The President’s uncompromising ideology supports strong governmentally imposed shifts in American status for many groups of citizens and issues that amount to nothing more than an arbitrary, brutal, self-indulgent and deliberate gutting of opportunity, safety and promise that typically provided our citizens, old and new with a sense of pride, fairness and security and trust in our country and its leadership.
President Obama, in my opinion, does not make "hard decisions," he pursues general policies of interest to the American people ONLY within the context of loyalty to his personal goals. Obamacare is a perfect example of exploiting an American interest in healthcare reform for his own personal agenda, forfeiting and omitting many of the promises he made to merely manipulate Americans to get onboard.
So, it’s no surprise that on 6/30/2014 in response to the question of how much confidence Americans had in the presidency that a Gallup poll found that only 29 percent of those polled have confidence in the presidency, A SIX-YEAR LOW, “Americans Losing Confidence in All Branches of U.S. Gov't,” Justin McCarthy, http://www.gallup.com/poll/171992/americans-losing-confidence-branches-gov.aspx.
For me, President Obama is one of the cruelest Presidents I can recall, directing brutal and arbitrary policies with the uncompromising belligerence of a zealot by using his position and ability as a tool to get around and manipulate our system and our population rather than promote NATIONAL rather than pet interests.
Obamacare is our ongoing testimony and written indictment of this President and his strategy of pushing the envelope to accommodate his personal notions of the way America should be, ignoring the very people he was elected to represent with an unsurpassed contempt for the concept of an American people to whom he answers.
There is no kindness or competence in policies couched in the language of compassion that further jeopardize the ability of our country to provide for its citizens or that worsen the rights and abilities of some in order to grant them to others. After all, we swallowed hook line and sinker that “entitlement” programs like Medicare, you know the program that citizens pay into for their entire working lives HAD to start cutting corners.
There is only cruelty and contempt for its citizens shown by a government that passes a law like Obamacare and then gives itself an exemption,(see “Harry Reid: Hypocrite Headliner,” http://conoutofconsumer.blogspot.com/p/blog-page_4.html ).
It was sneaky of the President to lie to Americans about the contents of Obamacare, pushing himself into office with a second term knowing that most of the law’s most difficult aspects wouldn’t begin to be imposed on us until 2014.
It is sneaky and cruel to now support a policy of absorbing 10,000s if not 100,000s of illegals without informing us that while we watch our own health insurance coverage diminish through higher costs and/or less coverage that in some wacky way it’s the “right thing to do,” to absorb and then provide healthcare AT NO COST to illegals.
It’s a perversion of policy that allows the piggybacking of having allowed lawbreakers into the country, we’re now told we OWE those lawbreakers the protection and rights of the US in a manner that is frequently superior to the rights of our citizens.
After all, if prisoners escape prison we do not let it go, they cannot capitalize on their attempt to cheat and bypass the system by gaining amnesty and promising to do better by living with relatives. We return them to prison.
We put children in prison. We penalize Americans for breaking laws in all sorts of ongoing ways including restricting opportunities based on childhood and young adult convictions.
Yet 100,000s of illegals are being given SUPERIOR rights when at the very least we know they’ve broken our laws by illegally entering our country, let alone what additional laws they break to stay here or what laws they broke in their own country.
Part of that preference for illegals over citizens gives many of those illegals access to our healthcare system though they have never paid taxes, are known and knowing lawbreakers who BUT FOR their violations of law would be ineligible for care in our system. Few if any of our American citizens get to profit from deliberately breaking our laws with the support and approval of government.
This recent aiding and abetting of the influx of illegals is added onto the amnesty provided by the President that granted legal status to known lawbreakers who had, by their own admission, committed many violations of US law including fake IDs, driving without licenses, never paying taxes well into adulthood, violations that would have resulted in marks on the reputation and record of US citizens. (See post of 6/15/12, “President Obama Executive Order Re Immigration: Opinion,” http://conoutofconsumer.blogspot.com/2012/06/president-obama-executive-order-re.html.)
So what did Obamacare the LAW have to say about illegals and Obamacare? Go to Section 1411 of the PPACA, “SEC. 1411. PROCEDURES FOR DETERMINING ELIGIBILITY FOR EXCHANGE PARTICIPATION, PREMIUM TAX CREDITS AND REDUCED COST-SHARING, AND INDIVIDUAL RESPONSIBILITY EXEMPTIONS.”
In section 1411 of the PPACA, under “a) Establishment of Program,” the Secretary of HHS must determine “ (1) whether an individual who is to be covered in the individual market by a qualified health plan offered through an Exchange, or who is claiming a premium tax credit or reduced cost-sharing, …that the individual be a citizen or national of the United States or an alien lawfully.”
OK, so ALL Obamacare says in section 1411 is that those getting insurance through an exchange must be citizens or a lawful alien.
