Government · Health Care · Politics
The decision in the Halbig v. Burwell case this week was an unexpected legal boon to opponents of Obamacare. Spearheaded by the Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon and law professor Jonathan[...]
Featured · Health Care · Legal Affairs
It’s too soon for champagne, but perhaps a beer is in order. In a 2-1 decision in the case of Halbig v. Burwell, a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit has ruled that the Internal Revenue Service cannot interpret the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, as allowing subsidies for those Americans who purchase health insurance from the federal health insurance exchange known as Healthcare.gov. This is because the text of the law specifies that subsidies or tax credits are available for insurance purchased on state-created exchanges.
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Environment/Energy · Featured
Who says bipartisanship is dead? We recently had 57 Senators and 152 House members – (obviously) culled from both Parties – sign letters to Barack Obama Administration Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker. In which[...]
Government · Health Care · Politics · Taxes
The Heartland Institute attracted an overflow crowd at its headquarters’s library at 1 S. Wacker Drive, #2740, Chicago, IL, for an event on Thursday, July 17th at 5:30 p.m
Featured · Government · Legal Affairs
Yesterday’s narrow Hobby Lobby decision shows why the culture war isn’t over – it’s just getting started. The reality is that in the absence of the ability to compel employers to pay for things over their religious objections, and at a time when covering 16 forms of birth control out of 20 is culturally insufficient, the Obama administration will be more than happy to turn to the traditional method of the left: skipping the middle man of the employer and just handing people other people’s money.
Featured · Health Care · Legal Affairs
Following oral arguments, I was not optimistic about this ruling. The Court could have bought into the argument that Hobby Lobby can’t really complain about this requirement when they have the capability to not offer coverage at all, instead shifting people under their employ to the taxpayer via Medicaid or the exchanges. The penalty for offering coverage which fails to meet essential benefits is clearly absurd and sizable, but the penalty for not offering coverage at all would actually cost them less than offering coverage in the first place (around $26 million per year). The “gun to your head” penalty was the one which moved the court on the Medicaid/federalism question before, in a ruling that unexpectedly led to half the states declining to expand Medicaid. Justices Kagan and Sotomayor stressed this in oral argument and the Court could have found that this factor removes the pressure of an actual requirement. You can understand the reasoning: Just like the requirement to purchase insurance, it’s not illegal, it’s just a tax!
Since the end of the initial open enrollment period, there has been a marked rise in the frequency of a certain type of argument – an argument which I hear[...]
Economics · Featured · Government · Health Care · Liberty
The dearth of transplantable organs remains a serious problem in the United States and in much of the world. There are 123,000 Americans currently waiting for an organ. 18 of them die every day because demand continues to exceed supply. The problem has drawn the attention of many activists and policymakers, but sometimes the proposed solutions have proven more unpleasant than the problem. Chief among these unsavory solutions is the policy of opt-out organ donation.
Economics · Featured · Government · Health Care
Today, the Manhattan Institute re-released its Obamacare Interactive Map. The map is one of the most comprehensive and useful tools for people looking to determine how Obamacare will affect their healthcare premiums. Presenting data by county, individuals can see just how costly the “affordable” care act is going to be.
For years, advocates for smoke-free alternatives, such as electronic cigarettes and other e-vapor products, have known that these products are effective at helping smokers quit or dramatically reduce their cigarette consumption.
Featured · FIRE · Government
For every 100 mortgages being sold in the United States these days, at least 95 of them have government backing. We’re told America has a free-market economy? Not judging by the government’s involvement in housing, arguably the most important market there is. Most people can go years without needing health care. A healthy adult can go weeks without food. We cannot go one day without needing shelter.
In campaigning for the presidency, Barrack Obama inspired popular support of millions of voters by eloquently promising to “transform” America with “fundamental” change. Now his popularity is at its all-time[...]
Republicans have not unified behind a single bill to replace Obamacare because conservatives have been debating among themselves exactly what the components of that bill should be. The ongoing collapse[...]
The Veterans Administration (VA) has been a disaster since just about its inception. Because it is government-only monopoly single-payer health care. Championed by the exact same people dying to impose[...]
Economics · Featured · Government
We’ve seen it in too many sectors of the economy to possibly mention – both domestically and internationally. The greater the government involvement in an economic sector – the greater the ensuing economic damage. To that sector – and the broader economy.
The VA (Veterans Administration) scandals show why so many people have been so highly motivated for so long to fight against Obamacare. That is because of the perfectly rational fear that Obamacare will end up doing to the entire American health care system what the VA has done to health care for America’s veterans.
The prevailing Beltway view is that the GOP has corralled the Tea Party, domesticated it without giving it a real seat at the table. But I still think they misunderstand who’s locked in with whom.
Now that 8 million or more have signed up on health insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the President is deploying his phone and his pen to solve another urgent problem: climate change. This will require another transformational change that no previous President has been able to bring about, as they were unable to get around a recalcitrant Congress.
Government · Health Care · Politics
The news that some forty veterans died whlle waiting to receive care from a Phoenix Veterans Affairs hospital—care that was denied because of bureaucratic chicanery—will seem small in comparison to[...]
Budgets/Taxes · Economics · Featured · Politics
Conservatives need to wake up and start thinking past the rapidly passing age of Obama.
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