Meet the ObamaCare Mandate Committee

Think the contraception decision was bad? Wait until bureaucrats start telling your insurer which cancer screenings to cover.

Offended by President Obama's decision to force health insurers to pay for contraception and surgical sterilization or my religious institutions mandated to go against their core beliefs? It gets worse: In the future, thanks to ObamaCare, the government will issue such health edicts on a routine basis—and largely insulated from public view. This goes beyond contraception to cancer screenings, the use of common drugs like aspirin, and much more.

Under ObamaCare, a single committee—the United States Preventative Services Task Force—is empowered to evaluate preventive health services and decide which will be covered by health-insurance plans.

The task force already rates services with letter grades of "A" through "D" (or "I," if it has "insufficient evidence" to make a rating). But under ObamaCare, services rated "A" or "B"—such as colon cancer screening for adults aged 50-75—must be covered by health plans in full, without any co-pays. Many services that get "Cs" and "Ds"—such as screening for ovarian or testicular cancer—could get nixed from coverage entirely.

That's because mandating coverage for all the "A" and "B" services will be very costly. In 2000, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that the marginal cost of similar state insurance mandates was 5%-10% of total claims. Other estimates put the cost of mandates as high as 20% of premiums.

Health plans will inevitably choose to drop coverage for many services that don't get a passing grade from the task force and therefore aren't mandated. Insurance companies will need to conserve their premium money, which the government regulates, in order to spend it subsidizing those services that the task force requires them to cover in full.

David Klein

Americans first became familiar with the task force in November 2009, when it made the controversial decision to recommend that women ages 40-49 shouldn't get routine mammograms. More recently, it rebuffed routine prostate-cancer screening and the use of tests that detect the viruses that can cause cervical cancer.

The task force relishes setting a very high bar. Like the Food and Drug Administration in approving new drugs, it usually requires a randomized, prospective trial to "prove" that a diagnostic test or other intervention improves clinical outcomes and therefore deserves a high grade of "A" or "B."

This means its advice is often out of sync with conventional medical practice. For example, it recommended against wider screening for HIV long after such screening was accepted practice. As a result, many of its verdicts are widely ignored by practicing doctors.

The task force is a part-time board of volunteer advisers that works slowly and is often late to incorporate new science into its recommendations. Only in 2009 did it finally recommend aspirin for the prevention of stroke and heart attack among those at risk—decades after this practice was demonstrated to save lives and had become part of standard medical practice.

The task force is also the only federal health agency to have the explicit legal authority to consider cost as one criterion in recommending whether patients should use a medical test or treatment.

Over time, the task force will surely recommend against many services that patients now take for granted, while mandating full insurance coverage for things that they'd be just as happy paying for. Among the interventions that it plans to consider in 2012 are screening for hepatitis C in adults, for osteoporosis in men and for depression in children; counseling for obesity in adults and for alcohol use in adolescents; and daily aspirin for heart-attack and stroke prevention in people over 80.

The task force's problems are compounded by the fact that it is deliberately exempted from the rules that govern other government advisory boards and regulatory agencies. Thus it has no obligation to hold its meetings in public, announce decisions in draft form or even consider public comments. Consumers have no way to directly appeal its decisions. And health providers or product developers affected by its decisions can't sue it for recourse.

To begin addressing these problems, Congress should make the task force subject to the Federal Advisory Committee Act, which would at least require it to hold its deliberations in public. Congress could also make it a full-fledged part of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, which already convenes its meetings. That would make the task force subject to the Administrative Procedures Act and all the rules that bind other regulatory bodies, including the legal requirement to consider public comments and provide avenues for appeal.

Better still, Congress could let private health plans—and their members—decide on their own how preventive tests and treatments should be covered. If not, Americans will soon be surprised by all the important tests and treatments that become more costly, and all the less relevant stuff that's suddenly free.

