Obamacare and the IRS - such a cute couple - Granite Grok

Obamacare and the IRS – such a cute couple

So much for Democrats wanting to protect your privacy – I guess, like all of the anti-war protesters when Bush was President, the privacy advocates have all gone silent in support of The Won.  It just goes to show that for almost all Progressives, it’s all for show – if they truly believed in what they have told us, they’d be marching on DC.  Much time and energy has been spent on the Individual Mandate and the IPAB (aka “the death panels”).  Well, here’s a part that I didn’t know – or realize:

The IRS will also determine who is eligible for taxpayer-financed subsidies to purchase health care on the exchanges that will be set up in every state. Anytime anyone’s situation changes — a raise, a new job, a move to another state — that person will be required to report it to the IRS for the purpose of recalculating their eligibility.

Got that??  Generally when you have a serious change in life, and you have to report that event to…Mom.  Or Dad.  Or some other loved one or friends.

So, what have the Democrats wrought here?  That’s right – just ONE MORE STEP in having Government be your family (like it or not).  So, how’s that gonna feel – literally having a brand new Big Brother (again, brought to you by Democrats as not one Republican voted for this Liberty crushing, 2700 page fiasco.  Why is it beginning to feel like it should be called not Obamacare but ObamaBigBrother or ObamaJail ?  How’s it feel to now know that the IRS is now an intimate member of your family?  Now that you’ve gone “all growed up”, Democrats like President Obama and Senator Jeanne Shaheen (D-NH)  and (at the time of Obamacare passage) Carol Shea-Porter (D-NH) and Hodes(D-NH) decided that you STILL needed a set of parents – and they thought it just a dandy idea that it be the folks that “touch” you every April 15th (there has to be a Democrat joke in there somewhere…)

This is not a small group. Obamacare will give tax credits for the purchase of health coverage to people who make up to four times the poverty level — at the moment, that’s $44,100 a year for an individual and $88,200 for a family of four. Those millions of Americans had better keep the IRS informed of their status every step of the way.

At the August hearing, Michigan Republican Rep. Tim Walberg asked Olson, “Do you believe that most Americans are going to update the IRS or state exchanges when they change jobs, get married, move states, whatever?

“I think it’s going to be a very great learning curve,” Olson responded.

“With a lot of pitfalls?”

“With a lot of pitfalls,” Olson agreed, suggesting that many taxpayers will discover their refunds reduced. “I think it will be a surprise to taxpayers if they don’t update their information.

Obamacare also directs the IRS to share confidential personal tax returns with the exchanges and other government agencies. The IRS assures the public it already does that sort of thing for Medicaid, and that privacy is protected. “This agency takes data security very, very seriously,” IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman told the House in August.

Even if everything works out as planned, Americans will still face a lot of work complying with Obamacare’s requirements. National health care “will become a burdensome, costly and frustrating quagmire for millions of Americans,” former IRS Commissioner Fred Goldberg told the House. Republican lawmakers estimate it will take about 80 million additional man-hours for Americans to comply.

Oh sure, I knew that the IRS was to be the ObamaCare Enforcer – THEY are to be the final arbiters of whether or not you comply not only with a tax code that no one understands but also healthcare regulations that no one understands (nor yet created).

We ‘re all familiar, we who are passed a certain age, of the Eastern Bloc Communist countries and WW II movies.  We considered them to be totalitarian and despotic governments by one single phrase: “Show me your papers!” as people traveled around (the word “schnel” is optional, staying with the movie genre).  Obama and the Progressives have just accomplished the same thing – except, has the United States just replaced Secret Police with the Internal Revenue Service?

“Show me your papers!” -The difference between Socialist totalitarians and Progressives is only one of speed of implementation.  It used to be a running joke: “did you cal you Mom today?”  Go ahead, ask a Democrat friend – “Did you call home to the IRS today”?

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