The Biggest Threat to Obamacare Yet is Right Around the Corner: Halbig vs Burwell

Halbig v. Burwell is based on an illegal action taken by the Internal Revenue Service in 2012

By: C. Steven Tucker  -  Gulag Bound  -  TruthAboutObamacare.com  -  h/t to the NoisyRoom

A case about to be decided by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit could stop Obamacare dead in its tracks in 34 states. Halbig v. Burwell is based on an illegal action taken by the Internal Revenue Service in 2012. Below I will outline that illegal action and the two sections of the PPACA (Obamacare) that are relevant in this case.

State-based exchanges and federally facilitated exchanges

Section 1311 of the PPACA describes state-based health insurance exchanges. That section outlines the powers granted to the IRS to provide APTC – “Advance Premium Tax Credits” (a.k.a. ‘subsidies’) that will be used to artificially lower the high cost of health insurance offered in a state-based exchange. Tied to those APTC’s is also the power granted to the IRS to levy a $2,000 or $3,000 excise tax (non-tax deductible) on all employers with 50 or more full-time employees (first 30 employees waived) if they do not provide PPACA approved health insurance. This is a lot of new power granted to the IRS and this is the primary reason the IRS is hiring thousands of new agents.

Section 1321 of the PPACA describes federally-facilitated exchanges and state-federal partnership exchanges – like the exchange the state of Illinois has chosen to establish. In these types of exchanges, the IRS is granted no authority to provide APTC’s or to levy excise taxes on any employer in that state for not providing PPACA approved health insurance. Since the crafters of the PPACA assumed that every state would willingly establish a state-based exchange, there was no money appropriated for federally-facilitated exchanges.

Thus far 34 states have chosen not to open a state-based health insurance exchange. As such federally-facilitated exchanges have been implemented in those states regardless of the wishes of those state’s legislatures.

The illegal action taken by the IRS

Here’s the kicker, in order to ‘fix’ this legal ‘opt out’ that section 1321 provides to states that choose not to open a state-based exchange. The Internal Revenue Service finalized a proposed rule on the 2 year anniversary of the passage of the PPACA that offers APTC’s -Advance Premium Tax Credits – through exchanges “established under section 1311 OR 1321 of the PPACA. Those six characters—”or 1321?—constitute as Cato’s Michael Cannon correctly describes “an unconstitutional and as such illegal rewriting of the statute.” By issuing tax credits where Congress did not authorize them, this rule triggers billions of dollars in taxpayer provided “subsidies” and imposes excise taxes on employers with 50 or more full-time employees in all 50 states. Whether they have a state-based, state-federal partnership or federally facilitated exchange. Since the IRS is not a Legislative branch, this action was illegal. It was not authorized by Congress and as such it should not stand.

Worse yet, President Obama is following this new proposed rule as if it was codified law. This illegal action taken by the IRS and President Obama’s support of it is the crux of the Halbig v. Burwell case. If the U.S. Court of Appeals upholds the rule of law in this case it will mean the end of Obamacare in 34 states. In turn, it may be the final death blow to an unconstitutional and wildy unpopular law.

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,IRS,Surpreme Court,Burwell,PPACA. ACA,Affordable Care Act,Halbig v. Burwell,Hope,HealthCare Exchanges,Insurance Exchanges,Knowledge Is Power,U.S. Court of Appeals,Standing-Up,Stand-Up America,Law,Taxpayers

Obama Gives April Fools ObamaCare Speech

Obama's April 1st Rose Garden speech stating that 7.1 MILLION have signed up for, the Affordable Care Act, Obamacare… is the biggest April Fools joke of all!

According to a hush-hush study by the Rand Corporation… only 850,000 ‘previously uninsured’ have paid a dime

Barack Obama spoke about Affordable Care Act enrollment totals at the White House but took no questions, as Vice President Joe Biden stood by wordlessly and applauded.  The friendly staged audience applauded as well, but not as energetically as one might expect. And, The president took no questions from reporters.

By Marion Algier – AskMarion

An exuberant President Barack Obama declared on Tuesday, April 1st that his signature medical insurance overhaul is a success, saying it has made America's health care system 'a lot better' in a Rose Garden press conference.  He even called it ObamaCare, officially taking ownership of that handle as well as of the bill.  It will be his legacy, good or bad! 

However buried in the supposed 7.1 million enrollments that he announced in a heavily staged appearance is an even more unsettling reality.

The numbers from a RAND Corporation study that has been kept under wraps suggests that barely 858,000 ‘previously uninsured’ Americans, in whose name all this was done, have paid for their new policies and nowhere to join the ranks of the insured by Monday night.  In fact, the CBO reports that in the end after millions lose their healthcare, will be paying more and our system eventually goes to a single-payer socialized medicine system, that will include death panels and a shortage of doctors, there will still be 31 million uninsured.

