Pols push 'Keep Your Health Plan Act' as files show gov't knew millions could lose coverage

House Republicans are pushing a new bill to let Americans keep their health insurance plans following revelations that the Obama administration knew millions could lose their current coverage due to changes from the Affordable Care Act. 

Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., was introducing the "Keep Your Health Plan Act" in a bid to address widespread reports of people losing their current plans. CBS News reported Monday that more than 2 million Americans have already been told they can't renew their policies. 

"This legislation is about providing folks the peace of mind that they will be allowed to keep their current coverage if they so choose," Upton said in a statement. The bill would allow plans sold on the market today to continue to be available. 

Fox News confirmed on Monday that despite assurances from President Obama that anybody who likes their health insurance can keep it, a 2010 IRS document predicted a huge swath of customers could lose their coverage. 

The document addressed a rule in the law that states individual policies purchased on or before March 23, 2010 would be "grandfathered" -- or exempt from changes required under ObamaCare. However, the provision was changed so that plans that undergo "significant changes" could lose that special status. 

Via: Fox News Politics

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Global warming gets nearly twice as much taxpayer money as border security

New estimates show the federal government will spend nearly twice as much fighting global warming this year than on U.S. border security.

The White House reported to House Republicans that there are 18 federal agencies engaged in global warming activities in 2013, funding a wide range of programs, including scientific research, international climate assistance, incentivizing renewable energy technology and subsidies to renewable energy producers. Global warming spending is estimated to cost $22.2 billion this year, and $21.4 billion next year.

At the same time, the federal government will spend nearly $12 billion on customs and border enforcement this year.

Obama’s climate agenda has attracted criticism from congressional Republicans who have been hammering the administration over the accountability and transparency of its global warming efforts.

Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee have been calling on the heads of major federal agencies to testify on global warming activities. So far, only the heads of the Energy Department and the Environmental Protection Agency have opted to testify in front of the House.

“With billions of dollars currently being spent annually on climate change activities, Congress and the public should understand the scope of what the federal government is doing, how the billions of dollars are being spent, and what it will accomplish,” said Kentucky Republican Rep. Ed Whitfield. “Anyone who believes the committee ought to be focusing its attention on climate change related issues should be standing with us to get these answers.”

Earlier this summer, the Senate held a hearing to highlight the immediate impacts of global warming. However, Senate Republicans released a report ahead of the hearing that rejected many of the claims made by scientists, politicians and activists about rising global temperatures.

“Over nearly four decades, numerous predictions have had adequate time to come to fruition, providing an opportunity to analyze and compare them to today’s statistics,” reads the report from Republicans on the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee.

Via: Daily Caller

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[VIDEO] Sebelius: ‘I Don’t Work For’ People Who Want Me to Resign

Health and Human Services secretary Kathleen Sebelius responded moments ago to questions about whether she will resign in the wake of the Affordable Care Act’s problematic rollout. Her response is raising some eyebrows.  

“My goal is to actually get the website up and running,” she told reporters. “The majority of people calling for me to resign I would say are people who I don’t work for and who do not want this program to work in the first place. I have had frequent conversations with the president and I have committed to him that my role is to get the program up and running and we will do just that.” 

A group of 33 House Republicans on Wednesday sent a letter to President Obama calling for her resignation. ”The scope of the problem is so great that, were this a private company or military command, the CEO or general would have been fired,” they wrote. “We are, therefore, calling on you to hold Secretary Sebelius accountable for the fiasco that is HealthCare.gov and ask for her resignation.”

Via: NRO

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Group of 33 House Republicans call for Sebelius resignation

Thirty-three House Republicans sent a letter Thursday to President Barack Obama, urging him to ask Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Health and Human Services, to resign over the thorny rollout HealthCare.gov.

The Obamacare enrollment website has suffered a number of problems since it went live on October 1, problems which have not yet been fully ameliorated. According to the signees of the letter, those problems are grave enough that Sebelius should step down.

“The scope of the problem is so great that, were this a private company or military command, the CEO or general would have been fired,” they write. “We are, therefore, calling on you to hold Secretary Sebelius accountable for the fiasco that is HealthCare.gov and ask for her resignation.”

