On Sunday, Robert Pear reported in the New York Times that Medicare will now pay for voluntary end-of-life counseling as part of seniors’ annual physicals. A similar provision was originally included in ObamaCare, but Democrats stripped it out amid the death panel furor. Now Medicare will enact the same policy through regulation.

We hadn’t heard about this development until Mr. Pear’s story, but evidently Medicare tried to prevent the change from becoming public knowledge. The provision is buried in thousands of Federal Register pages setting Medicare’s hospital and physician price controls for 2011 and concludes that such consultations count as a form of preventative care.

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Various parts of the Democrats’ health care reform law have been held up as pieces that might not stand up to a constitutional rigor.

The individual mandate that requires those who aren’t previously covered by insurance to buy a plan is the most likely place for the legal objections to begin. Another provision that is being disputed at the constitutional level is the expansion of Medicaid that forces states to increase their spending on that program.

But those are only two pieces of a legislative leviathan. Even if one or both were stricken, the bulk of the law’s burden would remain.

However, Greg Scandlen, a senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, says due to a little-known legal concept the entire law would unravel if a single part was found to be outside the Constitution.

“Apparently there was no ’severability’ clause written into this law, which shows how amateurish the process was,” he wrote. “Virtually every bill I’ve ever read includes a provision that if any part of the law is ruled unconstitutional the rest of the law will remain intact. Not this one. That will likely mean that the entire law will be thrown out if a part of it is found to violate the Constitution.”

No argument from us. The bill writers and lawmakers who voted for it without reading it were unprofessional.

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Beginning January 1, 2013, ObamaCare limits the medical expense deduction, which will raise taxes by $15.2 billion over ten years, according to the Joint Committee on Taxation.

Under current law, if out-of-pocket medical expenses, including health insurance premiums and medical procedures not covered by health insurance, exceed 7.5 percent of Adjusted Gross Income (AGI), then those expenses are fully deductible.

Americans who have high out-of-pocket medical costs or are sick take this deduction.   Even some of the most expensive and comprehensive health insurance plans – including FEHBPs – don’t cover high-cost medical procedures, such as in-vitro fertilization where the cost for the procedure and the prescription drugs can run as high as $20,000 per treatment and where families can have multiple treatments in a year.

ObamaCare increases the medical expense threshold from 7.5 percent of AGI to 10 percent on most Americans (seniors get a three-year reprieve) beginning on January 1, 2013.   The Joint Committee on Taxation estimates the new limit will affect 14.8 million taxpayers — 14.7 million of whom will earn less than $200,000 a year!

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For previous ObamaCare Flatlines, visit www.gop.gov.

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The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that 33% believe repeal will be bad for the economy. Twelve percent (12%) say it will have no impact, and eight percent (8%) are not sure.

From the moment it was passed, a majority of voters around the country have wanted to see the health care law repealed.

Seventy-six percent (76%) of Republicans believe repeal would be good for the economy, while 59% of Democrats believe it would be bad. Among those not affiliated with either political party, 47% believe repeal would be good for the economy, and 29% believe it would be bad.

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Currently, two weeks after passage, 54% of the nation’s likely voters still favor repealing the new law. The latest Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 42% oppose repeal. Those numbers virtually unchanged from last week and the week before. They include 43% who Strongly Favor repeal and 32% who Strongly Oppose it.

Repeal is favored by 80% of Republicans and 57% of unaffiliated voters. Sixty-eight percent (68%) of Democrats oppose repeal.

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WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is delaying release of the annual report on the financial health of Social Security and Medicare so that the new report can reflect the impact of the recently passed health care overhaul.

An administration official told The Associated Press that this year’s trustees report will be delayed until June 30, three months later than it usually comes out.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity before the formal announcement, said Monday that the delay will allow the government to determine the impact of the massive overhaul of health care that President Barack Obama just signed into law.

In January, Richard Foster, the chief actuary for Medicare, estimated that the Senate bill which passed on Christmas eve would extend the life of the Medicare hospital trust fund by 10 years. The legislation that finally passed Congress was the Senate bill but with revisions approved to win House support.

The administration official said that passage last month of the health care overhaul legislation had made the trustees report, which usually comes out around April 1, obsolete. This official said the decision was made to incorporate all of the changes made by the legislation to better reflect reality now that Congress has passed health care overhaul.

The new health care law seeks to guarantee health insurance coverage for nearly all Americans while cracking down on insurance industry abuses. It also promises to reduce federal deficits by an estimated $143 billion over a decade.

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