They Don't Want A Government Bureaucrat Between You And Your Doctor - Just An IRS Agent.

I know The President and his media cheerleaders keep calling ObamaCare just a "reform", but I'm not sure if this is what any of us would call a reform:

People often joke that government-run health care will have the efficiency of the motor vehicle department, and the compassion of the Internal Revenue Service. This joke will become reality if present Democratic health restructuring proposals are enacted.

Under both the House and Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) Committee bills released to the public, the Internal Revenue Service will play a key role in monitoring and enforcing health care mandates against individual taxpayers. Yet the introduction of the IRS into the health care system has received scant attention.

Knowing how folks like you and me look at the IRS, it's little wonder Team Hopenchange hasn't said too much about this.

Professor Jacobson also points out something else Team Hopenchange isn't talking too much about: Under both bills making their way through Congress, every person in the US must, by Law, be enrolled in a government-approved health insurance plan - or pay a fine in the form of a "tax" or "shared responsibility payment." You will have no choice.

UPDATE: Want to see how this will work operationally? Here is the 2008 Individual Tax form from Massachusetts, a state where where such a government enrollment requirement is currently in place. Note that Schedule HC, the health care reporting portion, runs almost three pages - nearly half the Individual Tax form - and the Schedule HC instructions run 9 pages. Question 9a is especially intriguing:

RELIGIOUS EXEMPTION. Are you claiming an exemption from the requirement to purchase health insurance based on your sincerely held religious beliefs?

I wonder how that works. Can you simply claim a sincerely held belief and be let off the hook, or do you have to prove it somehow? Is there some agency in the Commonwealth that approves which religious beliefs are "sincerely held," and which are not? Under ObamaCare, would the IRS have a similar agency?