Give power back to the people

Those of us in Virginia still coping without power after the storm know the feeling all too well. Like other Americans, we've been experiencing Obamacare, which steals power from patients and physicians and redirects it to the federal government.

Partisans pushed the health care law through Congress without considering the repercussions of increasing taxes during an economic crisis; without calculating the crippling cost of heaping sweeping mandates, draconian fines and mountains of regulations onto businesses; and without caring for the patients who would lose health care access after Medicare cuts left even more physicians unable to treat poor patients.

Perhaps no single feature of Obamacare better illustrates this bull-headed approach than the administration's nationwide mandate forcing virtually all employer insurance plans to include even the most controversial contraceptives and sterilization surgeries. The coercive rule tramples First Amendment rights by forcing many faith-based conscientious objectors to subsidize products considered morally repugnant. It also tramples free enterprise principles, by decreeing that insurers somehow must not only offer the products and services--including $6,000 sterilization surgeries--for free, while forbidding them to recoup their losses through premium adjustments.

It's time for Congress and the President to stop trying to take over the world and replace this overreaching law with sensible, measured and bipartisan health care reforms. Provide a sustainable safety net for the poor, restore and strengthen conscience protections, cut coverage costs by increasing competition across state lines, reform malpractice lawsuit excesses, cut fraud and reduce bureaucracy. 

Wrench power away from government bureaucrats and give it back to the people.

Pro-life problems remain after Obamacare decision

The following analysis from pro-life leaders in Congress is helpful in sorting out yesterday's Supreme Court decision:

The Supreme Court has issued a decision in the cases related to the Affordable Care Act. The decision is available here. Abortion-related issues remain. Examples of pro-life objections include:

1. Taxpayer funding for abortion coverage through the exchange premium assistance credits—complete with an abortion surcharge and secrecy clause.
2. The abortion surcharge and secrecy clause established in Section 1303 were added as the mechanism for abortion funding under the Affordable Care Act.  Any subsidized plan that includes abortion will charge a surcharge of at least $1 per person to go into an abortion fund, and insurance companies are only allowed to disclose the surcharge at the time of enrollment. 
3. Multi-state plans run by the federal Office of Personnel Management and subsidized, in part, by taxpayer subsidies, will still be allowed to cover abortion (except one must not include abortion as required in the ACA). 
4. Preventive services mandate.  This mandate is currently being used to mandate sterilization and contraceptive coverage including the morning-after-pill.  In the future it could be used to mandate surgical and RU-486 abortion coverage. 
5. Funding for abortion training is not excluded from the Teaching Health Graduate Medical Education (THCGME) program.
6. Possible future abortion funding through Community Health Centers, High Risk Pools and other directly funded programs. 
7. Potential funding for Planned Parenthood school-based health clinics.
8. Lack of strong conscience protections to stop the government from forcing health care entities to participate in abortion. 

Click on these links for more resources about these cases which argued the constitutionality of the individual mandate, severability, applicability of the Anti-Injunction Act, and whether Medicaid funds can be tied to compliance with the ACA:

·        Department of Health and Human Services v. Florida

·        National Federation of Independent Business v. Sebelius

·        Florida v. Department of Health and Human Services

CMA physicians: health care ruling keeps door open to "faith fines"

The nation's largest faith-based association of physicians, the Christian Medical Association (CMA, www.cmda.org), today lamented the Supreme Court's ruling on the Affordable Care Act, saying the decision threatens health care choice and "sounds an alarm across the country to people with faith-based and pro-life convictions."

CMA CEO Dr. David Stevens observed, "The high court unfortunately could not muster enough justices willing to uphold the Constitutional principles of limited government and separation of powers that have guided our nation since its founding. This ruling sounds an alarm across the country to people with faith-based and pro-life convictions, to poor patients who depend on physicians with these values and to all patients who value choosing their own health care.