It's all a reminder that President Obama's decision on contraception isn't a one-off political intervention but the initial exploit of an elaborate new system.

by Dr. Gottlieb, a physician and resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, has served as deputy commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration and senior policy adviser to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. He consults with and invests in health-care companies.  -  WSJ

As time goes on… if people don’t start reading the ObamaCare Bill and make sure it is repealed in its entirety, either by the Supreme Court or a New President and a primarily new Congress in November 2012, Americans will soon find out that former Alaska Governor and GOP VP candidate in 2008, Sarah Palin plus others who were paying attention, was 100% right about rationing, death panels or whatever you want to call it in ObamaCare and a lot more that we all won’t like… especially seniors, the disabled and special needs children and adults!  Wake-up America… before it is too late.

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JUDICIARY COMMITTEE PROBES JUSTICE KAGAN‘S ROLE IN OBAMACARE AT GOP’S REQUEST

The House Judiciary Committee has launched an inquiry into Associate Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan’s involvement in the health care overhaul at the request of 49 Republican House members.

The probe will examine whether Kagan, who served as President Barack Obama’s solicitor general prior to her Supreme Court nomination, will be required to recuse herself for cases challenging the health care law, and the accuracy of her answers to the Senate Judiciary Committee during her confirmation hearings last July, CNS News reported.

In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder on Wednesday, House Judiciary Chair Lamar Smith (R-Texas) requested “relevant documents and witness interviews in order to properly understand U.S. Supreme Court Associate Justice Elena Kagan’s involvement in health care legislation or litigation while serving as United States Solicitor General.” Smith requested they be made available by July 29.

Federal law bars Supreme Court justices from being involved in cases where their impartiality could be questioned or they previously served in an advisory capacity related to the case at hand.

Rep. John Fleming (R-La.) led 48 of his Republican colleagues in a letter to Smith and House Judiciary Committee ranking member John Conyers (D-Mich.) on June 24, pointing to statements made during her hearings the House members called “contradictory” to released Justice Department documents and urging an investigation.

Kagan said in written responses to the Senate Judiciary Committee that she had no involvement in developing the government’s legal responses to the health care law and was never asked her views or offered them, according to the Washington Times.

Fleming issued a statement Thursday applauding Smith’s request to Holder:

“I am confident that this investigation will uncover even more evidence that Justice Kagan was involved in Obamacare defense activities, contrary to her Senate confirmation testimony. How can any reasonable person believe that Justice Kagan can be impartial on ANY Obamacare case if she was involved in formulating a defense of this destructive law?

Video:  Rep. Fleming Discusses Call For Kagan Investigation

Posted on July 7, 2011 at 2:49pm by Madeleine Morgenstern

Source:  The Blaze

The Agenda Project: Supreme Control

Video:  The Agenda Project:  Supreme Control

Documents Show Elena Kagan's Conflict of Interest on ObamaCare | Western Journalism.com

Supreme Control… an exploration of the New “Activist” Court

by Ben Johnson

Laugh now… Because you will not be able to vote on the ObamaCare decision when it goes before the Supreme Court!!  You must recuse yourself!

Documents uncovered by a legal watchdog group prove Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan was involved in the Obama administration’s legal defense of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as “ObamaCare.”

Judicial Watch has released a number of administration communiqués that show Kagan, who was then Solicitor General, presided over the president’s response to lawsuits asserting the government health care bill is unconstitutional.

On January 8, 2010, Brian Hauck, Senior Counsel to Associate Attorney General Thomas Perrelli, wrote to Kagan’s deputy, Neal Katyal, asking for the office’s assistance in “how to defend against the inevitable challenges to the health care proposals that are pending.” Three minutes later, Katyal replied, “Absolutely right on. Let’s crush them. I’ll speak with Elena and designate someone.” After Katyal volunteered, Kagan responded, “You should do it.”[1]

A few hours later, Katyal updated Hauck, writing, “Brian, Elena would definitely like OSG [the Office of Solicitor General] to be involved in this set of issues.” Katyal added,”I will handle this myself, along with an Assistant from my office, (Name Redacted – BJ), and we will bring Elena in as needed.”(Emphasis added.)

The Justice Department continues to withhold a series of e-mails that would disclose Kagan’s exact role in the negotiations. However, it has turned over the Vaughn index, which describes the items being stonewalled in general terms. These include seven e-mails written from March 17-21, 2010. Kagan was copied on three e-mails that discuss “what categories of legal arguments may arise and should be prepared in the anticipated lawsuit.” Another four dealt with “expected litigation” against the health care law; Elena Kagan wrote one of the four being withheld.

