Speaking at a town hall held jointly by MTV, BET, and CMT, the President took questions from a diverse audience of America’s youth, along with a few taken over the internet.  It was easy to see how engaged they were with what was happening in our country, with penetrating questions on everything from the economy so many were making their way into for the first time, to college affordability, to the future of Social Security and the deficit.

The military’s “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy has been in the news of late after a district court judge ruled it unconstitutional.  The Justice Department is defending the statute, as it traditionally does when acts of Congress are challenged, but asked about the policy today he made clear that he continues to work with the military leadership and Congress to repeal this law.  He once again affirmed that "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" is a bad policy that harms our national security and undermines our military effectiveness because it requires the discharge of brave Americans who wish to serve this country honorably. Bridget Todd, a Howard University professor, asked the President why repeal of the military’s “Don't Ask, Don't Tell” policy has been so difficult:

Q    I voted for you in the last elections based on your alleged commitment to equality for all Americans, gay and straight, and I wanted to know where you stood on “don’t ask, don’t tell.”  I know that you’ve mentioned that you want the Senate to repeal it before you do it yourself.  My question is you as the President can sort of have an executive order that ends it once and for all, as Harry -- as Truman did for the integration of the military in ‘48.  So I wonder why don’t you do that if this is a policy that you’re committed to ending.

THE PRESIDENT:  First of all, I haven’t “mentioned” that I’m against “don’t ask, don’t ask” -- I have said very clearly, including in a State of the Union address, that I’m against “don’t ask, don’t tell” and that we’re going to end this policy.  That’s point number one.
 
Point number two, the difference between my position right now and Harry Truman’s was that Congress explicitly passed a law that took away the power of the executive branch to end this policy unilaterally.  So this is not a situation in which with a stroke of a pen I can simply end the policy. 

Now, having said that, what I have been able to do is for the first time get the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mike Mullen, to say he thinks the policy should end.  The Secretary of Defense has said he recognizes that the policy needs to change.  And we, I believe, have enough votes in the Senate to go ahead and remove this constraint on me, as the House has already done, so that I can go ahead and end it.

Now, we recently had a Supreme Court -- a district court case that said, “don’t ask, don’t tell” is unconstitutional.  I agree with the basic principle that anybody who wants to serve in our armed forces and make sacrifices on our behalf, on behalf of our national security, anybody should be able to serve.  And they shouldn’t have to lie about who they are in order to serve.

And so we are moving in the direction of ending this policy.  It has to be done in a way that is orderly, because we are involved in a war right now.  But this is not a question of whether the policy will end.  This policy will end and it will end on my watch.  But I do have an obligation to make sure that I am following some of the rules.  I can’t simply ignore laws that are out there.  I’ve got to work to make sure that they are changed.

Since the enactment of health reform legislation in March, Republican Attorneys General in several states have filed lawsuits challenging the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act.  Having failed in the legislative arena, opponents of reform are now turning to the courts in an attempt to overturn the work of the democratically elected branches of government.  This is nothing new.   We saw this with the Social Security Act, the Civil Rights Act, and the Voting Rights Act – constitutional challenges were brought to all three of these monumental pieces of legislation, and all of those challenges failed.   So too will the challenge to health reform.

Today, a judge in Florida dismissed four of the six claims in the Attorneys General suit, and issued a procedural ruling allowing two claims to move forward.   As the judge noted in his opinion, today’s ruling was not a decision on the merits of the constitutional claims in the case.   Such a ruling will come only after the judge has had the “benefit of additional argument and all evidence in the record that may bear on the outstanding issues.”

However, last week Judge George Caram Steeh of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan did rule on the merits when he dismissed a constitutional challenge to the Affordable Care Act.  In his ruling on the constitutionality of having everyone who can afford to carry minimum health coverage, Judge Steeh, stated:

“The costs of caring for the uninsured who prove unable to pay are shifted to health care providers, to the insured population in the form of higher premiums, to governments, and to taxpayers. . . .   These decisions, viewed in the aggregate, have clear and direct impacts on health care providers, taxpayers, and the insured population who ultimately pay for the care provided to those who go without insurance.”

