Tag Archives: Topic: Insurance

AP: The argument has been particularly fierce around Medicare, the giant health insurance program for Americans 65 and older. Democrats are gaining politically from public opposition to a GOP proposal to send future beneficiaries shopping for health insurance in the private market.

SCOTUSblog: The Obama Administration urges the Fourth Circuit Court to go ahead and decide the constitutionality of a key section of the new health reform law, rather than dismiss it under a federal tax law.

WIBW.com: During a debate May 13 over requiring women to buy abortion-only insurance policies, DeGraaf suggested that people had to be prepared for unplanned events in life.

The Washington Post: A federal appeals court in Atlanta says it will allow high-profile arguments over the Obama administration’s health care overhaul law to be recorded so they can be sold to the public.

FoxNews.com: Eyeing a potential 5-4 decision on President Obama’s Affordable Care health care reforms, some Democratic lawmakers are trying to pressure Justice Clarence Thomas to sit out any health care case that may come before the Supreme Court.

Religion Clause: According to BNA’s (May 20) Daily Report for Executives, thousands of churches with fewer than 25 full-time-equivalent employees missed the May 15 filing deadline to claim a 25% tax credit for health insurance premiums paid to their clergy and staff in 2010.

Thirty Democratic senators sent a letter to the Obama administration on Thursday, urging them to warn Medicaid directors at the state level that it’s against the law to block Medicaid funds or Title X family planning funds from going to clinics that provide abortion services, like Planned Parenthood.

Washington Post: Though rape is a problem of deep concern to the U.S. military, its health plan doesn’t cover abortions for victims who become pregnant — a policy that indignant critics are now pushing to change. The campaigners include members …

How Appealing: An anonymous source reports that the three-judge panel will consist of Chief Judge Joel F. Dubina and Circuit Judges Frank M. Hull and Stanley Marcus.

Life News: The Alabama state Senate voted today for a bill that would have it join several other states in opting out of funding abortions under the Obamacare health care law the president and his Democratic allies approved.

KVOA.com: The lawsuit filed Monday with the Arizona Supreme Court by opponents contends that the bulk of the plan reduction to reduce enrollment by at least 130,000 people violates a state constitutional protection for a voter-approved law that broadened eligibility for the program.

SCOTUS Blog: In two identical orders (here and here), the three-judge panel indicated it wanted to explore further how to treat the financial penalty that individuals would have to pay to the federal government if they did not obtain health coverage by 2014.

Texas Observer: This evening it was during a four-hour House floor debate on a Medicaid cost-cutting bill. Tea Party freshman Rep. Jim Landtroop, R-Plainview, did the honors this time and won yet another victory for the anti-abortion movement this session. Landtroop successfully tacked on an amendment to Senate Bill 23 prohibiting state family planning dollars from going to facilities that perform abortions or “abortion-related services.”

Big Government: The Daily Caller has learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rate review rules, which it finalized on Thursday, exempt “Medigap” policy providers, like the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), from oversight when such providers increase payment rates for their supplemental insurance plans.

CBC: The family of a man who has been in a coma for months is in a legal battle with Toronto doctors who want to remove him from life support.

NCPA Policy Digest: Georgia’s sole proprietors and self-employed will be able to buy out-of-state health insurance policies under legislation signed by Governor Nathan Deal, says the Atlanta Business Chronicle.

Daily Caller: Newly released documents reveal Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was more involved with President Obama’s health-care law than she disclosed previously. The documents likely will lead to a revival of questions about whether the Kagan should recuse herself from future cases.

The Hill: U.S. employers can expect an 8.5 percent increase in their medical costs next year due in some part to the healthcare reform law, the consulting firm PwC said in a report Wednesday.

Janathan Adler at The Volokh Conspiracy: Does this story mean that health care waivers are being used for political purposes? We don’t know. The issuance of 1,000-plus waivers is a relatively short period has raised lots of questions. The problem is that HHS has not been sufficiently clear about the criteria it is using in its waiver decisions.

Heritage Foundation, The Foundry: To date, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has approved 1,372 Obamacare waivers, covering 3.1 million Americans. Yesterday, The Daily Caller reported that among HHS’s most recent round of 204 Obamacare waivers, “38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent hotels in House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s Northern California district.” That’s right: Nearly 20 percent of exemptions from Pelosi’s crowning health care achievement were doled out in her backyard. | see also: Waive Me by Michelle Malkin at Townhall.

