In their ongoing fight to whip up righteous indignation over the skullduggery at Obama’s IRS, Republicans have found another talking point to frighten Americans with: under the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare), the IRS, that the vicious corrupt intimidator of political groups masquerading as charities red-blooded freedom-loving conservatives everywhere, is going to stick its nose into your health insurance coverage. Last night, former Senator Jim DeMint (now President of the Heritage Foundation think tank) went On the Record to scare us with vague predictions of what the Taxman could do once he was turned loose on health care.
It’s true that under the ACA the IRS will collect taxes and penalties related to health insurance coverage, and audit things like whether you have health insurance and whether you’re claiming an insurance subsidy that’s appropriate to your income level. Various Republicans (notably Michelle Bachmann) have blown this up into a claim that the IRS would have access to all your most secret and intimate health data, and have the power to deny or delay your access to health care. DeMint didn’t go quite that far, but he did take the opportunity to make vague statements about what the IRS might do to us with its new powers.
DeMint told Greta Van Susteren that we’ve already had a chance to see how the IRS can work, but that Obamacare “puts the IRS on steroids. It opens the door for the IRS to come into all of our lives and every business life.” (Really? Isn’t it doing that already?). The hardest hit, he said, will be middle and lower income Americans who will now have the IRS look at their income every year because their health insurance subsidies will depend on their income level. “Obamacare will tax you if you don’t buy health insurance and it will tax you if you do buy.” He also said the IRS would likely close a lot of businesses down, for example by freezing their assets until their procedures have been audited. (Hmmm. Does that mean they’ll crack down on businesses who try to wiggle out of providing health coverage for their employees? Good.)
Van Susteren noted that the IRS wouldn't dig into our health records, only collect the bills. “We don’t know what it’s gonna lead to,” De Mint responded. “We know they’re targeting people …This scares me to death of what the IRS can do….They don’t have to have anything on you but they can basically shut your business down... Obamacare really does open this wide up.”
Alarmist? DeMint is restrained compared to some of them. In one of today’s foxnews.com op-eds, Tony Perkins of the Family Research Council concludes a frenzied diatribe on freedom, tyranny and the Declaration of Independence with: “We should never allow this tainted federal agency to supervise our health care, too. Otherwise, we would deliver into its hands not only our money, but our very lives.”
We urge all the masses to tie Heritage Foundation with Richwine. Remind every Latino voter of the Heritage Foundation-Richwine connection, and what he said about Latinos.
Bloggers and media partners, confront DeMint about his handling of Richwine.
NOTE TO DEMINT
Yes or no, you knew about Richwine’s racist views of Latinos.