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“IRS Scandal Raises Specter of Politically Motivated Healthcare Denials”

— which not coincidentally was one of the first thoughts I myself Tweeted as the scandal broke.  Because it seems both obvious and inevitable.  And is all the more reason ObamaCare must be stopped — a move that more and more it seems will require the forcible removal of the House GOP leadership.

CNS:

Byron York of the Washington Examiner wrote yesterday that the IRS scandal could lead to fears about the agency’s role in enforcing Obamacare:

“The IRS will also decide who is, and who is not, eligible for Obamacare’s subsidies. The law authorizes the IRS to share confidential taxpayer information with the Department of Health and Human Services for the purpose of determining those subsidies.”

“In addition, the IRS will keep track of even the smallest changes in Americans’ financial condition. Did you get a raise recently? You’ll need to notify the IRS; it might affect your subsidy status. Have your hours been reduced at work? Notify the IRS. Change jobs? Same.”

Those fears have been ongoing since Obamacare was first rammed through. Financial worries and concern over loss of property, along with the stress of a “new normal” sluggish economy have been at the top of the list of most thinking Americans.

Knowing what we are truly facing in a fiscal sense has dominated our lives, but the real fear that this IRS scandal raises is whether the “confidential taxpayer information” that IRS and HHS will be sharing will include political information.

If the IRS can flag your information and slow things down on something like taxexempt status, can they do it when determining our use of health care? Clearly, the possibility is there.

If you consider that the IRS can, while threatening financial penalties, force you to give them information that they will share with your political enemies and HHS, who could very well be the ultimate decision maker on whether or not you or your mother gets a life-saving procedure, well, that is fear, my friend.

The way that the IPAB or “death panel” works is that if Medicare costs get too high, it triggers a 15 member panel of political appointees who will recommend what gets cut. If the panel doesn’t do its job, Sebelius makes the recommendation and sends it to Congress. The whole thing is set up, on its face, as a bipartisan attempt to control costs in healthcare, because isn’t that why the ACA was needed in the first place? Healthcare is just so darned expensive.

The real target of the IPAB is end of life care, intensive care, life support, and quality of life management. We all remember Obama’s reply to Jane Sturm when she questioned him about a pacemaker for her 100 year old mother. He said:

“I don’t think that we can make judgments based on people’s ‘spirit.’ That would be a pretty subjective decision to be making. I think we have to have rules that say that we are going to provide good quality care for all people. End-of-life care is one of the most difficult sets of decisions that we’re going to have to make. But understand that those decisions are already being made in one way or another. If they’re not being made under Medicare and Medicaid, they’re being made by private insurers. At least we can let doctors know – and your mom know – that you know what, maybe this isn’t going to help. Maybe you’re better off not having the surgery, but taking the painkiller.”

Obama has targeted the tea party in speeches and at fundraising events, and in doing so, apparently set policy for the IRS. The answer to Jane Sturm sets HHS policy, doesn’t it? But here is the other side of that IRS coin: let’s say that the IPAB determines that all pacemakers are outlawed over 75, and someone well-connected politically to the ruling party wants their mom to receive one. It’s not a leap to understand that she’ll get a waiver and your conservative mother will get a pill.

It’s not a leap because waivers have already been given politically, and conservatives have already been flagged by the IRS, and the IRS has already shared their information with well-funded political enemies.

[…]

When the ACA was passed, John Dingell, a Democrat congressman from Michigan said:

“The harsh fact of the matter is when you’re going to pass legislation that will cover 300 American people in different ways it takes a long time to do the necessary administrative steps that have to be taken to put the legislation together to control the people.”

Controlling the people is what animates progressives.  They thrive on micromanaging people, and using social justice to force equal outcomes.  If you disagree with them, they force you to agree – especially, when they are in positions of power.  It’s their philosophy.

From the get-go, conservatives have warned about the danger of a federal government so powerful that it could extinguish your dreams, your hopes for your future, your ability to get ahead, and your freedom in general.

The American Way is to allow individuals the freedom to make their own choices with their own ability to make their own life.    You have within you the intelligence, the determination and the spirit to make and reach goals and achieve success.  That way has been knocked down and trampled upon because power-hungry progressive politicians have decided they are the new royalty, who will be making all of your decisions for you.

They have all control.

And the biggest, largely unspoken problem?  Is that many Republicans are keen to keep that control, as well. This isn’t a left/right issue. It’s a ruling class / little people issue.

I know. Saying this aloud — breaking some ridiculous interpretation of Reagan’s commandment, as I’m constantly tut-tutted — marks me unhelpful.  But so what?  I ain’t angling for a job inside the GOP establishment or as part of some party communications organ, and I don’t need to hold my tongue in order to “get access” or in order to keep advertising revenue flowing.

So it is what it is.  Deal with it.

56 Replies to ““IRS Scandal Raises Specter of Politically Motivated Healthcare Denials””

  1. mojo says:

    Repeal the 16th Amendment!

