“But Republican governors are folding like cheap lawn chairs,” you say. “And political eunuchs in the GOP establishment are bowing to Obama like he bows to foreign dictators. Any hope of repeal is long dead, and besides, Chief Justice John Roberts put the final nail in the judicial coffin last summer, didn’t he? Any chance of killing the Obamacare zombie is gone, right?”
Wrong.
Not surprisingly, the mainstream media paid it little attention, but back in November the U.S. Supreme Court shocked many in the legal community by granting Liberty Counsel’s motion for a rehearing on its multi-pronged challenge to Obamacare. The high court ordered the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals to rehear arguments. This is extremely rare and means, almost certainly, that Chief Justice Roberts will get another bite at the rotten apple – this time, with a whole new quiver of legal arrows.
Following the Supreme Court’s directive, Liberty Counsel recently filed its brief in the case of Liberty University v. Geithner. The Christian civil rights firm represents Liberty University and two private individuals in this case. While there are other legal challenges to the employer contraceptive/abortifacient mandate, Liberty Counsel’s is the most comprehensive case pending in the country.
The lawsuit challenges:
) the employer mandate for all employers;
) the abortion mandate for religious employers;
) the abortion mandate for individuals;
) the entire law because tax bills must originate in the House and Obamacare originated in the Senate.
This case is the only one in the country that challenges the entire employer mandate for all employers. Like other pending cases, Liberty Counsel’s also challenges the so-called “Preventative coverage” mandate, which requires employers to provide free contraceptives, sterilization, abortion-inducing drugs and IUDs, of which the latter two cause abortion.
Additionally, Obamacare compels individual citizens to violate their conscience by making them directly fund abortion homicide – both surgical and chemical – under penalty of law. It forces all employees who are part of a plan that offers abortion coverage to pay $1 per month directly to a “free” abortion fund. There is no opt-out provision, and information relative to which plans offer abortion is intentionally covered-up. This too is part of the case, so don’t let anyone tell you that Obamacare doesn’t require you to fund abortion on demand. If they do, they’re simply lying through their triple-grande-four-pump-hazelnut-mocha-stained teeth.
Finally, Liberty Counsel’s brief argues that Obamacare is invalid because, since it’s a tax – as the Supreme Court already ruled in June – it violates the Constitution’s Origination Clause. To pass constitutional muster, tax bills must originate in the House, not the Senate.
Before the Democrat-led Senate rammed it through in the dead of night, Christmas Eve 2009 – Senate President Harry Reid used a House bill unrelated to Obamacare, struck all the language and the title so that only the former HR number remained, and then inserted a new title and over 2,000 pages of job-killing, economy-crushing, health-care-rationing compost.
Sneaky? Yes. Typical? No doubt. Unconstitutional? Absolutely. It’s like dropping a Ford Pinto engine into a totaled Ferrari body, patching it up and then selling it to some unsuspecting dupe as a “brand new Ferrari.”
Unfortunately, America was that unsuspecting dupe.
Well, the jig’s up. The Constitution is unambiguous on this matter: “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.” Const. art. I §7, cl. 1.
As Liberty Counsel’s brief notes, “Though denominated with a House bill number, the Act actually originated in the Senate, and therefore violates the Origination Clause.”
“Obamacare represents a frontal attack to religious freedom,” said Mat Staver, founder and chairman of Liberty Counsel. “Obamacare is a train about to collide with the fundamental right to free exercise of religion. Not only does Obamacare violate the rights of religious employers because of its abortion mandate, it violates the rights of individuals who oppose abortion and the rights of all employers, religious or not.
“And to boot,” continued Staver, “the entire law is invalid because tax bills must originate in the House, and Obamacare originated in the Senate.”
Yep, doctor shortages, medical-school dropouts, skyrocketing premiums, no money for pre-existing conditions, trillions more than promised, forced taxpayer funding of abortion, critical health-care rationing and a bankrupt nation.
Welcome to America’s fall.
Welcome to Obamacare.
Zombies eat brains. If they weren’t already dead, they’d most certainly starve to death on the squalid diet of grey matter served-up by Obama, Reid, Pelosi and every other cracked skull who voted to open the curtain on this unconstitutional Obamacare freak show.
Thankfully, Chief Justice Roberts, whom I strongly suspect regrets voting to uphold it, looks to have another chance to bury it once and for all.
New Jersey Governor Chris Christie has become the eighth Republican governor to agree to expand Medicaid coverage in his state under the provisions of Obamacare.
Is the last line of Republican resistance to Obamacare disintegrating?
In 2011, 26 states joined a lawsuit challenging the constitutionality of the provision of Obamacare, which forced them to participate in expanding Medicaid coverage as a condition to continue to participate in the program.
