College Endowments and Donations on the Taxing Block?

Congress is looking at college and university endowments and at their donors as a source of revenue. Tax endowment fund earnings have been exempted from federal income tax and those who contributed to such endowment funds were able to “deduct the value of their contributions from income subject to tax.”

A recent CRS report is advising Congress on their “options for changing their tax treatment” in order to increase federal revenue and to “encourage additional spending from endowments on specific purposes” such as tuition assistance. This administration has promised free tuition and it must find ways to fund that promise. http://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/R44293.pdf

The policy options discussed were as follows:

1.      “A payout requirement, possibly similar to that imposed on private foundations, requiring a certain percentage of fund be paid out annually in support of charitable activities; (distributing more financial aid to students)

2.      A tax on endowment earnings;

3.      A limitation on the charitable deduction for certain gifts to endowments; (some of the endowment money is spent over a long period of time yet the donor takes the entire tax deduction immediately)

4.      A change to the tax treatment of certain debt-financed investments in strategies often employed by endowments.” (off shore investment for example)

The report did not discuss the ever-escalating cost of higher education but it did mention Senator Chuck Grassley’s and Representative Peter Welch’s 2008 round table discussion, “Maximizing the Use of Endowment Funds and Making Higher Education More Affordable.” http://www.finance.senate.gov/newsroom/ranking/release/?id=38a762b5-0fc7-4a9c-a130-3ddf23812279

A hearing of the House Ways and Means Committee focused on “The Rising Costs of Higher Education and Tax Policy” is also mentioned. http://waysandmeans.house.gov/event/39840295/

A university maintains a fund called endowment in either cash or property. Income from any endowment can be used to cover the operating costs and capital expenditures, to fund special projects, or to reinvest. Universities can have hundreds or thousands of funds, based on special agreements made with various individuals who donate with strings attached such as how the fund is to be used, when, and how the principal or the income earned are to be used.

Some endowments are dedicated to scholarships and others to faculty support. A true endowment is a permanent endowment. When a period of restriction expires, the university can use the funds as they wish – these are considered term-endowments. General gifts and bequests are considered quasi-endowments. Congress is looking at all three types of university endowments.

Endowments are tax-exempt because they are part of tax-exempt 501(c)(3) organizations or the endowment itself has a 501 (c)(3) tax-exempt status. Any contribution to such endowments is tax deductible to a contributor under the Internal Revenue Code Section 170. Additionally, any investment earnings of an endowment are also tax free. A university is considered charitable and educational in purpose and it is thus tax exempt.

According to the writers of the CRS report, “College and University Endowments: Overview and Tax Policy Options,” dated December 2, 2015, “If the return from endowments of colleges and universities were taxed currently at 35%, the revenue gain is estimated at $16.2 billion for FY2014. If only private universities and colleges were subject to a tax, the gain would be estimated at $11.1 billion, since public institutions are responsible for 31.7% of assets.” (p. 7)

The data for this report was collected from the U.S. Department of Education, the National Association of College and University Business Officers (NACUBO), and the Internal Revenue Service. The report lists 25 private colleges with the highest per student endowments. The top ten listed are Yale, Princeton, Harvard, Stanford University, MIT, Rice, University of Chicago, Pomona College, Swarthmore College, and Amherst College. (pp. 11-12)

The CRS report also lists the top 100 colleges and universities with large endowments and their cumulative share. (p. 28)

Statistics show that the average endowment per student in 2014 at private doctoral-granting universities was $214,300 and the median was $70,900. (p. 12)

The total college and university endowment for 2014 was $516 billion, with assets concentrated with 11 percent of institutions holding 74 percent of endowments. Yale, Princeton, Harvard, and Stanford held each more than 4 percent of total endowment assets. (Summary, p. 2)

The average payout rate (spending) from endowments was 4.4 percent and endowments earned a 15.5 percent average rate of return in 2014, resulting in income of $79 billion. (p. 16) According to the CRS chart, the payout rate has oscillated between 4.2-5.1 percent from 1998 through 2014. (p. 14)

College and university endowments make investments in equities (buying stocks in a company, derived dividends, and capital gains from the sale of the stock), fixed income (U.S. Treasuries, money market instruments, mortgage and asset-backed securities, and bonds), and alternative investment strategies (hedge funds and private equity).

