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http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/18/irs-blames-obamacare-shoddy-customer-service/

IRS blames Obamacare for shoddy customer service

The IRS is unable to answer most taxpayers’ calls this year because it’s had to put money into getting up and running for Obamacare, agency Commissioner John Koskinen told Congress on Wednesday.

Mr. Koskinen said his agency has had to shift tens of millions of dollars from customer service over to build the computer systems and get ready to handle questions this year about Obamacare and the law’s tax penalty, which kicks in for the first time this year.

The commissioner said President Obama’s 2010 law requires the agency to handle Obamacare taxes, but Congress has refused to provide any money, so he’s shifted user fees that used to go to customer service over to handle the Affordable Care Act and the Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act.

“We knew, and it’s been true, that we would get a significant number of inquiries on the Affordable Care Act,” Mr. Koskinen told the House Appropriations Committee, which is considering how much money to give the tax agency for fiscal 2016.

Mr. Koskinen said the IRS is answering just 43 percent of taxpayers’ calls so far this year, which is a huge drop is customer service for the agency.

Congress has cut the IRS’s funding in recent years as Republicans have tried to send a signal of disapproval with the agency’s activities, including its targeting of tea party groups’ applications for nonprofit status.

On Wednesday, Rep. Anders Crenshaw, the chairman of the House Appropriations subcommittee that oversees the IRS, said the agency acts as though it is “entitled to $13 billion” in funding, but in reality the IRS must prove it has earned that level of funding.

“We deliberately lowered the

“We deliberately lowered the IRS funding to a level that will make the IRS think twice about what you’re doing and why you’re doing it,” the chairman said.

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http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/cbo-obamacare-hit-only-65-percent-2015-coverage-target_893012.html

CBO: Obamacare to Hit Only 65 Percent of 2015 Coverage Target

Given that Obamacare’s supporters like to take the Congressional Budget Office’s overly optimistic scoring of the president’s signature legislation as gospel, it’s fun to look at how poorly Obamacare is actually doing in relation to earlier CBO projections. When the Democrats rammed Obamacare through Congress in 2010 without a single Republican vote, the CBO said that the unpopular overhaul would lead to a net increase of 26 million people with health insurance by 2015 (15 million through Medicaid plus 13 million through the Obamacare exchanges minus 2 million who would otherwise have had private insurance but wouldn’t because of Obamacare).

Fast-forwarding five years, the CBO now says that Obamacare’s tally for 2015 will actually be a net increase of just 17 million people (10 million through Medicaid plus 11 million through the Obamacare exchanges minus 4 million who would otherwise have had private insurance but won’t, or don’t, because of Obamacare).
This number doubled from 2 million, and I have no clue as to why!]

In other words, Obamacare is now slated to hit only 65 percent of the CBO’s original coverage projection for 2015.

Obamacare’s under-publicized failure on this key point is attributable to a variety of factors, including but not limited to the following: People aren’t thrilled with Obamacare-compliant insurance’s high cost and limited doctor networks, and some would even rather pay a fine for refusing to buy such insurance than pay its premiums; the Supreme Court ruled that part of Obamacare was unconstitutional, thereby giving states more freedom not to help expand it; and HealthCare.gov has been more reminiscent of DMV.org than of Expedia.com.

In addition (and just as the CBO originally projected), the bulk of Obamacare’s net coverage gains are coming from dumping people into Medicaid (59 percent of the current projected net increase in 2015), not from getting people enrolled in private insurance (41 percent). Of course, President Obama rarely if ever talks about that aspect of Obamacare — but Republicans should.

In light of all this, it’s time for a winning conservative alternative to Obamacare that would pave the way to full repeal, offer a flat (age-based) refundable tax credit that would get people off of Medicaid and onto private insurance (letting them shop for value in the process), and give a tax cut to millions of Main Street Americans who buy health insurance on their own. Such everyday Americans generally receive nothing under Obamacare, have gotten the short end of the tax stick for decades, and deserve to get a tax break for buying individual-market insurance that’s roughly akin to the tax break for having employer-based insurance.

