Michael Barone Senior Political Analyst Let’s take our eyes off the Republican presidential race for a minute and ask the question, where if anywhere are we getting adult leadership on major public policy issues this year? The answer, I think, is where the Founding Fathers seem to have least expected it, from the House of Representatives, and specifically from its… washingtonexaminer.com

The Obama Administration notified Congress today that the CLASS Act — Obamacare’s long-term care insurance plan — is flawed, unsustainable, and unable to go forward. In a letter to Congress, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wrote that “Despite our best analytical efforts, I do not see a viable path forward for CLASS implementation at this time.”

Former New York Times Supreme Court reporter Linda Greenhouse really let her liberal feelings show in her online column Wednesday, “ Breaking News: The Civil War Is Over ,” in which she linked opposition to the constitutionality of Obama-care to the U.S. Confederacy.

From The Washington Examiner: Millions of Americans are looking for work, and the number in poverty, 46.2 million, is the highest since the Census Bureau began compiling such data 52 years ago. The slow employment growth just might be connected to the $2,000-per-worker business tax, to begin in 2014, enacted as part of the 2010 [...]

From The Heritage Foundation: To date, over 1,000 companies, covering nearly 2.4 million employees, have been granted waivers to escape the burdensome requirements of Obamacare. The House Oversight and Government Reform Subcommittee on Health Care, the District of Columbia, Census and the National Archives held a hearingthis week to further examine the transparency and fairness of the [...]

From The Heritage Foundation: Since the passage of Obamacare, the federal government’s role in American citizens’ lives has grown significantly. In a recent lecture, Heritage expert Robert Moffit discusses how passage of the health care law has not only grown the size and scope of government, but has also ignited a debate over the proper role [...]

From The Heritage Foundation: Heritage Distinguished Fellow and former Congressman Ernest Istook (R–OK) recently unveiled Obamacare’s “dirty little secret”: $105 billion of advance appropriations which make it difficult for current and future Congresses to control spending on the unpopular new law. The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health delved further into the problems with this “phantom funding” [...]

From The Heritage Foundation: Late yesterday, the U.S. 11th Circuit Court of Appeals handed the Obama DOJ yet another defeat in the Obamacare litigation—this time related to how quickly the appeal will proceed.  Readers of this blog know that the Obama DOJ has been attempting to slow walk its appeal of Judge Vinson’s ruling.  Judge [...]

From The Heritage Foundation: One provision of Obamacare has already spawned a nightmare for doctors, pharmacists, and patients. As of January 1, Americans with health savings accounts (HSAs), flexible savings accounts (FSAs), and health reimbursement accounts (HRAs) can no longer purchase over-the-counter (OTC) drugs using these tax-exempt accounts. After only a couple of months, health care [...]

From The Heritage Foundation: Today former Congressman Ernest Istook testified before the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee about the $105 billion slush fund in advance appropriations liberals tucked inside Obamacare. The $105 billion bypasses the traditional yearly budgeting process and is spread throughout the 2,700 page legislation. It took the Congressional Research Service (CRS) [...]

From The Heritage Foundation: After weeks of delay, the Obama Administration finally went ahead and did it.  Early Tuesday night, the Department of Justice filed a notice of appeal in Florida v. HHS, the multi-state lawsuit that has the best chance of striking down Obamacare.  This is a routine filing with the district court, but it is [...]

From The Heritage Foundation: You’d think that billions of dollars in government spending would be hard to hide, especially from the Members of Congress who voted for it. Think again. Buried in the 2,700 pages of last year’s Obamacare legislation lies $105 billion in appropriated funds that bureaucrats arealready using to implement Obamacare. On Sunday’s [...]

From The Heritage Foundation: Speaking to the National Governors Association at the White House today, President Barack Obama endorsedlegislation by Sens. Ron Wyden (D-OR) and Scott Brown (R-MA) that would allow states to request waivers from some Obamacare mandates in 2014 instead of the existing 2017 date. President Obama claimed: “It will give you flexibility more [...]

From The Heritage Foundation: Last week, the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the constitutionality of the individual mandate. The mandate has been declared unconstitutional by federal courts in Virginia and Florida, and appeals are pending in those cases. The committee heard from three legal experts: Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli, Duke University law [...]

From The Heritage Foundation: Last week, the Congressional Budget Office released its report on H.R. 2, the House-passed legislation that would fully repeal Obamacare. The takeaway message was that American taxpayers simply cannot afford Obamacare. CBO’s initial scoring of Obamacare analyzed its effects from 2010 to 2019, including only six years of full implementation, since main [...]

From CNS News: The Department of Health and Human Services will become the nation’s first-ever $1-trillion-per-year Cabinet department in 2014, which is also the first year President Barack Obama’s health-care law is scheduled to be fully implemented by that department, according to the budget projections President Obama released yesterday. In fact, HHS already is costing American taxpayers more per [...]

From CNSNews.com: On the same day that House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) was chiding House Republicans over job creation, the director of the Congressional Budget Office was testifying in the House Budget Committee that the health-care law President Barack Obama signed last year will kill about 800,000 American jobs over the next decade. CBO Director Douglas Elmendorf [...]

From World Net Daily: While House Republicans are working hard on legislation to deprive Barack Obama of the money he needs to implement his massive health-care program, there is a way they can accomplish the same ends without a single Democrat vote and no approval by the Senate or White House, says the organizer of [...]

From The Heritage Foundation: One of the most common arguments for an individual mandate is that “free-riders” – the uninsured who consume emergency room care with no way to pay for it – are jacking up health care costs for everyone else. The argument begins by pointing out that sickness and emergency can strike anyone at [...]

From The Heritage Foundation: Why does anybody need a waiver to a law that’s been ruled unconstitutional? We don’t know; ask the Department of Health and Human Services. On Wednesday, HHS updated its Web site to show that it has now granted 915 waivers to Obamacare’s requirements on benefit limits in health insurance plans. The waivers [...]