Tag Archives: free state patriot

Democrats seek relief from health law penalties

16 Feb

Feb. 16, 2015 3:03 AM ET APNewsbreak:

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVARBy RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR, Associated Press

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WASHINGTON (AP) — The official sign-up season for President Barack Obama’s health care law may be over, but leading congressional Democrats say millions of Americans facing new tax penalties deserve a second chance.

Three senior House members told The Associated Press that they plan to strongly urge the administration to grant a special sign-up opportunity for uninsured taxpayers who will be facing fines under the law for the first time this year.

The three are Michigan’s Sander Levin, the ranking Democrat on the Ways and Means Committee, and Democratic Reps. Jim McDermott of Washington, and Lloyd Doggett of Texas. All worked to help steer Obama’s law through rancorous congressional debates from 2009-2010.

The lawmakers say they are concerned that many of their constituents will find out about the penalties after it’s already too late for them to sign up for coverage, since open enrollment ended Sunday.

That means they could wind up uninsured for another year, only to owe substantially higher fines in 2016. The fines are collected through the income tax system.

This year is the first time ordinary Americans will experience the complicated interactions between the health care law and taxes. Based on congressional analysis, tax preparation giant H&R Block says roughly 4 million uninsured people will pay penalties.

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The IRS has warned that health-care related issues will make its job harder this filing season and taxpayers should be prepared for long call-center hold times, particularly since the GOP-led Congress has been loath to approve more money for the agency.

“Open enrollment period ended before many Americans filed their taxes,” the three lawmakers said in a statement. “Without a special enrollment period, many people (who will be paying fines) will not have another opportunity to get health coverage this year.

“A special enrollment period will not only help many Americans avoid making an even larger payment next year, but, more importantly, it will help them gain quality health insurance for 2015,” the lawmakers added.

So far, administration officials have deflected questions about whether an extension will be granted. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia M. Burwell has authority to grant special enrollment periods under certain circumstances.

Supporters of the law say an extension would mainly help low- to middle-income uninsured people, the same group that Obama’s coverage expansion was intended to serve. But Republicans may criticize it as another tweak to what they see as unworkable “Obamacare.”

The health care law imposes fines on uninsured people whose incomes are deemed high enough to enable them to afford coverage. The goal is to broaden the pool of insured people, helping to keep premiums in check for everybody.

The law also offers subsidies to lower the cost of private coverage for people who don’t have job-based health care. That financial assistance is provided through a new tax credit.

Although the tax credit subsidies cover most of the premiums for many people, the coverage requirement and the fines that enforce it remain deeply unpopular.

And the cost of being uninsured in America is going up significantly.

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For 2014, the fine was the greater of $95 per person or 1 percent of household income above the threshold for filing taxes. That fine will be collected when taxpayers file their 2014 returns.

But this year the fine will jump to the greater of 2 percent of income or $325. By 2016, the average fine will be about $1,100, based on government figures.

Polls show that many taxpayers are unaware of the potential financial exposure.

Floyd Cable, a real estate agent from Wichita Falls, Texas, said the escalating fines were part of the motivation for him and his wife to sign up last week. Both are self-employed, and stretching to pay health insurance premiums has been a struggle.

“We have been going without insurance the last couple of years just because the rates are so astronomical,” Cable said.

But they were also concerned they could wind up on the wrong side of rising penalties. And, being in his early 60s, Cable said he recognizes the value of having health insurance against unexpected illness.

An extension would probably help people still on the fence, like he was.

“Anything that could be done to give people more time to sort through this, is not only a good move for the administration, but just makes common sense,” Cable said.

Since both the subsidies and penalties under the health law are administered through the tax system, some experts have urged the Obama administration to permanently schedule sign-up season to overlap with tax-filing season.

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Mark Caserta: Obama’s denial emboldens terrorists

12 Feb
 Why will this president go to any length to protect the Islamic religion?
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FSP Editorial
Feb. 12, 2015 @ 12:01 AM

Displaying a level of brutality, shocking even by the standards of the previous horrific murders committed by the Islamic terrorist group ISIS, First Lieutenant Muath al Kaseasbeh, a Jordanian pilot, was recently burned alive inside a locked cage in the name of radical Islam. The barbarous act, which shocked the world, clearly defined the group’s willingness to viciously propagate the violent extremism of the Islamic State.

