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…

What if 20 million Americans get mandated health insurance, but there aren’t enough primary care doctors to serve them?  Thanks to ObamaCare’s mandated expansion of insurance coverage, that’s exactly what will happen as the law exacerbates a nationwide doctor shortage.  Just after the November elections, the Robert Graham…

Faced with a choice between saving seniors money or reaping a $2.8 billion windfall, AARP traded the best interests of its 40 million members for a massive payout under ObamaCare.    The moment of truth came over how to reform Medicare.  For years, AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired People, argued that…

First the Supreme Court rewrote President Barack Obama’s signature health reform law to save it from the Constitution.  Now the Internal Revenue Service claims its new rule can interpret the law in a way that violates its text and history.  The latest outrage against common sense is an IRS rule finalized on May 23.  The rule makes…

In the aftermath of the Supreme Court’s decision upholding ObamaCare, at least this much is clear: conservative governors are refusing to help socialize healthcare by expanding a Medicaid program that will bankrupt their states.  Here’s how some are framing it.  New Jersey’s Chris Christie calls it “extortion.&rdquo…

One week after the Supreme Court’s perplexing ObamaCare – pardon, ObamaTax – decision, debate continues regarding its most likely long-term legacy.  Was Chief Justice John Roberts playing a game of stealth conservative chess, while the rest of us remain only capable of checkers?  Or did he instead play the role of Supreme…

Recall this promise from President Barack Obama back in 2009: “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.”  The statement was designed to convince people that passage of ObamaCare…

As good a job as ObamaCare’s opponents did in pleading their case before the Supreme Court this week, they failed (except very obliquely) to use one of the best available arguments, of a practical rather than purely legal nature, to refute the administration’s central thesis. They could have made a stronger case that there is nothing special…

One of the biggest wins for conservatives in Paul Ryan's newest Path to Prosperity budget proposal is the eventual conversion of Medicare into a defined contribution plan, thus saving taxpayers trillions of dollars in unfunded promises. For decades, many employees enjoyed defined benefit plans from employers willing to guarantee a specific type of…

New opinion polls and government deficit projections create unexpected new difficulties for ObamaCare and its assault against religious liberty, as well as Obama’s reelection effort generally.  In fact, the issue has turned so quickly against Obama that he pivoted from contriving it as a political bludgeon to despairing that others might…

In its latest unveiling of ObamaCare mandates, the Department of Health and Human Services promises that the creation of government-run health insurance exchanges will give states more flexibility and consumers more choices.  But an examination of the rhetoric versus the reality reveals that these claims are just a smokescreen while HHS effectively…

From March 26 to 28 the United States Supreme Court will hear an historic 5 ½ hours of oral argument about the constitutionality of various provisions in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (i.e., ObamaCare).  But while the questions presented to the Justices could, if answered correctly, result in eliminating much of the law…

The battle over ObamaCare is really a fight about freedom. Regarding the centrality of freedom to the very identity of the United States, the philosophical chasm between the American political left and right is vast. On health care, as on so many other issues, the left doesn’t even recognize freedom as a valid concern. Conservatives, on the other…

The Obama administration’s mandated contraception compromise raises serious constitutional and moral questions.  It also makes one wonder why employees don’t have the freedom to choose their own health plan.  The answer comes from the late economist Milton Friedman.  In a 2001 report for the Hoover Institution entitled How…

To read President Obama’s 2013 budget proposal regarding Medicare and Medicaid in light of Rep. Paul Ryan’s more flexible alternative is to see a startling contrast of visions.  On Page Four of President Obama’s Budget Message to Congress, there is a thinly veiled swipe at Rep. Paul Ryan’s plan to reform Medicare and Medicaid…

While ObamaCare creates armies of bureaucrats in the public and private sectors, a small but growing number of doctors and patients are using a simple solution to improve medical treatment while cutting out middle men.  When it was signed into law in 2010, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) was estimated by Newt Gingrich…

Like night following day, another Paul Ryan reform proposal is igniting another round of teeth-gnashing over the past, present and future of America.   Last Thursday, Representative Ryan (R-WI) and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) announced a plan to reform Medicare in a way that (1) gives seniors more options, and (2) reduces costs to taxpayers…

Rep. Paul Ryan’s recent speech at the Hoover Institution laid out a comprehensive alternative to ObamaCare that takes a patient-centered approach to controlling skyrocketing health care costs.   So far, it is the most detailed plan available for a conservative movement looking to counter the biggest government power grab since the 1960s…

Americans are often subjected to a false dichotomy in our ongoing healthcare debate:  Even more government healthcare versus letting people just die in the streets.  That false binary choice isn’t just intellectually sloppy.  It also emotionally tilts the issue in a manner favorable toward advocates of ObamaCare or wholesale government…

Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney both have serious problems that have nothing to do with their presidential campaigns: At least on health care, both of them are statists, and philosophically incoherent ones at that. The former House Speaker and former Massachusetts governor both defend the idea of an “individual mandate” to buy health insurance…