In fact, many of the others who are included in the 7.1 million, include millions who lost coverage when their existing policies were suddenly cancelled because they didn't meet Obamacare's strict minimum requirements.  But the president still claimed that 'millions of people who have health insurance would not have it' without his insurance law.'

'The goal we’ve set for ourselves – that no American should go without the health care they need ... is achievable,' Obama declared.

The president celebrated the end of a rocky six-month open-enrollment period by taking pot shots at Republicans who have opposed the law from the beginning as a government-run seizure of one-seventh of the U.S. economy.  Curiously he never mentioned HHS Director Sibelius who was sitting in the front row.

Rose Garden Stage no-show: Kathleen Sebelius appeared on an Oklahoma TV station on Monday to buck up Obamacare's flagging numbers in the Sooner State, and had only a blank-stare response to the law's unpopularity -- she was nowhere to be seen as Obama took his victory lap

Video: Sebelius Has No Comment After Hearing Oklahoma’s Oppostion to ObamaCare…

'The debate over repealing this law is over,' he insisted. 'The Affordable Care Act is here to stay.'

The president also chided conservatives 'who have based their entire political agenda on repealing it,' and praised congressional Democrats for their partisan passage of the law without a single GOP vote.

'In the end,' Obama warned the GOP, 'history is not kind to those who would deny Americans their basic economic security. ... That's what the Affordable Care Act represents.'

'“The bottom line is this,' said the president: 'The share of Americans with insurance is up, and the growth in the cost of insurance is down. There’s no good reason to go back.'

'We could not have done it without them, and they should be proud of what they've done,' Obama boasted, in a clear nod to November's contentious elections in which Republicans are expected to make large gains on an anti-Obamacare platform because of the law's general lack of popularity. 

We shall see who has the last the laugh when the actual facts and numbers surface.

Republican Senator Barrasso appeared on Fox saying administration has 'cooked the books' on Obama Care numbers!!!!!

Barrasso said on Sunday that the lack of details about Obama Care enrollment numbers suggests the Obama administration has “cooked the books.”;

Sen. John Barrasso, R-Wyoming, made his comments just hours before the Monday deadline to enroll in the Affordable Care Act and was skeptical of the administration’s most recent enrollment figure of more than 6 million Americans.

“I don't think it means anything,” he told “Fox News Sunday.” “They are cooking the books on this.”;

Though the enrollment number now appears just a million shy of the administration’s goal of 7 million by the March 31 deadline, Barrasso said Americans who have switched to Obama Care from insurance deemed sub-standard under the Affordable Care Act still don’t know whether they can keep their same doctors. And they don’t know whether their premiums will indeed be more affordable.

Among the other questions are whether enough younger people have enrolled in Obama Care to cover the health care costs of older Americans in the program and how many of those enrolled previously were uninsured.

Maine Sen. Angus King, Independent, said on the show that the enrollment number is now at 6.5 million and that “signups are getting younger every day.”;

However, he acknowledged the administration needs to be more forthcoming about the numbers, as Americans rely on third-party analysis to get much of their information.

“I do think there’s a transparency problem,” said King, adding he would be willing to work on legislation to fix such problems.

Said Barrasso: “I’ve looked at this 10 different ways. This health care law is unfixable.”

And if everything is so grand and on the up and up, Why would Obama be ensuring high prices for Insurance Companies?  RUSH says ObamaCare Is a ‘Direct Wealth Transfer’… 

Related:

Russia Takes Back Alaska... 

Ted Cruz Shows Off Winston Churchill Tattoo While Touting Obamacare Alternative

Technorati Tags: Barrasso,ObamaCare,Lies,Smoke and Mirrors,Healthcare,Wake-Up,Obamaland,PPACA,ACA,Speeches,Rand Corporation,Insurance,Exchanges,Single-Payer

New Obamacare Bombshell - Rpt: No System Yet For Exchange Payment - The Kelly File

Video: New Obamacare Bombshell - Rpt: No System Yet For Exchange Payment - The Kelly File

My fellow citizens… Nobody is this incompetent of stupid!! This is all part of the plan.  The plan has always been to make this roll out and the actual process so horrendous that they can jump in at the last minute and fix it… creating a single-payer plan, which is socialized medicine, which they wanted in the first place so they can control every aspect of your life, including who lives and dies and when.

Don’t fall for this.  Clean house in the 2014 and 2016 Elections.  Do your homework.  Elect people who are not part of the Washington DC system and are willing to fight for you.  And replace everyone who voted for ObamaCare or was associated with the Obama Administration!!

