Michael Cannon writes:

ObamaCare directs the Secretary of Health and Human Services to define the “essential health benefits” that all consumers in the individual and small-group health insurance markets must purchase. HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius kicked that decision to the states, giving them a deadline of this past Friday, September 30. Kaiser Health News reports that all of 16 states submitted an Essential Health Benefits (EHB) benchmark to HHS by the deadline.

But did Sebelius have the authority to kick this decision to states?

No. Cannon quotes  Pennsylvania Insurance Commissioner Michael Consedine:

HHS guidance appears to render the states’ ability to innovate and to make an independent choice illusory

Louisiana’s Secretary of Health and Hospitals Bruce Greenstein and Insurance Commissioner James Donelson school Sebelius:

The State of Louisiana will not permit the federal government to dictate to our residents a default benchmark plan, as the federal government, in its disregard of the requirements of the Administrative Procedure Act regarding essential health benefits and other provisions of the PPACA, has no authority to do so under federal or Louisiana law until regulations are published in the Federal Register, following established notice and comment procedure.

The process developed for defining the essential health benefit benchmark has been a completely new method of establishing law without proper rulemaking. Implementation of new policies without open and public comment and publication in the Federal Register is in clear violation of the law.

Read the whole post: ObamaCare’s ‘Essential Health Benefits’: Few States Implement, HHS ‘Is in Clear Violation of the Law’ | Cato @ Liberty.