“The White House’s reaction is yet further proof that the debate surrounding the HHS rule is about much more than religious liberty—and indeed is about much more than the HHS rule. It is about liberty as such, and the threats posed to it by Obamacare as a whole. It powerfully reinforces the case for replacing this detestable law, and for replacing its authors, with alternatives far more friendly to freedom and a properly limited government—not to mention far better able to actually address the problems with our health-care system.”

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“The birth-control coverage mandate violates the First Amendment’s bar against the ‘free exercise’ of religion. But it also violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. That statute, passed unanimously by the House of Representatives and by a 97-3 vote in the Senate, was signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1993. It was enacted in response to a 1990 Supreme Court opinion, Employment Division v. Smith.”

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“President Obama campaigned on the commitment of having the most open and transparent administration
in history. Unfortunately, like President Obama’s campaign promise to lower health insurance premiums by $2,500 per family, this commitment quickly fell victim to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). This white paper explains the regulatory process for legal and transparent rulemaking, how the Obama administration has abused its power to avoid this process in implementing the PPACA, and how this lack of transparency hides the unworkable policies and true cost of the healthcare reform law.”

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“Finally, it’s not just people who consider contraception sinful that oppose this mandate. That’s because the mandate also violates the freedom of those who have non-religious reasons for not wanting to purchase contraceptives, who would rather pay for contraceptives out of pocket, or who want such coverage now but might change their minds in the future.”

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“Medical insurance premiums in the United States are on the rise, the chief architect of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul has told The Daily Caller.
Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Jonathan Gruber, who also devised former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney’s statewide health care reforms, is backtracking on an analysis he provided the White House in support of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, informing officials in three states that the price of insurance premiums will dramatically increase under the reforms.”

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“The greatest threat to the health-care overhaul might not be the Supreme Court, which is scheduled to hear challenges to the law next month. Or the shifting alliances of an election year. In the end, it’s more likely to be a lack of medical providers. If the law succeeds in extending health insurance to 32 million more Americans, there won’t be enough doctors to see them. In fact, the anticipated shortfall of primary-care providers, by 2015, is staggering: 29,800.”

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“Catholic leaders spoke about an Obama administration ruling on a provision of the 2010 health care law that requires church-affiliated employers to cover contraceptives and other preventive services in their health insurance plans. They focused on the impact of the mandate on religious institutions and religious freedom.”

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“In this article, we briefly explore the range of meanings that attach to the term ‘unconstitutional,’ as well as the problem of determining the ‘constitutionality’ of a lengthy statute when only some portions of the statute are challenged. We then, using ‘unconstitutional’ to mean ‘inconsistent with an original social understanding of the Constitution’s text (with a bit of a nod to judicial precedents),’ show that the individual mandate in the PPACA is not authorized by the federal taxing power, the federal commerce power, or the Necessary and Proper Clause and is therefore unconstitutional.”

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“The coming Supreme Court decision about the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate will have profound implications for government control over the doctor-patient relationship.
Simply put, if the federal government can mandate that all Americans must have health insurance, it is only a short step to strict government mandates about how doctors must practice medicine.”

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“The fact that premiums fell this year in no way disputes that this will be the future of Medicare Advantage under Obamacare, since the health law’s payment reductions won’t even be fully enacted until years down the road. Indeed, cuts were scheduled to begin this year, but the White House eased their blow in an election year. As part of a temporary demonstration program, Obamacare had allocated approximately $7 billion in funding for bonuses for the highest-performing MA plans. HHS used the funds to award bonuses to hundreds of plans, which, as health policy expert Robert Laszewski describes, led to “a ‘Lake Wobegon’ moment,” effectively cancelling out the impact of lower payments.”

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