Fundraising push from Sebelius draws scrutiny from key GOP senator
[FoxNews-AP]
Published May 11, 2013
April 17, 2013: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testifies on Capitol Hill in Washington. (AP)
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ recent push to encourage health care executives and nonprofit organizations to make donations to organizations working to implement ObamaCare is drawing criticism from a key Senate Republican who questions whether she has a conflict of interest.
HHS spokesman Jason Young confirms that Sebelius in recent weeks has asked various charitable foundations, businesses executives, churches and doctors to make financial contributions to nonprofit organizations, such as Enroll America, that are helping to implement President Obama’s health care overhaul.
Young said there is a special section within the Public Health Services Act that allows the HHS secretary to solicit financial support for nonprofit organizations conducting public health work. He said most of the solicitations have occurred through telephone calls, but in some speeches as well.
“For the last several months, the secretary has been working with a full range of stakeholders who share in the mission of getting Americans the help they need and deserve,” Young said. “We have always worked with outside groups and the efforts now ramping up are just one more part of that work.”
The fundraising pitches were first reported by the Washington Post. Young said Sebelius made no fundraising request of entities regulated by HSS, such as drug companies, hospitals or insurers.
Some lawmakers and advocacy groups have voiced concerns in recent weeks that many consumers will have a hard time navigating the health coverage options available to them next year as a mix of government programs and tax credits for private insurance kicks in.
The administration has recently announced it would be directing $200 million to states, private groups and local health centers so that they can hire workers who can help consumers pick the insurance plan best for them. The fundraising pitches appear to be another step along those lines. Beginning Oct. 1, people can start signing up for coverage through new state and federal health exchanges.
But Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said that soliciting money from health care executives is absurd.
“Moving forward, I will be seeking more information from the administration about these actions to help better understand whether there are conflicts of interest and if it violated federal law,” Hatch said.
Hatch’s criticism comes as House Republicans plan yet another vote to try to repeal ObamaCare.
In his remarks at a Mother’s Day-themed event at the White House on Friday, Obama said his signature health care law “is here to stay.”
“There’s a lot that this law is already doing for Americans with insurance,” the president said. “There’s a lot more that’s going to happen for folks who don’t have insurance.”
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
‘Obamacare’ Poll Finds 42% of Americans Unaware It’s Law
[ABCNews.com]
A new poll finds that many Americans are confused about the health care overhaul legislation commonly called “Obamacare. ”The Kaiser Family Foundation released results of a non-partisan study today finding more than 40 percent did not even know the law was in place.“Four in ten Americans (42%) are unaware that the ACA [Affordable Care Act] is still the law of the land,” the report says, “including 12 percent who believe the law has been repealed by Congress, 7 percent who believe it has been overturned by the Supreme Court and 23 percent who say they don’t know enough to say what the status of the law is.”
The survey showed public opinion on Obamacare is at its second-lowest rating in the past two years. Less than half – 40 percent – of adults viewed the ACA favorably, whereas 35 percent said they viewed it unfavorably. Another 24 percent said they did not know or refused to answer.
George Will: Obamacare’s death star?
[HumanEvents.com]
By: George Will
1/19/2013 08:00 PM
WASHINGTON — A willow, not an oak. So said conservatives of Chief Justice John Roberts when he rescued the Affordable Care Act — aka Obamacare — from being found unconstitutional. But the manner in which he did this may have made the ACA unworkable, thereby putting it on a path to ultimate extinction.
This plausible judgment comes from professor Thomas A. Lambert of the University of Missouri Law School, writing in Regulation quarterly, a publication of the libertarian Cato Institute. The crucial decision, he says, was four liberal justices joining Roberts’ opinion declaring that the ACA’s penalty for not complying with the mandate to purchase health insurance is actually a tax on not purchasing it. With this reasoning, the court severely limited the ability of the new health care regime to cope with its own predictable consequences.
Could Obamacare Go the Way of McCain-Feingold?
