First, I need to clear up something I wrote about in this space last week.
I chronicled the plight of a reader whose MRI wasn't covered because of changes in Medicare law. I spoke with a local insurance agent, who spoke with a legislative aid from the National Association of Health Underwriters.
The legislative aid researched Medicare legislation and told the agent the new guidelines were part of the Medicaid Modernization Act.
The agent told me that while technically not part of ObamaCare, the MMA was a cost-cutting measure that grew out of ObamaCare.
So I wrote the following:
"Turns out, the new Medicare guidelines regarding Bob's scans are not technically part of ObamaCare.
They're part of the Medicare Modernization Act, which took affect June 1. But the whole reason for the MMA was to curtail services and cut costs to help pay for ObamaCare.
So even though technically it's separate from ObamaCare, it's driven by ObamaCare."
Well, I should have looked into the MMA myself instead of simply parroting the insurance guy because "technically not part of ObamaCare" is a brash mischaracterization.
The 'Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003' was signed into law in 2003, while George W. Bush was President and Barack Obama was an Illinois legislator.
(This is the same law that brought us the prescription drug benefit and the infamous "donut hole" in prescription coverage.)
It's not unusual for large pieces of legislation to have different provisions of the law take effect at different times.
I was aware of the bill when it was passed in 2003. I was harshly critical of the prescription drug benefit - a giant new entitlement passed by alleged conservatives in the House, Senate and White House.
I didn't remember it being referred to as the MMA. I always called it the prescription drug benefit.
So when the insurance guy characterized it as a cost-cutting measure driven by ObamaCare, I concluded it was passed recently as health care companion legislation - like the "doctor fix" bill.
I haven't read the 415 pages of the 2003 MMA. I am taking the legislative aid at his word when he says the recent changes in preventive MRI guidelines came from there.
If the guidelines did come from the MMA, I apologize for the mischaracterization that something passed in 2003 was "driven by ObamaCare." If the guideline changes were part of the MMA, ObamaCare had nothing to with the reader's scan not being covered by Medicare.
*****Now, on to something that I am absolutely, 100-percent positive about.
It's the crazy new 1099 reporting requirements.
As part of ObamaCare, it seems somebody slipped a few wording changes into the IRS code's section 6041 regarding 1099 reporting.
The change is supposed to raise more than $16 billion over the 10 years to help pay for the health care bill. It supposedly brings in revenue by keeping businesses from underreporting income, and subsequently having to pay more income taxes.
But the change will force businesses across America to generate billions - literally billions - of additional IRS 1099 forms each year. It's a total anti-business nightmare.
The way it works now, businesses are required to issue 1099s in just a few situations, like when paying outside consultants.
The health care bill vastly expands that level of reporting.
The 2010 Health Care Act adds "amounts in consideration for property" and "gross proceeds" to the categories of payments more than $600 that trigger a 1099 requirement. That's for any single payee in any tax year. So for payments made after 2011, the term "payments" includes gross proceeds paid in consideration for any property or services.
Basically, businesses will have to issue 1099s whenever they do more than $600 of business with another entity in a year.
So if we buy a $600 PC here at the Times-Union, we'll have to gather a tax ID number and other information from the seller and send a 1099 to the IRS. That's every time we buy a good or service.
It's about as anti-business a law as you could have.
The good news is that there is a movement afoot in Congress to strip that provision out of the bill. Hopefully, it will be successful.
Remember the ridiculous comment by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi? ... "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy."
Well, we're finding out all right, and I'm not liking some of it.
