Bipartisan Group Calls For Broader Religious Exemptions In ObamaCare

By Pete Kasperowicz - 04/29/13 05:05 PM ET

House Republicans and Democrats have joined together to re-introduce a bill that would expand the religious conscience exemptions under ObamaCare.

Under the Equitable Access to Care and Health (EACH) Act, individuals would have the option of being exempted from the Affordable Healthcare Act's mandate to buy health insurance. People could avoid the mandate by filing an affidavit as part of their tax return saying their religious beliefs keep them from buying insurance that meets federal standards.

However, anyone filing this affidavit who then uses healthcare would lose their right to the exemption from the insurance mandate.

"We believe the EACH Act balances a respect for religious diversity against the need to prevent fraud and abuse," Reps. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) and William Keating (D-Mass.) wrote in a letter seeking support for their bill.

"It is imperative we expand the religious conscience exemption now as the Administration is already developing a process to verify the various exemptions to the individual mandate," they wrote.

Religious exemption from ObamaCare has come up before, including the ruling from the Obama administration that religious-affiliated organizations must provide health insurance that covers contraception. The EACH Act, however, is unrelated to that issue, and deals only with exemptions from the insurance mandate.

The bill, H.R. 1814, enjoyed bipartisan support last year, and this year was introduced with 43 co-sponsors.

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Group uses Reagan shooting to push tougher gun laws

A pro-gun-control group is using footage of the attempted assassination of President Reagan in a new ad. 

The ad from the United Network of Rational Americans uses the footage to argue expanded background checks might have prevented John Hinckley Jr. from shooting the president. It also says Reagan himself made that argument. 

"President Reagan believed something could have prevented the attack," the ad's narrator says. "Ten years later, he wrote the attack might never have happened if a bill requiring background checks had been law."

Hinckley shot Reagan 32 years ago this week despite the presence of armed Secret Service agents and police, the group notes. He was later found not guilty by reason of insanity in the shooting, which injured four. Reagan suffered a punctured lung and press secretary James Brady was left paralyzed.

The ad cites a 1991 op-ed by Reagan in support of the Brady Bill, named for his press secretary. That legislation requires a background check on individuals who purchase weapons from a federally licensed dealer. Next month, the Senate will consider legislation that would expand background checks to private and gun show sales.

The use of the Reagan footage could inflame an already divisive debate. United Network of Rational Americans was founded by Scott Crider, an activist who made headlines with the "Dogs Against Romney" group during the 2012 presidential campaign. That group staged events that mocked the Republican presidential nominee over an incident where the Romney family took a road trip with their Irish Setter placed in a carrier on top of their car.

"Thirty-two years ago this week, President Ronald Reagan was shot by a mentally disturbed man," Crider said in a statement posted to Facebook. "The best armed security in the world couldn't prevent it."

In an event Thursday at the White House, President Obama asked supporters to pressure their members of Congress to support an expansion of background checks.

“If they're not part of that 90 percent that agree that we should make it harder for a criminal or someone with a severe mental illness to get a gun, you should ask them why not," Obama said.

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Arizona Group Will Give Away Loaded Shotguns To ‘Take Back’ City From Criminals

Featured on Armed Citizen Project's website

A Tucson, Arizona affiliate of the Armed Citizen Project will spend $12,000 on a new charitable initiative: handing out free shotguns in neighborhoods with high crime rates. According to the head of the Tucson initiative, an armed citizenry is the sensible solution to an underfunded police department facing budget cuts. The Arizona Daily Star writes:

“We need to take back our city, and it needs to come back to the citizens and not the criminals,” [Shaun] McClusky said. “Right now, the criminal element is winning.”

Over the next couple of weeks, McClusky and others will begin spreading leaflets and posting fliers in Midvale Park, Pueblo Gardens and a yet-to-be-determined midtown neighborhood to induce residents to sign up for the program.

