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Entries Tagged as 'Healthcare'

Holder faces House Republicans over health-care law, ‘Fast and Furious’

December 8th, 2011 · Accountability, Corruption, Deception, Ethics, Government Control, Healthcare, Money Matters, Non-Transparency, Obama Exposed, Obama Nominees, Obama's Scheme, Politics, Selling Out the US, Supreme Court, Tax Dollars, Terrorism from Within, Treason

By Jerry Markon, Published: December 8

Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. clashed with congressional Republicans on Thursday, defending the Justice Department in the face of criticism of its “Fast and Furious” gun-trafficking sting and its refusal to turn over documents on the health-care law adopted last year.

Under exhaustive questioning from the House Judiciary Committee, Holder reiterated that his department would not provide Congress with more information about Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s health-care-related role when she was President Obama’s solicitor general. Republicans are seeking internal e-mails and other documents, arguing that Kagan might have to recuse herself from the court’s decision on the health-care law if she was involved in the legislation.

Attorney General Eric Holder says it’s inexcusable for the bureau to use a controversial tactic known as “gun-walking” in its effort to identify and prosecute major arms trafficking networks along the Southwest border. (Dec. 8)

Holder also was grilled over the Phoenix-based Fast and Furious operation, in which federal agents targeting drug cartels allowed guns to flow illegally onto U.S. streets and into Mexico. The operation led to a storm of criticism from Republicans, many of whom have urged Holder to resign.

The attorney general, who has resisted calls to step down, said the controversial Fast and Furious tactic known as “gun walking,’’ was “wholly unacceptable” and “must never happen again.” But he also condemned his accusers, saying the congressional investigation of the gun sting has been political and calling for cooperation in fighting firearms trafficking along the southwest border.

“Each of us have a duty to act, and to rise above partisan divisions and politically motivated ‘gotcha’ games,’’ Holder said. “The American people deserve better.’’

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The Constitutional Moment: Judge Vinson introduces ObamaCare to Madison and Marshall.

February 1st, 2011 · Accountability, Government, Government Control, Healthcare

‘If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

Federal Judge Roger Vinson opens his decision declaring ObamaCare unconstitutional with that citation from Federalist No. 51, written by James Madison in 1788. His exhaustive and erudite opinion is an important moment for American liberty, and yesterday may well stand as the moment the political branches were obliged to return to the government of limited and enumerated powers that the framers envisioned.

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ObamaCare Loses in Court: A victory for liberty and the Constitution in Virginia.

December 14th, 2010 · Accountability, Dissention, Ethics, Healthcare

Only a few months ago, the White House and its allies on the legal left dismissed the constitutional challenges to ObamaCare as frivolous, futile and politically motived. So much for that. Yesterday, a federal district court judge in Virginia ruled that the health law breaches the Constitution’s limits on government power.

In a careful 42-page ruling, Judge Henry Hudson declared that ObamaCare’s core enforcement mechanism known as the individual mandate—the regulation that requires everyone to purchase health insurance or else pay a penalty—exceeds Congress’s authority to regulate the lives of Americans.

“The unchecked expansion of congressional power to the limits suggested by the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision [the individual mandate] would invite unbridled exercise of federal police powers,” Judge Hudson writes. “At its core, this dispute is not simply about regulating the business of insurance—or crafting a scheme of universal health insurance coverage—it’s about an individual’s right to choose to participate.”

So the issue is joined, and no doubt with historic consequences for American liberty. For most of the last century, the U.S. Supreme Court interpreted the Constitution’s Commerce Clause as so elastic as to allow any regulation desired by a Congressional majority. Only with the William Rehnquist Court did the Justices begin to rediscover that the Commerce Clause has some limits, as in the Lopez (1995) and Morrison (2000) cases.

The courts up through the Supremes will now decide if government can order individuals to buy a private product or be penalized for not doing so. If government can punish citizens for in essence doing nothing, then what is left of the core Constitutional principle of limited and enumerated government powers?

