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THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Obamacare Repeal Is on the Way
by John and Andy Schlafly
January 10, 2017

As soon as the newly elected 115th Congress was gaveled to order last week, both houses got to work on the long-promised effort to “repeal and replace” the failed legislation known as Obamacare. The Senate, with its more cumbersome rules, began 50 hours of debate on a budget resolution that will eventually repeal much of the law by reconciliation, which requires only a simple majority of 51 Senators.

In the House, “replace” was launched with a bill endorsed by the 170-member Republican Study Committee, which is by far the largest caucus in the chamber. In introducing the bill, RSC chairman Mark Walker and lead sponsor Dr. Phil Roe stressed their intention to protect the small number of Americans who currently benefit from Obamacare, while improving the system for the much larger number who have been harmed.

Only about 16 million Americans (5% of our population) directly benefit from Obamacare. That number includes 12 million covered by Medicaid expansion plus 11 million who bought insurance on the exchanges, minus 7 million of those who previously had insurance.

Another estimate by the American Action Forum puts the number of Obamacare beneficiaries at only 13-14 million people, which is just 4% of the population. On the other hand, about 8 million Americans have been hit with fines for refusing to buy an inferior product.

For the great majority of Americans who received no benefit from Obamacare, their damages include higher premiums for health insurance, higher deductibles, higher taxes to fund the system, and reduced competition among insurance providers. It’s no wonder that polls have consistently shown that Americans want to throw out Obama’s signature law and start over with better ideas.

A poll by CNN in July 2014 reported that only 18% of Americans believed that Obamacare made them or their families better off, while 35% said it made them worse off. More recently, a poll conducted in February 2016 by the liberal National Public Radio (NPR), which spent years promoting Obamacare with our tax dollars, found that only 15% of those polled said they were personally benefited or directly helped by Obamacare, while 26% said they were directly harmed by the law.

The fraud of Obamacare started with calling itself “affordable.” Its basic theory was to force everyone to buy a very expensive standardized plan, and then set up a complex system of subsidies to help people pay for what they can’t afford.

To accomplish that impossible goal, the Democratic Congress in 2010 passed a 2,500-page bill, which the Obama administration reinforced with 20,000 pages of regulations. The new Republican bill, at only 184 pages, understands that the key to making health insurance “affordable” is to allow people to save money by buying the insurance they need for their families, without the unwanted mandated benefits that jack up the price.

So much of the high cost of health insurance is due to benefits mandated by federal and state government. The latest mandate for health insurance is to provide gender transition, including surgery, for people who feel the need to live in the opposite sex.

In California, a man serving a life sentence for murder has just received sex-reassignment surgery, and will spend the rest of his life sentence in a women’s prison. That surgery cost an estimated $100,000, which will be split between federal and state taxpayers.

In New Jersey, a woman who wants to become a man is suing a Roman Catholic hospital for refusing to perform a hysterectomy. The lawsuit claims that an Obamacare regulation requires all hospitals, regardless of their religious beliefs, not to “discriminate” against transgender persons.

So long as the medical profession observed the 2,500-year-old Hippocratic Oath, which cautions first, do no harm, most doctors would refuse to remove a healthy organ for purely psychological reasons. Now doctors are told that basic health care for transgender persons includes surgery to mutilate their bodies by removing healthy organs.

The transgender mandate can be traced to Obama’s Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), which issued a new rule last May purporting to implement a provision of Obamacare. Fortunately, a federal judge in Texas has temporarily enjoined that regulation, ruling on December 31 that it “is contrary to law and exceeds statutory authority.”

The Republican “replace” bill includes several simple ideas to give families much greater freedom of choice over their own health care. It would eliminate the crippling restrictions on health savings accounts, such as the rule that prevents you from using your HSA to pay health insurance premiums.

By unleashing health savings accounts, the bill would finally realize the vision of Phyllis Schlafly’s friend, the late J. Patrick Rooney, who built Golden Rule into the nation’s largest provider of individual health insurance. Seeking to level the playing field between individual and employer-owned insurance, Rooney recognized that a part-time waitress without employer coverage should enjoy the same access to health care as a corporate executive.