McClusky, a failed mayoral candidate, likened gun violence to “saying spoons are responsible for making people fat,” even though armed citizens rarely stop violent crime, and their intervention can cause danger and bloodshed.

Tucson Councilman Steve Kozachik called the project “absolute lunacy.” “These people have lost their minds,” he said (sadly, they are far from the only ones).

Tucson is the site of an assassination attempt against former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-AZ) two years ago. Thirteen people were injured and six others were killed in the shooting.

(HT: Talking Points Memo)

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*RESEARCH ALERT-Galena Biopharma: Maxim Group raises target price

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German hospitals group Sana rules out large mergers

* Sana CEO says large deals complex, offer little synergies

* Says Sana owners would not sell

FRANKFURT, March 18 (Reuters) - A new round of attempted M&A in Germany's private hospital sector is unlikely because such deals are complex and offer limited scope for synergies, the head of one of the main four hospital groups said.

Michael Philippi, chief executive of unlisted Sana Kliniken AG, the fourth-largest private-sector hospitals operator in Germany, said transformative "leaps" were not likely in the foreseeable future.

"Changes are not to be expected for now," he told Reuters.

Last year, rival hospital group Fresenius tried and failed to fully take over Rhoen-Klinikum , after another competitor Asklepios bought a stake that blocked the deal which would have combined the industry's two largest players by sales.

The Fresenius/Rhoen-Klinikum deal attracted a lot of interest from international hedge funds, who placed bets on a renewed bid for Rhoen by Fresenius.

Prior to the Fresenius/Rhoen situation, Sana had considered merging with Rhoen but had abandoned the plans.

Philippi told Reuters large combinations in the hospitals sector were often too complex to handle.

"The question is which large mergers do really work? It's not something that just falls into place."

Synergies were limited because central administrative expenses were relatively insignificant, he said.

He also ruled out a sale of Sana, which is owned by 31 medical insurance groups including units of Allianz and Munich Re .

For them, Sana is a long-term, strategic investment that has become even more attractive amid the low interest rates of alternative low-risk investments, he said.

(Reporting by Andreas Kroener, Frank Siebelt and Ludwig Burger. Editing by Jane Merriman)

((ludwig.burger@thomsonreuters.com)(+49 69 7565 1311)(Reuters Messaging: ludwig.burger.thomsonreuters.com@reuters.net))

Keywords: SANA HOSPITALS/

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Bipartisan Group Calls For Broader Religious Exemptions In ObamaCare

House Republicans and Democrats have joined together to re-introduce a bill that would expand the religious conscience exemptions under ObamaCare.

Under the Equitable Access to Care and Health (EACH) Act, individuals would have the option of being exempted from the Affordable Healthcare Act's mandate to buy health insurance. People could avoid the mandate by filing an affidavit as part of their tax return saying their religious beliefs keep them from buying insurance that meets federal standards.

However, anyone filing this affidavit who then uses healthcare would lose their right to the exemption from the insurance mandate.

"We believe the EACH Act balances a respect for religious diversity against the need to prevent fraud and abuse," Reps. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) and William Keating (D-Mass.) wrote in a letter seeking support for their bill.

"It is imperative we expand the religious conscience exemption now as the Administration is already developing a process to verify the various exemptions to the individual mandate," they wrote.

Religious exemption from ObamaCare has come up before, including the ruling from the Obama administration that religious-affiliated organizations must provide health insurance that covers contraception. The EACH Act, however, is unrelated to that issue, and deals only with exemptions from the insurance mandate.

The bill, H.R. 1814, enjoyed bipartisan support last year, and this year was introduced with 43 co-sponsors.

