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Archive for the tag “Kathleen Sebelius”

Beyond the Sebelius Resignation

The comedy of errors, in which Obamacare has evolved, closed one of its most embarrasing chapters with the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius. The secretary’s ineptitute, including a disastrous rollout of the Affordable Care Act website despite spending nearly $700 million on the project, has sent strong tremors through the Democrat Party as the 2014 midterm elections loom in November.

But Next News Network host Gary S. Franchi warns us all to tread lightly with President Obama’s appointment of Sylvia Burwell to replace Sebelius. Franchi says it’s important to consider Burwell’s pedigree. “While Americans are hearing a lot about the sins of Sebelius, it may be more important to focus on who’s been nominated to replace her,” he says.

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Feds “Stimulate” Soda Taxes

Reason TV’s Nanny of the Month Award for August goes to Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of the US Health and Human Services Department. Sebelius won because her department used Stimulus and Obamacare funds to back campaigns imposing local soda taxes and enacting tougher zoning rules for fast-food restaurants. Besides violating the job-creating intent of the Stimulus program, the department’s Office of Inspector General is now investigating whether these campaigns violated federal anti-lobbying provisions.

Reason TV also named two runners-up for the August Nanny of the Month Award:

  • The State of Nevada, which can levy a fine of up to $2,000 if you teach someone how to apply makeup without the necessary certification.
  • And the City of Phoenix, where a code enforcer threatened a woman for handing out free water, without a license, on a day when the temperatures hit 112 degrees.

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A Test of Faith

The Department of Health and Human Services Mandate goes into effect today, thrusting Catholic institutions between a rock and a hard place. Catholics now must face a choice of complying with the law or upholding their consciences and religious beliefs. Some 43 Catholic organizations, and counting, have filed lawsuits against the mandate on the grounds that it violates fundamental religious liberties. At specific issue are government requirements that will force Catholic-related employers to offer health insurance plans covering contraception, sterilization and abortion-inducing drugs, such as morning-after pills.

What’s behind Catholic resistance to the mandate? Here, His Eminence Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, eloquently defends the viewpoints of the church in a Face The Nation interview with Bob Schieffer that first aired in April.

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St. Louis attorney Fred L. Vilbig interviews Cardinal Timothy Dolan about the HHS Mandate — how this section of the vast Obamacare bill came to be introduced as an amendment on the floor of the Senate by Barbara Mikulski, D-Maryland, and adopted with minimal debate. Similarly, HHS Cabinet Secretary Kathleen Sebelius farmed out the drafting of the department’s regulations to an outside agency, the Institute of Medicine. Those recommendations were prepared on an emergency basis, with scant public input, none whatsoever from the affected Catholic institutions.

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