Fix Health Care Policy

Earlier today, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released an updated cost estimate for Obamacare that showed that the law will cost less over 10 years than last predicted—because fewer people will be covered.

Now, although Obamacare spends more than $1 trillion, CBO predicts it will leave 30 million Americans uninsured, falling far short of what was promised.

The reason for the changes to the law’s cost projection is the recent Supreme Court ruling. Though the Court allowed Obamacare’s individual mandate to stand as a tax, it deemed a separate provision—the Medicaid expansion—to be unconstitutional. As a result, states can choose not to expand their Medicaid programs and are no longer at risk of losing all their federal Medicaid dollars if they don’t. As Heritage health policy expert Nina Owcharenko explains, “If the Administration’s attempt to centralize health care decision making in Washington was unworkable, its unconstitutional imposition on the states has made its problems even worse.”

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: CBO, deficit, ObamaCare, repeal the law, Supreme Court ruling, total cost, unconstitutional, uninsured

In a special Heritage podcast, Congressman Steve King (R – IA) discusses Obamacare’s challenge in the Supreme Court and the budget. Click here to listen.

In the case the Supreme Court does not rule Obamacare unconstitutional, is Congress still willing to fight the law? If so, how? And is it true, as the left contends, that if the law is overturned, it would represent judicial activism?

Listen to the congressman answer these questions and more.

To get regular updates on Heritage in Focus podcasts, visit our RSS feed or subscribe on iTunes.

To listen to more Heritage Foundation podcasts, visit our podcast page.

Tags: ObamaCare, Podcast, Rep. Steve King, repeal the law, unconstitutional

Call it the main event: after a day puzzling over whether Obamacare’s fines on those who don’t buy insurance constitute a tax or a penalty—an important threshold issue, to be sure, but one that hasn’t quite captured the public’s imagination—the Court today will hear oral argument regarding one of the most important issues before it in 65 years: whether the Constitution empowers Congress to require that virtually all Americans purchase or obtain health insurance coverage.

The answer to that question will determine whether the federal Leviathan truly remains a government of limited, enumerated powers, or whether the division of powers between the federal government, on the one hand, and the states and the people, on the other, has finally been obliterated. In short, today’s argument cuts to the very heart of our “federalist” republic, pitting against each other two drastically different visions of the role of the national government in our lives.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: commerce powers, congress, freedoms, Individual Mandate, overreach, Supreme Court challenge, unconstitutional

Shortly after President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act into law two years ago, the National Federation of Independent Business joined a lawsuit challenging its constitutionality. After victories in district court and federal appeals court, Obamacare goes before the U.S. Supreme Court next week.

Karen Harned, executive director of NFIB’s Small Business Legal Center, has argued passionately on behalf of business owners against the law. During a visit to The Heritage Foundation yesterday, she sat down with us to preview the six hours of oral arguments and the what’s at stake before the high court.

Listen to the interview with Karen Harned on this week’s Scribecast

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: Individual Mandate, NFIB, ObamaCare, penalties, Supreme Court challenge, unconstitutional, uninsured

In this week’s Heritage in Focus, Carrie Severino, Chief Counsel and Policy Director of the Judicial Crisis Network, discusses her work on the Supreme Court challenge to Obamacare being argued next week. Click here to listen.

What’s the likely breakdown of the decision going to be? Is the individual mandate severable from the rest of Obamacare, or is the whole law unconstitutional? If the law is upheld, does it mean that Congress has virtually unlimited power?

Listen to Carrie Severino answer those questions and more by clicking the link above.

To get regular updates on Heritage in Focus podcasts, visit our RSS feed or subscribe on iTunes.

To listen to more Heritage Foundation podcasts, visit our podcast page.

Tags: ObamaCare, Podcast, Supreme Court challenge, unconstitutional

Two years ago, Congress and President Obama rushed to pass the enormous 2,700-page health care law that most didn’t even have time to read. As time has passed, Heritage experts have analyzed the law and written extensively on the need for its repeal. The major components of Heritage’s Case Against Obamacare are summarized below.