The Dirty Secret Behind ObamaCare No One’s Talking About

Attention Main Stream Media. Regarding Obamacare… I Told You So!

Wake-Up… ObamaCare Eliminates Your Plan by Design

California Rightly Rejects Illegal ObamaCare Fix

IBD: ObamaCare: California's health insurance exchange has decided not to allow insurance plans that do not meet the law's standards, rejecting the president's attempt to rewrite the law through executive action.

Recognizing the impracticality and illegality of President Obama's proposed "fix" for insurance policies canceled due to the Affordable Care Act's coverage mandates, the board of Covered California, the state's health insurance exchange, voted 5-0 against extending the 1 million California health care plans that were dropped under the law.

The Golden State follows several other blue states — including New York, Washington, Rhode Island and Minnesota — that announced they won't go along with the administration's proposed solution. State insurance commissioners make it clear that just in practical terms the fix is unworkable in the time available.

Reality bites, as they say, and the reality is insurance companies that altered insurance plans and computer software in a long, Herculean effort to comply with the law can't restore the status quo in weeks just because the president pulls an Emily Litella and says "never mind," without a constitutional or legal leg to stand on.

Obama's fix allegedly lets insurance companies continue selling the same individual health insurance plans they sold before the law, but only to those who currently own such policies, and only for another year.

"There's no way to make the federal law work without this transition to ACA-compliant plans," Covered California board member Susan Kennedy said. "Delaying the transition isn't going to help anyone; it just delays the problems. I actually think that it's going to make a bad situation worse if we complicate it further."

Covered California also recognized that letting people extend their existing health plans would also create a two-tier insurance system that would keep younger and healthier paying customers out of the ACA risk pool, paying customers that are needed to keep ObamaCare from financially imploding. These are people such as the 20-something male who can't understand why his premium and deductible must increase to give him maternity and pediatric dental care coverage he doesn't need.

Covered California Executive Director Peter Lee said the state can't force any insurance companies to extend their already-expired plans.

Many insurers, aside from noting the costly logistical nightmare reissuing canceled plans would create, have noted that they have complied with the law and the regulations, implementing it as written and that issuing noncompliant policies on the basis of presidential assurance is to stand on shaky legal ground.

Blue Cross, Aetna, United, Humana Flee Obamacare Exchanges

CBSNews: Major health insurance companies – Blue Cross, Aetna, United, Humana – have fled the Obamacare health care exchanges in various states, which are scheduled to start on Oct. 1st, 2014.

Insurance companies like Aetna and United have said, “thanks, but no thanks” to the public health insurance marketplace set up under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), or Obamacare, which will facilitate government subsidies to individuals and small businesses to buy approved health plans to comply with the law.

The ACA requires every American to have health insurance, or pay a penalty.  Individuals who are not covered by their employer can enroll in the state or federal government-run health care “marketplace,” which will provide subsidies to individuals between 100 and 400 percent of the poverty line.

Aetna, a fortune 100 company with $34.2 billion in revenue, has pulled out of public exchanges in three states, and will not be part of the individual health insurance exchange in its home base, Connecticut.

Founded in Hartford, Conn., in 1850, Aetna withdrew its application to participate in the state on Monday, due to high rates proposed by state regulators, the Hartford Courant reported.

“We have spent considerable time identifying those states in which we can be competitive and add the most value to the market,” Aetna said in a statement.  “As a result of our analysis, we have reluctantly concluded that we will withdraw certain Individual Exchange filings for 2014, including filings in Connecticut, Georgia and Maryland.”

“This is not a step taken lightly, and was made as part of a national review of our Exchange strategy,” the company said.  “Unfortunately, we believe the modifications to the rates filed by Aetna will not allow us to collect enough premiums to cover the cost of the plans and meet the service expectations of our customers.”

California

Aetna will also not participate in California’s exchange, and a spokesperson told CNSNews.com that the company never intended to do so.

(AP Photo)

“We did not withdraw exchange plans in California, as we never planned participation nor filed [Qualified Health Plans] QHPs to participate in the California exchange,” a spokesperson said.

Anthem Blue Cross has withdrawn from its bid to participate in the state’s small business exchange, as well.

United Health Group, the largest health insurer in the United States, has also taken a pass on the Golden State’s individual insurance market under Obamacare.

As a result, roughly 8,000 policyholders will be left searching for new insurance.

Aetna will stop selling individual insurance policies in California all together, leaving nearly 50,000 existing policyholders to find new coverage by January.

‘If You Like Your Doctor,’ Hope Your Insurer Is Participating in the Exchange

“No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period,” Obama said on June 15, 2009.

