Should health insurers be legally required to offer infertility treatment for gay couples? Yes, according to a bill (AB 460) filed in the California legislature by assemblyman Tom Ammiano (D-San Francisco). In fact, refusing to do so should be a crime.
The Obama administration is very much about bold visions and big promises, and it takes pride in "fundamentally transforming" this and that, doing things in "a new way," and so forth. However, this turns out to be the easy part. Take Obamacare. The thing is a patchwork of waivers and carve outs. And the administration appears incapable of ... well, of administering it with any consistency or competency.
Paul Bedard writes of the latest reason for apprehension about the coming of Obamacare:
The 61-page online Obamacare draft application for health care includes asking if the applicant wants to register to vote, raising the specter that pro-Obama groups being tapped to help Americans sign up for the program will also steer them to register with the Democratic Party.
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius admitted that Obamacare might cause "some men and younger customers [to] see their rates increase," in regard to health care insurance costs.
In 2010, the Democrats rammed Obamacare through Congress in open defiance of public opinion, and an incensed citizenry responded by giving Republicans their biggest gains in the House of Representatives since before World War II. Now, coinciding with tomorrow’s 3-year anniversary of President Obama’s signing Obamacare into law, new polling suggests that his namesake is now even less popular than it was at the time of its passage.
Thanks to former Michigan Rep. Bart Stupak and his group of seven pro-life Democrats, women across their districts face higher insurance premiums today.
With the Supreme Court decision upholding President Obama’s health care law last summer and his reelection in November, liberals are triumphant, convinced that Obamacare is here to stay. When pressed on this matter, they point to the political success of Medicare to show how quickly new entitlements become entrenched.
"With Obama-care entrenched, Democrats feel free to gripe,” read the headline in Politico. And gripe is the word. Senator Maria Cantwell of Washington gripes that the administration won’t subsidize Americans “just above the poverty level.” Senator Bill Nelson of Florida gripes that the administration “negotiated away” funding for insurance co-ops. Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland gripes that Obama-care doesn’t address the national crisis in pediatric dentistry.
"I heard [Obama] say, ‘If you like your health plan, you can keep it,’ ” John Wilhelm, chairman of Unite Here Health, representing 260,000 union workers, recently told the Wall Street Journal. “If I’m wrong, and the president does not intend to keep his word, I would have severe second thoughts about the law.” Besides Wilhelm, some of the nation’s largest union bosses have taken to publicly criticizing the Affordable Care Act.
With Obama-care poised to kick in to high gear next year, Dr. Brian Forrest routinely hears skeptics ask if the new laws and regulations will stifle his innovative primary care practice outside Raleigh, N.C.
In a report on its website, the credit rating firm Moody's pushes for Medicaid expansion. The firm warns that states who do not expand Medicaid will face "political and budgetary pressure."
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