Free Republic

The Affordable Care Act, also known as ObamaCare, has transformed the healthcare landscape across America. Though not yet fully implemented, it is already changing the way we buy and access healthcare, mostly in negative ways. Premiums keep going up. Doctors are speeding up their retirements to avoid having to deal with the law. Its push to digitize our medical records may expose Americans to violations of our privacy, and even to misdiagnoses as doctors and nurses are forced to use templates rather than handwritten notes to describe the ailments patients present them. ObamaCare is also creating chaos in how states...

If you are an illegal alien, criminal or other various leeches on our society, this won't concern you. Your health care will be paid for by US CITIZENS and you will never have to pay it back! This concerns the typical US citizen who has worked for decades, followed the rules, sacrificed to pay off his house, or most of it. Buried deep in Obamacare (remember Nancy Pelosi told us we had to pass it to find out what was in it!) is a provision taken from the Budget reconciliation act of 1993, signed into law by Bill Clinton. Often...

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie SEE Christie Agrees To Medicaid Expansion In Annual Budget Speech Nevada Gov. Brian Sandoval, see Sandoval Announces Nev. Medicaid Expansion New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, SEE Gov. Martinez Announces Medicaid Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder, see Mich. governor signs on for Obama’s Medicaid expansion Ohio Gov. John Kasich, see Gov. Kasich looks to expand Medicaid in Florida Gov. Rick Scott, see Womp: Florida Gov. Scott decides to expand Medicaid North Dakota Gov. Jack Dalrymple, see Dalrymple: Funding For Obamacare Medicaid Expansion Is “Free Money Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer, see Brewer faces tough fight expanding Medicaid The...

The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has posted a draft of proposed "health insurance providers fee" (RIN 1545-BL20) regulations. Consumer representatives and others are trying to get the IRS to write the regulations in such a way that the agency will discourage health insurance providers from trying to "recover a large portion of the fee from policyholders," officials said in a preamble to draft regulations. The rulemaking notice is set to appear in the Federal Register Monday. Comments will be due 60 days after the official publication date. The fee The proposed regulations are supposed to help the IRS implement Section...

More than 700 pages of healthcare rules released By Megan R. Wilson - 03/01/13 12:37 PM ET The Obama administration on Friday released more than 700 pages of new regulations to implement portions of the Affordable Care Act. The four rules, which are scheduled for publication in mid-March, finalize both major and minor parts of the healthcare reform law that Congress passed in 2010. Three of the regulations are final and roll out the multistate healthcare exchanges and reforms to the insurance market, including provisions to encourage cost-sharing, stabilize health insurance premiums and prevent providers from denying coverage. The Department...

You want to know why the left is more successful at politics? They are willing to move heaven and earth to create new dependency programs, despite the electoral risks. They understand that once the program is implemented, Republicans will never have the guts to undo it. And they are correct. Even some of our best conservatives lack the gumption to do what it takes to eliminate the worst program of all time – Obamacare. In fact, House conservatives, not just the general rank and file Republicans, appear set to endorse Obamacare and approve its funding. Yes, even former Republican Study...

It’s really simple, folks. Everything boils down to Obamacare. Do we really believe that Obamacare will make private health insurance unaffordable? Do we really believe Obamacare will bankrupt the nation and relegate the next generation of Americans to a dimmer future of less freedom and opportunity? Do we really believe Obamacare will create incorrigible dependency? Do we really believe that Obamacare will lead to a deterioration of healthcare services and rationed care? Are we really serious about balancing the budget and reforming entitlements? If the answer to the aforementioned questions is a resounding yes, which is presumably the case for...

The U.S. health care system is a giant money making scam that is designed to drain as much money as possible out of all of us before we die. In the United States today, the health care industry is completely dominated by government bureaucrats, health insurance companies and pharmaceutical corporations. The pharmaceutical corporations spend billions of dollars to convince all of us to become dependent on their legal drugs, the health insurance companies make billions of dollars by providing as little health care as possible, and they both spend millions of dollars to make sure that our politicians in Washington...

In response to Donna Brazile: Why did my health care premiums go up? : I understand her disappointment considering the president made some rather incredible predictions when he was campaigning for "what critics call" Obamacare :

If you think the Obama health law won't affect you because you have private insurance, keep reading. The Department of Health and Human Services announced final rules for private insurance last week. The federal government will have control over your care. Sec. 1311 of the law empowers the Secretary of Health and Human Services to dictate how doctors treat privately insured patients and what questions patients must be asked. Your doctor will enter your information into an electronic database; your doctor's decisions will be monitored for compliance with federal guidelines, and your doctor may have to choose between what is...

