The Latest Lie

From that paragon of honesty, birther fanatic Orly Taitz, comes this wonderful Facebook post:

Obamacare gives free health care to Muslims? VOTE ONLY FOR THOSE WHO WILL REPEAL IT.

What will they think of next? You have to hand it to the opposition, though, this is a great rumor, mixing the Obama is a Muslim meme with opposition to health care reform. And it helps that there is something in the bill called a religious exemption. But note that this exemption does not give free health care to anyone, it simply allows a few Old Order Amish to opt out of the whole system. You can only opt out of the health care law if you have also opted out of Social Security and Medicare -- the option to stay out of Social Security was mandated by the federal courts under the First Amendment. Here is what Factcheck.org says:

Will the Amish, Muslims and other religious groups be exempt from the coverage requirement?

Some Amish may. It’s unlikely that other groups will. We’re still checking out this rumor, but the versions we’ve seen are likely overblown. The law does say that some religious groups may be considered exempt from the requirement to have health insurance, and it uses the definition from 26 U.S. Code section 1402(g)(1), which defines the religious groups considered exempt from Social Security payroll taxes. Eligible sects must forbid any payout in the event of death, disability, old age or retirement, including Social Security and Medicare. They must also be approved by the Commissioner for Social Security. The law was originally designed to apply to the Old Order Amish, and we have yet to find any cases in which members of other religious groups were successfully able to claim exemption.

The Social Security bureaucracy has been slow to respond to our queries about which religious groups have been granted exemptions from the payroll tax. But both the federal government and the courts have been very strict on such exemptions in the past. For instance, in 1982 the Supreme Court found that a member of the Old Order Amish claiming exemption under 1402(g) was in fact subject to payroll tax for his employees. That section, the Court said, is applicable only to the self-employed. And in two cases where self-employed individuals claimed a religious opposition to Social Security but weren’t members of approved sects, they were also ordered to pay the tax.

The Christian Science Church, a religious group with restrictions on health care use, has stated publicly that members will be subject to the insurance requirement.

In tracking this rumor down I found myself, for a few awful minutes, reading the comments sections on right-wing blogs. Oh, dear. The level of ignorant anger out there is troubling, and a lot of people have immediately accepted this rumor as true.