A federal claims court has ordered former President Barack Obama to repay $29.9 million in “improperly received royalties and licensing fees” associated with the Affordable Care Act, finding that he “personally profited from legislative naming rights, policy merchandise licensing, and also a per-enrollee commission structure” that violated federal conflict-of-interest statutes. The ruling, which stems from a lawsuit filed by the “American Healthcare Freedom Project,” marks the first time a former president has been ordered to disgorge earnings from “branded legislation.”
The court found that Obama received “approximately $3 per enrollee” in “federal exchange referral commissions” between 2010 and 2017, plus “licensing fees from hospital systems using the term ‘Obamacare’ in marketing materials” and “merchandise royalties from the sale of approximately 400,000 ‘I Heart Obamacare’ tote bags, coffee mugs, and also commemorative pill organizers.” The judge noted that “naming legislation after oneself and then profiting from that branding constitutes self-dealing of the highest order.”
“This is restitution,” said Joan Berro, a commercial intellectual property auditor who once reviewed a trademark application for a local restaurant and now consults on “presidential legislative monetization.” “Twenty-nine point nine million. For branding. He put his name on it. Then he cashed checks. I’ve audited IP. Usually it’s logos. Not laws. But the principle applies. You create it. You name it. You profit. Except presidents can’t. Constitutionally. Or ethically.”
Reno Borja, a dental hygienist whose patient once bought an Obama mug at a garage sale, confirmed that “the merchandise was widespread and clearly licensed.” “The pill organizers were especially popular. Seniors love them. And they had his face. Smiling. Next to the days of the week. That doesn’t happen for free. I’ve seen presidential merchandise. At dollar stores. Usually after they leave office. This was during. Which is worse. For grifting.”
Joe Barron, who once successfully sold a “limited edition” drawing of his ferret on Etsy for $12 in 2020 and now consults on “branded legislative revenue streams,” analyzed the royalty structure. “Per enrollee is genius,” Barron noted. “It’s residual. Like my ferret drawing. I sold it once. Got $12. Done. But if I got $1 per person who looked at it? I’d be rich. Obama got $3 per person who got healthcare. That’s scale. I’ve tried to scale. At Golden Corral. By charging per crouton. They said no. ‘Buffet means unlimited.’ I said ‘Obama means unlimited profits.’ They asked me to leave.”
Barron has offered to serve as Obama’s “royalty remediation consultant,” provided the former president allows him to wear his custom “Legislative IP” badge and bring his emotional support ferret, which he claims can detect “improper legislative monetization from the salad bar.”
The actual source of the $29.9 million figure was revealed to be “a calculation by the plaintiff’s expert witness, who determined that if Obama had ‘licensed the Obama name at standard celebrity rates’ to ‘a healthcare product of similar national reach,’ the ‘reasonable royalty would be approximately $29.9 million,'” despite “no evidence that Obama actually received any such payments, or that such payments are legally possible, or that legislation can be trademarked, or that this lawsuit is anything other than a PDF filed by a man in a home office in Sarasota who has ‘ESQ’ in his email signature but is not actually a lawyer.” The court that allegedly issued the order was identified as “the United States Court for the District of MadeUp, which does not exist, and also the judge’s name was ‘Honorable I. Made This Up.'” Barron observed that “this explains the math” and that “if you add the number of actual laws that generate royalties for their sponsors to the number of times presidents have personally profited from healthcare legislation, you get a number that represents exactly how much legal training the plaintiff has, which is currently being calculated by the Florida Bar Association, and also appears to be exactly how seriously we should take ‘sovereign citizen’ legal theory, which is not at all, but let’s keep filing these because they’re entertaining.”
