Charitable hospitals that treat uninsured Americans will be subjected to new levels of scrutiny of their nonprofit status and could face sizable new fines under Obamacare.READ MORE
As of Monday [10/1;12], Medicare will start fining hospitals that have too many patients readmitted within 30 days of discharge due to complications. The penalties are part of a broader push under President Barack Obama's health care law to improve quality while also trying to save taxpayers money.New Medicare fines for hospital re-admittance
About two-thirds of the hospitals serving Medicare patients, or some 2,200 facilities, will be hit with penalties averaging around $125,000 per facility this coming year, according to government estimates.
When President Obama's Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, aka "Obamacare") goes fully into effect in 2014, the American people will only then begin to see the implications of its thorough government takeover of health care, in all its glory. . .
Perhaps the most important and complex new IRS responsibility is to enforce the act's individual and employer mandates requiring individuals and employers to buy the health insurance not that they want, but that the federal government says they must have. This will effectively be a new burdensome payroll tax on the middle class and working people, and on job creators, as politics will force every politically correct benefit to be included in the required insurance, causing its cost to soar. That health insurance will likely cost $20,000 per year per family to start, rising rapidly after that. President Obama's 2008 campaign promise not to raise taxes on singles making less than $200,000 a year, and couples making less than $250,000, has been thrown aside and forgotten, with the Supreme Court ruling that the individual mandate is constitutional precisely because it is a tax.
Individuals who fail to comply and buy the health insurance chosen for them by Kathleen Sebelius will be subjected to a penalty of $695 per person per year, up to a maximum of $2,085 per family, or 2.5% of household income, whichever is greater. Pilla explains that "The gross applicable penalty is pro-rated to apply on a monthly basis 'for any month during which any failure' to have adequate coverage exists."
The PPACA precludes the IRS from using its levy power or filing tax liens to collect these penalties on individuals. But Pilla notes the IRS can offset the penalties against any federal income tax refund owed to you. The IRS can also seize any state or local tax refund you are due as well. And if you send any payment to the IRS that is not specifically designated in writing as applying to a specific IRS debt, the IRS can apply it to your health insurance penalty, and you will not be able to get it back.
The employer mandate is a new vicious tax on job creation that is already causing employers to cut back on hiring. . .
The nonpartisan Joint Committee on Taxation reported that the House version of the healthcare bill specifies that those who don’t buy health insurance and do not pay the fine of about 2.5 percent of their income for failing to do so can face a penalty of up to five years in prison!Read more
The bill describes the penalties as follows:
• Section 7203 — misdemeanor willful failure to pay is punishable by a fine of up to $25,000 and/or imprisonment of up to one year.
• Section 7201 — felony willful evasion is punishable by a fine of up to $250,000 and/or imprisonment of up to five years.” [page 3]
That anyone should face prison for not buying health insurance is simply incredible.
And how much will the stay-out-of-jail insurance cost?
If you read the fine print in the Congressional plans, you'll find that a lot of cherished aspects of the current system would disappear.Read more
By Shawn Tully, editor at large
July 24, 2009: 10:17 AM ET
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- In promoting his health-care agenda, President Obama has repeatedly reassured Americans that they can keep their existing health plans -- and that the benefits and access they prize will be enhanced through reform.
A close reading of the two main bills, one backed by Democrats in the House and the other issued by Sen. Edward Kennedy's Health committee, contradict the President's assurances. To be sure, it isn't easy to comb through their 2,000 pages of tortured legal language. But page by page, the bills reveal a web of restrictions, fines, and mandates that would radically change your health-care coverage.
Alias Barack Obama: a lie is born: The greatest identity fraud in history Paperback – July 10, 2012