  2. leigh says:

    Frontpage Magazine does a nice round up of Obama’s crimes .

  3. Libby says:

    The IRS is creating a killer database to support their ObamaCare responsibilities. Linking all sorts of agency dbs together. They’ll be the ultimate snoops and sources for political organizations.

    http://tinyurl.com/d3dbjhj

  4. happyfeet says:

    The American Way is to allow individuals the freedom to make their own choices with their own ability to make their own life.

    Sorta. I think only a handful of states have passed death with dignity laws.

    Vermont being the most recent.

  5. sdferr says:

    It looks more like a practical guarantee than a mere specter raised.

    Kill it all now works to a better path.

  6. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Reagan’s commandment wasn’t Reagan’s. It was the head of the California Republican Party’s for the 1966 primary.

    And I don’t think it’s speaking ill of someone if that person really is a sick sonofabitch.

    Or even just a sickly shade of orange mewling milquetoast.

  7. Ernst Schreiber says:

    The American Way is to allow individuals the freedom to make their own choices with their own ability to make their own life.

    Sorta. I think only a handful of states have passed death with dignity laws.
    Vermont being the most recent.

    ofercryinoutloud

  8. Ernst Schreiber says:

    In fairness I suppose it depends on what is meant by “death with dignity.” But if, as I suspect, it’s being used as a “Verbal False Limb” for “assisted suicide,” then the hell with that.

  9. happyfeet says:

    ohferpetessake

  10. mondamay says:

    “To please no one will I prescribe a deadly drug nor give advice which may cause his death.”

  11. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Forgot the link that was supposed to go with “Verbal False Limb.”

  12. mondamay says:

    Just wait until a generation or two from now when some future Kermit Gosnell is helping people “die with dignity” whether they want to or not.

  13. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Hippocrates, mondamay? Please. He’s like older than the Framers (which imakes him what? two, three hundred years old maybe?) and just as white.

  14. Ernst Schreiber says:

    You won’t have to wait that long. Not with President “pain pill” in the Oval Office.

  15. leigh says:

    “C’mon! C’mon! Get on the ice floe, oldsters and quitcher bitchin’!”

  16. cranky-d says:

    If you are a white man and not paying taxes, you need to be killed.

  17. BigBangHunter says:

    – Hey, I can still chew the walrus hides, I have very hard gums!

  18. leigh says:

    BBH you and my 70+ husband would toss those whipper-snappers in the drink after you took all their money and kicked their asses.

  19. BigBangHunter says:

    – Honestly, Some people just don’t know when to curl up and die.

    – If I didn’t know better I would think all you mouth breather carbon footprint Gia haters were intimating a …… umm…..well I guess a good enough wprd for it would be “death panels”….. Only you wingers would think that of our forever saintly government. Ingrates.

  20. leigh says:

    I have a mental list of persons who could curl up and die any day now. Oddly, most of them reside in DC.

  21. Ernst Schreiber says:

    Not be killed, Cranky, have your dignity restored to you.

    Remember to say “thank you when you get your hot shot.

  22. BigBangHunter says:

    – …..And that bit of vertupourus venting will get you an audit Missy!

  23. leigh says:

    Ha! I’m not afraid of them and their threats.

  24. Soylent Green is patriotism!

  25. Squid says:

    You just know it’ll be spun as “The IRS will only abuse people who didn’t want ObamaCare in the first place.” As if that makes it okay.

  26. BigBangHunter says:

    – From the pages of “Maybe it would save time if the Supremes just stationed a legal rep permenently in the West wing” book.

    – Raindrops keep falling on my lying ass.

  27. Gulermo says:

    “I think only a handful of states have passed death with dignity laws.”

    Youfirstplease.

  28. sdferr says:

    Since Julian Bond thinks the Tea Party the Taliban of American politics,

    and since the IRS will surely be found abusing its enormous power over American’s health care needs through ObamaCare as the implementation begins,

    perhaps the Tea Party people should petition their Congressmen to amend ObamaCare to include the penalty of beheading for bureaucrats — from whatever bureaus, to include the IRS — who are found to be guilty of betraying their trust.

    Just a thought. I mean, it might even induce a pause or two before the drones come after you.

  29. sdferr says:

    IRS Official in Charge During Tea Party Targeting Now Runs Health Care Office

    No, really. Beheading is a more plausible solution than promotion.

  30. sdferr says:

    Weekly Standard, Pelosi on Obamacare: It Will Cost More to Repeal It:

    *** In an email to supporters of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House minority leader Nancy Pelosi encouraged readers to sign a petition to “declare your support” for Obamacare ahead of the House plan to hold a vote on repealing the unpopular health care law. The email, which had the subject line “this has gotten out of control,”claims that the vote to repeal is “worthless,” particularly because “a real repeal would actually COST money rather than save it.” ***

  31. ccs says:

    Dude, after this you are sooooo screwed if you ever get sick.

  32. LBascom says:

    Damn! hot from Drudge:

    Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS executive in charge of the tax exempt division in 2010 when it began targeting conservative Tea Party, evangelical and pro-Israel groups for harrassment, got more than $100,000 in bonuses between 2009 and 2012.