With such a tax-credit-based alternative in play, repeal can become a reality.

• 
  
• May 2013 - 55 million (link in my signature line)
  "The count of uninsured people includes unauthorized immigrants as well as people who are eligible for but not enrolled in Medicaid."

• 
  
• March 2015 - 35 million
  The uninsured population includes people who will be unauthorized immigrants and thus ineligible either for exchange subsidies or for most Medicaid benefits; people who will be ineligible for Medicaid because they live in a state that has chosen not to expand coverage; people who will be eligible for Medicaid but will choose not to enroll; and people who will not purchase insurance to which they have access through an employer, through an exchange, or directly from an insurer.

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http://www.cato.org/publications/commentary/three-reasons-king-v-burwell-doesnt-constitute-coercion-under-existing

Three Reasons King v. Burwell Doesn’t Constitute ‘Coercion’ Under Existing Precedent
By Michael F. Cannon and Jonathan H. Adler
This article appeared on National Review (Online) on March 20, 2015.

During this month’s oral arguments in King v. Burwell, Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy asked whether the Affordable Care Act effectively coerces states into implementing the law’s health-insurance Exchanges. Insofar as such coercion is unconstitutional, the Court’s decision — and Obamacare’s survival — could hinge on whether it exists in the ACA.

Understanding Kennedy’s concerns requires understanding the ACA’s insurance regulations.

In the small share (less than 10 percent) of the insurance market where carriers sell directly to consumers, the ACA imposes so-called “community-rating” price controls, which reduce premiums for the old and sick by dramatically increasing premiums for the young and healthy.

If young and healthy consumers respond by refusing to buy insurance, what results is a market with few carriers and even higher premiums. In some cases, community-rating price controls can cause insurance markets to collapse.

To mitigate these potential harms, the ACA mandates that everyone purchase coverage, and, in that small corner of the market, subsidizes premiums for moderate-income consumers.

The ACA authorizes such subsidies “through an Exchange established by the State.” Yet the IRS is dispensing subsidies in all states — including the 38 states that failed to establish Exchanges. Those states’ Exchanges were established by the federal government.

The King challengers argue that because those Exchanges were not “established by the State,” it is illegal for the IRS to issue subsidies in those states.

Which brings us back to Justice Kennedy. He expressed concern that if the challengers are correct, then withholding subsidies in uncooperative states would make the costs of the ACA’s community-rating price controls transparent to consumers, and those costs might have the effect of coercing states into implementing Exchanges.

But would that really amount to coercion? Consider three factors.

1. The ACA’s Exchange provisions don’t penalize states. They let states make tradeoffs between taxes, jobs, and insurance coverage.

If a state fails to establish an Exchange, the ACA withholds subsidies from a state’s residents, not the state. In New York v. United States, the Court held that imposing burdens on state residents does not coerce states: “The affected States are not compelled by Congress to regulate” when the “burden caused by a State’s refusal to regulate will fall on [private actors], rather than on the State as a sovereign.”

Moreover, forgoing the subsidies would also confer benefits on state residents. It would free many individual residents from the ACA’s individual mandate, and all in-state employers from the law’s employer mandate. As a result, residents would then see lower taxes, more jobs, more hours, higher incomes, and more flexible health benefits.

2. Roughly half of states appear to consider those costs tolerable.

Prior to 2014, eight states voluntarily imposed this supposedly coercive penalty on themselves. Iowa, Minnesota, New Jersey, and Washington adopted community-rating price controls similar to the ACA’s, while Maine, Massachusetts, New York, and Vermont adopted price controls even harsher than the ACA’s.

Another eight states (Alabama, Georgia, Indiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, South Carolina, and West Virginia) filed briefs and/or their own legal challenges asking the courts to enforce this supposedly coercive condition on them.

Thirteen states appear to prefer this penalty to complicity with the ACA’s mandates. Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Missouri, Montana, Tennessee, and Virginia have enacted statutes to prohibit state officials from assisting in the implementation of the individual or employer mandates — a key function of the Exchanges. Alabama, Arizona, Ohio, and Oklahoma adopted such prohibitions via constitutional amendment. Ohio and Oklahoma voters approved their amendments by a 2-to-1 margin.

