While the Obama administration is busy dealing with the IRS scandal, the Benghazi scandal and the seizure of reporters’ phone records, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is skirting around a problem as well. Sebelius has been asking for donations for Obamacare costs from the very people and industry who will be charged with implementing it and getting government money to do so.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has gone, hat in hand, to health industry officials, asking them to make large financial donations to help with the effort to implement President Obama’s landmark health-care law, two people familiar with the outreach said.

Her unusual fundraising push comes after Congress repeatedly rejected the Obama administration’s requests for additional funds to set up the Affordable Care Act, leaving HHS to implement the president’s signature legislative accomplishment on what officials have described as a shoestring budget.

Read more on Sebelius Asks Health Care Industry For ‘Donations’ To Prop Up Obamacare…

If your next date night costs you more, you can thank Obamacare. Regal Entertainment Group, the country’s largest movie theater chain, has announced that it is cutting employee hours due to Obamacare related costs.

One Regal theater manager told FoxNews.com the move has sparked a wave of resignations from full-time managers who have seen their hours cut by 25 percent or more.

“In the last couple weeks, managers have been quitting on a daily basis from various locations to try and find full-time work,” said the manager, who asked not to be named. “Regal up until now has never restricted anyone to anything below 40 hours.”

Read more on A Night At The Movies: Higher Costs, Less Hours For Employees…

Too many regulations: that’s the judgement of Fred Deluca, founder of the Subway restaurant chain. In an interview with CNBC, Deluca said he couldn’t start his business in today’s economic climate.

Read more on No Sandwich For You: Tough Times for Entrepreneurs…

The latest topic of The City podcast is the higher education bubble, featuring Cate MacDonald, Dr. John Mark Reynolds, and Dr. Holly Ordway. Reynolds makes the point that bubbles can arise when things are overvalued, but that it is important to determine whether that thing is relatively overvalued or absolutely overvalued. That is, to speak of a higher education bubble is to recognize that higher education is relatively more expensive than it is worth, but that it isn’t therefore worth nothing. The challenges facing higher education are various and multi-faceted, and one of the key issues is the necessity of determining how college education ought to be valued.

Read more on The Various Challenges of the Higher Education Bubble…

Paul and Henry Griesedieck, owners of American Pulverizer Company of St. Louis and pro-life Christians, made a stand against the Health and Human Services Mandate and won, for now.  The HHS mandate requires employers and health insurers to provide employees with health insurance that includes coverage of contraceptives and abortifacient drugs which terminate early pregnancies. According to LifeNews, “[t]he U.S. District Court for Western Missouri issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting enforcement of the law.”

Read more on Victory Against HHS Mandate in Missouri…

The National Catholic Register and Associated Press are reporting that Justice Sonia Sotomayor has denied Hobby Lobby (and a related company, Mardel, Inc.) its request to opt out of the HHS mandate to provide abortifacients as health care to employees. Justice Sotomayor’s decision stated that Hobby Lobby did not meet the legal standard for preventing them from complying with the government mandate. However, David Green, CEO and owner of Hobby Lobby disagrees, saying the lawsuit violates his family’s faith.

Read more on Hobby Lobby Denied Request For HHS Mandate Relief…

Currently, there are forty cases against the Obamacare HHS mandate. The Affordable Care Act of 2010 requires employers to provide,  as employee health care, “preventative services” such as abortion and sterilization.

Read more on Obama Administration’s Misjudgement of the Nation’s Conscience…

While its depressing that not being forced to violate one’s conscience is considered a victory, you take what you can get in the age of ObamaCare. So I’m thankful for the news that an appeals court imposed a temporary injunction against the Department of Health and Human Services from enforcing its contraception mandate on a privately owned business:

Read more on Another (Temporary) Advance for Religious Liberty…

Religious groups and businesses who, by weight of conscience, are choosing not to participate in the HHS mandate requiring them to provide abortifacients, artificial birth control, sterilization procedures and abortions as part of “health” care coverage, are now faced with massive fines from the government. The fines for non-compliance are $100 per day per employee. For some companies, that means millions in fines.

Read more on Massive Fines and Growing Anxieties: The HHS Mandate…

On Nov. 19, Acton Institute President Rev. Robert A. Sirico discussed a recent federal court ruling on the Obama Administration’s HHS Contraception Mandate on TheBlaze.com’s Real News.

For more on this story, see the Tyndale House Publishers v. Sebelius resource page on the website of Alliance Defending Freedom.

Read more on Video: Rev. Sirico Responds to Court Ruling on Tyndale House and Obamacare…