College and university endowments could be a potential cash cow for the federal government in need of additional revenue to add to its spending ceilings, exacerbating the $18.8 trillion in national debt.

 

The Big Lie

Puppet Shop window in Florence
Photo: Wikipedia

While the country is busy blaming the measles outbreak at Disneyland on the official story line that it came from “overseas,” and the main stream media is pushing the agenda of vaccination, blaming the outbreak on the statistically insignificant number of Americans who refuse to vaccinate their children, the media is deliberately ignoring the elephant in the room, the illegal aliens bussed and flown in continuously since last year by this administration from countries where measles is endemic because of lack of vaccination and poor or non-existent healthcare.

The media is also gloating over the 5.6% unemployment rate which the Chairman and CEO of Gallup, Jim Clifton, described in his article as “The Big Lie:  5.6% Unemployment.” “The official unemployment rate, which cruelly overlooks the suffering of the long-term and often permanently unemployed as well as the depressingly underemployed, amounts to a Big Lie.” http://www.gallup.com/opinion/chairman/181469/big-lie-unemployment.aspx

While Americans have been told that their refunds may be delayed due to Obamacare penalties and calculations for those who may owe money to the IRS for overpaid subsidies, illegal aliens, as usual, are getting the red carpet treatment with taxpayer dollars. American taxpayers have to file an additional form, 8962, with 12 rows and 6 columns (72 boxes), to compute subsidies for each month of 2014.

“Consumers may be subject to tax penalties for any month in which they had neither insurance coverage nor an exemption.”

Do not expect speedy service or prompt answers from the IRS as they are busy with other issues. Thirty types of exemptions from penalty have been set up by the federal government, including for those in states that did not expand Medicaid, religious beliefs, or premiums higher than 8% of household income. Documentation must be provided to the IRS for such hardships.

Illegal aliens, who were working under the radar of the IRS were encouraged to pay taxes via the Individual Taxpayer Identification Number (ITIN). Many illegals took advantage of this loophole and claimed numerous children in the country and outside of the country under the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) to the tune of $4.2 billion in 2010.  

According to Washington Times, “IRS Commissioner John Koskinen confirmed Tuesday that illegal immigrants granted amnesty from deportation under President Obama’s new policies would be able to get extra funds from the IRS for money they earned while working illegally, as long as they filed returns during those years.“ http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/feb/3/irs-offers-extra-tax-refunds-to-illegal-immigrants/#ixzz3QnJt4B1q

The new amnestied illegals, will receive official Social Security numbers, enabling them to file retroactively three years for Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC), “potentially claiming billions of dollars in additional payments they were ineligible for before the amnesty.” The Earned Income Tax Credit was established in 1975 for American citizens whose income fell below the federal poverty line.

Likely 4 million illegal immigrants are going to receive this administration’s “deferred action” or “deportation stay,” and thus work permits. Supporters of ITINs and EITCs say that it would be “unfair” to withhold billions from children who are likely U.S. citizens anyway because they became “anchor babies” when their illegal moms gave birth in this country.

In the meantime, while you lost your doctor, your premiums skyrocketed, the deductibles went through the roof, co-pays were larger than ever, your medical care took a dive, had to see a nurse practitioner, and you had to drop your good health insurance and accept substandard insurance on the Obamacare exchanges, the illegal aliens are receiving income tax refunds and free medical care, while you are trying to find three jobs to replace the one full-time job you lost because of the Affordable Care Act mandates. But, on the bright side, if you are a man, you now have free contraceptives.