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‘Family’ Group To Supreme Court: Same-Sex Couples Are Not Gay

The Family Research Council, an anti-gay hate group, has filed amicus briefs in both the Defense of Marriage Act and Proposition 8 cases before the Supreme Court. In these briefs, FRC claims that gays and lesbians do not deserve nondiscrimination protections because of their sexual orientation, but adds that even if they did, the Court could still rule against them in these cases. The group explains this by pointing out that gay people can enter opposite-sex couples, and thus laws like DOMA and Prop 8 do not discriminate specifically against gay people, just same-sex couples:

In his concurring opinion in Andersen v. King County, Justice J. M. Johnson noted that the state DOMA “does not distinguish between persons of heterosexual orientation and homosexual orientation,” and identified a recent case in which a man and a woman, both identified as “gay,” entered into a valid opposite-sex marriage. It is apparent, therefore, that the right to enter into a marriage that would be recognized under § 3 of DOMA “is not restricted to (self-identified) heterosexual couples,” but extends to all adults without regard to “their sexual orientation.”  Contrary to the understanding of the California Supreme Court,  a law that restricts marriage (or the benefits thereof) to opposite-sex couples does not, on its face, discriminate between heterosexuals and homosexuals.  The classification in the statute is not between men and women, or between heterosexuals and homosexuals, but between opposite-sex (married) couples and same-sex (married) couples.

FRC could have used the same argument in 1967 to defend bans on interracial marriage, something like, The classification in the statute is not between white people and colored people, but between same-race couples and mixed-race couples, differentiated for the purposes of racial integrity. Just as it’s clear such an argument would still be discrimination based on race, so too are DOMA and Prop 8 discrimination based on sexual orientation.

FRC relies on its own myths to support its other myths. The brief argues essentially that gay people don’t exist — that their identities are not immutable and can only be defined by behavior. Only with this narrow conception of the lives of gay people would any of these arguments hold up, and fortunately reality modern-day reality does not allow for such naivete.

It’s worth noting that RightWingWatch also noticed a stunning contradiction in FRC’s briefs. In an attempt to dissuade the Court from recognizing sexual orientation as a suspect class (like race and gender), FRC argues in the DOMA brief that gays are a powerful group, particularly given the victories for marriage equality in the November 2012 elections. However, in the Prop 8 brief, FRC argues the opposite: since 30 states have banned same-sex marriage, there is no “emerging awareness” that the right to marry extends to same-sex couples. In other words, FRC’s version of “truth” is whichever spin supports its argument against equality.

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Individual and Small Group Insurance Premiums and the Affordable Care Act: Analytic Results

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Lesbian Military Spouse Rejects ‘Offensive’ Guest Membership To Spouses Group

This morning came news that the Association of Bragg Officers Spouses (ABOS) at Ft. Bragg had extended a “guest membership” to Ashley Broadway, the lesbian spouse of Lt. Col. Heather Mack. This concession was to serve as a temporary solution until the group reconsidered its membership policies, which it arbitrarily changed to exclude her. This afternoon, the L.A. Times is reporting that Broadway has rejected the offer, calling it ”not only offensive, but just plain hurtful”:

BROADWAY: My wife wears the same uniform as the spouses of [the club] and she’s just as prepared to give her life for our country. I wake up each and every day to the reality that I’m not equal, that my 15 years of love and faithfulness to my wife and country does not mean I’ll receive support as a military spouse.

Broadway and Mack married in November, but have been together for 15 years. The Pentagon has been supposedly reviewing military benefits for same-sex couples since the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” took effect in September 2011, but has yet to take action.

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Hate Group Spokesman Called Out For Anti-Gay Positions On Live TV

For reasons that remain unclear, cable news networks continue to provide airtime to the Family Research Council, neglecting to recognize that it has been designated as a hate group for its anti-gay views, let alone the fact that it hardly represents mainstream Christianity. Today was no exception, as FRC’s Peter Sprigg was invited on CNN to join the chorus of conservative objections that Pastor Louie Giglio will no longer be participating in President Obama’s Inauguration because of his anti-gay views. Sprigg attempted to claim that Christians are the victims, but fortunately, Truth Wins Out’s Wayne Besen was there to set the record straight:

SPRIGG: The world we live in, unfortunately, is increasingly marked by the enforcement of intolerance in the name of tolerance, exclusion in the name of inclusion, and forced uniformity in the name of diversity. It’s contradictory, it’s downright Orwellian, and yet people actually make these statements, unbelievably, with a straight face. [...]

