Tag: health insurance tax credits

Gerson: ‘The Other IRS Scandal’

By
Michael F. Cannon

The Washington Post’s Michael Gerson writes that the IRS’s suppression of tea-party groups and the subsequent cover-up are the second-largest scandal haunting the agency.

Drawing from my article (with Jonathan Adler) on the illegal IRS rule meant to save Obamacare, Gerson concludes:

The IRS seized the authority to spend about $800 billion over 10 years on benefits that were not authorized by Congress. And the current IRS scandal puts this decision in a new light…

The whole enterprise [of Obamacare] is precariously perched atop a flimsy bureaucratic excuse. And the agency providing that excuse is a discredited mess.

When the IRS suppresses speech by the president’s political opponents, that’s nothing to sneeze at. Neither is it anything to sneeze at when the IRS tries to spend almost a trillion dollars against the express wishes of Congress.

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Health Care, Law and Civil Liberties, Regulatory Studies, Tax and Budget Policy

Targeting the Tea Party Isn’t the IRS’s Most Egregious Abuse of Power

By
Michael F. Cannon

Not by a longshot. 

As Jonathan Adler and I explain in this law journal article, and as I explain somewhat more accessibly in this Cato paper, the IRS is trying to tax, borrow, and spend $800 billion in clear violation of federal law and congressional intent.

Yes, you read that right: $800 billion.

Topics: 
General, Government and Politics, Health Care

More Questions for Secretary Sebelius

By
Michael F. Cannon

Given the growing concern even among Democrats that ObamaCare will result in a “huge train wreck” later this year, I have a few questions for Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to add to my previous list:

  1. What happens if a federal court (say, the Eastern District of Oklahoma) issues an injunction barring HHS from making “advance payments of tax credits” in the 33 states with federal Exchanges?
  2. Has HHS done any planning for that contingency? If so, what are those contingency plans?
  3. If HHS has not, why not? Given that the Congressional Research Service and Harvard Law Review both say there’s a credible case that the PPACA forbids tax credits in the 33 states with federal Exchanges, how could HHS not have a contingency plan ready?

For more on how HHS is violating federal law by planning to issue advance payments of tax credits through federal Exchanges, read my Cato white paper, “50 Vetoes: How States Can Stop the Obama Health Care Law,” and my Health Matrix article (with Jonathan Adler), “Taxation Without Representation: The Illegal IRS Rule to Expand Tax Credits Under the PPACA.”

Topics: 
Cato Publications, General, Government and Politics, Health Care

Questions for Secretary Sebelius

By
Michael F. Cannon

Secretary of Health and Humans Services Kathleen Sebelius has been making the rounds on Capitol Hill, testifying in favor of President Obama’s proposed budget and generally trying to assure members of Congress that all is well with ObamaCare implementation. Even supporters of the law are freaking out nervous, as I discuss here.

Since everyone else is pestering Sebelius with questions, I thought I would post some questions I would like to hear her answer.

Read the rest of this post »

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Health Care

Ohio, Missouri Introduce the Health Care Freedom Act 2.0

By
Michael F. Cannon

Ohio Reps. Ron Young (R-Leroy Twp.) and Andy Thompson (R-Marietta), and Missouri Sen. John Lamping (R-St. Louis County), have introduced legislation—we call it the Health Care Freedom Act 2.0—that would suspend the licenses of insurance carriers who accept federal subsidies through one of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s (PPACA) health insurance Exchanges. At first glance, that might seem to conflict with or otherwise be preempted by the PPACA. Neither is the case. Instead, the HCFA 2.0 would require the IRS to implement the PPACA as Congress intended.

Here’s why. Under the PPACA, if an employer doesn’t purchase a government-prescribed level of health benefits, some of its workers may become eligible to purchase subsidized coverage through a health insurance “exchange.” When the IRS issues the subsidy to an insurance company on behalf of one of those workers, that payment triggers penalties against the employer. Firms with 100 employees could face penalties as high as $140,000.

Congress authorized those subsides, and therefore those penalties, only in states that establish a health insurance Exchange. If a state defers that task to the federal government, as 33 states including Missouri and Ohio have done, the PPACA clearly provides that there can be no subsidies and therefore no penalties against employers. The IRS has nevertheless announced it will implement those subsidies and penalties in the 33 states that have refused to establish Exchanges. Applying those measures in non-establishing states violates the clear language of the PPACA and congressional intent. See Jonathan H. Adler and Michael F. Cannon, “Taxation Without Representation: The Illegal IRS Rule to Expand Tax Credits Under the PPACA,” Health Matrix: Journal of Law-Medicine 23 (2013): 119-195.

