Fix Health Care Policy

House Repeals Obamacare; What’s Next

Now that the House has voted to repeal Obamacare, what happens next with H.R. 6079?

The “Repeal of ObamaCare Act” will go to the Senate for consideration. If Senators take a few simple actions, they can force a debate and recorded vote in the Senate this year. They might even be able to pass it, although unlikely because of the minority party’s aversion to hardball politics.

How to get it to the floor: Once the Senate receives the “Repeal of ObamaCare Act” from the House of Representatives, it is expected that a conservative Senator will use the Senate’s rules to force a vote. A Senator can use Rule 14 of the Senate’s rules to object to a second reading of the bill. This objection would place the House-passed Obamacare repeal bill in a position for debate on a motion to proceed to the bill and a roll-call vote on whether the Senate should consider the measure.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: government takeover, House, impact, repeal Obamacare, Senate

Life, Religious Liberty at Heart of Obamacare Repeal Bill

Legislation to repeal Obamacare under consideration in the House today makes clear in two significant findings the massive health care law’s threat to religious liberty, conscience rights, and the protection of human life:

(7) While President Obama promised that nothing in the law would fund elective abortion, the law expands the role of the Federal Government in funding and facilitating abortion and plans that cover abortion. The law appropriates billions of dollars in new funding without explicitly prohibiting the use of these funds for abortion, and it provides Federal subsidies for health plans covering elective abortions. Moreover, the law effectively forces millions of individuals to personally pay a separate abortion premium in violation of their sincerely held religious, ethical, or moral beliefs.

(8) Until enactment of the law, the Federal Government has not sought to impose specific coverage or care requirements that infringe on the rights of conscience of insurers, purchasers of insurance, plan sponsors, beneficiaries, and other stakeholders, such as individual or institutional health care providers. The law creates a new nationwide requirement for health plans to cover “essential health benefits” and “preventive services”, but does not allow stakeholders to opt out of covering items or services to which they have a religious or moral objection, in violation of the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (Public Law 103–141). By creating new barriers to health insurance and causing the loss of existing insurance arrangements, these inflexible mandates jeopardize the ability of institutions and individuals to exercise their rights of conscience and their ability to freely participate in the health insurance and health care marketplace.

The need to repeal Obamacare to address these and many other concerns for the future of Americans’ liberty remains in the wake of the Supreme Court’s sharply divided decision upholding Obamacare.

As a result, Obamacare’s multiple threats to religious liberty, rights of conscience, and the protection of human life remain.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: conscience rights, health plans, protection of human life, religious liberty, repeal Obamacare

Top 5 Reasons to Repeal Obamacare

The House is scheduled to vote today on full repeal of Obamacare. Although many reports are circulating that Congress has already voted on this numerous times, this is only the second time the House will have voted to fully repeal the law.

Heritage has laid out the impacts of Obamacare on the American people—and according to a poll released this week, a majority of Americans agree that Obamacare should be repealed. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius took to the pages of The Washington Post this week to re-argue the Administration’s positions, claiming basically the opposite of the havoc Obamacare is wreaking on the U.S. economy and health care system.

As Congress takes up the issue, we present the Top 5 Reasons to Repeal Obamacare:

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: congress, health law, HHS, repeal Obamacare, top 5 reasons

VIDEO: Sen. Jim DeMint’s Rallying Cry to Repeal Obamacare

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) was determined to repeal Obamacare before the Supreme Court handed down its ruling yesterday. Now he’s confident he will have a motivated army working alongside him.

“All of us had hoped and maybe been teased into the thought that maybe the Supreme Court would come in and make this work a little bit easier,” DeMint told a standing-room only crowd at Heritage yesterday. “They haven’t done that, but they have reminded us that this job is in our hands and the hands of the people.”

DeMint’s speech, which Heritage excerpted for this short video, came just two hours after the ruling shocked and disappointed many conservatives. After all, tea-party activists swept a group of freshmen lawmakers into the halls of Congress last year and their vote to repeal Obamacare was a major triumph. Equally disappointing for many was the court’s decision.

See the video on The Foundry…

Tags: disappointment, repeal Obamacare, ruling, SCOTUS, Sen. Jim DeMint

Senate GOP Will Use Reconciliation in Attempt to Repeal Obamacare

Now that the Supreme Court has ruled that Obamacare’s health insurance mandate is in fact a tax levied on those who do not purchase insurance, Senate Republicans will look to repeal the full law through the budget reconciliation process.

Reconciliation was used to push Obamacare through the Senate in 2009. Generally reserved strictly for budget-related measures, it eliminates the possibility of a filibuster, meaning Republicans would only need 51 votes to repeal that portion of the law – or even the full law itself.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC) seemed open to that approach during a speech at The Heritage Foundation shortly after the Supreme Court handed down its decision. The court’s ruling “does present some options for us” to pursue more unconventional options for repeal, DeMint said. He mentioned reconciliation as a potential avenue.

