Analysis: Over 40 Million May Lose Their Employer Based Health Plans

/10 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: LOUIS DELUCA — Dallas Morning News/MCTEven as President Barack Obama sold a new health care law in part by assuring Americans they would be able to keep their insurance plans, his administration knew that tens of millions of people actually could lose those their policies.

“If you like your private health insurance plan, you can keep your plan. Period,” Obama said as he pitched the plan, the unqualified promise he made repeatedly.

Yet advisers did say in 2010 that there were large caveats and that anyone whose insurance plan changed would lose the promised protection of being able to keep existing plans. And a report in 2010 said that as many as 69 percent of certain employer-based insurance plans would lose that protection, meaning as many as 41 million people could lose their plans even if they wanted to keep them and would be forced into other plans. Another 11 million who bought their own insurance also could lose their plans. Combined, as many as 52 million Americans could lose or have lost old insurance plans.

Some or much of that loss of favored insurance is driven by normal year-to-year changes such as employers changing plans to save money. And many people could end up with better plans. But it is not what the president pledged.

Caught in the firestorm of his broken promise, Obama on Thursday apologized.

Read more from this story HERE.

CNN Blames Christians for Obamacare Problems

/10 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Breitbart CNN has blamed Christians for the problem of Americans without health insurance, calling it “The Obamacare ‘scandal’ you haven’t heard about.” In an article on CNN.com’s Belief Blog, CNN writer John Blake says that, while famous pastors “preach in states where crosses and church steeples dot the skyline,” they do nothing about “the poor who can’t get the health insurance they would receive if they lived elsewhere.”

That refers, in turn, to the decision of twenty-five states not to participate in Obamacare’s expanded Medicaid funding. The states were allowed to opt out following last year’s controversial Supreme Court decision on Obamacare, which upheld the law as a whole but struck down the mandatory state participation in Medicaid expansion, citing the protection provided to state powers under the Tenth Amendment.

Some Republican states took the funding anyway, which provides health insurance subsidies for households with incomes up to 138% of the poverty level. Though the federal government will initially cover almost all of the cost, many Republican governors are wary of potential future costs, and are also worried about the effect on the federal budget itself. Many are also opposed to participating in the Obamacare program on principle.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obama Camp Views 20-Week Abortion Ban as ‘Pretty Scary’ Pro-Life Tactic

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: AP/Susan WalshPresident Obama’s old campaign operation rallied the troops today, warning of a “pretty scary” ban on abortions in the sixth month of pregnancy that voters in Albuquerque, N.M., might pass.

“Something pretty scary is happening in Albuquerque right now,” Kaili Lambe, who manages women’s issues campaigns for Organizing for Action, wrote in an email to Obama’s 2012 campaign volunteers and grassroots donors.

“This is a serious attack on women — and it’s a deliberate attempt by extreme interest groups to test their latest anti-women strategy,” she said.

The Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Ordinance had 54 percent support among the city’s likely voters, even though “Albuquerque generally is a progressive city and New Mexico is generally a progressive state,” as ProgressNow New Mexico spokesman Patrick Davis said.

Read more from this story HERE.

Issa Subpoenas Lew for Tea Party Targeting Docs

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APRep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), the chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, served Treasury Secretary Jack Lew with another subpoena relating to the IRS scandal in which the organization targeted Tea Party organizations, the committee announced on Friday.

This is the second subpoena Issa has served on Lew regarding the scandal. “Secretary Lew is responsible for providing all pertinent documents Treasury has in its possession, both within and outside the IRS,” Issa said in a statement. “The Committee is aware of responsive documents in Treasury’s possession that have not been produced to the Committee.”

In a press release, the House oversight committee detailed the committee’s and other House committees’ efforts to obtain documents from the IRS and the Treasury Department about the scandal—and how President Barack Obama’s administration has obfuscated and not complied with the House’s investigations and previous subpoena.

On June 13, Issa joined Reps. Jim Jordan (R-OH), the chairman of the House oversight committee’s subcommittee on Economic Growth, Job Creation and Regulatory Affairs; Dave Camp, the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee; and Charles Boustany (R-LA), the chairman of the Ways and Means Committee’s subcommittee on oversight, to write to Lew to demand he produce nine categories of documents by June 27. On June 27, Issa’s committee notes in its release that the Treasury Department responded by producing “only 356 pages of documents, mostly letters from Member of Congress and drafts of congressional testimony.”

On Sept. 18, Issa and Jordan wrote to Lew to again demand compliance by Oct. 2 with the June letter’s request for nine categories of documents and made clear that the committee was prepared to use “compulsory process” (subpoenas) if Lew did not comply. On Oct. 2, the Treasury Department wrote to the committee and said it would not be able to meet the deadline due to the government shutdown. “As an accommodation to the Treasury Department, the Committee allowed an extension of time for a response,” Issa’s committee noted.

Read more from this story HERE.

Anti-Obamacare Candidate Bridges Tea Party and Establishment Divide

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: NEWSCOMBen Sasse is doing what few Republicans have been able to accomplish: He’s uniting the GOP establishment with anti-establishment conservatives in his bid to become the next U.S. senator from Nebraska.

The broad coalition Sasse is building is something the Nebraskan is proud of — and it’s an element of his campaign he’s been actively pursuing. “We’re building a broad conservative coalition of Nebraskans who want to fix Washington,” says Sasse in an email.

“We’re grateful that all types of folks across Nebraska are responding to our conservative, solutions-oriented message. This week, for instance, we’ve sought the support of gun owners, of Christian service organizations, and of the Chamber of Commerce. We want everybody; we want to grow the conservative movement.”

