After demanding payback for supporting Democratic candidates and the passage of ObamaCare, an influential group of labor unions is getting a special exemption from one of the health law’s most onerous taxes. But will it be enough to save them? Buried in a complicated regulatory announcement last week, the Department of Health and Human Services…

Dishonesty was required to pass ObamaCare. Stupidity might be enough to elect the Congress that repeals it. By now, many Americans are all-too-familiar with Obama’s 29 videotaped assertions to Americans that, “If you like your healthcare plan, you’ll be able to keep your healthcare plan.” Obama’s message was unmistakably…

Are you ready to have the same federal agency that can’t run a website bombard you with social media messages designed to change your “health-related” behaviors? Last week, a little-known federal aggregator of health scholarship called the National Library of Medicine (NLM) announced that it plans to track how visitors to its website…

This week, we passed a new presidential milestone.  According to the periodic NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey, Barack Obama plummeted to an all-time low of 42% in public approval.  While that alone constitutes a notable event, it’s actually not the most important aspect of the survey, since peaks and troughs are cyclical realities…

Government interventions in the private sector are inevitably pockmarked by unintended consequences. Given both the scale and scope of ObamaCare, it is thus unsurprising that the program’s rollout has been met with a bevy of unforeseen shortcomings. The worst one of all: the President of the United States has been transformed into an infomercial…

Things just went from awful to worse this week for ObamaCare, and the Obama Administration more generally.  Nearly a month into its disastrous debut, it’s clear that the ObamaCare website isn’t just “glitching,” it’s completely melting down.  This is quickly becoming a watershed moment, a failure so obvious…

Since the rise of the Progressive movement over a century ago, liberalism has been enchanted by the idea of enlightened administration — of beneficent, all-knowing bureaucrats who could steer public policy and shape it towards the public good, usually without the messy restraints of democracy or constitutional strictures. Edward Mandell House…

With health insurance premiums and deductibles spiraling out of control, ObamaCare is looking more and more like a vehicle for massive wealth redistribution. It hasn’t been a fun two weeks to be Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. Shoddy work by foreign contractors rendered Healthcare.gov, the federal ObamaCare exchange, mostly…

One week in, and Healthcare.gov seems more like a make-work project for low-bid contractors than a portal to twenty-first century government. After spending $93.7 million to build parts of ObamaCare’s federal government insurance exchange website, the results are in.  Millions of people can’t create user accounts…

With the ObamaCare insurance exchanges up and glitching, at least one high-profile supporter sees "better" days ahead. In an op-ed entitled, “A Good First Step Toward Single Payer,” Bernie Sanders, a United States Senator from Vermont and avowed socialist, argues plainly for using ObamaCare as a launching pad to expand Medicare…

Remember in 2009 when President Barack Obama was campaigning for his health reform law that became ObamaCare? He told anyone who would listen that despite widespread fear of a government takeover, “[W]e will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be…

In a win for the rule of law late last Friday, the Obama Treasury department said it will not go against the plain meaning of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) to carve out a costly exception for certain labor unions. The decision was made public in a letter to Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT). Earlier in the week, Hatch, the highest ranking Republican…

After a very public campaign of complaints saying that the Affordable Care Act (i.e. ObamaCare) would, among other things, “shatter… our hard-earned health benefits,” union leaders representing 20 million part-time workers are getting closer to their goal – a multi-billion dollar annual subsidy available only to them. In the…

One of the reasons Republicans have had such a difficult time uniting around a single alternative to ObamaCare is that many of their reform proposals lack the comprehensiveness necessary to fully replace the controversial health law. Consider these highlights from a litany written up by GOP strategist Karl Rove. Tort reform advocates want to cap…

Perhaps the biggest – and costliest – misunderstood ObamaCare regulation is the so-called “Employer Shared Responsibility” requirement, i.e., the mandate that all employers with 50 or more full-time equivalent employees must provide health insurance or pay stiff penalties. The word equivalent bears emphasizing because it looms…

