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The replacement of Kathleen Sebelius by Sylvia Mathews Burwell as the Secretary of Health and Human Services has been portrayed by the legacy “news” media as a new lease on life for Obamacare. The party line is that Sebelius was mortally wounded by GOP exploitation of a single uncharacteristic mistake—the botched rollout of Healthcare.gov—while Burwell is a brilliant Beltway veteran unsullied by controversy and possessing the very administrative skills needed to save Obama’s “signature domestic achievement.” … This tale fails to conform to the facts, however … The vessel is taking on water at an alarming rate, and Sylvia Burwell’s...

April 13, 2014, 10:09 am Sebelius: Pressure after rollout was 'awful' By Elise Viebeck Outgoing Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said she was "flat-out wrong" to believe that HealthCare.gov was ready to go on Oct. 1, 2013. Sebelius made the comment to NBC's Andrea Mitchell on "Meet the Press" in her first post-resignation interview. The secretary has only a handful of weeks left at HHS until her replacement is confirmed. In candid remarks about the healthcare rollout, Sebelius said she regretted not asking different questions when HealthCare.gov was under construction. "If I had a magic wand and...

Sylvia Burwell, whom President Obama is expected to nominate to replace Kathleen Sebelius as the secretary of health and human services, has a long professional career in business and consulting, but lacks substantial professional or political experience with health care. Her résumé​, according to Dan Diamond of the Advisory Board, only includes a stint as a board member at the University of Washington Medical Center. “Burwell’s track record in health care is not well-established,” Diamond writes in a briefing for the Advisory Board, a health-care consulting firm. Her predecessor, Secretary Sebelius, served as Kansas state insurance commissioner for eight years,...

OMB Leadership Sylvia Mathews Burwell, Director Sylvia Mathews Burwell is the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB). She was confirmed by the Senate on April 24, 2013. Burwell previously served as President of the Walmart Foundation. Before joining the Foundation in 2012, she was President of the Global Development Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, where she worked for 10 years and was also the first Chief Operating Officer. During the Clinton Administration she served as Deputy Director of OMB, Deputy Chief of Staff to the President, Chief of Staff to the Secretary of the...

In the closing days of the open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) , the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was mailing out letters notifying certain Americans that they had already started a healthcare coverage application on their behalf. The HHS letter stated that the information they used to begin the application for individual Healthcare was obtain by the state agency in charge of implementing Obamacare. The next step for the individual would be visit Healthcare.gov and complete the already started application to see if they qualify for “Marketplace coverage.” News of the HHS letter...

This isn’t exclusively an “Obama problem” — the boss emeritus has been scorching ICE for its catch-and-release policies for ages, starting long before O took office — but it’s important counterprogramming to the left’s narrative that Obama is some sort of fanatic about deporting illegals. Jeff Sessions put one hole in that balloon last week when his office ran the numbers and found that that if you’re here illegally and don’t have a criminal record, you’re already basically exempt from deportation. ICE won’t touch you, whether because you qualify for some sort of statutory exclusion or because Obama’s definition of...

There were fireworks at the D.C. Circuit today as the IRS and HHS squared off against appellants challenging the IRS’s power grab in Halbig v. Sebelius. I attended arguments today and provide the following synopsis. (Carrie Severino has discussed the district court’s opinion here, here, here, and here. Carrie also filed an amicus brief in the case.) The central question is: Does the phrase “established by the State” actually mean what it says, or is that just a fancy way of saying “established by either the State or by the federal government?” At issue is a tax subsidy that the IRS...

In Casablanca, Captain Renault feigns surprise by famously declaring, “I'm shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” Moments later, a croupier hands Renault a pile of money, saying, “Your winnings, sir.” Just as Renault wasn’t really surprised that Rick’s Café would break the law, none of can be surprised this week that President Obama and the implementers of Obamacare are breaking the law – again. After all, they’ve played fast and loose with the law creating Obamacare since it was (sloppily) written and (barely) passed almost exactly four (long) years ago. The most notorious of Obama’s...

WASHINGTON, D.C., March 26, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A prominent U.S. senator has said that President Obama should “explain to the pope why he is telling businesses in America they can’t remain true to their faith and stay in business.” On Thursday, President Obama will meet with Pope Francis for the first time. According to probable 2016 presidential candidate Sen. Rand Paul, R-KY, a topic of top priority should be the abortifacient, sterilization, and contraception insurance coverage requirement under the Affordable Care Act. Speaking on “Fox & Friends” on Tuesday morning, Paul did not mince words. “The ‘Hobby Lobby’ case is...

The Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) may soon be telling you what you should eat to reduce your “carbon footprint.” In order to—ostensibly—prevent global warming and reduce our national carbon footprint, Washington is already telling Americans what light bulbs they can buy, and what buildings in which they should want to live and work. Now, food could be the next frontier. Currently, the USDA and HHS are drafting their 2015 Dietary Guidelines. Every five years, the USDA and HHS issue recommendations for Americans on what constitutes a healthy diet. As Dr. Barbara...