[American Spectator]
By David Catron on 11.30.12 @ 6:10AM
The “Affordable Care Act” might die a death of a thousand legal cuts.
Last June, upon learning that the Supreme Court had ruled Obamacare’s individual mandate constitutional, many observers were forced to concur with the Dickens character who opined, “If the law supposes that… the law is an ass.” Yet, the increasing number of anti-PPACA lawsuits that have been receiving serious attention from the courts suggests that the legal system may not be as irrational as it seemed when Chief Justice John Roberts began braying from the bench on June 28. If this seems Pollyannaish, consider the fate of McCain-Feingold.
How’s That Obamacare Waiver Workin’ Out for Ya?
[MichelleMalkin.com]
Copyright 2012
How’s That Obamacare Waiver Workin’ Out for Ya?
Exactly two years ago this week, the Obama administration announced it had issued more than 100 waivers en masse to a select group of companies, unions and other health insurance providers seeking relief from the onerous federal health care law. The Obamacare waiver winner’s club now totals 2,000. Where are they now?
Answer: In the same miserable boat as every other unlucky business struggling with the crushing costs and burdens of the mandate.
Among the first and most prominent recipients of the Obamacare waivers for favors were large restaurant chains that provide low-wage, seasonal and part-time workers with low-cost health insurance plans called “mini-med” plans. An estimated 1.7 million workers benefit from such plans. Obamacare forced companies carrying such coverage to raise their minimum limits on coverage to no less than $750,000 annually. Another Obamacare provision forces all employers to spend at least 80 percent to 85 percent of their premium revenue on medical care.
Top US Companies Plan Layoffs Because of Obamacare
[Newsmax.com]
Friday, 09 Nov 2012 04:00 PM
By Bill Hoffman
Nearly a dozen top United States companies plan to start laying off hundreds of employees with the implementation of Obamacare, according to the non-profit political action group FreedomWorks.- Welch Allyn — a manufacturer of medical diagnostic equipment in central New York — which says it will cut 275 employees, about 10 percent of its workforce, over the next three years.
- Dana Holding Corp. — a global auto parts manufacturing company — which warned of layoffs due “$24 million over the next six years in additional U.S. healthcare expenses.’’
- Stryker — a medical device manufacturer — which plans to close its facility in Orchard Park, N.Y., eliminating 96 jobs in December. They also say they’ll slash 5 percent of their global workforce, about 1,170 positions.
- Boston Scientific — a medical device manufacturer — said it plans to cut between 1,200 and 1,400 jobs, while shifting investments and workers overseas to China.
- Medtronic — a medical device maker — which cut 500 positions over the summer, with 500 more set to be eliminated by the end of 2013.
Supreme Court opens door to another challenge to Obamacare
[FoxNews.com]
Published October 01, 2012
Tucked inside the Supreme Court’s lengthy list of orders on Monday was an indication that the fight over President Obama’s health care law soon could be back before the high court.
Since the court’s June decision upholding the law’s individual mandate to buy insurance, one of the first Obamacare plaintiffs has been fighting for a new hearing on challenges to other portions of the law.
Liberty University, a Christian college in Virginia, has been fighting the employer mandate since the law was enacted, while challenging the law on other constitutional grounds. The school got as far as the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, which refused to hear the merits of the case. That federal court decided that the original Liberty University lawsuit was barred because of the Anti-Injunction Act, which would block any challenge to a “tax” before a taxpayer actually pays it, in this case referring to the penalties associated with failing to obtain health insurance.
In June, the Supreme Court ruled that the Anti-Injunction Act did not serve as a barrier to lawsuits challenging the health care law. On that basis, Liberty University immediately petitioned the court to allow it to renew its original case.
This Graph Says an Awful Lot About the So-Called ‘Recovery’
[TheBlaze.com]
- Posted on July 9, 2012 at 10:29pm by
Becket Adams
Lately, we’ve been hearing a lot about “the recovery” and lot of arguing over who’s to blame for its supposed slowdown. But before we got too bogged down in who’s responsible for retarding economic growth, maybe we should first look at the data.
