Free Republic

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, often described as the second-highest court in the land, could rule on Halbig v. Burwell as early as tomorrow. Halbig is one of four lawsuits challenging the legality of the health-insurance subsidies the IRS is dispensing in the 36 states that did not establish a health-insurance Exchange under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or “ObamaCare,” and thus have Exchanges established by the federal government. Though the PPACA repeatedly states those subsidies are available only “through an Exchange established by the State,” and there are indications IRS officials knew they...

Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.) questioned Health and Human Services Secretary nominee Sylvia Burwell Wednesday about the Obama administration’s call on exempting specific union plans from Obamacare’s reinsurance tax. Burwell is the current White House director of the Office of Management and Budget. “I’m simply saying is that as a matter of fairness in the way that this is implemented, carving out favored groups shouldn’t be the modus operandi,” Thune said. “We ought to be going about this in a way that treats everybody fairly under the law, and I don’t think you can argue based on the number of...

Sylvia Mathews Burwell, President Obama’s nominee to lead the country’s health care overhaul, remains entangled in a lawsuit brought by shareholders of MetLife accusing her of misleading investors as a director of one of the country’s biggest insurance companies. The federal lawsuit, filed in New York, says the company used a Social Security death index to stop making payments when beneficiaries died, but the company wasn’t as diligent about using the database to track deaths of its policyholders, which triggers payouts, the lawsuit said. Last year, a judge refused to toss a federal lawsuit against the company, including claims against...

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...

Senate Democrats planned to spend the spring ramping up their election-year message on income inequality — not relitigating Obamacare. Change of plans. That leaves the Senate’s most vulnerable Democrats veering back to the very issue that has become their biggest political liability heading into the midterms. For now, at risk Democrats up for reelection this fall are proceeding with caution. A spokesman for Sen. Mark Udall said the Colorado Democrat will examine Burwell’s record and hearing testimony, “as with any nominee,” before making up his mind. Shripal Shah, a spokesman for Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, said the New Hampshire Democrat “has...

The chairman of the Senate committee investigating the Whitewater affair today ruled out calling Hillary Rodham Clinton as a witness unless strong evidence emerged of her involvement in the mishandling of papers from the office of a White House aide who committed suicide two years ago.(snip) The committee today began what will be weeks of intensive questioning of White House aides about whether Mrs. Clinton, in advance of investigators, had told officials to remove papers from the office of Vincent W. Foster Jr., her close friend and former law partner who was the deputy White House counsel at the time...

You just can't make this stuff up.

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,...

A single person shut down the entire U.S. government for the first time in 17 years. Not a congressman, but an unelected woman named Sylvia Burwell who, as the relatively new director of the Office of Management and Budget, sent the email that initiated the process that has closed national parks, visitors’ centers and even the “panda-cam” at the National Zoo. "Agencies should now execute plans for an orderly shutdown due to the absence of appropriations," Burwell wrote in a memo to heads of executive departments and agencies Monday night as it became clear lawmakers had failed to agree on...

Rush Limbaugh wants to own the St. Louis Rams. Well, good for him. His money is green and plentiful and his politics are conservative, which means he'll pretty much fit right in with the rest of the gang within the NFL ownership's corridors of power. They probably don't care about his politics. In fact, if you checked most of their campaign contributions, you'd find that most of them probably are staunch supporters of the guy who has been called "the unofficial voice of the Republican Party." With a wink and a smile, they will surely welcome him to their club,...