OBAMACARE PENALTIES & EXEMPTIONS

This story originally appeared at Yahoo News.

MIAMI (AP) — Federal officials have capped the amount of money scofflaws will be forced to pay if they don't buy insurance this year at $2,448 per person and $12,240 for a family of five.

The amount is equal to the national average annual premium for a bronze level health plan. But only those with an income above about a quarter of a million dollars would benefit from the cap. Those making less would still have to pay as much as 1 percent of their annual income.

The penalty for the first year starts at $95 per adult or $47.50 per child under 18. The penalty for not buying insurance increases to 2 percent of income or $325, whichever is higher, for 2015. The fines are due when people file their 2014 taxes.

The figures, released late Thursday, are important because the White House has only provided theoretical caps in the past. Conservative lawmakers and groups that are critical of the Affordable Care Act encouraged consumers to skip buying insurance, arguing it would be cheaper to pay a $95 penalty, but often failed to mention the 1 percent clause.

The uninsured will owe 1/12th of the annual payment for each month they or their dependents don't have either coverage or an exemption, according to the IRS.

Federal researchers predict that about 4 million people, including dependents, could be hit with fines by 2016. The Congressional Budget Office had previously projected 6 million would pay fines, but dropped the estimate because more people will be exempt from the law, partly due to changes in regulations.

More than 8 million people signed up for insurance under the Affordable Care Act and many Americans already had insurance through their employers and were not affected by the fine.

If someone is due a tax refund, the IRS can deduct the penalty from the refund. Otherwise, the IRS will let people know what's owed or hold back the amount of the penalty fee from future tax refunds, but there are no liens or criminal penalties for failing to pay.

Some residents, including prison inmates, are exempt from the penalties and others can file for hardship conditions. If people don't earn enough money to have to file a federal tax form, they don't have to buy coverage. The threshold for filing a federal tax return is $10,150.

Premium prices vary widely based on age, gender and zip code so the premium for a bronze plan in South Florida could be much different than the cost of a bronze plan in Kansas.

EXEMPTIONS?

Yes.  There are ways to avoid the penalties.  You have to apply for a "Hardship Exemption."  According to government’s “Application for Exemption from the Shared Responsibility Payment for Individuals who Experience Hardships,” you can request a hardship exemption if:

• You were homeless.
• You were evicted in the past 6 months or were facing eviction or foreclosure.
• You received a shut-off notice from a utility
• You recently experienced domestic violence.
• You recently experienced the death of a close family member.
• You experienced a fire, flood, or other natural human-caused disaster that caused substantial damage to your property.
• You filed for bankruptcy in the last 6 months.
• You had medical expenses you couldn’t pay in the last 24 months.
• You experienced unexpected increases in necessary expenses due to caring for an ill, disabled, or aging family member.
• You expect to claim a child as a tax dependent who’s been denied coverage in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), and another person is required by court order to give medical support to the child.
• As a result of an eligibility appeals decision, you’re eligible either for: 1) enrollment in a qualified health plan (QHP) through the Marketplace, 2) lower costs on your monthly premiums, or 3) cost-sharing reductions for a time period when you weren’t enrolled in a QHP through the Marketplace.
• You were determined ineligible for Medicaid because your state didn’t expand eligibility for Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act.
• You received a notice saying that your current health insurance plan is being cancelled, and you consider the other plans available unaffordable.
• You experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance.

The last category merely says to “please submit documentation if possible.” After sending in their signed application, applicants, if approved, will receive an “Exemption Certificate Number” to put on their federal income tax return.

FOODS WITH PROVEN REGENERATION
Article by Sayer Ji.

It may come as a surprise to some, especially those with conventional medical training, but the default state of the body is one of ceaseless regeneration.  Without the flame-like process of continual cell turnover within the body – life and death ceaselessly intertwined – the miracle of the human body would not exist.