In trying to keep up with where we stand on Obamacare and the states, seeking FReeper input on those states that belong on the solidly against expanding Medicaid list. Here's what I've cobbled together. Feel free to weigh in with information of your own. Don't mean to exclude any state that belongs on the list, or to include any state that doesn't belong. (Have to be careful, because a much longer list of states than this said they wouldn't set up a state exchange. I'm seeing that maybe some states waffled bigtime and split the difference...rejected a state exchange but...

New Jersey next Friday will suspend enrollment in an insurance program for people with preexisting medical conditions mandated by the new federal health care law, officials said. The state was directed to do so by the federal Department of Health and Human Services, which received limited funding from Congress to provide coverage in each of the 50 states. Without the suspension, the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan would be in danger of running out of money to cover those currently enrolled, according to a message posted on the program’s website. “Those who have been considering purchasing health coverage … need to...

Brace yourself for longer lines at the doctor's office. Whether you're employed and insured, elderly and on Medicare, or poor and covered by Medicaid, the Florida Medical Association says there's a growing shortage of doctors — especially specialists — available to provide you with medical care. And if the Florida Legislature goes along with Gov. Rick Scott's recommendation to offer Medicaid coverage to an additional 1 million Floridians — part of the Affordable Care Act that takes effect next January — the FMA says that shortage will only get worse. "Florida needs more doctors and it needs more nurses, and...

By denying coverage to spouses, employers not only save the annual premiums, but also the new fees that went into effect as part of the Affordable Care Act.

Are you as shocked as Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY)? Somehow, I rather doubt it, and I don’t think Jason Mattera is as surprised as the front-page pic suggests, either. Confronted with the new CBO analysis that shows more than seven million Americans will lose their present health-insurance coverage from ObamaCare despite his repeated assertions that no one would lose their coverage, Rep. Engel tells Jason in this Andrea Tantaros Show video debuting exclusively at Hot Air that Congress can always go back and fix what's not working.Funny --- Jason doesn't recall that being mentioned as an option, and neither do...

This week I gasped in horror when I learned that Obama care had ordered Medicare to cut reimbursement for 4 million diabetic seniors by 66%. It also reduced all the companies that were supplying blood sugar monitoring supplies from 1000 to 15. I also learned via the research of Elizabeth Vliet M.D. that one of her 80 year old patients was told he was not covered anymore by Medicare when he went to the pharmacy so couldn’t get his medication. His choice was to pay cash or die. Pause for a second and snap out of being mildly annoyed and...

Today, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) President Karen Ignagni issued a press release in support of bipartisan legislation (H.R. 1370, S.1880) co-sponsored by Rep. Charles Boustany (R-LA) and Jim Matheson (D-UT) to repeal the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) health insurance tax. While much of the dialogue on healthcare reform centers on the federal mandate of health coverage for all Americans – which many conservatives call the largest tax increase in U.S history – less attention is being given to the massive sales tax increase on the purchase of health insurance also implicit within the legislation that will dramatically escalate costs...

A health insurance company headed by an old friend from Obama's days as a community organizer got a $340 million federal loan to establish Obamacare co-ops in New York, New Jersey and Oregon despite having a chronic record of consumer and regulatory complaints. The New York-based Freelancers Insurance Company has been rated the "worst" insurer for two straight years by state regulators, and data compiled by a national insurance association show an extremely high rate of consumer complaints. The firm was founded in 2008 by Sara Horowitz, who worked with Obama before his career in elective politics to launch Demos,...

Though Democrats denied it during the 2012 campaign, Obamacare cut Medicare by $716 billion in order to partially fund $1.9 trillion in new entitlement spending over the next ten years. A big chunk of those Medicare cuts came from the market-oriented Medicare Advantage program. Cleverly, the Obama administration postponed the Medicare Advantage cuts until after the election, so as to persuade seniors that everything would be just fine. But the election is over. On Friday, the administration announced that it would be significantly reducing funding for the popular program. Obama’s proposal, according to one analyst, “would turn almost every plan...

The costs of Obamacare are not just hitting businesses this year--they are also hitting the government, and public employees as well. Virginia, for example, is about to limit part-time employees to 29 hours per week in order to avoid triggering Obamacare’s requirement that employers provide health insurance to those working 30 hours per week or more. The state cannot afford the $110 million annual cost of insurance. Elsewhere, public institutions are taking similar steps to limit part-time work. In Ohio, Youngstown State University recently announced a 29-hour-per-week part-time limit, and placed employees on notice that they would be fired if...