Without one word of explanation, Harvard University econ professor Greg Mankiw posted the following graph to his blog:
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
As you can see, the shaded area indicates the recession and everything to the right of that is the so-called “recovery.”
Huh.
So, was this what the White House meant when it said we’re moving in the right direction or should we just not read too much into the data?
(H/T: Hot Air)
Should Romney Apologize for Romneycare?
[Townhall.com]
July 9 , 2012, by Byron York
It’s always been a challenge for Mitt Romney to explain the differences between Romneycare and Obamacare. The two programs share a lot of the same features — mandate, penalties, subsidies, exchanges and others. Romney has consistently argued that those provisions are acceptable, even good, at the state level, but not acceptable, and in some cases not even constitutional, at the federal level.
The problem isn’t just that Romney frequently finds himself making detailed explanations, which is never a good thing in politics. The problem is that it always sounds a little odd to voters for Romney to say that when he did it in Massachusetts, it was a great thing, but when Barack Obama did it nationwide, it was a terrible thing.
Now, in the wake of the Supreme Court’s Obamacare decision, Romney’s job has gotten even harder — so hard that there will likely be growing pressure on him to admit that Romneycare, his signature achievement as Massachusetts governor, was a mistake.
The problem is the court’s ruling that Obamacare’s individual mandate is a tax. Even though most Republicans had wanted to see Obamacare struck down, many embraced the mandate-is-a-tax ruling because it allowed them to accuse the president of raising taxes.
How to Defeat and Replace Obamacare Now
American Spectator
[Spectator.org]
The Right Prescription (Stop the Obama Tax Tidal Wave)
By Peter Ferrara on 7.5.12 @ 6:10AM
There is life after Roberts’ double cross and Obama’s latest flurry of lies.
Whether Left, Right, Independent, or Confused, no one who is not bought and paid for as part of the Obama political machine is going to like the Obama Double Cross of the American people on Obamacare. Before Obamacare was passed, Obama told the American people over and over, even on national TV, that the individual mandate was not a tax. After Obamacare was passed, Obama sent his lawyers into courts all over the country to argue that the individual mandate is constitutional precisely because it is a tax.
This is the top argument to feature now in discrediting Obama and Obamacare. No one likes a dishonest liar. Even worse when that dishonest liar is supposed to be our nation’s leader. When he sent his own lawyers into courts all over America to argue that the individual mandate is constitutional because it is a tax, he demonstrated that when he told the nation it was not a tax, he knew all along that was not true, and that he was planning all along to double cross the people he was supposed to be leading. That alone disqualifies him from serving as President. The majority of Americans who are still capable of thinking will recognize that we can’t have as our nation’s leader a dishonest double crosser.
Romney and his Republicans must now play in ads all over America the clips of Obama and his Democrats denying in dismissive terms that the individual mandate could in any way be considered a tax. Then they need to dramatize that after the Obamacrats had tricked the American people, they sent their lawyers into court to argue just the opposite, thinking that the American people are too stupid to realize they had been tricked.
McConnell Ready to Cut-and-Run from Repeal?
[Breitbart.com]
Posted: July 3, 2012 by Joel B. Pollak
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell appears to be waving the white flag on repealing Obamacare. The Tea Party is ready to fight. The Republican National Committee appears to be ready to fight. But the day after the Romney campaign backed away from the argument that Obamacare is now a tax, the GOP’s leadership in the Senate is sending signals that it may be willing to give up before the battle over Obamacare truly begins.
Local ABC affiliate WHAS-TV in Louisville, KY reports that McConnell told constituents he would work to repeal Obamacare, and thought he would have the votes in the Senate to repeal it–but that he did not expect to succeed: “If you thought it was a good idea for the federal government to go in this direction, I’d say the odds are still on your side, because it’s a lot harder to undo something than it is to stop it in the first place.”
