Category Archives: Health
State Exchange Subsidies
The DC Court of Appeals ruled that the Affordable Care Act means what it says. You have to buy insurance from a state exchange to qualify for a subsidy. If the ruling is upheld by the Supreme Court, ObamaCare will be in big trouble.
ObamaCare supporters are insisting that the law, as it’s written, does not express the intent of Congress. It’s just a type-o.
State Exchanges
MIT whiz Jonathan Gruber insists there is no way ObamaCare tax credits were meant to be restricted to state exchanges. And he should know, he helped write the law. Except that videos have surfaced showing Gruber insisting that if governors don’t set up state exchanges they will deny their own citizens ObamaCare tax credits. And not only that, they’ll be forced to subsidize policy holders in other states! Gruber’s response is that was a “speak-o”.
Kevin Obrien in the Plain Dealer is on the case. So is Megan McArdle in Bloomberg, and Jonathan Keim in National review.
Affordable Care Act Subsidies
We have to pass the bill so we can find out what’s in it. The bill passed, the DC Circuit Court of Appeals has read it, and found out what’s not in it. The Affordable Care Act says subsidies are available for plans purchased on state run exchanges. That was an inducement for states to set up their own exchanges. Still, 36 states chose not to build exchanges and left the job to the feds. People with plans from Federal exchanges aren’t eligible for subsidies, says the court.
Subsidies All Around
Another court – the Fourth Circuit -says the plain language in the bill wasn’t the intent of Congress. In other words Congress didn’t mean what it said. Not an unreasonable assumption.
For now the IRS will continue to allow subsidies for health care plans bought on federal exchanges.
Religious Freedom
Religious freedom has been taking a beating.
A National Review editorial last week made the point that during the Clinton administration Democrats in Congress felt the Supreme Court had too narrow a view of religious liberty. As a result the Religious Freedom Restoration Act was passed with bipartisan support and signed into law by President Clinton.
Along comes the Affordable Care Act (ACA), …which empowered the Obama administration to issue regulations that burdened a religious liberty..
This leaves Democrats in a political pickle. They passed a law to protect religious freedom, but they do not desire to protect religious freedom when doing so interrupts their risible war-on-women soap opera.
Senator Udall, in his rhetoric, has been particularly dishonest about this, characterizing the Hobby Lobby decision as mandating that women “have to ask their bosses for a permission slip to access common forms of birth control.” In fact, the decision does no such thing: Hobby Lobby has nothing to do with the right to do anything, but rather with the right to not do something.
Elsewhere on the religious freedom front, the Islamic State of Iraq has ordered Christians to either pay jizya (a religious tax), convert to Islam, or die.
The Hobby Lobby Lobby
Georgetown Law School celebrity, Sandra Fluke wrote a column in the Washington Post claiming that the Hobby Lobby decision is an attack on women because it denies them birth control.
In sum, the anti-choice movement wants to limit not just affordable access, but all access to abortion and birth control, whether it is backed by the government, by employers, or purchased by private citizens. It is an attack at all levels, and today’s decision is just another success in these efforts.
Actually, Hobby Lobby does pay for most birth control but not four types it considers to be a forms of abortion. Still, Hobby Lobby can’t deny those four items to anyone. They’re legal and relatively cheap.
Liberal Fascism author, Jonah Goldberg wrote in a column yesterday, “The notion that denying a subsidy for a product is equivalent to banning that product is one of the odder tenets of contemporary liberalism”. He began that piece observing protesters holding signs that read “Birth Control: Not My Boss’s Business.” Hobby Lobby and the Supreme Court seem to agree.
The Obama Workout Video
President Obama has released a new workout video. Actually, it’s an unauthorized cheap cell phone recording of the POTUS pumping iron. He was caught in a Warsaw hotel gym prepping for his Euro D-day tour.
Workout
At a D-day event luncheon Obama had a chance encounter with Russian President Putin. The two chatted for about 15 minutes. I recorded the conversation.
Jimmy Kimmel must have liked the cartoon!