NCPA Policy Digest: Great Britain’s government-run health care system, the National Health Service (NHS), has long considered limiting coverage for people with illnesses deemed to be lifestyle-related.

Wall Street Journal: He said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that seniors should not be required to use a new Medicare program, as envisioned by the House GOP, but should be persuaded to voluntarily migrate to a better system. “I don’t think right-wing social engineering is any more desirable than left-wing social engineering,” he said when asked about a Medicare plan championed by House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan (R., Wis.)

Kansas lawmakers have put the finishing touches on a bill that would shift funding away from the Planned Parenthood abortion business and stops abortion funding in health insurance programs.

Andre Picard at the Globe and Mail: Let’s just be clear about the distinction between what is medically necessary and what is socially desirable. IVF offers tremendous benefits in the form of little bundles of joy and future taxpayers, but it comes at a cost, one that we may (or may not) wish to share collectively. But let’s dispense with the fiction about “savings.”

LifeNews: Nebraska has become the latest state to join several others in exercising its right to opt out of funding abortions under the Obamacare health care law that contains massive abortion funding loopholes.

Liberty Counsel: Staver said, “To hear the Acting Solicitor General admit that if the court upheld this massive health insurance law, then Congress could force individuals to purchase certain kinds of food was an astonishing, but true, admission. If ObamaCare is upheld, then Congress would no longer have any limitations on its regulatory power. Today it is health insurance, and tomorrow it could be food, transportation, or housing. Big Brother would be able to be the CEO of every business and dictate our private choices. The implications are staggering. This law is the beginning of centralized government. The stakes in the outcome of this case could not be higher.”

National Journal: A three-judge appeals panel pressed hard on Tuesday on Virginia’s standing to sue the federal government over its health law — perhaps signaling they are seriously considering throwing the case out. The three Democratic-appointed judges spent two hours hearing oral argument . . .

David Savage at the LA Times: By their comments and questions Tuesday, the judges signaled they were likely to uphold provisions in the law that require virtually all Americans to have health insurance by 2014 or pay a penalty.

How Appealing reports on the identity of the panel in Thomas More Law Center v. Obama, No. 10-2388 (6th Cir.).

SCOTUS Blog: The 14-month-old federal health care law’s most important provision appears to be on its way to surviving its first constitutional test in a federal appeals court. The key problem for the challengers: their activity-inactivity distinction did not seem to work.

Politico: But the vigorous legal, legislative and public relations campaigns mounted by the left against Thomas and the right against Kagan show no signs of abating – and that is hardly an accident. It means that both sides are determined to make the Supreme Court and its decisions a major political issue headed into the 2012 election.

A majority of Americans may strongly oppose the Obamacare law that allows abortion funding and presents rationing concerns, but the computers at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit apparently love the law.

Two lower-court judges in Virginia last year ruled in opposite ways:

AP: Two appointees of President Barack Obama have been selected for the three-judge federal appeals court panel reviewing his health care overhaul in Virginia.

How Appealing links to the audio in the two pending cases.

IMPRIMIS reprint of Va. AG Ken Cuccinelli speech: Let me explain a bit about our lawsuit. Our first legal argument is that the government’s attempt to use the Commerce Clause of the Constitution to mandate the purchase of a private product—in this case, health insurance—goes beyond Congress’s power. The reason there has never been a mandate like this in all of American history is because, up until now, everyone knew Congress lacked the power to impose one. I often give the example of the colonial period, when the colonists were boycotting British goods while demanding that King George III and Parliament repeal the Stamp Act and the Intolerable Acts. I am sure it was to the king’s dismay, but his own lawyer—the solicitor general—told Parliament that the boycott was legal under British law. In other words, the colonists could not be forced to buy British goods.

Kansas City Star: Abortion opponents in Kansas are moving closer to reviving a proposal to restrict private health insurance coverage of most abortions. But they were facing strong resistance Friday from key state senators . . .

USA Today: The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit will consider two cases testing the sweeping law that requires people to buy health insurance by 2014 or face a tax penalty. In one of those two cases, a trial judge declared that mandate, the linchpin provision of the 2010 health-care law, unconstitutional. In the other case, a judge upheld it.