The Supreme Court ruled in their favor last year, negating the mandatory requirement, so it is now voluntary for states to expand Medicaid coverage.
The Congressional Budget Office still estimates that expanded Medicaid coverage, though now voluntary rather than mandated on states, will contribute about a third of the reduction in the number of uninsured Americans brought about by Obamacare by 2022.
So it was assumed, once expansion of Medicaid became voluntary, that this was a line Republican governors would not cross. Refusal of Republican governors to play ball could be a serious setback for Obamacare to advance and plant its institutional roots.
But one by one, Republican governors like Christie, and just before him Florida’s Rick Scott, are playing ball.
Christie was graphically honest in describing the perverse dynamics going on.
“…I am no fan of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare)…I think it is wrong for New Jersey and I think it is wrong for America…. However, it is now the law of the land and I will make all my judgments as Governor based on what I believe is best for New Jersey.”
By expanding the qualifying conditions for Medicaid, Obamacare opens the door, according to the Congressional Budget Office’s latest estimate, to adding another 11 million to the almost 68 million already in it.
Those 68 million are paid for by a combination of state and federal funds. However, as incentive to bring in the additional 11 million, the federal government is paying 100 percent of the costs for the first three years.
Christie and seven other Republican governors are agreeing to take the bait.
And Christie says, clear as a bell, that he is doing so even though he knows he is strengthening a program that is bad for his country.
Assume that Christie’s assessment is correct. Multiply by fifty and we can have fifty states agreeing to take a bribe to strengthen and advance a program that will hurt the country.
A classic explanation for why free markets produce prosperity and socialism does not is that individuals benefit in government run markets by taking from someone else. In free markets, individuals benefit as result of serving others, making everyone better off.
Medicaid violates basic management principles.
One, there is no clear institutional responsibility. It has grown through funding from both state and the federal government. Anyone who has ever run an organization knows that absence of clear responsibility produces bad results.
Medicaid spending has grown from .5 percent of GDP in 1970 to 2.7 percent of GDP in 2010 and according to Medicaid’s chief actuary, “From program inception, the cost of Medicaid has generally increased at a significantly faster pace than the U.S. economy.”
And there is no individual responsibility. Medicaid is a pure welfare program. Participants have 100 percent of their costs covered by the government. And once you have qualified, there is no time limit. There are no incentives to behave and spend efficiently.
The only direction of Medicaid is to spend more and more money less and less well.
Delivering health care to low income Americans is a real challenge. But to keep America great, we need to behave intelligently as well as compassionately. If we are going to subsidize health care for the poor, it should be through some kind of voucher to buy insurance. Not through welfare.
Meanwhile, the evil geniuses in Washington have devised a way to get even Republican governors to buy into a welfare program they know can only hurt our nation.
Memphis, Tenn. — A medical company is blaming President Obama’s health care law for the layoffs of nearly 100 people.
Smith & Nephew says a 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices in the “Obamacare” law caused the layoffs in the Memphis and Andover, Mass., offices.
“The nearly $30 billion tax on medical devices that took effect Jan. 1, 2013, has impacted a number of companies across the U.S.,”
the company said in a statement to WHBQ-TV.
Joe Metzger, senior vice president of corporate communications for the company, tells the Memphis Business Journal that they were “not immune” to the tax burden.
“Unfortunately, and in order to absorb this cost burden into our business, this has meant less than 100 positions have been made redundant across various departmental functions in our Tennessee and Massachusetts sites,” Metzger told the Business Journal.
Senator John Barrasso was sworn in to the United States Senate in 2007 having represented the people of Natrona County in the Wyoming State Senate. Barrasso was then elected to the United States Senate on November 4, 2008 and reelected in 2012 to his first full term. Barrasso is known by many as Wyoming’s Doctor. He has a long and recognized career in both medicine and public service.
During 24 years as an orthopedic surgeon in Casper, Barrasso served as President of the Wyoming Medical Society and was named Wyoming Physician of the Year. He also served as medical director of the Wyoming Health Fairs, bringing low-cost health screening exams to people all around the Cowboy State.
Barrasso is known throughout Wyoming for his health messages. His public service announcements have been on TV, radio and in numerous newspapers for more than 20 years. Barrasso has also hosted Wyoming’s efforts on the Jerry Lewis Labor Day Telethon.
Did you hear the big news from the world of small business? Jewish delis are closing in both Los Angeles, and New York City.
The trend has been a long time in the making, especially in New York City where Jewish delis’s used to number in the thousands and now total less than one hundred. Yet the Los Angeles Times reported this “news” just this past week, and the details that the report included – and the details that were ignored– point to some far greater problems.
