healthcare

Jefferson City, Mo. (AP) - More than 1 million people are expected to participate in what amounts to the largest-ever public opinion poll on the nation's new health care law.

Missouri on Tuesday will become the first state to the test the popularity of President Barack Obama's top policy accomplishment with a statewide ballot proposal attempting to reject its core mandate that most Americans have health insurance.

The legal effect of Missouri's measure is questionable, because federal laws generally supersede those in states. But its expected passage could send an ominous political message to Democrats seeking to hang on to their congressional majority in this year's midterm elections...

Irrespective of a presidential executive order and rule rewriting ordered by America's Health and Human Services secretary, healthcare reform does provide for tax-funded abortions.

ObamaCare 3The Congressional Research Service, a government agency, confirms that abortions can be funded under "ObamaCare." The president's executive order, reports CRS, "does not specifically address high-risk pools and the funds provided under Section 1101 of [the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act]."

Wendy Wright of Concerned Women for America says the CRS report proves the executive order was "an empty promise." She tells OneNewsNow that with the CRS report in hand, the president and health officials need to get into action...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- Although the Obama administration promised it will limit federal taxpayer funding of abortions in the new high risk health insurance programs created under the ObamaCare law President Barack Obama signed into law, officials have said the limits are temporarily and apply only to the new program.

As LifeNews.com reported today, the Obama administration appears to have bowed to pressure from pro-life groups that discovered it had authorized abortion funding in three states under the new high risk health insurance programs.

White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle offered further explanation of the new regulation on the official White House blog....

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Rep. Mike Pence (R-Ind.) says he is concerned about the prospect of health care rationing following the recess appointment of Dr. Donald Berwick to serve as the administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicare Services.

Pence, speaking Tuesday at a Congressional Health Caucus event, said Berwick was “not entitled to that job” and should have had a confirmation hearing.

“I think an appointment of such magnitude, at a time of enormous public debate, as a recess appointment was wrong,” Pence told CNSNews.com. “I think it was wrong for the president to bypass the confirmation process at a time when the American people are so focused on legislation where the ink is barely dry...

Washington (CNSNews.com) – Business advocates are hoping Congress scraps a tax provision in the health care overhaul law that they say is overly burdensome to smaller companies.

So far, Senate and House Republicans have pushed for repeal of this specific provision of the health care bill. Even Democrats asked that the Internal Revenue Service move cautiously in enforcement of the provision.

Currently, businesses and other entities are required to report on Form 1099 any service-related transactions over $600 involving an unincorporated business, such as a solo proprietor, partnership and LLC...

Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) -- A new report issued by the respected FactCheck.org web site based at the Annenberg Public Policy Center of the University of Pennsylvania confirms the claims made last week by the National Right to Life Committee that the Obama administration had authorized abortion funding in three states.

The abortion funding would have come under the new health care plan President Barack Obama signed, except the Obama administration backed down after NRLC blew the whistle.

"We can see what caused abortion opponents to be concerned," the web site verified...

A federal court is pondering the constitutionality of the healthcare reform act in a lawsuit that was filed moments after the bill was signed into law on March 23, 2010.

The Thomas More Law Center (TMLC) filed the lawsuit challenging the individual mandate section of ObamaCare legislation. Federal District Court Judge George C. Steeh agrees "that a prompt resolution of the constitutional issue would serve the public interest."

"The court agreed to consolidate our hearing for a plenary injunction with a ruling on the merits of whether or not Congress has the authority under the Commerce Clause to force private citizens to engage in a commercial transaction -- that being the purchase of healthcare -- under penalty of law," reports Robert Muise, the TMLC attorney who argued the case...

(CNSNews.com) – Dr. David Blumenthal, the Obama administration's National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, said on Tuesday that patients can choose to omit procedures such as abortions and positive HIV tests from the electronic health records (EHR) that every American is supposed to have by 2014 under the terms of the economic stimulus law that President Barack Obama signed last year.

Blumenthal's office, a subdivision of the Department of Health and Human Services, was created by the stimulus law specifically to generate the standards and regulations that will govern the federally mandated use of EHRs...

Almost four months before the midterm election that could catapult Majority Leader John Boehner into the speakership, he's beginning to build up his personal image and launch a PR offensive to explain what he’d do if he ran the House.

At a lunch sponsored by the Christian Science Monitor at the St. Regis Hotel in downtown D.C., Boehner said the first three things he would do is repeal the Democrats’ health care overhaul bill, block any attempts to pass cap-and-trade energy legislation and keep taxes low.

He also revealed he has three brothers who are unemployed, has no immediate plans to quit smoking and portrays himself as more of a straight talker who means what he says — something he’s pitching as a contrast to President Barack Obama and Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.)....

(CNSNews.com) -- Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.) told CNSNews.com that Dr. Donald Berwick, who was recess-appointed by President Barack Obama to run the Center for Medicare and Medicaid, is “not a person who should be appointed” to the job.

On Capitol Hill, CNSNews.com asked Senator Brownback, “On July 1, 2008, in a speech commemorating the 60th anniversary of Britain’s single-payer health-care system, Dr. Donald Berwick, President Obama’s recess-appointee to run Medicare, said the following, quote, ‘Any health care funding plan that is just, equitable, civilized and humane must – must -- redistribute wealth from the richer among us to the poorer and the less fortunate.’ Do you agree with that or disagree with that?”....