Health care bill: a positive step that could be improved. | Paris Agreement: get out to protect the Constitution and the economy. | Religious liberty requires Congress to act. | And more ...
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May 6, 2017 |
The House of Representatives passed a health care bill this week. It takes a couple of positive steps. The Senate now has an opportunity to make it better still. Getting out of the Paris Climate agreement will help preserve our constitutional system and our economy. Oregon wants to make mathematical criticism of the government illegal without a license; so the Institute for Justice is taking the state to court in order to get it to do the math on the First Amendment. If we really want to protect religious liberty, Congress needs to act. |
What the health care bill does and how it could be better: The House of Representatives passed a health care bill on Thursday. Is it a repeal of Obamacare? Is it replacement? Is it something else? Robert Moffit and Jean Morrow call it a step in the right direction, noting that the bill creates a mechanism for states to get out from under the insurance market regulations that have driven health insurance premiums up for most Americans. “In order to secure a waiver from these federal insurance rules,” they write, “states must establish a high-risk pool for persons with pre-existing conditions” and ensure the premiums will be stable, “or participate in a new federal risk-sharing program designed to secure continuing coverage and market stability.” They continue: “As amended, the House bill rightly focuses on costly health insurance rules, makes historic changes in Medicaid—transforming Medicaid from an open-ended entitlement to a budgeted program—and repeals the national health law’s mandate penalties and its slew of taxes. In fact, the House bill provides for one of the largest tax reductions on record.” The Senate, note Moffit and Morrow, can make the bill better by dropping the Cadillac Tax on high value plan and instead putting in place a cap on the tax exclusion. That would induce a shift away from the expensive plans that drive excessive health care expenditures. Other improvements would be replacing the Medicaid block grant program with a premium support program that gives Medicaid recipients the same access to private plans their fellow citizens have; and applying the rules on pre-existing conditions that work in the group market to the individual market. [The Daily Signal]
Get out of Paris. If the United States continues to participate in the Paris Climate Agreement, it will suffer significant damage to its constitutional system and to its economic well being, write Christopher Horner and Marlo Lewis: “To claim he properly committed the U.S. to the Paris Agreement, President Obama pretended that way back in 1992, when the Senate consented to ratification of the U.N. Framework Convention on Climate Change, it also authorized unknown future executives to commit the United States to undertakings of far greater cost and risk. […] [I]t is inconceivable that when the Senate ratified the UNFCCC in 1992 it gave future presidents carte blanche to make costly and prescriptive legislative commitments without obtaining the Senate’s advice and consent. “The Paris Agreement is no mere ‘update’ of the UNFCCC. Given its prescriptiveness, ambition, costs, risks, dependence on subsequent legislation by Congress, and intent to affect state laws, the Paris Agreement—no less than the Kyoto Protocol and in key respects more so—is a whole new treaty. Alternatively, the Paris Agreement amends the UNFCCC into a very different treaty from that which the United States ratified. Either way, it purports to commit the U.S. to treaty-like obligations without Senate approval. “If allowed to stand as precedent, Obama’s end-run around the treaty making process, along with the implicit assertion that the executive can unilaterally decide whether or not an agreement is subject to Senate review, would undermine one of the Constitution’s most important checks and balances. “Far from being toothless, the Paris Agreement would compel U.S. leaders to continually negotiate domestic energy policy with a coalition of foreign governments, multilateral agencies, and environmental pressure groups, all exaggerating climate change risks, and all demanding urgent action to restrict America and the world’s access to affordable, plentiful, reliable carbon-based energy. It is designed to do this in perpetuity […] .” [Competitive Enterprise Institute]