“If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period," he said.  "No one will take it away. No matter what.”

That promise, however, has been revised by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which now says, “you may be able to keep your current doctor” in the health insurance marketplace.

“Most health insurance plans offered in the Marketplace have networks of hospitals, doctors, specialists, pharmacies, and other health care providers,” HHS said on its website for the health reform law.  “Networks include health care providers that the plan contracts with to take care of the plan’s members.”

“Depending on the type of policy you buy, care may be covered only when you get it from a network provider,” they said.

President Barack Obama signs the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) into law on Mar. 23, 2010. (AP)

With insurers opting out of state-run health exchanges, individuals are left with less options.

Only three companies remain in Connecticut’s “Access Health CT” exchange, following Aetna’s departure.

Similarly, only five plans are participating in the exchange in Georgia, after Aetna and Coventry Health Insurance dropped out last week.

The Savannah Morning News noted that this will “leave residents of some parts of the state with limited choice.”

Two of the three largest health insurers in Wisconsin will also not participate in the state’s online marketplace under Obamacare, it was announced on Wednesday.

Though they will not participate in at least four state-run exchanges, Aetna said they “appreciate” the opportunity to work with state regulators on complying with the ACA.

“We have appreciated the chance to work with the regulators in each state for the past months on a variety of key issues regarding ACA implementation,” Aetna said in a statement.  “We will continue to work with them, and various Exchange leadership teams, as we evaluate exchange participation in future years.”

CNSNews.com is not funded by the government like NPR. CNSNews.com is not funded by the government like PBS.

**More and more politicians, unions, insurance companies and people who have read the bill are calling ObamaCare a ‘trainwreck’.

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,Defund ObamaCare,Blue Cross,Aetna,United,Humana NPR,PBS,ObamaCare Exchanges,trainwreck,insurance exchanges,healthcare exchanges,ACA,Affordable Care Act

McCaughey: Obamacare is About Funding Democrats

By Marion Algier - Ask Marion  -  h/t to MJ 

Betsy McCaughey – Author of Obama Health Law

McCaughey was a guest on the Mark Levin Show and talked about how O-care funds are being used – and that the illegal immigration bill also contains the same slush fund mechanisms in it.  Here’s a very brief write-up...

Betsy McCaughey, one of the few people on Earth who’s actually read the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” (aka Obamacare), wrote this recent article which I believe is worth adding to the echo chamber.

If you have to keep it a secret, you probably shouldn't be doing it.

But the California legislature and the new Covered California health insurance exchange are conspiring to keep secret how they will dole out more than half a billion dollars in taxpayer dollars to contractors. The lion's share of the money is going for what the exchange budget terms "outreach."

In truth, the money is going to build Democratic Party enrollment.

The Obama administration granted a whopping $910 million to California to set up its insurance exchange. That money is not for bandages, surgery, nurses and doctors to care for the sick. Nor is it for insurance plans, though $910 million could buy generous coverage for at least 113,000 people!

Shockingly, the $910 million is slated for bureaucracy, including rich compensation packages for exchange employees ($360,000 a year for the executive director) and contracts for computer equipment, public relations and "outreach."

Outreach is the largest expenditure and where the real monkey business occurs.

Amazingly, California legislators passed a law that the exchange could keep secret for a year who received the contracts and indefinitely how much they were paid. California's open-records laws would otherwise prohibit such secrecy.

Last week, Republican U.S. Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and four other Republican senators on the Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee called for an investigation of California's concealing information on contracts awarded using federal taxpayer money.

What is known so far suggests that California politicians are exploiting health reform to enroll millions of the uninsured in the Democratic Party and fill the coffers of left-wing interest groups with taxpayer money.

Here are the facts to back up that cynical picture:

California lawmakers passed a law (Senate Bill 35) requiring that voter registration be part of the health insurance exchange.

Last month, Covered California announced $37 million in grants to 48 organizations to build public awareness about the opening of the health exchange on Oct. 1.

Of the 48 organizations that got grants, only a handful are health-care related. The California NAACP received $600,000 to do door-to-door canvassing and presentations at community organizations.

Service Employees International Union, which says its mission is "economic justice," received two grants totaling $2 million to make phone calls, robo-calls and go door to door.

The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO got $1 million for door-to-door, one-on-one education and social networking. It describes its role as "engaging in both organizing and political campaigns, electing pro-union and pro-worker candidates."

Community Health Councils, a California organization with a long history of political activism against fracking, for-profit hospitals, state budget cuts and oil exploration, got $1 million to conduct presentations at community and neighborhood meetings and one-to-one sessions.

