Photo Credit: SUZANNAH HOOVER

Jeff Vernon, an employee of Scrambler Marie’s restaurant in Toledo, Ohio, told a local reporter that the owners were cutting his hours to avoid penalties under Obamacare. Businesses with more than 49 employees have to offer insurance to all “full-time” workers—defined as those who put in 30 hours or more each week. The result, for Vernon: $400 less in take-home pay every month. “That leaves me $27.50 for two weeks to live off of,” he explained. Vernon said the owners tried to avoid the cuts but didn’t have any other recourse. “They were real good about that,” he added. “The last thing they wanted to do was cut people. They don’t want to fire anybody.”

Other business owners haven’t been able to avoid eliminating jobs. A Gallup poll taken in June found that nearly one in five small businesses—19 percent of those surveyed—have cut workers “as a specific result of the Affordable Care Act.” The same poll, first reported by CNBC, found that 41 percent of those interviewed had suspended hiring because of Obamacare. The poll of 603 business owners with less than $20 million in annual sales also found that 55 percent believe Obamacare will lead to higher health care costs, while just 5 percent saw future cost savings.

The steady stream of negative stories in recent months is one reason the Obama administration is preparing a massive public relations campaign to promote the launch of health care exchanges on October 1, 2013—which is fewer than 100 days away. The administration is seeking to enlist high-profile athletes and celebrities to sell Obamacare and its alleged benefits. Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services, told reporters last week that HHS officials are working with major American sports leagues on the campaign. Read more from this story HERE.

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Obamacare ‘is still unconstitutional’ one year after Supreme Court approval

By Rand Paul. One year ago, the Supreme Court upheld a law that radically transforms our health care system in a way that continues to frighten and beleaguer most Americans.

Friday is the one-year anniversary of the Supreme Court’s ruling upholding the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. The 5-4 decision declared that the federal government could force Americans to buy health insurance — not just any insurance, but insurance covering procedures dictated by the federal government. Obamacare established a labyrinth of red tape and bureaucracy, colossal even by Washington standards, and most important — penalizes the uninsured through the individual mandate.

Writing the majority opinion, Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. declared that the individual mandate could be considered a tax and that the power to tax was also the power to enforce the law. Dissenting Justices Antonin Scalia, Anthony M. Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Samuel Anthony Alito Jr. vehemently disagreed, writing in their dissent: “[W]e cannot rewrite the statute to be what it is not. [W]e have never — never — treated as a tax an exaction which faces up to the critical difference between a tax and a penalty, and explicitly denominates the exaction a ‘penalty.’”

I think that Obamacare is still unconstitutional. I still think that Justices Scalia, Kennedy, Thomas and Alito got it right.

One year later, the federal health care law is even more concerning. In addition to potentially causing upward of 20 million Americans to lose their private health insurance policies, it could destroy an estimated 800,000 jobs. Read more from this story HERE.

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NFL says no to promoting Obamacare

By Sandhya Somashekhar and Lenny Bernstein. The National Football League is used to big, bruising battles. But on Friday, it announced that it was likely staying out of one of the roughest fights in Washington: the war over Obamacare.

Earlier this week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius disclosed that the administration was in talks with the sports organization to help promote the law, which enters a new phase as advocates prepare to begin enrolling millions of Americans in health insurance this fall.

On Friday, Republican leaders in the Senate issued a stern warning to sports organizations not to partner with the administration on an issue marked by such “divisiveness and persistent unpopularity.”

Asked about the congressional letter, NFL spokesman Greg Aiello said the league had not made any commitment to the administration. “We have responded to the letters we received from members of Congress to inform them we currently have no plans to engage in this area and have had no substantive contact with the administration about [the health-care law’s] implementation,” he said in an e-mail.

The NFL’s decision is the latest blow to the administration over the health-care law, which faces enormous hurdles as key portions go into effect in the coming months. Chief among the challenges is the political opposition to the law, which has persisted since its passage in 2010 despite hopes on the part of advocates that it would eventually be accepted as the law of the land. Read more from this story HERE.