Posts

Cruz: Defund Obamacare Through Spending Bill

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: Daily Caller Texas Republican Sen.Ted Cruz declared Wednesday that he will reject any government spending bill that does not directly cut off funds to the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature piece of legislation.

Cruz said “he will offer an amendment to delay the flow of funds to implement the healthcare law when the Senate takes up a continuing resolution to fund the federal government,” the Hill reports.

“I believe we should continue to delay such funding at least until economic growth returns to historic averages, and I intend to object to consideration of any continuing resolution that does not include a vote to delay funding of Obamacare,” Cruz said in a statement.

Cruz’s comment comes on the heels of a continuing resolution to fund the government, including money set aside for Obamacare.

After the GOP’s hopes of easily repealing the national health care law were lost with the 2012 election, some in Congress have said that they will work to use creative tactics to chip away at the law.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obamacare Requirements Will Drive Up Premiums

/0 Comments/in , , /by

Photo Credit: Washington Examiner In 2007, candidate Barack Obama declared, “I will sign a universal health care bill into law by the end of my first term as president that will cover every American and cut the cost of a typical family’s premium by up to $2,500 a year.” As president, he signed national health care legislation that is formally known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare. But according to a new report from Congressional Republicans, the law will actually cause premiums to more than double for some Americans.

The report, which is based on a compilation of independent studies on the effect of the law’s new regulations, finds that Obamacare could increase premiums by 40 percent on average and by as much as 202 percent for young adults living in Chicago.

There are several ways the health care law puts upward pressure on premiums. It requires insurers to offer coverage to everybody who applies, regardless of pre-existing conditions. It limits the amount that companies can adjust prices based on health status. It also requires that every American purchase a health insurance policy that meets federal specifications regarding the level of benefits covered. In addition, the law imposes $165 billion of tax increases on health insurance, drug manufacturers and medical device-makers. These policies work together to drive up the cost of insurance, especially on younger and healthier Americans.

It’s true that the law also offers subsidies to individuals to purchase insurance. But those subsidies are phased out for individuals earning more than $46,000. The report anticipates, “Even after receiving subsidies, Americans earning as little as $25,000 will still pay more.”

Read more from this story HERE.

The Unaffordable Care Act

/2 Comments/in , /by

Photo Credit: APThe Government Accountability Office (GAO) released a report Tuesday showing that if cost-control measures are not maintained the Affordable Care Act could increase the deficit by $6.2 trillion, or .7 percent of GDP, over the next 75 years.

The report shows President Barack Obama’s comments that Obamacare would “not add a dime to the long term debt [are] false,” Sen. Jeff Sessions (R., Ala.) said at a Budget Committee hearing.

“The result of this brand new report confirmed everything that Republicans were saying about the bill,” Sessions said. The report is the first to look at the long-term effects of the Affordable Care Act beyond a ten-year period.

The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) previously had projected the cost of Obamacare over a ten-year period and found it would save more than $100 billion if certain policies remained the same—policies that CBO director Doug Elmendorf said would be hard to maintain.

“CBO’s cost estimate noted that the legislation maintains and puts into effect a number of policies that might be difficult to sustain over a long period of time,” Elmendorf said at the time. The new GAO study ran two projections: one in which those cost reduction policies were maintained and another projection in which Congress phased out the reduction policies put into Obamacare.

Read more from this story HERE.

Poll Finds 15-Point Drop In Dem Support For Health Law

/1 Comment/in , , /by

photo credit: andrew aliferisDemocratic support for President Obama’s healthcare law has dropped 15 points since November, contributing to a rise in negative attitudes toward the reform, according to a new poll.

Opponents of the Affordable Care Act currently outnumber supporters (42 percent to 36), according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s (KFF) latest tracking survey. Public opinion has switched back and forth since the law passed in 2010, and in November, support for the law was 4 percent higher than opposition (43 percent to 39).

Kaiser attributed the marked slide in support among Democrats to a “post-presidential election fade.” In November, 72 percent of that group expressed support for the law, compared with 57 percent who feel favorably toward it now.

Unaffiliated voters saw a similar but less dramatic decline in support, with 32 percent approving of the healthcare law compared with 37 percent in November.

Read more from this story HERE.

Campaign 2012: The Return of the Death Panels

/0 Comments/in , /by

Photo credit: eleanor ryan

Health care was supposed to be President Obama’s issue in 2012. The 2009 Obamacare law was hailed as his signature legislative achievement, but it’s never been popular. Its most onerous provisions were timed to kick in after the election specifically to avoid damaging the re-election effort. For months, the Obama campaign tried to negate the issue. It spent a great deal of energy seeking to inoculate itself from Mitt Romney’s attacks by claiming the Massachusetts health care law passed when Mr. Romney was governor was “just like Obamacare.”

