© 2010, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

A shortened version:

1. It will cost $750 annually to go without health insurance, even if you are young and healthy. (Section 1501)

2. You won’t be able to get health insurance premiums that reflect your (presumably good) lifestyle. (Section 2701).

3. You won’t be able to bargain for lower health insurance costs by agreeing to certain coverage limits. (Section 2711).

4. You won’t be able to save by choosing a policy that doesn’t cover some preventive care. (Section 2712).

5. You won’t be able to offer cheaper insurance to employees by limiting the definition of “children” to something less than 26 years of age. (Section 2714).

6. “You must buy a policy that covers ambulatory patient services, emergency services, hospitalization, maternity and newborn care, mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services; chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.” Regardless of if you need such services or not. (Section 1302).

7. Trying to balance cost of the plan with what percentage the plan covers is limited. (Section 1302 (d) (1) (A))

8. You can’t offer (or buy) policies with higher deductibles than $2,000/$4,000 in exchange for a lower premium. (Section 1302 (c) (2) (A).

9. It will cost an employer with more than 101 employees $750 (or $2,000 to $3,000, depending on what comes out of the closed door meetings) not to offer insurance. (Section 1513).

10. You can’t place more than $2,500 into a Flexible Health Spending Account. (Section 9005 (i)).

11. Physicians will be pressured into limiting the services they use through government monitoring. (Section 3003 (i))

12. A physician won’t be able to own a hospital. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (A))

13. A current physician owner of a hospital won’t be able to expand the hospital, except in limited circumstances, and even then the expansion is very limited. (Section 6001 (i) (1) (B), Section 6601 (i) (3) (E) and Section 6001 (i) (3) (C)).

14. The government will control premium increases. (Section 1003)

15. The government will take $2.3 billion or more every year from the pharmaceutical industry. (Section 1404, and Section 9008 (b))

16. The government will take $2 billion or more every year from medical device makers. (Section 9009 (b), and Section 1405).

17. The government will take $6.7 billion or more every year from insurance companies. (Section 1406, and Section 9010 (b) (1) (A and B))

18. Insurance companies will be limited in what kind of talent they can hire as CEOs, as deferred compensation is limited to $500,000. (Section 9014).

19. You will face a marriage penalty in that you will pay an additional 0.5% tax, or perhaps as much as 3.8%, on income over $250,000 if you file a joint return and $200,000 if you file an individual return. (Section 9015, and Section 1402)

20. Cosmetic surgery, or whatever is defined as such by the government, has a 5% tax on it. (Section 9017).

We won’t even begin with the many Constitutional problems this bill poses. Hope and change, Komrade.

© 2010, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

Paul Revere in the 1790 Census

A recurring topic these days is the 2010 US Census, and what exactly one has to do in response to the tri-fold form currently being mailed to every known “home” in the United States.

Information, misinformation, believes, and rumors abound, and the situation isn’t helped by somewhat misleading information provided by the Census itself. (This will be discussed below.)

It isn’t our intention to interpret law or provide legal advice, but it seems to us that one could take a few different positions on the Census:

1. Respond in full, perhaps using the form as requested, or waiting for a door-to-door Census worker to pay a visit;
2. Not respond at all, and waiting to see if a door-to-door Census worker appears;
3. Respond in full or in part, but making some inaccurate or misleading statements on the form; or
4. Respond only to the part that is required for the Census to perform its Constitutional function.

The Census tries to scare people into responding by implying that the maximum fine for not responding is $5,000¹, but it seems that this is misleading at a minimum. A review of the related US Code sections implies that the $5,000 applies only if an individual committed a crime against the Census, which is an act far beyond simply refusing to respond.²

The related US code section is far clearer about specific limits for fines that can be imposed on individuals who don’t respond, or respond with false information. The fines are set at no more than $100 for no response, and $500 for misleading responses.³

For those who choose not to respond, it’s quite likely that a Census worker will appear at the door. If that happens, it’s worth noting that it would be unusual if one were to be required to interrupt anything and everything just to respond to Census inquiries. It is not unreasonable to ask the Census worker to come back some other time. In fact, the Census mentions that they will make up to 3 attempts to get a response, perhaps implying that a fourth won’t be made.⁴ In any case, Census workers are not entitled to enter ones dwelling, and they certainly aren’t entitled to a telephone number, or to set up an appointment, regardless of how hard they might try to obtain these.