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But two days later, rather than simply condemn the act as a violent display of Islamic terrorism, Barack Hussein Obama used the bully pulpit at the National Prayer breakfast to persuade the world that violence rooted in religion isn’t exclusive to Islam, but has been carried out by Christians as well. In fact, he compared the ISIS atrocity to violent acts committed by Christians in the Crusades. He also said Christ was used as justification for slavery and radical discrimination in the United States.

“Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. Unless we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ,” the president said.

The comments were considered outrageous to many.

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“The president’s comments this morning at the prayer breakfast are the most offensive I’ve ever heard a president make in my lifetime,” said former Virginia governor Jim Gilmore, a Republican. “He has offended every believing Christian in the United States. This goes further to the point that Mr. Obama does not believe in America or the values we all share.”

Catholic League’s Bill Donohue says Obama should apologize for using the Crusades as an example of “terrible acts” by Christians, saying the crusades fought against Islamic jihad.

“The president should apologize for his insulting comparison,” Donohue said. “Obama’s ignorance is astounding and his comparison is pernicious.”

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Now, this president has always dismissed the idea of American exceptionalism. And frankly, his decision over the past six years to have the White House avoid the term “radical Islam” has brought to question Obama’s loyalty to America and the foundational principles on which our great nation was built.

Yet, anyone honestly assessing terrorism can easily conclude that Islamic extremism is at the very heart of murder and destruction in the world today. In fact, according to the non-partisan website, The Religion of Peace, over the last 40 years there have been 74 attacks on American soil by Islamic terrorists resulting in the murder of thousands of innocent people. We just simply don’t see attacks of this magnitude in the name of any other religion.

Let’s be clear. Islamic terrorism is flourishing under this president’s rule. His purposeful choice not to properly identify our enemy is indeed emboldening their mission.

As Obama continues to reject the notion that America is in a religious war based on the fundamental beliefs of the Islamic State, American’s lives are increasingly being placed at risk.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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The fiddling with temperature data is the biggest science scandal ever

8 Feb

New data shows that the “vanishing” of polar ice is not the result of runaway global warming

The “vanishing” of polar ice (and the polar bears) has become a poster-child for warmists. Photo: ALAMY

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By Christopher Booker

10:15PM GMT 07 Feb 2015

 When future generations look back on the global-warming scare of the past 30 years, nothing will shock them more than the extent to which the official temperature records – on which the entire panic ultimately rested – were systematically “adjusted” to show the Earth as having warmed much more than the actual data justified.

Two weeks ago, under the headline “How we are being tricked by flawed data on global warming”, I wrote about Paul Homewood, who, on his Notalotofpeopleknowthat blog, had checked the published temperature graphs for three weather stations in Paraguay against the temperatures that had originally been recorded. In each instance, the actual trend of 60 years of data had been dramatically reversed, so that a cooling trend was changed to one that showed a marked warming.

This was only the latest of many examples of a practice long recognised by expert observers around the world – one that raises an ever larger question mark over the entire official surface-

Following my last article, Homewood checked a swathe of other South American weather stations around the original three. In each case he found the same suspicious one-way “adjustments”. First these were made by the US government’s Global Historical Climate Network (GHCN). They were then amplified by two of the main official surface records, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies (Giss) and the National Climate Data Center (NCDC), which use the warming trends to estimate temperatures across the vast regions of the Earth where no measurements are taken. Yet these are the very records on which scientists and politicians rely for their belief in “global warming”.

 Homewood has now turned his attention to the weather stations across much of the Arctic, between Canada (51 degrees W) and the heart of Siberia (87 degrees E). Again, in nearly every case, the same one-way adjustments have been made, to show warming up to 1 degree C or more higher than was indicated by the data that was actually recorded. This has surprised no one more than Traust Jonsson, who was long in charge of climate research for the Iceland met office (and with whom Homewood has been in touch). Jonsson was amazed to see how the new version completely “disappears” Iceland’s “sea ice years” around 1970, when a period of extreme cooling almost devastated his country’s economy.

