Why the Government at the Helm of Health Care Won't Work

Why the Government at the Helm of Health Care Won't Work  

By Wendy Bidwell and Curtis Stith

On October 9, the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform met for a hearing titled "Examining the IRS's Role in Implementing and Enforcing ObamaCare." The Witness was Ms. Sarah Hall Ingram, Director at Affordable Care Act Office, IRS.

The Chairman, Darrell Issa (R-CA), defined the function of the Committee as holding the government accountable to the people. He then started denouncing Obamacare, reminding the Hearing that health care rates have risen in the private sector though President Obama predicted the opposite. Issa also stated that Obamacare, in effect, can tax those citizens who don't even use it. He also raised one of the major concerns which resurfaced throughout the hearing, though the concern was never allayed; The IRS gives a large amount of people access to anyone's Obamacare health records – and in the past the IRS has kept making mistakes handling information.

According to The Week, "When the Supreme Court upheld the ACA last year, it ruled that the law was constitutional because it used tax penalties and credits to make the new health care system work." With this new marriage of the IRS and health care, "The agency is in charge of implementing 47 tax provisions, including new taxes on medical devices and new subsidies for those who want to purchase coverage through health care exchanges set to debut later this year."

Not only does the Obamacare implementation grow a government entity that we would like to see dramatically reduced in size and scope, ". . . The Obama administration has requested that $440 million in its 2014 budget proposal be diverted to the IRS to help cover the expense. . . "

Beyond size, scope, and expenses… In the midst of this new marriage, the IRS / Tea Party scandal sullies one of the key players, now the IRS Director of Obamacare.


2008 vs. 2014

Recently, an S&A analyst put on a special training event to discuss how 2014 may end up being similar to the crisis of 2008. He also shared step-by-step details about how to protect your money in the coming months and even the best ways to multiply it.  Mr. Jordan (R-OH) said, "We've been trying to get Sarah Ingram here for five months, she's exactly the lady we need in Congress. Why in the world does it take five months to get this woman here?"

Mr. Cummings (D-MD) reminded the Hearing that though Ms. Ingram was suspected to be involved in the IRS scandal, his Committee found no such thing to be true. She was given the highest civil service award by President Bush, in fact. According to Watchdog.org, Ingram made 165 visits to the White House to meet with White House staff, most often with Deputy Assistant to the President for Health Policy Jeanne Lambrew.

Ingram said the Affordable Care Act will change the way the IRS operates, she doesn't know how. The main impediment in getting substantial information from Ingram were the redactions on all of the forms, redacted as 6103 information. The nature of 6103 is such that if the Committee couldn't see the information redacted, neither should the White House (they are both political bodies). The catch is that the White House did see the information behind the redactions.

The fact that the White House has the ability to see the redacted forms while the House committee does not might make you wary of a growing and mismanaged IRS, willing and able to play politics.

But really, the mainstream media is already making these points. You can hear this same conversation about the gray haze setting all around this rollout due to cost, mismanagement, and the involvement with the IRS…

The raw and most basic way Obamacare infringes on our liberty should outrage any American with the slightest understanding of our Constitution.

The Affordable Care Act, which as Issa says, taxes Americans that don't even use it, does something much more than spend more taxpayer dollars and grow big government… It does something that erodes the very character and essence of America.

Reorganizing health care so that the government is at the helm diminishes your doctor's power. It diminishes each and every patient's power too. It breaks down a long held precedence of doctor and patient confidentiality in favor of a distributed system with many eyes on our records. For most of us, there is nothing to hide in our medical records; however, the responsibility of confidentiality is to rest squarely on the doctor's shoulders.

When we take away this fundamental responsibility (and honor) from doctors, we leave them powerless… We do the same every time we reorganize government to be at the helm in other important areas… We take away power from our teachers. We take away power from our farmers.

Although there will be mistakes along the way, we have to get back to the belief that Americans (who are usually content to simply be servants) get back to their work… and are given back their full power.

Until then, we will have one infringement to our liberty after another until there is no liberty left in "liberty and justice for all."