Individual Mandate: Obamacare includes a requirement that everyone buy government-approved health insurance or face a penalty. This mandate is unconstitutional and violates personal liberty.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: Case Against Obamacare, mandates, ObamaCare, penalties, repeal the law, unconstitutional

With tens of millions of Americans watching, Barack Obama stood at the West Front of the U.S. Capitol on January 20, 2009, with his left hand on the Bible and his right hand held aloft, swearing to God and country that he would preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States. Yet despite that pledge, President Obama has time and time again taken actions contrary to the principles of the founding document he swore to uphold, setting forth on a heretofore uncharted path of unconstitutionality that will fundamentally change the character of this Republic for the worse, not for the better.

Last week, America erupted in protest against one of those actions — the White House’s determination to force all insurance plans to cover, at no charge, contraceptives, abortion-inducing drugs, and sterilization as part of Obamacare. That mandate includes employers like Catholic hospitals, Christian schools, and faith-based pregnancy care centers, all of which must offer the coverage, regardless of their beliefs. This assault on the First Amendment’s protection of religious liberties met with opposition from all corners, prompting the president on Friday to address the American people and pledge his commitment to protecting religious liberties by offering an “accommodation” to these institutions — forcing insurance companies to offer free contraception so religious institutions don’t have to.   (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: accommodation, mandates, ObamaCare, religious liberties, unconstitutional

“Are you serious? Are you serious?” then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D–CA) famously replied when asked where, specifically, the Constitution granted Congress the authority to mandate that every American purchase health insurance coverage.

The question was very serious, it turns out, even if Pelosi’s intent was sarcasm. Four federal courts have already struck down Obamacare in whole or in part on constitutional grounds. And now, with the Supreme Court widely expected to take the case in the coming weeks, three of the individuals who proved Pelosi wrong will address The Heritage Foundation on the present and future of Obamacare and constitutional federalism this Thursday at noon.

At the time that Pelosi spoke, just two years ago, her incredulity was hardly atypical. The Democrat-controlled Congress was racing to enact President Obama’s top legislative priority, a government-run health care system, and there was simply no place or time for quaint constitutional niceties. Only a few months later, recall, Speaker Pelosi’s minions would contrive the magnificently named “deem and pass” maneuver by which House Members wouldn’t even have to vote for a health care bill that the public had by then turned against.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: deem and pass maneuver, government-run health care, Individual Mandate, ObamaCare, unconstitutional

A lot of news was made this week when the National Federation of Independent Business filed a petition to the Supreme Court appealing the 11th Circuit’s Obamacare decision, which was quickly followed by petitions filed by the 26 state plaintiffs, and another by the Obama Justice Department. What do these filings mean for the future of Obamacare? Click here to join to find out! We are joined by Heritage’s legal expert Robert Alt, and he will be taking your questions about what the petitions mean and what they holds for the future.  (See the full chat on The Foundry…)

Tags: Individual Mandate, NFIB, ObamaCare, petitions, Supreme Court, unconstitutional

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) stole a march on the Obama Administration this morning by filing a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court appealing the 11th Circuit’s Obamacare decision.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) had announced on Monday that it was not going to ask all 11 judges of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to review en banc the August 12 decision of a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit that found the individual mandate unconstitutional. This opened up a path to an appeal by DOJ to the Supremes.

However, with this petition, the NFIB jumped ahead of Eric Holder’s slow-moving DOJ (which until Monday had done everything it could to slow-walk this case filed by 26 states and the NFIB). The NFIB is obviously not appealing the three-judge panel’s opinion about the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate. But the NFIB is appealing the portion of the panel’s decision that held that the unconstitutional individual mandate could be severed from the Obamacare legislation.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: 11th Circuit Court, Individual Mandate, ObamaCare, Supreme Court, unconstitutional