One of the first examples of these “adjustments” was exposed in 2007 by the statistician Steve McIntyre, when he discovered a paper published in 1987 by James Hansen, the scientist (later turned fanatical climate activist) who for many years ran Giss. Hansen’s original graph showed temperatures in the Arctic as having been much higher around 1940 than at any time since. But as Homewood reveals in his blog post, “Temperature adjustments transform Arctic history”, Giss has turned this upside down. Arctic temperatures from that time have been lowered so much that that they are now dwarfed by those of the past 20 years.

Homewood’s interest in the Arctic is partly because the “vanishing” of its polar ice (and the polar bears) has become such a poster-child for those trying to persuade us that we are threatened by runaway warming. But he chose that particular stretch of the Arctic because it is where ice is affected by warmer water brought in by cyclical shifts in a major Atlantic current – this last peaked at just the time 75 years ago when Arctic ice retreated even further than it has done recently. The ice-melt is not caused by rising global temperatures at all.

Of much more serious significance, however, is the way this wholesale manipulation of the official temperature record – for reasons GHCN and Giss have never plausibly explained – has become the real elephant in the room of the greatest and most costly scare the world has known. This really does begin to look like one of the greatest scientific scandals of all time.

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DOUG SMITH: General Motors dodges debt and responsibility

5 Feb

Just another company propped up at the taxpayer’s expense…

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Author and historian, Doug Smith, is a regular contributor to Free State Patriot.

General Motors is an incredibly generous company. The 48,000 UAW members who work for them are very lucky, indeed, and ought to be congratulated for their good fortune.

U.S. taxpayers lost more than $11.2 billion as a result of the federal bailout of General Motors, including an $826-million write-off in March of 2014. Government loans to bail out GM (have you written that check to the IRS yet?) totaled over $ 49 billion dollars.

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Meanwhile, GM reported a profit for the 2014 of $2.8 billion. Of course, it would have been twice that, except that GM had to spend $2.8 billion as they recalled over 13 million cars: more than the total number they sold since bankruptcy ( and that bailout on which you so generously lost $ 11 billion ) in 2009. They also had to set aside over $400 million (so far) for payments to settle claims for the (so far) 38 deaths and 51 injuries caused by the ignition switch.

GM admitted that its employees knew of for at least a decade before the recall. GM was forced during a lawsuit over one of those deaths in 2010 to admit both the defect and their employees’ knowledge of it. GM eventually was fined the maximum $35 million by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration for failing to report the fault within five business days, as the law requires. They are spending nearly $3 billion to fix the problem pay off the victims.

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I’m sure the families of 18-year-old Natasha Weigel, and the dozens of others killed by GM and its employees’ negligence and deliberate deception will find their payments quite generous, as will those with crippling, catastrophic injures, all because of GM, and its employees.

Indeed, I for one, am struck, nearly, (but not quite) speechless by the generosity of GM (with our money). GM s earning report, released today, includes the note that some 48,000 hourly employees (that is spelled UAW) will receive $9,000 in profit sharing bonuses.

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This is based on the profits before taking out half of it to pay for recalls, mind you, so they do not suffer any loss from the negligence and incompetence that sent out cars which proved to be instruments of death for 38 people. Furthermore, it is an increase over the $7,500 bonus paid last year, just a month before the Treasury wrote off that $ 826 million.

A little quick math helps to put it in perspective.

$7500 X 48,000 = $ 360,000,000

$9,000 X 48,000 = $ 432,000,000

$792 million in bonuses in 2 years for doing such a bang up job (Ooo, sorry about the pun) of making cars. Very generous, GM. The UAW is certainly did not have to take any $826 million bath on their money, like the rest of us did. Well done.

Of course, the UAW reflects that same spirit of generosity as its benefactors, GM, and us. In 2012, the United Auto Workers spent $11.8 million to help elect Democrats and President Barack Obama.

Or perhaps it was not so generous after all. Their return on that investment was 7,000%.

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Mark Caserta: Tax storm brewing over Obamacare

5 Feb

And it’s heading our direction…

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An FSP editorial

Feb. 05, 2015 @ 12:01 AM

The 2015 tax filing season will predictably leave a very sour taste in the mouths of millions of unsuspecting taxpayers.

The New York Times reported over the weekend that Obama administration officials are scrambling to avoid a “political firestorm” resulting from the individual mandate of the Affordable Care Act. Largely due to the opaque nature of the Obamacare rollout, many people still seem not to realize the individual mandate of the ACA forces everyone to purchase a government approved health care plan, even if you don’t want it, or be fined by the IRS.

