The Heritage Insider: Little Sisters fight for religious freedom, ObamaCare doing badly, Congress doesn't really want to cut spending, and more

March 26, 2016

 

 

The Little Sisters of the Poor had their day in court this week; they want to know why Pepsi, Exxon, and Visa get an exemption from the contraception mandate, but they don’t. ObamaCare is 6-years-old and the results so far are poor. The only thing that will prove Congress wants to cut spending is Congress cutting spending. President Obama visited Cuba; what did the Castro regime do to deserve that? Tibor Machan, R.I.P. Plus, over 60 new studies, articles, speeches, videos, and events at The Insider this week. Visit to see what the conservative movement has been thinking, writing, saying, and doing to win battles for liberty.  

 

Pepsi, Exxon, and Visa are exempt from the contraceptive mandate, but not Little Sisters of the Poor. The Little Sisters of the Poor had their day before the Supreme Court on Wednesday. The charity, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, is challenging the Department of Health and Human Services mandate that employee health plans must cover contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs, which the Sisters find morally objectionable. The Sisters argue that the mandate violates the Religious Freedom Restoration Act, which says that the government cannot impose a substantial burden on religious faith unless the restriction serves a compelling government interest and is the least restrictive means of doing so. As Sarah Torre observes in her summary of the case, how compelling can the government’s interest be when it has already exempted the health plans of about one in three Americans? [The Heritage Foundation; also, see the cartoon explaining the case at http://thelittlesistersofthepoor.com/littlesisterscomic]

 

The prices are high but the options are low! The Affordable Care Act is six years old this week. How is it doing? As Brittany La Couture notes, so far the law has not “bent the cost curve,” failed to meet enrollment targets, forced people into pricier health insurance than they otherwise would have chosen, and reduced competition in health insurance. Also, it has raised taxes. [American Action Forum]

 

Isn’t $19 trillion enough debt? The Republican Congress, as Genevieve Wood notes, wants to spend $57 billion more in FY 2017 than it proposed spending in FY 2016. Their excuse is that President Obama would veto a smaller budget anyway. But why not pass a budget that gets priorities right and force the President to make his owns excuses if he wants to pile up more red ink? [Daily Signal; The Heritage Foundation plan mentioned by Wood, which achieves balance in seven years, is “A Blueprint for Balance: A Federal Budget for 2017”]

 

What did we get from the Castros? President Obama went to Cuba this week. In 60 seconds Roger Noriega explains that the President’s policy shift isn’t likely to produce good results for the Cuban people because it’s not contingent on the regime’s behavior. [American Enterprise Institute]

 

Tibor Machan, R.I.P. Libertarian thinker and Reason magazine co-founder, Tibor Machan died Thursday. He was 77. Robert Poole, another co-founder of Reason, remembers Machan as a prolific writer who “was such an individualist, that he already loathed Communism as a young teenager,” and had to be smuggled out of Hungary for his own safety at the age of 14. [Reason]

 

Don’t forget to register for Resource Bank, which will be April 20 – 22 in Philadelphia. The speakers include: Lary Arnn, Sam Brownback, Richard Epstein, Neal Freeman, Alan Charles Kors, Ed Meese III, Richard Viguerie, Walter Williams, and Kevin Williamson.

 

 

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