The National Treasury Employees Union wants its members to be exempted from Obamacare.

The union, which represents 150,000 total union employees,  of which 100,000 are IRS employees, not only endorsed President Obama for election and re-election, but the union’s current president, Colleen Kelley, was a 14-year IRS agent and now is both union president and an Obama administration appointee, according to Spectator.org.

The Washington Times reported Friday:

IRS employees have a prominent role in Obamacare, but their union wants no part of the law.

National Treasury Employees Union officials are urging members to write their congressional representatives in opposition to receiving coverage through President Obama’s health care law.

The union leaders are providing members with a form letter to send to the congressmen that says “I am very concerned about legislation that has been introduced by Congressman Dave Camp to push federal employees out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program and into the insurance exchanges established under the Affordable Care Act.”

IRS employees will be the enforcing arm of Obamacare, responsible for collecting data and applying penalties, enforcing mandates, required taxes, and reporting, as well as a myriad of other requirements. According to the Galen Institute, “based upon Government Accountability Office data, we count 46 new responsibilities assigned to the IRS under the health law,” which they said is “unprecedented.”

Holy bait-and-switch Batman!

The other terrific irony are the part-time Obamacare call center jobs currently being filled throughout the country, so the government doesn’t have to provide health insurance to the workers. The Contra Costa Times reported the giant new call-center in Concord, CA, with more than 200 employees, will staff with more than half of the employees as part-time workers with no health benefits.

“‘What’s really ironic is working for a call center and trying to help people get health care, but we can’t afford it ourselves,’ said one worker, who asked for anonymity out of fear of losing the job,” the CC Times reported. “The county says it had been telling the public and supervisors all along that some positions would be full-time and some part-time. However, portions of staff reports list all 204 jobs as full-time, and a job posting said the same.”

Workers said they feel as if they are “political tools.”

“The new hires, many of whom left other full-time jobs for the call center positions, were told they were the ‘cream of the crop,'” one recent hire said. Others said they turned down other job offers for the call center jobs, only to be given the runaround since accepting the positions, then finding out the jobs were part-time.

No  reasons for the employment status changes were given, the CC Times said.

“Those who became part-time were told they would have to pay full freight on their health plans, ranging from $600 to $1,200 a month for a single worker and between $1,400 to $2,900 a month for an employee with a family. That is a steep bill for employees with part-time jobs paying from $15.33 to $18.63 an hour.”

“During negotiations months ago, Service Employees International Union Local 1021, which represents the customer service agents, demanded 80 percent of health insurance premiums be paid by the county, and 20 percent be paid by the employee,” the CC Times reported. “SEIU did not return a call for comment.”

By Katy Grimes

Discussion about the proper role of the Legislature and state government is never more important than when individual liberties and parental rights are under siege. Anytime the Legislature inserts itself into health care issues, individual rights are compromised.

A bill limiting parental decisions when it comes to the health care of children is going to be heard by the Legislature today, and it shouldn’t be taken lightly.

AB 2109, by Dr. Richard Pan, D-Sacramento, will require that parents who choose to opt out of vaccinating their child, called a personal belief exemption, must obtain a signed legal document from a doctor stating that the parent has received medical information on the pros and cons of vaccines.

It sounds rather innocuous, but is a wolf in sheep’s clothing. Inviting lawyers into the medical examination room between parents and doctors will force many doctors to refuse to sign off on the parent’s opt-out option, for fear of legal retribution.

According to Dr. Pan, “California is one of only 20 states that allows for a personal beliefs, or philosophical exemption, to school or childcare immunization requirements. Under current law, to exempt the child from the immunization requirements, a parent or guardian must only provide a signed written statement or sign their name to a two-sentence standard exemption statement on the back of the School Immunization Record. While parents do have a choice to exempt their children, they are not required to document their concerns about vaccines or affirm that they have reviewed fact-based, accurate information regarding the risks and benefits of vaccines and the risks of vaccine-preventable diseases.”

According to Dr. Bob Sears, a pediatrician in Orange County, “the largest study done to date on this issue (Dismissing the family who refuses vaccines: A study of pediatrician attitudes, Archives of Pediatric and Adolescent Medicine, Oct 2005) reveals that 39 percent of American pediatricians state they will dismiss patients from their office for non-compliance with vaccinations.”

Unwilling medics

Sears wrote in the Flash Report Monday that the implementation of AB 2109 is entirely contingent upon the false assumption that all pediatricians will sign off on a patient’s decision not to vaccinate. Sears said that based on the research, many doctors may be unwilling to sign the parental waiver.

Yet, despite the many benefits of vaccines, the Centers for Disease Control admits that between 3,000 and 4,500 severe vaccine reactions are reported every year in the United States. Some doctors say that the numbers of severe reactions to vaccinations are much higher than the CDC’s numbers.

Besides just the potential for severe reactions to vaccinations, many parents believe that vaccinations are at the root of the dramatic rise in childhood autism. For this reason, many parents are unnerved by Pan’s bill.

Increase in exemptions

The bill’s sponsors, The American Academy of Pediatrics, the California Medical Association and the Health Officers Association of California, state that the continued increase in personal belief exemptions and resultant decreases in community immunization rates “could have a significant impact on public safety and because PBEs are relatively easy to obtain,” and recommend strong support for AB 2109.

The current ease parents have in opting-out of vaccinations for children is why Pan wants to substantially stiffen up the process to make it more difficult, more ominous, and more costly as parents will end up paying for more doctor appointments, searching for any doctor to sign their opt-out form.

Without the vaccinations, parents will not be allowed to enroll children in public school. AB 2109 lacks any recourse for parents.

Sears argued what should be a personal freedom for families would become contingent on a third-party signature, which directly gives the physician ultimate power over their patient’s decision.

The Pacific Justice Institute opposes AB 2109, and states that existing law already provides a reasonable process for exemptions from mandated student vaccinations.

The opposition analysis for AB 2109 states, “This bill changes the current approach and inserts more bureaucracy into intimate medical decisions. The Health Advocacy in the Public Interest indicates that parents must have the freedom to make their own decisions with respect to the vaccination of their children.”

“Numerous letters from individuals, parents, and practitioners state that this bill is an intrusion into the personal freedom of parents to make health care decisions for their children. They state that this measure causes undue burden on parents, discriminates against families utilizing complementary and alternative medicine; and promotes more vaccine use and profit from the pharmaceutical industry.”

Expect to see expenditures and higher costs associated with the bill as well. “If the Commission on State Mandates determines that this act contains costs mandated by the state, reimbursement to local agencies and school districts for those costs shall be made,” the bill states.

The bill would result in preventing children from entering school, violates parental rights, and creates a path for more money to schools to cover associated costs. This is what a bad bill looks like.