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Pataki: ObamaCare Individual Mandate "Patently Unconstitutional"

By Kevin Mooney

State lawsuits that argue against the constitutionality of ObamaCare under the Commerce Clause have considerable merit and could potentially come before the U.S. Supreme Court former New York Gov. George Pataki told reporters Wednesday during a question and answer period at The National Press Club.

Pataki, who is now chairman of Revere America, held a press conference to announce a new campaign aimed against congressional lawmakers who voted for President Obama’s healthcare bill, which passed earlier this year. Television ads will be aired in concert with other campaign efforts in key districts as part of the “Pledge to Win” campaign.

In response to a question from The American Spectator that asked whether or not the state suits could potentially reach The Supreme Court, Pataki responded “Yes, I do.” But he also said that opponents should not rely on the judiciary alone and work toward the election of a new Congress more responsive to public sentiment.

“I think that there are legitimate constitutional issues when the federal government is imposing new burdens on the states, new burdens that they have to increase their Medicaid eligibility break when the states pay a significant part of that without providing any funding,” he observed.

Pataki continued, “I think there are some serious constitutional issues particularly when you are telling someone who just doesn’t want to be a part of the system that you’re going to get health care coverage acceptable to a Washington bureaucrat or we’re going to fine you. I think that is patently unconstitutional so I think there is a real issue of unconstitutional imposition of requirements on states, unconstitutional impositions of fines which they are now calling taxes on people who do not want to be a part of the system.”

Pataki also commented on what he described as the “corrupt purchasing” of Senate votes.

“In Florida, seniors get to keep the Medicare Advantage and then in the other 49 states you don’t,” he continued. “There is a real issue as to whether or not it violates the Due Process clause of the Constitution, I believe it does. So I think it’s appropriate that the legal challenges are moving forward. I’m hopeful that they will be successful but you can’t just rely on the judicial system. We have a democratic government and ultimately the Congress should reflect the will of the people. The will of the people is that ObamaCare be repealed and replaced with good healthcare reform. We’re going to try and help people who support those positions get elected this November.”

Revere America was founded to “promote national awareness of emerging federal law.” The organization’s web site lists reforms that could be pursued as an alternative ObamaCare such as allowing Americans to purchase insurance across state lines. It also documents ten hidden taxes included in the health care legislation.

Kevin Mooney is a contributing editor to Americans for Limited Government (ALG) News Bureau and the Executive Editor of TimesCheck.com.

The Ugly Truth of Obamacare

By Rebekah Rast

In case you missed the battle last month between Obama and Snooki from MTV’s reality television show “Jersey Shore,” here’s a recap:

Snooki is staying away from the tanning salon and blames Obama for this new disruption in her life.

“I don’t go tanning anymore because Obama put a 10 percent tax on tanning. [Sen. John] McCain would never put a 10 percent tax on tanning. Because he’s pale and would probably want to be tan,” said Snooki during the second season premier of “Jersey Shore.”

If you are like Obama and claim to not know who Snooki is, you can still sympathize with her outrage over the new ObamaCare tax of 10 percent on indoor tanning salons that went into effect July 1.

This tax is also trickling into small business’ bottom line. A smart-tan poll found that 76 percent of tanning salon business owners believe the tax is hurting their sales.

There is no harm in being boisterous over your opposition to the tax, like Snooki was towards Obama, but there is more you can do to fight against this tax and many more of the 20,000-plus regulations in ObamaCare.

Americans for Limited Government (ALG) has launched a new website called ObamaCare Watcher. This website is dedicated to keeping track of the most harmful and damaging regulations tucked inside ObamaCare.

"ObamacareWatcher.org aims to keep the public informed about what is being proposed on the bureaucratic level to implement the national health care system, and to make it easy for activists to submit comments on proposed harmful regulations that will restrict the choices individuals can make about their doctors and their health care," says Don Todd, ALG’s senior research director.

ALG President Bill Wilson says that aggressive participation in the regulatory process was “essential to keeping the public informed about how the bureaucracy will now be restricting their health care options, and giving them multiple avenues for directly affecting the regulatory process.”

One such avenue of participation people can take is to speak up about their opposition to certain ObamaCare regulations during comment periods.

For example, those who wish to speak up about the 10 percent excise tax on tanning are allowed to do so for about another two weeks—until 11:59 p.m. on September 13. On ObamaCareWatcher.org, people can click “comment now” to submit their thoughts on certain regulations. These comments go directly to the agency responsible for developing the regulation. In the case of the tanning tax, your comments would go directly to the IRS.

