News
By Phil Kerpen
President Trump has hundreds of unfilled presidentially appointed positions because Democrats have stalled the nominations process out as much as their diminished power in the post-nuclear Senate has allowed. But it is the Republican majority that has placed a total blockade on the usual safety valve for temporary appointments – the recess appointment power – by refusing to go on recess for the last two years. And with Democrats set to take the House and be in position to deny the Senate consent to recess starting January 3, there is a real possibility that President Trump will go an entire presidential term without being able to make recess appointments.
It has been nearly eight years since the United States Senate officially recessed – a streak aided by the practice of holding so-called pro forma sessions every three days throughout every adjournment. Those sessions – which consist of nothing but gaveling in and out and where, by unanimous consent, no business is conducted – serve a single purpose: to deny the president of the United States the recess appointment power, which is a constitutionally authorized power to temporarily install nominees to executive and judicial posts, temporarily, without Senate advice and consent, during recesses.
President Bill Clinton used the recess appointment power 139 times, including 96 full-time positions. President George W. Bush used it 171 times, including 99 full-time positions. But recess appointments under Bush screeched to a halt in his final two years in office, after Democrats took control of the Senate and, for the first time, implemented pro forma sessions to avoid an official recess.
In Obama's first two years, with Democrats in control of Congress, recesses were back and he made 28 recess appointments, all to full-time positions, in his first two years. Then Republicans won the House of Representatives and withheld consent from the Senate to recess, forcing the pro forma sessions to come back. They continued through the last six years of Obama's presidency, though he attempted to disregard them and make recess appointments anyway in 2012, which were struck down unanimously by the Supreme Court in NLRB v. Noel Canning.
The pro forma gambit is legally valid, and therefore the president cannot make recess appointments unless the Congress decides to officially recess, which hadn't happened since 2010.
You might reasonably expect no president will ever get recess appointments again except when the same party controls the House, Senate, and president. But for the last...
By Jon Decker
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Alex Azar recently unveiled a new proposal requiring that a drug's 'sticker price' be listed in television commercials. While promoting greater transparency in the prescription market is a noble goal, Secretary Azar's proposal unfortunately misses the mark on how to best disclose drug prices to consumers. Even more worrisome, Azar's proposal carries the risk of patients unnecessarily forgoing vital medications due to confusion resulting from his hasty rulemaking.
The 'sticker price' that Secretary Azar wants to force all drug manufacturers to display in advertisements is often not indicative of how much a medication actually costs. This is because the pharmaceutical industry is able to take advantage of rebates to lower the costs of medication, and consumers may be able to lower the price even further through discount programs and/or by using their health insurance policy.
Since the 'sticker price' is not reflective of what patients actually pay, why confuse consumers by showing them misleading price info? Doing so would be similar to watching a commercial for a $60,000 Ford, only to discover at the dealership that the car actually costs $30,000.
Now here is where the stakes get higher. Imagine if someone saw that ad for a $60,000 Ford and thought "it's way too expensive". Most likely, they would never go to the dealership to see what price they could get for the car in the first place. Applying this to drug costs, Secretary Azar's proposal could dissuade patients from asking about a certain type of medication because they believe the out-of-pocket costs will be too high. This could prevent patients from accessing medicine they need.
Consumers would appreciate greater transparency on the cost of medications; However, Secretary Azar's proposal would not provide the most accurate information for patients to make an informed decision. A better proposal would give patients the full context when disclosing the costs of a drug – including the potential for savings. If Secretary Azar follows this path instead, his plan will be just what the doctor ordered.
By Phil Kerpen
When Republicans vote against coverage expansions, that's the headline. So let's give Senate Democrats the same treatment: they just voted to take away insurance coverage from millions of Americans.
I'll explain.
Last summer, Republicans failed to deliver on their longstanding promise to repeal Obamacare due to Senator John McCain's dramatic last minute thumbs down. They failed again in the fall, when the Graham-Cassidy bill to block grant health care dollars to the states was pulled from the floor because ailing Senator Thad Cochran was stuck in a Mississippi hospital.
Conservative activists were disappointed and dispirited, liberal partisans were jubilant, and most of America just figured we would keep muddling on with the dysfunctional Obamacare apparatus still in place.
But late last year Congress struck a major blow to the heart of Obamacare. The individual mandate penalty tax that punishes Americans for not having Obamacare-compliant coverage was repealed in the Trump tax cut bill.
That made Obamacare voluntary. But there was a problem. There were very few non-Obamacare plans available, because a 2016 Obama regulation had deliberately crippled them.
That 2016 Obama regulation slashed the duration of Obamacare-exempt so-called "short-term, limited duration plans" from one year to three months and banned them from being renewable.
Why did Obama do it?
Because people were flocking to these short-term plans, even though at that time they would have to pay both their premiums and the individual mandate penalty tax for choosing a non-Obamacare plan.
The plans were that much cheaper and better than the junky Obamacare plans, with sky-high premiums and deductibles and narrow provider networks that exclude the best hospitals.
And now, thanks to a directive from President Trump to rescind the 2016 Obama rule, they are back. And now there's no penalty tax for being in a non-Obamacare plan!
As of October 2, 2018, non-Obamacare plans are legal again and uncrippled. They can be written for up to 364 days at a time, renewed for up to three years, and can now be paired with a premium guarantee product to lock in a successor policy after three years without any risk of a premium increase because you get sick.