These organizations, closely allied with the Democratic Party, are being funded by your tax dollars to conduct "outreach," meaning the kind of phone banking and door-to-door canvassing that activists do to turn out the vote. They will turn out the uninsured to enroll on the exchanges and in the Democratic Party.

The $37 million awarded last month is only the first installment of California's $190.4 million to be spent on contracts for "outreach" through December 2014.

In addition to outreach, California's actual enrollment process is also outsourced to employees of community organizations, unions and health clinics. These enrollment "assisters" will be paid $58 for each enrollee they sign up. An additional $49 million is budgeted to pay them the first year, but in future years, assisters will be paid out of the premiums collected by the exchange.

The template is repeated in every state. The Obama health law creates a permanent stream of funding for unions and community activists by outsourcing insurance enrollment to them.

Assisters will also guide the uninsured to sign up for whatever non-health social services they may be eligible for, including welfare, food stamps and housing assistance, according to the manual prepared by the Community Health Councils for California's implementation.

Anyone who remembers the days of James Curley, Boss Tweed and Tammany Hall gets the picture. If you were poor or a newcomer to this country, you went to the local ward boss and got whatever you needed in exchange for your vote.

The difference is that back then, politics was local. Now the Obama health law is institutionalizing this corrupt style of politics across the country. Whether you live in California or New York, local community activists and unions will be recruiting people to enroll in ObamaCare and sign up to be part of the permanent, beholden Democratic voting majority.

And just ask anyone who comes from a country with a one-party system… they will tell you horror stories upon horror stories.

Her basic premise is that Obamacare is not about health care (even a synopsis of the bill tells you that), it’s about funding a permanent Democrat majority.

How? McCaughey believes that this is done through “awareness” programs using typical Democrat muscle (unions, community organizations, the usual suspects) to receive much of this government funding to help get the word out about Obamacare. It’s a money laundering scheme using taxpayer’s money to ultimately assist Democrat get-out-the-vote drives, very much like what the Stimulus was used for.

Audio: Mark Levin Discusses What's Really Going on with Obamacare with Betsy McCaughey Part I

Audio: Mark Levin Discusses What’s Really Going on with Obamacare with Betsy McCaughey Part 2

Sean Hannity, Neil Cavuto, Governor Huckabee and Rush Limbaugh also featured similar discussions on their radio shows this past week:

Rush Limbaugh/EIB:

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: I hate to do this to you, but the Investor's Business Daily had an editorial yesterday, and they have discovered the purpose of Obamacare.  It has nothing to do with health care.  The purpose of Obamacare got nothing to do with your health, and nothing to do with your insurance. 

It's about building a permanent, undefeatable, always-funded Democrat majority.  One example: The exchanges.  We're being told that the government's running way behind on setting up the exchanges, and we're being told it's because the bill so complicated, big, unmanageable. Nobody could possibly get this done on time.  IBD has tracked how these exchanges are being set up, and basically the health care exchanges in these states are going to be Democrat political action committees, funded with your tax dollars. 

They're going to operate under the guise of selling you your health insurance when in fact what they're going to be doing is providing employment for Democrats and Democrat voters and Democrat operatives. They are going to use the exchanges to give out money to sympathetic Democrats and people who vote for other Democrats.  I'll give you the details.  It's on a par with how I've tried to explain that the stimulus was a money-laundering operation for Democrat campaign coffers. 

Because the vast majority of stimulus money went to keep government union employees working.  It went to make sure they weren't laid off in a really bad and down economy.  State and local union employees pay dues.  They're required to pay it.  The dues are collected by Democrat union leaders. They run all the union organizations, and the dues are what fund Democrat campaigns.  Well, you can't collect dues if the people aren't working. If you're the Democrats, you can't (not yet, anyway) just write a check for $900 billion to the US Treasury and then start giving it away.

But you can come up with a "stimulus" bill that you tell people it's all about creating jobs and roads and bridges and building up infrastructure. Then you get the check, and you are in charge of how the money is spent and where it goes, and you see to it that it ends up ultimately in the back pockets of union employees so that they continue to be employed and paying dues.  So it's a roundabout way of getting $900 billion, or a percentage of it, back to the Democrat Party in campaign contributions. 

That's what the stimulus bill was!

I'll take a break.  Take a couple phone calls, and then I will share with you the dirty details of the Investors Business Daily editorial on what is really happening with Obamacare and the exchanges.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: Now, on to the Investor's Business Daily.  They have an editorial that explains in quite extensive detail how Obamacare is actually a funding operation for Democrat Party operatives and a technique for improving increasing Democrat Party voter registration. 