Judge Hudson’s opinion is particularly valuable because it dispatches the White House’s carousel of rationalizations for its unprecedented intrusions. The Justice Department argued that the mandate is justified by the Commerce Clause because the decision not to purchase insurance has a substantial effect on interstate commerce because everybody needs medical care eventually. And if not that, then it’s permissible under the broader taxing power for the general welfare; and if not that, then it’s viable under the Necessary and Proper clause; and if not that, well, it’s needed to make the overall regulatory scheme function.

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Virginia health-care ruling strikes down key provision of Obama’s plan

December 13th, 2010 · Healthcare

By Rosalind S. Helderman Washington Post Staff Writer
Monday, December 13, 2010; 12:48 PM

RICHMOND – A federal judge in Virginia ruled Monday that a key provision of the nation’s sweeping health-care overhaul is unconstitutional, the most significant legal setback so far for President Obama’s signature domestic initiative.

U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson found that Congress could not order individuals to buy health insurance.

In a 42-page opinion, Hudson said the provision of the law that requires most individuals to get insurance or pay a fine by 2014 is an unprecedented expansion of federal power that cannot be supported by Congress’s power to regulate interstate trade.

“Neither the Supreme Court nor any federal circuit court of appeals has extended Commerce Clause powers to compel an individual to involuntarily enter the stream of commerce by purchasing a commodity in the private market,” he wrote. “In doing so, enactment of the [individual mandate] exceeds the Commerce Clause powers vested in Congress under Article I [of the Constitution.]

Hudson is the first judge to rule that the individual mandate is unconstitutional. He said, however, that portions of the law that do not rest on the requirement that individuals obtain insurance are legal and can proceed. Hudson indicated there was no need for him to enjoin the law and halt its implementation, since the mandate does not go into effect until 2014.

The ruling comes in a case filed by Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R), who said he was defending a new state statute that made it illegal to require people to carry health insurance in Virginia.

It is one of 25 legal challenges to the federal law wending their way through the federal courts across the country. In two other lawsuits, judges sitting in Michigan and Lynchburg, Va., have found that the same provision of the law passed legal muster. A third judge in Florida is also weighing constitutionality of the individual mandate in a suit jointly filed by 20 states.

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Snowe, Collins back lawsuit challenging health-care law (The only Repulicans to Sign the HC Law)

November 22nd, 2010 · Accountability, Deception, Democrats, Healthcare, Non-Transparency

By Matt DeLong

The Portland (Maine) Press-Herald reports that both of Maine’s senators — Republicans Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins — are signing on to a friend-of-the-court brief in support of a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the new health-care law.

The brief was initiated by U.S. Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky and boasts the signatures of 30 Senate Republicans. The lawsuit was brought by the attorneys general for several states and the National Federation of Independent Businesses, a small-business trade organization.

At issue is a requirement that U.S. citizens purchase health insurance beginning in 2014 or face a fine — known as the “individual mandate.”

As the lone Republican on the Senate Finance Committee who voted to move the bill — which at the time included an individual mandate (though Snowe made clear then that she didn’t support that provision) — to the full Senate last year, Snowe was the only Republican senator who supported the bill at any stage. She did not vote for final passage of the bill in March. Snowe and Collins are widely viewed as two of a dwindling number of GOP moderates remaining in Congress.

Snowe is up for reelection in 2012, and Maine tea party groups have already pledged to mount a primary challenge. Snowe is no doubt taking the threat seriously, considering the Maine GOP adopted a tea party-backed platform this year and Paul LePage, a combative conservative candidate who promised to tell President Obama to “go to hell,” won the state’s gubernatorial race in November. Collins faces reelection in 2014.

UPDATE: In an interview last year with Karen Tumulty — then of TIME and now of The Post — Snowe voiced opposition to the individual mandate on affordability grounds, but didn’t say anything about the provision’s constitutionality.