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously on September 6.

THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Stay Engaged: The Battle Resumes on Jan. 20
by John and Andy Schlafly
January 3, 2017

As soon as the election results sank in, sleepy federal bureaucrats woke up and shifted into high gear, furiously finalizing regulations that could be issued before President Obama leaves office. According to The New York Times, President Obama “is using every power at his disposal to cement his legacy and establish his priorities as the law of the land,” and the new rules are “intended to set up as many policy and ideological roadblocks as possible before Mr. Trump takes his oath of office on Jan. 20.”

Some of these last-minute regulations can be revoked by President Trump on his first day in office. Others can be overturned by Congress under the Congressional Review Act, a process that requires only 51 Senate votes if the Senate acts within 60 legislative days after the rules were published.

Washington’s permanent governing class is also preparing to fight the new president in every possible way. Ground zero of the opposition is the Center for American Progress (CAP), which employs hundreds of staffers and enjoys a budget of $50 million.

“Our goal is to be the central hub of the Trump resistance,” CAP’s president recently announced. It has just hired retiring Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s deputy chief of staff, who said, “I hope to bring a relentlessly aggressive attitude” to the organization whose website promises to “push back rapidly and forcefully” against the incoming Trump administration.

Founded in 2003 by John Podesta, who took a leave of absence to run Hillary Clinton’s failed presidential campaign, CAP is now run by a former Hillary aide named Neera Tanden. Since 2011 she has been president of both CAP itself, which claims to be a nonpartisan think tank, and its affiliated “action fund,” which shares the same office and staff.

In the 1970s, Phyllis Schlafly pioneered the idea of having (c)(3) and (c)(4) organizations work together under one roof, each with its own separate board and tax status, but with common leadership and staff. For decades, her organizations were the only major interest group to adopt that dual structure, which was blessed by a 1983 decision of the U.S. Supreme Court.

Unlike Phyllis Schlafly, who frugally managed small donations from thousands of supporters, Neera Tanden enjoys millions of dollars in grants from major corporations and foundations. Among the household names that have given five- to seven-figure donations to CAP are Walmart, AT&T, Microsoft, Facebook, Citibank and Bank of America.

With major corporations funding the opposition to Trump, and with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce openly opposing Trump’s popular positions on trade and immigration, the Trump administration will have to fight on every front to accomplish what his supporters are expecting. Many of the same corporations that fund the Left to oppose Trump are also funding the Republican Congress, where they will try to enact Speaker Paul Ryan’s agenda instead of President Trump’s.

President-elect Trump is preparing for the coming battle by keeping “the two Steves” on board. While the media focuses on the parade of people being nominated for various cabinet secretaries, the President-elect’s most important appointments were for his White House staff: Stephen K. Bannon as chief strategist (formal title: senior counselor to the president) and Stephen Miller as chief speechwriter (formal title: senior adviser to the president for policy).

The value of Steve Bannon can be judged by testimonial published last week by the great David Horowitz, who has chronicled a lifetime of battling the Left in a series of books including Radical Son. Horowitz, who also helped Stephen Miller start a conservative student club at Duke University, nominated Stephen Bannon for “man of the year” because of Bannon’s indispensable role in guiding Trump to victory.

Horowitz sees in Bannon what Bannon saw in Trump: someone with “an affinity for the blue-collar voters who eventually put Trump over the top. Instinctively combative, Bannon understood how important it was for the candidate to break free from the mainstream media filter that was busy crucifying him.”

“Most importantly,” Horowitz wrote, “Bannon and Trump shared a courage unique in Republican quarters. Call it character. The ability to stand firm under fire. For Bannon and Trump, getting America back on track took precedence over hurt progressive feelings. They did not back down under even the heaviest left-wing fire.”

In his own year-end interview with his former colleagues at Breitbart News, Stephen Bannon promised: “I think 2017 will be, actually, more exciting than 2016 was.” But he cautioned Trump supporters to “stay engaged” in order to “hold people accountable.”

