Conservatives Want Obamacare Repeal, and They Want It Now

by Niels Lesniewski, rollcall.comFebruary 23, 2017 12:21 PM

Jim DeMint president of the Heritage Foundation, told conservatives at CPAC to keep the charge going to repeal the 2010 health care law.

OXON HILL, Md. — Conservatives rallying here are calling for their congressional brethren to keep the faith and quickly gut the 2010 health care law, dismissing concerns about lost health coverage and motivated voters at town halls.

Reported remarks by former Speaker John A. Boehner, R-Ohio, far away from the conservatives gathered at the convention hotel provided the latest cause for alarm. Boehner had said that repeal and replace was “not going to happen,” according to Politico.

“The last I checked, Boehner doesn’t have a vote anymore,” Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas told Roll Call just as a cacophony of barking came from nearby police canines.

“This is a test. It’s a test for Republicans in the executive and both Houses of Congress. Do we honor the promises we made? This election was a referendum on repealing Obamacare,” Cruz said in a brief interview. “I think failure is not an option.”

“We’ve got to keep that promise, and I believe we will,” Cruz said.

Cruz, who has been among the loudest voices for rolling back as much of the 2010 law as possible, was one of few lawmakers appearing at CPAC during the February congressional recess, flying back from Texas for the occasion. He got a heroes welcome from the conservative activists and media assembled at the hotel just outside D.C.

Heritage Foundation President Jim DeMint, the former South Carolina Republican senator, called on activists attending the Conservative Political Action Conference to push their members of Congress to send to President Donald Trump the same legislation that dismantled the law and was vetoed by President Barack Obama with all due haste.

“We must and we can repeal Obamacare now,” DeMint said. “They should send that same bill to President Trump right now.”

DeMint called the idea that there needs to be a replacement on the front end, “absolutely ludicrous.”

He also said that doctors, hospitals and insurance companies would still exist after repealing the law and that, “no one loses their insurance” under the repeal bill envisioned. That ignores analyses that show millions of people losing their health insurance under scenarios that simply repeal the law.

The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, for instance, released a report last month that estimated as many as 18 million would lose their insurance within a year and premiums would spike. As many as 32 million would lose insurance in the coming years, the report said.

Such concerns have been echoed in town halls across the country where Republicans have been challenged to explain how to cover people in the absence of the health care law.

Still, DeMint echoed other conservatives in Congress who have advocated for swift action on repealing the law. Cruz, for instance, previously said Congress should repeal before details can be worked out on a replacement plan.

‘Harry Reid: Thank You for Attorney General Jeff Sessions,’ Cruz Says at CPAC

The House Freedom Caucus, a key bloc of conservatives, voted to formally take the position that the House should pass the same repeal measure that Obama vetoed, a position DeMint mirrored.

The caucus has not formally taken a position on timing of a replacement plan, but conservatives have rallied around a health care plan sponsored by Rep. Mark Sanford of South Carolina and Sen. Rand Paul of Kentucky. Paul has advocated for Congress simultaneously repealing and replacing the law.

Former Freedom Caucus Chairman Jim Jordan said last month that he’d like to see some acceleration of the repeal measure and that the effective date of the repeal provisions should be sometime this Congress.

“I start from the premise that health care will be better and cost less when Obamacare is gone,” he said. That sentiment is not reflected in analyses like the CBO’s.

“Heck yes,” the Ohio Republican said when asked if he would vote for a repeal measure without seeing a replacement plan. However, he qualified that it must be a full repeal.

Jordan said that ideally Republicans would offer a free market-based replacement at the same time. “But if it doesn’t [happen] of course I’m going to vote to repeal it,” he said.

Freedom Caucus member Raul Labrador of Idaho said he would like to see a specific replacement plan that has been vetted through the committee process before a repeal vote.

While lawmakers attempt to find consensus on a path forward, DeMint’s comments signal the pressure conservatives are placing on congressional Republicans to act quickly to undo the health care law.

But GOP lawmakers are still developing their repeal and replacement plans. House Republican leadership presented a blueprint of a plan last week, though questions remain as to what final plan can garner support form both conservative and moderate Republicans in the Senate.