By Matt DeLong | November 22, 2010; 12:25 PM ET

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Health insurers’ group gave U.S. Chamber $86.2 million in 2009 for lobbying

November 22nd, 2010 · Dissention, Ethics, Government, Healthcare, Non-Transparency, Politics

By Dan Eggen Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, November 17, 2010; 7:58 PM

The U.S. Chamber of Commerce astonished even the most jaded Washington-watchers last year when it reported spending nearly $150 million on lobbying. The figure obliterated all previous records and cemented the chamber’s reputation as Capitol Hill’s most formidable lobbying force.

But it turns out that a lot of that money came from an injection of funds from another lobbying powerhouse: America’s Health Insurance Plans.

The private insurers’ group gave $86.2 million toward the chamber’s media and lobbying blitz against President Obama‘s health-care legislation in 2009 even as it was pledging general support for the idea of reform, according to tax records and sources familiar with the gift.

The donation made AHIP the chamber’s single largest funder in 2009, accounting for about 40 percent of the business lobby’s $205 million in contributions that year, records show.

“These contributions supported the chamber’s efforts to advance a market-based health-care system and advocate for fundamental reform that would improve access to quality care while lowering costs for all Americans,” chamber spokesman Tom Collamore said in a statement. “We did this through public opinion polling, nationwide grassroots, national advertising, events throughout the country and significant earned media outreach.”

The chamber, which is organized as a nonprofit group, reported the donation as part of its annual financial report to the Internal Revenue Service, which does not require public disclosure of the donors. AHIP’s identity as the donor, first reported by Bloomberg News, was confirmed by sources familiar with the transaction.

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New GOP governors will affect health law

November 9th, 2010 · Change of Power, Government, Healthcare, Republicans

By N.C. Aizenman Washington Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, November 9, 2010; 12:52 AM

Republicans’ consolidation of power in state capitols is likely to expand the number of states that employ a far more limited, free-market-oriented approach to implementing the nation’s new health-care law than the robust regulatory model favored by its supporters.

Although the law is a federal statute, it tasks states with administering many of its most important provisions and grants them considerable leeway.

It is up to states to run markets, known as “exchanges,” through which individuals and small businesses will be able to buy health insurance plans, often with federal subsidies, beginning in 2014. States will also oversee a mostly federally funded expansion of Medicaid to cover a far larger share of the poor.

Many incoming Republican governors made their antipathy to the law a plank of their campaigns. Tennessee Gov.-elect Bill Haslam denounced it as “an intolerable expansion of federal power.” Wyoming Gov.-elect Matt Mead promised to join 21 states contesting its constitutionality in federal courts. And Maine, one of the first states to set up a task force to implement the law, will now be led by Paul LePage, a tea-party favorite who vowed to work against the legislation and predicted that voters would soon see headlines about him telling President Obama to “go to hell.”

Such state leaders cannot completely block implementation of the law: If they are unwilling or deemed unready to run an exchange by 2014, the legislation empowers the federal government to step in with its own version. But the law does grant states a fair amount of discretion.

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ObamaCare and Voters: Clinton and Obama told Democrats it would be popular. Whoops.

October 31st, 2010 · Corruption, Dissention, Healthcare, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within

By the time anyone finds out, the bill will already have passed!!

Midterm elections amid a lousy economy are usually bad for the President’s party, but it looks as if a neutron bomb may detonate on Democrats in 2010. And one of the major reasons that this year shifted from ordinary losses to potential catastrophe is ObamaCare. This election is a referendum on an entitlement the public never wanted and continues to hate, as evidence from around the country is showing.

Take almost any poll at random. Even this week’s New York Times-CBS poll has repeal leading among likely voters, 47% to 43%. The latest Pew-National Journal survey shows that a majority of likely voters—51%—favors repeal, including 53% of independents. The Real Clear Politics average of all polling shows support for the law at 40.9%—and opposition at 50.6%.

The Kaiser Family Foundation—whose outlier tracking poll has consistently shown the most ObamaCare support—now reports that only 42% view the law favorably. That’s a seven-point drop since September, and it happened to coincide with the start date for the “patients bill of rights,” which Kaiser says is among the bill’s popular parts. Voters are learning that mandates—like those that allow “children” to remain on their parents’ health insurance until age 26—tend to increase costs.

