U.S. Senator Mark Begich is applauding the Supreme Court’s decision to uphold the key element of President Barack Obama’s signature health care overhaul.
Begich says the bill maintains several elements that, he says, will benefit Alaska – like a permanent authorization for the Indian Health Services.
He says the final ruling should put the political issue to rest
“This battle has gone to the Supreme Court – a conservative Supreme Court. They’ve ruled it’s constitutional. We can argue as time progresses if there are things that need to be modified or changed, and I’m never opposed to reviewing that. If there’s things that aren’t working, we need to resolve that. But it’s time to move forward,” Begich said.
There’s no indication this issue is over. House Republicans say they’ll move forward with another repeal bill – they’ve already passed one. And U.S. Senator Lisa Murkowski says the Senate will proceed with a repeal bill, too. Though she did not indicate when.
The U.S. Supreme Court this morning upheld the Affordable Health Care Act as constitutional.
The controversial individual mandate that required people without health insurance to purchase it or pay a penalty was criticized as unconstitutional, however, the court ruled that such a payment fell under the right of Congress to levy taxes.
Alaska was one of 26 states that filed suit against the act, protesting the individual mandate and the requirement that states expand their Medicaid programs or risk losing Medicaid funding.
The court ruled that the expansion could proceed as long as the federal government does not threaten to withhold states’ entire Medicaid allotment if they don’t take part in the extension.
Gov. Parnell released a statement this morning stating that he remains concerned about the impacts of the federal law on individual and states’ rights.
“On the federal level, it will take congressional action to roll back what now appears to be the single largest tax increase in American history. This tax will not hurt the rich, because they have insurance. It will not hurt the poorest Americans, because it will not apply to them. It is a tax on the working poor and middle class Americans,” Parnell said.
Parnell said the state has begun reviewing the U.S. Supreme Court’s 193 page decision to determine how other provisions, like mandated state Medicaid expansion, have been affected by the U.S. Supreme Court decision.
U.S. Sen. Lisa Murkowski released a statement labeling the Supreme Court decision “an unprecedented federal overreach, and health care a tax hike in a struggling economy.”
Murkowski’s office posted this video shortly after the ruling was announced.
U.S. Sen. Mark Begich approved of the ruling.
“I’m pleased Alaskans will continue to receive important benefits such as coverage for young adults through their parents’ insurance, access to care for individuals with pre-existing conditions, tax credits for small businesses, increased services for our seniors, improved coverage for Alaska Natives, and even cash rebates if insurers don’t spend your premiums on health care.
“While the law is not perfect, the status quo was not an option,” Begich said in a news release. “Health care costs were skyrocketing and insurance companies were in charge of escalating those costs. There is still plenty of work to do, and I look forward to the State of Alaska moving forward on implementation.”
Representative Don Young is urging a repeal of the law.
“Today’s decision by the Supreme Court does not change the fact that ObamaCare sticks the American people with new taxes, new regulations and devastating cuts to Medicare.
“We must repeal and replace this law with a bill that increases accessibility, portability and affordability for the American people – and that’s what I intend on fighting for.”
Note: This story has been updated to include Representative Don Young’s response.
The Supreme Court has upheld the heart of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul — ruling in favor of the requirement that most Americans can be required to have health insurance, or else pay a penalty.
The decision means the historic overhaul will continue to take effect over the next several years, affecting the way countless Americans receive and pay for their personal medical care.
The ruling also hands President Barack Obama a campaign-season victory.
The court found problems with the law’s expansion of Medicaid. But even there, it said the expansion could proceed as long as the federal government does not threaten to withhold the entire Medicaid allotment to states if they don’t take part in the extension.
The court’s four liberal justices, Stephen Breyer, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor, joined Chief Justice John Roberts in the outcome.
The Supreme Court began hearing the case on March 26, nearly two years to the day that President Obama signed the act.
The Court had four key issues to consider:
Does the Supreme Court have the right to hear the case?
Does Congress have the authority to compel people to buy health insurance?
If the court strikes down one part of the law (specifically the individual mandate) does the whole law become invalid? If not, would other linked parts of the law have to be struck down as well?
Arguments by the states against being required to expand Medicaid programs.
On the SCOTUS blog the court wrote “Our precedent demonstrates that Congress had the power to impose the exaction in Section 5000A under the taxing power, and that Section 5000A need not be read to do more than impose a tax. This is sufficient to sustain it.”
From the SCOTUS Blog:
“In Plain English: The Affordable Care Act, including its individual mandate that virtually all Americans buy health insurance, is constitutional. There were not five votes to uphold it on the ground that Congress could use its power to regulate commerce between the states to require everyone to buy health insurance. However, five Justices agreed that the penalty that someone must pay if he refuses to buy insurance is a kind of tax that Congress can impose using its taxing power. That is all that matters.
“Because the mandate survives, the Court did not need to decide what other parts of the statute were constitutional, except for a provision that required states to comply with new eligibility requirements for Medicaid or risk losing their funding. On that question, the Court held that the provision is constitutional as long as states would only lose new funds if they didn’t comply with the new requirements, rather than all of their funding.”
