House Speaker John Boehner, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, and House Republican Whip Kevin McCarthy are blocking the efforts of Rep. Steve King and Rep. Michele Bachmann to defund the so-called “ObamaCare slush fund” via the continuing resolution or House spending bills, despite being told by House Republican leadership staff that they could do so under current House rules. Why? (AmericanSpectator.com) More > …
Indiana Rep. Mike Pence said in an interview with Stuart Varney, “if Congress cannot repeal ObamaCare outright it will make every effort to make sure the law cannot be funded.” The proof will be in his Purse! (Newsmax) More > …
The House Rules Committee has rejected Rep. Steve King’s (R-Iowa) proposal to fully defund ObamaCare. King wanted to add to the continuing resolution (which funds the federal government) the following amendment:
“Notwithstanding any other provision of law, none of the funds made available in this Act or any previous Act may be used to carry out the provisions of Public Law 111-148 [Affordable Care Act], Public Law 111-152 [Reconciliation Act], or any amendment made by either such law.”
There are two ways to defund ObamaCare. Much of ObamaCare’s funding is only “authorized to be appropriated.” Both the House and Senate must pass appropriation bills in order for that spending to occur. One way to defund ObamaCare is not to pass such appropriation bills.
But not all funding must be approved via appropriation bills. Steve King has found $105 billion that can be spent regardless. The authors of the Affordable Care Act and related health care reform legislation cunningly inserted “mandatory” self-funding provisions. Frequently, these take the form of transferring moneys from one place to another. The money is already out there, so to speak.
The following is a perfect example of a self-funding provision from the Affordable Care Act (Section 3026(f)):
“(f) FUNDING.—For purposes of carrying out this section, the Secretary of Health and Human Services shall provide for the transfer, from the Federal Hospital Insurance Trust Fund…and the Federal Supplementary Medical Insurance Trust…$500,000,000, to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Program Management Account for the period of fiscal years 2011 through 2015. Amounts transferred under the preceding sentence shall remain available until expended.”
This single sentence provides $500 million for ObamaCare without the need for further approval by the House and Senate. Steve King’s proposal would have stopped the use of any money going towards the implementation of ObamaCare.
Republicans quashed King’s idea because it was pragmatic to do so. Continuing resolutions are joint resolutions, which means both House and Senate must approve them. The Republican majority in the House could have passed the continuing resolution with King’s amendment attached, but the Democrat majority in the Senate would have rejected it. Even if the Senate passed it, Obama promised to veto it.
King’s amendment to fully defund ObamaCare not only would have shut down the government (the consequence of having no continuing resolution to fund it), but it would have deep-sixed the House Republicans’ budget cuts in the continuing resolution itself. To preserve these budget cuts, King’s proposal was quickly killed.
King’s idea was too risky from the Republicans’ point of view. Until a more appropriate opportunity presents itself, much of ObamaCare will remain self-funded.
Future presidential hopeful, Donald Trump said “ObamaCare is unconstitutional and should be repealed” while interviewed and walking through a Marriott Hotel for CPAC. (CNS News) More > …
Click to watch the video
The Cooch will seek immediate review by the U.S. Supreme Court of the state’s constitutional challenge to the federal health-care overhaul, a rare legal request to bypass the appellate court and ask for early intervention from the nation’s highest court. (Washington Post) More > …
Click to watch this morning's "America's Newsroom" interview on Fox News Channel
Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott appears on Fox to discuss the Florida ruling by Judge Vinson on ObamaCare. He says that government lawyers are now playing a legal delay game that adversely affects the country. (YouTube) More > …
By: Ed Hassell
As legal scholars have already noted, Federal Judge Roger Vinson’s 78-page ruling in the major Florida decision that struck down the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was not only bold but also extremely well written.
That’s not just because he knew it would be headline news.
Vinson not only wanted his decision to be legally sound, he wanted it to reverberate with the Supreme Court justices who will ultimately decide the case. It’s safe to say most judges at this level do not like being reversed.