Under the King challengers’ interpretation of the ACA, the number of people who would be freed from the individual and employer mandates would exceed 57 million. That’s roughly 10 times the number who would lose subsidies. States may judge those benefits to be worth the cost of having their health insurance market look like Minnesota’s.

3. This “deal” is comparable to what the Court allowed in NFIB v. Sebelius.

In NFIB, the Court allowed states collectively to turn down Medicaid subsidies for as many as 16 million poor people. The Exchange provisions permit states to do the same for 16 million higher-income residents.

As Chief Justice John Roberts wrote in NFIB:

• 
  
• “In the typical case we look to the States to defend their prerogatives by adopting ‘the simple expedient of not yielding’ to federal blandishments when they do not want to embrace the federal policies as their own…The states are separate and independent sovereigns. Sometimes they have to act like it.”

Judging by the behavior of states and the Court’s existing standard for demonstrating coercion, this seems like the typical case where states will do just that.

I have no objection to the Court lowering the bar for demonstrating that cooperative federalism programs coerce states. But the Court will have to lower the bar quite a bit to find the ACA’s Exchange provisions coercive.

Mason

Mar 20 2015, 03:17 PM

.

IRS will NOT pursue, and look away...


http://www.cnbc.com/id/102523143





.

LTC8K6

Mar 23 2015, 07:02 AM

Obamacare’s Amazing Wayback Clause

PPACA decreased health care inflation even before implementation!

http://spectator.org/articles/62147/obamacare%E2%80%99s-amazing-wayback-clause

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Obamacare’s boosters have made so many implausible assertions about its supposed successes that it’s difficult to single out one as the most preposterous. But any list of their most comical claims would have to include those involving the law’s “wayback clause.” Haven’t heard of that one? Well, like the provision authorizing the IRS to issue subsidies via federal exchanges, it’s absent from PPACA’s text. Nonetheless, its efficacy is routinely touted by Obamacare’s proponents as proof that “reform” works.

The most celebrated effect of this amazing provision is its retroactive reduction of medical inflation during the years preceding the law’s implementation. Obamacare was passed in 2010. However, except for a few minor provisions, it didn’t go into effect until 2014. Yet the law’s wayback clause is such a powerful cost control tool that it has been able to traverse the time-space continuum and slow the rate of health care inflation, as the President himself has phrased it, “every single year since the law passed.”

The wondrous workings of the wayback clause have also been heralded by congressional Democrats. Wisconsin Rep. Gwen Moore, for example, told a radio interviewer the following: “We’ve had the lowest health care inflation in history because of Obamacare.” And the President’s advisors have, of course, chimed in. The Chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisors took to the pages of the Wall Street Journal to credit the “largely unheralded slowdown in health spending” to Obamacare.

It goes without saying that such marvels have been the subject of many “news” articles and countless opinion pieces. A typical example of the latter is this column in the New York Daily News by Bill Hammond, who parrots the party line and issues the following snide challenge: “So who will be the first major Republican to admit that Obamacare is working? Who among the GOP’s brain trust is intellectually honest enough, or brave enough, to follow the developing facts instead of talking points and opinion polls?”

But if Hammond wants anyone to admit that Obamacare is working based on the decline of health care inflation, he will have to explain why that trend began eight years before the law was passed. As the New York Times reports, “The slowdown in spending growth began in 2002.” Does Hammond actually believe Obamacare’s wayback clause was able to transcend the laws of physics as well as economics, that it was able to reach all the way back to the Bush era and halt what he calls the “ruinous spiral of spending”?

Hammond would be loath to say so, of course, but it is possible to be honestly skeptical about the claims he and others make concerning the law’s successes, particularly in the area of costs. Nonpartisan studies attribute the decline in health care inflation to economic factors, insisting that the recession was the most important factor in reducing growth in medical spending: “This suggests that the recent decline is not primarily the result of structural changes in the health sector or of components of the Affordable Care Act.”