BESEN: Peter, I find it ironic that you’re embracing diversity. I mean you called for the imprisonment of gay people and said we should export homosexuals out of the United States and suddenly you’re for tolerance? I’m a little confused here.

SPRIGG: [silent laughter] Well this is about Pastor Giglio and President Obama, it’s not about me.

Watch it:

Jeremy Hooper is right to celebrate this as a victory for GLAAD’s Commentator Accountability Project, which seeks to expose the anti-LGBT records of conservative spokespeople whose positions are typically not given proper context by the news outlets that interview them. Sprigg’s presence on CNN is the quintessential example of this whitewashing, because as Besen pointed out, his positions are seemingly even more anti-LGBT than Pastor Giglio’s. Sprigg has proven time and time again that he does not even have the most basic understanding of sexuality but does have a significant antipathy toward the very existence of gays and lesbians. He has no authority to speak about LGBT issues, and CNN should learn from this interview not to provide a pedestal for his bigoted point of view again.

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Conservative Group Pushes For Delay Of ‘ObamaCare’ Regulations

By Megan R. Wilson - 01/03/13 10:51 AM ET

A conservative nonprofit group is putting pressure on the Obama administration to delay major regulations from the healthcare reform law.

The Minnesota-based Citizens Council for Health Freedom says the administration is trying to “rush ‘ObamaCare’ ” by providing just 30 days for comment on major pieces of the program.

The group has asked supporters to write the Health and Human Services Department and demand that the rule-making process be slowed down.

"The Obama administration has given you just 30 days over the holidays to read more than 700 pages of proposed ObamaCare regulations which unless you act will become law. They want to rush ObamaCare into implementation. You can help slow it until repeal," the organization wrote.

The group’s efforts have resulted in a flood of comments on four proposals that outline rules for the healthcare exchanges and partnering with state plans, among others. Of the more than 1,500 total comments the administration has received, a large portion include the language suggested by Citizens Council for Health Freedom asking for a 60-day extension.

Other comments submitted to the administration echo the call for a slower implementation.  

"It's the Christmas rush and you think that I have time to read a 700-page document? Please extend the deadline by two months!" wrote Joanne Smith from Minnesota. 

And Steve Kintgen of Minnesota commented, "This is quite unrealistic and in bad taste and quite contrary to 'We the People' not to have a adequate [sic] chance outside of Advent and the Christmas season to be able to read and digest all this information."

Co-founded by registered nurse Twila Brase in 1998, the Citizens Council for Health Freedom aims to reduce "dependency on government healthcare programs," according to its website. 

Brase said the short-time frame given to comment on the regulations was "unfair."

"My hope is that they actually extend the deadline. … It's really important for the public to know what's in there," she told The Hill. "We don't look at it as a law that will remain in place. So for our purposes, it's important to slow the process down."

Brase said more than 70 percent of the comments on two of the regulatory proposals called for a longer review process. 

The regulatory proposals from the healthcare law are available for comment on Regulations.gov. The agencies rolling out the programs, the Department of Health and Human Services and the Office of Personnel Management, provided 30-day comment deadlines for the proposed regulations that ended on Dec. 26, Dec. 31 and Jan. 4. 

The agencies are required to respond to the comments before any of the proposed regulations become final.

— This story was updated at 11:51 a.m.

