Gee. Thanks.

I know that this isn’t a new line for them or anything, but their continued insistence on deceiving the (largely unemployed!) youth coalition with promises of free stuff is just as morally- and fiscally-bankrupting as it ever was. From HHS’s health care blog: To the Class of 2013: Congratulations on a well-earned graduation. I know [...]

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Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!

Lest we forget amidst the several other scandals currently blowing up in the Obama administration’s face (it is rather difficult to keep up), last Friday we learned that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has been hitting up health-care industry executives and groups, directly asking them to make donations to the non-profits that are [...]

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...Sketch?

Before the election last year, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius got into a bit of a jam when she violated federal law by ‘accidentally’ endorsing President Obama’s reelection at an appearance in her official HHS capacity — and it sounds like she’s once again wading dangerously close to even more questionable territory, this [...]

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"The politics has been relentless and that continues." ...You don't say?

At an event on Monday night, HHS Secretary Sebelius acknowledged some of the messiness of the ongoing ObamaCare implementation, but of course had at least one readily available excuse as to why the administration is so very unreasonably put-upon at the moment: Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Monday that she did [...]

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Strugglebus?

The Obama administration has been insisting [through gritted teeth] that the health care overhaul’s implementation is indeed complex but going just swimmingly, thank you very much, but the fact remains that the federal government is now at least partially responsible for creating and running 33 states’ health insurance exchanges. The exchanges are supposed to be [...]

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Yes.

Things that could have been brought to our attention….three years ago! This segment is a bit myopic, dealing mostly with whether Sec. Kathleen Sebelius said this (yes, she did) and one study that shows costs going up. But it’s decent as far as it goes, and we could have used a whole lot more such [...]

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Cause, meet effect.

As you might remember, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act was largely sold to the American people on the premise that it would help to make health care and health insurance more… well… affordable. Au contraire, says yet another study fleshing out the practical effects of the ObamaCare mandate: Under the Affordable Care Act, [...]

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[Groan.]

We had to pass it to find out what in it’s, but now that we’re finding out about all of the expensive, inefficient, market-distorting facets of the health care overhaul, the Obama administration’s main failing is still — still — that they just haven’t explained it well enough to us simpletons. We’re just not getting [...]

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That wasn't a question.

Ensuring us that “the state of American healthcare is getting stronger,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius once more extolled the many inherent virtues of ObamaCare and the recent innovations in its administration at a conference in DC on Tuesday. Keep telling yourselves that, White House: Innovations in care delivery and President Obama’s signature health law are [...]

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Resistance is futile.

Or, in other words: Just give in already to the power of the all-knowing and all-powerful bureaucracy. Trust us. Last June, the Supreme Court ruled that ObamaCare’s Medicaid mandate (requiring that states expand their programs and provide specified health care to all citizens whose income falls below a certain threshold, or else face losing all [...]

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No, not really.

Actually, the answer is no, and it wasn’t intended to do so either, as I write in a new column for The Fiscal Times.  The Obama administration was under a court order to modify the mandate regulation after a legal representation to a federal court that HHS never intended to enforce the mandate in its [...]

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Partially ... perhaps.

So says CNN, which hears from two different sources that an opt-out will be created for “religiously affiliated organizations.”  While that may be good news for hospitals, charities, and schools linked to churches, it may not address the objections of private business owners: Religiously affiliated organizations will be able to opt out of providing their [...]

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Clarification.

Three years ago, John Mackey angered many of his Whole Foods consumer base by equating ObamaCare with socialism and arguing that health-care reform should use capitalism as a lever for real improvement.  Now, however, the CEO and co-founder of the health-food chain wants to clarify his earlier comments. Technically, ObamaCare is actually an example of [...]

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I fear you are underestimating the sneakiness.

Last spring, the ObamaCare individual mandate survived the Supreme Court arguments as a constitutionally permissible tax, and it’s a tax that the health care law’s advocates defended as absolutely necessary in order to herd enough healthy people into the system to pay for everyone’s illnesses. Most unfortunately, the Obama administration is quickly discovering that they [...]

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From incompetence to corruption?

Republican lawmakers are asking a contractor building Obamacare’s federal data hub and health care exchange to explain how it’s going to resolve its massive conflict of interest. Why? Maryland-based Quality Software Services, Inc. (QSSI), was awarded the contract to build the federal data hub and other technological components of the federal exchange early this year. [...]

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Precedents.

That’s what Rep. Joe Walsh tells the Daily Caller, fresh off of a report from the Office of Special Counsel that found the HHS Secretary had campaigned while on official duty — a big no-no.  On the law, Walsh has a point: Illinois Republican Rep. Joe Walsh told The Daily Caller he thinks President Barack [...]

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My bad.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, of ObamaCare-implementation fame (or rather, notoriety, as the case may be), had a bit of a slip-up that violated federal law during an official government event when she ‘accidentally’ endorsed President Obama and a local Democratic politician. Via CNN: The Office of the Special Counsel on Wednesday announced [...]

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"We believe this mandate is an intrusion on our religious liberty, as protected under the US Constitution."

Meet the latest litigants in the fight against the HHS mandate on contraception and sterilization.  Biola University’s entry into the fight is notable for a few reasons.  First, this is not a Catholic institution; its doctrine is specifically evangelical (as is Grace College’s), including an explicit statement of belief in the Rapture.  Its influence as [...]

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Republican bill would stop HHS waivers

A coalition of Republicans in the House and Senate vowed to preserve the work requirements at the heart of welfare reform after the Obama administration announced last week it would illegally gut the 1996 law. Lawmakers could vote in the coming days on a plan that prohibits the administration from implementing its unilateral action. The [...]

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"Jesus didn't limit his ministry to the four walls of the church..."

Yes she did, although I doubt she intended to do so.  In a speech today to a conference of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, the First Lady explained her concept of citizenship by likening it to the ministry of Jesus.  Her explanation corroborates the same point that the US Conference of Catholic Bishops have been [...]

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A come-to-Jesus moment?

Today’s Roman Catholic calendar lists May 21st as the feast day of St. Christopher Magallanes, a martyr killed for celebrating Mass during the Cristero War in Mexico. Perhaps Catholics today may want to recall St. Thomas More — the patron saint of lawyers, who was executed for refusing to agree to a mandate that gave [...]

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Booooooooooo!

After a week of controversy over her invitation to speak at Georgetown University’s commencement ceremonies, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius finally delivered her speech to the graduates at the Catholic school.  With the cardinal of the archdiocese publicly rebuking university president John DiGioia over both the invitation and his non-sequitur defense, the stage was set for [...]

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"The real issue ... the most direct challenge to religious liberty in recent history."

The news earlier this month that Georgetown University had invited HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to deliver a commencement speech resulted in an eruption of criticism for the school’s president, John J. DeGioia.  The church has bitterly criticized the HHS mandate that would force Catholic institutions to fund contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients that violate the tenets [...]

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Hmmm.

In 2008, Barack Obama won the Catholic vote by nine points, 54/45, over John McCain on his way to a seven-point victory in the national popular vote.  Three months after announcing the HHS mandate that would force religious hospitals, schools, and charities to fund contraception, sterilization, and abortifacients, Obama has lost that edge among the [...]

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Defiance.

Earlier this week, the New York Post warned readers that the Obama administration planned to use an $8.3 billion in HHS appropriations as a “slush fund” to hide the impact of ObamaCare on choice options for seniors that would otherwise have hit just before the election in November.  That same day, the General Accounting Office [...]

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