 

Exit Tax

A former student who was passed over for an engineering position was lamenting the fact that corporations and politicians complain about the United States not having enough qualified science majors for hire in order to justify bringing into the U.S. lower paid engineers from emerging economies.

It is hard enough having a worthless liberal college degree with no chance of employment. It is much harder to understand how an engineer cannot find a job in this “growing and rosy” economy.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) released the data showing that the third quarter GDP rose to 3.1 percent. That is fantastic news say the MSM pundits. We are rolling in recovery. Never mind that much of the increase came from government spending for national defense, restocking of business inventories, consumer spending in the form of durable goods such as cars and car parts, and the higher costs of health care and of mundane commodities such as food and gasoline. For proper disclosure, I must say that food and gasoline are no longer counted in the Consumer Price Index, a.k.a. inflation. We would not want these commodities that hardly anybody consumes to mess up the rosy economic talking points.

Aside from the fact that it is President Bush’s fault, what is a college graduate to do who cannot find a job or an unemployed engineer? Should they move back in with mom and dad, should they go on welfare, or should they live from savings or a trust fund? Living from special savings, a trust fund, selling stock, a house, a car, a motorcycle, or cashing out mutual funds sounds more independent, however, there are capital gains taxes that must be paid and these are going to go up significantly after January 1, 2013.

Many companies are paying next year’s dividends to their shareholders now in order to avoid a huge tax bill increase. Costco is paying out a special dividend of $7 per share to stockholders, for a total of $3 billion. “To pay for the dividend, Costco is going to sell $3.5 billion in debt and it will buy back some shares as well.” Taxes on corporate dividends are expected to go up from the current 15 percent to as much as 39.6 percent. Costco (warehouse store), Carnival (cruise ships), Brown-Forman (liquor) are borrowing money to pay these dividends called dividend recaps. (http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/12/03/costco-fiscal-cliff-dividend/)

Americans could migrate to other states without state tax or to other countries without confiscatory federal taxes. Gérard Depardieu did just that – he gave up his French passport and moved to Belgium. It was not that Gérard Depardieu, a beloved French actor who delighted people around the world with his fabulous acting and directing, is not patriotic; au contraire mon frere, he said, he had paid 85 percent of his income in taxes last year. He was just tired of being ripped off by France’s greedy socialist government who wanted to confiscate even more. After all, what is “fairer” or more “socially just” (to quote progressives) than to take from the “undeserving rich” who worked hard to create their wealth and income, and to give to the poor who are entitled to everything free for life, no effort necessary?

Americans could migrate and give up their citizenship or green card held for at least 8 years or more, but then, they have to pay the piper - exit taxes.

The Heroes Earnings Assistance and Relief Tax Act of 2008 (The HEART Act) applies to U.S. citizens who expatriate and long-term U.S. permanent residents who give up their green cards. The exit tax is levied on “unrealized gains on all assets in the U.S. and worldwide, including grantor trusts, as well as any future gifts or bequests to U.S. citizens and residents.” (http://www.isla-offshore.com/second-passport/usa-expats-exit-tax/)

Eduardo Saverin of Facebook had already paid capital gains taxes before he decided to move his fortune out of the United States. The co-founder of Facebook is said to have saved $67 million in taxes by moving out. Unhappy with the outcome, Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) proposed a bill to tax expatriates 30 percent unless they show that renouncing U.S. citizenship was not based on tax avoidance. The proposed bill, the “Expatriation Prevention by Abolishing Tax-Related Incentives for Offshore Tenancy (Ex-Patriot) would bar re-entry into the U.S. (http://www.forbes.com/sites/robertwood/2012/05/18/expats-face-steep-exit-tax-courtesy-of-facebook/)

The expatriation tax appeared first in U.S. tax law as the Foreign Investors Tax Act of 1966 (FITA). “FITA introduced Sections 877, 2107, and 2501 to the Internal Revenue Code.” According to Stephen M. Moskowitz, Esq. and Anthony V. Diosdi, Esq., the computation is quite complex and includes income such as gains from the sale or exchange of stock and property, or debt obligations issued by a U.S. person or company. (http://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/just-how-is-the-expatriation-tax-calcula-40024/)

