“Late Thursday, February 17, the Obama Administration filed an incredibly odd and almost insulting ‘Motion to Clarify’ the judgment in the case it lost against 26 states and the NFIB in the Obamacare litigation in Florida v. U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, No. 10-cv-00091 (N. D. Fla.)(Judge Vinson). With this motion, the Administration has now stated officially that, notwithstanding the Judge’s declaration of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA or Obamacare) as unconstitutional, the Administration does not interpret the Judge’s order as requiring the Administration to cease carrying out the unconstitutional ACA.”
“Choosing the right course of action is simple for governors who believe ObamaCare is unconstitutional. Every governor takes an oath to support the U.S. Constitution. Implementing a law they believe to be unconstitutional would violate that oath.
At a minimum, then, governors who believe ObamaCare is unconstitutional have a solemn obligation not to implement it. Parnell wisely sought counsel from his attorney general about whether implementing ObamaCare would violate his oath of office. But if Parnell personally believes the law is unconstitutional, then that should tell him what he needs to know.”
“The claim that repeal will ‘kill jobs’ is based on the idea that lower health care costs will make it easier for employers to hire workers. That might be worth considering if there were any provisions in the new health reform law that could reasonably be expected to lower ‘costs.'”
“The House voted Friday to block funding for the health care law in several ways – starting the countdown to the defunding clash with Senate Democrats and President Barack Obama.
As expected, it approved Rep. Denny Rehberg’s amendment to the continuing resolution, which bans all payments to ‘any employee, officer, contractor, or grantee of any department or agency’ to implement the law.”
“The United States became the most powerful and prosperous nation in the history of the world not through central planning and bureaucracy but because our Founders chose a different course: freedom, limited government, state and local leadership, and private-sector innovation. That formula will work in health care, and absent the repeal or overturning of last year’s law, it starts with the delegation of powers to states.”
“Alaska Gov. Sean Parnell said he won’t implement the federal health-care overhaul after a judge in Florida struck down the law as unconstitutional… Mr. Parnell, who sought the advice of his attorney general amid concerns implementing the law would violate his oath of office, told the Juneau Chamber of Commerce the state would pursue lawful, market-based solutions to making insurance affordable and accessible to Alaskans.”
“Few have been discussing the fact that last year’s health care law will increase gross federal debt and thus accelerate the speed at which we will approach the statutory debt limit in the future. As elected officials wrestle with these two contentious issues (health care and the debt limit) it seems reasonable to set a minimum policy goal that last year’s health care law be modified so that it at least not worsen the statutory debt outlook.”
“These taxes and fees are less important than the implications of the law’s gargantuan reordering of the pharmaceutical marketplace. Over the long term, Obamacare will cause a significant degradation of the private-sector market for pharmaceuticals, a market that has been the best in the world.”
“What made people especially angry was that I argued that ObamaCare had made our fiscal problems worse–yes, even if its deficit-reduction measures all worked, a proposition of which I am deeply skeptical. That’s because ObamaCare used up all the most obvious and politically feasible cuts in Medicare–and when that proved insufficient, some that weren’t obvious or politically feasible, like requiring every small business owner in the land to issue 1099s to people they bought supplies from.”
“The Obama administration envisions accountable care organizations (ACOs) as the drivers of health care innovation, but such innovation has historically come from entrepreneurs in the private sector.
ACOs offer financial incentives to cut costs, but this means restricting patient choice and limiting the use of some expensive care.
The ACO concept is not new. Similar ideas have been tried before, but they failed because they were unable to control costs or manage medical risk.”