Yesterday, I noted that Koch Industries — the oil, chemicals, and manufacturing conglomerate that has also spent millions of dollars opposing health care reform — applied for federal dollars to bolster its early retiree program. Today, Julian Pecquet of Healthwatch lists other corporations who are accepting the law’s appropriations while funding efforts to repeal it. Pecquet conducted “a state-by-state review” of approved applicants and found that “more than a dozen members of the board of directors of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce have also been accepted into the program.” They include:

– Pfizer, PepsiCo, New York Life Insurance Company, Eastman Kodak and IBM of New York;

– Rolls-Royce North America, the Norfolk Southern Corporation and the Altria Group of Virginia;

– UPS and Southern Company of Georgia;

– John Deere and Navistar of Illinois;

– AT&T and the Fluor Corporation of Texas;

– U.S. Airways of Arizona;

– Entergy Services Inc. of Louisiana;

– The Dow Chemical Company of Michigan;

– Anheuser-Busch of Missouri;

– FedEx Express of Tennessee;

– CUNA Mutual Group of Wisconsin;

– Pepco Holdings Co. of Washington, D.C.

As Pecquet points out, “being members of the Chamber’s board of directors doesn’t mean the companies agree with all of its stances” (Pfizer supports the law), but it’s probably worth reiterating just how hard the Chamber has worked to scurry reform. “Over the past year, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce has spent nearly $3 million a week in opposition to President Obama’s major agenda items,” the Washington Post reported last month and poured close to $50 million into anti-reform television ads alone. Now, it plans to spend some $75 million trying to unseat Democrats who voted for the health care law all the while its board members profit from it.

A group of conservative activists in Nevada have filed a class action lawsuit on behalf of a handful of Nevadans who oppose the health care law and “all persons in the United States of America who object to being forced to participate in the PPACA.” The group, PeopleV.US, claims that the health care law “violates 60% of the Bill of Rights” and describes its challenge as “the most comprehensive suit filed against the Act.” The effort is being funded by Tony Dane, a Nevada businessman “who runs a robocalling firm and helped GOP Senate nominee Sharron Angle get elected to the state assembly.”

The lawsuit regurgitates some of the familiar claims that the individual mandate violates the commerce clause and the 10th amendment of the constitution, but also adds some new charges [Read the full complaint HERE]:

- The PPACA violates the free exercise of religion protected by the First Amendment to the Constitution by compelling Plaintiffs herein to fund abortion in contravention of sincerely held religious beliefs.

- The PPACA violates the Constitution because the federal government lacks legal authority under the Fifth Amendment to the Constitution to deprive Plaintiffs herein of the liberty right to refuse to divulge medical confidences to a private insurer or its agent, to obtain health insurance; to not receive medical treatment or treatment of a particular kind; and to not pay for unwanted treatment; and to receive treatment of their own choosing.

- The PPACA violates the Thirteenth Amendment of the Constitution’s prohibition against involuntary servitude because it involuntarily creates a debt and coerces Plaintiffs herein to work off the debt by threat of legal sanction.

- The PPACA violates the First Amendment of the Constitution’s prohibition against the government’s establishment of religion by establishing, promoting and compelling participation in the secular religion of Socialism.

The suit also asks some key questions: “Does the PPACA violate the Privacy Rights of Plaintiffs under the case of Roe v. Wade by allowing the government to control their private health care decisions and giving the government control over Plaintiffs’ bodies?,” “Does the PPACA set up a government sponsored secular religion in violation of the establishment clause of the First Amendment?.”

The latter receives full treatment, with references to Karl Marx and Lenin:

See also “Liberal Fascism” by Jonah Goldberg, Broadway Books, 2009, which points out that fascistic socialism has become the U.S. state religion in America, beginning with Woodrow Wilson and continuing to the present.

137. As Trotsky wrote: “Marx is the prophet with the tables of the law and Lenin the greatest executor of the testament” (see the report at the Seventh All Russian Party conference of April 5th, 1923 as published in LENIN by Blue Ribbon Books, New York,1925).

Trotsky was second in authority only to Lenin in 1923 and even he calls Marx a prophet, comparing him to Moses with the tables of the law see (Ex. 24: 12) and Lenin becomes the executor of that religion’s new “testament.”

These statements of Trotsky must be given “great weight”:

In such an intensely personal area, of course, the claim of the registrant that his belief is an essential part of a religious faith must be given great weight.