If you like your non-Obamacare plan you can keep it, without paying more, even if you get sick.
The Congressional Budget Office estimates Trump's deregulation will increase overall insurance coverage by about a million people by 2023. Other estimates are higher, with the Center for Health and Economy projecting an overall coverage increase of 2.3 million by 2020 and even the liberal Urban Institute estimating 1.7 million more Americans insured by 2019.
So who would say no to consumers having more choices, with lower premiums, guaranteed renewability without medical underwriting, and potentially better provider networks?
Who would say no to up to two million people presently uninsured getting coverage because they'll be able to afford these new options?
Democrats. Democrats who want to force everyone into Obamacare's one-size-fits-all approach.
I just got back to the American Commitment offices from the United State Capitol, where I sat in the Senate gallery and listened to brilliant speeches from Senators Grassley and McConnell and disgraceful lies from Senators Schumer and Feinstein. After weeks of calling Judge Kavanaugh a gang rapist, neither mentioned the thoroughly debunked claims of Julie Swetnick and her creepy porn lawyer.
But they did keep flogging the Christine Blasey Ford smear – which has also collapsed. This morning the Wall Street Journal reported that Ford’s beach friend Monica McLean pressured Leland Keyser to “revise” her sworn statement that she did not know, had never met Brett Kavanaugh and knew nothing about Ford’s allegations. The FBI obtained text messages proving it. [SOURCE:]
And you didn’t see this in the U.S. press, but yesterday the British Daily Mail talked to a close family member of Keyser, who said:
'It really felt a lot like Christine was the one called to the principal's office to give an account of something and just threw her under the bus. You know, just reached for a name.'
It gets even sicker. “Friends” of Keyser pressured her to lie for Ford by invoking a tragic incident in which her high school boyfriend died. They wrote her a letter saying: “There was nothing you could have done to save Bill from the fate that awaited him, but you can save Christine.”
But it doesn’t stop there -- It gets worse. Ford’s “beach friend” Monica McLean worked for the FBI for 20 years until she hastily resigned when President Trump was elected. Much of her time in the FBI was spent in New York as a “Public Information Officer” – a press agent – and often the principal for whom she was doing press work was none other than Preet Bharara. Bharara himself is a close associate of Chuck Schumer and former senior staffer for Schumer on the Senate Judiciary Committee.
I’ve asked Ryan Grim, the Intercept reporter who originally reported the existence of the Ford letter whether it was leaked to him by McLean and he refused to answer – even though he already publicly stated he did not get it from Feinstein.
And the only interview McLean has done was with a former FBI colleague Josh Campbell, now at CNN, who didn’t ask a single hard question. I’ve asked Josh if he is personal friends with McLean, but he won’t reply.
So this whole thing is very rapidly unraveling. Not only did the FBI find ZERO corroboration for any version of Ford’s ever-changing story, but now we are starting to get a good idea how the whole disgusting information operation worked. We are close to exposing and Smashing the Smear Machine.
But here’s the problem.
Today’s Senate vote was 51-49, and some senators could wobble before tomorrow’s vote on final passage. We’ve seen that before. And the left is pulling out all the stops. So please write to the Senate...
By Jon Decker
This week the U.S. and Canada are set to square off in another round of trade negotiations for "NAFTA 2.0." Amid this week of heavy back-and-forth, one exciting opportunity presents itself that has largely flown under the radar – President Trump's new trade agreement could prove to be life-saving.
The Trump administration is taking a serious look at how to lower drug costs and increase innovation through trade policy. Many of our trading partners impose draconian prescription drug price controls and use other regulatory means to undermine the value of American drug patents.
This forces Americans to shoulder the research and development costs for new drugs, as we are the only significant market that doesn’t impose similar price controls. The foreign drug price controls are set above the marginal cost of manufacturing pills, but nowhere near the total costs associated with bringing a new drug to market. These protectionist policies are a significant reason why it takes a staggering $2.6 billion to bring a new drug to market. This cost falls overwhelmingly on Americans.
A new report from Committee to Unleash Prosperity founders Stephen Moore and Steve Forbes reveals how foreign price controls stifle life-saving innovations.
The Committee to Unleash Prosperity stated:
"If OECD countries lifted price controls altogether, the study estimated the resulting increase in pharmaceutical R&D investment would yield eight to 13 new drugs per year through 2030, increasing the average life expectancy of a 15-yearold individual living in the U.S. today by 1.1 to 1.6 years (while adding 0.6 to 0.9 years to the life expectancy of a 45-year-old). The benefits aren’t limited to the U.S., as eliminating price controls would also result in substantial gains in longevity in other countries as well. The potential economic gains from increasing longevity run into the trillions of dollars worldwide."
The Committee to Unleash Prosperity’s study gives important insight on the consequences of foreign drug price controls. The study shows that President Trump has real potential to alleviate suffering and save lives by negotiating a trade deal that forces other countries to pay their fair share of the research and development of new drugs. Reducing protectionist policies that impact drug prices would save lives both at home and abroad, and it is in all nations' best interest to pursue policies with the potential to save lives.
If President Trump's new trade agreement allows people to live longer, healthier lives, that sounds like a "better deal" to me.