In times of illness, however, regenerative processes are overcome by degenerative ones. This is where medicine may perform its most noble feat, nudging the body back into balance with foods, herbs, nutrients, healing energies, i.e. healing intention. Today, however, drug-based medicine invariably uses chemicals that have not one iota of regenerative potential; to the contrary, they almost always interfere with bodily self-renewal in order to suppress the symptoms against which they are applied.

Despite the outright heretical nature of things which stimulate healing and regeneration vis-à-vis the conventional medical system which frowns upon, or is incredulous towards, spontaneous remission in favor of symptom suppression and disease management, over the course of the past few years of trolling MEDLINE we have collected a series of remarkable studies on the topic...

Nerve Regeneration – There are actually a broad range of natural compounds with proven nerve-regenerative effects. A 2010 study published in the journal Rejuvenation Research, for instance, found a combination of blueberry, green tea and carnosine have neuritogenic (i.e. promoting neuronal regeneration) and stem-cell regenerative effects in an animal model of neurodegenerative disease.[1] Other researched neuritogenic substances include:

1.    Curcumin

2.    Lion's Mane Mushroom

3.    Apigenin (compound in vegetables like celery)

4.    Blueberry

5.    Ginseng

6.    Huperzine

7.    Natto

8.    Red Sage

9.    Resveratrol

10.Royal Jelly

11.Theanine

12.Ashwaganda

13.Coffee (trigonelline)

There is another class of nerve-healing substances, known as remyelinating  compounds, which stimulate the repair of the protective sheath around the axon of the neurons known as myelin, and which is often damaged in neurological injury and/or dysfunction, especially autoimmune and vaccine-induced demyelination disorders.  It should also be noted that even music and falling in love have been studied for possibly stimulating neurogenesis, regeneration and/or repair of neurons, indicating that regenerative medicine does not necessary require the ingestion of anything; rather, a wide range of therapeutic actions  may be employed to improve health and well-being, as well.

[View the first-hand biomedical citations on these neuritogenic substance visit our NeuritogenicResearch page on the topic]

Liver Regeneration – Glycyrrhizin, a compound found within licorice, and which we recently featured as a powerful anti-SARS virus agent,  has also been found to stimulate the regeneration of liver mass and function in the animal model of hepatectomy. Other liver regenerative substances include:

1.    Carvacrol (a volatile compound in oregano)

2.    Curcumin

3.    Korean Ginseng

4.    Rooibos

5.    Vitamin E

[view the first-hand biomedical citations on the Liver Regeneration research page]

Beta-Cell Regeneration – Unfortunately, the medical community has yet to harness the diabetes-reversing potential of natural compounds. Whereas expensive stem cell therapies, islet cell transplants, and an array of synthetic drugs in the developmental pipeline are the focus of billions of dollars of research, annually, our kitchen cupboards and backyards may already contain the long sought-after cure for type 1 diabetes. The following compounds have been demonstrated experimentally to regenerate the insulin-producing beta cells, which are destroyed in insulin dependent diabetes, and which once restored, may (at least in theory) restore the health of the patient to the point where they no longer require insulin replacement.

GERSON THERAPY IS WHOLE FOOD THERAPY

The following is my selective notes on the 3-hour video above by Charlotte Gerson, daughter of the founder of the Gerson Therapy, Max Gerson.  

She begins by referring to her father's achievements of having cured 50 terminal cancer patients with the Gerson Therapy.  So be advised that her description of the juicing detox treatment applies to terminally ill cancer patients and not healthy patients.

At the 17:25 mark, Charlotte Gerson explains that the main benefit from drinking water is to flush out toxins and to dilute the stomach acids like hydrochloric acid.  She explains that for terminally ill patients they should be drinking juices instead of water.  Juice, she says, does not dilute the acid but rather it helps produce stomach acid.  Why is this important?

Don't drink water if you use the Gerson Therapy.  Then she qualifies her statement, saying "If you do use water, make sure it's distilled water."  Distilled water does not leach minerals out of the system.  She says that the water often has organic compounds and minerals in it that we don't want.  She says that what you want are inorganic compounds found in juice so that nutrients can be properly lodged in the bone. 

