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Tag: affordable healthcare act

  • Justice Sotomayor Blocks Birth Control For Nuns?

    In a move that will surely make some people scratch their head, Justice Sotomayor has issued a reprieve a day before the Affordable Healthcare Act would be the law of the land. The government is temporarily prevented from enforcing contraceptive coverage requirements against (wait for it…wait for it…) a group of Denver-based nuns. The Little Sisters of the Poor Home for the Aged for whatever reason expect that area of the Affordable Healthcare Act to apply to their organization.

    A statement released by the White House said that they, “…remain confident that our final rules strike the balance of providing women with free contraceptive coverage while preventing non-profit religious employers with religious objections to contraceptive coverage from having to contract, arrange, pay, or refer for such coverage.”

    In other words if you want to have condoms and birth control pills available to you, they will be. Meanwhile if you’re a nun who no one is expecting to require either of these items for a host of reasons, you won’t be forced to endure the nightmare of health care coverage for them either.

    But it’s not just the nuns who came forward and ask that the law be blocked. Other religious bodies such as the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Washington, the Catholic Diocese of Nashville, Catholic University and the Michigan Catholic Conference, have asked for the law and related fines to be delayed while they make their arguments. Government officials are expected to respond by Friday.

    Some individuals religiously and morally object to any form of birth control to the point that they do not want to be reimbursed for any of it; they simply want to avoid paying for it altogether. It should be noted that unwanted pregnancies will cost American taxpayers of all faiths about $11 billion dollars a year. This is apparently no small price to pay to do what you feel is right religiously.

    The idea that persons can opt out of American Healthcare Act by raising a “religious” objection might be a slippery slope. How many Americans who’ve never gone to church a day in their life can suddenly cite first amendment rights to avoid paying for the health care benefits of their employees? No doubt more sensible compromises will be reached. If not, it should set quite the precedent.

    What do YOU think: Was this reprieve given because the groups raise important legal questions or was it religious posturing over a secular law? How should the government respond to circumstances like this?

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • HealthCare.gov Aims to Sign Up 4 of 5 Americans

    The Washington Post reported today that the Affordable Care Act’s primary website, HealthCare.gov, will be capable of getting 80 percent of Americans on an insurance plan, but that still leaves 20 percent who will remain without insurance.

    According to the best-case scenario from the Obama administration, those 20 percent will be unable to purchase insurance online because of either their personal lives’ complexity or the site’s ineptitude; that conclusion is based on an internal target that has not been made public by the Obama administration.

    Whether the government succeeds in getting 80 percent of Americans enrolled is a central factor of President Barack Obama’s healthcare effort. Although administration officials acknowledged that they had no concrete definition for a successfully functioning Obamacare site, creating one wouldn’t have made any sense until they had a site to define; I.E., HealthCare.gov.

    Julie Bataille, communications director for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said “We are very focused on measuring performance of the site now and moving forward and making sure we have ways to demonstrate progress… [HealthCare.gov will] work smoothly for the vast majority of users [by the end of November].”

    The “vast majority” quote has become a repeated mantra for the administration, with little exposition about what it could mean. It was coined by former White House management official Jeffrey Zients, who was assigned to oversee the repair of HealthCare.gov.

    CNN notes Zients speaking with reporters on Friday about the site’s functioning: “As we prioritize fixes on HealthCare.gov, we focus on system performance and functionality, things like site stability, speed and usability that make a real difference to the consumer,” he said. “But to be clear as you would experience with any major new site, new bugs and other glitches will surface in December and beyond and as they surface we will fix them.”

    Additionally, two of the engineers who worked on analyzing HealthCare.gov said the site looks “a lot cleaner.” Media Temple president and COO Russ Reeder told CNN that “You can tell from the website that there are people working it and making changes. And those changes are good. [But] there are still many changes they can still make.”

    [Image via HealthCare.gov]

  • Mitch McConnell & Ted Cruz: How Do We Defund Obamacare?

    Mitch McConnell & Ted Cruz: How Do We Defund Obamacare?

    The Washington Examiner reported on Monday that Kentucky Senator and Republican Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that he would not support Senators Ted Cruz and Mike Lee in their efforts to filibuster a resolution that would defund Obamacare. Consequently, because House Republicans sponsored the resolution that Cruz and Lee want to filibuster, a distinct possibility exists that the government will shut down by next week.

    The filibuster efforts weren’t helped by Minority Whip John Cornyn, who joined McConnell in siding against Cruz and Lee. The move is politically unusual, mostly because McConnell, Cornyn, Cruz, and Lee all want the same thing: funding for the government, but no funding for Obamacare.

    The Wall Street Journal reported McConnell saying, “I just don’t happen to think filibustering a bill that defunds Obamacare is the best route to defunding Obamacare. All it does is shut down the government and keep Obamacare funded. And none of us want that.”

    McConnell believes that the final vote, scheduled by Harry Reid for today, would be the primary test of Democrats going face-to-face with an unenthusiastic electorate. “If five Senate Democrats vote against the Majority Leader, Obamacare will be defunded. That’s a vote we should want to have,” McConnell said.

    Across the aisle, Democratic Majority Leader Harry Reid charged Republicans to back down and give up fighting a law that was passed three years ago. Reid went on to suggest that if a government shutdown takes place, Republicans will be to blame. Then, he quoted Confucius: “When an anger rises, think of the consequences… It is time to stop obsessing over old battles.”

    A spokesman for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, Matt Canter, told the Wall Street Journal that McConnell is fighting an uphill battle against both parties. “Mitch McConnell is terrified of Ted Cruz and the tea party… Regardless of his rhetoric, voters know that McConnell is the reason for gridlock and dysfunction in Washington, and if there is a shutdown, he will shoulder the blame,” Canter said.

    If you’re interested in reading quotes from other politicians about the filibuster, Fox News collected some from the talk show circuit.

    [Image via a YouTube video of McConnell trashing Harry Reid]

  • Health Care Decision: Turn Your Head & Cough Because Here’s What’s Next

    Health Care Decision: Turn Your Head & Cough Because Here’s What’s Next

    There’s been a firestorm of reactions this morning following the Supreme Court’s decision that Obama’s health care mandate requiring individuals to buy health care insurance or be penalized is, in fact, constitutional. Many people are upset, many people are excited. Some say it’s a victory for Obama, some are (confusingly) saying that this is a victory for Romney. Among all of the things being said, Nate Silver perhaps summed it up the best:

    In other words, what are we to think now when the President Bush-appointed Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the high court’s liberals while Justice Anthony Kennedy swung toward the court’s more conservative sect? Who knows. One thing you can hedge your bet on is that this will not be the last any of us have heard about Obama’s health care reform – far from that, really. You might expect that the SCOTUS decision will intensify the debate instead of tempering it. To borrow from Chief Justice Roberts’ opinion, “That is not the end of the matter.”

    At any rate, there are a number of different outcomes that could have been put into motion today, although now there’s just one that will be the focus of the government: how Congress will respond. Ahead of today’s ruling, Buzzfeed compiled what is basically a “Murder, F***, Kill” guide for the health care ruling and what to expect to happen as a result of the court’s decision. Now that we know what the high court has ruled, it might be worth returning to Buzzfeed’s map of what will likely happen now that the health care law has been deemed constitutional.

    Health Care Act

    Just one more thing to complicate this already perplexing, troubling election year.