With many political debates, I try to give opponents the benefit of the doubt on intentions. Sure, raising taxes is a bad thing, but some politicians and pundits believe higher taxes will benefit society. Some people think we need to spend more, and others really fear climate change.When it comes to the HHS abortifacient/contraception/sterilization mandate, however, I’ve almost stopped being that generous with the left’s media and thought leaders. This New York Times Magazine editorial is a prime example as to why. Almost from start to finish, the piece misleads and misdirects readers about the mandate, its opponents, and religious...

The Department of Health and Human Services is expected to spend over one trillion dollars in 2015 — but HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has never once testified before the Senate’s Budget Committee on either Obamacare’s costs or the president’s budget at large. “The Department of Health and Human Services is projected to spend over $1 trillion in FY2015 under the president’s budget, and health care costs — which today comprise nearly 30 percent of all federal spending — are growing more rapidly than other areas of the budget, especially over the long-term. It would be good for members of the...

Next week, probably the most egregious regulatory measure under this administration gets its time in the Supreme Court: The HHS abortifacient/contraception/sterilization mandate.As most people know, the mandate was initiated on January 20, 2012, and sparked an immediate backlash. Many people were bothered morally because of the anti-life components of the mandate, while organizations across the country were disturbed at how it failed to offer an appropriately broad religious exemption from the mandate.Despite several “compromises,”most of which were largely accounting gimmicks, there have been dozens of lawsuits by non-profit and for-profit organizations. According to the Alliance Defense Freedom (ADF), which represents...

David Wright, director of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI) in the Department Of Health And Human Services, just quit his job in a big way. Wright wrote an insanely blunt resignation letter that was recently published by ScienceInsider. In it, he exposed the dysfunctional bureaucratic red tape that limited him from doing his job more than half of the time.

The director of the U.S. government office that monitors scientific misconduct in biomedical research has resigned after 2 years out of frustration with the “remarkably dysfunctional” federal bureaucracy. David Wright, director of the Office of Research Integrity (ORI), writes in a scathing resignation letter obtained by ScienceInsider that the huge amount of time he spent trying to get things done made much of his time at ORI “the very worst job I have ever had.” ORI, which is part of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), monitors alleged research misconduct by researchers funded by the National Institutes of...

President Barack Obama has finally admitted what many Americans worried about all along as Democrats in Congress pushed through Obamacare: they may not be able to keep their doctor. barackobama8Obamacare opponents warned about death panels and health care rationing under Obamacare as the president and his Democratic allies pushed the legislation through Congress. Now that the implementation of Obamacare is in full swing, some of those concerns are coming to fruition as some patients like this man are almost dying because of the disastrous effects of Obamacare. One of the many ways in which rationing occurs is by limiting a...

The regulations would require hospitals, nursing facilities and group homes to have plans to maintain emergency lighting, fire safety systems, and sewage and waste disposal during power losses, and to keep temperatures at a safe level for patients. Those inpatient facilities would also be expected to track displaced patients, provide care at alternate sites and handle volunteers. Transplant centers would need to identify alternate hospitals for patients awaiting organs — a challenge because centers maintain different transplant criteria. Home health care agencies would be required to help patients create personalized disaster plans. Hospices and others caring for frail, homebound patients...

ObamaCare's Exemption HHS quietly repeals the individual purchase rule for two more years. But amid the post-rollout political backlash, last week the agency created a new category: Now all you need to do is fill out a form attesting that your plan was cancelled and that you "believe that the plan options available in the [ObamaCare] Marketplace in your area are more expensive than your cancelled health insurance policy" or "you consider other available policies unaffordable." This lax standard—no formula or hard test beyond a person's belief—at least ostensibly requires proof such as an insurer termination notice. People can also...

The cumulative numbers are in: since Healthcare.gov launched on October 1, 2013, 4.2 million Americans have signed up for private health insurance, according to the Department of Health and Human Services. That being said, the White House was more than willing to help share the "happy" news: Share the news: Through February, more than 4.2 million Americans have signed up for private health plans. #ACA pic.twitter.com/pZUxI9Soyo — The White House (@WhiteHouse) March 11, 2014 Will the White House meet or exceed their self-imposed sign-up goal? We don’t know: CMS spox won't say whether they expect to meet downwardly revised goal...

The Supreme Court will soon hear arguments in Hobby Lobby v. Sebelius, which concerns religious objections to HHS regulations. To be precise, should religious objections prevail under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act against HHS regulations that require employers to include coverage for contraception in their health-insurance plans? But that is only the surface question. Not far below it lurk profound dangers of specialization and exclusion — the risks that the Court will recognize only partial rights in specialized organizations and that it will ignore how the political playing field is slanted against religious Americans. SPECIALIZATION Can government treat specialized organizations...