The Constitution protects criticism of the government—even when the criticism contains math. Oregon’s State Board of Examiners for Engineering and Land Surveying fined Mats Jarlstrom $500 for the unlicensed practice of engineering. His transgression consisted of researching how red-light cameras work and then pointing out that the cameras misuse the standard mathematical formula for timing traffic lights. He is in fact an engineer—just not a state-licensed engineer. Regardless, Oregon is violating Jarlstrom’s constitutional rights, explains the Institute for Justice’s Sam Gedge: “Criticizing the government’s engineering isn’t a crime; it’s a constitutional right[.] […] Under the First Amendment, you don’t need to be a licensed lawyer to write an article critical of a Supreme Court decision, you don’t need to be a licensed landscape architect to create a gardening blog, and you don’t need to be a licensed engineer to talk about traffic lights. Whether or not you use math, criticizing the government is a core constitutional right that cannot be hampered by onerous licensing requirements.” Gedge and the Institute for Justice are representing Jarlstrom in a lawsuit against the state board. [Institute for Justice]
The religious liberty executive order doesn’t really do much. President Trump’s executive order on free speech and religious liberty doesn’t do much other than confirm existing law and focus on less important issues, says Ryan Anderson. He points out that what we really need to protect religious liberty is action by Congress: “Congress can start by passing the Russell Amendment, the Conscience Protection Act, and the First Amendment Defense Act. “The Russell Amendment protects the abilities of religious organizations to make staffing decisions in keeping with their religious identity and mission. It provides protections and exemptions consistent with the Civil Rights Act and Americans with Disabilities Act to all religious organizations that contract with the federal government or receive grants. “The Conscience Protection Act creates a private right of action that allows people to sue in federal court if they believe there has been a violation of the Weldon Amendment, which prevents federal, state and local governments that receive certain federal funds from discriminating against health care entities that decline to ‘provide, pay for, provide coverage of, or refer for abortions.’ This would address unlawful policies in California and New York that force all health care plans to cover abortion. “The First Amendment Defense Act prevents federal agencies from discriminating against individuals or institutions for following their convictions about marriage as a man-woman union by revoking their non-profit tax status, or denying them government grants, contracts, accreditation or licenses.” [The Hill]
Russ Roberts finds poetry in the hidden order of freedom. [WonderfulLoaf]
On Thursday, Leonard Leo received the Canterbury Medal from the Becket Fund for his work defending religious liberty in the courts. [YouTube]
Some events coming up: BREXIT: Good for North Carolina, Good for World Trade, and Great for Global Prosperity, Noon, May 8, John Locke Foundation, Raleigh, N.C. New Bridges: Texas Advancing Liberty & Prosperity in a Divided America, Independent Institute, 9 a.m., May 9, Collins Center, Southern Methodist University, Dallas 40th Annual Resource Bank: Liberty Depends on You. Will You Rise to the Challenge? The Heritage Foundation, May 9-12, Broadmoor Hotel, Colorado Springs How Social Enterprises Reduce Joblessness: A Conversation with REDF President and CEO Carla Javits, Noon, May 10, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C. Robert Genetski: Rich Nation, Poor Nation, 5:30 p.m., May 10, The Heartland Institute, Arlington Heights, Ill. Why Trump is Wrong About Trade, Mackinac Center, 11:30 a.m., May 11, The Governor’s Room, Lansing, Mich. Is There a Doctor – or a Nurse – in the House? Scope of Practice Regulation and Health Care Reform, Noon, May 11, American Enterprise Institute, Washington, D.C. Cardiac Arrest: Five Heart-Stopping Years as a CEO on the Feds’ Hit-List with Howard Root, Center of the American Experiment, Noon, May 12, Hilton Minneapolis Teaching Kids Controversy: Education, Pluralism, and Hot Topics, 4 p.m. May 15, Cato Institute, Washington, D.C. womenLEAD Summit, Independent Women’s Forum, May 16, Decatur House, Washington, D.C. The Volcker Rule, 2 p.m., May 17, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C. The Political Spectrum: The Tumultuous Liberation of Wireless Technology, from Herbert Hoover to the Smartphone, Noon, May 18, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C. From the Model T to Driverless Cars: How Michigan Can Lead in Transportation Innovation, Mackinac Center, 11:30 a.m., May 18, House Office Building Mackinac Room, Lansing, Mich. The Spartan Regime: Its Character, Origin and Grand Strategy, Noon, May 19, The Heritage Foundation, Washington, D.C. The Baroness Thatcher Gala Dinner with Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Pacific Research Institute, 6 p.m., May 20, The Ritz-Carlton, Dana Point, Calif.
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