Heritage Distinguished Fellow and former Congressman Ernest Istook (R–OK) recently unveiled Obamacare’s “dirty little secret”: $105 billion of advance appropriations which make it difficult for current and future Congresses to control spending on the unpopular new law. The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health delved further into the problems …
One provision of Obamacare has already spawned a nightmare for doctors, pharmacists, and patients. As of January 1, Americans with health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible savings accounts (FSAs), and health reimbursement accounts (HRAs) can no longer purchase over-the-counter (OTC) drugs using these tax-exempt accounts. After only a couple of months, …
Recent hearings in both the House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigation and the Senate Finance Committee took a closer look at fraud within Medicare and Medicaid. Spending on Medicare and Medicaid is on an unsustainable path due to rising health care costs and an aging population. Meanwhile, …
If lawmakers are serious about tackling out-of-control government spending, they have no choice but to tackle entitlements. Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security are the three largest entitlement programs and together represent 40.2 percent of the President’s fiscal year (FY) 2012 budget. For the sake of comparison, total spending on national …
Today former Congressman Ernest Istook testified before the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee about the $105 billion slush fund in advance appropriations liberals tucked inside Obamacare. The $105 billion bypasses the traditional yearly budgeting process and is spread throughout the 2,700 page legislation. It took the Congressional Research Service …
Yesterday we highlighted two recent Congressional Research Service (CRS) reports (October 14, 2010 and February 10, 2011) that detail how Obamacare bypassed the traditional yearly budgeting process and created a $105 billion slush fund for implementation. As we explained yesterday, if conservatives are serious about stopping Obamacare, they must proactively …
It’s no secret that Obamacare is chock full of favors for big labor. One example is the new law’s excise tax on “Cadillac” insurance plans, which won’t apply to collectively bargained health plans when it goes into effect. It doesn’t end there. Obamacare also created the Early Retirement Reinsurance Program, …
While Obamacare is rightly notorious as a fiscal nightmare, less well known is just how massively it transferred power from Congress to the executive branch. In fact, the full scope of Congress’s abdication is still unknown. What is now known, however, is that deeply buried within Obamacare was a $105 …
