popular provisions in the bill. The cost? $3.27 trillion.

However, if they had to directly appeal to the voters for this, every bill would be subject to higher scrutiny. This ARRA would be no exception. The economy can only pay for so much government.

The Democratic Party has made this bill unacceptable and then claims the Republicans are being partisan. If you yet again mortgage our grandchildren's future on this roulette wheel with the excuse of stimulating the economy and fail, there should be a penalty.

Unfortunately, that will only come in the form of not being elected again, at best. This debt will stay with us. The inflation it causes will stay with us for some time as well. It will not come in the form of those who voted for this losing their jobs and homes.

Again, the people have turned to a two party system that is neither responsive nor representative. They develope policy based on partisan politics rather than having to respond with a referendum of issues to the voters. Make no mistake, the Republican Party is correct in not voting for this.


If you want to comment on ARRA, Write the Whitehouse Here.