"The Obama administration granted a whopping $910 million to California to set up its insurance exchange. That money is not for bandages, surgery, nurses and doctors to care for the sick. ... Shockingly, the $910 million is slated for bureaucracy, including rich compensation packages for exchange employees."  In fact, the executive director of the exchange in California will make $360,000 a year.  The exchange money, this $910 million, is being used for computer equipment, public relations, and outreach. 

What is the exchange?  It's supposedly where you go, by mandate, to buy your health insurance.  The exchange is supposed to just be a catalog, basically.  And the only thing in the catalog are insurance policies, and you go there and you pick yours.  You go there, decide what you want.  That's what the exchange is.  Instead, the regime has decided to use these exchanges, probably part of the original plan, as Democrat get-out-the-vote efforts complete with walking-around money and employment for loyal Democrats. 

"California lawmakers passed a law (Senate Bill 35) requiring that voter registration be part of the health insurance exchange." California lawmakers, again, passed Senate Bill 35 that requires voter registration be part of the health insurance exchange.  Now, you think you're going to the exchange to pick your insurance policy.  Guess what?  You're gonna get pressured to register to vote, if you're not, and maybe even if you already are.  "Last month, Covered California announced $37 million in grants to 48 organizations to build public awareness about the opening of the health exchange on Oct. 1."

In other words, they're treating this as the grand opening of a great shopping center, a great mall.  They're doing this to attract all kinds of people. It's a government bureaucracy.  It would be no different than if the DMV started running ads to get you to show up. 

"Of the 48 organizations that got grants, only a handful are health-care related."  For example, Covered California announced $37 million in grants to 48 organizations to build public awareness about the opening of the health care exchange.  Now, why in the world would the California NAACP get $600,000?  But they did.  The California NAACP got $600,000 of Obamacare money, California exchange money, to go door-to-door canvassing and registering voters, and to create presentations at community organizations, presentations about the Democrat Party, presentations about registering and supporting the Democrat Party and its candidates. 

"Service Employees International Union, which says its mission is 'economic justice,' received two grants totaling $2 million to make phone calls, robo-calls and go door to door." Now, what in the world does a health exchange need a union going door-to-door for?  I'm talking about in the strict structure of these exchanges.  Remember, our low-information people have no clue what's gonna hit them here, folks. 

You think they know what a health care exchange is?  You and I know what it is.  It's a place where we're gonna have to go to get our insurance policy.  Little do we know that when we show up we're going to be hit with Democrat Party propaganda.  Little do we know that the insurance exchanges are gonna be giving money to the NAACP and the Service Employees International Union to go out and do "voter outreach," voter registration drives, show up at community organizing centers.

They're gonna be making robo-calls, phone calls all about getting out the vote.  "The Los Angeles County Federation of Labor AFL-CIO got $1 million for door-to-door, one-on-one education and social networking." For what?  An insurance policy? "It describes its role as 'engaging in both organizing and political campaigns, electing pro-union and pro-worker candidates.'" That's the AFL-CIO.  That's how it describes itself. 

So we have the NAACP in California getting 600 grand to go door-to-door to register voters, to do this or that.  "Service Employees International Union, which says its mission is "economic justice," received two grants totaling $2 million to make phone calls, robo-calls and go door to door," to the outreach, open community centers, make phone calls, robo-calls, register voters, get them to the polls.  The AFL-CIO getting another million. So just in three groups, we're at $3,600,000 from a health exchange to basically gin up support for the Democrat Party.

"Community Health Councils, a California organization with a long history of political activism against fracking, for-profit hospitals, state budget cuts and oil exploration, got $1 million to conduct presentations at community and neighborhood meetings and one-to-one sessions." So health care exchange money for California has been given to a group that opposes fracking, for-profit hospitals, and opposes state budget cuts, opposes oil exploration.

They get a million bucks to "conduct presentations at community and neighborhood meetings" against all of these things.  In other words, Community Health Councils, California group, got a million dollars to promote the Democrat Party.  The AFL-CIO, $1 million to promote the Democrat Party.  The Service Employees International Union, $2 million to promote the Democrat Party.  The NAACP, $600,000 to promote the Democrat Party.

It's $910 million total of taxpayer money to the state of California -- and by the way, gonna happen in every state.  This is not just California.  But you might be asking, "Wait a minute, Rush! Wait a minute! What about getting people actually signed up for health care, insurance policies?"  Well, guess what?  That has also been assigned to constituencies in the Democrat Party.  Basically what's happening is Obamacare's exchanges are being funded, money is being given. 