However difficult repeal might be from a procedural point of view, it can be done–and the odds are definitely in favor, if polls reflect probabilities. The country is split evenly on the Supreme Court’s Obamacare ruling, yet the majority still wants the law repealed. That is the majority for which Republicans, and the Republican nominee, ought to speak. Yet for some reason, Republican leaders refuse to lead. What are they afraid of?
White House claims ObamaCare fine a ‘penalty,’ despite court calling it a ‘tax’
[FoxNews.com]
Published June 29, 2012
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
First it was a penalty. Then it was a tax. Now it’s a penalty again. [Flippidy-Floppidy]
The war of words over what to call the fine attached to the federal health care overhaul’s most controversial provision continued Friday, as the White House took issue with the Supreme Court’s argument — even though that argument alone spared President Obama’s law.
The five-justice majority argued that, while the fine imposed by the law for not buying health insurance would otherwise be unconstitutional, the fine is actually legal under Congress’ authority to tax.
Ergo, the fine is officially a “tax” in the eyes of the court. The law stands.
But in a case of biting the hand that feeds, White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said Friday the fine is still just a “penalty.”
Increasingly Shrill Liberal Journalists Attack ‘Legitimacy’ of Supreme Court Ahead of ObamaCare Ruling
[Newsbusters.org]
By: John Bates| June 25, 2012 | 16:50
Obama Pursues Higher Tax Rates, Growth Be Damned
[Townhall.com]
May 21, 2012
In the run-up to this weekend’s G-8 summit at Camp David, journalists have unfavorably compared European “austerity” with Barack Obama’s economic policies.
European spending cuts, the argument goes, have hurt people and are arousing political opposition, while Obama’s proposals to keep federal spending at 24 percent of gross domestic product indefinitely are likely to succeed.
Evil Republican spending cuts, in contrast, would deny the economy needed stimulus and wreak havoc on ordinary people. But the facts undermine the storyline. Veronique de Rugy of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University took a look at what “austerity” in Europe actually means.
Obama goes up with $25 million ad buy
[MSNBC.com]
May 07, 2012
Sara D. Davis / Getty Images
President Barack Obama speaks at a campaign rally May 5 at Virginia Commonwealth University.
Gentlemen, start your airwaves.
Senior Obama campaign officials said Monday that a new major television ad buy reflects their broader media strategy: underscoring the need to build on the president’s first term while also responding to all attacks from what they characterize as a Republican monolith of the Romney campaign and its affiliated Super PACs.
The campaign will spend $25 million on swing-state ads this month, top strategist David Axelrod told reporters on a conference call. The ad is a positive one, the first positive ad the campaign has run. Axelrod argued that the sum spent on this ad would be more than Mitt Romney spent on positive ads through the entire GOP primary.
“I believe that by the end of this week — certainly by the end of next — we will have spent more money offering people a positive vision for the future, talking about the president’s record and the nation’s record under his leadership and where we’re going than Gov. Romney has in his entire campaign,” Axelrod said, “and there’s a reason for that.”
(more…)
Obama Can’t Run On His Record….So Why Not Run Behind Reagan
[FloppingAces.net]
By: Curt
April 12, 2012
“”If you don’t have a record to run on, then you paint your opponent as someone people should run from….You make a big election about small things,” ” – Barack Obama 08/28/08
Obama uttered these words just a few short years ago. It was supposedly a charge against politics as usual. Now, he is following the politics as usual playbook to a tee. And as he continues on his “anything but my record” tour he had the gall to say Ronald Reagan would be FOR the Buffet Rule:
President Obama continued his push Wednesday to build support for the Buffett rule by suggesting that Ronald Reagan would’ve backed the plan to set a minimum 30 percent income tax for the wealthiest Americans.“If it will help convince folks in Congress to make the right choice, we could call it the Reagan rule instead of the Buffett rule,” Obama said in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
“I’m not the first president to call for this idea that everyone has to do their fair share,” he said, quoting one speech in which Reagan said it was “crazy” for the rich to be able to use loopholes to get out of paying taxes. “He thought that in America the wealthiest should pay their fair share and he said so.”