Bridget Bowman contributed to this report.

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Cardinal Dolan Reaffirms Commitment to Oppose HHS Mandate, Protect Conscience ~ reblog

Cardinal Dolan Reaffirms Commitment to Oppose HHS Mandate, Protect Conscience
catholic.orgUsccbSeptember 19th, 2013 view original

We are united in our resolve to continue to defend our right to live by our faith, and our duty to serve the poor, heal the sick, keep our apostolates strong and faithful, and insure our people. I remain grateful for your continued unity in response to this matter of deep concern to us all. (Timothy Cardinal Dolan)

WASHINGTON, DC (USCCB) – The U.S. bishops continue to study the legal and moral implications of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate in the Affordable Care Act, and to “develop avenues of response that would both preserve our strong unity and protect our consciences,” Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan said in a September 17 letter to bishops. His letter followed the September 10-11 meeting of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ (USCCB) Administrative Committee, the top ranking USCCB body outside a plenary session.

The bishops’ “efforts are proceeding apace, and, as you know, include a careful legal and moral analysis of the final rule,” Cardinal Dolan said. Further discussion will take place at the bishops’ fall plenary, Nov. 11-14 in Baltimore. “We are united in our resolve to continue to defend our right to live by our faith, and our duty to serve the poor, heal the sick, keep our apostolates strong and faithful, and insure our people,” he said.

The full text of Cardinal Dolan’s letter follows.

The HHS mandate requires virtually all employers to facilitate access to sterilization and contraception, as well as drugs and devices that may cause abortion, even if doing so violates deeply-held religious beliefs. Despite serious religious liberty concerns expressed by believers of many faiths, the Administration finalized its mandate with only minor changes. The final rule, Cardinal Dolan said, “still suffers from the same three basic problems”:

1) “Its narrow definition of ‘religious employer’ reduces religious freedom to the freedom of worship by dividing our community between houses of worship and ministries of service,”

2) “Its second-class treatment of those great ministries – the so-called ‘accommodation’ – leaves them without adequate relief,” and

3) “Its failure to offer any relief to for-profit businesses run by so many of our faithful in the pews.”

Cardinal Dolan stressed the bishops’ longstanding advocacy of policies that advance the goal of affordable health care. “Now we are being burdened because of the same Catholic values that compel us into these ministries,” he said.

Cardinal Dolan emphasized that the members of the Administrative Committee “were unanimous in their resolve to continue our struggle against the HHS Mandate.” He likewise voiced concern regarding the Catholic Health Association’s “hurried acceptance of the accommodation” which he called “untimely and unhelpful.”

“We highly value CHA’s great expertise in their ministry of healing,” Cardinal Dolan said, “but as they have been the first to say, they do not represent the Magisterium of the Church.”

—–

The full text of Cardinal Dolan’s letter

September 17, 2013
Year of Faith

My brother bishops,

I write at the request of our brother bishops on the USCCB Administrative Committee, who asked me to update you, as I have now grown accustomed to doing, on the tough and delicate matter of the HHS Mandate, and our ongoing response to it. You won’t be surprised to hear that, at our meeting last week, we spent a great deal of time focused on this matter of major concern to us all.

I have to tell you first that we took the occasion to vent. The Catholic Church in America has long been a leader in providing affordable health care, and in advocating for policies that advance that goal. The bishops on a national level have been at it for almost one hundred years, and our heroic women and men religious have done so even longer. Yet, instead of spending our time, energy, and treasure on increasing access to health care, as we have done for many decades, we’re now forced to spend those resources on determining how to respond to recently enacted government regulations that restrict and burden our religious freedom. Catholics – our parents and grandparents, religious sisters, brothers and priests – were among the first at the table to advance and provide health care, and now we are being burdened because of the same Catholic values that compel us into these ministries! All this in a country that puts religious liberty first on the list of its most cherished freedoms. As I’ve said before, this is a fight that we didn\’t ask for, and would rather not be in, but it’s certainly one that we won’t run from.