I came across a form of exit tax when I left my country. In order to receive a visa for permanent non-citizen residence in the U.S., I had to pay a tax for all the government benefits I had received in my first twenty years of life, schooling, medical care, subsidized concrete block housing, pot-holed road use, constant police surveillance, and other “services” I was not even aware existed or received. I was worried since I had no penny to my name and I knew I would not be able to leave without paying. The final figure was provided to me after months of deliberation and computation by the communist party apparatchiks – my freedom was worth exactly $160 U.S. dollars. I owned a Japanese boom box, it was the rage back then, which I sold quickly for $160, and paid my “exit tax.” This cleared my name - I did not owe anything to the government of Romania, for the communist care and education I had received. I was finally free.

The far reaching arm of the IRS may not be so cheap if American citizens run afoul of the proposed 30 percent exit tax. No matter how you exit the U.S., dead or alive, you are going to be taxed to the max. So, it is true, the only certainties in life are death and taxes.

 

 

 

 

 

My Doctor Is Now the IRS

The Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, “A Brief Overview of the Law, Implementation, and Legal Challenges,” gives a new definition to Nancy Pelosi’s statement that we had “to pass Obamacare to find out what’s in it.” Not only did Congressmen not read the 2,700 page law before they voted and passed it by twisting arms and briberies, but they now have to be informed of the disaster they have created. (C. Stephen Redhead, Hinda Chaikind, Bernadette Fernandez, Jennifer Staman, July 3, 2012)

The unfortunately named Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010, passed by 111^th Congress, touted the following:

-          increased access to health insurance coverage (not necessarily access to health care)

-         expansion of federal private health insurance market requirements

-         creation of health insurance exchanges to provide individuals and small employers with access to insurance

-         expansion of Medicaid coverage

The federal government pledged to cover the cost of the most massive bureaucratic expansion of our health care system by an increase in tax revenues and reduction in spending on Medicare and other federal health programs.

According to the Congressional Budget Office estimates, Obamacare will add at least $1 trillion dollars to spending over the next ten years. Since we are already broke, do we really need more spending we cannot afford?

As soon as Obamacare became law, the legal challenges began. Individuals, states, and other groups sued on constitutional grounds - the forced mandate for individuals to purchase health insurance being beyond Congress’s enumerated powers. The states sued because the expansion of Medicaid infringed on states’ rights, forcing them to accept “onerous conditions in exchange for federal funds.”

The Supreme Court issued on June 28, 2012 its decision on National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius. The findings were as follows:

-         “the individual mandate is a constitutional exercise of Congress’s authority to levy taxes”

-         “the individual mandate is not a valid exercise of Congress’s power under the Commerce Clause or the Necessary and Proper Clause”

-         “In regards to the Medicaid expansion, the federal government cannot terminate current Medicaid program federal matching funds if a state refuses to expand its Medicaid program”

-         “If a state accepts the new Obamacare Medicaid expansion funds, it must abide by the new expansion coverage rules”

-         A state can refuse to participate in the expansion without losing any of its current federal Medicaid matching funds”

-         “All other provisions of Obamacare remain intact” (ACA: Summary, July 3, 2012)

The Supreme Court, using semantics in its decision, changed the law written and passed by Congress, making the individual mandate a “tax.” Justice Roberts used the opportunity to make his mark in “judicial activism from the bench” history, by siding with the liberals.