The members said the rollout of the website should have been delayed until it the website was fully functional, but that by asking Sebelius to resign, Obama could help salve the wound.

“It’s not too late,” they write. “By calling for the resignation of Secretary Sebelius, you can send a powerful signal that the American people will not be held responsible for her department’s failures. By granting a delay in the rollout of Obamacare, you can ensure fairness for all Amercians, not just the select few.”

The letter is signed by 33 House Republicans: Louisiana Rep. John Fleming, Ohio Rep. Jim Jordan, South Carolina Rep. Jeff Duncan, Kansas Rep. Mike Pompeo, Arizona Rep. David Schweikert, Pennsylvania Rep. Bill Shuster, Kansas Rep. Tim Huelskamp, Michigan Rep. Kerry Bentivolio, Texas Rep. Steve Stockman, California Rep. Doug LaMalfa, Montana Rep. Steve Daines, Oklahoma Rep. Jim Bridenstine, Florida Rep. Ted Yoho, Georgia Rep. Phil Gingrey, Montana Rep. Steve Daines, Texas Rep. Pete Olson, Ohio Rep. Bob Gibbs, Tennesee Rep. Stephen Fincher, Texas Rep. Louie Gohmert, Florida Rep. Ron DeSantis, Texas Rep. Randy Weber, Ohio Rep. Jim Renacci, Indiana Rep. Larry Bucshon, Minnesota Rep. Michele Bachmann, Maryland Rep. Andy Harris, Missouri Rep. Vicky Hartzler, Mississippi Rep. Alan Nunnelee, Texas Rep. Roger Williams, North Carolina Rep. Walter Jones, Arizona Rep. Trent Franks, Georgia Rep. Paul Broun, Missouri Rep. Blaine Luetkemeyer, Florida Rep. Steve Southerland, and Alabama Rep. Mo Brooks.

Sebelius will testify on the Obamacare rollout next Thursday before the House Ways and Means Committee.

Via: Daily Caller
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Appropriators’ Frustration Mounts as Sequester Festers

J

uly 31 was a fateful day: It was when House Republicans proved even they couldn’t govern under the sequester spending levels — and the day the chairman of the House Appropriations Committee finally had enough.

“The House has made its choice: sequestration — and its unrealistic and ill-conceived discretionary cuts — must be brought to an end,” Rep. Harold Rogers of Kentucky said after leadership was forced to pull the Transportation-HUD funding bill from the floor.

Rogers may have spoken first, but he is hardly alone in his frustration.

In the months between the bill’s canceled floor consideration and the resolution of the government shutdown, veteran GOP appropriators have grown increasingly vocal in their dissatisfaction.

“I’m a process guy, I believe in the process … and it goes for naught,” said appropriator Steve Womack of Arkansas. “We end up with continuing resolutions, and a lot of things we’ve done in our appropriations work is pushed aside.”

Appropriators pass bills with bipartisan cooperation through the committee and then watch them flounder on the House floor, where spending levels mandated by the sequester and the House-passed budget resolution are too deep for Democrats and some Republicans and not deep enough for others.

They watch their Republican peers vote for amendments to appropriations bills on the House floor that appeal to the far-right contingent of the party and then vote against final passage.

What’s more, Republicans on the Appropriations Committee feel the odds are stacked against them, with nothing likely to improve until their leaders agree to make some changes.

From their standpoint, and the standpoint of GOP aides familiar with the process, the chief reason appropriations bills can’t pass the House now is because of an unworkable topline number.

Via: Roll Call

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Reps. Ed WReps. Ed Whitfield, Lee Terry see Keystone rejection from Obamahitfield, Lee Terry see Keystone rejection from Obama

A pair of House Republicans said Wednesday they think President Obama will reject the Keystone XL pipeline, adding that the project's uncertain fate is hurting relations with Canada.

“I’ve been a little bit pessimistic about the fact I don’t think the president is going to approve the Keystone pipeline,” said Rep. Ed Whitfield, R-Ky., chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Energy and Power.

“I hope I’m wrong,” Whitfield continued at the event hosted by TransCanada Corp., the Consumers Energy Alliance and others at the Canadian embassy in Washington.