Alaska, which is among the states that sued over the constitutionality of the federal health care law, has yet to implement a health care exchange. The health department has hired a consultant to help design one, and that report is expected soon.
In Alaska there are approximately 125,000 residents that do not have insurance, which is about 18 percent of the state’s population.
Republican Gov. Sean Parnell is expected to take the report and the U.S. Supreme Court decision into consideration in deciding how to proceed on the health care exchange issue. Spokeswoman Sharon Leighow declined to comment about contingency plans before the court’s ruling.
The U.S. Justice Department has given its approval to Alaska’s new redistricting plan.
The approval – known as “preclearance” under the Voting Rights Act – comes in the midst of a federal lawsuit, filed by Alaska Native groups to keep the state from implementing the plan until the Justice Department weighs in.
The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services has agreed to pay $1.7-million to the federal government to settle possible HIPAA violations.
HIPAA is short for the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act – the federal law governing privacy of medical records.
In October 2009, a portable hard drive – possibly containing patient information for up to 2,000 Alaskans – was stolen from the personal vehicle of a Department of Health and Social Services employee. DHSS immediately reported the theft to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That sparked a federal investigation, which found numerous flaws in the state’s handling of devices containing electronic medical records.
Susan McAndrew – Deputy Director for Health Information Privacy with the U.S. Department of Health – says DHSS did a poor job tracking its digital storage devices and protecting the information on them.
“What we found when our investigators went on site and got documentation from the state were some fundamental and longstanding problems of non-compliance,” McAndrew says. “And in particular in this case, a lack of control over portable media devices.”
DHSS Chief Security Officer Thor Ryan says the timing of the theft was unfortunate. The department was in the middle of a password encryption project making it harder to access lost or stolen information. That project has since been completed, and Ryan says the department has implemented new policies that further protect patient information.
“We have a password policy,” Ryan says. “And we also have annual training for all of our staff that trains them in the correct crafting of passwords, requires complex passwords and there are HR consequences if people choose to share their passwords inappropriately.”
The settlement agreement was finalized on Friday. In addition to the $1.7-million fine, McAndrew says DHSS will be required to prove compliance with its new policies for three years.
Ryan says the state hasn’t received any reports of the information on the stolen hard drive being used for illicit purposes.
The Alaska Coastal Management road show is about to get underway.
A series of ten public hearings on Ballot Measure 2 will be held around the state in July, starting next Monday in Soldotna and ending July 26th in Juneau. The citizen’s initiative would restore the Alaska Coastal Management Program, which state lawmakers failed to reauthorize during the 2011 regular and special sessions.
It’s the first measure to fall under a new state law requiring at least eight public hearings on an initiative up to 30 days before Election Day. Anchorage Republican Representative Charisse Millett sponsored House Bill 36, which Governor Parnell signed in 2010. Millett says the law is meant to provide a more open and transparent initiative process.
“Initiatives are very powerful. They’re more powerful than a law that any legislature can create,” says Millett. “They last for two years, they can’t be vetoed by the governor, and they can be amended but in a very small amount.”
Lieutenant Governor Mead Treadwell – whose office oversees state elections – says the public hearings will largely follow the format of a legislative meeting. Supporters and opponents of measure two will make official statements and the public will have a chance to testify. Treadwell says all the hearings will be recorded.
“This like any other legislative hearing is a legislative record,” Treadwell says. “When you make a law sometimes there are court challenges later on. Sometimes they’re a long time later on, and people want to know what was the intent of the voter? Well, in this case we will have the hearing record from these ten different hearings, and that would be available say for a court challenge or for people in state government if the initiative passes who may want to figure out what was thought at the time when they get into implementation.”
Treadwell’s office held a press conference today (Monday) in Anchorage, featuring representatives from the pro measure two Alaska Sea Party and the “Vote No on 2” campaign.
Sea party co-chair Terzah Tippin Poe says claims that local communities would have veto power over large development projects under measure two are simply untrue.
“Coastal management does not stop development,” says Tippin Poe. “It is a unifying force that resolves potential issues, making it easier to do business in Alaska.”
But “No on 2” spokesman Rick Rogers says the initiative is much broader and more complex than the coastal management program legislators failed to reauthorize last year. He said if the measure actually cut red tape and made it easier to do develop, regulated businesses would be lining up to support it.
“Ballot Measure 2 a wholly new complex, poorly conceived regulatory framework will hurt Alaska’s economy and cost Alaskans jobs,” Rogers says. “My organization, the Resource Development Council, supports responsible well designed coastal zone management. Ballot Measure 2 is far from that.”
The federal Coastal Zone Management Act allows states that adopt an approved coastal management program to have greater input into development decisions along their coastlines. It also streamlines the regulatory processes of various local, state, and federal agencies. Alaska’s program had been in place for 32 years prior to closing last year.
Measure two will appear on the August 28th primary ballot. A schedule of the public hearings on the initiative can be found at the lieutenant governor’s website, ltgov.alaska.gov.
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