In response to an order, by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, that all healthcare insurance plans in the United States must cover sterilizations, contraceptives, and FDA-approved abortion-inducing drugs, without fees or copays, the head of the Roman Catholic diocese of Pittsburgh has said, “The Obama administration has just told the Catholics of the United States, ‘To Hell with you!’”

Bishop David A. Zubik said, “Let’s be blunt. This whole process of mandating these guidelines undermines the democratic process itself.”

Though the regulation announced by Secretary Sebelius includes an exemption for “religious employers,” those employers wishing to qualify for this exemption must primarily: serve members of its own faith, employ members of its own faith, and focus on the teaching of the doctrines of that faith. As a result of this rule, Catholic hospitals, universities, and charitable organizations would not qualify for the exemption.

In addition, there is no exemption for individual citizens or private businesses. Thus, any individual who is a pro-life small business owner and employer is not exempt from the law. He or she must provide health insurance that offers full coverage for sterilization, contraception, and abortion-inducing drugs.

(more…)

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), under Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, released a surprising bulletin on Friday, announcing that states will have greater flexibility in implementing ObamaCare.

The announcement comes on the threshold of the presidential election year, when President Obama must defend his signature legislation both to the Supreme Court, which will take up the constitutionality of the law in the spring, and the American people, the majority of whom want the law repealed. The administration likely hopes that the new flexibility offered to states will help to minimize the perception that the federal government is “taking over” healthcare.

Regarding the announcement, Secretary Sebelius said:

Under the Affordable Care Act, consumers and small businesses can be confident that the insurance plans they choose and purchase will cover a comprehensive and affordable set of health services. Our approach will protect consumers and give states the flexibility to design coverage options that meet their unique needs.

(more…)

The independent Mercatus Center at George Mason University has given a grade of “F” to the ObamaCare Health Insurance Exchanges regulation. The center studies the anticipated results and economic effects of proposed regulations. In other words, their researchers evaluate whether regulations are likely to accomplish what their supporters say they will.

The Mercatus center delivered its “Regulatory Report Card” on the Health Insurance Exchanges, the set of rules that states will use to set up online health insurance marketplaces. These virtual marketplaces will allow individuals and small employers to compare available private health insurance options on the basis of price, quality, and other factors. The Exchanges, which are scheduled to be in effect by January 1, 2014, are, next to the individual mandate upon which ObamaCare is based, crucial to the law’s ability to achieve its stated goal of expanding access to health insurance to the currently uninsured. Ultimately, they will be used to distribute $460 billion in federal health subsidies, through the year 2019.

The Health Insurance Exchanges regulation received only 42% of potential points (25 out of 60) on the Mercatus “Report Card.” The score of 25 points is the second lowest score the Mercatus Center has issued for 2011 regulations. The Exchanges were measured according to 12 criteria covering three broad categories: Openness, Analysis and Use. For each criterion, the researchers assign a score ranging from 0 to 5, with “5″ being the highest score on any given criterion. Some of the highlights are below:

In the Openness category, ObamaCare’s Exchanges received the lowest score of “2″ on the ease with which someone could find the regulation online. Verifiability of the assumptions used in the regulation’s analysis and the data used to support it were both given scores of “3,” with comments that the regulation relies heavily upon analyses performed by agencies such as the Congressional Budget Office (CBO). The regulation received a score of “4″ on its ability to be understood by an informed layperson. Interestingly, the researchers comment that the Health Insurance Exchanges regulation is “light reading” for someone who is “informed,” but due, in part, to the fact that there is little detail provided. However, as we have come to discover in ObamaCare, the devil is, indeed, in the details.

(more…)

On the same day that the Supreme Court announced that it would take up the challenge to President Obama’s healthcare reform law, Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS) launched the Health Care Innovation Challenge, a competitive program that will award up to $1 billion in taxpayer-funded grants to applicants who will “implement the most compelling new ideas to deliver better health, improved care, and lower costs to people enrolled in Medicare, Medicaid and CHIP…” At a press conference, on Monday, Ms. Sebelius said, “Efforts like these to improve the health of communities and reduce cost while sparking the economy are a priority of the Obama administration.”

Using the Obama administration’s new theme of “We Can’t Wait,” a slogan which refers to Congress’ inability to obtain the votes to pass the president’s Jobs Act, the secretary said, “In recent weeks, Congress has failed to act on the full jobs agenda, so we will continue to do what we can.”