AP: More than two dozen states challenging the health care overhaul urged a U.S. appeals court on Wednesday to strike down the Obama administration’s landmark law, arguing it far exceeds the federal government’s powers.

Hensel, Wendy Fritzen and Wolf, Leslie, Playing God: The Legality of Plans Denying Scarce Resources to People with Disabilities in Public Health Emergencies (2011). Florida Law Review, Vol. 63, p. 725, 2011; Georgia State University College of Law, Legal Studies Research Paper No. 2011-09. Available at SSRN: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1825565

Liberty Counsel: Mat Staver will present oral argument at the federal court of appeals on Tuesday, May 10, 2011 at 9:30 am ET, challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, often referred to as “ObamaCare.” The case, Liberty University v. Geithner, will be heard at the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit at 1000 East Main Street, Richmond, Virginia. Liberty Counsel represents Liberty University and two private individuals. On the same day, the court of appeals will also hear the case of Commonwealth of Virginia v. Sebelius

NCPA Policy Digest: The new health reform law will exacerbate this problem by increasing the number of individuals insured through government programs. Doctors that remain after reform is instituted are increasingly likely to join “concierge practices,” limiting the number of patients they see and refusing both government and private insurance, says Tanner.

NCPA Policy Digest: They must decide whether to implement a series of burdensome regulations and vague requirements even as their representatives in the courts argue that key provisions of the law are unconstitutional, says Benjamin Domenech, a research fellow for the Heartland Institute.

WorldNetDaily: The lawmakers decided that “no provision of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act or the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010 may interfere with an individual’s choice of a medical or insurance provider except as otherwise provided by the laws of this state.” According to officials with the Tenth Amendment Center, the law adopted by the legislature and signed yesterday by Gov. Jack Dalrymple is a modification of model legislation it has offered a number of states under the title of the Federal Health Care Nullification Act.

LifeNews: The following map will give you a clear picture of the state of abortion coverage in insurance across the states . . .

St. Petersburg Times: The Senate passed two of the House’s antiabortion measures Thursday. Both were amended to allow exceptions in cases where the mother’s health is at risk. | HB 97 | HJR 117

LifeNews: A move to strip funding for rape and incest abortions from the state employees’ health insurance plan failed by one vote Wednesday in the Republican-controlled South Carolina Senate.

Choosing, for now, to remain on the sidelines of the national constitutional debate over the new health care law, the Supreme Court refused on Monday to put Virginia’s challenge to the law on a fast track with review by the Justices ahead of any appeals court decisions.

Ken Klukowski at the Washington Examiner: Federal law allows state officials to sue each other in federal court, but it’s unconstitutional to sue a state for refusing to allow misbehaving inmates to attend religious services. Thus said the Supreme Court in two decisions this week, both by a 62 vote. (Justice Elena Kagan was recused from both cases.) And they could affect Obamacare.

The Hill: “This could mean that a justice is writing a dissent from the denial; or that a justice is writing a statement respecting denial; or that a potential fourth justice to grant is unsure and needs more time; or even that the Court is unsure whether to deny or dismiss the petition (for lack of jurisdiction),” writes Brad Joondeph of the ACA Litigation Blog, which tracks healthcare reform challenges.

Bloomberg: Ken Cuccinelli, the Virginia attorney general challenging President Barack Obama’s health- care overhaul, is quick to agree that his request for fast-track review by the U.S. Supreme Court is a long shot.

LifeNews: The Senate vote had all three of the self-declared pro-life Democrats, Ben Nelson of Nebraska, Joe Manchin of West Virginia, and Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, vote against de-funding the pro-abortion, pro-rationing Obamacare law.

Telegraph: Waiting lists lengthened over the winter as NHS trusts cancelled planned operations to care for critically ill flu patients, but are likely to increase still further as health authorities begin in earnest to make savings of £20billion over the next four years.

LifeNews: One bill, House Bill 1888, prohibits abortions after 20 weeks of pregnancy based on the scientific evidence showing unborn children have the capacity to feel intense pain. A second measure, Senate Bill 547, prohibits taxpayer funding of abortions via the state health insurance exchange created under the Obamacare law.