“As the regulatory process unfolds, one of the goals in generating public awareness of the new rules is to build support for repealing ObamaCare. When the public learns how much discretion has been given to faceless bureaucrats to make decisions about life and death, they will want the power over those decisions to be restored to doctors and patients,” Wilson says.

The ObamaCare Watcher website is a way the public can hold accountable those who continue to try and expand government intervention in the health care system. After all, the harmful regulations included in ObamaCare don’t stop with the tanning tax.

ObamaCareWatcher.org also highlights a recent rule by the Obama Labor Department where the Obama Administration admitted that up to 69 percent of all existing employer health plans will cease to exist by 2013. These plans will lose their grandfathered status under the law and regulations.

Wilson notes that this rule violates Obama's pledge that “if you like your health plan you can keep it.”

As ObamaCare Watcher digs deeper into the health care bill and brings attention to discrepancies, like the rule by Obama’s Labor Department, the public will then know the truth and be able to evaluate whether or not they want to speak out about it.

As House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said before the bill’s passing, “pass the bill so you can find out what’s in it.”

ObamaCare Watcher is doing just that. It is reviewing the thousands of pages of new proposed regulations from various federal government agencies and departments, all while allowing the American people to voice any concerns they might have along the way.

Rebekah Rast is a contributing editor to Americans for Limited Government (ALG) News Bureau.

ObamaCareThen and Now

Obama Lied on Health Care, U.S. Department of Labor rule shows

By Rick Manning

We all remember the Obama promise. The promise that, “if you like your health plan you can keep it,” promising that nothing in the health reform law would force businesses or consumers to change health plans or change their doctor.

Now that the bill is passed and the regulators are busily spinning out the estimated 20,000 pages of rules that will accompany the law, one thing is becoming crystal clear – Obama lied.
Who says?

The U.S. Department of Labor, which is charged with responsibility for overseeing the health plans that private business provides its employees across the nation, reports in an Interim Final rule that 69 percent of all health plans that cover workers will not be grandfathered into the plan as early as 2013.

This simply means that up to 69 percent of the workers who have employer provided health coverage are going to be forced to change health plans and depending upon the plan, change their doctor within three years.

If you work for a small business, the Department of Labor says it will even be worse with up to 80 percent of the small business health plans going the way of the dodo.

So, you will be able to keep your health plan if you like it, so long as it is one of the 31 percent that mold themselves to the Obama appointee vision of what a health plan should look like.

In a related matter, Obama and his health care allies repeatedly assured a skeptical public that cost would not be a factor in the federal government’s health care decision making process. Now, just months after the ink on the law is dry, the Washington Post reports that Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials are considering rescinding approval of the extremely expensive breast cancer treating drug Avastin due to questions on whether its benefits are worth the cost.

This is significant because Avastin is the last best hope for more than 17,000 women who are literally battling for their lives with end stages of breast cancer. Dr. Eric P. Winer, director of the Breast Oncology Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston who also serves as the Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s Chief Scientific Officer is quoted in the Post as saying, “This is not a worthless drug by any means. There is almost certainly a group of women who get a big benefit.”

Should the FDA rescind approval of the drug as being beneficial to breast cancer patients, private insurers which rely on the FDA to determine which medicines to cover for different ailments will undoubtedly follow suit, leaving 17,000 women without coverage for the medicine that is their last hope of survival.

In case anyone believes that this cost cutting is targeting only women, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ (CMS) has announced a review of whether to cover an innovative and expensive late stage prostate cancer treatment called Provenge, drawing the ire of oncology associations and patients alike. If CMS decides not to cover Provenge, it will mark the first time an FDA-approved therapy is not to be covered by Medicare.

As cost-based health decisions, and the forced change of health care plans begin to dominate the health care discussion, the realities of ObamaCare are beginning to take hold. It is a brave new world, where the sickest and weakest among us are deemed expendable by government decision makers because it is just too expensive to pay to give them the medicines that just might keep them alive.

Who knows? Maybe even the death panel scoffers will finally admit that when a government, rather than a doctor and patient, makes choices on medicines and their efficacy at extending quality of life, it becomes an impersonal, callous, business decision, and people are going to die after having their last hopes stripped away.

Somehow to those fighting for their lives, hospice and palliative care must seem an extremely poor substitute for life giving, but expensive medicines, even if the Donald Berwick’s of the world can’t understand it.

Rick Manning is the Communications Director of Americans for Limited Government.