The same people who got stimulus money, folks.  You didn't.  Your shovel-ready job didn't. Your school didn't. Your road, your bridge, none of those things got it. Your job didn't get it.  Democrat loyalists got the money. The same thing is happening with the Obamacare exchanges. Democrat supporting groups are being given millions of dollars to promote the Democrat Party, register Democrat voters, and get them to the polls on Election Day.  The purpose?  To set up a permanent one-party system in this country.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH: The Investor's Business Daily.  This story, it's actually an editorial, it's written by Betsy McCaughey.  And folks, what's happening with these health care exchanges, again, we're gonna link to this Investor's Business Daily editoral at RushLimbaugh.com and it's gonna be in our Rush in a Hurry.  You know what?  I don't pitch this enough, but I really should. 

We have an e-mail alert that we send out within a half hour of every program, and it's free.  All you have to do is go to our website and sign up for it.  And there are no strings attached to it.  Now, it does have banner advertising in it, but there are no strings.  You don't have to sign up for anything else.  It's called Rush in a Hurry, and it is a summary with some transcripts and some audio, and it has links to the full website, with full details on everything.  But it is a great, comprehensive summary of the highlights, which is everything that happened on this program every day.  Millions of people already get it, and you can get it, too.  So when I sit here and tell you, "Well, you don't want to miss this IBD editorial," if you're subscriber to Rush in a Hurry, it automatically comes to whatever e-mail address you submit, and the link to it will be right there about 30 minutes after the program. 

Now, we are able to update our website on the fly now because of advancements in website technology.  We used to have to wait 'til six o'clock Eastern time every day to have the whole site up.  You had to do it all at once and then go live with it.  But now we can supplement it as we go, update it as we go.  So the Rush in a Hurry is an absolutely great way -- if you haven't had a chance to listen to the program on a particular day, you get the Rush in a Hurry, two things are gonna happen.  You're gonna know what happened. You're gonna wish that you had been near a radio.  But it is really well done.  It is done with html graphics.  It's not just a straight, flat text e-mail.  It is a miniature website into itself in an e-mail. All you have to do to get it is go to RushLimbaugh.com and sign up for Rush in a Hurry.  That's what it's called. 

Now, the Investor's Business Daily editorial written by Betsy McCaughey details what the health care exchanges in Obamacare really are about.  And she focuses on California because they're getting $910 million to set up the exchanges in California.  Now, the exchanges, folks, are for one purpose and that's for you to go get your health care insurance. Every American, if you don't get your health care from your employer, you're gonna have to go to one of these exchanges to get it. It's a marketplace, it's a clearinghouse, theoretically.  It's a catalog.  You go pick the policy that you want based on what you want to pay -- they're all gonna be expensive.  But it turns out these exchanges are just being used for Democrat Party outreach.  I've detailed how. 

The NAACP is getting $600,000 from the California exchange.  The AFL-CIO is getting $1 million.  The Service Employees International Union is getting $2 million.  And for what?  To go door-to-door, to register voters, to show up at community centers and make presentations on the Democrat Party and sell the Democrat Party agenda.  A group called Community Health Councils, which is a California bunch that opposes fracking, for-profit hospitals, state budget cuts and oil exploration, got $1 million to conduct presentations at community and neighborhood meetings. "California's actual enrollment process is also outsourced to employees of community organizations, unions and health clinics."

So when you show up to get your insurance at a California exchange, you might be dealing to somebody from the AFL-CIO.  You might be dealing with somebody from the Service Employees International Union.  Planned Parenthood is trying to get in on some of this money.  Planned Parenthood wants some exchange money to promote their cause, which is abortion.  It's another slush fund, folks.  The health care exchanges are slush funds just like the stimulus bill was. 

California's Democrat controlled legislature does not want voters to know who exactly is getting close to $200 million in outreach funding, so they passed a law that creates an exception to the state's open records law.  A grand total of $200 million in Democrat Party outreach will be allocated from the $910 million to set up the exchanges.  That's the brunt of it, but I tell you, you need to see the whole thing.  And we'll link to it at RushLimbaugh.com.

Washington Examiner: "The popularity of Obamacare has crashed to its lowest level in nearly two years, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation poll."  Thirty-five percent support Obamacare.  "Kaiser's monthly tracking poll found that just 35 percent have a favorable view of the health reform being put into place Jan. 1 while 43 percent view it unfavorably. The favorability rating of Obamacare has been worse only once, in October 2011, when it fell to 34 percent."  So it's heading south.

Another story from Wall Street Journal: An ObamaCare Board Answerable to No One.

This is a story about the death panel.  "An Obamacare Board Answerable to No One." A story from the Wall Street Journal about death panels.  It's a disaster.  Immigration reform, it's a disaster.  This, Obamacare, is a disaster, folks.  No other way to describe it.