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The penalties, approaching 1 percent of income for some households, are supposed to be paid with income taxes due April 15. Additionally, many people with subsidized coverage purchased through the new public insurance exchanges will need to repay some of the subsidies because they received more than they were entitled. Most people reportedly chose to have their subsidies paid in advance, based on projected income for 2014. If their actual income proves to be higher, due to a raise or a new job, they will be entitled to a smaller subsidy and must repay the difference.

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“If the advanced premium tax credit amount is too high, the taxpayer could have an unwelcome surprise and owe money,” said Nina E. Olson, the national taxpayer advocate at the Internal Revenue Service.

It seems that many people awarded insurance subsidies for 2014 didn’t realize the amount would be reviewed and recalculated at tax time in 2015. Go figure.

An estimated six million taxpayers will have to pay a fine this year because they chose “not” to obtain healthcare coverage in 2014. So understandably, the expectation for taxpayer questions is very high. But with budget cuts within the IRS, available support may be scarce.

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“The IRS is unlikely to answer even half the telephone calls it receives,” Olson added. “Taxpayers who manage to get through are expected to wait on hold for 30 minutes on average and considerably longer at peak times.”

Hardest hit in this healthcare horror are young healthy adults in their 20s or 30s who are being asked to shoulder the brunt of the costs to effectively subsidize the healthcare of older Americans. Those opting to remain uninsured will be subject to a penalty for each month they lacked coverage.

According to the Congressional Budget Office, roughly one million low-income Americans will pay a fine under Obamacare. So as with many young adults, not only will they not have healthcare, Barack Obama will still require them to shoulder some financial responsibility through a levied fine.

So, what do we have to show for this traumatization of nearly 20 percent of our economy? Based on the experts’ numbers, about 22 percent fewer Americans are now uninsured, at an estimated cost per person of around $50,000, based on a recent 10-year cost estimate by the CBO.

Yes, the Obama administration has certainly demonstrated some “shrewd” business tactics.

Regardless, many taxpayers are in for a rude awakening very soon. And this storm is still brewing.

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Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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Doug Smith: DESERTION AND OTHER LITTLE ‘FOIBLES’

28 Jan

WHAT 21ST CENTURY PRECEDENT WILL THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION SET?

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Regular FSP contributor, author and historian, Doug Smith

The US has not executed a deserter since WW2.  Deserters who simply go AWOL or overstay leave, and are caught or turn themselves in years later, are usually treated with disdain.  They are given prison sometimes, and a Bad Conduct or Dishonorable Discharge from the service.  The military does not spend time or manpower trying to find them.

However, as in the case of Pvt Eddie Slovick, who was executed, circumstances alter cases. He deserted in combat, refused to return to his unit, and put his refusal in writing.  It was a matter of good order and discipline, and his stupidity, that got him shot.

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So what about Bowe Bergdahl? Let s settle one thing right up front. He was given Sgt stripes as a matter of course for being a POW. He did not earn them. He was a POW because he deserted. I am not going to call him Sergeant.  So, about Mr. Bergdahl.

Hasn’t he suffered enough by being in captivity?  That is irrelevant. Suppose the robber who puts a gun in your face in the bank wrecks your car, which he stole, running from the cops and loses a leg. So what?  His injuries were the result of his own bad acts.  They do not lessen his responsibility for robbing you with a gun and destroying your car. And you would not be content with his consequences if you were the victim.

So, too, if a soldier deserts his post, lays down his weapon, and is subsequently captured, his guilt is not lessened.  Neither is his effect on good order and discipline.

Wouldn’t it be better to simply boot him out of the Army with a less than honorable discharge and make it all go away? Better for President Obama, perhaps, who is invested in him being a good guy? But not better for good order and discipline.

In the case of Bergdahl, the details of his desertion make it particularly egregious.

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He was vocal about his disaffection for the Army and the war, and his sympathy with the enemy, for some time before he actually deserted. He put down his weapon and made plans to desert and try to find the enemy, so this was not a spur of the moment thing. He did not “snap” and regret it at once. Also, he was deployed in a forward area, and deserted while on guard in a combat area.