Front Page Magazine: A physicians’ organization employed an intriguing argument in joining the suit against the Affordable Care Act. The legal brief declared, in effect, that under the health law patients have fewer rights than perpetrators of violent crimes. “Under the Constitution, a patient has a right to a ‘private enclave’ where his or her medical care and information are private. The individual mandate [in the law] obliterates that enclave,” the brief said.

NCPA: Concerns have long been voiced that workers with employer-based insurance may be reluctant to leave their jobs to start new businesses because of the high cost of premiums or the possibility of disrupting or losing insurance coverage — a phenomenon referred to as “entrepreneurship lock,” says the Kauffman-RAND Institute for Entrepreneurship Public Policy.

SCOTUS Blog’s updated list of Petitions to Watch is here.

The Catholic Review: Virginia became the seventh state to bar abortion coverage from being offered by private insurance companies through the new state-run health insurance exchanges that were mandated by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, the sweeping health-reform law passed last year by Congress.

The Senate has scheduled a promised vote on whether to deprive the Planned Parenthood Federation of America of federal funding – a concession won by GOP budget negotiators this weekend, in exchange for their support for the federal budget bill.

Bloomberg: The U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that states don’t have “power to enforce its citizens’ rights in respect to their relations with the federal government,” according to today’s filing. The individual-coverage mandate is a legitimate exercise of Congress’s power to regulate the interstate market in health care, the Justice Department said.

AP: Missouri Attorney General Chris Koster says Congress overstepped its constitutional powers when it mandated that most Americans should have health insurance or pay a penalty.

Zenit: Cardinal Daniel DiNardo, archbishop of Galveston-Houston, Texas, and chairman of the Committee on Pro-Life Activities of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, made this appeal in a letter sent today to members of the house of representatives. He urged support of the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act of 2011, introduced March 17 by Jeff Fortenberry and Dan Boren. The prelate affirmed that this bill “will help ensure that the new health care reform act is not misused to violate the religious freedom and rights of conscience of those who offer and purchase health insurance coverage in our nation.” . . .

CNSNews: “Absolutely right on. Let’s crush them,” wrote Principal Deputy Solicitor General Neal Katyal. “I’ll speak to Elena and designate someone.”

Telegraph: The most seriously ill patients in the NHS have become the victims of “neglect” as surgeons are forced to focus on hitting waiting list targets for pre-planned operations, leading emergency doctors warn.

BBC: Surgeons say patients in some parts of England have spent months waiting in pain because of delayed operations or new restrictions on who qualifies for treatment.

CNSNews: The Republican proposal says one of its aims is “making sure that not a penny goes toward implementing the new [health care] law” enacted last year.

Washington Times: “Congress on Tuesday passed the first major changes to last year’s health care law, undoing both a burdensome paperwork requirement for small businesses and rewriting part of the way the health exchange subsidies are paid for.”

LifeNews: “The governor of Virginia can amend legislation; however, both the House of Delegates and the Senate will have to vote to approve the governor’s changes before the law can go into effect.”

LifeNews: The Obama administration has filed papers with the federal appeals court in Atlanta seeking to overturn a Florida judge’s ruling declaring the entire Obamacare law unconstitutional.

LifeNews: A Florida state House committee is following the lead of the state Senate, where a committee has also approved legislation that would remove abortion funding from the Obamacare health care law.

AP: It dismissed the case Wednesday, saying he lacks standing to sue because his Medicare coverage automatically satisfies the law’s health insurance mandate.

SCOTUS Blog: The challengers on March 10 had requested initial en banc review of the case of Florida, et al., v. U.S. Health and Human Services Department, et al., (docket 11-11021) and for a hearing June 6. It would have taken the votes of at least six members of the ten regular judges to grant that request.
The briefing in the case will start next Monday and is to be completed by May 25.

LifeNews: “Rick Santorum the former Pennsylvania senator who is eying a bid for the Republican nomination for president, blamed part of the insolvency problems related to social security on abortion.”

Fox News: Fox News has learned the group is seeking documents to better understand how HHS makes decisions to grant waivers to the new health care law. Click here to read the Crossroads GPS lawsuit.

“This week marks the first anniversary of ObamaCare, and if you are wondering where that coercive law is headed, we’d point to a case in federal court. That’s where Judge Rosemary Collyer has ruled that Americans have a legal obligation to accept subpar government health benefits.”