It might be helpful if we keep in mind our recent history on the HHS mandate and our efforts regarding it. Last February 1, the Administration announced its updated “accommodation.” We immediately said that we needed time to analyze it, but that our initial read indicated that, regrettably, not much had changed, and our objections remained. Nonetheless, we took the administration at its word when it said it would consider our concerns, and after a detailed analysis, our Conference again submitted extensive comments, as invited to do by HHS.

On June 28, we got our answer: despite our grave concerns – concerns we share with believers of many other faiths, and with so many of the 400,000 others who commented on the rule – the “accommodation” was finalized with only minor changes. While the administration gave us a much-needed extra five months to determine how to respond, the final version of the mandate still suffers from the same three basic problems we have highlighted from the start: its narrow definition of “religious employer” reduces religious freedom to the freedom of worship by dividing our community between houses of worship and ministries of service; its second-class treatment of those great ministries-the so-called “accommodation”-leaves them without adequate relief; and its failure to offer any relief at all to for-profit businesses run by so many of our faithful in the pews.

As you know, we are continuing our efforts in Congress and in the courts, and we are confident that our rights under the Constitution and other laws protecting religious freedom will eventually be vindicated. While much remains uncertain, it is plain that the HHS Mandate lessens the ability of our ministries to give full-throated witness to our faith, a central mission of all Catholic apostolates.

At the Administrative Committee meeting, the members were unanimous in their resolve to continue our struggle against the HHS Mandate, and they asked me to convey that firm resolve to you. If there\’s any perception that our dedication to this fight is flagging, that’s dead wrong.

That perception may come in part from the Catholic Health Association’s hurried acceptance of the accommodation, which was, I’m afraid, untimely and unhelpful. We highly value CHA’s great expertise in their ministry of healing, but as they have been the first to say, they do not represent the Magisterium of the Church. Even in their document stating that they could live with the “accommodation” they remarked that we bishops, along with others, have wider concerns than they do.

We continue to follow the excellent process established at the meeting of the body of bishops in June, to develop avenues of response that would both preserve our strong unity and protect our consciences. Those efforts are proceeding apace, and as you know, include a careful legal and moral analysis of the final rule. We will then have another opportunity to discuss the rule at our November plenary assembly.

We are united in our resolve to continue to defend our right to live by our faith, and our duty to serve the poor, heal the sick, keep our apostolates strong and faithful, and insure our people. I remain grateful for your continued unity in response to this matter of deep concern to us all. I’ll try my best to keep you posted.

With prayerful best wishes, I am,

Fraternally in Christ,

Timothy Cardinal Dolan
Archbishop of New York
President
U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops

Catholic Archbishop: Wake Up! Religious Liberty at Risk in USA (CNS Re-Blog)

Peanut Gallery: Archbishop Chaput of Philadelphia issued a wake-up call to all Christians. Full text may be found here.

“[T]he latest IRS ugliness,” he wrote, “is a hint of the treatment disfavored religious groups may face in the future, if we sleep through the national discussion of religious liberty now. The day when Americans could take the Founders’ understanding of religious freedom as a given is over. We need to wake up.”

By Terence P. Jeffrey

Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia on Ash Wednesday, Feb. 22, 2012. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

(CNSNews.com) – Roman Catholic Archbishop Charles J. Chaput is calling on Americans to wake up and recognize that the Founding Fathers’ vision of religious freedom is now threatened by the federal government.

“The day when Americans could take the Founders’ understanding of religious freedom as a given is over,” said the archbishop. “We need to wake up.”

Chaput, who leads the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Philadelphia, pointed to Obamacare’s sterilization-contraception-abortifacient regulation as one example. The regulation, issued by Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, requires almost all health-care plans in the United States to provide coverage for sterilizations, artificial contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs to all women of reproductive age–even if the person or employer providing the insurance coverage and even if the female beneficiaries themselves do not want the coverage and believe it is morally wrong and violates their religious beliefs.

“[T]he HHS mandate can only be understood as a form of coercion,” the archbishop wrote in a recent column posted on the website of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia. The column is entitled, “Religious Freedom and the Need to Wake Up.”

