Five things we have learned about ObamaCare since it passed

David Fredosso has the list. With digging we will find many more surprises. Wash Examiner

"[W]e have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy."

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., famously said that about President Obama's health care reform package. She was right. We are just finding out what was contained within that Obamacare law that Obama signed weeks ago.

Here are five things we've learned so far:

One: No sooner had Obamacare passed than the White House discovered that someone goofed. Despite all of Obama's promises and talking points, Obamacare as passed by Congress does not require insurers to cover children with expensive pre-existing medical conditions.

Immediately, the White House got an assurance from the insurers. After demonizing them for months as callous profiteers on others' misery (in fact, the entire industry is barely profitable), Obama now tells Americans that they can trust health insurance companies to do the right thing out of the goodness of their hearts.

Two: State governments discovered that they are no longer just required to guarantee payment for indigent patients' care under Medicaid. Obamacare changes Medicaid law so that now states must also guarantee treatment to the poor.

This is a thorny issue: Many doctors refuse to see Medicaid patients because the program doesn't pay enough for them to break even. (In some states, payments to doctors have been delayed for months or years.)
Some cash-strapped states expect this new definition to spawn court challenges, which will ultimately force them to pay exorbitantly high prices to doctors and hospitals for their existing patients.

Three: Even as Medicaid's costs increase because of the above, so will the number of Medicaid patients under Obamacare's coverage provisions. Thanks to the "Cornhusker Kickback" -- the special Nebraska provision that was extended to every state in the final version of the bill -- the federal taxpayer is on the hook for 90 percent of the new patients' expenses.

So remember those rosy budget projections about Obamacare reducing the deficit, or at least not costing too much? Forget it.

Four: Douglas Shulman, commissioner for the Internal Revenue Service, announced this week at the National Press Club that Obamacare means he can take your tax refund from you. Obamacare requires Americans to purchase insurance, but contains no serious enforcement mechanisms.

So, Shulman said, the IRS will collect penalties from those who fail to purchase "qualified" insurance by confiscating the interest-free loans that taxpayers make to the government throughout the year through employment withholding.

Five: The ski-tourism industry suddenly realizes that it is endangered by Obamacare. Ski resorts must now provide health care or else pay a fine for each employee who works more than 120 days out of the year -- and many of their employees do. [end of quote]

There will be many more surprises. The monster has 2,000 pages - or 2,700 - so they hid lots of crap in it.