"Who will stop U.S. Health and Human Services political appointees from forcing employers and individuals with faith-based convictions to subsidize abortion or life-ending contraceptives and imposing huge 'faith fines' on those of us who resist? What will stop this administration, with its radical pro-abortion agenda, from further undermining conscience rights and pursuing policies that effectively force out of medicine physicians with life-honoring convictions? Who will keep government panels from effectively denying physicians and patients choice about what are the most effective and appropriate medicines, surgeries and treatments?

"While court battles will continue over other aspects of the Affordable Care Act not addressed in today's decision, we have learned that we cannot simply rest in the hope that our courts will uphold Constitutional principles. We call on Congress to turn back this law's assault on our freedoms and restore American values and Constitutional principles in health care. Repeal this overreaching law and enact bipartisan, targeted health care reforms.

"Congress should demonstrate a new respect for the proper limits of government power, listen to the people and pursue a careful, measured approach of targeted reforms, including:

• protecting patient access to care by enacting strong conscience protections;
• providing a safety net for the poor and patients with preexisting conditions;
• containing the cost of health insurance by opening up competition across state lines;
• reducing cost and keeping physicians in medicine by reforming malpractice lawsuits and reducing bureaucracy; and by
• rooting out and prosecuting Medicare and Medicaid fraud.

CMA Executive VP Dr. Gene Rudd noted, "Compassionate and common-sense reforms like these offer hope for a health care system that cares for the most vulnerable among us while containing costs to make health insurance affordable for an ever-increasing number of Americans. It will also ensure that conscientious physicians who still hold to high ethical standards such as the Hippocratic oath will be able to remain in medicine and care for this increasing number of patients."

What next for health care reform?

The Supreme Court only tested the health care law's constitutionally, not its merits. That's for the people to decide, and a majority of Americans for the past two years have weighed the merits of the law and found it wanting.

Congress and the President now should take heed to constitutional and practical principles, stop trying to take over the world and focus instead on sensible, measured and bipartisan health care reforms:

• Instead of increasing taxes and bankrupting businesses, craft a sustainable safety net for the poor while cutting coverage costs by increasing competition across state lines. 
• Instead of trampling First Amendment rights with coercive contraceptives mandates, respect religious freedoms and strengthen conscience protections. 
• Instead of kowtowing to the trial lawyers' lobby, keep physicians in medicine by reforming malpractice lawsuit excesses. 
• Instead of cutting Medicare reimbursement rates, cut Medicare fraud. Instead of giving unelected bureaucrats the power to decide what medicines and surgeries patients receive, reduce bureaucracy and shift power away from the government and back to patients and physicians.

Given the partisan obtuseness in Washington that produced Obamacare in the first place, reforming health care may be challenging, but it's not brain surgery. Keep it simple, count the cost, follow the Constitution and listen to the people.

You are invited to a bipartisan panel, Religious Freedom and the HHS mandate

Rep. Buerkle

"Religious Freedom and the HHS Mandate: A Bipartisan Response to President Obama’s HHS Mandate"
Join U.S. Representatives:

• Jeff Fortenberry
• Ann Marie Buerkle
• Diane Black
• Dan Lipinski"

On Thursday, June 28 at 10:00 AM, Congressman Jeff Fortenberry (R-NE) will join Congresswoman Diane Black (R-TN), Congresswoman Ann Marie Buerkle (R-NY), and Congressman Dan Lipinksi (D-IL) for a public forum titled In Defense of Liberty: A Bipartisan Response to President Obama’s HHS Mandate at Georgetown University’s Gaston Hall. 

The forum will take place the morning of the expected Supreme Court ruling on the 2010 health care law’s constitutionality.

Dr. Tom Farr, Director of the Religious Freedom Project at the Georgetown University Berkley Center for Religion, Peace, and World Affairs, will moderate this thoughtful discussion analyzing President Obama’s Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate and its implications for individual liberty and religious freedom. Congressman Fortenberry will present and discuss his legislation, the Respect for Rights of Conscience Act (H.R. 1179).