.

.

Tenth Amendment Center: 14 Questions for Trump HHS Nominee Alex Azar

...from Tenth Amendment Center

by Michael F. Cannon, CATO Institute

President Trump has nominated Alex Azar to be the next Secretary of Health and Human Services. Azar will appear for questioning before (and sermonizing by) members of the Senate’s Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee.

Here are 14 questions I would ask Azar at his confirmation hearings.

  1. Is Congress a small business as that term is defined in the Affordable Care Act?
  2. Colette Briggs is a four-year-old girl with aggressive leukemia who is about to lose coverage for the one hospital within a hundred miles that can deliver her chemotherapy. She’s losing that coverage because insurance companies are fleeing the Exchanges. What do you plan to do, what can HHS do, about this problem?
  3. What will you do to prevent drug manufacturers from using the regulatory process to corner the market on certain drugs so they can gouge consumers and taxpayers?
  4. HHS already publishes data on Exchange premiums and insurer choice. Will you commit to publishing a review of the growing body of research showing Exchange coverage is getting worse for many expensive illnesses?
  5. Does HHS have an obligation to encourage young, healthy Americans to pay the hidden taxes contained in the ACA’s rising health insurance premiums?
  6. How will HHS increase its efforts to educate Americans about all their options for avoiding the mandate penalty?
  7. Short-term health insurance plans are an affordable alternative to increasingly costly Exchange coverage. Will you reinstate the 12-month policy term that existed before this year, and allow short-term plans to be guaranteed-renewable?
  8. The previous administration issued rules making it generally unlawful to purchase or switch Exchange plans for nine months out of the year. The Trump administration has restricted this freedom even more, making it generally unlawful for ten and a half months out of the year. Should consumers be free to purchase and switch health plans when they choose, just like any other product?
  9. Will you require insurance companies to repay the “reinsurance” subsidies the Government Accountability Office found the Obama administration illegally diverted to them?
  10. Will you press the Food and Drug Administration to allow the sale of birth-control pills over the counter, without a prescription?
  11. Medicare, Medicaid, and ObamaCare attempt to pay insurance companies according to the cost of each individual enrollee. If those complicated formulas really work, should government just give the money to the enrollees and let them control their health insurance and health care decisions?
  12. Is Obamacare’s Independent Payment Advisory Board constitutional?
  13. Should seniors be able to opt out of Medicare without losing Social Security benefits?
  14. Will you end government encouragement of “abuse-deterrent” opioids, which have not reduced overdose deaths and are borderline unethical because some are literally formulated to hurt people?

Creative Commons License
This work by Cato Institute is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License.


TAC Daily Updates
November 29, 2017 at 10:17AM

Popular posts from this blog

Tenth Amendment Center: Modern Nullification: A Winning Policy

Image
...from Tenth Amendment Center Nullification is dead. At least that’s the opinion of Duke University Law School professor Ernest Young . But despite this emphatic epitaph, Young sees great potential for nullification as a tool to limit federal power. In a paper published in the Case Western Reserve Law Review , Young makes a strong case for nullification, highlighting state efforts that have effectively nullified federal marijuana prohibition. So, how can this be? How can nullification be simultaneously dead and buried, yet still a serve as a powerful tool to check federal overreach? The answer lies in the two distinct definitions of nullification. While “legal” nullification as laid out by John C. Calhoun may be dead, Young argues that nullification through non-cooperation, as recommended by James Madison in Federalist #46, remains a powerful means to confront overreaching federal authority. He even cites the Tenth Amendment Center’s definition of nullification – “any act or s...
Read more

Tenth Amendment Center: Colorado Committee Passes Bill to Repeal High-Capacity Magazine Ban

Image
...from Tenth Amendment Center DENVER , Colo. (March 26, 2018) – Last week, a Colorado Senate committee passed a bill that would repeal state prohibitions on high capacity magazines as well as a magazine date stamp requirement. Passage would not only remove restrictions currently imposed on Coloradans, it would also foster an environment hostile to federal gun control. Sen. Owen Hill (R-Colorado Springs) introduced Senate Bill 52 ( SB52 ) on Jan. 10. The legislation would repeal the current law banning high-capacity magazines. Under Colorado state law, magazines that allow more than 15 rifle rounds or 25 shotgun shells are prohibited. Selling, transferring or selling such a magazine is a class 2 misdemeanor. Another statute requires a date stamp on all magazines produced in the state after 2013 when the law took effect. Senate Bill 52  would repeal both these statues, protecting the gun rights of Colorado residents. On March 19, the Senate State, Veterans, & Mili...
Read more

Tenth Amendment Center: The Purge Ramps Up as Banking Institutions Get Involved: Good Morning Liberty 08-22-18

Image
...from Tenth Amendment Center On this episode of Good Morning Liberty, host Michael Boldin ( follow ) talks about Wells Fargo joining the purge, booting a state-level candidate in Florida for receiving donations from members of the marijuana industry. He also talks about how the Federal Reserve has been acting like the DEA’s guard dog by pushing for this kind of outcome for years, and a warning on deplatforming for progressives from the ACLU. SHOW LINKS Wells Fargo Cuts off Candidate Colorado Credit Union vs Federal Reserve Bitchute vs Stripe ACLU warning Quote of the Day FOLLOW TAC: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/user/TenthAmendmentCenter RSS: http://feeds.feedburner.com/tacdailydigest Twitter: http://twitter.com/tenthamendment Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/tenthamendmentcenter Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/tenthamendmentcenter/ Email Newsletter: http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/register Become a Member: http://tenthamendmentcenter.com/members/ Michael...
Read more