Impact
Two major projects consumed much of the summer – long-term care and tracking ObamaCare’s impact on jobs. You’ll recall that Speaker Boehner appointed me to serve on the Long-Term Care Commission, charged with offering recommendations for solutions by Sept. 12. The commission’s website has information on all of our hearings, but there have been many more meetings and deadlines. Stay tuned for the report next week.
And I was invited to testify in July before the House Education and Workforce Committee about the impact of ObamaCare on jobs creation in our still-struggling economy. That testimony, and my subsequent article in Forbes, continues to generate a great deal of media attention.
Read on for more highlights of July and August:
Publications
Forbes.com published two of Grace-Marie’s commentaries:
“ObamaCare’s Costs Are Set To Soar As Administration Encourages Companies To Drop Health Benefits”
“It’s Fact, Not Anecdote, That ObamaCare Is Turning Us Into A Part-Time Nation”
National Review Online published five commentaries by Grace-Marie:
“Did Employers Just Become Aggressive ObamaCare implementers?”
“Fact-Checking Obama’s Health-Care Speech”
“Getting the IRS Out of ObamaCare”
“The Real ObamaCare Test is Coming”
Grace-Marie wrote a commentary for Real Clear Markets: “The Obama Administration is at War With Itself Over Brain Research.”
We published 3 posts to the Galen blog:
“ObamaCare: Delays and Cancellations”
Galen in the News
The Galen Institute was also on the airwaves with radio interviews around the country, including the Mike Huckabee Show, KMOX CBS with Mark Reardon, KFKA Colorado with Devon and Tom, Richmond’s Morning News with Jimmy Barrett, Jim Blasingame’s Small Business Advocate, the Drew Mariani Show on Relevant Radio, Butler on Business, WPXI’s “Pittsburgh Now” with Chris Moore, and “On the Right Side” with Reid Lance Rosenthal.
We made TV appearances on an hour long special, “The Truth about ObamaCare” on Fox News with Sean Hannity, on Fox Business with Kate Rogers, on CNBC with Larry Kudlow, and on Fox News’ “Fox & Friends.”
Grace-Marie was quoted in The Wall Street Journal article by Kimberley Strassel: “New Strategy to Take on ObamaCare: Coalition of Conservatives Believes that ‘delay’ is more likely to succeed than ‘defund’.”
The Washington Free Beacon wrote about Grace-Marie speaking to the Conservative Women’s Network: “Conservative Women Criticize ObamaCare.”
Speeches and Sessions
Grace-Marie spoke with and participated in a variety of conferences in July and August:
She gave a speech to the CDHC (Consumer Driven Health Care) Conference in Washington: “HSA’s One Decade Later: Is the Dream Still Alive?”
Grace-Marie testified before the House Education and Labor Committee, examining the delay of the employer mandate and its effect on workplaces.
She spoke to state secretaries of health at a “Secretaries Innovation Group” seminar, organized by Jason Turner and held in conjunction with the National Governors Association’s summer meeting in Milwaukee. She updated state cabinet secretaries on the continuing changes to the health law and their impact on states, jobs, and budgets.
She was the keynote speaker at a Conservative Women’s Network event in Washington: “ObamaCare on the Ropes: Delays, Rising Costs, and Broken Promises – The Path to Repealing ObamaCare.”
Meetings and Events
We met with Members of Congress and staff on ideas for health policy initiatives, held a number of meetings with experts on long-term care, and attended numerous hearings and meetings with members of Long Term Care Commission.
Our July Health Policy Series for Capitol Hill staffers focused on “ObamaCare and the Missing Jobs” and featured speakers Diana Furchtgott-Roth of the Manhattan Institute and Douglas Holtz-Eakin of the American Action Forum.
We facilitated our monthly State Leaders call — jointly hosted by Galen Institute, the Institute for Policy Innovation, and the State Policy Network — on “Changes and Challenges to ObamaCare” with discussion about Medicaid expansion and the impact on states and an update on court cases on the ACA. American Enterprise Institute’s Tom Miller and Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center were the featured speakers.
We took part in an AEI dinner meeting and discussion, “Best of Both Worlds: Uniting Universal Coverage and Personal Choice in Health Care.”
We also participated in numerous meetings and conference calls about the dangers of Medicaid expansion, participated in meetings of the Repeal Coalition, and facilitated a meeting with policy colleagues to discuss new initiatives for market-based health reform.