Saturday, March 31, 2012

ObamaCare After 3-Days at the SCOTUS…

After 3 days of hearings on the ObamaCare Bill by the Supreme Court… We the People, now sit and wait…  The justices met on Friday and now know how they will vote, even though they could change their minds.  The opinions will be written and reviewed by all the justices and then the decision will be released to us sometime in June.

Background: 

March 23rd Second Anniversary of ObamaCare… March 26th a Future Day in American Infamy?

Day Two of Supreme Court ObamaCare Hearing: ObamaCare Could Be on Life Support

Day One of the Supreme Court ObamaCare Hearings

Video:  Obamacare #FAIL: Day 3 at the Supreme Court

Every Week… Someone Finds or Is Reminded of Another Nightmare Hidden in the ObanaCare Bill

Another $17 trillion surprise found in Obamacare

Lou Dobbs Video:  The SHOCKING new cost of Obamacare

March 30, 2012

AP Photo – DailyCaller

Senate Republican staffers continue to look though the 2010 health care reform law to see what’s in it, and their latest discovery is a massive $17 trillion funding gap.

“The more we learn about the bill, the more we learn it is even more unaffordable than was suspected,” said Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions, the Republicans’ budget chief in the Senate.

“The bill has to be removed from the books because we don’t have the money,” he said.

The hidden shortfall between new spending and new taxes was revealed just after Supreme Court justices grilled the law’s supporters about its compliance with the Constitution’s limits on government activity. If the court doesn’t strike down the law, it will force taxpayers to find another $17 trillion to pay for the increased spending.

The $17 trillion in extra promises was revealed by an analysis of the law’s long-term requirements. The additional obligations, when combined with existing Medicare and Medicaid funding shortfalls, leave taxpayers on the hook for an extra $82 trillion in health care obligations over the next 75 years.

The federal government has an additional $17 trillion unfunded gap in other obligations, including Social Security, bringing the total shortfall to $99 trillion.

That shortfall is different from existing debt. The federal government already owes $15 trillion in debt, including $5 trillion in funds borrowed during Obama’s term in office so far.

That $99 trillion in unfunded future expenses is more more than five years of wealth generated by the United States, which now produces just over $15 trillion of value per year.

The $99 trillion funding gap is equal to almost 30 years of the the current federal budget, which was $3.36 trillion for 2011.

Currently, the Social Security system is $7 trillion in debt over the next 75 years, according to the Government Accountability Office.

Also, Medicare will eat up $38 trillion in future taxes, and Medicaid will consume another $2o trillion of the taxpayer’s wealth, according to estimates prepared by the actuarial office at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

The short-term cost of the Obamacare law is $2.6 trillion, almost triple the $900 billion cost promised by Obama and his Democratic allies, said Sessions.

The extra $17 trillion gap was discovered by applying standard federal estimates and models to the law’s spending obligations, Sessions said.

For example, Session’s examination of the health care law’s “premium support” program shows a funding gap $12 billion wider that predicted.

The same review also showed the law added another $5 trillion in unfunded obligations for the Medicaid program.

“President Obama told the American people that his health law would cost $900 billion over ten years and that it would not add ‘one dime’ to the debt… this health law adds an entirely new obligation—one we cannot pay for—and puts the entire financing of the United States government in jeopardy,” Sessions said in a floor speech.

“We don’t have the money… We have to reduce the [obligations] that we have.”

Video:  Stunning Finding: President's Health Law Creates $17 Trillion In Unfunded Financial Obligations

Kill The Obamacare Death Panels!
Published on DickMorris.com on March 28, 2012

Dear Friend,

Click Here to sign the petition to kill the Obamacare Death Panels!

A vote is coming up in the Senate on an amendment that has already passed the House repealing the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, established under Obamacare to slice $500 billion from Medicare.

The Commission is set to decide which treatments are most cost-effective and disallow the ones that it finds are not.  That's "cost-effective", not just "effective."  So if an expensive treatment cures a fatal disease, the Panel will decide how many "quality years" a patient has left in deciding if it is "cost-effective" to let her have the medication. The Panel, in other words, rations care and plays God.

We have a chance to kill this panel at best and, at worst, to put the Democratic Senators who won't repeal it on record so we can defeat them for re-election.

Please sign this petition and we will send your views to your Senators and Congressman.
Please include your hard address so we can do so. We'll add your email address to our Alerts list so we can keep you posted on progress and next steps.

Click Here to sign the petition to kill the Obamacare Death Panels!

