OVERNIGHT HEALTH: Second repeal vote coming up

by Sam Baker and Elise Viebeck - 07/10/12 10:30 PM ET

In footage from a 2006 press conference, Romney referred to the mandate, saying: “The personal responsibility principle … is essential for bringing healthcare costs down for everyone and getting everybody the health insurance they deserve and need.” The Democratic memo joked that maybe House GOP members “lost the talking points on ‘personal responsibility’ and ‘free riders’ ” from their “dear friend” Romney.

Read more from The Hill on tomorrow’s vote here.

Like a boss: Rep. Phil Gingrey (R-Ga.) found a new comparison Tuesday for the healthcare law: Boss Hogg, from the 1970s sitcom “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

{mosads}”The only healthcare that citizens of this country can access are those approved by the boss,” Gingrey said on the House floor, standing next to a poster of Boss Hogg. “If you like what you currently have, you can’t keep it, according to the boss. The boss and his henchmen, who help fund this tyranny, they include the biggest permanent tax increase on Americans, borne in large part by middle-class families and the employers who give the jobs.”

FYI, Gingrey previously compared Don Berwick, who was the Medicare administrator at the time, to Don Corleone from “The Godfather.”

The Hill has more on Gingrey’s latest analogy.

Eroding the HHS mandate: A new Republican bill would remove the teeth from a contentious Obama administration health mandate by barring the federal government from penalizing employers that do not comply. The measure was written in response to the Affordable Care Act, which requires that most employers cover birth control without a co-pay for employees. If the bill is enacted, employers who object to birth control for religious reasons and refuse to cover it will not face financial penalties from the government.

One of the bill’s authors, Rep. James Sensenbrenner Jr. (R-Wis.), argued that the mandate’s current penalty for non-compliance would sink many religious groups.

“If these taxes are levied and they are enforced, there will be no religious-affiliated institutions left in this country,” he said at a press conference Tuesday.

Healthwatch has more on bill, which will be introduced Tuesday night in the House, here.

Senate vote soon? Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said he’s pushing for a repeal vote in the upper chamber “in the near future.” McConnell had resisted repeal votes before the November elections, but the Supreme Court’s decision has prompted Republicans to rally their base around legislative repeal — the party’s last chance to fully eliminate Obama’s signature domestic achievement.

Read the Healthwatch post on McConnell’s comments.

CDC on the hot seat: Millions of dollars in federal grants might have helped fund lobbying efforts, the Health and Human Services Department’s inspector general said Tuesday. The IG echoed concerns raised by Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) about a grant program at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Some materials distributed by the CDC “appear to authorize, or even encourage, grantees to use grant funds for impermissible lobbying,” the inspector general wrote in a letter to the CDC.

Healthwatch has more on the investigation and possibly illegal use of federal grant money.

Tax debate: House Republicans said Tuesday that the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the individual mandate as a tax would open the door to a slew of similar mandates in the future.

“Without a doubt, the Supreme Court’s ruling that the individual mandate is a tax reveals what can only be characterized as a brave new world, and as such its implications might be imagined but cannot be entirely known,” Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp (R-Mich.) said.

GOP lawmakers and conservative witnesses at the Ways and Means hearing said they feared that Congress could use its tax powers to regulate “inactivity” — which the court explicitly said could not be regulated under the Constitution’s Commerce Clause.

The Hill has the story from Tuesday’s hearing.

Abortion bill takes heat: The National Organization for Women (NOW) slammed Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) and other GOP lawmakers for supporting a new bill that would limit abortion rights in Washington, D.C. Franks’s measure would criminalize abortions after 20 weeks in the District because, Republicans argue, some research suggests that fetuses can feel pain at that point. NOW President Terry O’Neill called the bill a “clear strike in the ongoing War on Women.”

“When will the radical right-wing men in Congress let up?” she said in a statement.

Read more at Healthwatch.

Fly-in watch: Long-term-care advocates with the American Health Care Association (AHCA) are hitting Capitol Hill to lobby on provider taxes, observation stays and Zone Program Integrity Contractor Programs. The fly-in involves more than 400 long-term-care professionals visiting at least 48 House and Senate offices. The group heard from Reps. Bill Cassidy (R-La.), Kathy Castor (D-Fla.), Nan Hayworth (R-N.Y.) and Tom Latham (R-Iowa) at a briefing Tuesday, according to a schedule. The AHCA says it will also be “hosting some fundraisers for folks.” For more information, visit the AHCA.

Wednesday’s agenda

The National Organization for Women and several other women’s groups will be at the National Press Club to discuss what they call the Republican “war on women.”

The Senate Finance Committee holds a roundtable with physicians to discuss Medicare’s system for paying doctors.

Solicitor General Donald Verrilli is slated to speak at a Heritage Foundation event recapping the Supreme Court’s last term.

The Energy and Commerce Committee’s Health panel holds a hearing titled, “Helping Veterans with Emergency Medical Training Transition to Civilian Service.”

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius delivers a speech at George Washington University about the Supreme Court’s ruling.

State by state

Obama: N.H. wrong on health reform.

Analysis: Minnesota No. 1 in medical care.

Calif. may be ineligible for new adult day care.

Reading list

BuzzFeed breaks down the political reasons for holding a 33rd repeal vote.

The healthcare law has been a boon to the tax preparation industry, Reuters reports.

The Onion: Obama pledges to repeal healthcare law if reelected

What you might have missed on Healthwatch

House Dem backs Mich. legislator silenced for ‘vagina’ remark

GOP touts second repeal vote as doing the ‘will of the American people’