Here are her recommendations for the Gerson Therapy, not in the operational order or even order of importance:

Coffee enemas. 

Certain soups. 

Herbal teas.

Water has to be clean.  Other problem, if you're water is fluoridated, you can't even bathe in it.  Use distilled water or reverse osmosis water and do a sponge bath.  Once a week do a shower.  You mustn't put new poisons in your body.  It's toxic already and deficient. 

Chronic degenerative disease, the liver is defenseless and weakened.  With cancer is further advanced damaged.  In cancer, the liver is toxic.  It's poisoned.  It becomes more and more important that new toxins are not allowed in the body.  It's not easy.  It's tough.  Can't swim.  Pools are filled with chlorine.  Even the ocean.  Salt changes the biochemistry of the body.  The potassium is the key mineral, not salt.  For flavor, we add salt, salt, salt, and our bodies create a whole biochemistry that damages our cells.  The body operates on an approved set of potassium.  We lose potassium in our cooking and food processing.  Sodium into the body binds with water.  "Sodium is poison!!" she says.

A book called Enzymes.  Activating substances of enzymes was potassium.  The catalyst was potassium.  The inhibiting substance, the defeating substance was sodium.  Salt.  The definition of poison is enzyme inhibitor.  Sodium was an enzyme inhibitor. 

How does the oxygen go to every cell in your body?

Is Gerson Therapy enzyme therapy?

Liver filters blood.  Enzymes do that.

Tumors require salt?  She was raised without salt?  never eat anything with salt added.  salt is needed for tumor growth.  Salt penetrates the tissues after the body loses its capability of getting rid of it.  Salt is an excess fat, sodium and animal proteins.  She asks the question, "Without salt, where do we get the flavor?"

Your saliva has salt.  The more salt you eat, your saliva becomes saltier. 

Peppermint teas help digestion, camomile tea helps with insomnia, Pau D'Aarco tea, but no black tea.  Not the tea you're used to, which has fluoride in it.

The thyroid needs iodine.  Fluoride is a halogen; these destroy your immune system. 

Fluoride can displace chlorine.  Fluoride increases cancer.  It destroys the health of the thyroid.  Same with Chlorine, which displaces iodine.  Can't heal once the fluoride continues to be active, because you can't restore the metabolism. 

No Epsom Salts!  No way!  Wow!

13oz of 8 glasses each means there is no need for dehydration.

No mineral water because of the salt. 

Spring water?  Maybe.  But if there are calcium and fluoride, then fine. 

Distilled water by making it.

OIL

Precaution is not unlike that of salt.  Adding fat caused the tumor to regrow.  Any oil made tumors to regrow. 

Don't use any fats or any oils.

Flaxseed oil was beneficial.  The improved oxygen-carrying capacity of the blood.  

2 tablespoons of flaxseed, or 15 milliliters, and that did what . . . ?  Buy it in a dark, glass bottle.  Closed.  And cold.  Use it and put it into the fridge.  She recommends Omega organic that comes in a black, plastic bottle.  It's manufactured in an oxygen-free environment.  4 to 6 bottles and keep them in the freezer for 6 months.  In the fridge for 3 months.  2 tablespoons a day.  Great value to the rest of the family.  

Oils and fats tend to help tumor growth.  This is shocking!  She says that once you have cancer that you cannot have oils.  None.  She says that flaxseed is the one exception.  Okay.  Do not use it with a protein because protein has other problems.  

Another advantage of black seed oil.

Beta carotene and carrot juice is an effective cancer treatment.  Flaxseed oil combined with carrots and beta carotene is a powerful combination.  

If you wouldn't eat it, don't put it on your skin.

She recommends glycerin for the skin because of the triglycerides.  I do not get this. 

Castor oil?  

FOODS TO AVOID

Bottled, canned foods, salted foods.  Processed foods.  Alcohol.  Avocado.  Too much oil.  