Too Hot Not to Note: It's a wonderful lie

ALG Editor’s Note: In the following feature editorial from GoUpstate.com, Medicare’s solvency has been “saved” by cuts in reimbursement rates that will never be made, according to the Board of Trustees and the program’s top actuary:

It's a wonderful lie

What are we to make of a government that reports funding for one of its programs is going to last an extra 12 years thanks to recently passed health care reform legislation, then admits it's all a fiction?

That's exactly what the annual report released late last week by the trustees who oversee Medicare did.

The trustees projected the Medicare Hospital trust fund would be exhausted in 2029, 12 years later than estimated last year.

That would be wonderful were it true, the first good news about funding of a government program in quite some time.

But Medicare's top actuary, Richard Foster, said the report's financial projections “do not represent a reasonable expectation for the hospital fund for America's elderly.”

Huh?

The report is based on the assumption, in fact the law, that says Medicare reimbursements to hospitals and doctors must be cut each year, and not by just a little. The trustees' report assumes doctors will accept a 30 percent cut in Medicare payments over the next three years.

Those cuts are called for under current law, it's true, but they are waived by Congress every year because too many doctors would refuse to see Medicare patients if they were enacted.

Just six weeks ago, the most recent $23 billion cut in Medicare reimbursements required by law was waived by Congress.

Projected savings in the new health care law from cuts to hospitals, nursing homes, rehabilitation facilities and doctors are the funding source for approximately $500 billion of the $1 trillion health care reform is projected to cost over the next decade.

Unfortunately, there is no reason to believe any of those cuts will ever happen. The cost of everything goes up, not down, and the political havoc such cuts would wreak has nonpartisan experts agreeing they will never come to pass.

“For these reasons, the financial projections shown in this report for Medicare do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual program operations in either the short range or the long range,” said Foster, who, again, is Medicare's top actuary.

Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services and one of the trustees who authored the report, said the report must be compiled using current law that demands Medicare cuts to doctors, even if that law is never followed. She has also admitted she does not believe the cuts will ever happen.

If Americans had actually believed our nation could provide a massive expansion of health care benefits while actually cutting the overall cost of health care and reducing the deficit by $1 trillion over the next decade, they would have supported health care reform overwhelmingly. They did not believe it because it isn't true, because you can't save money by providing more health care for more people.

So what are we to make of a government that reports funding for one of its programs is going to last an extra 12 years thanks to recently passed health care reform legislation, then admits it's all a fiction?

Not much.

TimesCheck.com: Missouri Democrats Who Helped Pass Anti ObamaCare Proposition Complicate Media Coverage

Missouri Democrats Who Helped Pass Anti ObamaCare Proposition Complicate Media Coverage

By Kevin Mooney

As momentum continues to build against the coercive, mandatory requirements of ObamaCare, The New York Times is pinning its hopes on a dismissive narrative buried inside the newspaper’s national news section. Although an overwhelming majority of Missouri residents voted in favor of a proposition that would cancel out a key provision of President Obama’s healthcare law, the results do not necessarily translate over into any larger national trend, the NYT lectures readers.

“Practically speaking, it remains entirely uncertain what effect the vote will have,” a recent report claims. “The insurance requirement of the federal health care law does not come into effect until 2014. By then, experts say, the courts are likely to weigh in on the provision requiring people to buy insurance.”

But the vote’s impact is already being felt in regions outside of Missouri’s borders. Proposition C marks the beginning, not the end, of state level ballot initiatives that would amend their state constitutions to guard against federal encroachment. Moreover, there are now 22 states that have filed suit against ObamaCare.

Proposition C is not occurring in vacuum, yet the NYT is now peddling the idea that only “conservative activists” are responsible for the lopsided result. If so, it would logically follow that the measure went down to defeat the Democratic-leaning areas of the state. But this is not the case. Proposition C passed in every county except St. Louis and Kansas City. The real story here concerns the separation that exists between the Washington, D.C. Democrats and their own party members back home.

This reality great complicates the liberal media’s agenda and must therefore be submerged within reports that identify Proposition C with fringe groups that do not speak for mainstream voters who helped elect President Obama.

“Before the vote, the referendum had not appeared to capture the general population’s attention with any broad, statewide media campaign,” the report observes. “Republican primary voters (who had the most competitive races on Tuesday) appeared to play a key role in the vote’s fate; far more voters (577,612) cast ballots in the state’s Republican primary for an open United States Senate seat as cast ballots for the Democratic candidates (315,787).”

And yet it has captured the attention and interest of voters who do not necessarily align themselves with the conservative movement. Proposition C passed with 668,770 votes in favor, more than 90,000 people who voted in the Republican primary. So, some Democrats indeed supported it.