The evidence required to be submitted? Evidence of citizenship or immigration status and an attestation that yes, I am a citizen or a lawful alien. That’s it. (Of course additional info is required to calculate how many Obamabucks the person gets.)
The HHS secretary DOES have obligations under PPACA. In Section 1411 (c) (2) Citizenship or Immigration Status , (A), COMMISSIONER OF SOCIAL SECURITY, The Secretary shall submit to the Commissioner of Social Security the following information for a determination as to whether the information provided is consistent with the information in the records of the Commissioner: (i) The name, date of birth, and social security number of each individual for whom such information was provided…(ii) The attestation of an individual that the individual is a citizen.”
The law goes on that in the case of an individual who claims to be an alien lawfully present or whose records show inconsistencies, under 1411 (c) (2) (B) Secretary of Homeland Security…the Secretary shall submit to the Secretary of Homeland Security…”
But, since the government is naturally forgiving of its own violations of law, the standard is pretty low regarding governmental sloppiness, mistakes, overlooking or appearing to merely be sloppy, mistaken or overlooking inconsistencies, all the government must do is make a REASONABLE EFFORT.
Under section 1411, the standard is the same as for determining “an individual’s eligibility under the “medicaid program is determined under section 1902(ee) of the Social Security Act (as in effect on January 1, 2010),” which includes the same language as the next section of the PPACA, showing that our government has made a “REASONABLE EFFORT,” (4211 (e)(3)and 4211 (e) (4)(A).”
Essentially under Section 1411 of Obamacare, the Secretary of HHS has to make “REASONABLE” efforts to determine that a person is a citizen or lawful alien based on an attestation by the person seeking that status and the provision of a social security number, and when inconsistencies are found these MUST be submitted to the Secretary of Homeland Security who also needs to make REASONABLE efforts to determine an individual’s status before allowing them to participate in Obamacare and obtain health insurance through Exchanges.
Anyone denied benefits, including an illegal, has the right to appeal.
So, it can be anticipated that since we know illegals use false IDs (by their own admission) and since the Secretary of HHS and the Secretary of Homeland Security must only make a REASONABLE EFFORT to verify an individual’s entitlement to participate on Exchanges and be eligible for Obamabucks that it is LIKELY that there will be a large number of individuals who are illegals who manage to get Obamacare.
And what about illegals who aren’t arbitrarily granted access to free healthcare through formal policy or policy so badly enforced that it encourages deceptive practices? Well, remember, US CITIZENS do NOT have a right to healthcare. Absent a right to healthcare, if we require healthcare we’re often shut out of access to that healthcare based on our ability to PAY for it.
Many of us have been forced to use emergency rooms because there at least we have a right to treatment that stabilizes us, we must be stabilized before being denied further care or moved elsewhere.
Illegals using emergency rooms have the SAME right to treatment as US citizens so at the very least, they get the care we consider good enough for our own population, healthcare access that is limited to what one can obtain in the emergency room.
Obamacare has arguably made the ability to be healed based on ability to pay truer than ever in America because in order to pay for Obamabucks, the entitlement afforded to a few under the PPACA, and to accommodate mandatory basic care in the form of free preventive care as well as essential coverage, COSTS, what we pay versus what is covered by health insurance has resulted in LESS coverage for the majority of Americans outside of the Obamacare entitlement and Obamacare SLASHES money to ERs for the poor and indigent.
Though originally justified on the alleged idea that more individuals will have health insurance so there will be fewer uninsured and indigent patients, the cruel hard facts of the policy is that it slashes payments under Section 1203, Disproportionate Share Hospital Payments, federal dollars provided to hospitals that treated uninsured and indigent patients.
Combined with this reduction in federal money to ERs under section 1203, it’s been reported that MORE patients are going to ERs under Obamacare, USA Today, “More patients flocking to ERs under Obamacare,” Laura Ungar, The (Louisville, Ky.) Courier-Journal 7:01 a.m. EDT June 8, 2014, http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/06/08/more-patients-flocking-to-ers-under-obamacare/10173015/.
Section 1203 of Obamacare cruelly jeopardizes the health of those without health insurance, our poorest citizens who are ineligible for Medicaid or health insurance by providing for a REDUCTION in funding and therefore the ability for hospital ERs to provide quality care to indigent and uninsured patients, (Section 1203, Disproportionate Share Hospital Payments for treatment of uninsured and indigent patients.)
And by entitling illegals to use ERs just like our poorest citizens shows the indifference and contempt this administration has for its own citizens with the government pushing new illegal populations into ERs, further straining already strained emergency rooms.
So while we’re cutting funding to supply ER treatment to Americans locked out of healthcare by our system, we’re simultaneously adding the strain of an OBLIGATION to treat illegals. These government policies are NOT compassionate, they are cruel because the government is actively supporting policies and laws that ultimately worsen the ability of our government to provide for its citizens or for citizens to provide for themselves.
