Free Republic

A federal judge on Monday denied a request from the Obama administration to immediately appeal a ruling in House Republicans' ObamaCare lawsuit. The district court judge, Rosemary Collyer, last month gave House Republicans a big win by ruling that their lawsuit against the administration could move forward. The Obama administration strongly objected to that decision and asked for the ability to immediately appeal to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit. But on Monday, Collyer denied that request, deciding that she will first decide the substance of the case. Collyer wrote that a ruling on the substance of...

Supporters of the Obama administration and the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are rightly thrilled by the 6-3 decision reaffirming the subsidies essential to the functioning of the statute. The decision likely cements the statute in place as part of the U.S. healthcare system. However, the way that Chief Justice John Roberts reached that decision may provide the seeds for judicial curbing of regulation in other areas, and could very easily come up in future court cases regarding Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations on climate change. Some background is necessary. A 1984 Supreme Court case, Chevron U.S.A. v. Natural Resources Defense...

The Supreme Court had an opportunity, with its ruling in King v. Burwell, to determine whether the United States is a nation of laws or of men. Today, in a 6-3 decision, the Court ruled that we have devolved into the latter. Although the text of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) clearly states that the government may issue subsidies only through insurance exchanges established by the states, Obama administration bureaucrats unilaterally rewrote that part of the law so that the IRS could dispense such premium assistance through “marketplaces” created by the federal government. The plaintiffs in...

A week from today, the Supreme Court will tell us whether it is now legally permissible for Executive Branch bureaucrats to rewrite laws that fail to fit their statist agenda. And, the unctuous posturing of Obamacare apologists notwithstanding, that’s all King v. Burwell is about. It will answer one question: Can Barack Obama and his scofflaw administration get away with enacting a statute that was never passed by Congress? Yet, listening to the President, congressional Democrats, and the media, it’s about whether “reform” will be gutted and untold millions deprived of “affordable” insurance coverage. What a bunch of sanctimonious BS....

WASHINGTON — (...) The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether the subsidies can continue for 6.4 million people in 34 states who use the federal insurance marketplace at HealthCare.gov. (...) More than 4.1 million people, or nearly two out of three who could lose their subsidies in the case this year, live in just 13 Southern states – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Read more here: http://www.macon.com/2015/06/16/3799971/loss-of-health-care-subsidies.html#storylink=cpy

U.S. President Barack Obama would not sign a Republican plan to extend subsidies for buying insurance under Obamacare if the Supreme Court rules against such assistance in the pending King v. Burwell case, U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell said on Wednesday. The proposal, offered by Republican Senator Ron Johnson and has 31 Republican co-sponsors, would extend the insurance subsidies until August 2017. But Burwell said the measure would also take away the subsidies over time and repeal important components of Obamacare such as guaranteeing insurance for Americans with pre-existing health conditions.

A federal judge who is hearing a lawsuit from House Republicans against President Obama is requesting more information about a funding dispute at the center of the case. The House argues the president overstepped his executive authority by using money for ObamaCare that was not appropriated by Congress. The administration initially requested the funds to be appropriated for the healthcare law, but says it later realized the money was already available under permanent mandatory spending. The funding question is at the heart of House v. Burwell, a case that is now in the hands of Judge Rosemary Collyer, an appointee...

As the Supreme Court considers oral arguments in the King v. Burwell Obamacare subsidy case, the media is awash in claims that a King win will be a political disaster, forcing Republicans to save the illegal Obamacare subsidies issued in the 37 states without a state-based exchange. But the real disaster is the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the dangers the federal takeover of healthcare poses for patients, doctors, pocketbooks and health freedom. These very real dangers include: Socializing Medicine – The ACA sets up Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to nationalize the delivery of medical care. ACOs, sometimes called “HMOs...

There is a way out. The path to freedom is available -- and increasingly possible as Obamacare opposition grows and support for repeal increases. Here is a starter package of much-needed policy changes: ⦁ Repeal every word of Obamacare, including the ban on pre-existing condition exclusions. ⦁ Refuse to legalize Obama’s illegal subsidies if King wins King v. Burwell. ⦁ Refuse to build a state exchange no matter who wins King v. Burwell. ⦁ Restore access to indemnity (catastrophic) policies – true health insurance ⦁ Offer individual insurance pre-birth, with ownership linked to the baby. ⦁ Encourage ownership of insurance...

“Obamacare’s shoddy implementation doesn’t even begin to scratch the surface of its great evil,” reported Breitbart late last year, referring to the healthcare rationing that is insidiously hidden within the pages of the evasive law. Perhaps the most alarming criterion of healthcare rationing found in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the plan’s death panel language.Democrats vehemently denied that death panels would play a role in the ACA, but the law itself states that doctors will be paid to have discussions with patients about living wills, advance directives, and end-of-life options.Killing patients whose perceived utility is declining is not exclusively...

