Wealth Re-Distribution, 2.0

Tomorrow is Primary Election Day here in the Natural State, and you know what that means — lots of robo-calls and bad political ads.

One ad has been running on the local talk radio station featuring Hillary. In it, she affects this nasal, whiny accent and tells supporters how “she loves to brag on Arkansas” because our Legislature was foolhardy clever enough to pass a bi-partisan “Public Option” for health insurance that moves thousands who previously didn’t qualify for Medicaid, and whose income was too high to give them premium subsidies, onto the Medicaid rolls and they will now be insured.

(Arkansas is among the states that declined to set up a “State Exchange,” opting instead for the “Private Option” which accepts federal funds to allocate to Medicaid and it subsidizes premiums charged by private insurers. So, potay-toh/potah-toh. The Governor purportedly wanted the “Arkansas Works Program“  [Private Option] to focus on encouraging citizens to go to work and enjoy employer-provided insurance rather than relying on government to insure them. I’m not so sure that’s working out.)

What the Medicaid expansion advocates don’t tell us is that, under Obamacare, once a body has accepted any Medicaid benefits, he’s deemed to be a Medicaid participant for life. For-ever!

One might not think that’s a problem when he’s a twenty-something and hasn’t acquired diddly-squat to pass on to his heirs, but it’s a different story when he moves on to the next plane of existence and his estate is being probated.

Guess who gets his share first, before any heir or legatee?

How’d you guess?!  Of, course —  it’s Uncle Sam!!

Can you say “the ultimate surreptitious re-distribution of wealth?” Of course you can! It’s called “asset forfeiture,” and it’s been around for awhile, but Obamacare gave it a shot of steroids.

A wonderful article from 2013 that Pepper found in Science Decoded boils the issue down to one articulate sentence:

Dr. Jane Orient, the Executive Director of the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, put the risk/reward tradeoff succinctly. “People will think this is wonderful, this is free insurance. They don’t realize it’s really a loan, and is secured by any property they have.”

What an awful thing for your government to do to you. Restoring the Estate Tax was bad enough, but putting these two together is nothing short of confiscatory policy that slaps around the Fourth Amendment.

Don’t let Uncle Sam tell you it’s raining.