Whether legal or illegal, those penalties also violate the freedoms protected by the Health Care Freedom Amendment to Ohio’s Constitution, and Missouri’s original Health Care Freedom Act, which voters in each state ratified by overwhelming majorities. The Ohio (HB 91) and Missouri (SB 473) bills would protect employers and workers from those penalties, and thereby uphold the freedoms enshrined in Missouri statute and Ohio’s Constitution, by suspending the licenses of insurance carriers that accept those subsidies.

The question arises whether the PPACA would preempt such a law. It does not. The HCFA 2.0 neither conflicts with federal law, nor attempts to nullify federal law, nor is preempted by federal law.

The HCFA 2.0 concerns a field of law—insurance licensure—that has traditionally been a province of the states under their police powers. In preemption cases, courts “start with the assumption that the historic police powers of the States were not to be superseded by the Federal Act unless that was the clear and manifest purpose of Congress.” Wyeth v. Levine, 129 S. Ct. 1187, 1194-95 (2009). Courts then must determine whether the state law in question is nevertheless trumped by express or implied federal preemption.

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Topics: 
General, Government and Politics, Health Care, Law and Civil Liberties

Politico Has Been Reading My Email

By
Michael F. Cannon

From today’s Politico Pulse:

OBAMACARE LAWSUIT RECRUITMENT 101: START WITH THE INTERNS - Cato Institute’s libertarian mastermind Michael Cannon appealed to former interns of the right-leaning group to join an “exciting” legal challenge to Obamacare. Cannon is among the top proponents of a legal theory that suggests the health law forbids federal subsidies to people accessing insurance through a federally run insurance exchange.

—”To see if you might qualify, have a look at this checklist,” Cannon writes in a “Dear former Cato Intern” letter. “There are income criteria, plus you must live in one of 33 states, prefer to purchase no health insurance (or low-cost catastrophic insurance), et cetera. If you believe you meet the criteria for at least one of the three categories, email me … to learn more about how you can get involved in this exciting legal challenge, and jump on this chance to make history. Feel free to forward this email to others who may be interested.” The checklist: http://bit.ly/12lJ8Yb.

Thanks, guys. Might as well tell everybody, now. (And “right-leaning”? Seriously?)

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Health Care, Law and Civil Liberties

Issa: IRS Is Violating ObamaCare by Illegally Taxing Employers in 33 States

By
Michael F. Cannon

House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform chairman Darrell Issa (R-CA) writes in the Washington Examiner: 

To combat the sticker shock of Obamacare’s numerous requirements on health insurance premiums, the law creates expensive subsidies, which take the form of tax credits, for individuals who purchase a government-approved insurance plan. In order to avoid the appearance of a federal takeover of health care, the law ties the availability of these premium tax credits to an “Exchange established by the State.” Importantly, the way the law was written, if tax credits are not available within a state, then the expensive employer mandate tax does not apply to companies within that state.

With so many states refusing to play the role the law’s drafters envisioned, the Obama administration has embarked on a legally dubious effort to bypass the plain language of the law. Obama’s IRS has issued a rule that delivers the expensive subsidies through federally run exchanges as well. If it stands, this extralegal rule will undermine the decision-making role offered to states by Obamacare, and cause hundreds of billions of dollars of taxes and spending not authorized by the president’s health care law…

The language that limits tax credits to state-established exchanges should not now shock Obamacare’s supporters. Early in 2009, legal scholar Timothy Jost, one of Obamacare’s leading proponents, explicitly suggested linking the tax credits to state-established exchanges as a way to encourage states to set up the exchanges.

The Obama administration may be surprised and disappointed that many states have not found the refundable tax credit to be a sufficient incentive to set up their own exchanges, exposing their citizens to the other taxes and penalties associated with the law. But this does not justify the administration’s effort to ignore the plain language of the law that Obama championed and signed.

For more on this issue, see Jonathan Adler’s and my Health Matrix article, “Taxation Without Representation: The Illegal IRS Rule to Expand Tax Credits Under the PPACA.”

Topics: 
Government and Politics, Health Care

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