Rep. Lee Terry, R-Neb., another senior member on Energy and Commerce, added he doesn’t “have the confidence” that Obama will green light the pipeline that would deliver oil from the Canadian tar sands to Texas.

Keystone’s unclear future has “strained” ties between Canada’s government and the United States, Terry said, calling the lengthy process a “disrespect” to Canada.

Terry acknowledged the nations’ trading links and mutual border will prevent them from drifting apart, but said Canadian officials and members of parliament have express dissatisfaction.

“They are very frustrated with the United States on this,” Terry told reporters.

TransCanada’s proposed pipeline is currently under review at the State Department. The agency is reviewing comments on a draft environmental assessment before moving onto the final version, which will be used to determine whether building Keystone is in the national interest. It, however, hasn't set a timeline for finishing the review.

Obama said in a June speech on climate change that he would nix Keystone if it “significantly exacerbates” carbon emissions.

Via: Washington Examnier

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From Shutdown to Amnesty

My fear is that having stuck it to the establishment with a defund strategy that, unfortunately, could never work, House Republicans will now turn around and do the establishment’s bidding on so-called comprehensive immigration reform.

1) The Republican leadership is going to feel pressure to do some sort of bi-partisan pivot in a misbegotten attempt to repair the party’s image, which at least for now is uniformly in the toilet in every poll.

2) The political judgment of the groups and members who favored the shutdown strategy and most strongly oppose amnesty is going to be highly suspect after defunding didn’t work. This will give them less influence in the immigration fight than they would have had otherwise.

3) The supporters of defunding in the House could use a few dozen members to drive the rest of the caucus. The dynamic will be different on immigration. Because Democrats all opposed any fiscal measure offered by the Republican leadership, the votes of those few dozen members were essential to passing anything. On immigration, Democrats could well support incremental immigration measures to get to a conference with the Senate, meaning a few dozen Republican votes against don’t mean anything anymore.

If the upshot of all this is that Obamacare is not defunded, the Republican party’s standing is diminished and we get a disastrous immigration bill, it will depressing indeed.

Via: NRO

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Dem: GOP eyes 'impeachment circus' to thwart Obama agenda

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) says congressional Republicans are planning an "impeachment circus" to thwart President Obama's legislative goals on the economy and immigration reform.

"It's like a magician who snaps his fingers in one place so you won`t see what he`s doing with his other hand," McDermott said Friday during an appearance on MSNBC. "They are basically trying to keep the president from doing anything on jobs or on immigration or on climate change or any other issue that the American people are facing or pensions or anything."

The former House Ethics Committee chairman said that Republicans would turn to the impeachment strategy after they were unsuccessful in using the debt ceiling and government shutdown as leverage to dismantle ObamaCare.

"They've run the let's run the country over the cliff strategy and that didn't work. And so now back at the second one of the Republican strategies. That is let`s impeach the president," McDermott said.

The Washington Democrat warned that "as long as they can keep this impeachment circus going, nobody will pay any attention" to more substantive policy issues.

Via: The Hill

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SOROS-FUNDED GROUP PLANS 'FLY-IN' TO PUSH HOUSE REPUBLICANS ON AMNESTY

The George Soros-funded National Immigration Forum (NIF) is organizing a “fly-in” of what it calls conservatives from across the country aimed at lobbying House Republicans for an amnesty bill.

According to USA Today’s immigration beat writer Alan Gomez, NIF is planning to organize the fly in with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg’s FWD.us, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s Partnership for a New American Economy.

“The fly-in is being organized not by conservative groups, but organizations that have focused on legalizing millions of people who are in the U.S. illegally and changing the legal immigration system to bring in more foreign workers,” Gomez wrote on Monday. He noted that the 300 activists for an immigration grand bargain were looking to make what he described as a “conservative pitch” for amnesty.

Gomez noted NIF’s Executive Director, Ali Noorani, who “has advocated for changes in immigration law to help legal and undocumented immigrants for three decades," claimed "the broad collection coming to Washington represents 'the conservative base of the Republican Party.'"