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Catholic Legal Group: Illinois Constituents Will ‘Suffer’ From Marriage Equality

The Thomas More Law Center is the latest group to discourage Illinois lawmakers from supporting marriage equality. In addition to reiterating trite complaints about children having to learn same-sex families exist and religious hospitals having to serve gay patients, the Catholic legal group goes on to claim that any Illinois resident who isn’t free to discriminate against gay people will “suffer”:

The harms noted above do not begin to address the suffering of your constituents who must participate in and support same-sex unions: small bed & breakfast owners who would be forced to rent out their home for same-sex wedding weekends; solo photographers who would be forced to spend hours photographing and designing albums for same-sex wedding ceremonies that they believe to be sinful; family catering company owners being forced to prepare, feed, serve, and support same-sex wedding receptions, even though the family members oppose those receptions with every fiber of their being. In other states, such businesses have been fined and subject to injunctions, some even permanently shutting down to avoid legal penalty.

A “yes” vote will inflict these harms, all for the sake of giving the title “married” to some number of the fewer than 1% of Illinois households headed by same-sex couples.

It’s interesting how conservative groups are growing more blunt about their intent to discriminate. No interpretation is required to discern the present argument: people will suffer if they have to provide basic services to same-sex couples. This is a petulant attempt to preserve a superior status for heterosexuality while forcing same-sex families into the shadows. More importantly, the argument is irrelevant — it’s already illegal under the Illinois Human Rights Act to discriminate against anyone because of their sexual orientation when providing public services. This is just as true now with civil unions legal as it would be when marriage equality passes.

The group’s letter ends with a claim that marriage equality must be rejected “in the name of tolerance.” There is nothing about expressing a desire to deny services to a group of people that speaks to “tolerance.”

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Bipartisan Group Of Former National Security Advisers Condemn Attacks On Hagel

Four former national security advisers in a letter to the editor in the Washington Post published on Tuesday denounced what New York TImes columnist Tom Friedman described as “disgusting” attacks on former Republican senator Chuck Hagel and praised Hagel’s prior service to the United States.

Responding to a Dec. 21 Post story on Hagel’s potential nomination to be Secretary of Defense, the former national security advisers, James L. Jones (Obama), Brent Scowcroft (Ford, H.W Bush) , Zbigniew Brzezinski (Carter) and Frank Carlucci (Reagan), said they “strongly object…to the attacks on the character of former senator Chuck Hagel,” whom they called “a man of unshakable integrity and wisdom who has served his country in the most distinguished manner in peace and war”:

He is a rare example of a public servant willing to rise above partisan politics to advance the interests of the United States and its friends and allies. Moreover, it is damaging to the quality of our civic discourse for prospective Cabinet nominees to be subjected to such vicious attacks on their character before an official nomination.

This type of behavior will only discourage future prospective nominees from public service when our country badly needs quality leadership in government.

Scowcroft and 10 other retired senior U.S. military officials, including William Fallon and Anthony Zinni, signed a letter last week saying that Hagel would be “a strong leader at the Pentagon” and that he’s “eminently qualified for the job.” That letter came on the heals of one just days prior in which nine former U.S. Ambassadors, including Ryan Crocker, signed a letter praising Hagel’s qualifications for the top Pentagon job.

The high-level support for Hagel comes after the “neocon smear machine” recently began a campaign to tar Hagel as an anti-Semite and anti-Israel and not sufficiently militaristic toward Iran after news reports that he is President Obama’s top choice to succeed Leon Panetta.

Friedman defended Hagel against the backlash in his Times column today. “I think he would make a fine secretary of defense — precisely because some of his views are not ‘mainstream.’”

In its Dec. 21 article on Hagel, the Post quoted Sen. Dick Lugar (R-IN) calling the former Nebraska Republican an “excellent candidate” for Pentagon chief. “Most senators who served with Chuck would be favorable to his nomination,” Lugar said.

The Atlantic’s Robert Wright notes today that Hagel has now drawn wide ranging support from across the ideological spectrum. “[B]y and large this fight is between some neocons (plus a few reliable supporters) and everybody else,” he writes, adding: “So it’s in Obama’s hands. There’s a lot at stake here — not just whether McCarthyite smears will be allowed to succeed, but whether Obama, in the wake of the Susan Rice episode, will now get a reputation as someone who caves whenever he faces resistance.”

(Photo: Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski – Getty)

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