House Approved Keystone XL Pipeline | Obamacare Architect Jonathan Gruber's Comments

Keystone Approved by The House - Bill Goes to Senate

Today in Washington, D.C. - Nov.14, 2014
The Senate is not in session today and will reconvene on Monday at 2 PM. On Monday, the Senate will vote on the motion to concur in the House amendment to S. 1086, the Child Care and Development Block Grant reauthorization and on cloture on 3 Georgia district judge nominees.

On Tuesday, a vote is scheduled on S. 2280, a bill to approve the Keystone XL pipeline. Noted later: The House passed a bill today on this issue.

Yesterday, the Senate voted 54-45 to confirm of Randolph Moss to be District Judge for the District of Columbia and 99-0 to confirm Leigh Martin May to be District Judge for the Northern District of Georgia.

Senators then voted 96-1 to invoke cloture on the motion to concur in the House amendment to S. 1086, the Child Care and Development Block Grant reauthorization.

The House convened at 9 AM today and at passed H.R. 5682 (252-161) — "To approve the Keystone XL Pipeline." Thirty-one Democrats Joined 221 Republicans in passing the bill. All the no votes were by Democrats who followed Pelosi's objective of opposing Republicans votes on approving the Keystone XL Pipeline. The bill moves to the Senate where numerous soon to be retired Democrat Senators will vote on the bill. The majority of the American people want jobs and have clearly evidenced that they want the Keystone XL Pipeline approved.

No additional bills are expected to be passed today and the House will adjourn in the mid-afternoon.

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) released the following statement praising House passage of H.R. 5682, legislation introduced by Rep. Bill Cassidy (R-LA) that would immediately approve the Keystone pipeline: "Thousands more Americans would be working today if President Obama had put their priorities ahead of his political interests and approved the Keystone pipeline. Instead, he continues to block the project, and the new jobs, lower costs, and increased energy security it would provide. The House has voted numerous times to end the Obama administration’s needless delays, only to see those bills blocked by the outgoing Democratic majority in the Senate. The president doesn’t have any more elections to win, and he has no other excuse for standing in the way. It’s time he start listening to the vast majority of Americans who support Keystone and help get more people back to work."

CBS Moneywatch reported earlier this week, “With the Affordable Care Act to start enrollment for its second year on Nov. 15, some unpleasant surprises may be in store for some. That's because a number of low-priced Obamacare plans will raise their rates in 2015, making those options less affordable. On top of that, penalties for failing to secure a health-insurance plan will rise steeply next year, which could take a big bite out of some families' pocketbooks.

“‘The penalty is meant to incentivize people to get coverage,’ said senior analyst Laura Adams of InsuranceQuotes.com. ‘This year, I think a lot of people are going to be in for a shock.’ . . . The financial penalty for skipping out on health coverage will more than triple to $325 per person in 2015, or 2 percent of income, depending on whichever is higher. Children will be fined at half the adult rate, or $162.50 for those under 18 years old.”

Beyond that, CBS notes, “It's not only the uninsured who will be facing higher costs. Many health-care plans are also charging more, with Investor's Business Daily finding that a 27-year-old earning 250 percent of the poverty rate will pay an average of 7 percent more for the lowest-cost bronze plan, based on an analysis of rates in the largest city in 34 states. The lowest-cost silver plan will rise an average of 9 percent, while the lowest-priced catastrophic policy will climb 18 percent, the analysis found.”

On top of the rate increases, the subsidies created by Obamacare could be decreasing for many, driving up costs due to the way those subsidies are calculated. According to The Wall Street Journal, “In a twist, an influx of lower-priced health plans on HealthCare.gov could lead many Americans to pay more for coverage next year thanks to smaller insurance tax credits. A handful of insurers in 14 states are offering aggressively low premiums on the federal insurance enrollment site, which reopens Saturday, in a bid to undercut big rivals who snapped up customers last year.

“The move is pulling down the value of federal tax credits that consumers get to offset the cost of their coverage under the Affordable Care Act. The credits are pegged to the price of the second-lowest-cost midrange plan in a given geographic area, as well as an enrollee’s income. . . . But many people who re-enroll in their 2014 plans face higher insurance costs even if their premium remains flat. To avoid paying more, they would have to switch plans, which many consumers don’t do . . . . An early look at 2015 rate proposals and final premiums posted this week on HealthCare.gov, which serves more than 30 states, showed that many large plans increased their premiums for next year.”

Meanwhile, The Washington Post reported yesterday, “Small-business enrollment on new insurance marketplaces set up under the president’s health-care law has fallen well short of the administration’s expectations, according to government report released Thursday.> The Government Accountability Office examined enrollment totals for the online small-business exchanges, commonly called SHOP exchanges, in states that built their own health insurance portals. Most states defaulted to a federally operated small-business marketplace — a complementary site to the more widely known individual exchange. Both exchanges are slated to relaunch this weekend.

“During the first eight months, fewer than 12,000 small businesses signed up for plans through exchanges in the 18 states that built their own marketplaces, GAO found. Collectively, those companies enrolled about 78,000 workers. While the Obama administration did not set SHOP-specific goals, the federal watchdog said that number was ‘significantly lower than expected.’”

Asked about the series of videos of comments by Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber by reporters yesterday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said, “I think you have all heard the definition of a ‘Washington gaffe,’ when a politician mistakenly tells you what he really thinks. We were subjected during the Obamacare debate to a whole lot of stuff that we all knew was not true, not even close to true. And what this insider is saying confirms that they were spinning tales from beginning to end because they knew they couldn't tell the truth about Obamacare and have a chance of passing it, even with a Democratic Senate with 60 votes.”

This unpopular law continues to be a bureaucratic nightmare, is still raising costs, and is still causing all sorts of problems for Americans’ health care all over the country. As Leader McConnell reiterated at a press conference yesterday, “Virtually all of us would like to see [Obamacare] pulled out root and branch. We understand that the president obviously is not sympathetic with that point of view. But we'll be voting on these issues, both the overall Obamacare issue and the various pieces of it, like the individual mandate, the medical device tax, and trying to restore the 40-hour work week.”

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