The lawsuit lists the INDEPENDENT AMERICAN PARTY OF NEVADA and the NEVADA EAGLE FORUM as plaintiffs — the groups are “devoted to the preservation of constitutional/conservative values and oppose socialism, marxism, fascism, and any such form of state religion or government controlled health care” — and specific individuals, Dane included, who “object to the PPACA because it is the establishment of Socialism as a civil / secular religion, and compels participation in this state sponsored religion by way of the Individual Mandate and the shared responsibility payment.”

All in all, the usual Tea Party arguments about the Commerce Clause and the Tenth Amendment fade into the background of this rather colorful document and one wonders if and when Sharron Angle will join the cause, given her connections to its backer.

Michael O’Grady and Jennifer Baxendell Young have offered a new proposal to reverse the ‘counter-cyclical’ effect in Medicaid funding — in which states are overridden with higher Medicaid costs during periods of economic recession, often forcing the federal government to increase its contribution (known as FMAP) to the program. O’Grady and Young would automatically trigger a higher federal contribution during economic downturns and allow the states to repay the loan over a five year period:

The proposal we are considering is to adjust downward a state’s share during an economic downturn. The adjustment would allow states facing economic hardship to make a lower contribution during the downturn, i.e., the FMAP would increase and the federal government would pay more. However, unlike current practice, the additional federal funds would be paid back using a lower FMAP (therefore a higher state share) once the state’s economy rebounded. The design would achieve the dual policy goals of providing federal help to states during a downturn, and not adding to the federal debt.

To achieve this, a number of steps would be taken:

First, there would need to be a trigger mechanism (not controlled by the states) that would indicate economic vulnerability. Some possibilities might be the state’s unemployment rate rising above 10 percent or an annual reduction in state gross domestic product (GDP) of more than 5 percent

Second, there would need to be a sliding scale emergency FMAP adjustment where the federal government picks up a higher percentage based on how bad the state’s economy is. For example, a 1 percent increase in the federal share for every 1 percent of the state’s unemployment rate beyond 10 percent.

Third, the adjustment should not occur until the next fiscal year. This lag is designed to serve two purposes. First, this mechanism is not intended to address short-term dips in a state’s economy. That is for the state to manage. Second, accessing federal relief should not be an option of first resort. Instead, states should exercise the program management tools they possess (not that those are easy or desirable) before asking federal taxpayers for help.

Fourth, the difference between the regular FMAP and the emergency FMAP would be treated as a loan with a five-year payback window.

Fifth, as the state’s economy recovers, the five-year payback window would start. This could be designed to have the payback start within five years of the initial triggering event. The result is a maximum payback period of 10 years.

Sixth, the payback mechanism would be a higher percentage share from the state until the additional federal money is repaid, plus an amount equal to the market rate for federal borrowing during the time period of the emergency FMAP.

In other words, the proposal would make changes to FMAP so that it moves more flexibly with the economy. All the politicking around increasing the FMAP contribution (everything we saw during the fight to pass the $26.1 billion package) would just move to the back end, when states actually have the capacity to repay the additional FMAP dollars. But significantly, states will be able to deal with the surge of new applicants without lowering eligibility, reducing funding, or dealing with all the political implications of accepting additional dollars from Washington.

As he issued an executive order preventing the state from applying for any of the grants available in the new health care law, Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty signaled that he would accept $263 million in federal dollars to bolster the state’s Medicaid program — funds he previously described as a ‘bailout’ of the states. “The federal government should not deficit spend to bail out states and special interest groups,” Pawlenty said earlier this month after the House reconvened for an emergency vote and passed a $26.1 billion bill providing aid to state governments. “Minnesota balanced its budget without raising taxes and without relying on more federal money. The federal government’s reckless spending spree must come to an end.”

Putting aside the fact that the $26.1 billion measure was fully paid for (and even reduced the deficit by $1.4 billion), Pawlenty searched for another explanation as to why he’s willing to accept a transfer of federal funds into the state Medicaid program but would not apply for grant dollars authorized by the health care law. The enhanced Medicaid payments are “not Obamacare” and won’t “further some stupid policy agenda,” he concluded:

“We’ll likely take that money,” Pawlenty said in an interview at the State Fair Tuesday. “It’s not Obamacare, it is something that we were going to be doing anyhow…”We’re going to take the money for those things that we were going to do anyhow and for the Medicaid (money), we were going to do that anyhow,” Pawlenty said. [...]

Further, the governor said, Minnesota is a net donor to the federal government — sending in more money than it gets back — so “where it’s appropriate and where it’s wise and doesn’t further some stupid policy agenda or otherwise concerns us or sign us up for something that is unsustainable or otherwise cause us a problem, we’re going to apply for those other pots of money.”

Earlier this year, Pawlenty rejected federal funds from the health care law to expand the state’s Medicaid program, a point he highlighted in yesterday’s executive order.