There are many other such scales-from-the-eyes moments. The New England Journal of Medicine, another outlet for ObamaCare partisans, recently conceded in a “perspective” akin to an editorial that “it seems clear that Americans today have very negative views about the general direction of the country,” in large part because of the health bill.

Speaking of the shock of recognition, there’s the case of Earl Pomeroy. The nine-term North Dakota Democrat earned liberal plaudits for his numerous TV ads defending ObamaCare and his vote for it, as well as blasting Republican Rick Berg for ostensibly putting “big insurance first.”

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Big Insurance, Big Medicine: ObamaCare is already driving a wave of health-care consolidation—and higher costs.

October 26th, 2010 · Deception, Democrats, Federal Spending, Government Control, Healthcare, Selling Out the US, Terrorism from Within

ObamaCare’s once and future harms have been well chronicled, but the major effects so far are less obvious and arguably more important: A wave of consolidation is washing over the health markets, and the result is going to be higher costs.

The turn toward consolidation among insurance companies is not new, and neither is it among doctors, hospitals and other providers. Yet the health bill has accelerated these trends, as all sides race to anticipate and manage political risk and regulatory uncertainty. This dynamic is leading to much larger hospital systems and physician groups, and fewer insurers dominated by a handful of national conglomerates. ObamaCare was sold using the language of choice and competition, but it is actually reducing both.

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The first surge will come among the 1,200 insurers doing business in the U.S., given that a major goal of ObamaCare is to convert these companies into de facto public utilities. Those regulations are now being written—and once they’re up and running some medium-sized carriers will collapse under the new mandates and higher overhead. State insurance commissioners warned the Administration this month that “improper or overly strident application . . . could threaten the solvency of insurers or significantly reduce competition in some insurance markets.” They also implied that bankruptcies are likely.

With these headwinds, investors and Wall Street analysts are now predicting a lost decade for health insurance stocks. But it may be more accurate to say that there will be a lot of losers and some very big winners. Mergers and acquisitions will increase dramatically once companies get a better look at the regulation and figure out the valuation of M&A targets. Larger carriers will swallow smaller ones quietly before they fail.

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Employers looking at health insurance options

October 25th, 2010 · Corruption, Deception, Democrats, Ethics, Federal Spending, Government Control, Healthcare, Immigration, Money Lost, National Security, Non-Transparency, Obama's Scheme, Selling Out the US, Small Business, Tax Dollars, Taxes, Terrorism from Within, Treason, Treasury, Unemployment

By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR – The Associated Press
Monday, October 25, 2010; 4:12 AM

WASHINGTON — The new health care law wasn’t supposed to undercut employer plans that have provided most people in the U.S. with coverage for generations.

But last week a leading manufacturer told workers their costs will jump partly because of the law. Also, a Democratic governor laid out a scheme for employers to get out of health care by shifting workers into taxpayer-subsidized insurance markets that open in 2014.

While it’s too early to proclaim the demise of job-based coverage, corporate number crunchers are looking at options that could lead to major changes. Gov. Phil Bredesen, D-Tenn., said the economics of dropping coverage are “about to become very attractive to many employers, both public and private.”

That’s just not going to happen, White House officials say.

“The absolute certainty about the Affordable Care Act is that for many, many employers who cover millions of people, it increases the incentives for them to offer coverage,” said Jason Furman, an economic adviser to President Barack Obama.

Yet at least one major employer has shifted a greater share of plan costs to workers, and others are weighing the pros and cons of eventually forcing employees to strike out on their own.

“I don’t think you are going to hear anybody publicly say ‘We’ve made a decision to drop insurance,’ ” said Paul Keckley, executive director of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions. “What we are hearing in our meetings is, ‘We don’t want to be the first one to drop benefits, but we would be the fast second.’ We are hearing that a lot.” Deloitte is a major accounting and consulting firm.

“My conclusion on all of this is that it is a huge roll of the dice,” said James Klein, president of the American Benefits Council, which represents big company benefits administrators. “It could work out well and build on the employer-based system, or it could begin to dismantle the employer-based system.”

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