Some of Mr. Obama’s supporters claimed to be thrilled by Mr. Romney’s selection of Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin as his running mate. The spin was that Mr. Ryan’s budget plan provided the necessary contrast to Obamacare to enable Democrats to move to the offensive. Pro-Obama commentators resurrected the allegation that the Ryan plan would “end Medicare as we know it,” a charge the nonpartisan fact checkers at Politifact dubbed the “lie of the year” in December 2011. Meanwhile, Republicans highlighted the $716 billion that Obamacare cuts from Medicare, a fact affirmed by the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office. This cut was the talking point that stuck.

The Obama campaign has had to contend with a serious pre-existing condition, namely a lack of support from seniors. According to the latest Gallup data, Mr. Romney enjoys an 11-point advantage among voters age 65 and older. Among the same group, Mr. Obama’s approval rating is 37 percent, the lowest of any age demographic. Medicare is a critical election issue in general. A recent poll by the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation found that 73 percent of respondents described Medicare as “very important” or “extremely important” in determining their votes. Mr. Obama now must explain to this skeptical cohort why he chose to cut a very popular program to pay for his very unpopular law.

Death panels also are back. At an appearance in Florida over the weekend, Mr. Ryan criticized the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) established under Obamacare to “contain” Medicare costs. The law “puts a board of 15 unelected, unaccountable bureaucrats in charge of Medicare who are required to cut Medicare in ways that will lead to denied care for current seniors,” he said. “We will make sure that this board of bureaucrats will not mess with my mom’s health care or your mom’s health care.”

Obamacare defenders scoff at the idea that the IPAB’s decisions would have fatal consequences for seniors, but the panel has been given an extraordinary and perhaps unconstitutional degree of power. Its proposals automatically become law unless Congress counters it with another plan. Overriding the IPAB requires a three-fifths supermajority in the Senate. The Obamacare law dictates that Congress may not even propose doing away with the IPAB until 2017 and may not actually get rid of it until 2020. This dubious provision undercuts the argument that the IPAB is a harmless advocate for government efficiency.

Read more from this story HERE.

Obamacare: free sterilization for your 15 year old without your consent?

/12 Comments/in , /by

Americans outraged over the Obama administration’s requirement that health insurance policies cover contraception and sterilization at no charge are about to get even hotter under the collar. According to CNSNews.com, depending on state law, girls as young as 15 could well be eligible for free surgical sterilizations — even without their parents’ consent.

The ObamaCare regulation, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) earlier this year, states: “Non-grandfathered plans and issuers are required to provide coverage without cost sharing consistent with these guidelines in the first plan year … that begins on or after August 1, 2012.” The guidelines call for insurers to cover “all Food and Drug Administration approved contraceptive methods, sterilization procedures, and patient education and counseling for all women with reproductive capacity.”

While the guidelines do not define “all women with reproductive capacity,” they are based on the recommendations of an Institute of Medicine report that defines it as “from the time of menarche” — the onset of menstruation, which occurs around age 12 — “to the time of menopause.” Thus it would appear that HHS is requiring all new insurance plans to cover legal sterilizations for girls age 12 and older.

Of course, in most states women must be considerably older than 12 to be sterilized, and teenagers desiring to be sterilized must obtain their parents’ consent. In Oregon, however, girls 15 and older need not obtain parental consent to be sterilized. All they must do is sign a form stating that they are making an informed decision to be sterilized — a procedure that “must be considered permanent and not reversible” — voluntarily and with the understanding that “my decision will not affect my right to future care or treatment.” For girls unable to understand English, the state helpfully permits an interpreter to sign the form for them.

Therefore, under ObamaCare a 15-year-old Oregonian girl apparently can get a tubal ligation for free without so much as a by-your-leave from her parents. (This same girl, meanwhile, must wait until she is 16 to drive and 17 to wed and can do neither without parental consent until she is 18.) Parents and other policyholders not wishing to pay for sterilization coverage will be forced to do so since it will now be baked into every policy sold. And taxpayers, whether or not they agree with the practice of sterilizing minors without parental consent, will be forced to subsidize such coverage for those unable to buy insurance on their own — a segment of the population sure to grow as mandates such as this drive up premiums.

Read more from this story HERE.

Video: Sununu to CNN’s Soledad-`Put An Obama Bumper Sticker On Your Forehead’

/2 Comments/in , /by

Governor Sununu and CNN’s Soledad O’Brien get into it in this clip from a live CNN interview today. The fireworks start at 2:10 with Sununu telling Soledad that she might as well “put an Obama bumper sticker on [her] forehead.”

Video: National Review’s Lowry destroys Rachel Maddow on Meet the Press

/1 Comment/in , /by

Watch this video to see National Review’s Rich Lowry destroy Rachel Maddow on Meet the Press. He backed her into a corner and wouldn’t let up.

Here’s the transcript the Lowry vs. Maddow exchange:

LOWRY: Do you support $700 billion in cuts in Medicare over the next 10 years?

MADDOW: I’m not running for president.

LOWRY: Do you?

MADDOW: I’m not running for anything. Paul Ryan is running for vice president.

LOWRY: Do you? Why can’t you answer? See, you can’t answer.

MADDOW: But wait, I’m not running for anything.