“While most of the major provisions of the law do not take effect until 2014, some provisions are already in place, with others to be phased in over the next few years,” more specifically, 2018. (CRS Report for Congress, July 3, 2012)

Temporary programs were created for “targeted groups.” These programs were responsible for the premium escalation of everybody’s health insurance since 2010. The targeted groups were:

-         High-risk uninsured individuals with preexisting conditions

-         Reinsurance program to reimburse employers for a portion of the health insurance claims costs for 55-64 year old retirees (unions must be protected)

-         Small business tax credits for businesses with less than 25 full-time “equivalents” (FTEs), average wages below $50,000 who choose to offer health insurance.(suddenly, employees have become “equivalents” in federal jargon)

-         Prior to 2014, “states may choose voluntarily to expand their Medicaid programs”

Private health insurance changes have taken effect and are responsible for such increase in premiums that eventually everybody will be forced into the federal health exchanges, including “children” under the age of 26.

-         Children under 19 cannot be denied insurance and benefits based on preexisting conditions

-         Major medical plans cannot impose any lifetime dollar limits on essential health benefits and are prohibited from doing so beginning in 2014 (Does anyone believe that these companies will stay in business after 2014?)

-         Preventive care with no cost sharing must be provided

-         Coverage cannot be rescinded except in case of fraud

-         Insurers must have an appeals process for coverage and claims (I thought that existed already, are they trying to reinvent the wheel?)

-         Insurers have to limit the ratio of premiums spent on administrative costs v. medical costs – called the medical loss ratio, MLRs.

I predict that most private insurers will be pushed out of business. Americans will be forced into a government health insurance exchange, a privilege for which they will have to pay a tax determined by the omnipotent government. A 15-member bureaucratic death panel will deny as much medical care as possible based on age and utility of a “unit” (person) in order to save money.

Obamacare is so great that the ruling elites and Congress have exempted themselves from it. We will have a two tier healthcare system, just like under communism, the elites will have their private hospitals and polyclinics while the proletariat will become part of the exchanges where shortages, rationing, and denial of care will dominate.  

Health care will be financed, organized, and delivered according to the rules of the IRS and HHS. Poor families will receive subsidies to purchase coverage through health exchanges. Excise taxes will be imposed on those who can afford Cadillac plans. The tax code, Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, and other federal programs will be modified in order to reduce benefits for rationing purposes and to tax those able to pay more.

As enacted, Obamacare “requires state Medicaid programs to expand coverage to all eligible non-pregnant legal residents with incomes up to 133% of the federal poverty level, or risk losing their federal Medicaid matching funds.” The Supreme Court, however, found that the Medicaid expansion violated the Constitution. (CRS, p. 6)

Obamacare will make the doctor shortage worse. It has already caused the cancellation of many doctor-owned hospitals. Thousands of new bureaucrats will take over our health care system while the federal government will replace American trained physicians, who might leave the profession, with third world doctors. Plans to admit students to medical school based on racial and ethnic quotas and not merit, involving shorter training, will exacerbate the problem and deliver substandard care.

Doctors will be paid the same regardless of specialty and the government will set all doctors’ fees. (ACA, p. 241, p. 253)

Based on the Massachusetts model of Romneycare, the average wait to see a doctor will expand similarly from 33 days to over 55 days. Patients will have to pay for life-saving drugs but life-ending drugs will be free. If health care for everyone is important, shouldn’t life-saving drugs be free instead of life-ending drugs?

The government will specify which doctors will write an end-of-life order. (p. 429) Patients on social security will be required to attend end-of-life planning seminars every five years, a sort of death counseling, and a mandated advanced-care planning consultation. (p. 425)

Oncology hospitals will ration cancer care according to the patient’s age. (p. 272, section 1145)

IRS will control the enforcing of Obamacare, have direct and mandated access to our bank accounts, will levy 20 new taxes, will control costs,  promote efficiency, and, in the process, will reduce our life expectancy by denying needed care - that will kill many Americans before their time.