Thank you!  Dick Morris

Muslims can be exempt from ObamaCare

This isn't exactly news, but a number of people have forgotten this (myself included) until Glenn Beck mentioned it on Tuesday while discussing the ObamaCare case at the Supreme Court.

Muslims Exempt from ObamaCare?
Posted by Eric Burns on Oct 14th, 2011

Are American Muslims exempt from the requirement to purchase health insurance under the individual mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA)?
There has been a lot of talk, and a number of Internet rumors, to the effect that Muslims are exempt from the PPACA’s individual mandate; that Muslims will get free health care under the PPACA, while the non-Muslim population of the United States will be required to purchase government administered health insurance. Therefore, according to rumor, non-Muslim Americans will be paying for American Muslims’ health care; in other words “dhimmitude.” There is even a rumor that the word “dhimmitude” –used to denote subservience to Islam by non-Muslims, is actually used—on p. 107 of H.R. 3590 of the PPACA bill.

The rumors of free health care for Muslims are based on Shariah law’s prohibition on insurance. Insurance violates the tenets against riba (interest); al-maisir (gambling) and al-gharar (uncertainty). Interest paid on insurance investments violates Shariah’s rules against usury. Thus, under a strict interpretation of the Koran, Muslims are exempt from ObamaCare. However, the talk and the rumors are false—the word “dhimmitude” isn’t used anywhere in H.R. 3590, and depending on how PPACA rules are applied, there is at least an even chance that the scenario of American Muslims being exempt from the requirement to purchase insurance under the individual mandate won’t play out.

To be sure, the PPACA does grant a number of exemptions from the requirement to purchase the “minimum essential coverage.” (Whatever that is — Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius hasn’t yet defined it.) Prisoners, illegal aliens, and foreign nationals are exempt. In addition, there is a religious exemption.

Under Subtitle F, Part I, Section 1501—the individual responsibility requirement to maintain minimum essential coverage—individuals must be “a member of a recognized religious sect” that doesn’t participate in Social Security. According to a January 2011 Heritage Foundation WebMemo, they must pay no Social Security taxes and receive none of the benefits, in accordance with Section 1402(g)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code. The religious exemption applies to any person who is a member of a “recognized religious sect or division” with “established tenets or teachings” that would forbid that person from accepting public or private insurance. Thus the Amish, who believe in taking care of their own elderly and don’t participate in Social Security, are exempt, as are Mennonites and Scientologists.

END OF QUOTE

And Sweetness and Light had this take on the situation

Islam Q&A: Health Insurance Is ‘Haraam’

Just one of many fatwas on the subject from the holy men at Islam Question and Answer:

Ruling on working in insurance companies or broker companies when insurance becomes obligatory Health insurance is going to be compulsory for all companies and associations in our country. The insurance company will not have direct relationship with companies or associations, as there will be brokers in between, this is also compulsory.

The question is: What is the ruling on working for these brokers? Its role is basically introducing offers to companies and individuals and dealing with claims.
Praise be to Allaah.

Firstly: Health insurance is haraam like other types of commercial insurance, because it is based on ambiguity, gambling and riba (usury). This is what is stated in fatwas by the senior scholars. See the answer to question no. 39474 and 4210.

In Fataawa al-Lajnah al-Daa’imah (15/277) there is a quotation of a statement of the Council of Senior Scholars concerning the prohibition on insurance and why it is haraam:

1. Commercial insurance contracts are transactions based on probability and extreme ambiguity, because the customer cannot know at the time of signing the contract what he will give or take. He may pay one or two installments, then calamity may strike and he will be entitled to what the insurer committed to pay. Or no calamity may happen at all, so he pays all the installments and takes nothing. Similarly the insurer cannot know what he will give or what he will take with regard to any individual contract. In the saheeh hadeeth it says that the Prophet (peace and blessings of Allaah be upon him) forbade ambiguous transactions.

END OF QUOTE

The defeat of ObamaCare may well happen in the Supreme Court although, as Yogi Berra famously said, "It ain't over 'til it's over." I'm no lawyer but I believe there is clearly a basis here for a further religious discrimination case filed by Christians and Jews who would be forced to buy these policies while Muslims could walk away from it.

Related: Dhimmitude… Part of ObamaCare Bill – What Does It Mean?

Lawrence O’Donnell: ‘They Were Always Lying’ When They Predicted ObamaCare Would be Upheld in Court

Related:

SICK & SICKER: ObamaCare Canadian Style–Please Take the Time to Watch This

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