• “Put simply, Congress acted without constitutional authority in enacting the Individual Mandate of the PPACA. In so doing, it has damaged Congress’ institutional legitimacy and has triggered severe conflicts between state and federal governments that the Constitution was carefully designed to avert.”
• “Because the Individual Mandate regulates a simple decision or choice not to purchase a particular product, it exceeds the proper scope of the Commerce Clause.”

The amicus brief was signed by:Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-TN), Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-NH), Sen. John Barrasso (R-WY), Sen. Roy Blunt (R-MO), Sen. John Boozman (R-AR), Sen. Richard Burr (R-NC), Sen. Saxby Chambliss (R-GA), Sen. Daniel Coats (R-IN), Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK), Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS), Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), Sen. Bob Corker (R-TN), Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), Sen. Mike Crapo (R-ID), Sen. Jim DeMint (R-SC), Sen. Michael Enzi (R-WY), Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-IA), Sen. Dean Heller (R-NV), Sen. John Hoeven (R-ND), Sen. Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE), Sen. Ron Johnson (R-WI), Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ), Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT), Sen. Richard Lugar (R-IN), Sen. John McCain (R-AZ), Sen. Jerry Moran (R-KS), Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK), Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH), Sen. James Risch (R-ID), Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Sen. John Thune (R-SD), Sen. Pat Toomey (R-PA), Sen. David Vitter (R-LA), Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS).

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The Weekly Standard has a great article about the likelihood of repealing ObamaCare in the coming years.  According to American Crossroads PAC, the importance of the ObamaCare repeal in the 2012 election will determine the chances of repeal in the future.

From the article:

More than anything else, what will determine success or failure in making that case and building that momentum is the degree to which the Republican presidential nominee chooses to make repeal a cornerstone of his campaign.  Mitt Romney lists repealing Obamacare as one of the 59 points in his economic plan, but he doesn’t list it among the plan’s top-5 legislative priorities. Moreover, rather than saying he has learned from his mistakes, that he now knows we need an approach that focuses on lowering health costs (and preserving liberty), and that he believes what happens in liberal Massachusetts should stay firmly in Massachusetts, he has defended his health-care law in ways thatcould often double as defenses of Obamacare.  

Mitt Romney has repeatedly said that if he were elected President he would issue an executive order that would give an ObamaCare waiver to every state and that would effectively repeal ObamaCare. The problem with this approach is that the EO would be unlawful. 

When Congress creates a law, agencies are required to implement the law as Congress has written. Now, Congress has routinely delegated certain authorities to the President, a Secretary or an Agency head allowing an official in the Executive Branch and this has included discretion as to how to implement a law and the power to promulgate regulations in furtherance of Congressional intent. Congress has also given the Secretary of HHS the express power to issue waivers, for example, related to a state's Medicaid program. 

As AHEC has previously explained, the problem with HHS's issuance of waivers under ObamaCare is that Congress did not give HHS any authority whatsoever to issue waivers related to the minimum coverage requirements of ObamaCare. Where, then, does HHS Secretary Sebelius derive her so-called "authority" to issue waivers? Contrary to federal law - she bestowed that power upon herself by issuing regulations that granted her that power. This is an unlawful grant of authority and the exercise of this authority is a direct violation of federal law (waivers have been issued for political purposes - to isolate groups from the affects of ObamaCare in advance of the 2012 election).

So, as Michael Cannon from CATO, explains the proposed RomneyCare waiver is equally unlawful. Cannon also explains an alternative that the next President could take that would dramatically undermine ObamaCare. Canon writes:

"there is one executive order that could effectively block ObamaCare, and that lies well within the president’s powers. The Obama administration has issued a proposed IRS rule that would offer 'premium assistance' (a hybrid of tax credits and outlays) in health insurance 'exchanges' created by the federal government. The only problem is, ObamaCare only authorizes these tax credits and outlays in 'an Exchange established by the State.' The administration did so because without premium assistance, ObamaCare will collapse, at least in states that do not create their own Exchanges. Yet the executive branch does not have the power to create new tax credits and outlays. Only Congress does. So if the final version of this IRS rule offers premium assistance in federal Exchanges, it will clearly exceed the authority that Congress and the Constitution have delegated to the executive branch. In that case, the next president could issue an executive order directing the IRS either not to offer premium assistance in federal Exchanges or to rescind this rule and draft a new one that does not."

UPDATE: The IRS has sent a letter to at least one Member of Congress saying it will move ahead and allow exchange subsidies to be handed out from federal exchanges (despite the clear lack of authority).

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CQ Healthbeat is reporting that nearly every state is taking ObamaCare cash - including those that are fighting the law in court. This reeks of hypocrisy on the part of Republican Governors and state legislators who have authorized the states to fight ObamaCare in the courts. Taking money appropriated by a law that one believe's is unconstitutional is not just hypocrisy, it is a betrayal of the very people who elected you to fight for their freedoms. Reports are that the following states accepted money:

• Alabama, $8.5 million
• Arizona, $29.8 million
• Delaware, $3.4 million
• Hawaii, $14.4 million
• Idaho, $20.3 million
• Iowa, $7.7 million
• Maine, $5.8 million
• Michigan, $9.8 million
• Nebraska, $5.4 million
• New Mexico, $34.2 million
• Tennessee, $1.5 million
• Vermont, $18 million
• Rhode Island, $58.5 million

Today, CMS announced that it had doled out nearly $200 million to 13 states to establish ObamaCare exchanges and released a series of Questions and Answers about the Exchange money.