BREAK TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  About these health care exchanges, let me present to you a picture.  Hypothetically, Obamacare is implemented, and along the way, guess what?  Amnesty happens, the Gang of Eight bill is passed, and all of a sudden we've got 11 million people now that we're gonna put on a pathway to citizenship.  Who's gonna be in charge of it?  Obama, the Democrat Party will be with pamphlets, ads on TV and in publications, about how to go to the pathway to citizenship. 

The pathway to citizenship's gonna take 'em right to a health care exchange.  They're gonna need health care.  They're gonna be sent right to an exchange where they're gonna be hit up by unions to become Democrats.  That's the first thing that's gonna happen to these illegals! Once we put 'em on the pathway, they're gonna be met on the path by the nearest union worker with a Democrat voter registration form.  That's exactly how this is gonna happen.  

END TRANSCRIPT

Video: Dr. Ben Carson Talks Obamacare Future Disaster Waiting to Happen with Neil Cavuto

After the IBD article, Limbaugh and Hannity also featured discussions of the above article on their radio shows and Dr. Ben Carson, who is working on an alternative solution to ObamaCare and our present healthcare system, was a guest on Cavuto.  Huckabee featured three doctors on his weekly Fox TV show over the weekend who have found their own solutions to circumvent ObamaCare and the ObamaCare exchanges.

Everything done by this administration is connected and part of a greater agenda… an agenda to control the US economy, create a one party system, and to control everything about our lives, a fundamental transformation of America.  Our job is to connect the dots… and then start disconnecting them.

Related:

Investor's Business Daily: Local Governments Reeling Under ObamaCare Costs

Washington Examiner: Kaiser: Most Say Nation Will be Worse Off Under Obamacare

Wall Street Journal: An ObamaCare Board Answerable to No One

Was Justice Roberts Intimidated Into Voting for ObamaCare?

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Darrell Issa: Obama can't break his own health care law

The Examiner: Three years after its passage, the unpopularity of the president's health law is complicating his administration's attempt to implement it. In the absence of support once predicted by the law's supporters, a majority of state governments are declining to establish their own health insurance exchanges, the primary vehicle through which many of the law's subsidies and taxes will affect the American people.

To combat the sticker shock of Obamacare's numerous requirements on health insurance premiums, the law creates expensive subsidies, which take the form of tax credits, for individuals who purchase a government-approved insurance plan. In order to avoid the appearance of a federal takeover of health care, the law ties the availability of these premium tax credits to an "Exchange established by the State." Importantly, the way the law was written, if tax credits are not available within a state, then the expensive employer mandate tax does not apply to companies within that state.

With so many states refusing to play the role the law's drafters envisioned, the Obama administration has embarked on a legally dubious effort to bypass the plain language of the law. Obama's IRS has issued a rule that delivers the expensive subsidies through federally run exchanges as well. If it stands, this extralegal rule will undermine the decision-making role offered to states by Obamacare, and cause hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes and spending not authorized by the president's health care law.

Although Obamacare requires the federal government to establish an exchange in states that decline to do so, a legal analysis by the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service found, "[t]he plain language of [the law] suggests that premium tax credits are available only where a taxpayer is enrolled in an 'Exchange established by the State.' A strictly textual analysis of the plain meaning of the provision would likely lead to the conclusion that the IRS's authority to issue the premium tax credits is limited only to situations in which the taxpayer is enrolled in a state-established exchange."

Simply put, Obamacare does not authorize tax credits unless states set up their own health insurance exchanges.

The IRS rule would, without legal justification, compel businesses in states without state-based exchanges to comply with the employer mandate or else face stiff tax penalties. This has prompted the state of Oklahoma to sue the federal government. The Sooner State's attorney general argues that the rule retroactively eliminates a policy option explicitly given to the state under the law, and denies the state the benefit of its decision not to establish an exchange.

Treasury officials have defended their extralegal rule by saying it was consistent with assumptions made by the Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation. However, Treasury officials have not pointed to a single piece of legislative history that supports their interpretation of the law, other than the assumptions made by the CBO and the JCT. And both of those organizations have made clear that they did not conduct a legal analysis or form a legal opinion on this issue. Their analysis was focused exclusively on the law's economic impact.

The language that limits tax credits to state-established exchanges should not now shock Obamacare's supporters. Early in 2009, legal scholar Timothy Jost, one of Obamacare's leading proponents, explicitly suggested linking the tax credits to state-established exchanges as a way to encourage states to set up the exchanges.

The Obama administration may be surprised and disappointed that many states have not found the refundable tax credit to be a sufficient incentive to set up their own exchanges, exposing their citizens to the other taxes and penalties associated with the law. But this does not justify the administration's effort to ignore the plain language of the law that Obama championed and signed.

Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., is chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform.

Technorati Tags: ObamaCare,ObamaTax,taxes