The Michigan decision reinforces 70 years of Supreme Court precedent by concluding that the Affordable Care Act falls well within Congress’ power to regulate under the Commerce Clause.  It reaffirms precedents that, in the words of Chief Justice Roberts, are designed to preserve the “judiciary’s proper rule in our system of government” and to ensure that our courts do not become forums for political debates.  

There were two important points in the Judge’s ruling.  

First, the judge rejects the plaintiff’s claim that the Affordable Care Act is an unprecedented exercise of the commerce power to regulate “inactivity.” People who make an economic decision to forego health insurance do not opt out of the health care market, but instead shift their costs to others when they become ill or are involved in an accident and cannot pay. 

“No one can guarantee his or her health, or ensure that he or she will never participate in the health care market.   Indeed, the opposite is nearly always true.   The question is how participants in the health care market pay for medical expenses – through insurance, or through an attempt to pay out of pocket with a backstop of uncompensated care funded by third parties.   This phenomenon of cost-shifting is what makes the health care market unique.   Far from ‘inactivity,’ by choosing to forgo insurance plaintiffs are making an economic decision to try to pay for health care services later, out of pocket, rather than now through the purchase of insurance, collectively shifting billions of dollars, $43 billion in 2008, onto other market participants.   As this cost-shifting is exactly what the Health Care Reform Act was enacted to address, there is no need for metaphysical gymnastics.” 

Second, the judge points out that the landmark insurance market protections, including banning insurers from denying coverage to individuals with pre-existing conditions, can only be effective if everyone is part of the system.   He states that “[w]ithout the minimum coverage provision, there would be an incentive for some individuals to wait to purchase health insurance until they needed care, knowing that insurance would be available at all times.   As a result, the most costly individuals would be in the insurance system and the least costly would be outside it.   In turn, this would aggravate current problems with cost shifting and lead to even higher premiums.”

Repealing the minimum coverage provision of the Affordable Care Act would have devastating consequences for millions of Americans: 

• Because we do not leave people to die at the emergency room door –spending on uncompensated care would be $43 billion or higher.  According to a recent study, this cost-shift added on average $1,100 to family premiums in 2009 and roughly $410 to an individual premium.
• 39 million people would be uninsured, 16 million more than would be uninsured if the provision remains law.
• According to the Congressional Budget Office, average premiums would rise by 15 to 20 percent.  

Now that this preliminary stage has ended, the government fully expects to prevail on the merits.   As President Reagan’s Solicitor General Charles Fried recently wrote, “the health care law’s enemies have no ally in the Constitution.”
 

Stephanie Cutter is Assistant to the President for Special Projects
 

Ed. Note: Cross-posted from the Department of Energy's blog. To learn more about events happening as part of National Energy Awareness Month, check out our calendar.

Last week Secretary Chu invited you to submit your questions on home energy efficiency and the response was tremendous. We sifted through your questions and recently discussed many of them with the Secretary.

 Here are the resources that the Secretary referenced during the discussion:

• Home Energy Saver Audit
• Energy Star Appliances
• Solar Water Heater Assessment

While the Secretary covered a lot of ground during the course of our discussion there were some thoughtful questions that we didn’t have a chance to ask, so we decided to ask the experts at Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy to weigh in. You can check out their responses below.

October 13, 2010. (by Tami A. Heilemann - DOI)

Yesterday, I spoke at the Solar Power International Conference in Los Angeles, California. Being at the largest solar conference in North America gives you a real sense of possibility and promise. The pace at which these technologies are advancing is truly remarkable.

Just look at the large-scale solar projects we at the Department of the Interior have approved for construction in the past two weeks alone. They are the firsts of their kind on public lands and some will be among the largest solar projects in the world.

October 13^th is the 235^th Anniversary of the founding of the United States Navy.  So it was incredibly appropriate that today I had the opportunity to speak at two events focused on our military’s energy policy, because how the Navy and Marine Corps have harnessed energy has shaped our history since the birth of the Republic.  And how energy is used and produced in the United States will continue to affect both our national security, and the strategic and tactical capabilities of our forces, long into the future.