    More recently, Ingram was promoted to serve as director of the tax agency’s Obamacare program office, a position that put her in charge of the vast expansion of the IRS’ regulatory power and staffing in connection with federal health care

    and…

    Her successor, Joseph Grant, is taking the fall for misdeeds at the scandal-plagued unit between 2010 and 2012. During at least part of that time, Grant served as deputy commissioner of the tax-exempt unit.

    Grant announced today that he would retire June 3, despite being appointed as commissioner of the tax-exempt office May 8, a week ago.

    This government of ours is obscene.

  33. sdferr says:

    This government of ours is obscene.

    This government cares for and loves to pieces all Americans (no matter what country they’re from), and the rest of the Americans too (even some that’s born here). So much. So very much.

  34. leigh says:

    Lee, the picture of Ms. Ingram looks just like Dana Carvey dressed as the Church Lady.

  35. LBascom says:

    Ha! I was wondering where I saw her before!

  36. leigh says:

    If we hear her talking about Satan in the tax code, we’ll know for sure.

  37. BigBangHunter says:

    – Unclear on the concept: “Yeh…ahh….I’ll take two Big Macs, a large fry, your car, and a large coke….”

    – ….54 million and his dick is still small…..

  38. Ernst Schreiber says:

    This government of ours is obscene.

    So tyrannies tend to be.

  39. dicentra says:

    Just wait until a generation or two from now when some future Kermit Gosnell is helping people “die with dignity” whether they want to or not.

    WAIT?

    Wait for what?

    We already had Jack Kevorkian, whose advocacy for assisted suicide had more to do with his ghoulish delight in killing people than in anything approaching compassion.

  40. leigh says:

    Suicide is hardly dying with dignity. It’s hostile act of aggression. What kind of a pussy needs an assist to kill themselves, anyway?

  41. Ernst Schreiber says:

    The kind of pussy who doesn’t want to leave the world the same way he came into it.

  42. SBP says:

    “We already had Jack Kevorkian”

    So we did, but he wasn’t operating under the color of government authority.

  43. John Bradley says:

    If we own anything — and aren’t merely property of the state — we own our own lives, and have the inalienable right to dispense with them as we see fit.

    The only reason society at large should have any say on the matter is, you know, the whole littering aspect. Your more thoughtful suicides will plan accordingly.

  44. sdferr says:

    James Madison, Property

  45. BigBangHunter says:

    Your more thoughtful suicides will plan accordingly.

    – Which asks the question: “What do you do when the tribe you belong to has gone insane?”

  46. BigBangHunter says:

    – Tingles Mathew is getting nervous, and dangerously close to being branded a heretic and thrown off the reservation.

    – Huff-n-poop is starting to float as much agitprop as it can squeeze into its propaganda rag, posting that CBS, that bastion of journolistic integrity, is reporting that WH emails on Benchazi are showing differences in the various versions issued by the WH. So therefore Republicans! have altered the emails. No names were given of course, just the usual Gestoppo broadbrush accusation.

    – This, in spite of the fact that nothing this administration ever does, says, or puts in print lacks signs of “evolving”.

    – You just couldn’t make this shit up in your wildest imagination. The central core MSM, the ones that share a hot line with the DNC, are going to the grave trying desperately to protect the Wonce and a half.

  47. geoffb says:

    Congressman Steve Stockman Tuesday asked two House chairmen to investigate allegations individuals reported to a White House email address for criticizing Obama’s health care reforms were targeted with Internal Revenue Service audits.

    During the debate over adopting ObamaCare the White House encouraged liberal activists to report Obama’s critics to a “Flag@WhiteHouse.gov” email address. At least one of those reported tells RedState.com editor Erick Erickson he was then targeted with audits. “Remember that website Obama set up to report neighbors who opposed Obamacare? A friend reported himself and got audited shortly thereafter,” Erickson tweeted May 13.

    “We need to know if there were any others. This certainly fits the rapidly-expanding pattern of people who criticize Obama suddenly finding themselves targeted by the IRS,” said Stockman. “Obama’s IRS scandal is spreading like a cancer.”

  48. BigBangHunter says:

    – Planned parenthood, when they’re not busy using the IRS to attack conservatives, apparently have their hands full of dead babies.

  49. palaeomerus says:

    “Saying this aloud — breaking some ridiculous interpretation of Reagan’s commandment, as I’m constantly tut-tutted — marks me unhelpful.”

    Marking you as unhelpful is ALSO breaking Reagan’s 11th. We aren’t exactly making things up and calling them on things they are not guilty of. Using the 11th as a club while not listening to the base, seeking a moving center that is always to the left and still moving instead of dying on what ought to be easy to hold hills, and tossing Reagan under the bus, is a futile gesture.

  50. … of an ever larger more intrusive progressive government, by an ever larger more intrusive progressive government, for an ever larger more intrusive progressive government.

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