With this in mind, what should one respond with?

Not responding to the Census doesn’t help one’s State, because the Census count is used to apportion pork and kickbacks, also known as Federal grants and programs. In addition, the Census data is used to redistrict areas and to assign new Representatives to Congress for States that grow their population faster than others. This brings with it more political power in D.C.

However, it’s also obvious that the vast majority of the Census questions go well beyond the original purpose for which the Census was established in the Constitution, namely that of counting the number of people in any particular area.

On the 2010 “simplified” and “shortened” form, questions range from name, date of birth, sex and race to a telephone number. None of these are necessary for the Constitutional function of the Census, and are probably seen as an invasion of privacy by many if not most Americans.⁵

This is also a far cry from the questions posed on the first Census in 1790, which only inquired:⁶

1. Name of the head of each household.
2. How many free white males age 16 and older.
3. How many free white males under age 16.
4. How many free white females.
5. How many of all other free persons.
6. How many slaves.

The Census tries to set respondents at ease by promising that “the penalty for unlawful disclosure is a fine of up to $250,000“.⁷ However, such statements are not really honest in describing the real protection afforded to personal data collected by the Census. Excepting weasel clauses that allow sharing of Census data with other Federal agencies, it appears that the actual maximum fine is a paltry $5,000.⁸

Interestingly a flier that comes with the Census form doesn’t focus on the fines for releases of personal information, but instead discusses at length that no information will be given to law enforcement or tax collection agencies. This is clearly intended to encourage a response from those who live at the edges or beyond the legal society, allowing one to comment that seemingly the Census cares more for the privacy of illegal immigrants than that of Citizens.

Making a decision as to how to respond doesn’t need to be difficult. The Census form itself highlights one question out of the dozens that are on it. This question is also the one that the Constitution directly requires the Federal government to determine every 10 years, and it might be no coincidence that the form applies an encouraging statement “Start here” to it:

1. How many people were living or staying in this house, apartment, or mobile home on April 1, 2010? Number of people = [blank]

Perhaps that’s the only question one should respond to.

© 2010, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

Day By Day, March 15, 2010

Day By Day, March 16, 2010

© 2010, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

© 2010, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

Muslims of America

The Christian Action Network has published video from a “Muslims of America” training camp in the United States.¹ The video from this camp in Hancock, NY shows various types of combat training, and military-like conditioning.

The video is presented in a manner that makes the Muslims of America training camps appear to be preparing for terror activities at some future time. However, the distinction between these training camps and at least some other extremist groups that are non-muslim is not addressed in the video, nor the fact that the simple act of military style training is a specific Constitutional right that is exercised by many Americans.

An often-used argument to distinguish between muslim militia-like camps and others are the September 11 attacks. However, it is up to you, the reader, to decide if this is sufficient cause to limit someone’s Constitutional rights or not, especially in light of the unforeseen consequences of such restrictions.²

As an alternative, it might be more productive to focus on activity that is not protected by the Constitution. For example, freedom of speech does not allow one to plot violence against Constitutional institutions, or the overthrow of the Constitution itself.

A spokesperson on the video makes a claim that “We are 100% sure that muslims are the majority in America“, which is clearly delusional. On the other hand, the same person goes on to say that “We love our country… we will never carry out jihad against our country“, and then continues to discuss that they would not allow their country be destroyed by conspirators and terrorists, “both foreign and domestic“.

In the end, it is left to the viewer to form an opinion as to the purpose of these camps.

© 2009, Pontificus. All rights reserved.

Those Responsible, 1939 vs 2009

One by one they fall. Change is here. This time it’s citizen journalism and related first amendment rights.

As reported by Mark Hemingway¹, Senator Feinstein D-California and Durbin D-Illinois have proposed an amendment to a new “press shield law”; the law originally put fourth by Specter D-Philadelphia.

According to observers, this amendment has the purpose of making activities such as the infamous ACORN video sting illegal or at a minimum no longer federally protected journalistic activity.

© 2009, Pontificus. All rights reserved.