Some have even suggested that considerable credit for the slowdown in health care inflation—you Obamacare advocates should sit down before reading further—must go to the policies of George W. Bush. Much of the decline has been driven, these researchers point out, by a “remarkable” slowdown in Medicare spending, particularly in the Part D prescription drug program. Specifically, they write, “Our analysis shows that Part D has accounted for over 60 percent of the slowdown in Medicare benefits since 2011.”

For those naïve enough to claim that this is a benefit of Obamacare’s closure of the much maligned “donut hole,” the reality is that this puts upward pressure on medical spending. Which brings us to the kind of inflationary pressures that our health care system will face because of PPACA. Beginning in 2014, the law increased demand on our health care system while doing nothing to increase the supply of medical services. This is by definition inflationary. And there are already signs that this is having the predictable effect.

Bloomberg reports that federal data suggest the party is already over: “The nation’s nearly $3 trillion medical bill grew 5 percent last year, compared with an average annual rate of 3.9 percent from 2009 to 2013.” And it gets worse. It appears that the 2014 acceleration in medical inflation might just be the beginning: “The data confirm earlier estimates by Altarum economists, which might be a sign that costs will accelerate in 2015.” In other words, Obamacare has probably ended the 12-year downward trend in health care inflation.

And yet, as recently as last week, the President made a speech in Cleveland in which he included a none-too-subtle suggestion that Obamacare was responsible for keeping “health care inflation at the lowest rate in nearly 50 years.” This will no doubt go down with his countless other false claims as an all-too-characteristic lie. Obamacare has made U.S. health care more expensive, less accessible, and it will eventually reduce its quality. No amount of presidential prevarication will alter that. Not even the wayback clause can change it.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2015/03/22/new-scholarship-on-king-v-burwell/

New scholarship on King v. Burwell

The Supreme Court has not even decided King v. Burwell, and the case is already producing new legal scholarship.

For instance, Chapman law professor Ronald Rotunda has a new paper discussing King v. Burwell, “King v. Burwell and the Rise of the Administrative State.” Here is the abstract:

• 
  
• The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a complex law totaling nearly a thousand pages in length. The litigation now before the Supreme Court in King v. Burwell presents, on the surface, a simple issue of statutory interpretation. However, that surface has a very thin veneer. If the Court allows administrators carte blanche to change the very words of a statute, we will have come a long way towards governance by bureaucrats. Over the years, Congress has delegated many of its powers, but it has never delegated the power to raise taxes or spend tax subsidies in ways that no statute authorizes.
  
  For example, the ACA [ ] provides that territories of the United States (e.g., Guam) are “States,” for purposes of this law. Section 1323 provides [ ] that if a “territory” creates an Exchange, it “shall be treated as a State” under this law. Congress knew how to define “state” to include more than “states.” It did that when it defined “territory” as “State.” It also says that the District of Columbia is a “State” for subsidy purposes. A section provides, “In this title, the term ‘State’ means each of the 50 States and the District of Columbia.” However, no section of the law defines “State” to include the Federal Government. An earlier version of the bill — one that Congress did not enact — provided that “any references in this subtitle to [any] Health Insurance Exchange…shall be deemed a reference to the State-based Health Insurance Exchange.” That would treat Federal Exchanges the same as State Exchanges. Congress did not enact that version.
  
  If the IRS has this broad power to amend the statute to say that “federal” means “state,” we will have come a long way from rule by an elected Congress to rule by unelected bureaucrats.

[...]

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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/03/24/us/politics/ap-us-health-overhaul-uninsured.html

CDC: Uninsured Drop by 11M Since Passage of Obama's Law

The number of uninsured U.S. residents fell by more than 11 million since President Barack Obama signed the health care overhaul five years ago, according to a pair of reports Tuesday from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Although that still would leave about 37 million people uninsured, it's the lowest level measured in more than 15 years.

[...]

The White House says 16 million people have gained health insurance, a considerably higher estimate than Tuesday's report from CDC's National Center for Health Statistics. The White House includes results from the law's second signup season, stretching into this year.

[...]

LTC8K6

Mar 24 2015, 08:30 AM

Why are we looking back 5 years, though?