The Heartland Institute

From the archives: A guide to severability and the individual mandate. Several state legislators have reached out to me recently with questions about the nature of severability and Obamacare . Since some folks seem to have questions as well , I thought I’d explain a bit about what this means. Most laws of large size and scope ...

If you're looking for a timeline of the laws and regulations of Obamacare, here are several which have been produced by various entities. You may find a particular timeline more useful depending on what you're looking for. Kaiser Health News: Implementation Timeline (graphically the most appealing) NFIB: Timeline for Small Businesses ...

Now that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (or “Obamacare”) is law, “what is in it” is revealed by 3,256 pages of legislative text, including the 858 pages of the reconciliation bill (as printed at my local library). Most of the bill’s provisions, except its tax increases, do not go into effect until 2014. So ...

A provision of President Obama’s health care law will mandate public reports on any incidents in which physicians accept speaking fees, five-star meals, or other compensation from pharmaceutical or medical device companies. The new requirement will publish on the internet the names of doctors and the value of the gifts they ...

Seniors, beware. Buried in the President’s April deficit speech was a plan to give even more power to the Medicare rationing board created in his health-overhaul law. President Obama proposes giving the unelected, unaccountable Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) new authority to tighten the screws on payments. He clearly ...

In Virginia today, Judge Henry Hudson released his ruling around noon in the case of Commonwealth of Virginia vs. Sebelius , a case against President Obama's health care law, finding the individual mandate within that law unconstitutional. Hudson found in favor of the Commonwealth, writing that the provision of the law which ...

In a recent decision, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius announced she would grant waivers to more than thirty companies and firms from several aspects of President Obama’s health care law. The waivers came in response to public statements from several of the companies indicating they would be forced to ...

There is little question that the key issue for most voters in November’s election was the economy. In President Barack Obama’s first term, the principal piece of legislation affecting the jobs picture was not a budget or a tax package, but rather the health care law that bears his name and was clearly the major legislative ...

Since the passage of President Obama’s health care law earlier this year, there has been a backlash across the country from citizens and states in response to the individual mandate to purchase health insurance. Twenty-two states’ attorney generals have joined a lawsuit against the federal government on the issue. Missouri passed ...

Upon the passage of President Obama s health care legislation, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA), Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), and other members of Congress hailed the achievement as one of historic significance. A little more than six months after Obama signed the bill into law, however, the legislation is playing ...

Advocates of greater government control over health care had fifteen years to figure out why they failed to pass a national healthcare reform bill during President Clinton s administration. After the Democratic Party retook control of Congress in 2006 and won the White House in 2008, liberal think tanks and advocacy groups and ...

The recent decision in Michigan s Thomas More Law Center v. Obama legal case was a short-term victory for President Obama s health care control law. Yet a close reading of the case suggests the law may have a very tough time once it gets before the U.S. Supreme Court. The Obama administration s strategy has been to try to ...

New concerns about the ramifications of President Obama s health care law are arising as state policymakers realize the law may decrease health care access and push more patients into already overcrowded emergency rooms. Potential doctor shortages were already a pressing issue before ObamaCare, and now more hospitals and critics ...

Before its passage, politicians were urged to vote for Obamacare as a smart political move. In time, supporters claimed, people would come to love the new benefits. “Good policy is good politics,” President Obama said. Today, as people find out what’s in the bill, they are coming to hate it. In a leaked PowerPoint presentation ...

Americans know best what kind of health care coverage is right for them and their families. They should be able to work with their own trusted physicians to determine the treatments and services that meet their needs. Unfortunately, the health care reform law, which was rushed through Congress and forced on the American public ...

Earlier this year, Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed into law the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” The act’s supporters said it would achieve the long-sought goal of universal health insurance while preserving the high quality and freedom of choice that are the hallmarks of America’s health care system ...

Recent hearings in Virginia regarding the commonwealth s case against the individual health insurance mandate in President Barack Obama s health care reform raised important questions hinging on the issue of constitutional severability. If the Supreme Court rules the individual mandate unconstitutional, will it render the entire law ...

The question keeps coming up from concerned citizens: Under President Barack Obama s new health care regime, what s going to happen to my health savings account (HSA)? The answer is that the popular accounts will still exist, but in what could be a very different form. Under Obama s law, HSAs will be dramatically regulated ...

Among the cases attacking the constitutionality of Obamacare, one filed last month by a Tennessee lawyer previously unknown at the national level could be the most revolutionary. Attorney Van Irion of Knoxville hopes his case will eventually reach the U.S. Supreme Court. The Court takes very few cases, so his may not make ...

The legislative victory of President Obama s massive health care overhaul among Washington's political class comes at a high cost for Wisconsinites and Americans forced to swallow this bitter pill. This remake of one-sixth of our economy will exacerbate the very problems this reform effort sought to address. It will dramatically ...