Bill Text: CA AJR23 | 2013-2014 | Regular Session | Introduced
Bill Title: Federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: requirement to purchase health insurance.
Spectrum: Partisan Bill (Republican 13-0)
Status: (Introduced - Dead) 2013-08-13 - In committee: Hearing cancelled at the request of author. [AJR23 Detail]
Download: California-2013-AJR23-Introduced.html
BILL NUMBER: AJR 23 INTRODUCED
BILL TEXT
INTRODUCED BY Assembly Members Logue and Morrell
(Coauthors: Assembly Members Achadjian, Dahle, Beth Gaines, Grove,
Harkey, Jones, Olsen, Patterson, Wagner, Waldron, and Wilk)
MAY 31, 2013
Relative to health care.
LEGISLATIVE COUNSEL'S DIGEST
AJR 23, as introduced, Logue. Federal Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act: requirement to purchase health insurance.
This measure would urge the President to remove any financial
oversight responsibilities of the Internal Revenue Service with
regard to the administration of the federal Patient Protection and
Affordable Care Act and instead have those duties transferred to a
separate board, created by and accountable to Congress.
Fiscal committee: no.
WHEREAS, On March 23, 2010, President Obama signed the federal
Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), which requires most
United States citizens and legal residents to have health insurance,
specifies a minimum benefit design for insurance coverage, creates
state-based American Health Benefit Exchanges through which
individuals can purchase coverage with premium and cost-sharing
credits, requires employers to pay penalties for employees who
receive tax credits for health insurance through an Exchange, imposes
new regulations on health plans in the Exchanges and in the
individual and small group markets, permits states to expand
Medicaid, and provides the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) with
numerous new responsibilities; and
WHEREAS, The ACA gives the IRS the unprecedented power to force
individual citizens and employers with 50 or more employees to either
purchase a health insurance plan designed by Washington D.C.
politicians, bureaucrats, and lobbyists or pay thousands of dollars
in fines; and
WHEREAS, In implementing the ACA, the federal government has
unleashed the IRS to hunt down and fine otherwise law-abiding
individuals and employers; and
WHEREAS, The IRS has requested funding for 1,954 new agents and
the creation of the largest personal information database the federal
government has ever attempted, the Federal Data Service Hub, in
order to decide who is complying with the law, who will be fined, who
will receive hundreds of billions of dollars in tax credits, and how
much each health insurer will pay as a part of a new annual $8
billion tax; and
WHEREAS, Employers must begin recording the aggregate cost of
employer-sponsored medical coverage on every employee's IRS Form W-2;
and
WHEREAS, The IRS, in order to implement the ACA, will receive
information from insurers and taxpayers to prove whether each citizen
purchased an insurance policy this year, whether the specific
insurance policy meets specific government requirements, whether the
citizen is "a member of a recognized religious sect" and therefore
exempt from the individual mandate, and whether the citizen and
members of his or her family are working full-time or part-time; and
WHEREAS, Because provisions of the employer mandate mean that an
employer can be fined by the IRS in certain circumstances if the
employer's employee qualifies for a subsidy from an exchange due to
changes in the employee's personal circumstances, such as a spouse's
lost coverage or a divorce, employers seeking to avoid the IRS fine
will be forced to demand detailed household income information from
their employees, which would result in an unnecessary loss of an
employee's and his or her family's privacy; and
WHEREAS, In early 2012, the Inspector General for Tax
Administration began an audit that files using acceptable government
accounting standards to review case files; and
WHEREAS, The Inspector General for Tax Administration reported
that in 2010, the IRS "developed and used criteria to identify
potential political cases for review that inappropriately identified
specific groups applying for tax-exempt status based on their names
and policy positions... "; and
WHEREAS, The Inspector General's report found that the IRS
developed and began using criteria to review specific groups applying
for tax-exempt status based on their names or policy positions
instead of developing nonbiased criteria based on the tax laws and
Treasury Regulations; and
WHEREAS, According to the Inspector General's report, on January
15, 2012, the Internal Revenue Service decided to target "political
action type organizations involved in limiting or expanding
Government, educating on the Constitution and Bill of Rights, and
social economic reform movement"; and
WHEREAS, Lois G. Lerner, the Internal Revenue Service official who
oversaw tax-exempt groups, first revealed publicly on May 10, 2013,
that IRS personnel had targeted the groups; and
WHEREAS, Sarah Hall Ingram, the IRS official who ran the
scandal-ridden tax-exempt organizations division between 2009-2012
now runs the agency's Affordable Care Act office; and
WHEREAS, It is inappropriate and unacceptable for one of the most
powerful government agencies to target various groups for political
purposes; now, therefore, be it
Resolved by the Assembly and the Senate of the State of
California, jointly, That the Legislature calls on President of the
United States and the United States Congress, as a first step, to
remove any financial oversight responsibilities of the IRS with
regard to the administration of the ACA; and be it further
Resolved, That the administrative responsibilities of the IRS with
regard to the ACA be transferred to a separate board, created by and
accountable to Congress; and be it further
Resolved, That this board, in accordance with the law and the of
the people, will determine the mechanism for enforcement of the ACA;
and be it further
Resolved, That the Chief Clerk of the Assembly transmit copies of
this resolution to the author for appropriate distribution, to the
President and Vice President of the United States, to the Speaker of
the House of Representatives, to the Majority Leader of the Senate,
and to each Senator and Representative from California in the
Congress of the United States.
