Daily Dose

In a Wall Street Journal op-ed, former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich and David Merritt discuss how new rules in ObamaCare targeting insurance companies may negatively impact patients. "What would you think if bureaucrats confiscated your iPhone because they decided it didn't provide enough value? State regulators may help the federal government do just that to the health-care benefits of millions of Americans. The most important element in implementing ObamaCare will be the requirement for health insurers to meet what is called a medical loss ratio. This requires health-insurance plans to split the dollars they receive from insurance premiums into two buckets."

The Joint Economic Committee minority unveils a new chart showing the complexity of Obamacare. "Senate Steering Committee Chairman Jim DeMint (R-South Carolina) called Obamacare 'a bureaucratic nightmare. The Democrats' takeover of health care creates a byzantine network of 159 new federal programs and bureaucracies to make decisions that should be between just the patient and their doctor. It should concern everyone that at the center of this regulatory web is the new CMS chief, Donald Berwick, who has championed rationing and European socialized medicine.'" The Daily Caller reports that Tennessee congressional candidate and constitutional lawyer "Van Irion says he's planning on doing everything he can to personally serve a complaint and motion for a preliminary injunction on President Obama, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Attorney General Eric Holder. The preliminary injunction is the first motion of its type to be filed and seeks to immediately bar the government from enforcing any aspect of the health care reform bill passed last March." Human Events features commentary outlining the efforts of the U.S. Citizens Association who "has assembled a team of constitutional litigators to launch a full-scale legal war against the Obama Administration's health insurance reform legislation, known as the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The suit, filed in Federal District Court in Akron, Ohio, is based on four basic arguments that the new law violates protections afforded to Americans by the Bill of Rights."

Big Government explains that health care rationing has already started in the U.S. "The FDA attempt to de-label Avastin for breast cancer patients is the first skirmish of the rationing wars. [...]As tragic as it is for breast cancer patients today, this arbitrary shift is a preview of one of the tools in the government health care rationing toolbox. The government is not just saying outright that they won't cover the cost of this, they are hiding their financial decisions behind language like 'clinically significant' to lead people to believe the drug doesn't work. The Avantis case is setting the precedent for the government to arbitrarily deny coverage to millions of American's based on cost alone."

The majority of voters continue to favor repealing the health care overhaul. The latest Rasmussen Reports survey shows that 58 percent of respondents support repealing Obamacare.

The American Spectator writes "Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, seeking to console liberal activists who were disappointed by the final version of the national health care law, assured them that there would eventually be a public option. 'We're going to have a public option,' Reid said. 'It's just a question of when.'"

The Republican Study Committee alerts readers that "[t]he government-run health insurance plan has reared its ugly head again - and this time around the Democrats are trying to spin it as a way to save money. It should come as a surprise to no one that government-set price controls, underpayments to providers, and rationed care 'saves' the government money. Today, Rep. Lynn Woolsey introduced H.R. 5808, 'To amend the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to establish a public health insurance option.' This bill creates a government-run plan controlled by government bureaucrats, paid for on the backs of taxpayers ($2 billion in 'start-up funds') to 'compete' in state Exchanges."

Experts outline in the Wall Street Journal why the tax penalty in the health care overhaul is unconstitutional. "The truth is the mandate is not a tax--and if it were it would be unconstitutional. A tax is when the government takes money from individuals, puts it in the Treasury, and plans to spend it. With the health-insurance mandate, the government is not taking money from private individuals; rather, it is commanding them to give their money to another private entity, not to the Treasury. If individuals don't obey the mandate, they pay a penalty to the Treasury. But penalties aren't taxes. The mandate is legally separate from the penalty. Even if the Justice Department were to get the mandate considered a tax, it would be an unconstitutional one. Unlike states, the federal government has limited jurisdiction. Under the 10th Amendment, the federal government has only those powers enumerated by the Constitution, and all other powers are reserved to the people or the states."

The Heritage Foundation discusses the Obama administration finally admitting that the health care overhaul's individual mandate is a tax. "The New York Times confirmed Friday that in preparation for defending constitutionality of the Obamacare individual mandate in court, an Obama Justice Department legal brief argues that the penalty used to enforce the mandate is 'a valid exercise' of Congress's power to impose taxes. Mr. Obama's own Justice Department further repudiates the President's earlier statement by noting that the penalty is imposed and collected under the Internal Revenue Code, people must report it on their tax returns, and that the Congressional Budget Office estimates that it will cost Americans $4 billion a year."

The latest Rasmussen Reports survey shows that 61 percent of respondents think the cost of health care will increase under Obamacare. According to the poll, the majority of Americans (56 percent) continue to support repealing the legislation.

The New York Times reports that the administration has flip-flopped, now on considering the federal insurance mandate a tax. "When Congress required most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty, Democrats denied that they were creating a new tax. But in court, the Obama administration and its allies now defend the requirement as an exercise of the government's 'power to lay and collect taxes.' And that power, they say, is even more sweeping than the federal power to regulate interstate commerce."