One of Vinson’s key findings was that while the individual mandate was clearly “necessary and essential” to the law as drafted, it was not “necessary and essential” to health care reform in general. And he used then-Senator Obama’s own words in his explanation. “Indeed, I note that in 2008, then-Senator Obama supported a health care reform proposal that did not include an individual mandate because he was at the time strongly opposed to the idea, stating that ‘if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody by a house,’” Vinson wrote.
He did not see the lawsuit as a battle over health care reform itself, but moreover a Constitutional call to arms. Like many opponents of the law, Judge Vinson thought there was a better way to achieve the reform’s most important goals without turning our country away from a land governed by laws to one governed by men—men who may turn out to be tyrants as certain countries in the Middle East are now showing us.
Followers of this landmark case are already aware that Obama’s televised assertion that the law was not a tax–during the protracted political battle over the legislation–is something his own government lawyers retracted throughout this case. During the oral arguments, Judge Vinson rightly called them on it. Still, federal lawyers have been forced to argue that for all intents and purposes, the fine imposed by not buying insurance is a tax that the government is well within its rights to levy, thanks to their novel interpretation of the Commerce Clause.
With his Florida ruling, Judge Vinson loudly disagreed.
The judge did lazy reporters a favor by pointing them toward other examples that clearly showed the president at odds with the law that now euphemistically bears his name. Here is an actual quote the judge mentions in his ruling from then-Senator Obama during a CNN interview that aired February 5, 2008:
“If you haven’t made it affordable, how are you going to enforce a mandate? I mean, if a mandate was the solution, we can try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody to buy a house. The reason they don’t buy a house is they don’t have the money. And so, our focus has been on reducing costs, making it available. I am confident if people have a chance to buy high-quality health care that is affordable, they will do so.”
President Obama understood the problem he would be facing from the beginning but was persuaded by economists and political insiders who argued early on that the individual mandate was necessary for the law to succeed.
If you want to hear from those early voices—the kind of historic context you won’t see humorously bandied about on political critiques by The Daily Show with Jon Stewart—continue on down the bread crumb path left by Judge Vinson’s ruling and start with Christopher Lee’s revealing Washington Post article, “Simple Question Defines Complex Health Care Debate,” from February 24, 2008. Then you may feel free to wonder aloud what became of this admittedly intellectual president’s memory regarding health care in Massachusetts.In the article, the author asks should the government require Americans to purchase health care insurance? Senator Obama disagrees, arguing that a law “should not force anyone to buy insurance he or she cannot afford.”
Obama sparred with Hilary Clinton repeatedly over the subject of the individual mandate. Looking at the Massachusetts plan, Obama was quoted as saying: “In some cases, there are people who are paying fines and still can’t afford it, so now they’re worse off than they were … They don’t have health insurance, and they’re paying a fine.”
Oops. And how does that not apply to ObamaCare?
Lee accurately identified the coming problem in his prophetic piece: the big fight over the individual mandate and universal coverage. The Democrats wanted a candidate “to do something big” says a Harvard public opinion expert quoted in the piece. On the other side, the last thing that Republicans wanted was more big government and red tape bureaucracy. The battle lines were drawn early.
Senator Obama understood the folly of the individual mandate. It’s too bad he didn’t listen to his own advice, his own attacks on the health care system in Mitt Romney’s state, which would soon become an eerie predecessor to the ObamaCare monster. If he had kept a level head, it might have saved the taxpayers tons of money and discontent, as the law now looks headed for at least partial, if not outright defeat, in the legal system.
Obama, a former professor of Constitutional law, knew he was headed down the wrong path but did what it took to get votes—just another example of big time politics at odds with intellectual honesty.
On January 31, Judge Vinson called him on it.
Rep. Steve King (R-IA) says he’s unsure what the House Pubs will do. What do you propose? (CNS News) More > …
“We made a commitment to the American people. We’re listening to the American people. They want this bill repealed. We are going to repeal it,” said Boehner on Thursday at his first press conference as Speaker. (Human Events) More > …
Yet another attempt by HHS to smooth over the devastating effects of ObamaCare on our nation’s senior citizens. Well …. it was until we got to it. (YouTube) More > …
