Obamacare Consequences - Are You Ready For Forced Home Inspections?

All across the country, reports are surfacing almost daily how President Obama’s unpopular health care law will negatively affect Americans.

The AP reported yesterday, “A year ago, Teresa Hartnett was on the verge of expanding her small business. The company had hit $1 million in sales, and requests from clients were flowing in. She planned to transition from nearly 30 freelancers to a full-time staff of 60 by 2014. Then the reality of the Affordable Health Care Act hit. Hartnett realized she might not be able to afford to carry out her plan. ‘At the end of that marathon of effort and sweat and stress, I'd face the impact of the ACA. I decided against it,’ says Hartnett, whose company, Hartnett Inc., transforms printed documents into digital content. The expected surge in health insurance costs under the ACA has many small business owners changing the way they operate. For many like Hartnett, hiring and expanding is going on the back burner. Others expect to cut back on some of the services their companies provide, raise prices or cut employees' hours and bonuses.”

The AP also writes, “If health insurance for the employees at Havana Central's four restaurants becomes too expensive, owner Jeremy Merrin may have to limit the number of people waiting tables and stop delivery service. He has about 500 workers, and provides insurance for more than 100 of them. He pays between 20 percent and 80 percent of the premiums, depending on how long employees have worked for him. When there are openings on the wait staff, Merrin is going to see if his remaining workers can handle the dinner crowd without any new hires. ‘We're going to work as hard as we can to hire as few people as possible,’ says Merrin, who has four restaurants in the New York metro area. That's a strategy many small business owners are considering. In a U.S. Chamber of Commerce survey released last month, nearly a quarter of the owners surveyed said they would reduce hiring in response to the requirements imposed by the ACA. Merrin is also considering cutting hours. A person who now works 40 might get 36 or 34 hours to help him save on wages.”

In Tennessee, The Chattanoogan reports, “The Affordable Health Care Act is already proving costly to the county schools, risk manager and insurance advisor Ed Adams said Thursday night. He told school board members that a reinsurance requirement has a charge of $63 per employee - or an overall amount of $300,000 that must be paid to the federal government. . . . Mr. Adams said at some point the county schools will have to move away from the current ‘Cadillac’ insurance plan offered employees or face fines of $2,000 per employee. That will later go to $3,000 per employee, he said.”

And in California, the Los Angeles Times writes, “Like many Californians, Scott and Danielle Nelson of Orange County are anxious about what President Obama's healthcare law will mean for them. . . . And, so far, there have been considerably more questions than answers, as officials and insurers scramble to get ready and clarify many of the details that people care about the most. The issue hit home for the Nelsons several weeks ago when their current health insurer, Aetna Inc., said they were among thousands of customers in the state whose coverage will be canceled at year end. As a result, they will need to buy a new policy just as the federal law reshapes the market. . . . Huntington Beach resident Brad Miller said he and his wife pay about $1,200 a month now for their health insurance. The 60-year-old says he's concerned that comparable coverage will be expensive next year and federal subsidies won't be available to help.”

NBC News reports that nearly 20 business owners will drop workers hours “below 30 a week because they can’t afford to offer the health insurance mandated by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. 'To tell somebody that you’ve got to decrease their hours because of a law passed in Washington is very frustrating to me,' said Loren Goodridge, who owns 21 Subway franchises, including a restaurant in Kennebunk. 'I know the impact I’m having on some of my employees.' Goodridge said he’s cutting the hours of 50 workers to no more than 29 a week so he won’t trigger the provision in the new health care law that requires employers to offer coverage to employees who work 30 hours or more per week. "

In response to numerous problems with the President’s signature healthcare law, the administration delayed portions of the law for businesses and insurance companies, but refuses to give American families the relief they need.

Joshua Cook at Freedom Outpost addressed that under Obamcare there will be "Forced" Home Inspections. He writes,"Clearly, any family may be visited by federally paid agents for almost any reason. According to an Obamacare provision millions of Americans will be targeted. The Health and Human Services’ website states that your family will be targeted if you fall under the “high-risk” categories below:

• Families where mom is not yet 21.
• Families where someone is a tobacco user.
• Families where children have low student achievement, developmental delays, or disabilities.
• Families with individuals who are serving or formerly served in the armed forces, including such families that have members of the armed forces who have had multiple deployments outside the United States. There is no reference to Medicaid being the determinant for a family to be “eligible.”

"In 2011, the HHS announced $224 million will be given to support evidence-based home visiting programs to “help parents and children.” Individuals from the state will implement these leveraging strategies to “enhance program sustainability.”

Constitutional attorney and author Kent Masterson Brown states, “This is not a “voluntary” program. The eligible entity receiving the grant for performing the home visits is to identify the individuals to be visited and intervene so as to meet the improvement benchmarks. A homeschooling family, for instance, may be subject to “intervention” in “school readiness” and “social-emotional developmental indicators.” A farm family may be subject to “intervention” in order to “prevent child injuries.” The sky is the limit. Although the Obama administration would claim the provision applies only to Medicaid families, the new statute, by its own definition, has no such limitation."

Cook also notes: "A manual called Child Neglect: A Guide for Prevention, Assessment, and Intervention includes firearms as potential safety hazard and will require inspectors to verify safety compliance and record each inspection into a database.

And yet Democrats continue to resist a delay or repeal of the individual mandate from Obamacare to lift some of the burden of this law from Americans.

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