As a result of his actions and the circumstances, the Army had to assume he was lost or captured, and in danger. So they sent out patrols to search for him.  Troops died in those operations, lured in and ambushed by the enemy knowing they were coming to look for this deserter.  The enemy and the Army had the situation of knowing that a troop went to the enemy as a blow to morale. (That the enemy did not receive him, that we know of, as a friend, is just bad planning on his part and not an extenuating circumstance.)

The results of his actions are as important to the case as his intent.

Remember, too, that he was a volunteer. He did not get drafted and then suffer PTSD from his war experiences.  He also had other options. If he felt morally opposed to the war and the Army, he could have gone to his CO and said so, refusing to fight.  He would still face disciplinary actions, possibly prison, and certainly a less than honorable discharge.  But he would not have deserted in the face of the enemy, and, by all appearances, tried to go over to the enemy.

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No, what he did was a truly bad act for a soldier. He deserted his post, and his comrades, and attempted to find and join the enemy.  That is the worst thing a comrade in arms in combat can do.  The Army, and the United States, should make a stern example of him and make it clear how totally unacceptable this was.

Should they shoot him? Well, that is for a General Court Martial to decide.  I would fill it with front line Officers and NCO s, and abide by their decision as to his punishment. If they shoot him, it would be just, since he put lives at risk, cost lives, and showed pusillanimous behavior in the face of the enemy.  (That is military speak for cowardice). If they hold with long standing tradition, and do not, then he should at least serve a long prison sentence, forfeit all pay and benefits, and receive a dishonorable discharge.  Send a message.

My guess is that if the Army resists the pressure from the President to overlook his little foibles, Obama will issue a pardon regardless of the sentence, arguing that his captivity was suffering enough. He will be wrong about that, just as he was wrong to trade 5 bad actors back in action against us for one bad actor from our side.

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Obamacare program costs $50,000 in taxpayer money for every American who gets health insurance, says bombshell budget report

26 Jan

It would have been cheaper just to purchase healthcare for those who didn’t have it…

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See the facts:

  • Stunning figure comes from Congressional Budget Office report that revised cost estimates for the next 10 years
  • Government will spend $1.993 TRILLION over a decade and take in $643 BILLION in new taxes, penalties and fees related to Obamacare
  • The $1.35 trillion net cost will result in ‘between 24 million and 27 million’ fewer Americans being uninsured – a $50,000 price tag per person at best
  • The law will still leave ‘between 29 million and 31 million’ nonelderly Americans without medical insurance
  • Numbers assume Obamacare insurance exchange enrollment will double between now and 2025 

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It will cost the federal government – taxpayers, that is – $50,000 for every person who gets health insurance under the Obamacare law, the Congressional Budget Office revealed on Monday.

The number comes from figures buried in a 15-page section of the nonpartisan organization’s new ten-year budget outlook.

The best-case scenario described by the CBO would result in ‘between 24 million and 27 million’ fewer Americans being uninsured in 2025, compared to the year before the Affordable Care Act took effect.

Pulling that off will cost Uncle Sam about $1.35 trillion – or $50,000 per head.

THE $2 TRILLION DOLLAR MAN: President Barack Obama was in India on Monday when the Congressional Budget Office reported the federal government’s gross costs for a decade of Obamacare will be $1.993 trillion

PROMISES: Obama pledged in 2009 during a speech before a joint session of Congress that his health insurance proposal would cost $900 billion over ten years – a far cry short of current numbers

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The numbers are daunting: It will take $1.993 trillion, a number that looks like $1,993,000,000,000, to provide insurance subsidies to poor and middle-class Americans, and to pay for a massive expansion of Medicaid and CHIP (Children’s Health Insurance Program) costs.

Offsetting that massive outlay will be $643 billion in new taxes, penalties and fees related to the Obamacare law.

That revenue includes quickly escalating penalties – or ‘taxes,’ as the U.S. Supreme Court described them – on people who resist Washington’s command to buy medical insurance.

It also includes income from a controversial medical device tax, which some Republicans predict will be eliminated in the next two years.

If they’re right, Obamacare’s per-person cost would be even higher.

OBAMA AT PRESS BRIEFING

President Barack Obama pledged to members of Congress in 2009, as his signature insurance overhaul law was being hotly debated, that ‘the plan I’m proposing will cost around $900 billion over 10 years.’