The event will take place on Oct. 28, coinciding with President Barack Obama’s and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s renewed push against House Speaker John Boehner for amnesty. Now that Obama, Reid, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi are publicly pushing for amnesty after many mainstream media outlets declared it dead earlier this year, Soros’ groups are trying to make it appear as though conservatives support immigration legislation like the Senate-passed “Gang of Eight” bill. Ultimately, the left’s goal is to get the House to pass a series of piecemeal immigration bills and then combine them with the Senate bill in a conference committe

Via: Breitbart

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House Set to Vote on Debt Deal, Boehner: 'Trying to Find a Way Forward'

House Republicans on Tuesday dropped two demands related to Obamacare from their proposal to end the government shutdown and raise the nation's borrowing authority, according to news reports.

Sources told CNN that the demands included a proposal to delay the 2.3 percent medical device tax and another to tighten income verification of those seeking subsidies to buy health insurance under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

A spokesman for Speaker John Boehner says the House will vote Tuesday night on legislation that would reopen the government and avert a financial default.

Michael Steel says the bill would keep the government operating until Jan. 15 and let the Treasury borrow money until Feb. 7.

It also says members of Congress, the president, vice president and thousands of congressional aides would no longer be eligible for employer health care contributions from the government that employs them.

There was no immediate reaction from the White House or Democrats, who had objected to an earlier version of the House GOP bill.

The House developments came a day after Senate leaders expressed optimism for an imminent bipartisan deal to end the government shutdown, now in its 15th day.

Boehner said earlier Tuesday that GOP leaders were working on their own legislation, even as conservative lawmakers had threatened to reject any proposal unless it includes significant measures toward dismantling Obamacare

"Our members today are trying to find a way forward in a bipartisan way that will continue to provide fairness to the American people under Obamacare," Boehner said at a press conference Tuesday.
 
Via: Newsmax

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House GOP to push Obama, Biden into Obamacare

House Republicans on Tuesday narrowed their attack on Obamacare to the issue of fairness, insisting that President Obama and his top political appointees all have to buy their insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s exchanges as part of a new bill to end the government shutdown and extend the federal debt ceiling.

GOP leaders hope to put the bill on their chamber’s floor for a vote later Tuesday, with little time to spare before the Thursday deadline the Treasury Department has set for when it will run out of maneuvering room under the current $16.7 trillion debt ceiling.

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SEE ALSO: House GOP unity breaks down over latest shutdown offer

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The new bill would give the Treasury borrowing authority through Feb. 7, and would include stopgap funding for basic government operations through Dec. 15.

The key change would be to force Mr. Obama, Vice President Joseph R. Biden and their top political appointees into Obamacare, and to withhold government subsidies from them and from members of Congress and their staffs, who were already forced into Obamacare’s exchanges.

Republicans argue that lawmakers should face the same conditions they are foisting on average Americans — including not being able to get help from their employers to pay premiums.

But the new bill doesn’t include a repeal of Obamacare’s medical device tax nor does it call for stricter verification measures — both options that Republican leaders had floated early in the day.

Via: Washington Times

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Palin: ‘Defaulting On Our National Debt Is An Impeachable Offense’

WASHINGTON (CBSDC) — Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin believes President Barack Obama should be impeached if he raises the debt ceiling without the backing of Congress.

In a Facebook post, Palin said Obama is “scaremongering the markets” on the prospect of default if the nation’s borrowing limit doesn’t rise by Oct. 17.

“Defaulting on our national debt is an impeachable offense, and any attempt by President Obama to unilaterally raise the debt limit without Congress is also an impeachable offense,” Palin said. “A default would also be a shameful lack of leadership, just as mindlessly increasing our debt without trying to rein in spending is a betrayal of our children and grandchildren who will be stuck with the bill.”

Boehner: ‘There Have Been No Decisions About What Exactly’ House Republicans Will Do

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell are reportedly close to striking a deal that would fund the government through Jan. 15 and raise the nation’s debt ceiling through Feb. 15, according to CBS News. Even if the Senate does pass this legislation, it still must be approved by the GOP-controlled House.