A senior Senate Republican aide involved in the repeal effort later confirmed to Scribe that the GOP will use the budget reconciliation process in an attempt to repeal the full law, not just the portion requiring all Americans purchase health insurance.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: budget-related measures, reconciliation, repeal Obamacare, Sen. Jim DeMint, Supreme Court ruling

Critics Are Wrong: Conservatives Have a Plan for Health Reform

Following last week’s Supreme Court arguments, supporters of the President’s health care law are once again criticizing opponents of the law for failing to offer their own alternative. They are wrong.

The Heritage Foundation, for example, has outlined a detailed and comprehensive approach to reforming health care in Saving the American Dream. There are four core elements of this conservative alternative.

1. Repealing Obamacare

Patient-centered, market-based health care is incompatible with the fundamental construct of Obamacare. Obamacare is based on turning more power over health care dollars and decisions to Washington. In sharp contrast, the Heritage plan is based on turning more power over health care dollars and decisions to individuals and families.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: conservative alternatives, Medicare premium support, repeal Obamacare, tax treatment health insurance

Turner Lays Out the Case Against Obamacare

Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, was among a number of experts who recently convened at The Heritage Foundation on a panel entitled “Beyond the Individual Mandate: Why Obamacare Must Be Repealed.” Turner is one of the authors of Why Obamacare Is Wrong for America, along with James Capretta, Thomas Miller, and Heritage expert Robert Moffit.

At the panel, Turner highlighted a number of the law’s problems, including its constitutionality. Never before has the federal government required individuals to purchase a product, which as she says in her book, “makes one wonder what else Congress can make Americans do if it makes us buy health insurance.”

The law’s mandate, she believes, also presents an economic problem. The legislation requires employers to provide insurance for employees or pay a penalty, forcing businesses to hire fewer employers, keep wages down, and reduce investments. As a result, business will suffer, which could translate into higher prices for consumers.   (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: Grace-Marie Turner, health insurance, Individual Mandate, repeal Obamacare

Obamacare Is Losing CLASS Fast

It may be only a few days since Congress began its new session, but it has already done some decent work. This week, the House Ways and Means Committee held the markup of H.R. 1173, which would repeal the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) Act.

The CLASS Act is a government-run long-term care insurance program and a major failure of Obamacare. It has been described in a variety of degrading ways, most notably as unsustainable, an insurance death spiral, and a ponzi scheme of the first order.

As Heritage has previously explained:

From its creation, the CLASS Act was completely unsustainable as written into law. Due to the effects of adverse selection, the program would charge high premiums that would deter less risky individuals from participating. Indeed, participating in the CLASS program would only appeal to those in poor health expecting to need long-term care in the future, further escalating premiums.

Thankfully, the inherent policy flaws of the CLASS Act have been recognized, and congressional action is being taken. Representative Charles Boustany (R–LA), a physician and chairman of the House Ways and Means Subcommittee on Oversight, is the sponsor of the repeal bill. In a recent Politico op-ed, he urges Congress to act and warns, “CLASS could return to haunt us if it isn’t fully repealed before October 2012. Legal experts at the Congressional Research Service warn that a federal judge could force [the Administration] to revive CLASS after this key deadline in the law expires.”  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: CLASS Act, House Ways and Means, long-term care, repeal Obamacare, unsustainable

House Subcommittee Reveals Obamacare’s Flaws for Taxpayers, Small Business

A recent Gallup poll revealed that 47 percent of Americans—a plurality—support repeal of Obamacare. While the reasons for the law’s unpopularity are limitless, its broken CLASS program and unsuccessful small business tax credit may play a role.

A few weeks ago, the Department of Health and Human Services announced it would halt implementation of the CLASS program, the government-run long-term care program created by the health care law, since it was unsustainable and unworkable. This put CLASS on life support, but since it isn’t dead yet, its repeal is crucial.

Earlier this week, the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee moved legislation by Representative Charles Boustany (R–LA) one step closer to the President’s desk to repeal the CLASS Act.   (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: CLASS Act, Gallup poll, repeal Obamacare, unsustainable, unworkable

Immediate Medicare Reforms Could Slash Nation’s Debt

When it comes to the super-committee’s duty to reform Medicare, you’ll likely to hear the same tired and unsuccessful methods for lowering Medicare’s soaring costs: raising taxes, manipulating payment formulas, or making even deeper payment cuts to doctors and hospitals.

The best way to reform Medicare is transform it into a premium-support program, which provides a defined contribution to seniors’ chosen health plans, which include a variety of private plans as well as traditional Medicare fee-for-service. This approach — based on injecting consumer choice and competition into Medicare — has a long history of bipartisan support, going back to the early 1980s.

Congress could adopt this approach through a two-stage, ten-year structural reform, which the Heritage Foundation outlined in its long-term deficit plan, “Saving the American Dream.” When compared with the Congressional Budget Office’s baseline, Heritage’s two-stage Medicare reform plan would result in $9.4 trillion in savings by 2035.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: co-payments, Medicare reforms, premium support program, repeal Obamacare, Saving the American Dream, super committee