In the same week, Perrelli announced a White House meeting “to help us prepare for litigation.” Katyal wrote Kagan, “I think you should go, no?” Kagan ended the paper trail cold, responding, “What’s your phone number?”

This White House and its allies have a history of producing documents that airbrush high-level attendees out of controversial meetings. The Center for Public Integrity has declared the White House visitor logs are “riddled with holes.”

Once Kagan had been nominated for the High Court, Katyal decided Kagan had never been involved in the proceedings in the least.

One year ago yesterday, Justice Department spokeswoman Tracy Schmaler wrote an e-mail acknowledging Katyal was “point” (of reference) on defending ObamaCare, but asking him, “Has Elena been involved in any of that to the extent SG office was consulted?” Katyal responded, “No, she has never been involved in any of it. I’ve run it for the Office, and have never discussed the issue with her one bit.” (Does anyone innocent speak that way?) Katyal later insisted Kagan had been “walled off from Day One.”

After Katyal alerted Elena to the inquiry, a jittery Kagan jumped in, instructing Schmaler, “This needs to be coordinated. Tracy, you should not say anything about this before talking to me.”

This author noted in February that Barack Obama refused to produce documents revealing Elena Kagan’s role in defending ObamaCare. (Obama has long engaged in selectively enforcing the law on FOIA requests.) The reason is simple: without her vote, the signature bill of his presidency is likely to be found unconstitutional.

The justices will soon hear two legal challenges from the states of Virginia and Florida, which already cleared lower courts.

Federal statute 28 U.S.C. 455 demands that a judge must step aside “in any proceeding in which his impartiality might reasonably be questioned” or in which he (or she) “participated as counsel, adviser or material witness concerning the proceeding or expressed an opinion concerning the merits of the particular case in controversy.”

By telling Katyal he “should do it,” Kagan appointed the point person who defended ObamaCare. Further e-mails from March 24 reveal Kagan was copied

on the administration’s plan to coordinate with U.S. attorneys in fighting state lawsuits against ObamaCare. And she may have attended the administration’s meeting mentioned in the e-mail.

Frankly, it strains credulity to believe the president’s most important legal adviser provided no legal advice on this issue.

Obama knows the Constitution is “a charter of negative liberties. It says what the states can’t do to you, says what the federal government can’t do to you, but it doesn’t say what the federal government or the state government must do on your behalf.” He considers the Constitution“the fundamental flaw of this country that continues to this day.” To complete his revolution, he has packed the Supreme Court with justices sure to rule his way.

At present, the court is relatively evenly split between constitutionalists Antonin Scalia, , Samuel Alito, Clarence Thomas, and John Roberts versus progressive revisionists Elena Kagan, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Sonia Sotomayor, and Stephen Breyer. (Anthony Kennedy, the “swing vote,” regularly cites foreign law in place of the U.S. Constitution.)

Kagan is regarded as politically savvy. While clerking for ultra-liberal Supreme Court Justice Thurgood Marshall, Kagan urged Thurgood not to allow the Supreme Court to hear cases if she believed the court would rule against her, creating Originalist precedent. For example, she advised Marshall to refuse the case of a female prisoner who wanted the state to pay for her abortion. Kagan worried the court would rule against the woman, writing, “This case is likely to become the vehicle that this court uses to create some very bad law on abortion and/or prisoners’ rights.” At Harvard and elsewhere, Kagan has been known for her smooth handling of competing groups, working them around to her way of thinking.

Without Kagan, Obama loses at least one, and perhaps two, pivotal votes, and ObamaCare goes the way of the National Recovery Administration and the Agricultural Adjustment Act.

At a minimum, Kagan’s actions constitute “the appearance of impropriety.” Elena Kagan must recuse herself when the state challenges reach the High Court.

If she violates this federal statute, she should be impeached and removed from her seat.

Then again, one can hardly expect this from the same people who did not have the guts to keep her from being confirmed in the first place.

ENDNOTES:

1. Thomas Perrelli appears to have played a role in dropping the voter intimidation case against the New Black Panther Party. Katyal is currently acting as Kagan’s replacement.

Source:  Floyd Reports