The plaintiffs in King v. Burwell claim the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act only offers premium subsidies, as the statute says, “through an Exchange established by the State.” Members of Congress who voted for the PPACA – most recently Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) and former Sen. Ben Nelson (D-NE) – now swear it was never their intent to condition Exchange subsidies on state cooperation. Ironically, Casey’s and Nelson’s decision to wade into the King debate demonstrates why, when a statute is clear, courts traditionally assign no weight to what members of Congress claim they intended a law to say...

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell used a 'King Day' speech at a breakfast hosted by Al Sharpton to promote Obamacare. Burwell, who was one of two Obama administration officials to speak, asked attendees of the National Action Network breakfast to 'tell your neighbors and tell your friends' to sign up for health care insurance. 'In the spirit of Dr. King, we're asking you to help us again, in big ways and small,' Obama's health czar told the activist organization, calling on them to help HHS sign up as many African Americans as possible before the Feb. 15 close...

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell promoted Obamacare “in the spirit of Dr. King” on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, during a breakfast hosted by Al Sharpton. “African-Americans have the lowest life expectancy of any other race in this country,” Ms. Burwell said in a speech to the National Action Network, The Hill reported. But “thanks to the Affordable Care Act,” she said, “7.8 million African-Americans with private insurance now have access to expanded preventative services with no cost sharing.” Ms. Burwell’s speech comes as HHS ramps up its efforts to insure people ahead of next month’s

What would happen if the Supreme Court rules that ObamaCare doesn't allow subsidies through the federal exchange? There's plenty of speculation, ranging from no big deal to absolute, total catastrophe. An article published on Wednesday in the New England Journal of Medicine tries to answer the question with a little bit more precision. It's conclusion, however, is that disallowing those subsidies would be a devastating blow to ObamaCare.

The Secretary for Health and Human Services said Sunday morning that she does not agree with controversial comments recently made by one of the architects of health care reform. In an exclusive interview on NBC’s Meet the Press, Sylvia Mathews Burwell responded to the videos that surfaced this week of MIT economics professor Jonathan Gruber in which he criticized American voters and their knowledge of the system. “I have to start with how fundamentally I disagree with his comments about the bill and about the American people,” Burwell said. (snip) Critics of the healthcare reform law have used Gruber’s comments...

The Supreme Court is taking up another Obamacare case—one that could devastate the health care law's coverage expansion. The justices on Friday agreed to hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell, a lawsuit that challenges the insurance subsidies at the heart of the Affordable Care Act. The suit argues that the subsidies—which roughly 80 percent of Obamacare enrollees received—should only be available in a handful of states. The Supreme Court is taking up another Obamacare case—one that could devastate the health care law's coverage expansion. The justices on Friday agreed to hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell, a lawsuit...

Where in the world is Jonathan Gruber? Human events asked that question towards the end of October and now that the Supreme Court is taking up Obamacare again in the case of of King vs Burwell, Gruber's absence from the public eye has become even more noticeable. Gruber, one of the architects of Obamacare along with Ezekiel Emanuel, at first vociferously denied that the Obamacare law as written by Congress intended for the subsidies only go to states who set up their only health exchanges. However, his own words stating that was indeed the case came back to bite him...

The Supreme Court followed up the landslide election on Tuesday with its own shocker: it announced that it will hear the Burwell case, which challenges the Obama administration’s extension of insurance subsidies in states that do not have health-care exchanges. I think the chances are high that the administration will lose. Because:

“CMS's processes are inconsistent with certain federal accounting and internal control standards,” the report states. To improve the system, the GAO recommends that CMS staff create new procedures to provide more timely and reliable information to the public. “Particularly for programs subject to a significant degree of public and congressional scrutiny,” the GAO reports. The report marks the third time in two weeks that a federal audit has criticized the rollout of ObamaCare. The auditors pointed to one particularly troublesome area within CMS — its Center for Consumer Information & Insurance Oversight, which works largely with state governments. That agency...

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell insisted Monday that Obamacare is “clearly working,” trying to move past the rocky rollout of President Obama's signature health law by insisting that her agency was not concerned with fighting “last year's battles.” Burwell in a speech at George Washington University said that the verdict was in on Obama's signature domestic initiative. “The Affordable Care Act is clearly working,” the HHS chief said. “Healthcare is more affordable for families, businesses and for our economy as [a] whole. Coverage and services are more widely available to more people. Doctors and hospitals are delivering...