Via: CBS DC

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House GOP drops ObamaCare’s medical-device tax from new bill, final cave looming

The most pitiful part of what’s happening right now isn’t the cave itself, which was predictable since day one of the quixotic “defund” effort, but the fact that they’re going to drag it out another day or two to the bitter end purely for theatrical purposes. There’s a 99 percent chance that Reid will reject whatever emerges tonight from the House, leaving Boehner to float a clean debt-ceiling hike tomorrow and let Pelosi and the Democrats bail him out, but in order to marginally reduce the upset among grassroots conservatives, he’s going to push this to the last possible moment. That means passing — hopefully — one more House bill to show that he really did try to get something in return for raising the debt limit, even though what he and House Republicans are now asking for barely qualifies as “something.”

Now that the medical-device tax is out, the already weak House bill has even fewer ObamaCare-related demands in it than it did this morning. And the punchline is, it’s been pulled not as a concession to Obama but because House conservatives regard it as a giveaway to business lobbyists. As James Antle put it, “So the only easily gettable Obamacare concession is out because Rs can’t sell it as Obamacare concession.”

Conservatives complained today that delaying the [medical-device] tax would be “crony capitalism” and they can’t sell it to the Republican base as a viable Republican win.

But that swift change hasn’t stalled the GOP’s push for a Tuesday vote. “The leaders are giving us one more chance to get something passed out of the House before the Senate does its thing,” says a veteran House Republican. “I think we’ll get it through, at least that’s my sense of things now. We want to do something that marks our position, so we don’t end up swallowing whatever terrible bait the Senate casts our way. Now, I know, and the majority of us know, that this is futile. But believe me, even getting to 218 on this plan will be an achievement.”…

House insiders say Boehner’s fear is that conservative activists and powerful conservative groups start to align against the bill and rattle its fragile coalition. If that happens, and the bill’s support falls apart, a simple, six-week debt-ceiling extension is still in the leadership’s back pocket, but there’s no plan to bring that up anytime soon. More likely, should things fizzle on the whip front, is that another conference meeting is called and the House GOP “gets real,” as one Boehner ally puts it, about “what’s possible within divided government, and whether Republicans are willing to back anything at all.”

Translation: The leadership’s going to make one last stand tonight to show conservative voters that they really fought on this, even though what they’re now fighting for is worthless to everyone, and then inform House conservatives tomorrow that they have no choice but to pass some sort of clean debt-ceiling hike with Democratic help. That’s because “what’s possible within divided government” was painfully apparent two weeks ago, but if Boehner had caved then instead of now, he would have been accused of not “trying.” So he went through the motions of trying, up to and including a shutdown, and now it’s time to do the responsible thing and not risk a new recession with a technical default. Meanwhile, the Senate isn’t doing anything right now except waiting to see if Boehner can get anything passed through the House with Republican votes. If he can’t, then Reid will might well end up demanding that even the token concessions to the GOP in his bill with McConnell be dropped. After all, it’ll be Democrats who are now the main actors in passing something in the lower chamber, not Republicans.

Via: Hot AIr

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RYAN: WE DEMANDED INDIVIDUAL MANDATE DELAY ON OBAMACARE

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI), chair of the House Budget Committee, told conservative talk radio host Charlie Sykes Monday morning that House Republicans had demanded a one-year delay in Obamacare's individual mandate, along with an end to congressional exemptions, while offering a six-week debt ceiling hike to allow room for negotiations on broader budget issues. The offer was made to President Barack Obama last Thursday.

President Obama, said Ryan, listened but declined to respond. In the meantime, Ryan said, it became clear the president was negotiating separately to obtain more favorable terms from Senate Republicans, trying to "jam" the House Republicans in the process. Ryan told Sykes that Obama and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid had "overplayed their hand" in attempting to prolong the crisis to maximize political damage to Republicans.

Ryan described the delay to the individual mandate as an "obvious" step to take, given that technical issues with the Obamacare exchanges might prevent the mandate from being enforced at all. "We could have spent the weekend putting an agreement together that says we're gonna deal with the debt, we're gonna deal with this economy, and we're gonna fix these big flaws in Obamacare, or at least give people delays in these penalties."

Instead, he said, the President and his party had declined, believing that they had a "partisan advantage." In response to new demands from Democrats to cancel the sequester cuts in the Budget Control Act of 2011, Ryan declared: "We are not going to give on these spending numbers." He said that there were some areas of agreement on changes to entitlements, but that Democrats wanted to spend more money and preserve Obamacare.

Via: Breitbart

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