August 19th, 2010, Fairfax, VA—With as many as 20,000 new regulations in the works for the implementation of Obamacare, Americans for Limited Government (ALG) Research Foundation has launched ObamacareWatcher.org to keep track of the most damaging ones.
“ObamacareWatcher.org aims to keep the public informed about what is being proposed on the bureaucratic level to implement the national health care system, and to make it easy for activists to submit comments on proposed harmful regulations that will restrict the choices individuals can make about their doctors and their health care,” said Don Todd, ALG’s Research Director.
According to a brochure promoting the ALG effort, the Foundation will “respond by providing substantive, thorough comments on regulatory proposals and leading the grassroots response.”
ALG President Bill Wilson said that aggressive participation in the regulatory process was “essential to keeping the public informed about how the bureaucracy will now be restricting their health care options, and giving them multiple avenues for directly affecting the regulatory process.”
“As the regulatory process unfolds, one of the goals in generating public awareness of the new rules is to build support for repealing Obamacare. When the public learns how much discretion has been given to faceless bureaucrats to make decisions about life and death, they will want the power over those decisions to be restored to doctors and patients,” Wilson said.
Wilson pointed to a recent rule by the Obama Labor Department where the Obama Administration admitted that up to 69% of all existing employer health plans will cease to exist by 2013, because they will lose their grandfathered status under the law and regulations. The interim rule sets the requirements for current health insurance plans to be grandfathered in under the law.
Secretary Solis admits that under the rule, “These interim final regulations will likely influence plan sponsors’ decisions to relinquish grandfather status.” Wilson called for the rule to be rescinded in comments submitted to the Department of Labor, which are now closed. Wilson added that this violated Obama’s pledge that “if you like your health plan you can keep it.”
Wilson noted that the new national health care system was already leading to rationing, pointing to a Washington Post reportthat Food and Drug Administration (FDA) officials are considering rescinding approval of the expensive breast cancer treating drug Avastin due to questions on whether its benefits are worth the cost.
Avastin is used by for more than 17,000 women who are literally battling for their lives with end stages of breast cancer. Dr. Eric P. Winer, director of the Breast Oncology Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston who also serves as the Susan G. Komen for the Cure’s Chief Scientific Officer is quoted in the Post as saying, “This is not a worthless drug by any means. There is almost certainly a group of women who get a big benefit.”
“Should the FDA rescind approval of the drug as being beneficial to breast cancer patients, private insurers which rely on the FDA to determine which medicines to cover for different ailments will undoubtedly follow suit, leaving 17,000 women without coverage for the medicine that is their last hope of survival,” wrote ALG communications director Rick Manning in an oped.
Wilson concluded, “These new rules are just the beginning of the nightmare that Obamacare will spell for the American people. At ObamacareWatcher.org, we’ll be keeping meticulous track of how this new legislation will be implemented, and articulate the costs to the American people so they may make an informed judgment about whether it’s worth the price. Lives are on the line.”
Attachments:
“Obamacare Reg Watcher,” Vol. 1, Issue 1, August 2010.
Comments Submitted on Obamacare Labor Department Regulation, Americans for Limited Government, August 16th, 2010.
Interview Availability: Please contact Rebekah Rast at (703) 383-0880 or at rrast@getliberty.org to arrange an interview with ALG President Bill Wilson.
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