As ObamaCare’s implementation draws near, the costs to unions could be fatal. For private-sector unions, the biggest danger comes from the health law’s increased coverage requirements. New entitlements like eliminating pre-existing conditions from eligibility considerations and paying for dependents up to age 26 add enormous costs to health…

What if Congress amends a key part of ObamaCare, but doesn’t fix the underlying problem? That could very well be the case if either of two bills passes to change the health law’s definition of a full-time employee. As written, ObamaCare defines “full-time” as “an employee who is employed on average at least 30 hours…

With the Obama administration gearing up to spend $700 million on an advertising blitz to convince the young and healthy to sign-up for insurance under ObamaCare, cash-strapped cities like Detroit are emerging as the biggest obstacle. The reason: Tens of thousands of retired public employees are owed billions in lifetime health care coverage. In…

With a string of controversial policy decisions, ObamaCare’s Federal Data Hub is shaping up to be the new poster child for government waste, fraud and abuse.  The waste is apparent to anyone familiar with the current state of health technology. Already there are at least 100 companies that operate private health insurance exchanges, according…

Delaying ObamaCare’s employer mandate and verification requirements is a brilliant case of liberals making lemonade out of lemons. Unfortunately for everyone else, the aftertaste will be terrible. In two low-key announcements last week, the Obama administration unilaterally suspended two crucial parts of the Patient Protection and Affordable…

Labor union bosses were some of the fiercest supporters of President Barack Obama’s health care reform law now known as ObamaCare. But due to a rift over implementation, groups representing low-income and part-time workers will not get the special treatment they think is owed them. As a consequence, up to 20 million union members could lose their…

With the 2014 midterm elections coming into view, ObamaCare is poised to become one of the biggest issues in the campaign. But while Republicans hope to make gains in Congress, Democrats will target states whose voters might be willing to bypass their legislatures to accept one of the health law’s costliest programs. The outcomes of these two…

With the revelation that HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is soliciting health industry executives for millions of dollars in donations to promote ObamaCare, the distinction between coercion and crony capitalism is now almost erased.  The coercion inherent in Sebelius’s strategy is clear. Reports in the Washington Post and The New York…

One of the linchpins of ObamaCare looks more and more as if it’s coming loose. The ObamaCare monstrosity (officially misnamed the Affordable Care Act) is already heading for a “train wreck,” and a large majority of senators are on record for repealing one of its most hideous taxes.  But that medical device tax, important…

This is not a joke. News broke late Wednesday night that a secret bipartisan deal is in the works to exempt Congress and its staff members from purchasing more expensive health insurance on an ObamaCare exchange.  The reason for the deal: Members of Congress can’t afford the cost of compliance. The reason for the secrecy: Congress exempting…

With trademark petulance, Barack Obama denounced the Senate this week for rejecting his flawed gun control legislation.  Of course, considering the slow-motion disaster that is his most defining act to date – ObamaCare – Americans should breathe a sigh of relief.   Simply put, when Obama gets what he wants, it means calamity…

“…no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor. Period. If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period. No one will take it away. No matter what. My view is that health care reform should be guided by a simple principle…

With the implementation of ObamaCare in full swing, several Republican governors have reversed themselves, claiming that political reality is forcing them to play by the health law’s budget-busting rules.  But two of their colleagues – Wisconsin’s Scott Walker and Indiana’s Mike Pence – are blazing an alternative…

There seems to be no end to the interpretive jujitsu government officials are willing to employ to save ObamaCare from its poorly written self.  The newest example comes from the Internal Revenue Service.  Under the terms of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e. ObamaCare), the IRS is charged with accounting for an important…

In a hugely disappointing end to a long-running legal battle, the Supreme Court refused to consider whether a federal agency can enforce a burdensome new policy, invented out of thin air, without even going through a formal regulatory process. But the overall policy fight should not be over. Instead, it should be shifted, with great fanfare, to the…