LF: Americans Who Opt Out of Medicare Must Forfeit Social Security Benefits

Title: Americans Who Opt Out of Medicare Must Forfeit Social Security Benefits
Source: Breitbart
URL Source: http://www.breitbart.com/big-govern ... feit-social-security-benefits/
Published: May 31, 2016
Author: Dr. Susan Berry
Post Date: 2016-05-31 19:04:10 by cranky
Keywords: None
Views: 25310
Comments: 77

Unelected bureaucrats recently proposed the imposition of a new rule that would affect all Medicare Part B providers and nearly all Medicare drugs. Such bureaucrats, however, have been operating for years, forcing Americans onto government-run healthcare under pain of loss of Social Security benefits.

Most adults in the United States who turn 65 go onto the government-mandated health insurance program known as Medicare – the program liberal and socialist Democrats hope will universally cover all Americans some day soon.

Seniors who choose to opt out of Medicare and continue to purchase their own private health insurance plans, however, are punished by the federal government for doing so by being forced to forfeit their Social Security benefits, even though they may have paid into the Social Security system for many years.

Medicare and Social Security have been linked together since 1993 when unelected bureaucrats in the Clinton administration wrote a rule that states seniors cannot opt out of Medicare without giving up their Social Security benefits.

In 2008, a group of seniors, who formed an organization called The Fund for Personal Liberty, filed a lawsuit – Hall v. Sebelius – in which they argued that the applications for Medicare and Social Security are voluntary and independent of each other. These Americans had all contributed to Medicare and Social Security throughout their employment histories, but wished to continue to purchase private health insurance once they reached age 65. They asserted that they should be able to opt out of Medicare – government-run healthcare – without forfeiting their Social Security benefits, and that forced participation in Medicare violates the right to privacy.

The Fund wrote:

The Medicare Lawsuit challenges the idea that unelected bureaucrats can create policies that act as law. Nowhere in the Medicare and Social Security statutes will you find a provision that a person who wishes to avoid Medicare shall be denied Social Security benefits. That is a penalty of approximately $250,000.

The case proceeded for several years and hit its most alarming obstacle in March of 2011, when U.S. District Judge Rosemary Collyer – former general counsel of the National Labor Relations Board – who initially had sided with the plaintiffs, suddenly reversed herself, ruling in favor of the Obama administration instead.

In an earlier ruling in the case, Collyer acknowledged that, “neither the statute nor the regulation specifies that Plaintiffs must withdraw from Social Security and repay retirement benefits in order to withdraw from Medicare.”

In her stunning reversal decision, however, the judge ruled that “requiring a mechanism for plaintiffs and others in their situation to ‘dis-enroll’ would be contrary to congressional intent, which was to provide ‘mandatory’ benefits under Medicare Part A and for those receiving Social Security Retirement benefits.”

Collyer also asserted in her decision that the Obama administration “extols the benefits of Medicare Part A and suggests that Plaintiffs would agree they are not truly injured if they were to learn more about Medicare, perhaps through discovery.”

“Plaintiffs are trapped in a government program intended for their benefit,” she continued. “They disagree and wish to escape. The Court can find no loophole or requirement that the Secretary provide such a pathway.”

Regarding the decision, Kent Masterson Brown, the lead attorney representing the seniors in the case, commented at the time:

Anyone concerned with what will happen when the bureaucrats start writing the thousands of pages of rules that will govern the ‘Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’ need only look at what has happened in Hall v. Sebelius. When they do, they will realize nothing will be optional and there will be no fair, affordable or swift manner to obtain recourse or appeal a decision made by the bureaucracy.

After the ruling, which essentially decided that an entitlement program such as Medicare is “mandatory,” then-Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) introduced the Retirement Freedom Act. The bill would have allowed Medicare and Social Security to be “disconnected,” so that Americans would be free to opt out of government Medicare health insurance, but still retain their Social Security benefits. The bill, nevertheless, died in the Senate.

Meanwhile, the members of the Fund appealed their case to the U.S. Supreme Court. In 2012, the Cato Institute and the American Civil Rights Union (ACRU) joined the case as well and submitted amicus briefs. However, in January of 2013, the Supreme Court denied the appeal, a decision the Fund stated was “the easy way out.”

“The three branches of government all have the ability to reign in bureaucratic overreach, but none have the fortitude to do so,” wrote the Fund. “When unelected bureaucrats create mandates out of thin air, without any repercussions, we have opened Pandora’s Box.”

