Some of the members have been asking what the TPP Leadership is doing. The short answer to that is; gathering information that can be acted on and keeping the State and Local Leaders informed and ready to act.
Here is a single example of that dispersal of information to Local Groups but only one example;
LC Webinar December 2, 2012
JB: welcome.
Michael Cannon with the Cato Institute:
The election was a disappointment to many. The voters were given a choice of the first person and the second person to institute ObamaCare. Many states oppose ObamaCare. ObamaCare is not yet law. There are two entitlements. The exchange system and the Medicaid program.
When states oppose exchange programs, there will be lots of health insurance industry upset with ObamaCare. States can refuse the exchange and pull down the house of cards. The law ties its subsidies (tax credits) to states creating an exchange. It creates $800 billion of credits to people who buy from a state exchange. The feds can set up exchanges but states will lose the tax credits.
Under ObamaCare, the sick and healthy will be charged the same. Without creating exchanges, the states are keeping the federal government from creating the tax credits that will make it much more expensive. States that don’t create exchanges will expose the real cost of ObamaCare.
The law ties the employer mandate of a penalty of up to $2000 per employee. The laws ties the penalties to those tax credits. Without those credits, there would be no penalties to employers. The more states that don’t create exchanges, the more people who will force their representatives to reopen ObamaCare.
Q: what should people do if their state is doing a partnership with the government?
A: if you want to stop ObamaCare, get your state to not do anything to start ObamaCare. Friday, the Obama administration said they’d impose a 3.5% tax on every dollar that is funded from federal exchanges and not state exchanges. There is no law that gives them that right.
Q: How many states haven’t decided on an exchange A: Utah, Montana, Idaho, Indiana, Virginia, West Virginia, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Florida, New Jersey haven’t decided yet. States who are going along with the exchanges will lose employers to states who won’t set up exchanges. Companies will be able to avoid the $2000 per employee fine.
http://www.galen.org/resource-guide-exchanges is a great source of information.
We’ve heard Indiana and Virginia are going to reject the exchanges.
Ken Klukowski – there’s a variety of legal challenges against Obamacare along the argument that says parts of the bill violate the Constitution. The other is the law does not force states to set up exchanges.
Liberty University is one of the original lawsuits against ObamaCare. Another deals with subsidies from the federal government to states. If the state doesn’t have an exchange, it must pay a 3.5% fine.
Liberty’s case is different. It has 80,000 students is self-insured. They are challenging two parts. First,
the individual mandate and second, the employer mandate. For any business with 50 or more
employees on Jan 1, 2014, the employer must make available to them health insurance that meets
federal standards with qualified health plan. They will have to cover abortion, birth control, etc. The
penalty is $2000 per employee per year with the exclusion of the first 30 employees.
Both arguments are based on ObamaCare violates the Constitution. It constitutes a violation of the free
exercise of religion. If the court rules that religious families can exercise their religion through their
company, companies could also be exempt from ObamaCare. I expect a ruling in our favor before
ObamaCare is implemented.
In terms of Liberty University, the question will be whether the mandate will be identical as it is under
Sebelius’ regulation.