ObamaCare may be the Law (for now), BUT

We will continue to regale you with sordid tales of terror surrounding this fiasco as they become known:


Castro Hearts Obama Mao

Castro Calls Obamacare a ‘Miracle’ [Daniel Foster]

From the Los Angeles Times:

Cuban revolutionary leader Fidel Castro on Thursday declared passage of American health care reform "a miracle" and a major victory for Obama's presidency, but couldn't help chide the United States for taking so long to enact what communist Cuba achieved decades ago."We consider health reform to have been an important battle and a success of his (Obama's) government," Castro wrote in an essay published in state media, adding that it would strengthen the president's hand against lobbyists and "mercenaries."

Castro called it "remarkable" that America has taken so long to move in the direction of universal coverage:

"It is really incredible that 234 years after the Declaration of Independence ... the government of that country has approved medical attention for the majority of its citizens, something that Cuba was able to do half a century ago," Castro wrote.

But Fidel isn't entirely enamored of the president's leadership, however.

But the Cuban leader also used the lengthy piece to criticize the American president for his lack of leadership on climate change and immigration reform, and for his decision to send more troops to Afghanistan, among many other things.


Georgia Governor to Appoint Special AG to Sue Over Obamacare [Daniel Foster]

Georgia governor Sonny Perdue (R.) will appoint a "special Attorney General" to sue the federal government over the individual mandate.

Perdue made the announcement a day after state Attorney General Thurbert Baker, a Democrat running for governor, told Perdue, a Republican, he would not pursue a lawsuit.

“He’s refusing to do that and I can’t force him to do that,” Perdue said of Baker.

Meanwhile, Georgia Democratic Party chairwoman Jane Kidd this morning sent Perdue a lengthy Open Records Act request, demanding copies of correspondence between his office and Republican organizations around the country.

The governor said the state constitution gives him the leeway to appoint a special attorney general if the elected attorney general fails to carry out the wishes of the governor.
Perdue said several groups of attorneys have volunteered to handle the state’s lawsuit for free. He said he expects to make a decision on a team as soon as possible, but did not set a deadline. Perdue has the support of Lt. Gov. Casey Cagle and the Senate Republican Caucus, all of whom said late Wednesday the support the governor’s efforts.

Full story here.


Illegal Lobbying by White House in Support of Obamacare? [Ed Whelan]

A recent article by Richard Grenell on the CBS News website, written before last Sunday’s House of Representatives vote on Obamacare, reports that “White House Office of Health Reform Director Nancy-Ann DeParle has been feverishly sending out unsolicited email messages to federal employees in an effort to build support for President Barack Obama’s health reform package over the last several weeks.” The report states that DeParle’s actions are “not only unethical but possibly illegal.”

A source of mine very knowledgeable in this area of the law sees the legal question as quite straightforward: “If the e-mails were sent from a government system, or on government time, and if they did urge anyone [other than someone in Congress] to act to get the bill passed, it unquestionably would be a violation of 18 U.S.C. 1913.” (Section 1913 provides that it is a federal crime illegal to use appropriated funds, “in the absence of express authorization by Congress,…to pay for any personal service, advertisement, telegram, telephone, letter, printed or written matter, or other device, intended or designed to influence in any manner a Member of Congress, a jurisdiction, or an official of any government, to favor, adopt, or oppose, by vote or otherwise, any legislation, law, ratification, policy, or appropriation.”)

According to an update to Grenell’s article, Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House Office of Health Reform, responded to his article by contending that the federal employees had signed up to receive e-mail messages about Obamacare. But that issue, my source emphasizes, is utterly irrelevant to the legal question whether DeParle violated federal criminal law: Under section 1913, DeParle couldn’t use a government system or government time to send e-mails to anyone (other than someone in Congress) urging action to help get Obamacare passed. That’s true whether or not the recipient was a government employee and whether or not the recipient signed up to receive the e-mails.


Krauthammer's Take [NRO Staff]

On the Democrats’ move to fix problems with Obamacare:

I think the real problem is there is so much in the bill that is delegated to the bureaucrats, to the Department of Health and Human Services, for example.

For example, we don't know what will be the required basket of coverage that any plan is going to have to have in order to be – quote — "acceptable" to the federal government and thus to [be eligible to] receive a subsidy if you buy it. That's going to be determined in the future by the secretary of HHS, and that could be arbitrary.

I mean, if you are a 70-year-old widow, are you going to need drug-abuse rehab coverage? If you are a single male, are you going to need obstetrics? Of course not. But all of this will be decreed by a bureaucrat, unelected. It's not in the law now, it will be decided. And there is a lot of this which is going to be decided.

And the other example of this, and the one that people are really worried about, is these committees that will decide which is acceptable or the best treatment. Once you have a committee like that — as of now it's advisory, but in the future it could easily become compulsory as costs rise, as happened in Britain, which has the National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence, the NICE committee it's called, which decides who gets drugs and cancer [treatment]. If it's expensive, you don't get it.

And that's what's in the bill but not written in detail today. It will all be decided in the future by unelected committees and bureaucrats.