Posted on 02/27/2015 3:42:34 AM PST by afraidfortherepublic
It’s right there in the Constitution: “No Money shall be drawn from the Treasury, but in Consequence of Appropriations made by Law; and a regular Statement and Account of the Receipts and Expenditures of all public Money shall be published from time to time.”
Which is why this latest episode of lawlessness from the administration so particularly galling. “The U.S. Treasury Department has rebuffed a request by House Ways and Means Chairman Rep. Paul Ryan, R- Wis., to explain $3 billion in payments that were made to health insurers even though Congress never authorized the spending through annual appropriations,” The Washington Examiner’s Philp Klein reported on Thursday.
That’s right. The payments insurers receive, dubbed “cost –sharing subsidies,” are designed to offset the costs incurred when they pick up the out-of-pocket expenses for low-income individuals covered by Affordable Care Act plans. If insurers had to cover these costs themselves, Obamacare would be infeasible. So, the federal government picks up the tab for the newly insured as they go about receiving “free” health care.
There’s just one tiny, unconstitutional problem: Congress never authorized the distribution of those funds. “[B]ut the Department of Health and Human Services, with the cooperation of the U.S. Treasury, made them anyway,” Klein reported.
In a Feb. 3 letter to Treasury Secretary Jack Lew, Ryan, along with House Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., asked for “a full explanation for, and all documents relating to” the administration’s decision to make the cost-sharing payments without congressional authorization.
In response, on Wednesday, the Treasury Department sent a letter to Ryan largely describing the program, without offering a detailed explanation of the decision to make the payments. The letter revealed that $2.997 billion in such payments had been made in 2014, but didn’t elaborate on where the money came from. Over the next decade, cost-sharing payments to insurers are projected by the Congressional Budget Office to cost taxpayers nearly $150 billion.
Click through to Klein’s report and read the whole thing. This pattern of behavior from administration officials staggering in its lawlessness and sets a dangerous precedent.
“A second grader knows that only Congress can appropriate funds. And even though CMS apparently agrees with that, the managers at HHS don’t,” The American Thinker’s Rick Moran opined. “Unfortunately, unless both the House and Senate order the insurance companies to return the funds – and President Obama signs the bill – HHS is going to get away with this.”
Apparently, this cost-sharing scheme is one of the issues that is raised in the House GOP’s lawsuit against the White House over the myriad ways in which the administration has bent the law in order, they claim, to enforce it. But the outrage over this incident, or even reportage on it, is limited exclusively to Republican outlets.
One of the better arguments for repeal of the Affordable Care Act is the fact that this law has inured the public to anarchy. The public increasingly believes, and a plurality of Democrats are apparently convinced, that laws passed by Congress should be malleable enough so that the executive branch is not burdened by the dictates of the co-equal and representative legislative branch. What have we gotten ourselves into?
Paul Ryan at work — being stonewalled by Treasury.
FReep Mail me if you want on, or off, this Wisconsin interest ping list.
Lawless America is the result
of EXEMPT Issa and EXEMPT Cummings
and EXEMPT Holder working together
against the American people
and the US Constitution
for their EXEMPT selves,
their EXEMPT families,
and their EXEMPT Staff.
Why bother having a House Ways and Means Chairman? Just let little boy zero do as he pleases.
We have a congress? Thats strange.
What is this “Congress” supposed to do?
What do you expect? As long as impeachment of any Obama official is off the table because the President is black, there is no more fear on breaking the law.
Ping for your list.
And what is the GOPe controlled Congress going to do about it? Nothing, just like it has done with Obamacare as a whole, and executive amnesty, and just as it will do with the FTC internet-grab.
Every day Barry shreds the Constitution with something new.
Put them in jail. They broke the law, put them in jail.
“Unfortunately, unless both the House and Senate order the insurance companies to return the funds – and President Obama signs the bill – HHS is going to get away with this.”
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Just kinda wondering when one of the “Conservative” member of the House or Senate is going to introduce this bill.
Sometime in 2017?
De facto nullification of the Constitution at the pleasure of the president???
“Laws? We don’t need no stinkin laws”... Quote by FORMER POTUS B.H. Odumbo.
This payment sounds like an advance to insurers in preparation for expected costs associated with the billions of “undocumented immigrants” who will receive FREE healthcare after Obama pushes amnesty through with another EO. Despite what a lot of people think, its not too late to impeach Obama and his minions.
De facto nullification of the Constitution at the pleasure of the president???
Fundamental transformation of America.
As promised.
There is only one answer: pass only the funds you permit, and pass NOTHING ELSE ALL YEAR. Eventually, the Welfare State will suffocate and be forced to deal. There are just too many mouths to feed, and Obama — or Reid and Pelosi — won’t be able to stand the infants’ screams.
“pass only the funds you permit, and pass NOTHING ELSE ALL YEAR.”
This strategy would only be possible if the Republicans had the majority in both the House and Senate. Unfortunately the Democrats won overwhelming majorities in both houses in the recent elections.
At least that’s sure as hell how it seems lately.
That would have been done two decades ago - if the Republicans were able to stand the media's screams.
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