It would be a significant discount if the White House could return to that number today.

Obama in ’09: Obamacare won’t add one dime to deficit

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PRICEY: The federal government will spend $50,000 for each person recruited to buy insurance or neroll in free Medicaid through the Obamacare exchanges

In that same speech, Obama claimed that there were ‘more than 30 million American citizens who cannot get coverage.’

$900 billion spent on those people would equate to no more than $30,000 each – less than two-thirds of what the CBO now says the program will cost when the dust settles.

The CBO and the Joint Committee on Taxation, a group of members from both houses of Congress, prepared Monday’s report on the overall direction of the federal budget.

They estimated that ‘the net costs of the coverage provisions of the ACA [Affordable Care Act] will rise sharply as the effects of the act phase in from 2015 through 2017.’

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Those costs will ‘rise steadily through 2022′ before leveling off for three years, the groups’ economists determined. But even at that point, the Obamacare program will cost the governemnt ‘about $145 billion’ each year.

That number doesn’t include the insurance premiums and out-of-pocket health care costs paid by Americans – only the government’s role in implementing the law and paying for its guarantees.

And the law will still leave ‘between 29 million and 31 million’ nonelderly Americans without medical insurance, says the CBO.

CBO January 2015 Outlook on Obamacare uploaded by DailyMail.com

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Mark Caserta: Let’s truly work to create affordable healthcare

22 Jan

Obamacare just isn’t working

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FSP EDITORIAL

Jan. 22, 2015 @ 12:01 AM

It’s time to get serious about providing affordable healthcare for all Americans.

Most people are now keenly aware of the political motivation behind the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the lies and deceptive tactics needed to sell it to the American people. A recent Gallup Poll taken at the beginning of the 2015 enrollment period revealed 37 percent of Americans say they approve of the law, while 56 percent say they disapprove.

It’s also now known the enrollment numbers provided by the Obama administration touting the success of Obamacare were inaccurate. The Department of Health and Human Services recently reported that it had made a “mistake” in calculating the number of enrollments.

Reportedly, 380,000 stand-alone dental plans were “inadvertently” added into the number of healthcare plans, allowing the administration to claim more than 7 million paid enrollments, the “magic number” needed for the new health insurance exchanges to be sustainable.

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Just last week, the leader of the agency charged with the rollout of Obamacare decided to step down. Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, decided to step down after five tumultuous years on the job. Her tenure included the disastrous rollout of the HealthCare.gov website as well as the recent discovery of the inflated tally of Obamacare’s enrollment numbers.

But even without the inflated numbers, the exchanges have lost more than 1 million subscribers since May 2014, based on Tavenner’s recent testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Tavenner attributed this to people picking up employer coverage, becoming eligible for Medicaid or simply not paying their premiums.

While proponents of this healthcare nightmare understandably ignore the falsehoods leveraged by this administration to pass the law, they rarely speak about the estimated 5 million people who lost their coverage because it “didn’t meet the ACA guidelines.” No doubt millions of these individuals were forced to purchase a replacement policy from an exchange, seriously compromising the legitimacy of the number of “newly” insured individuals.

And Americans found it insulting that liberal proponents of Obamacare would pompously justify the loss of those existing healthcare plans by declaring they were “inadequate” for the people who chose to purchase them. After all, big government knows best.

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Possibly making matters even worse for the ACA, the Supreme Court will soon decide whether the law provides for healthcare subsidies to people in the 36 states which declined to set up their own healthcare exchange and ended up on the federal exchanges instead. If the court kills Obamacare’s subsidies, more than 4 million people will likely see higher premiums, possibly forcing them to drop coverage altogether.

Liberals have made this simply about “winning.” The goal should be to provide everyone affordable healthcare and Obamacare simply isn’t working.

And once the ACA is replaced, it will be the government’s responsibility to ensure that no person who purchased health insurance from an exchange loses their coverage period.

Voting to repeal Obamacare isn’t enough. The GOP must first provide a visible, well-vetted alternative.

For now, Americans are simply waiting.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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OBAMACARE PENALTY COULD BE LARGER THAN EXPECTED

19 Jan

Some people will have no insurance and still have to pay their “shared responsibility” payment to Obama!