I'm recently retired, covered under my wife's private health insurance, and getting full Social Security. And so is she.

Many seniors are in similar positions. One spouse keeps working (or goes back to work) mainly for private health insurance.

Yes, Medicare Part A (hospitalization) is free, but Part B (doctor's costs) and Part D (prescriptions) are not.

The idea is to not apply for Medicare PERIOD, irrespective of any Medicare part alphabet soup BS. Some people don't want the nonsense of government intrusion and have the means to avoid Medicare altogether. There is ample reason to avoid Medicare: many private doctors don't take Medicare.

The mandate of law is to sign up for Medicare Part A by the age of 65. There should be no linkage of Medicare with respect to Social Security and by opting out of one program, there should be no effect upon the other.

Yes, the article clearly states that the requirement/linkage pertains to Part A, not B or any other part of Medicare. Medicare A is free. A person may choose to supplement A with private insurance. In the case where a person is still working and has private insurance through his employer that insurance is primary and Medicare A is secondary. Upon retirement if the person can and does maintain the private insurance with his employer Medicare A becomes primary and the private insurance secondary.

So what is the BFD? The private insurance covers what Medicare A does not cover. This seems like a win-win all the way around (except for those that are paying for whatever hospitalization costs Medicare A might cover for my wife and I through payroll deductions - just like we did before we were eligible for Medicare A).

I have been enrolled in Medicare A since age 66. I also have been receiving SS payments since age 66. I have private insurance through my employer. I am now over 70 and just recently retired with my private insurance intact (I pay for it of course). Since age 66 while I was working my private insurance was primary and Medicare A secondary. My wife had major surgery for which my private insurance entirely paid for. Not one penny was paid by Medicare A. We haven't had to make a hospital claim since I retired but it is my understanding that if we did Medicare A would be the primary payor and my private insurance secondary. Though we have been eligible for it since we reach age 66 neither my wife or I have Medicare B and probably will not enroll for it now that I am retired as my private insurance and drug plan is more than adequate (it has picked up more than $250,000 in in post surgery cancer treatments and drugs for my wife).

We recently had over $300,000 in medical expenses and counting, including brain surgery, and Medicare hasn't yet paid one penny of it. If we both stay out of the hospital Medicare never will pay out one penny on our behalf.

So I ask again, what is the BFD in having Medicare A linked to SS payments when Medicare is totally free to the individual and does not diminish what a person's private insurance covers?

"Collyer also asserted in her decision that the Obama administration “extols the benefits of Medicare Part A and suggests that Plaintiffs would agree they are not truly injured if they were to learn more about Medicare, perhaps through discovery.”

It appears that the judge is correct except that Medicare A is not the invention of Obama but has been around for decades.

I disagree because the two programs are not integrated within US law. The two programs are mutually exclusive and therefore independent of each other. To find one program dependent upon the other (and vice versa) is silly because the funding is separate.

Congress needs to update the bureaucratic nightmare they have created by ensuring a seamless, consistent approach towards the various programs already designed and written into law. What we see (here) is the probable mandate of the forced US government medical blanket for all Americans whether considered "senior" or now the broad 0bama plan covering just about everyone including the wetback crossing the RioGrande.

For all of America’s cherished belief in choice and freedom, it remains an astonishing fact that the U.S. government forces citizens over the age of 65 into a subpar health plan of its choosing. And so it is with some hope that we greet a new federal lawsuit that aims to allow senior citizens to flee Medicare.

The suit comes courtesy of Kent Masterson Brown, a lawyer who has previously tangled with the government over Medicare benefits. Mr. Brown represents three plaintiffs who are suing the federal government to be allowed to opt out of Medicare without losing their Social Security benefits.

Amazingly, this is not currently allowed. While the Social Security law does not require participants to accept Medicare, and the Medicare law does not require participants to accept Social Security, the Clinton Administration in 1993 tied the programs together. Under that policy, any senior who withdraws from Medicare also loses Social Security benefits.

Mr. Brown’s plaintiffs are three men who do not want to be in Medicare, even though they paid Medicare taxes throughout their income-earning years and though they are not asking for that money back. The three instead saved privately to cover their health care expenses. They now prefer to contract with private doctors and health facilities that they believe are superior to those offered by Medicare.