The military and the United States depend too much on fossil fuels.  But over the last two years the Department of the Navy has made significant strides to change that, and is moving toward the President’s vision of a new energy future powered by alternative energy.  The reasons for making this change are clear.  First and foremost, energy reform is about the lives of our troops.  For every 24 fuel convoys that go into Afghanistan, we lose one American, killed or wounded.  That is too high a price to pay for energy. 

Any middle class parent or student who’s worried about paying college tuition will tell you that $2,500 makes a big difference when it comes time to pay the bills.  But right now, there's a real chance students will lose access to an important tax credit provides this level of assistance - unless we act quickly.

That’s why President Obama is calling on Congress to make the American Opportunity Tax Credit – a $2500 per year tax credit for working families and students attending college – permanent.  To help bring attention to the issue, he's meeting with college students in the Oval Office today.  You can help by spreading the word about this important issue as well.

This isn't just an issue for current students - it matters to all of us.  Having more college educated workers in the American workforce is crucial to growing our economy. In order to compete in the 21st century global economy, we need to give all Americans the opportunity to pursue a college degree – and that’s exactly what this tax credit does:

Health care is very personal for me.

I was born with a heart murmur, my mother is a breast cancer survivor but lost her mom at the age of 3, an aunt who lost her life due to cancer, and my dad cleaned hospital rooms for 29 years.   But because of having access to health care, my family’s dreams were not deferred.  I am sure that I am not the only African-American who has received a second, third and fourth chance of realizing my dreams due to being healthy enough to realize them.

But for too many African-Americans, lack of access and unaffordable health care meant that their dreams were not realized.

Now, due to President Barack Obama, Health & Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and Democratic Members of Congress, health care is no longer an unmet promise for African-Americans and all Americans, it is now the law of the land.

But, you ask – how does health care help me? How does it help my family? I am glad that you asked.

Dr. Garth Graham from the Department of Health and Human Service’s Office of Minority Health has posted a new video on WhiteHouse.gov/HealthReform that discusses some of the many benefits of the Affordable Care Act for African Americans.  Before the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, the African American community struggled more than most as a result of our broken health care system.  As Dr. Graham points out, African Americans are nearly twice as likely to be uninsured than the rest of country and are consequently more likely to experience serious issues with medical bills and medical debt. 

President Barack Obama meets with the student finalists of the NFTE National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge in the Oval Office. These students – four of who are still in high school – have all started new businesses and competed against 24,000 other young people in the competition. October 12, 2010. (Official White House Photo by Pete Souza)

President Obama is the first to recognize that not all good ideas come from adults, and that’s why for the second year in a row he offered his personal congratulations to the winners of a challenge organized by the Network for Teaching Entrepreneurship (NFTE).

NFTE organizes the National Youth Entrepreneurship Challenge and has for years helped young individuals from low-income communities unlock their potential for entrepreneurial creativity. In a show of his support for the youthful innovators of our Nation, President Obama—as he did for last year’s NFTE winners—welcomed the five young winners of this year’s competition to the White House for a meeting with him, where he not only congratulated them but also picked their innovative brains. View the full press release from NFTE here (pdf).

The five winners of the Challenge are:

• Nia Froome, a 17-year-old student from Valley Stream, NY, who won the grand prize for her business, Mamma Nia’s Vegan Bakery. Inspired by her mother’s battle with breast cancer, she says she plans to donate a portion of her winnings to Susan G. Komen for the Cure, in addition to investing in her business and education.
• Bosnian immigrants Zermina Velic and Belma Ahmetovic, from Hartford, CT, who took First Runner-Up for their computer services company, Beta Bytes.
• Crystal Vo of San Jose, CA, who won Second Runner-Up for her cake ball company, Sweet Tooth Bites,
• Steven Gordon of Brooklyn, NY, who won NFTE’s first Online Elevator Pitch Challenge for his business, TattooID.

Since NFTE began in 1987, more than 330,000 people have been part of the program, which has activities going on in 21 states and ten countries. 

Kudos to this year’s winners!

Watch a behind-the-scenes video with President Obama and students from the film Waiting for Superman. Yesterday, the children, their families and others that worked on the movie met with President Obama in the Oval Office and watched him depart in helicopter Marine One from the South Lawn of the White House.