IRS will have real-time access to an individual’s bank account and will have the authority to make electronic fund transfers from those accounts. (ACA, pp. 58-59)

The Congressional Budget Office and the Joint Committee on Taxation cost projections for Obamcare do not include the Supreme Court’s decision, which precludes HHS Secretary Sebelius from penalizing states that choose not to participate in the Medicaid expansion. (CRS Report, July 3, 2012, p. 5)

If a state decides not to implement the Medicaid expansion, “low-income adults below the poverty line who were not covered by, or eligible for, the state’s existing Medicaid program would in general be ineligible for the exchange subsidies.” (CRS Report, p. 8)

Low-income Americans would have to pay for the health exchange out of their own pockets. The very people President Obama vowed to help with his mandate are now being taxed by his regime because they merely exist and the government knows what is best for them.

If the medical profession is allowed to unionize and thus strike, a new Pandora’s Box will be opened. Recently in the UK, unionized doctors and nurses went on strike, leaving patients without care, while scheduled surgeries were postponed.

David Martin, Executive President of the Media Research Center, said, “the media played a role in deceiving Americans about the impact of this horrific law, regurgitating verbatim every lie told by the Obama Administration. Every promise the media and the Obama Administration made about Obamacare – that it would make healthcare cheaper without increasing taxes or deficits, that you can keep your doctor, the businesses would not be hit with crippling regulations and taxes – has been broken.” (June 28, 2012)

Political pundits, liberals and RINOs, have attempted miserably to spin the Supreme Court’s decision in perplexing ways such as, Justice Roberts tricked the liberals by siding and voting with them, but he is such a brilliant and clever conservative.

Interestingly, Senator Obama voted in 2005 against the man who saved his health care law. “The bottom line is this: I will be voting against John Roberts’ nomination.” Senator Obama continued, “I hope that his jurisprudence is one that stands up to the bullies of all ideological types.” Justice Robert’s “jurisprudence and outstanding legal thinking” did not stand up to liberal bullying and he voted against the productive Americans in our society.

Americans are not giving up. Orly Taitz filed a class action suit on behalf of Christian and Jewish U.S citizens.

“Healthcare Obama Tax is illegal as it violates Equal Protection Clause, Due Process Clause, Establishment Clause, and Free Exercise of Religion Clause of the U.S. Constitution by exempting Muslim citizens, and places a heavy tax burden on Christian and Jewish U.S. Citizens to pay a de facto Judeo-Christian Obama Tax not only for themselves, but also for Muslim citizens, who are exempt.” (July 5, 2012, 113 page complaint, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Central District of California)

The stark truth in Realityville is that Obamacare is the biggest victory for President Obama, the biggest loss of personal freedom in America, the downgrading of medical care quality to levels of third world nations, the highest tax hike in the history of our country, and the biggest usurpation of our Constitution.

Columnist Note: Credit due to Honorable David Kithil of Marble Falls, Texas for providing specific page numbers from HB3200

Unfortunately Named the Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009

Chance brought across my path an old friend, Dr. March, whom I had not seen in four years. During the last conversation, he was trying to convince me that electing President Obama would be a positive turn in the history of our country, particularly after the “dreadful Republican Bush.”

I do not see people so much as belonging to the Republican or Democrat Party but as promoters and believers of a particular social and fiscal ideology. Occasionally, Congress members of either party share identical beliefs and vote the same way, regardless of the D or R after their names. They no longer represent the will of the people who elected them but the will of the corporate interests and the lobby groups.

 

Many uninformed and ordinary Americans vote on their perceived understanding of the issues after watching biased commercials and presentations. Some Americans vote on family traditions. Other Americans vote for the most telegenic of the candidates, or whoever promises most welfare.

As a medical doctor and an academician, Dr. March argued at the time that Obamacare could not possibly destroy our medical system and make it any worse because it was already in a mess with so many insurance companies, in dire need of tort reform, with so much bureaucracy, and daunting paperwork requiring full time staff to deal with insurance plans.

No to worry, this week we found out that 4,000 new IRS agents will be hired to handle Obamacare. A nagging question kept swirling in my head, what does health care have to do with tax collectors? Is health care a tax? Why would tax collectors be part of the decision to treat people medically or perform surgery on patients?

