Obamacare Enforcement Like Snow Removal, IRS Chief Says

[Peace Piper]

Obamacare Enforcement Like Snow Removal, IRS Chief Says
Richard Rubin Bloomberg Apr 2, 2014

Administering the 2010 health-care law is just like municipal snow shoveling -- a top priority that’s non-negotiable, John Koskinen, the commissioner of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, said today.

Koskinen, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, drew on his experience a decade ago as the deputy mayor of the city government in the nation’s capital. Even as the IRS faces budgetary pressures, he said, the health law will be a priority, just as snow removal is essential for a city.

Starting with the tax returns that will be filed in early 2015, the IRS will be responsible for enforcing the individual mandate to purchase health insurance and ensuring that people claim the correct amount of subsidies for insurance...

...“If we can have a smooth filing season next year including the appropriate review of the returns of taxpayers” claiming tax credits for health insurance, he said, “the public and the Congress will have to say: That’s some organization with an amazing workforce.”...

snip more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...hief-says.html

First the carrot...

[RJB]

I bet most businesses wish they could be like the insurance companies and get congress to pass a law making people by from them with the threat of the IRS.

[Acala]

I bet most businesses wish they could be like the insurance companies and get congress to pass a law making people by from them with the threat of the IRS.

I don't know. The preferred method is to have the government just hand you billions directly. Routing it through millions of customers who may or may not pay their bills, and who make claims as well, is a headache.

[Paulbot99]

I don't know. The preferred method is to have the government just hand you billions directly. Routing it through millions of customers who may or may not pay their bills, and who make claims as well, is a headache.

Don't worry. The bailout is coming soon.

[Peace Piper]

I bet most businesses wish they could be like the insurance companies and get congress to pass a law making people by from them with the threat of the IRS.

Wouldn't it be great if Republicans actually wanted to repeal this clusterf*? When did anyone besides Cruz and Rand (that matters) even complain about it?

But why would they want to repeal something that, at its core, is a Heritage Foundation scam?

Watching this unfold the way it has has been nauseating.

[Dr.3D]

Wouldn't it be great if Republicans actually wanted to repeal this clusterf*? When did anyone besides Cruz and Rand (that matters) even complain about it?

But why would they want to repeal something that, at its core, is a Heritage Foundation scam?

Watching this unfold the way it has has been nauseating.

What's worse is that the establishment-GOP says it wants to repeal the ACA and institute it's own brand of the same type of thing. As if the Constitution allows for government healthcare.

[RJB]

This is how I see the Obamacare evolution: Obamacare was initially a Gingrich wet dream in response to Hillarycare. To republicans it was explained that letting corporations take over healthcare was the free market. When Obama pushed forward this corporatism (after 100 millions of dollars of insurance company money was poured into legislatures) democrats started to grumble-- until MSNBC stated that such grumbling was racist. As a way to get rid of Obamacare, FOX News told republicans that Mitt Romney (ironicly the man who instituted the original Obamacare then called Romneycare) was answer. So now instead of looking at the reasons why our healthcare costs and Chronic diseases (cancer, diabetes, obesity, etc.) are skyrocketing, we are now compelling people to take part in this broken system. I feel like we are living in a Joseph Heller novel.

[oyarde]

Obamacare Enforcement Like Snow Removal, IRS Chief Says
Richard Rubin Bloomberg Apr 2, 2014

Administering the 2010 health-care law is just like municipal snow shoveling -- a top priority that’s non-negotiable, John Koskinen, the commissioner of the U.S. Internal Revenue Service, said today.

Koskinen, speaking at the National Press Club in Washington, drew on his experience a decade ago as the deputy mayor of the city government in the nation’s capital. Even as the IRS faces budgetary pressures, he said, the health law will be a priority, just as snow removal is essential for a city.

Starting with the tax returns that will be filed in early 2015, the IRS will be responsible for enforcing the individual mandate to purchase health insurance and ensuring that people claim the correct amount of subsidies for insurance...

...“If we can have a smooth filing season next year including the appropriate review of the returns of taxpayers” claiming tax credits for health insurance, he said, “the public and the Congress will have to say: That’s some organization with an amazing workforce.”...

snip more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-0...hief-says.html

First the carrot...

That gut is a punk .$#@! him .

[Acala]

Don't worry. The bailout is coming soon.

Yup. Obamacare was designed to bail out crony-capitalist health care. But the cost is going to be staggering.

[Lucille]

Yup. Obamacare was designed to bail out crony-capitalist health care. But the cost is going to be staggering.

After O Duce's victory lap on April Fool's Day, I wonder how they'll be spinning the impending bailout.

[Lucille]

They'll be busy harassing providers too.

Obama was positively beaming in his many photo-ops with the sponsoring corporatist representatives of Corporate Medicine, Big Insurance, Big Pharma, and Big Government who enabled the Prince of Change to achieve this milestone deception of America. The very fact that this “wonderful” new system – lauded by supporters as “revolutionary” – is to be enforced by a projected army of 16,500 new IRS agents should give us pause
[...]
As income reductions are being imposed on private practice, costs are being driven up by exploding regulations. In addition, the plethora of new mandates and laws have increasingly criminalized every aspect of the practice of medicine and created vast new armies of armed bureaucrats whose sole aim is to impose civil and criminal penalties on any provider unlucky enough to be singled out for attention. The old Soviet dictum attributed to Lavrenti Beria (Stalin’s NKVD chief), “Show me the man and I’ll find you the crime,” is in full force in Amerika.

[...] Heaven help the poor provider who is targeted by the Medicare Police – or now, one supposes, by the new IRS Medical Special Branch. If targeted, his or her practice will be shut down without due process. His or her assets will be seized without due process (assuring the inability to even defend oneself). Finally, the unlucky guilty-until-proved-innocent physician will be permanently discredited (libeled) in his or her community with the ready help of the Government’s countless propaganda organs – press, radio, and TV – all before any day in court is seen.

[acptulsa]

Well, at least they're finally publicly admitting it's a snow job...

[ClydeCoulter]