The spin here suggests that because Republican races were more competitive more of those voters showed up. But the fact that Democrats still felt animated to show and vote in favor of Proposition C despite a bland primary election cycle, is also suggestive.

The headline here could have read: Missouri Democrats Join with Tea Party Activists to Pass Anti Obama-Care Proposition By Large Margin.

But that doesn’t fit the narrative.

Kevin Mooney is a contributing editor to ALG News and the Executive Editor of TimesCheck.com.

TimesCheck.com: NYT Attempts to Pre-Empt, Discredit Missouri Vote Against ObamaCare By Marginalizing Tea Parties

NYT Attempts to Pre-Empt, Discredit Missouri Vote Against ObamaCare By Marginalizing Tea Parties

By Kevin Mooney

Big government activists knew they were going to lose this one going into it.

On Tuesday, Missouri became the first of at least three states to vote on a ballot measure aimed against a key component of President Obama’s healthcare overhaul. By a margin of 71 percent to 29 percent, voters approved Proposition C, which invalidated the new federal law requiring individuals to either buy health insurance or pay a tax. The vote could add momentum to other efforts at the state level aimed against ObamaCare.

This would explain why the New York Times saw fit to run an article that made every effort to dismiss Proposition C as an inconsequential, low-turnout affair fueled by tea party activists who do not speak for mainstream opinion.

Proposition C is politically meaningless because it is only popular among a core group of activists who will be washed out by larger national trends over time, the NYT suggests.

“The referendum on the measure, known as Proposition C, is seen as an organizational test for the Tea Party and like-minded conservatives in a swing state that President Obama lost narrowly in 2008 and that has since moved measurably away from him,” the report says.

The report continues, “But the campaign has been a low-key affair, with no television advertising, debates or celebrity Facebook endorsements. Leading Democrats, from Mr. Obama to Gov. Jay Nixon, have kept their distance, seeing little to be gained by contesting what strategists dismiss as a Republican straw poll with a foregone conclusion. The most competitive elections in Tuesday’s primary are on the Republican side, meaning turnout should be higher among those with natural sympathies for Proposition C.”

But even The Times is forced to concede that a majority of likely Democratic voters were not likely to vote against the proposal. It could become politically difficult for the Obama Administration to implement a law that lacks significant support in both major political parties; a point that goes missing in the report.

Moreover, the tea party’s connection to Proposition C is indicative of support that extends beyond the orbit of Republican and Democratic establishments. There is more at work here than just a narrow slice of the Republican establishment oriented against Obama’s policies for raw political reasons. There is a now a renewed interest in the values of the founding period that has helped galvanize efforts like Proposition C. The NYT and other liberal media outlets do not understand this phenomenon because from their perspective America began with New Deal, not with the Constitutional Convention.

This particular report’s fixation with “conservative activism” also misses the mark because in reality Missouri is a purple state. The two major parties are more or less evenly matched with slight edge to the Democrats in recent election cycles. Secretary of State Robin Carnahan is a far-left activist with ties to George Soros and the ACORN organization who is expected to win the Democratic nomination for U.S. Senate. Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, has teamed up with Carnahan over the past few election cycles to block conservative ballot initiatives.

The Republican Party has not exactly been front and center in supporting small government initiatives that enjoy broad political support either, which speaks to the necessity of tea party movements that oppose established political entities.

Niger Ennis, a spokesman for the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE), said in an interview that liberal media personalities deliberately ignore the contributions black Americans have made to tea party rallies. A concerted effort has been made to circulate false allegations so as undermine grassroots activism that unites Americans across racial and party lines, he added.

This would explain why reckless and inaccurate statements from the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP) are reported without critical examination, Ennis observed.

“The idea of racism has political currency in our environment these days,” he said. “The worst insult today is to call someone who is white a racist. That’s very valuable unfortunately in our political discourse. That’s why the media continues to report unfounded accusations from the NAACP.”

Just one day after the tea party victory in Missouri, Ennis joined with other CORE activists for a tea party event in D.C. the featured prominent black Americans who support the restoration of limited, constitutional government. That’s the kind of news that does not fit with the NYT narrative. Neither does the 3-1 vote in favor Missouri’s Proposition C, which was buried on the lower right corner of the newspaper’s national news section Thursday.

Kevin Mooney is a contributing editor to Americans for Limited Government (ALG) News Bureau and the Executive Editor of TimesCheck.com.

The Show-Obama State

Drowning in Paperwork

Virginia Case Against ObamaCare Individual Mandate Reminds American People of Why Judges are Important

By Robert Romano

Watch out, Elena Kagan.