LOWRY: This is the key vulnerability. Democrats have cut $700 billion out of Medicare which you won’t or can’t defend it. Defend it.

MADDOW: Is it good or bad?

LOWRY: Do you support it? You can’t answer.

MADDOW: But wait. Why are you asking me?

LOWRY: You can’t answer. Because you’re an opinion maker who is supposed to give us your opinion. But you will not tell us what your opinion is?

MADDOW: What I want to know is the logic of . . .

LOWRY: Democrats cannot defend that.

MADDOW: Wait. I want to know is the logic . . .

LOWRY: Go ahead. Defend it.

MADDOW: What I want to know is the logic . . .

LOWRY: [Laughter]

MADDOW: Wait. Rich, hold on.

LOWRY: Answer me. You’re not answering.

MADDOW: Can I say something?

LOWRY: Can you answer?

Photo credit: Paul Schultz

Starting this month, Obamacare begins to cater to promiscuity

/0 Comments/in /by

By Susan Jones.  Starting August 1, the Democrats’ health care law — as implemented by the Health and Human Services Administration — entitles 47 million women to eight new “prevention-related” health care services “without paying more out of their own pocket,” HHS reminded Americans on Tuesday.

In addition to the controversial contraceptive mandate, HHS says virtually all health plans must cover – at no charge — the following items for sexually active women.

— HIV screening and counseling: “Sexually-active women will have access to annual counseling on HIV,” HHS said, noting that women are at increased risk of contracting HIV/AIDS.

— Counseling on sexually transmitted infections: “Sexually-active women will have access to annual counseling on sexually transmitted infections,” HHS said. “These sessions have been shown to reduce risky behavior in patients, yet only 28 percent of women aged 18-44 years reported that they had discussed STIs with a doctor or nurse.”

— HPV (human papillomavirus): This sexually transmitted disease is linked to cervical cancer. According to HHS, “Women who are 30 or older will have access to high-risk human papillomavirus (HPV) DNA testing every three years, regardless of Pap smear results.”  Read more from this story HERE.

Sen. Harkin:  Free birth control mandated by Obamacare because women have severe menstrual cramping

By Elizabeth Harrington. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa) today justified what the Catholic bishops of the United States have unanimously called an “unjust and illegal mandate” that forces Catholic business owners to provide coverage for free sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs because, Harkin said, some women need birth control pills to deal with menstrual pain.

“There are many women who take birth control pills, for example, because they have terrible menstrual cramps once a month, some of them almost incapacitated, can’t work,” said Harkin. “I know of young women myself who, because of this, aren’t able to work and be productive, and it’s prescribed by their doctor.”

In an interview with CNSNews.com, Harkin at no time contested that the regulation required Catholics to act against their faith. Instead, he likened forcing a Catholic to purchase health insurance that covers sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs to forcing Quakers to pay taxes to cover a war.

“It’s like a Quaker who pays income taxes,” said Harkin. “They have to pay income taxes. Quakers, as you know, have unalterably been opposed to war and military spending. Yes, some of their taxes have to go to that.”

The “preventive services” regulation, issued by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of the Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”), goes into effect on Aug. 1. It mandates that nearly all health insurance plans must offer sterilizations, contraceptives, and abortion-inducing drugs free of charge.  Read more from this story HERE.

August 1, 2012: The Day Freedom of Conscience Died in America

/1 Comment/in /by

Photo credit: majunznk

As of July 31, 2012, a business owner who objects to abortion had the freedom of conscience to make sure that her company’s insurance policies did not pay to facilitate the practice. But as of yesterday, August 1, she no longer has that freedom. The ObamaCare contraceptive and abortifacient mandates took effect August 1, hailed by the Obama regime as a great and wonderful thing.

According to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, “President Obama is moving our country forward by giving women control over their health care. This law puts women and their doctors, not insurance companies or the government, in charge of health care decisions.”

What about pro-life women? Do they not exist?

In reality, what this law does is force millions of Americans to abide by the radical edge of the sexual revolution. It forces millions of Americans to violate their own consciences, and it prohibits the free exercise of their religion. It is a revolutionary act that puts government in charge of what business owners can do and think. It’s un-American. If Rep. Nancy Pelosi gets her wish, the mandate will eventually even force churches to subsidize Planned Parenthood by forcing them to live under the abortifacient mandate. Pelosi said as much in February 2012:

At a press conference, Leader Pelosi was asked by THE WEEKLY STANDARD: ”The Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., is a self-insured institution. Should the Catholic Church in Washington, D.C., be required to pay for these morning-after pills and birth control if they find that morally objectionable?”

Pelosi talked about the importance of women’s health, and then said, “Yes, I think that all institutions who cover, who give, health insurance should cover the full range of health insurance issues for women.”

Concerned Women for America opposes the abortifacient mandate, which means they do not exist in the eyes of Obama, Sebelius and the other radicals who dominate the current regime. Despite the lack of media attention paid to CWA, it boasts 500,000 members, making it the largest public policy women’s organization in the US. They are fighting the mandate, according to a press release quoting CWA President Penny Nance.

Read more from this story HERE.