The key appears to be Sasse’s anti-Obamacare message, which the former Bush official is able to speak about fluidly and persuasively. It’s resonating especially well now that the open-enrollment period for the massive health care overhaul has been so disastrous.

“Ben Sasse is the rare candidate who can clearly and forcefully prosecute the case against Obamacare, not only because it’s an unconstitutional assault on our liberty, but also because he’s read every word of it,” Club for Growth president Chris Chocola said this week in a statement endorsing the candidate.

Read more from this story HERE.

Military Must Do More with Less

/1 Comment/in , /by

Photo Credit: Washington Examiner We live in oxymoronic times. Everyone recognizes the need for a streamlined, more efficient Pentagon. Yet Congress won’t let the Department of Defense close another base or increase the copayments military families make for their very generous health insurance plans. Continuing resolutions and sequestration prevent weapons makers from doing a deal with the Pentagon that sticks.

The defense budget is in free fall by some measures, facing $492 billion in possible sequester cuts over nine years, or roughly $55 billion annually. These come on top of earlier cuts by former Defense Secretary Robert Gates and in addition to huge reductions in war spending in Iraq and Afghanistan. Yet the U.S. military budget still totals $600 billion. That is 40 percent of what the entire world spends on defense, and substantially more than the Cold War average in inflation-adjusted terms.

President Obama wants to do nation-building at home, end the country’s wars and avoid involvement in Syria. Yet he is also committed to “rebalancing” the military to put greater emphasis on the Asia-Pacific region and preventing Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon. Meanwhile, he still maintains 50,000 troops in Afghanistan, nearly double than when he took office.

The secretary of defense said last year that sequestration would be catastrophic for the military, yet half a year into sequestration the sky has not fallen. The sequester, which went into effect in March, has not yet fundamentally jeopardized our national security or the state of our armed forces, and some of the $40 billion in defense cuts in 2013 reflected reasonable pruning.

But other savings will be far more perilous. Dramatically reducing training for many military units, as was done this summer, is tolerable — but only for a short period. It would be debilitating if this continued, particularly to young troops who have never had intensive training.

Read more from this story HERE.

Pentagon: Reports of Sexual Assaults Up 46 Percent

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: gregwest98Reports of sexual assaults in the military increased by an unprecedented 46 percent in the past fiscal year, the Pentagon said Thursday.

It wasn’t possible to know whether the spike represented an increase in assaults, an increase in the number of people reporting them, or both. Defense Department officials portrayed the sharp rise as a sign that people are more confident about coming forward now that improvements are being made to the military’s system for handling assaults.

The military received 3,553 complaints of sexual assault from October 2012 through June, compared with 2,434 reports during the same period the previous year, according to statistics presented Thursday at the start of a two-day public meeting of an independent panel looking into the issue

The report to the Response Systems Panel said an increase in complaints was registered across all service branches — Army, Navy, Air Force and Marines.

And it noted that more reports of sexual assault were made in the first three quarters of fiscal 2013 than the 3,374 reported during the entire 2012 budget year.

Read more from this story HERE.

Republican Senators Rally Behind Abortion Ban

/9 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Lauren SchneidermanRepublican senators facing primary challenges are rallying behind the most exhaustive congressional push to restrict abortion rights in a decade.

Eleven of the 14 GOP senators up for reelection next year support a new bill to ban the fraction of abortions that take place after 20 weeks of fetal development.

A nearly identical bill passed the House this summer. Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), who is fending off four opponents on the right, introduced the Senate measure on Thursday.

“In light of medicine and what we know about the unborn child in 2013, is it time to do more [to stop abortions]?” Graham asked. “We expect a robust debate.”

The bill stems from an assertion that fetuses feel pain after 20 weeks, and follows the murder conviction of Philadelphia abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell, whose trial drew attention to the practice of late-term abortion.

Read more from this story HERE.

Economy Continues to Grow at a Plodding Pace

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: NewscomThe Bureau of Economic Analysis’s (BEA) first estimate of economic growth for the third quarter of this year shows an economy that continues to grow at a plodding pace.

According to BEA, the economy grew at 2.8 percent from July 1 through September 30. This was slightly faster than the 2.5 percent the economy grew in in the second quarter of the year.

The main driver of growth in the third quarter was increased investment, the strongest component of which was a sharp climb in business inventories. Inventory accumulation could mean either that businesses didn’t sell as much as they anticipated during the third quarter or that they ramped up production in anticipation of a busy fourth quarter. Time will tell which.

Personal consumption was also a large contributor to growth. Purchases of durable goods—such as cars and home furnishings—drove the growth in consumption.

This is BEA’s first estimate of growth in the third quarter, and subsequent estimates will change.

Read more from this story HERE.

Supreme Court Opens Hearing on Public Prayer—With a Prayer

/3 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APThe United States Supreme Court heard oral arguments Wednesday in a case examining whether sectarian prayer should be allowed at government meetings.

The Supreme Court began the day’s session with its traditional opening, “God save the United States and this honorable court.” The irony of the high court hearing a public prayer complaint after its own mention of God was not lost on the justices.

Atheists sued the town of Greece, N.Y. for its practice of opening its town council meetings with mostly Christian prayers, and asking everyone to rise for those prayers. A federal appeals court sided with the plaintiffs, who insisted that any prayers said at council meetings must be nondenominational and inclusive, and the town then appealed to the Supreme Court.

Justice Antonin Scalia asked Thomas Hungar, who argued for the town of Greece, if he objected to the way the Supreme Court opens its sessions.

“But you — but you – you had no problem, Mr. Hungar, with the marshal’s announcement at the — at the beginning of this session. ‘God save the United States and this honorable court,’” Scalia said. “There — there are many people who don’t believe in God.”

Read more from this story HERE.