Berries are forbidden.  Why?  Some people are allergic to berries and high in aromatics.  

Toothpaste and gargle with bicarbonate.  Fluoride is lethal.  It increases cancer and death.  Use distilled water.  Don't use any toothpaste.  Cake, candy, chocolate, cocoa.  Coffee.  Cream, cucumbers (not high in sodium, but they don't agree with juices).  Cucumbers cause indigestion.  Epsom salt is forbidden.  Fats.  

WHEAT

White flour, wheat flour, whole wheat flour.  Wheat is so depleted today.  Only has 4 to 5% protein.  It used to have 45 to 50% protein.  Hair dyes and permanents.  

SHAMPOOS

Careful with shampoos.  Wash hair once a week.  

MUSHROOMS

Mushrooms--too much L-Arginine.  Too much L-Lysine.  Ice Cream.  Nicotine.  Nuts because of the oils.  Seeds.  Eat fresh living things.  Seeds are dormant.  Seeds change completely when they're in a human environment.  Dried foods are turned around proteins.  Nature endows them with an enzyme inhibitor.  Pineapple.  High in aromatics.  It can burn your tongue.  Lithium chloride is second under salt on the Periodic Table.  

SUGAR

White sugar.  Why specify this?  A little bit of sweetener is okay.  

LIVER

The liver is toxic in a cancer patient.  The liver has to store half a pound overnight.  The body needs sugar to work overnight while you're sleeping.  Raw brown sugar.  Sucanat.  All the iron, enzymes, and or organic honey, maple syrup, or blackstrap molasses.  With exception.  Hypoglycemia?  No.  Diabetes?  No.  

ENZYMES

Enzymes don't allow tumors to grow.  Forbidden is black tea consumed in the UK.  Water is forbidden.  Reasons tried, and tested.  The only thing that matters are the results in the sick bed.  

Gerson cured 90% of the terminal patients that came to him.

WHAT ABOUT SOY?  

Soy is poison.  High in salt.  Forbidden.  

HAIR DYE?

Henna.

WHAT ABOUT GREEN TEA?  

It contains caffeine.  Caffeine is no good for cancer patients.

BANANAS? 

Bananas are not very digestible.  Organic banana?  Okay.  But eat only one.  Apples are vastly superior to bananas.  

SPICES

Certain spices are permitted.  Spices must be used sparingly.  Temporarily forbidden foods are fish, milk products, eggs, cheese; these stimulate tumor growth.

USE THESE SPICES SPARINGLY!!!

Allspice

Rosemary

Anise

Bay 

Dill

Marjoram

Thyme

Coriander

Fennel

Mace is another name for nutmeg.

Sage 

Saffron

Tarragon

Sorell

SMALL AMOUNTS

Pepper 

Oregano

Basil

THESE ARE TOO HIGH IN AROMATICS

Onions, garlic can make Flavor and provide health benefits. parsley, chives, celery, tomatoes are valuable and can make flavor and be added to foods in unlimited quantity.

THE RELIANCE UPON JUICE

First, the patient is severely depleted.  A terminal patient has real trouble eating.  How are you going to put the food into them?  Pills don't work.  They can drink juice.  Fresh living active enzymes, minerals and vitamins.  13 glasses of juice per day.  20 pounds of fresh food a day.  She says that the juice has to be fresh.  It cannot be a thing where you make juice in the morning and it lasts all day.  It has to be freshly squeezed juice.  A fresh glass of juice every hour.  It is work intensive with a cancer patient.  If you make one large batch in the morning, the enzymes get lost through storage.  You lose the activity in the juiced food.  

Capsids acid?

Carrot apple with liver capsules.  Liver with pure carrot juice helps activate the immune system.

4 glasses of juice made from greens.  Not from wheatgrass juice; wheatgrass causes serious digestion problems.  Green leaf juice.  Watercress.  One medium apple in the green juice.  Provides pectin.  Makes juice digestible.  As opposed to highly indigestible wheat juice.  Healing reactions--the flare-ups.

