On Tuesday, he Obama administration finally released the new rules that will require insurance companites to cover people with preexisting medical conditions.
Regulations released Tuesday will prohibit insurers from charging women a higher premium than men, and will require plans in every state to cover certain services.
The regulations still leave key questions unanswered, including the structure of a federally run insurance exchange in the roughly 30 states that won’t set up their own. HHS officials said more information on the federal exchange will be coming soon.
“I’m confident states will have what they need to move forward,” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told reporters Tuesday.
Sam Baker went on to point out:
The new regulations also put a finer point on some of the most politically popular elements of Obama’s signature healthcare law. The proposed rules implement the health law’s ban on denying coverage to people with preexisting conditions and also require insurers to renew those customers’ coverage.
HHS also began putting in place new limits on how much insurers can vary their premiums — for example, allowing them to charge older patients only three times more than younger customers. The law prohibits insurers from varying premiums at all based on some factors, including gender.
The regulations also bar insurers from charging sick customers a higher premium. Everyone who buys insurance through a newly created exchange, rather than getting it through an employer, will be combined into one large risk pool, meaning insurance companies can spread out their risks more broadly.
This is exactly what makes them popular with many people, but it doesn’t make it right. The force of the government to tell insurance providers they have to cover pre-existing conditions will only aggravate the problem, for it will increase the costs to everyone in the system. That is how they make up the difference to cover it. You can bet your bottom dollar the feds will not allow the insurance companies to really stick it to those with pre-existing conditions. No, in the world of Obama, it’s the communist ideology that the rest of us will have to bear the burden of some of that additional cost.
The states should be, and some are already, positioning to shoot down the Obamacare health law. It looks like nullification is the order of the day.
Raven Clabough at The New American writes:
Since Chief Justice John Roberts called the individual mandate that is so integral to the healthcare law a “tax,” Republicans are now afforded the option of using a procedure known as “budget reconciliation” to formulate a repeal bill that requires just a simple majority to pass.
States may also fall in line with Louisiana and Missouri and nullify ObamaCare. In the 1798 Kentucky Resolutions, Thomas Jefferson wrote, “Whensoever the general government assumes undelegated powers … a nullification of the act is the rightful remedy.”
The Tenth Amendment Center indicates that the states have a number of methods by which they may nullify a law, including through state law, a statement amendment, or a voters’ referendum.
The Nullification Project notes:
After today’s Supreme Court ruling on “Obamacare,” it remains clear that the people cannot rely on the high court to uphold the principles enshrined in the Constitution. In such cases, the Founders, particularly Thomas Jefferson, have provided We the People and the States, a final check on the power of the three branches of the federal government: Nullification.”
A growing number of Americans have become aware of this option and are coordinating efforts to encourage their state officials to nullify ObamaCare. The Nullification Project is in fact intended to raise funds to deliver a copy of the book Nullification: How to Resist Federal Tyranny in the 21st Century, written by Thomas E. Woods, Jr., to each of the 50 governors. Project officials say, “It is our hope that the book will inspire them to continue the fight against government overreach — from every branch.”
“This government takeover of health care remains as destructive, unsustainable, and unconstitutional as it was the day it was passed, unread, by a since-fired congressional majority. Now as then, our first step toward real health care reform and economic renewal remains Obamacare’s full repeal, down to the last letter and punctuation mark.
“I urge every governor to stop implementing the health care exchanges that would help implement the harmful effects of this misguided law. Americans have loudly rejected this federal takeover of health care, and governors should join with the people and reject its implementation.”
“The President’s health care law will not reform anything, but is already undermining what does still work in America’s health care system. We cannot build a free market health care system on this flawed structure of centralized government control, we must repeal all of it and start over with commonsense solutions that make health care more affordable and accessible for every American. We can allow Americans to purchase lower cost plans from other states, support state high-risk pools to cover those with pre-existing conditions, medical-malpractice reform to end frivolous lawsuits, and tax equity so Americans who don’t get their health insurance from an employer are not penalized.”
By the way, why is HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius still free? She has been determined to have violated federal law!
