Tag Archives: HHS

Department of Justice threatens to seize business from Catholics

CNS News editor-in-chief Terry Jeffrey writes about it on Townhall.

Excerpt:

The Newland family owns and operates Hercules Industries, a Colorado-based corporation that manufactures heating, ventilation and air-conditioning equipment. Through their hard work and dedication, and through their willingness to reinvest their own money in building their family business, they have managed to create jobs for 265 people while exerting a positive influence on the communities they serve.

[…]The Newlands sued to protect their free exercise of religion in this regard because Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a regulation, under the Obamacare law, that requires virtually all health care plans to cover — without cost-sharing — sterilizations, artificial contraception and abortifacients.

Under Obamacare, businesses that employ more than 50 people must provide their employees with insurance or pay a penalty, and the required insurance must include the mandated cost-sharing-free coverage for sterilizations, artificial contraception and abortifacients.

At Hercules Industries, the Newlands provide a generous self-insured health-care plan to their employees. It does not cover sterilization, artificial contraception or abortifacients.

[…]In response to the Newlands’ complaint that ordering them to violate the teachings of the Catholic Church in the way they run their business is a violation of their First Amendment right to the free exercise of religion, the Obama administration told the federal court that a private business has no protection under the First Amendment’s free exercise clause — especially if the business is incorporated.

[…]This is just as if the Justice Department were to tell a family owned newspaper that it must publish editorials calling for a confiscatory estate tax, basing its coercion of the newspaper on the supposition (which lawyers for the Alliance Defending Freedom argue DOJ is by analogy making) that as a for-profit secular and incorporated employer, the paper has no First Amendment right to freedom of speech.

I’m a Protestant, and even I could not comply with any regulation that forces me to subsidize behavior that I consider immoral – namely, dispensing drugs that cause unborn human children to die. I would like to go through my life without murdering any innocent people, thank you very much, and it’s not the government’s place to force me to murder people. And that’s one good reason right there to oppose Obamacare, although there are others.

Republicans introduce bill to block tax on pro-life religious institutions

First, let’s look at this article from Life News, which discusses the tax that Obamacare imposes on pro-life religious institutions.

Excerpt:

The new Obama mandate that requires religious groups to pay for birth control and drugs that may cause abortions for their employees could result in fines as much as $2,000 per employee or $100 each day if they refuse to comply.

Recently, Republicans in Congress asked the Congressional Research Service to examine the new mandate and the consequences for employers that do not want to follow it because it would violate their consciences and CRS issued a document finding noncompliant employers could face federal fines of $100 per day per employee.

“If a group health plan or health insurance issuer failed to provide contraceptive services pursuant to guidelines authorized by ACA, it seems possible … that a plan participant could be able to bring a claim for that benefit,” the memo states.

The report indicates the IRS is empowered to levy a tax penalty on noncompliant religious employers of $100 per day for each employee in their health plan.

Commerce Committee Republicans, according to Politico, are not happy with the findings.

“Implementing a federal mandate that violates the conscience of an individual or organization, regardless of their religious affiliation or organizational purpose, is in direct violation with the First Amendment,” the committee said in a release announcing the report. “Imposing a fine on these individuals pours salt in the wound.”

They said, according to Politico, that a charity or hospital with 100 employees “chooses to exercise its religious rights instead of complying with the Obamacare mandate, it could be subject to a $3.65 million annual fine.

The Republicans have introduced a bill to block the tax on pro-lifers who object to being forced to dispense drugs that cause abortions.

Excerpt:

“Sebelius’s taxman is coming. Sebelius’s taxman is coming.”

That was the rallying cry of Jim Sensenbrenner on Tuesday in the House of Representatives, where along with his chief co-sponsor Diane Black, he announced the Religious Freedom Tax Repeal Act, meant to be “a follow-on” to the recently concluded Fortnight for Freedom called for by the U.S. Catholic bishops, focusing on prayer and education about religious liberty.

The Freedom Tax Repeal Act seeks to “shock people into how confiscatory the taxes imposed would be for those who choose not to violate their consciences are,” Representative Sensenbrenner tells me.

“What has not been discussed” in most of the debate over the Department of Health and Human Services contraception, sterilization, and abortion-inducing drug mandate, Sensenbrenner says, “is the tax that is imposed upon those that fail to comply with that mandate, either through religious objections or moral grounds. Those taxes are severe; they are confiscatory.”

“It is $100 per employee per day,” Sensenbrenner says, spelling out the taxing implications out. “So, a religious institution that, say, has a church and an elementary school beside it that has 50 employees total, which include the administrative and maintenance personnel, end up being taxed $36,500 per employee per year. Or the 50-employee institution would have to pay a tax of $1,825,000 per year, every year.

A lot of people who claim to be pro-life seem to think that Obamacare is a great idea, but one wonders whether they know anything about the law at all – or whether they are really as pro-life as they claim to be.

Governors Bobby Jindal and Scott Walker refuse to implement Obamacare

Melissa send me this post from The leftist Huffington Post.

Excerpt:

 Just because the Supreme Court affirmed that the Affordable Care Act is the law of the land, doesn’t mean that Republican governors are rushing to follow it.

“We’re not going to start implementing Obamacare. We’re committed to working to elect Governor Romney to repeal Obamacare,” said Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) Friday morning on a call with reporters hosted by the Republican National Committee.

The Affordable Care Act requires states to set up health care benefits exchanges to help Americans buy insurance. If a state fails to act, the federal government will operate that state’s exchange program.

States have until Jan. 1, 2013, to demonstrate to the Department of Health and Human Services that it has a plan in place for the exchanges, which are required to be up and running by Jan. 1, 2014.

“On the exchanges, we’ve continued not to implement the exchanges in Louisiana. We’re going to work very hard to get Governor Romney elected so this law will be repealed long before the effective dates,” Jindal added.

[…]On Thursday, another leading Republican governor — Wisconsin’s Scott Walker — similarly said, “Wisconsin will not take any action to implement Obamacare. I am hopeful that political changes in Washington, D.C., later this year ultimately end the implementation of this law at the federal level.”

[…]”Here in Louisiana, we’ve not applied for the grants, we’ve not accepted many of these dollars,” Jindal said. “We’re not implementing the exchanges. We don’t think it makes any sense to implement Obamacare in Lousiana. The next opportunity we have to get rid of this law is to get Governor Romney elected, and I absolutely believe that he will be elected in November, and one of his first actions will be to repeal and replace this law.”

It’s good to see some Republican governors in tune with the mood of the public.