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Those Americans who didn’t get health insurance last year could be in for a rude awakening when the IRS asks them to fork over their Obamacare penalty — and it could be a lot more than the $95 many of them may be expecting.

The Affordable Care Act requires those who didn’t have insurance last year and didn’t qualify for one of the exemptions to pay a tax penalty, which was widely cited as $95 the first year. But the $95 is actually a minimum, and middle- and upper-income families will actually end up paying 1 percent of their household income as their penalty.

“People would hear the $95, quit listening, and make an assumption that that was what their penalty was going to be,” said Chuck Lovelace, vice president of affordable care for Liberty Tax Service. “I think that a lot of people will be surprised when they get in there and find out that their penalty is [based] on their household income.”

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The penalty is designed to prod Americans to buy insurance and the penalty for not having it is scheduled to rise considerably: to a $325 minimum or 2 percent of income in 2015, and to a $695 minimum or 2.5 percent of income in 2016.

This Aug. 21, 2014, file photo shows health care tax forms 8962, … more >

Tax experts said those stung by a higher penalty the first year may buy plans to escape the penalty the next year.

“We will be showing them what the penalty is,” said Jackie Perlman, principal tax research analyst at The Tax Institute at H&R Block, said of this year’s customers. “But we will also be telling them, ‘How do we not go down this road next year?’”

The tax industry and government officials have been trying to prepare filers for the changes since the Affordable Care Act was signed in 2010, but tax preparers still expect to get strange looks when they inquire about their customers’ health insurance.

“You might think it’s a question that a tax preparer shouldn’t be asking, but we have to ask that,” Ms. Perlman said.

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Tax experts said mixing Obamacare with the annual tax filing season is a major adjustment, and it comes even as the IRS, blaming budget cuts, says it won’t be able to even answer a majority of help calls, and those who do get through will have to wait an average of 30 minutes.

Gearing up for the challenge, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell spoke to more than 100 volunteer tax preparers Friday.

Most taxpayers will only have to check a box asserting they had their own insurance, usually through their employer. But those who bought insurance on the Obamacare exchanges with the help of federal subsidies will have to reconcile their payments with their income level.

Some people will get money back, although those who failed to report raises or bonuses to their respective health exchanges will pay back some amount of subsidy.

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HealthCare.gov, the federal exchange that serves 37 states, started to mail out 1095-A forms to customers last week, and state-run exchanges say they will meet the end-of-month deadline to postmark theirs.

But the subsidies were paid directly to insurers, and not the Obamacare customer, so filers might not remember them or realize they need the form.

It’s a short wait for the 1095-A — about two weeks — but tax experts fear some taxpayers, looking to get a jump on the process and with a W-2 already in hand from their employers, will file without waiting for the Obamacare form, causing problems and delaying their refund.

“Hopefully, we’ve communicated that to our customers,” Mr. Lovelace said. “But as a general rule, I’m not sure that the population out there is understanding it.”

obamacare 3 years later Affordable Care Act Fair Draws Floridians As Enrollmnent Deadline Looms

Filers who ignored the exchanges, or couldn’t get insured through government programs or a job, may qualify for an exemption from the individual mandate and avoid penalties.

Some of the exemptions are baked into the law — ones for prisoners, members of Indian tribes or the Amish, for example — while others may qualify for far-reaching “hardship exemptions” from the Obama administration.

Mark Steber, chief tax officer for Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, noted that filers can only apply for certain exemptions on their actual tax forms, making it one of the trickier aspects to navigate under Obamacare.

Someone who doesn’t take advantage of an exemption will end up paying more than they should.

“I would say the exemption area is one opportunity for missteps,” Mr. Steber said, “both by a taxpayer or a tax preparer.”

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Free State Patriot – Year in review!

31 Dec

a 2014

A note from the editor: 

I want to thank all those who helped make this a banner year for FSP!  I am so blessed to have the smartest followers in the blogging world. Thanks for all your comments and shares!  Thanks to all those who have contributed columns and a special thanks to my regular contributors, S.H. Townsend and Doug Smith.  And I can’t thank enough my son Aaron, for his masterful design of the FSP brand.  I love you son!

God Bless everyone in the New Year.  Now let’s go out there and “make a difference”.

2015 is our year!

Mark Caserta

FSP editor

Scroll down to view this year’s highlights.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,100 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

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