Obama's health secretary seeks donations from companies for healthcare law

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is asking companies for financial donations to help implement President Barack Obama's healthcare overhaul, months before it is due to take effect.

Kathleen Sebelius

elephone calls that began around March 23, officials say, Obama's top healthcare adviser has been seeking assistance from companies in the healthcare field and other industries as well as from healthcare providers, patient advocacy groups, churches and other charitable organizations.
"The secretary has been working with a full range of stakeholders ... We have always worked with outside groups, and the efforts now ramping up are just one more part of that work," said Jason Young, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services.

HHS declined to identify the targeted donors but said none of the companies are regulated by department agencies.

The administration's aim is to win financial help for nonprofit groups, including Washington-based Enroll America, which are mounting a private-sector effort to persuade millions of uninsured Americans to obtain health coverage in 2014 through new online marketplaces, known as exchanges, slated to begin enrollment for federally subsidized private insurance on October 1.

With Republicans in Congress unwilling to consider allocating new money to finance government outreach efforts, the White House and HHS have appealed to private sources, including the insurance industry, to help with an implementation effort that could lead to higher costs and jeopardize a cornerstone of Obama's presidential legacy if it were to fail.

Senator Orrin Hatch of Utah, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, blasted Sebelius' action as "absurd."

"Moving forward, I will be seeking information from the administration about these actions to help better understand whether there are conflicts of interest and if it violated federal law," he said in a statement.

HHS said the secretary began phoning companies after getting advice from department lawyers. "There is a special section in the Public Health Service Act that allows the secretary to support and to encourage others to support non-profit organizations working to provide health information and conduct other public health activities," Young told Reuters in an email.


Obama: Don't Be 'Bamboozled'

Sebelius' fund-raising activities were originally reported by the Washington Post.

Organizations like Enroll America are expected to play a key role in public outreach efforts set to begin this summer.

A nonpartisan group dedicated to extending health coverage to nearly 49 million uninsured people, Enroll America's board includes representatives from Teva Pharmaceuticals, the Kaiser Permanente health system and the American Hospital Association, a Washington trade group.

Enroll America President Anne Filipic said cooperation between the public, private and nonprofit sectors is vital to making sure the marketplaces are ready on time. "Secretary Sebelius recognizes the importance of the work Enroll America is doing and we're thrilled to be working with her," she said.

Obama defended his Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on Friday at a White House event intended to kick off the administration's promotional campaign with a focus on the law's benefits for women.

The president said he was "110 percent committed" to the law's success and warned listeners not to be "bamboozled" by misinformation.

"This is too important for political games," Obama said. "Regular access to a doctor or medicine or preventive care - that's not some earned privilege, it is a right."

The law is expected to provide health coverage to 38 million people by the end of the decade through the new marketplaces and an expansion of the Medicaid healthcare program for the poor. Some 7 million people are expected to gain coverage through the marketplaces alone in 2014, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office.

Republicans have turned up the volume on their opposition to the law. The House of Representatives is to vote next week on a Republican measure to repeal the law. Like three-dozen previous House votes to repeal or defund healthcare reform, the measure is expected to go nowhere in the Democratic-led Senate.

HHS officials say the department has put together $1.26 billion to finance Affordable Care Act implementation between now and September 30, the end of the fiscal year. That includes an outreach campaign that has already cost $240 million, as well as funding for the establishment of 17 state insurance exchanges, and 33 others that HHS will operate in states that are either not ready or unwilling to run their own.

The exchanges are scheduled to begin operating on January 1, 2014, when the healthcare law comes into full force.

By David Morgan

Source: The Reuters

Obama honors law-enforcement officers and pitches gun control

President Obama on Saturday paid tribute to the nation's law-enforcement personnel, applauding them for their courage and summoning lawmakers to take steps to reduce gun violence.

At a White House ceremony for the 2013 National Association of Police Organizations TOP COPS awards, Obama said, If Top Cops can risk their lives to do their jobs, the rest of us should just be able to summon some tiny fraction of courage and the same sense of responsibility.

"Certainly, that applies for those of us responsible for supporting law enforcement and first responders here in Washington," Obama continued. He spoke about giving law-enforcement agencies the resources they need to fight crime and added, "We also need to take some common-sense steps that protect our rights, protect our children, protect officers in the line of duty by making it harder for dangerous criminals to get their hands on lethal weapons."

That was a reference to the president's gun-control agenda, which includes universal background checks -- an idea that polling shows nine in 10 Americans support -- and which failed to pass in the Senate last month. Law-enforcement leaders have been some of the White House's leading allies in the push for stricter gun laws.

In his speech Saturday, delivered in the East Room of the White House, Obama singled out one of the award recipients, Brian Murphy, a lieutenant who was shot multiple times while responding to a deadly mass shooting at a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., last August.

"He did not consider his own safety," Obama said of Murphy. "He fought back until help arrived and ordered his fellow officers, who are here today, to protect the safety of the Americans worshiping inside -- even though he was lying there bleeding from 12 bullet wounds. When he was asked how he did it, he said, ‘That's just the way we're made.' "

Obama also credited the heroic actions of Ivan Marcano, a police detective in New York City and another award recipient. One night, while off-duty and on a date, Marcano intervened when he saw two muggers attacking a cab driver in the Bronx.

"He got out of his girlfriend's car to stop them and was shot point blank in the chest, a bullet inches from his heart," Obama said. He added that as Marcano's girlfriend drove him to the hospital, they coincidentally ran into the shooter's getaway car.

"So what does Detective Marcano do?" the president asked. "He jumps out of the car -- he's been shot -- keeps pressure on his chest with his left hand, holding a service weapon with his right, he runs after the suspects. He took one of them down, which led to the capture of the others. He wasn't on the clock when any of this happened. This was his date night. It's unbelievable."

By Philip Rucker

Source: The Washington Post