“The Hobbits and the Deplorables had a great run in 2016,” Bannon continued. “Everybody mocked them and ridiculed them, and now they’ve spoken. I think people are engaged; they feel like they have a voice. It’s going to be a great year. Stay engaged.”

John and Andy Schlafly are sons of Phyllis Schlafly (1924-2016) whose 27th book, The Conservative Case for Trump, was published posthumously on September 6.

THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Trump, the Great Communicator on Twitter
by John and Andy Schlafly
December 27, 2016

How did it happen that a man we were told could not possibly be nominated, let alone elected, is about to take the oath of office as the 45th president of the United States?

Part of the reason is that Donald Trump spoke to a set of hot-button issues (immigration and trade) that no other Republican was willing to touch, and those issues resonated with thousands of Americans who had previously voted for Obama. But even with the right issues and a brilliant slogan, “Make America Great Again,” Donald Trump still had to bypass the mainstream media in order to speak directly to the American people, as Ronald Reagan did a generation earlier.

For the benefit of Americans too young to remember, Reagan was called the “Great Communicator” because he effectively used television to connect directly with voters. Reagan frequently won people over with a folksy story or a perfectly timed joke, like the way he deflected a hostile question about his age during the final presidential debate by leaving everyone, even his opponent, in congenial uproarious laughter.

Having grown up in the construction industry, Trump uses a blunt and caustic style that is the direct opposite of Reagan’s affable avuncularity. But Trump has mastered the art of the tweet, sending out very short messages on Twitter, which provides an effective way to connect directly with the public. ... click here to read this full column

THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
How Obama Stole Christmas
by John and Andy Schlafly
December 20, 2016

The Trump transition team is working on its first package of executive actions, including steps to rescind or revoke numerous improper executive actions by President Obama. Here are two federal regulations and further actions that Trump should take care of in his first day on the job as president.

The liberal “war on Christmas” is a recurring feature of the holiday season, but this year a federal regulation is being blamed for continuing that unhappy trend. At a senior living center called Mercy Village in Joplin, Missouri, residents were told they are forbidden to put traditional Christmas decorations in any of the common areas.

Mercy Village is owned by Denver-based Mercy Housing Inc., which receives federal funding from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). Mercy’s management claimed that it was merely enforcing a HUD regulation that prohibits “discrimination” by housing providers on the basis of religion.
...
Another regulation due for prompt revocation by the new administration is a last-minute rule to prevent states from defunding Planned Parenthood. This new rule became final on December 19 following an unusually short 30-day comment period, and is set to take effect on January 18, just two days before the President Trump will be inaugurated.
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Perhaps the most influential action that the incoming President Trump could take on his first day of office would be simply to withdraw the appeal by the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) of a splendid decision that declared illegal the taxpayer subsidies of Obamacare on the health insurance exchanges. If Trump merely withdraws the appeal of U.S. House of Representatives v. Burwell, which is as easy as filing a one-page document with the court, the subsidies would cease and the Obamacare health exchanges would mercifully collapse.
...
Amid the holiday merry-making and revelry, which as Shakespeare observed 400 years ago “is a custom more honor’d in the breach than the observance,” we should remember the whole point of Christmas is the birth of a child. click here to read this full column

THE PHYLLIS SCHLAFLY REPORT
Could Hillary Hijack the Electoral College?
December 13, 2016
by John and Andy Schlafly

Remember when the liberals demanded that Donald Trump swear to accept the outcome of the presidential election? That was two months ago, when they were sure Trump would lose in a landslide.

Now many of the same people are chanting that Trump is "not my president." In the days following the November election, thousands of anarchists participated in often violent protests in places like Oakland, California and Portland, Oregon, setting fire to police cars, smashing plate glass windows, and waving Mexican flags to express their contempt for the will of the American people.

Remember when the liberals complained that the Electoral College is undemocratic and should be abolished? That was one month ago, after Trump won all the battleground states and extended his sweep to four states that Republicans haven't carried since Ronald Reagan's time.

Now many of these same people are demanding that presidential electors assert more power than our Constitution gives them. They want the Electoral College to "deliberate" over who should be the next president. ... click here to read the rest of this column

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