Last year, the Catholic bishops of the United States unanimously approved a statement describing the HHS regulation as an “unjust and illegal mandate.” The unanimous bishops said the regulation not only violated the religious freedom of religious institutions but also the “personal civil rights” of individual Americans who will be forced to comply with it either as employers or employees.

Archbishop Chaput noted that the bishops believe “basic medical care is a matter of social justice and human dignity.” That principal, however, does not empower the government to force Americans to violate their moral and religious convictions.

“But health care has now morphed into a religious liberty issue provoked entirely–and needlessly–by the current White House,” the archbishop wrote. “Despite a few small concessions under pressure, the administration refuses to withdraw or reasonably modify a Health and Human Services (HHS) contraceptive mandate that violates the moral and religious convictions of many individuals, private employers and religiously affiliated and inspired organizations.”

The archbishop noted that the administration’s disregard for religious liberty in the enforcement of this regulation is in line with its refusal to defend the Defense of Marriage Act and its advocacy in the Hosanna-Tabor case.

The Defense of Marriage Act says that a state cannot be forced to recognize a same-sex marriage contracted in another state and that for federal purposes marriage is between one man and one women. The Supreme Court is now considering the constitutionality of DOMA, and the administration has asked the court that the law be thrown out, arguing that opposition to same-sex marriage (which is the position of the Catholic Church and many other religious denominations) is the constitutional equivalent of racial discrimination.

In the Hosanna-Tabor case, the administration argued unsuccessfully in the Supreme Court that the government could tell a Lutheran school it must restore as a “commissioned minister” a person who violated the teachings of the Lutheran faith.

“Coupled with the White House’s refusal to uphold the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, and its astonishing disregard for the unique nature of religious freedom displayed by its arguments in a 9-0 defeat in the 2012 Hosanna-Tabor Supreme Court decision, the HHS mandate can only be understood as a form of coercion,” wrote the archbishop.

“Access to inexpensive contraception is a problem nowhere in the United States,” he said. “The mandate is thus an ideological statement; the imposition of a preferential option for infertility. And if millions of Americans disagree with it on principle–too bad.”

The archbishop went on to observe that abortion advocates use fraudulent language in describing their position.

“The fraud at the heart of our nation’s ‘reproductive rights’ vocabulary runs very deep and very high,” he wrote. “In his April 26 remarks to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the president never once used the word ‘abortion,’ despite the ongoing Kermit Gosnell trial in Philadelphia and despite Planned Parenthood’s massive role in the abortion industry.”

The archbishop noted that the scandal “involving IRS targeting of ‘conservative’ organizations … also has a religious dimension.”

“But the latest IRS ugliness,” he wrote, “is a hint of the treatment disfavored religious groups may face in the future, if we sleep through the national discussion of religious liberty now. The day when Americans could take the Founders’ understanding of religious freedom as a given is over. We need to wake up.”

Stand Up for Religious Freedom – “attacks threaten every American” – Washington Times

Peanut Gallery: Join a “Stand Up for Religious Freedom” rally near you. I’m headed for Charleston, SC this morning. You can find a rally near you here.

Even if you don’t quite understand what the big deal is, it ought to trouble you that the HHS mandate is such a big deal to so many — and not just to Catholics. Several Protestant institutions also have filed suit against the HHS mandate, including Wheaton College and Houston Baptist University.

SCHEIDLER: Religious freedom attacks threatens every American – Washington Times. By Eric Scheidler – Thursday, October 18, 2012

HHS mandate is only the beginning

Despite 10 months of controversy — including a public clash between the White House and the U.S. Catholic bishops, countless rallies and protests across the country and the filing of dozens of federal lawsuits — many liberals and independents remain puzzled by the fight over the Health and Human Services (HHS) mandate contained in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. They don’t understand how conservatives can insist that the HHS mandate constitutes an unprecedented attack on religious freedom.

The mandate, announced by the Obama administration in January and finalized in February, requires nearly all employers to provide contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs through their health plans, regardless of any moral objections. Continue reading “Stand Up for Religious Freedom – “attacks threaten every American” – Washington Times” →