Obama: ‘This Has Never Been a Government Takeover of Health Care’

(CNSNews.com) – In a Rose Garden press conference on Thursday, President Barack Obama reacted to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling upholding Obamacare subsidies, calling it “a victory for hard-working Americans,” adding that “this has never been a government takeover of health care.”

“This has never been a government takeover of health care despite cries to the contrary. This reform remains what it’s always been – a set of fairer rules and tougher protections that have made health care in America more affordable, more attainable and more about you, the consumer, the American people. It’s working,” said Obama in praising the high court ruling.

“Today is a victory for hard-working Americans all across this country whose lives will continue to become more secure in a changing economy because of this law,” said the president.

As CNSNews.com reported, the justices ruled 6-3 that the subsidies that people receive to make insurance affordable do not depend on where they live. "Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them," Chief Justice Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.

“Because of this law, and because of today’s decision, millions of Americans who I hear from every single day will continue to receive the tax credits that have given about eight in 10 people who buy insurance on the new marketplaces the choice of a health care plan that costs less than $100 a month,” said Obama.

“As the law’s provisions have gradually taken effect, more than 16 million uninsured Americans have gained coverage so far. Nearly one in three Americans who was uninsured a few years ago is insured today,” he said.

Via: CNS News

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A Real Halloween Scare By Charlie Daniels

When President Bush nominated John Roberts for Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and he was confirmed, I was extremely pleased as I believed him to be a man of integrity and common sense who would look out for the interests of the American people and defend the Constitution against all comers.

But with Judge Roberts's Obamacare Decision, evidently prompted by some arcane interpretation of semantics, he singlehandedly burdened three hundred and fifty million people with an unworkable, impractical, economy-destroying piece of legislation the slugs on Capitol Hill passed without even reading, the most nation-changing piece of socialistic corruption to come along in America's history.

For one man to wield this kind of power, to control the tie-breaking decision that will affect lives in this country for generations to come is a frightening and intimidating thing.

And when you stop and think about the power America has placed in the hands of the federal government, with no checks and balances, that can't in one way or another be manipulated by visible or invisible powers, it will dawn on you just how dangerous and freedom-threatening a clumsy, gluttonous, monolithic, central government really is.

Big government is cold, impersonal, always looking for ways to expand its power and control over our lives.

Via: CNS News

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Are Obamacare Enrollment Pressures Unconstitutional?

As each day passes, the various facets of Obamacare are getting implemented in order to be fully operational by January 1, 2014. But we are hearing about the difficulties in the implementation caused primarily by either 1) the website fiasco; 2) low number of enrollees; and 3) people wanting to pay the penalties in order to avoid having to pay for intentionally overpriced health “insurance”.

In order to achieve adequate and targeted enrollment in Obamacare those representing the Government have begun to be aggressive. They are choosing to use all methods at their disposal to pressure, cajole, and otherwise push people to “do the right thing” and buy the mandated insurance product. This began in earnest last spring, as the Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius was given millions at her disposal to dispatch “navigators” and “in-person assisters” to help enroll more Americans into Obamacare. But the very act of doing so may be rendering Obamacare unconstitutional.

It is worthwhile to remember that the only way in which the law of Obamacare was saved from being declared unconstitutional was the that that there is no penalty associated with Obamacare, which would have made it subject to the Commerce Clause. It was ruled to be a “tax” derived from not purchasing the mandated health coverage. In reaching his conclusion, Justice Roberts accepted the Administration’s argued position that there is absolutely no negative interference whatsoever on anyone opting to pay the “tax” rather than buy the product.

Therefore, any attempt by the administration or any of the implementing bodies to pressure, threaten or even imply some sort of wrongdoing by those choosing to not buy insurance would be clearly unconstitutional.

If those implementing Obamacare are properly following the Supreme Court’s mandate, they should be telling prospective insurance purchasers that they should be deciding for themselves whether they would be better off with the insurance or the penalty. We know this is not happening. At the macro level, governors have been hustled to implement the exchanges in their states. And at the individual level, Obamacare officials are pushing for more enrollees to ensure a steady flow of premiums paid by healthy patients in order to cover those who are high-risk and high-cost.

Via: Canada Free Press

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ObamaCare's Original Sin

Democrats tell us that ObamaCare is "the law of the land," and that the Supreme Court declared it constitutional, and that we should get used to it -- it's here to stay. Actually, the Court found ObamaCare unconstitutional on two counts, but let it pass anyway.

The problem for defenders of ObamaCare is that its court challenges just keep coming. One place to check up on them is the website Health Care Lawsuits. In September, the American Enterprise Institute ran an article by Chris Conover headlined "Will the Courts Derail Obamacare?" The article covers several of the ongoing court challenges to ObamaCare, including the status of each case. (The article also ran at Forbes.)

On October 5, National Review ran a terrific article by former federal prosecutor Andrew McCarthy that addresses a specific legal challenge:

It is not just that the intensely unpopular Obamacare was unconstitutional as fraudulently portrayed by the president and congressional Democrats who strong-armed and pot-sweetened its way to passage. It is that Obamacare is unconstitutional as rewritten by Roberts. It is a violation of the Origination Clause -- not only as I have expansively construed it, but even under Matt's narrow interpretation of the Clause. [...] The Clause requires that tax bills must originate in the House of Representatives. Obamacare did not.

McCarthy refers to the individual mandate, which Justice Roberts "rewrote" as a tax. However, the Senate bill that became ObamaCare had several other taxes, such as the tax on medical devices, before Roberts ever got to the law.

Via: American Thinker

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New book takes you behind the scenes of the constitutional challenge to Obamacare

The opportunity to stop Obamacare has largely passed, argues Josh Blackman, author of the new book, ”Unprecedented: The Constitutional Challenge to Obamacare.”

“Despite efforts to defund or stop Obamacare now, the time to stop this law was in 2008. Or 2010. Or 2012,” Blackman told The Daily Caller in an interview about his new tome, which tells the inside story of the legal challenge to overturn President Obama’s health-care law.

“There were three elections that could have stopped the law. If the Republicans had one more vote in the Senate in 2009, they could have filibustered the law, and stopped it dead in its tracks. If the GOP had taken over the Senate and the House in 2010, they could have delayed, or perhaps halted implementation of the parts until after the 2012 election. Had Mitt Romney won the presidency in 2012, he could have signed into law a repeal of Obamacare, before it was implemented. But none of those things happened. In the end of this unprecedented journey, Obamacare survived, and we hurtle towards its implementation in the coming months.

Nonetheless, Blackman, a professor at South Texas College of Law whose friends and colleagues were instrumental actors in the legal fight to overturn Obamacare, says several legal challenges to the law are still on-going.

“There are a few legal challenges remaining against Obamacare,” he said.

“One suit alleges that Obamacare does not permit the federal government to pay out subsidies to people enrolled in the health-care exchanges in states that did not opt into the Medicaid expansion. If this suit is successful, it would halt the Obamacare exchanges in states that are not participating in the expansion. Another suit alleges that because the individual mandate was a tax (as rewritten by the Chief Justice), and because the Constitution requires that all taxes originate in the House, and Obamacare began in the Senate, the law is unconstitutional. If this suit is successful, the mandate would be unconstitutional. Though, a federal judge has already dismissed this suit and it is being appealed.”

Even though the Supreme Court did not overturn President Obama’s health-care law in its 2011 decision, Blackman says determining who actually won the legal battle remains “complicated.”

“It’s complicated on a few levels,” Blackman explained.

Via: The Daily Caller

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