Yesterday, U.S. District Court Judge Henry E. Hudson ruled that the Commonwealth of Virginia indeed has the standing to sue over ObamaCare’s individual mandate to purchase health insurance, which will go into effect in 2014. In addition, the Court ruled that the issues Virginia raised are certainly ripe for adjudication, despite the claims of the Obama Administration.

While this ruling is only preliminary, and does not answer questions of the constitutionality of the individual mandate, it does appear to bode well for opponents of the provision. Particularly, Judge Hudson noted that the power Congress has claimed — to force an individual to purchase anything — is unprecedented. According to the decision, “Neither the U.S. Supreme Court nor any circuit court of appeals has squarely addressed this issue. No reported case from any appellate court has extended the Commerce Clause or Tax Clause to include the regulation of a person’s decision not to purchase a product, notwithstanding its effect on interstate commerce.”

To boot, Judge Hudson wrote, “The congressional enactment under review—the Minimum Essential Coverage Provision—literally forges new ground and extends Commerce Clause powers beyond its current high watermark,” and lest there was any doubt, “Never before has the Commerce Clause and associated Necessary and Proper Clause been extended this far.” Even at this early stage, based on the facts presented, the Court is already determining that the individual mandate to purchase health insurance is beyond anything that has ever been attempted under the Interstate Commerce Clause.

That either means that Barack Obama has stumbled into a never-before-invoked constitutional power to compel individuals as a matter of law to purchase something (doubtful), or in fact that the individual mandate goes far beyond anything that can be legally justified by the Constitution (likely). Either way, Judge Hudson’s preliminary ruling flies in the face of claims by the Obama Administration that “there is a pretty longstanding precedent on the constitutionality of this.”

Not so, says Judge Hudson. There is no guidance whatsoever in case precedence, a single example the federal government has furnished to show that this newly “rediscovered” power has ever been utilized by Congress.

At issue is a Virginia law protecting Virginians’ right to choose whether or not to purchase health insurance. According to the Virginia brief, the government takeover of health care “contains an individual mandate which will require a majority of Virginians after December 31, 2013 to purchase health insurance for themselves and their dependents subject to a civil penalty.” This contradicts Virginia law, which states that “No resident of this Commonwealth, regardless of whether he has or is eligible for health insurance coverage under any policy or program provided by or through his employer, or a plan sponsored by the Commonwealth or the federal government, shall be required to obtain or maintain a policy of individual insurance coverage…”

The Obama Administration attempted to say the Virginia law was crafted merely to help provide standing to sue against the provision. Even if it had been, Judge Hudson wrote that the intention of the law was irrelevant to the fact that it had indeed been enacted by the Commonwealth of Virginia: “The mere existence of the lawfully-enacted statute is sufficient to trigger the duty of the Attorney General of Virginia to defend the law and the associated sovereign power to enact it.”

On ripeness, the Administration argued that Virginia’s brief was premature since the mandatory health care provisions do not go into effect until 2014, but, wrote the Judge, “that does not mean that its effect will not be felt by the Commonwealth in the near future.”

Judge Hudson continued, leaving no doubt that preparations were already well underway to comply with the federal provision, “This provision will compel scores of people who are not currently enrolled to evaluate and contract for insurance coverage. Individuals currently insured will be required to be sure that their present plans comply with this regulatory regimen. Insurance carriers will have to take steps in the near future to accommodate the influx of new enrollees to public and private insurance plans. Employers will need to determine if their current insurance satisfied the statutory requirements.” In other words, the individual mandate is already placing a considerable burden on individuals, businesses, and the states. So, the courts do not need to wait until 2014 to find out if all those efforts were in vain.

This case reminds the American people why judges matter, and should give cause to pay special attention to the confirmation votes of Elena Kagan in the Senate this week. She, when pressed by Senator Tom Coburn on hypothetical congressional mandate for individuals to eat three fruits and vegetables every day, leaned in favor of its constitutionality. She said that such a law was “dumb” and “senseless”, but that as a Justice she could not overturn it just because she thought it was so.

As a Supreme Court Justice, she will most likely have to rule on the merits of the individual mandate. How she views this critical question is important. The power being invoked by the Congress is unprecedented, as confirmed by Judge Hudson’s decision. And she would not even dismiss it out of hand as something Congress had never done before.

That would be important, after all, to know as a Judge, i.e. whether or not there was any precedent addressing the legal question. There is none, and either she did not know that, did not understand that there was any limit to the Commerce Clause, or did not care.

None of which qualifies her to the bench.

Robert Romano is the Senior Editor of Americans for Limited Government (ALG) News Bureau.
 
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