When drinking the juice, one should not shove it down the throat or throw it down the throat, but you should let it sit briefly in your mouth to let the enzymes in your mouth pre-digest the juice.  Drinking juice from a straw bypasses this pre-digestion.  You want micro-digestion and pre-digestion.  

There is another way of digesting juice.  Rectal absorption.   

Okay.  So the Gerson Therapy requires 2 steps.  Step 1:  Juice.  Step 2: Enemas.  The enemas are necessary because you will overwhelm the liver from the detox if you don't do enemas.  Enemas help the liver.  Can't just push more poisons to the liver and then not do enemas.  Half a therapy, she says, is outright dangerous.  Dr. Max Gerson had patients who died of liver coma because the patients didn't want to do enemas.  They were okay with the juicing but not the enemas.  The result was that they died from a liver coma.  That's how Charlotte Gerson puts it.  

Acids from the apple help to extract more minerals from the carrots.  And you get a better juice.  This has been tested.  Grind first then press.  She recommends a Champion Press versus the Green Power.  Plain centrifugal machines don't work.  The Norwalk Juicer is the best she says.  It's $2000. 

MENUS & COOKED FOODS

The reason she recommends vegetarian proteins is because you can absorb them better than animal proteins.  Hmm.  Sounds good.  Sounds right.  But I would need to verify that.  From experience that rings true, but does the digestibility of vegetables outweigh the quality of protein that you get from an egg or steak?  I understand that this talk is directed to terminal patients, so in that light, her statement may be spot on.  But what about healthy people?  Do these statements hold true for them?

She points out that a baked potato has 2.4 grams of protein, whereas mother's milk has 2.9 grams of protein.  

ENEMAS

She points out straight away that it is dangerous to do the Gerson Therapy without enemas.  The toxins leaching from the organs will find their way to the 

The brain consumes 2/5 of the oxygen from your body.  That's a lot of oxygen consumption by a single organ.

Interesting was her point that tumors break up from the therapy and break up into the bloodstream and eliminated by the liver.  But then she uses the word "absorb," that the body absorbs the tumor tissue that is breaking up.  Some folks need additional detoxification.  

Mindbodygreen.com lists some very interesting benefits from coffee enemas:

10 REASONS WHY YOU SHOULD TRY A COFFEE ENEMA

    1.    Reduces levels of toxicity by up to 600%. 

    2.    Cleans and heals the colon, improving peristalsis.

    3.    Increases energy levels and improves mental clarity and mood.

    4.    Helps with depression, bad moods, and sluggishness.

    5.    Helps eliminate parasites and candida.

    6.    Improves digestion, bile flow, eases bloating.

    7.    Detoxifies the liver and helps repair the liver.

    8.    Can help heal chronic health conditions (along with following a mainly raw plant based diet).

    9.    Helps ease "die-off" or detox reactions during periods of fasting or juice fasting, cleansing or healing.

    10.  Used regularly in the Gerson Institute treatment protocol for healing cancer patients naturally

Even if you're sensitive to caffeine, it won't affect you taking your coffee this way. (Definitely, do not attempt to use decaf coffee though, you won't get the benefits.) By taking it orally, the coffee goes through your digestive system and stomach acids, which nullify any benefits you'd get if you took your coffee via the portal vein to the liver!

Coffee enemas bring people out of comas.  

Detox and flood the body with nutrients.

Chemo leaves poisons in the system, which are difficult to overcome.   Chemo was not used in the 1920s.  With the chemo, the body is usually able to eliminate 45% of the toxins.  But where does the rest of the chemical poisons go?  Tumor tissue grows rapidly.  It grabs everything--good and bad.  Original chemo was made from mustard gas?!

Hydrogen peroxide is an effective treatment for drying up boils on the skin. 

Reduce the therapy.  Never give anyone castor oil when they've had chemotherapy.  Castor oil is extremely valuable for non-chemo patients.  You need at least 1/3 of your liver to survive.