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Country music star Collin Raye is speaking out against ObamaCare, saying: "Obamacare takes away medical decision from families and doctors and put them into the hands of bureaucrats." 

He has also agreed to be the national spokesman for the Life & Hope Network which advocates for people with disabilities and impairment.

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Grace-Marie Turner at the Galen Institute has a wonderfully researched article entitled "ObamaCare: A Hidden Jobs Killer" that was published by The New York Post.  Her article explains that the U.S. economy was recovering until the passage of ObamaCare, after which, job creation has stalled.  She links the issue of joblessness and ObamaCare making a compelling case for the need to fully repeal this onerous, job-killing law.  

AHEC's commends the article to you, the full article can be found here.

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On August 2, 2011, Senator Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) was joined by Senator Lamar Alexander (R-TN) and Mike Enzi (R-WY) in introducing a new bill - S. 1500 - to allow for the sale of child-only policies across state lines. One of the consequences of ObamaCare is that many insurers have stopped selling child-only policies (COP) in many states because ObamaCare prohibits the denial of coverage for any pre-existing conditions.

At first blush, one might think that the Murkowski bill is a good thing because it advances the Republican idea of allowing insurers to sell across state lines. That is a short-sighted view of the legislation.   In fact, Murkowski's legislation is horribly misguided for the following reasons:

1. It addresses a symptom, rather than fixing the problem. The problem is ObamaCare and the way it bans denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions (it lets people wait to get sick before buying coverage rather than limiting the guarantee of coverage only to those who maintained continuous coverage). The way to correct the problem would be to repeal the offending provisions of ObamaCare, including those related to denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions in child-only policies (the fact is that the pool is too small for these policies to bear this kind of risk).
   
2. Rather than expand coverage for child-only policies, it will likely have the opposite affect leading to fewer COP policies being available.  How? Assume a scenario where an insurer in Tennessee is still selling COPs but there are no insurers selling these policies in the states surrounding Tennessee.  Parents of a child with a pre-existing condition from Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, North Carolina, Kentucky, Arkansas and Missouri will rush to Tennessee to buy a COP as the only affordable source of insurance for their very sick child. This will negatively affect Tennessee's risk pool, leading to increased premiums, parents of healthier kids will drop out of the pool, leaving only the very sick.  This will lead to a death spiral for COP policies as insurers in TN would stop offering the COPs altogether.  End result: fewer, not more, kids would have insurance.   
3. It signals a capitulation by moderate Republicans that ObamaCare is here to stay. Murkowski and Alexander are often the first among Senate Republicans to cave in to Democrats and Enzi has worked regularly over the past decade, including with the late Teddy Kennedy (D-MA), to advance big government policies.
4. S. 1500 fails to understand the intended purpose of allowing for the sale of insurance across state lines.  The idea is intended to reduce the impact of state government regulations and mandates that drive up costs. Letting consumers buy across state lines let them migrate from high-cost, high-regulated insurance policies in their home state towards more affordable policies in another state that are free from heavy government regulation.  So allowing for the sale of insurance across state lines will effectively encourage competition to help reduce costs in the face of oppressive state regulation.  Murkowski-Alexander is misguided because they are trying to use the sale of insurance across state lines to circumvent the impact of onerous federal regulations, something that will ultimately prove impossible as long as the federal law remains in place.  
5. Politically, it gives Democrats a chance to play politics.  If the Democrat-controlled Senate holds a vote on the bill, Democrats who support the law would be able to  say they "fixed" the problem (the same one they created) - despite the fact these Democrats know this fix would only lasts for 2 years until ObamaCare fully kicks in.  After two years, child-only policies will die off as people will rush to the exchanges at a tremendous cost to taxpayers. 

Ultimately, Murkowski and Alexander would let the Democrats off the hook so that they never have to face the consequences of the Democrats' misquided ObamaCare policies.  All Americans will suffer in the long run.  This is the Republican version of the Obama Administration's waiver policy - politically motivated and horribly misguided - it fails to address the real problems in the insurance market that were created by ObamaCare in the first place.

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Senator Mike Enzi (R-WY) has introduced a bill to close one of ObamaCare's loopholes that allows early retirees with high incomes to enroll in Medicaid at the expense of federal and state loopholes.  Enzi has introduced a bill to close that loophole - according to Enzi's press release, his bill will save the taxpayers $13 billion.

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Political pundits on the left continue to point out that Republicans have abandoned their efforts to "repeal and replace" ObamaCare with real reform. They note that the House and Senate Republicans haven't tried to repeal the law since April. The left wants to use this fact with the hopes of convincing the American people of the "inevitability" of the law, however, there are other issues that affect health care that have taken center stage - principally the fight over the debt limit and the need for entitlement reform. Make no mistake about it, these two issues are linked despite the fact that the President has said that any changes to ObamaCare, in relation to the debt limit debate, are off the table.

Some have suggested that the President has no debt limit plan.  That isn't exactly true - the President has a plan and that plan is to do nothing and maintain the status quo.  As The Heritage Foundation pointed out last month, ObamaCare is the President's roadmap for health care in America.  And while it will ObamaCare makes Medicare and Medicaid worse - effectively threatening the plans solvency and very existence, the President will not consider changes to these programs as part of the debt limit solution or program solvency. Reform Medicaid discusses the President's entrenched position on Medicaid as follows: adding 25 billion to an already unsustainable program that has terrible inefficiencies and horrible health outcomes.

Republicans need to push to replace ObamaCare's entitlement expansion as part of the debt limit fight - marry these two issues - to demonstrate to the American people that the fight for individual liberty and health autonomy is as fundamental an American value as limited government.

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