New Obamacare Tax To Help Govt. Ration Healthcare

In just a few days a new Obamacare tax—that will double the following year—will kick in to fund “comparative effectiveness research” that’s supposed to help the government save money by finding ways to ration healthcare.

This is crazy; a semi-secret tax so the feds have cash to pay bureaucrats to examine everyone’s health records and, in turn, the government can save money by cutting back on care. The official plan, as noted by a national news wire this week, is to conduct research to find out which drugs, medical procedures, tests and treatments work best. It’s part of a “little-known provision” of the president’s socialist takeover of the nation’s healthcare system.

Who will conduct this valuable research? A new quasi-governmental agency (Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute or PCORI) created by Obamacare to provide information about the “best available evidence to help patients and their health care providers make more informed decisions.” PCORI claims its research is intended to give patients a better understanding of the prevention, treatment and care options available.   

To conduct this valuable work, PCORI needs cash. That’s where the new, little-known tax kicks in. Beginning in 2012, Uncle Sam will charge insurance companies a new fee to fund the PCORI’s research. The tax will be $1 per person in 2012 and will double in 2013 and increase with inflation in the following years. Insurers will soon receive guidance on the new tax from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS).

Obama has already given this sort of medical effectiveness research a big chunk of change. In fact, his disastrous 2009 economic stimulus bill included more than $1 billion for this kind of work through a different government agency. When his Affordable Care Act passed, the newly created PCORI became the official center to find ways to more “effectively and appropriately” prevent, diagnose, treat, monitor and manage health conditions.

Most Americans are opposed to Obama’s hostile takeover of the nation’s healthcare system and two separate federal courts—in Florida and Virginia—have ruled it unconstitutional. The Virginia ruling came in 2010 and the Florida decision, referred to as “another legal blow” by a mainstream newspaper, came last year. Here is the 2010 Virginia decision and the 2011 Florida ruling. The U.S. Supreme Court is scheduled to hear the case next March.

Judicial Watch has been a leader in comprehensively investigating Obamacare and has uncovered details related to secret healthcare meetings between powerful unions and Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, waivers to companies and unions exempting them from inconvenient provisions of the new law and the regulation and funding of Obamacare in general. Read about JW’s Obamacare work here.  

Judicial Watch has also obtained internal Justice Department documents that suggest Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan helped coordinate the Obama Administration’s legal defense of the healthcare law while she served as Solicitor General. JW has long believed that Kagan could be Obama’s political operative on the Supreme Court. After all, she is a liberal activist with a thin resume, little legal experience and no judicial experience.