The article, written by Journalist Tiffany Hsu, notes that the decline of the L.A. area Jewish delis “seems to be accelerating partly because of health concerns over the schmaltz-spread fare...” This may very well be the case – certainly American adults are inclined to being more “health conscious” with their dietary choices, rather than less, and food categories of all types that are perceived to be un-healthy are probably headed for a declined in consumption.
From there, the article suggests that “skyrocketing” food costs have driven some delis out of business. That may be true, too, but what has caused that to happen? The article suggests that “mass exports” of food to Japan is the culprit on the price spike. The story also blames the decline of LA-area Jewish delis on “the recession,” “too much competition” from other restaurant sectors, and the notion that younger consumers “don’t understand delis and comfort food.”
It was only one small news story in the LA Times. But let’s think through some of the ideas in this news story – ideas reported as “facts” – and consider what they mean from an economic standpoint. Consider, for example, the notion of “too much competition.” What exactly does this mean?
Obviously the more competitive a marketplace is, the more difficult it is for any particular business entity to survive and thrive. But how do we know when the level of competition is appropriate, and when it is “too much?”
Americans are accustomed to fierce competition in other arenas – in sports, especially, and even in the arts and entertainment. Similarly, most of us would never say “my favorite team didn’t make it to the Super Bowl this year because there was too much competition in the NFL.”
But when it comes to local small businesses, we often succumb to this vague, un-defined notion that there is this magical amount of competition that’s “just right,” and if our favorite business can’t compete, then therefore there is “too much” competition.
Yet in our free market economic system, we understand that competition is a good thing. If competition means that certain business entities or entire business categories decline because of the competition, then so be it. It is fairer and more just to allow businesses to rise and fall according to the market demands of consumers, rather than imposing artificial “limits” on the number of people who are to be permitted to participate in an industry.
But what are we to make of this idea that the delis’ failure is because consumers “don’t understand?” If a consumer chooses to “not understand” any particular business, and therefore chooses not to patronize it, then that consumer has made their choice – haven’t they? We’re all better-off if, win or lose, we honor and respect the choices of consumers, rather than presuming that they are ignorant if they make a choice that we don’t like.
And guess what the LA Times article about the delis completely ignored? The impact of government policy on small businesses. Nowhere did it reference the expansive and onerous mandates placed upon business via Obamacare, the impact on business owners of the President’s payroll tax hike, or his income tax increases on “rich people.”
No, the LA Times apparently wasn’t interested in how the President’s income tax hikes have taken money away from what the I.R.S. designates as “Subchapter S Corporations” (sometimes abbreviated as “S-corps”), and how this has effectively taken money directly out of small corporations, many of which operate small businesses. Likewise, the article made no reference to the fact California voters approved an increase in state income tax rates for “rich people” (thus leading to even less revenue in Subchapter-S Corporations) on their ballot last November, nor did it acknowledge that California has for years been on a trajectory of higher and higher unemployment insurance and workers’ compensation mandates for businesses.
It is perhaps more comfortable to pretend that our current government policies are not problematic, and blame the struggling economy on “too much competition” and consumers who “don’t understand.”
But how many more delis must fail, before we get honest and acknowledge that government is our problem?
Jason Mattera confronts Democrat Congressman Eliot Engel over Obamacare’s now broken promise that if you like your health insurance you can keep it. This was one of the Congressman who said that Obama’s claim was true, even echoing it himself.
"It's time to fundamentally change the way that we do business in Washington. To help build a new foundation for the 21st century, we need to reform our government so that it is more efficient, more transparent, and more creative. That will demand new thinking and a new sense of responsibility for every dollar that is spent."
Barack Obama
Through his own words, a short un-narrated documentary that looks at Obama's first term with regards to transparency, healthcare, taxes, fairness, energy and the national debt - guaranteed to contain information of interest.
Ladies and Gentlemen, Bill Whittle is proud to present just a few of the 1001 REASONS TO VOTE FOR BARACK OBAMA. At least, he thinks he is. Hang on a sec -- there might be a misprint in there somewhere...
The Supreme Court declared that ObamaCare is a big tax, even though Obama promised that it was not a tax. Hear what Trifecta thinks, from the majority opinion of Justice Roberts, to the dissent of Justice Scalia. Stephen Kruiser joins the Trifecta game on this episode.
Yes, the Obamacare ruling was a heart-breaker. It was a disaster -- no two ways around it. But if you need a pep talk, Bill is your man. Find out what we do NOW!
“But Republican governors are folding like cheap lawn chairs,” you say. “And political eunuchs in the GOP establishment are bowing to Obama like he bows to foreign dictators. Any hope of repeal is long dead, and besides, Chief Justice John Roberts put the final nail in the judicial coffin last summer, didn’t he? Any chance of killing the Obamacare zombie is gone, right?”
