Author Topic: Appeals Court: Seniors accepting SS MUST also accept Medicare ...  (Read 901 times)

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Online Pandora

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... or forfeit past and future retirement benefits

"... Judge Collyer’s decision, he said, “provides a novel, new interpretation of what a federal ‘entitlement’ is. Based on her ruling, an entitlement is now an obligation. If an individual is entitled to certain federal benefits, he or she under this decision would now be obligated to accept them. A low-income family, hypothetically, could be required to accept housing and food assistance if that family qualifies – even if the members of that household have objections to accepting public assistance. That, in effect, is the meaning of this ruling.”

... In their complaints, the plaintiffs alleged that 1993 and 2002 rules added by the Social Security Administration to its “Program Operations Manual” are illegal. Those rules state, in effect, that any retiree who elects to opt out of Medicare Part A will automatically lose his or her Social Security retirement benefits and will be forced to repay any Social Security benefits received prior to opting out of Medicare Part A.

Their lawsuit argues that:

    The Social Security Act and Medicare Act state clearly that applying for Social Security monthly benefits and enrolling in Medicare are voluntary and that the applications for each of these programs are not dependent on the application for the other. For the new SSA rules to make enrolling in Medicare mandatory violates the Social Security Act and Medicare Act as well as Article I, Section 1 of the Constitution.

    Forced participation in Medicare infringes on a citizen’s right to privacy and violates that individual’s right to make necessary choices about his or her own health care, and, accordingly, violates the First, Fourth, Fifth, Ninth, and Fourteenth Amendments to the Constitution.

    The new SSA rules were put into place without undergoing the required “notice” and “comment” rule-making requirements. The policies should have been published in the Federal Register and open to comment by the general public prior to implementation. Not doing so violates the federal Administrative Procedure Act.

In dismissing the case, Judge Collyer said “Requiring a mechanism for Plaintiffs and others in their situation to ‘disenroll’ would be contrary to congressional intent, which was to provide ‘mandatory’ benefits under Medicare Part A for those receiving Social Security Retirement benefits.”

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


“Judge Collyer’s decision is without legal merit and defies all logic,” said Brown. “She says that ‘entitlement’ under Medicare Part A ‘is a different type of entitlement because of its automatic nature.’ I had no idea the word ‘entitlement’ ever meant mandatory. In all the Anglo-American literature and the corpus of judicial opinions throughout this Country’s history, ‘entitled’ has always meant what the dictionary says it means: ‘to qualify or to give a right to or to give proper grounds for seeking or claiming something.’ How can there be ‘a different type of entitlement?’”

Judge Collyer’s 13-page decision is available here and plaintiffs and legal counsel are available for interviews by request."

   
"Trapped with no escape" and this friggin judge can find no "requirement" that there be one.

Tyranny.      
"Under certain circumstances, profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer." - Mark Twain

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Online Libertas

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Re: Appeals Court: Seniors accepting SS MUST also accept Medicare ...
« Reply #1 on: January 07, 2013, 11:27:05 AM »
Figures.

And what are a bunch of retirees gonna do?  Riot?  The exploitation of a vulnerable group of people used to be a no-no...the tyranny is getting uglier and uglier...and it will get worse!

Jeepers Cripes, just reading the initial opening of that opinion offends me beyond description!!!

..."the only way to un-entitle..."

 ::cussing::   ::outrage::   ::angry::   ::gaah::   machinegun
We are now where The Founders were when they faced despotism.

Offline John Florida

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Re: Appeals Court: Seniors accepting SS MUST also accept Medicare ...
« Reply #2 on: January 07, 2013, 12:00:42 PM »
 Sometimes words just fail me. ::gaah::
All men are created equal"
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Offline Weisshaupt

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Re: Appeals Court: Seniors accepting SS MUST also accept Medicare ...
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2013, 12:21:16 PM »
This has been true for years.  My Stepdad, who had never bought health insurance in his life ( or failed to pay a medical bill, even when he had to have $30K of work done on his teeth)  was forced onto Medicare in order to collect his SS.  The rules are what the elite say they are.  The rule of law is dead and the tree of liberty is thirsty.