According to the Hill, “the Obama administration is quietly diverting roughly $500 million to the IRS to help implement the president’s healthcare law. The money is only part of the IRS’s total implementation spending and it is being provided outside the normal appropriations process. The tax agency is responsible for several key provisions of the new law, including the unpopular individual mandate.” (The Hill, April 9, 2012)

Dr. March told me what a hard time his medical students were having finding jobs after spending $50,000 each year for a degree and how we are not going to have many primary care providers left – nobody will be willing to go to medical school if jobs are hard to find and salaries are capped by The Affordable Health Care Choices Act of 2009. He was bemoaning the fact that a lot of our healthcare will be provided by nurses and will thus be inadequate and lacking.

His solution was rather perplexing – find a president who is fiscally conservative and socially progressive. The pronouncement struck me as illogical and impossible, as I see those two as polar opposites. You cannot be fiscally conservative and spend money on social programs lavishly without going bankrupt at some point.

I did not dare ask him what his presidential choice would be in November. It is impolite to ask such questions unless a person volunteers the information. He did mention that his wife voted for Ron Paul in the primaries. Both had voted cheerfully and eagerly for Obama in 2008.

When I told him how corrupt the socialized medical care system was in Romania, 23 years after the fall of communism, he agreed that most good doctors in the former iron curtain nations left for other places where they were paid based on merit and not on a central government salary decree. Only doctors who accepted bribes to supplement their salaries stayed behind to deliver care to the population.

There are not enough doctors and nurses left behind and people do not have enough money for bribes in countries where medical care is free but care and drugs must be rationed. At some point there is not enough “free everything” to go around.

Socialized medical care in Western Europe's nations fares slightly better. Doctors are still paid a government capped salary, there is rationing of care, long waiting lists for procedures, and gross negligence in hospitals. When patients have sniffles, everyone is treated, no problem. That is when free medical care works best. When more expensive procedures and long-term care become an issue, rationing ensues, depending on the patient’s age.

Dr. March was not aware that Muslims are exempt from the requirements of The Affordable Health Care Choice Act but will be full beneficiaries of free health care paid by the rest of us, a blatant form of dhimmitude.

Because health care has become so expensive in Germany and birth rates are going down, Chancellor Angela Merkel is considering an extra tax on young people in order to support the pensions and health care costs of the burgeoning older population. Could that become a future issue in the U.S.?

The cost of Obamacare has been purposefully misrepresented. A recent and more accurate report doubles the cost. This does not take into account the 1,500 plus exemptions offered to many crony capitalists for a year.

Dr. March was not incensed by the fact that faith-based hospitals will be forced to provide abortion on demand or that contraceptives are considered health rights.

Obamacare is not about providing affordable healthcare choices, it is about government control by unelected bureaucrats with no medical degrees or training over hospital admissions, payments to doctors, medical devices, and forcing private insurance companies out of business. It is about the most massive transfer of power to the executive branch of the government.

The law rations care to seniors and other classes of citizens and gives free health care to illegal immigrants.  Free abortion services under Obamacare forces participation in abortions by members of the medical profession who find the procedure highly objectionable.

Dr. March concluded with an interesting observation, that, in the D.C. area, Republicans who live in Virginia and Democrats who live in Maryland are two distinct groups at odds in the fight over Obamacare while the rest of the country supports Obamacare. Perhaps a biased poll gave credence to his belief but the polls I read show the majority of the U.S. legal population against Obamacare.

It is a moot point if you are for or against Obamacare. It is already the law, the bureaucracy is already in place to completely overhaul and destroy the best care in the world, and we are waiting on the Supreme Court to weigh in with their opinion in June, which is likely to determine that the law is constitutional. We, the “units,” will see each other in line at the IRS office begging for healthcare, surgery, and pain pills or petitioning the 15-member non-medical “death panel” for mercy.