Originally published November 16 2013
Judge Napolitano: Federal anti-kickback laws somehow do not apply to Obamacare
by Jonathan Benson, staff writer
(NaturalNews) While all the focus remains centered on the continued failure of the Healthcare.gov website to function properly, few have taken notice of a key federal statute that was quietly stripped away from the provisions of Obamacare, opening it up to widespread fraud. During a recent interview on Fox News, Judge Andrew Napolitano told reporters that Obamacare has been purposely exempted from the federal anti-kickback statute, which was originally designed to prevent corruption and greed from influencing health care decisions.
The reason for this exemption, claims U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, is that the insurance plans offered through Obamacare are not technically federal health programs, and thus are not within the scope of the statute. Sebelius spelled this out with little detail in a recent letter written to Representative Jim McDermott (D-Wa.), who had previously questioned the secretary as to whether or not Obamacare's qualified health plans (QHPs) would be considered federal health programs.
But many outside experts and commentators like Judge Napolitano disagree with Sebelius' claim, noting that the entire Obamacare scheme, by its very nature, is a federal health program. To claim otherwise is pure deceit, as the new insurance plans mandated through the program differ significantly from the private ones held by millions of Americans, many of whom are expected to lose their coverage. In fact, the entire restructuring of the American health insurance system as a result of Obamacare, including the egregious individual mandate, proves that everything about Obamacare is federal in nature.
"The law authorizes the Secretary of Health and Human Services to remove the ability of the Justice Department to enforce the anti-kickback law with respect to the delivery of health care services in the United States," Judge Napolitano urgently stated. "[It allows] the president and his administration to punish his enemies and to reward his supporters, to relieve his supporters of burden, and to grant his supporters the benefits. That's why there's a delay here and an acceleration there."
Goal of Obamacare: reward Obama's supporters, punish his enemies
The validity of these latter statements is evidenced by the fact that the original architects of Obamacare, which included pharmaceutical companies and medical device manufacturers, are now being rewarded with their own exemptions from the federal anti-kickback statute. What this means as far as Obamacare is concerned is that drug companies will now be able to offer things like co-payment assistance to insurance holders, encouraging more drug purchases, without being held liable for criminal kickback violations.
Other beneficiaries of the anti-kickback statute exemption include cronies like Michelle Obama's college pal Toni Townes-Whitley, senior vice president of CGI Federal, the company that received the $635 million no-bid government contract to build the failed Obamacare website. Expert analysis has since determined that a functional website could have been built for as little as $1 million, which means a roughly $634 million kickback, funded by American taxpayers, appears to have been illegally and arbitrarily funneled by the Obamas to a close friend and supporter, without consequence.
"I've never seen, in 40 years of watching and analyzing federal law, so much wiggle room in the hands of the executive branch as there is in Obamacare," added Judge Napolitano. "It is clear that they knew from the get-go this was not going to work as they thought it would ... [that] there would be serious problems, and so they gave the president or his designee ... extraordinary, unheard of authority to decide which laws will be enforced and which laws won't."
You can watch the Fox News segment with Judge Napolitano here:
http://youtube.com.
Sources for this article include:
http://www.forbes.com
http://savingtherepublic.com
http://dailycaller.com
http://youtube.com
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