This new talking point was spearheaded by ThinkProgress which put up a video of a speech Reagan gave in 1985 in which he remarked about an executive paying a lower tax rate than his secretary.
Obama’s Officious Opinions
American [Spectator.org]
By Ross Kaminsky on April 4, 2012
If he thinks they’re helping him politically, he should think again.
On Tuesday afternoon, in a stunning rebuke of President Obama, Judge Jerry Smith of the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals decided he had heard enough of the president’s incessant hyper-partisan rhetoric challenging the independence of the federal judiciary. Judge Smith, who was appointed to the court by Ronald Reagan, “referring to statements by the president in the past few days to the effect… that it is somehow inappropriate for what he termed ‘unelected judges’ to strike acts of Congress,” said that Obama’s comments “have troubled a number of people who have read it as somehow a challenge to the federal courts or to their authority…. And that’s not a small matter.”
Let It Be (Political)
American [Spectator.org]
By Ross Kaminsky on 3.30.12 @ 6:10AM Posted April 1, 2012
Obamacare, politics, and the modern Supreme Court.
And in my hour of darkness
She is standing right in front of me
Speaking words of wisdom, let it be
Democratic political strategist and organizer Robert Creamer claims that overturning Obamacare would make the Supreme Court the “most activist [and] partisan in modern history.”
Radical leftist MSNBC host Rachel Maddow says that the Obamacare decision “may as much be a referendum on the Supreme Court and whether or not the Roberts court is so conservatively politicized that it will make a decision to hurt the President, rather than sticking closely to precedent here.”
Obamacare Goes to the Supreme Court
[Townhall.com]
March 26, 2012
Kate Hicks Web Editor, Townhall.com
The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), or Obamacare, is off to the Supreme Court for a three-day marathon of oral arguments. Lawyers representing the federal government will attempt to prove the law’s constitutionality; those representing private individuals, the National Federation of Independent Business, and most prominently, 26 states, will argue that PPACA violates the supreme law of the land.The Court has allotted six hours for arguments, and while it doesn’t seem like much time for such a contentious and crucial issue, bear in mind that the court typically grants a case just one hour. This is the most argument time given in 47 years.
So what questions will the Court answer? What will the lawyers argue? How might the Justices vote? I have a seat inside the courtroom for all six hours of arguments, so expect a full report on the proceedings, as well as a preview each morning of the question before the Court that day. For now, however, we’ll take a general look at the schedule, the questions, and the basic arguments each side will make, in preparation for Obamacare’s big day in court.
[Please Click to follow the agenda this week and pray for our Nation's freedoms...]
Weighed Down By Healthcare Law, Obama Trails Challengers in Swing States
[Townhall.com]
Guy Benson
Political Editor, Townhall.com
February 27, 2012 12:26 PM EST
Two weeks ago, Fox News reported that President Obama held statistically significant leads over his possible Republican opponents in a series of swing state polls. Today, hope and change:
In the poll, Obama lags the two leading Republican rivals in the 12 states likely to determine the outcome of a close race in November:
•Former Pennsylvania senator Rick Santorum tops Obama 50%-45% in the swing states. Nationwide, Santorum’s lead narrows to 49%-46%.
•Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney edges Obama 48%-46% in the swing states. Nationwide, they are tied at 47% each.
The battleground states surveyed include Michigan — where Tuesday’s primary has become a critical showdown between Romney and Santorum — as well as Ohio and Virginia, which vote next week on Super Tuesday. The other swing states are Colorado, Iowa, Florida, Nevada, New Hampshire, New Mexico, North Carolina, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.
