originally published at The New American Magazine
President Obama will not wait on states to enforce ObamaCare. The Obama administration has announced its intent to disregard state laws and state constitutional amendments prohibiting the enforcement of ObamaCare. Federal agents from the Department of Health and Human Services will assume absolute control over statesโ health insurance industry and regulation in states that refuse to comply with the federal healthcare mandates.
In an exclusive telephone interview withย The New American, Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John Doak reported that the his office has received a letter from Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) Deputy Administrator and Director Gary Cohen informing him that the federal government will impose ObamaCare regulations on insurance companies in Oklahoma. The CCIIO is part of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
According toย a story in Politico, Doakโs colleagues in Missouri, Wyoming, and Texas have received these notifications, as well.
In a press release issue by his office after receiving Cohenโs letter, Doak writes that the โOklahoma Insurance Department will not be participating in a collaborative effort with the Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight (CCIIO) to enforce the Affordable Care Act (ACA).โ
Doakโs statement continues:
The Oklahoma Insurance Department regulates the health insurance policies sold in the state and responds to consumer questions and complaints. Our consumer assistance team receives over 30,000 phone calls and our website receives over 1,000,000 visits each year. We will continue to serve these consumers by adhering to our duties under the State Constitution and Statutes. The consumers are the ones who are going to bear the costs of these unnecessary federal regulatory burdens.
In addition to adding new fees to health insurance products that will increase prices both inside and outside the exchange, the ACA requires plans to add expensive and often unnecessary coverage benefits. These costs will impact young adults most severely due to the lawโs requirement that older Americans pay no more than three times the premium of young adults. A survey of insurers by the American Action Forum found that average premiums for young, healthy adults may triple going into 2014.
โThis is yet another example of continued overreach of the federal government on statesโ rights,โ Doak toldย The New American, when asked about the conflict. โThis is the first shot over the bow of statesโ which have chosen not to enforce ObamaCareโs myriad mandates, he added.
Apart from the assault on state sovereignty, the CMS announcement will be financially devastating, as well.
Tulsa Worldย reportsย that โhealth insurance companies doing business in Oklahoma are receiving letters from Cohen telling them that enforcement of the lawโs requirements will be handled by the federal agency.โ
The way the system will work, apparently, is that any health insurance plan purchased through an ObamaCare healthcare exchange will be regulated and managed by a federal official (known in the language of ObamaCare as a โnavigatorโ). Plans sold through other companies, however, will continue to be under the purview of Doak and his office.
Insurance companies that provide plans through the ObamaCare exchange and outside of the government program will be subject to two radically different regulatory schemes: one created and enforced by Washington, D.C., and one administered out of Oklahoma City.
Doak warns that this duplicate regulatory scheme โ state and federal โ will result in increased costs for the consumer.
โOklahomans should be alarmed,โ he said.
If Oklahomans are ultimately subjected to the deprivations of ObamaCare, it will be at the hand of federal agents, as Doak says there is no enacting legislation empowering his office to enforce federal law in Oklahoma.
This situation will undoubtedly result in what Doak calls โlawsuits in many forms and fashions.โ He says his department will look to Oklahoma state Attorney General Scott Pruitt to defend the Oklahoma constitution against challenges filed by the federal government.
The Obama administration has been trying for some time now to ignore the will of the people of Oklahoma and the Oklahoma constitutionโs prohibition against enforcement of ObamaCare.
For example, documents provided toย The New Americanย include a letter from the federal Department of Health and Human Services inquiring as to why Oklahoma had yet to make the requisite steps toward implementing ObamaCare.
When it was informed that Oklahoma would not โ in fact, legally could not โ comply with ObamaCare mandates, HHS was not deterred, proposing instead the establishment of a โcollaborative enforcement arrangement.โ This deal would permit the feds to force ObamaCare on Oklahomans while allowing the Oklahoma Insurance Department (OID) to ostensibly keep its hands clean.
As if that werenโt insulting enough, included in the cache of documents provided toย The New Americanย was the letter mentioned above that was sent to Oklahoma insurance companies from HHS informing them that since Oklahoma cannot or will not enforce the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare), this responsibility has been assumed by CMS.
Furthermore, as part of its oversight, CMS demands in the letter that insurance companies โsubmit all group and individual health insurance policy forms, certificates, riders, endorsements, and amendments, as well as any other requested material pertinent to the market reforms of the Affordable Care Act to CMS for review.โ
Then, lest insurance companies in Oklahoma doubt whoโs in charge of healthcare in the Sooner State, the letter declares that โa filing with the Oklahoma Insurance Department does not constitute a filing with CMS for these purposes.โ
These letters reveal that is nothing more or less than an end run by the Obama administration around the sovereignty of Oklahoma (and presumably other states) and usurpation of power in defiance of the state constitution, the will of the people, and the laws passed by their elected representatives in the state legislature.
Doak promises to continue faithfully and fearlessly carrying out his duty to enforce the laws of Oklahoma, even if that means taking on the behemoth that is the federal ObamaCare bureaucracy.
โWe must continue to fight for whatโs right,โ Doak said.
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