As Americans watch congressional hearings on the Internal Revenue Service, they should ask themselves what this enormously powerful, corrupt, politically motivated agency might do with its new job of administering the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
We have heard testimony from those whose tax exemption was delayed or denied, or who underwent abusive audits, or faced seizure of their accumulated earnings, apparently because someone viewed them as opponents to the Powers.
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The people who are testifying are obviously still alive.
What if this agency had the power to control access to medical care?
Of course, it will not have this power under PPACA. Not exactly. These are the powers that it will have:
The IRS will decide whether you get a subsidy to buy the increasingly expensive health coverage mandated under the law. Since that coverage could cost a third of your income, its "affordability" obviously depends on whether other taxpayers have to help pay for it. And by the way, the subsidy doesn't go to you — it goes to the Plan. To qualify, the Plan has to please the Administration. It has to allocate enough for politically correct "prevention" (such as abortions) and not too much to services that lead to "disparity" (such as hip fractures in the elderly).
The IRS will determine which insurers will survive. A Plan that is not eligible for subsidies is likely to die for want of enough customers. The Administration has a record of picking winners (its cronies) and losers (its opponents).
The IRS will influence the chances that your job will survive. Your employer may be hit with ruinous fines for not having benefits that qualify or for having workers who apply for subsidies on the Exchange. As the rules are impossibly complex, government agencies have a lot of discretion, which can be used to reward and to punish.