Obamacare Mandate says Pregnancy is a Disease [Reader Post]
[FloppingAces.net]
Once Barack Obama said that babies were a punishment:
“Look, I got two daughters — 9 years old and 6 years old,” he said. “I am going to teach them first about values and morals, but if they make a mistake, I don’t want them punished with a baby.
But now we learn that in Obamacare, pregnancy is not simply a punishment, it is a disease.
“Covering contraception is cost neutral since it saves money by keeping women healthy and preventing spending on other health services,”
Preventing this “disease” is supposed to save big money.
Democratic chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz: “[Contraception costs] about $700 a year. That’s real money.”
Typical of democrats, something is provided for “free” at someone else’s cost.
Privately, however, insurers say there’s nothing “free” about preventing unwarranted pregnancies. They say the mandate also covers costly surgical sterilization procedures, and that in any case even the pill has up-front costs.
“Saying it’s revenue-neutral doesn’t mean it’s free and that you’re not paying for it,” an industry source told The Hill.
Doctors still have to be paid to prescribe the pill, drugmakers and pharmacists have to be paid to provide it – and all that money has to come from insurance premiums, not future hypothetical savings, the source said.
CBO: Longest Period of High Unemployment Since Great Depression
[USNews.com]
CBO: U.S. enduring the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression
Posted: February 17, 2012 RSS Feed Print
After three years with unemployment topping 8 percent, the U.S. has seen the longest period of high unemployment since the Great Depression, the Congressional Budget Office noted in a report issued today.
[Dems Tout GOP Payroll Tax Plan as Political Victory.]
And, despite some recent good news on the economic front, the CBO is still predicting that unemployment will remain above 8 percent until 2014. The report also notes that, including those who haven’t sought work in the past four weeks and those who are working part-time but seeking full-time employment, the unemployment rate would be 15 percent.
The CBO made its comments in a report examining the long-term effects of joblessness, and possible policy options to boost employment, including unemployment insurance reforms and job training programs. The report came at the request of Democratic Michigan Rep. Sander Levin, but Republicans quickly jumped on the chance to bash President Obama’s stimulus program, which is also reaching its three-year anniversary today.
Religious Freedom Group Files Lawsuit Against Obama Contraception Mandate
[TheBlaze.com]
- Posted on February 13, 2012 at 12:30pm by
Billy Hallowell
Considering the fact that the 2012 presidential election is only months away, the Obama administration‘s missteps in handling the Health and Human Services Department’s contraceptive mandate are stunning. At best, the administration failed to gauge the Catholic Church‘s full fury when considering the realization of impending women’s services requirements. Now, the rhetoric coming from those opposed the the measures has reached a boiling point, with one group already launching legal battles against the initiative.
On Friday, Obama attempted to temper the storm by releasing plans for an “accommodation” that would exempt religiously-affiliated universities and institutions from being forced to directly offer contraceptives and other controversial services. As the Blaze reported, under the “compromise,” the insurers that these faith-related groups contract with will, indeed, be forced to cover contraceptives for those employees who wish to receive them.
Occupier Alleges Leaders of Occupy Wall Street Housing Group Abused Rape Victims
[BigGovernment.com]
Posted Jan 10th 2012 at 10:09 am
Even though the #Occupy movement has been kicked out of parks across the nation, apparently the sexual assaults continue. An online petition and other discussions reveal accusations of people within the #Occupy movement allegedly ignoring and abusing rape victims and contains shocking details about how assailants continue to be let back into Occupy, a trend that Brandon Darby and I discovered during an interview at Zuccotti Park in early November.
The online petition posted at iPetitions.com was posted by Strong Women Rule, the group formed by Nan Terrie. Big Government recently revealed that Ma. Terrie has been attacked by other Occupy leaders as a “disruptor” for trying to expose assault, theft and alleged financial malfeasance at Occupy Wall Street. Apparently, Ms. Terrie is disrupting the Occupy illusion again.
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