A new Rasmussen poll, however, indicates that most American voters oppose the Obamacare jobs plan, and believe the president should wait to enact the plan in order to reach an agreement with Congress. 63% of those polled said that the president should wait to work with Congress.

(more…)

The Obama administration has admitted that it cannot move forward with a major feature of Obamacare, its long-term care insurance program, due to the fact that it contains a critical design flaw.

The Community Living Assistance Services and Supports program, known as CLASS, a pet program of the late Sen. Ted Kennedy (D- Massachusetts), was to have been sponsored by the federal government but maintained as a voluntary plan to which healthy, younger, working Americans would contribute in the event they became disabled later on in life. Participants would have paid a monthly premium that ranged widely between $235-$3000, depending on income, during their employment years, and then collected a daily cash benefit of at least $50 if they became disabled.

The tragic flaw in the plan is that unless large numbers of healthy people are willing to sign up for the program during their working years, the cost of the program would become prohibitive due to the needs of the disabled who would benefit from the plan. Unlike the purchase of long term care insurance in the private sector, CLASS did not offer lower premiums to healthier participants. Thus, the program attracted those who were already disabled in some way, yet able to work to some extent, and who anticipated the need for long term care in the future. Without healthy subscribers paying into the system, these individuals would not likely be able to afford the steep premiums. (more…)

Many are focused on the Supreme Court’s take-up of the question of the constitutionality of the individual mandate clause in Obamacare as the means to stop President Obama’s signature legislation. However, some of the law has already been funded and put into place, and, until the High Court rules- and if it rules that the individual mandate is unconstitutional- there are already clear plans to change healthcare in this country as we know it.

The fact that our doctors are all walking around from one examining room to another with laptops, rather than “charts,” lets us know that regulations for those in the healthcare field have already been in place for awhile, and that all that personal health information about us, that is being collected electronically, will likely be finding its way to the federal government soon.

Bill McCollum, former Attorney General of Florida, who led the multi-state lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of Obamacare, wrote an editorial in Politico, in which he urges Congress to pass a bill, brought forward by Rep. Sam Johnson (R-Texas), which would essentially “freeze” the implementation of the law in its tracks, a critical move since Obamacare’s costs, including economic, quality of care, and personal privacy aspects, are catastrophic to the nation. Knowing that, even if Congress passed a “freeze,” the president would not sign it, Attorney General McCollum recommends that the new Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction, or “supercommittee,” take it up as a realistic, and relatively expedient, way to cut the deficit.

In light of the fact that there will still be some time before the Supreme Court will hear the case against Obamacare, the joint committee must consider the multitude of evidence that now exists about the costs of this program. According to Attorney General McCollum, in just 2012-2013 alone, for example, Obamacare owns $50 billion in tax increases, including $20 billion in payroll tax hikes on small businesses. The law institutes 159 new federal programs, costing $19 billion, and the controversial Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), which will have never-before-seen power- no Congress needed- to make cuts to Medicare.

(more…)

It is no secret that, since the passage of the healthcare law, the states have been desperately scrambling to figure out how to pay for the millions of people who are to be added to the Medicaid rolls if the law survives.

On February 3rd, Secretary of the Department of Health and  Human Services, Kathleen Sebelius, wrote to the governors of the states:

“In light of difficult circumstances, we are stepping up our efforts to help you identify cost drivers in the Medicaid program and provide you with new tools and resources to achieve both short-term savings and longer-term sustainability while providing high-quality care to the citizens of your states.”

According to DHHS, some of these key areas of cost-savings to states include changing optional benefits by limiting their amount, duration or scope. Some of the benefits included are services such as prescription drugs, dental services, and speech therapy. In some cases people may be removed from the program.

This is an ironic turn of events. While the Democrats have spent years denigrating health insurance companies for limiting coverage, Secretary Sebelius is sounding an awful lot like health insurance managed care companies whose job it is to ration care. If you are on Medicaid, your state, according to DHHS, has the “flexibility” to limit or cancel your coverage for these types of services in order to make room for the thousands more who will proudly wear the “insured” label as required by Obamacare.

Further, in response to states who have requested “waivers” from some of the healthcare law’s requirements, Secretary Sebelius responded:

“I continue to review what authority, if any, I have to waive the maintenance of effort under current law.”

It would appear, from this statement, that the Secretary, who already has authorized waivers for over 700 companies and unions who are unable to meet the law’s requirement of no annual limits on health insurance coverage, is considering waivers from some requirements to entire states if the “flexibility” provided in the law is not sufficient for them to make the healthcare law cost-effective.

(more…)