Free Republic

Healthcare.gov, the federal website where you sign up for Obamacare, is quietly sharing your personal information with private companies. The evidence is in the computer code on the website itself. It shows that Healthcare.gov is relaying certain information, such as your zip code, income level, pregnancy status and whether or not you smoke. That information is being shared with several third parties. DoubleClick is a Google (GOOG) subsidiary that serves up advertisements and tracks your movements online. Healthcare.gov also shares your data with Google, Twitter (TWTR, Tech30), Yahoo (YHOO, Tech30), YouTube and others. "People's private medical data should not be...

And we all know that the debt is one of the three most important factors of The State Of The Union. Obama spoke of all of these wonderful things he wants to do over the next few years, mainly free stuff! Yet he never mentioned the overwhelming debt that will eventually collapse the system by 2016. He never brought up the success of his health-care plan. Never mentioned that thanks to him, every household has access to affordable health-care and every household is Saving $2500.00 a year !!

WASHINGTON (AP) - The government's health insurance website is quietly sending consumers' personal data to private companies that specialize in advertising and analyzing Internet data for performance and marketing, The Associated Press has learned. The scope of what is disclosed or how it might be used was not immediately clear, but it can include age, income, ZIP code, whether a person smokes, and if a person is pregnant. It can include a computer's Internet address, which can identify a person's name or address when combined with other information collected by sophisticated online marketing or advertising firms. The Obama administration says...

The NHS is ‘not fit for the future’ and unless it undergoes radical change it may be forced to abandon free healthcare for all, in the future, the service's top doctor has warned. Medical director of NHS England Professor Sir Bruce Keogh said the NHS must become far less reliant on hospitals and needed a ‘complete transformation’ of the way it operates. Sir Bruce told the Guardian: ‘If the NHS continues to function as it does now, it’s going to really struggle to cope because the model of delivery and service that we have at the moment is not fit...

There are gong to be many millions of newly befuddled, fearful, and angry taxpayers this April, hit with the consequences of Obamacare’s social engineering when they try to file their taxes in April. Many will suffer unexpected financial penalties and costs, especially those accustomed to filing under the simplified tax forms applying to straight salaried people with standard deductions. H&R Block is warning that “[n]o one can understand” the New Obamacare tax code requirements for filing this year. In fact, millions of people accustomed to filing the postcard-sized 1040EZ form will now have to file extremely complicated and detailed forms,...

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell used a 'King Day' speech at a breakfast hosted by Al Sharpton to promote Obamacare. Burwell, who was one of two Obama administration officials to speak, asked attendees of the National Action Network breakfast to 'tell your neighbors and tell your friends' to sign up for health care insurance. 'In the spirit of Dr. King, we're asking you to help us again, in big ways and small,' Obama's health czar told the activist organization, calling on them to help HHS sign up as many African Americans as possible before the Feb. 15 close...

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell promoted Obamacare “in the spirit of Dr. King” on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, during a breakfast hosted by Al Sharpton. “African-Americans have the lowest life expectancy of any other race in this country,” Ms. Burwell said in a speech to the National Action Network, The Hill reported. But “thanks to the Affordable Care Act,” she said, “7.8 million African-Americans with private insurance now have access to expanded preventative services with no cost sharing.” Ms. Burwell’s speech comes as HHS ramps up its efforts to insure people ahead of next month’s

“Now that the Affordable Care Act has made health care a tax issue, no one can understand it,” H&R Block flatly tells taxpayers in a video that resides on its dedicated Obamacare web site. A former IRS Commissioner agrees, and cautions that the new tax requirements will be a “shock to the system,” especially afflicting low-income earners who have never itemized on their tax return.The tax preparation giant — with 24 million tax clients worldwide — reports that the Obamacare tax rules now constitute “the biggest tax code change in the last 20 years.”The company is so concerned, it has...

Do you have people – as in, more than one – working for you? If so, you’re probably knee deep in preparing Forms W-2 for your employees before the January 31st deadline. Well, what if I told you that when you send in those forms, unless you’re aware of an under-publicized change to the insurance and tax laws that took place on January 1, 2014, you might be exposing yourself to tens or even hundreds, of thousands of dollars in penalties? And what if I told you that even if reading this column makes you aware of the required change,...

<p>After two constitutionally dubious delays, ObamaCare’s employer mandate took effect on Jan. 1 for employers with 100 or more full-time employees. The last open-enrollment date for our company, CKE Restaurant Holdings, Inc., was Dec. 4, 2014. As of that date, our company had approximately 20,000 employees, 6,900 of whom worked 30 or more hours a week and were eligible for ObamaCare-compliant health insurance. We elected to offer them coverage rather than pay the employer penalty, which would have sent workers to ObamaCare’s health-insurance exchanges, where those who qualified could receive federal subsidies to help pay for insurance.</p>

WASHINGTON (AP) — Not only do more Americans have health insurance, but the number struggling with medical costs has dropped since President Barack Obama’s health care law expanded coverage, according to a study released Thursday. The Commonwealth Fund’s biennial health insurance survey found that the share of U.S. adults who did not get needed care because of cost dropped from 43 percent in 2012 to 36 percent last year, as the health care law’s main coverage expansion went into full swing. The proportion of people who got treatment but had problems paying their bills also dropped, from 41 percent in...

The leader of the agency charged with the ObamaCare rollout is stepping down after five years on the job. Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), announced her departure Friday, which will take effect next month. "It is with sadness and mixed emotions that I write to tell you that February will be my last month serving as the administrator for CMS," Tavenner wrote in an email to staff. Tavenner is leaving after five turbulent years overseeing the agency. Her tenure included the disastrous rollout of the government’s HealthCare.gov website as well as, most recently,...

(Reuters) - U.S. healthcare executives say Obamacare is likely here to stay, despite repeated calls from Republican lawmakers for repeal of the 2010 law aimed at providing health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. Top executives who gathered in San Francisco this week for the annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare conference, say that while President Obama's signature domestic policy achievement may well be tweaked, it is too entrenched to be removed.

... CoOportunity Health has failed. The Affordable Care Act set aside funding for health care co-ops, to enable the organizations to compete in places where there aren’t many insurers. CoOportunity Health was the second largest co-op in the country in terms of membership, and one of the largest in terms of the federal funding it received. But then CoOportunity hit a kind of perfect storm, says Peter Damiano, director of the University of Iowa’s public policy center. First, the co-op had to pay a lot more medical bills than those in charge expected. “CoOportunity Health’s pool of people was larger...

Hey, are you one of the 9.7 million Americans who have been put onto the Medicaid rolls since 2013 mostly as a result of theAffordable Care Act? Congratulations! But that and $2.75 will get you one ride on the New York City subway. That's because finding a doctor who accepts Medicaid payments – never all that easy to do even before 2013 – is getting harder than ever thanks to a steep drop in reimbursement rates for doctors who treat patients on Medicaid. When I say "steep," I mean it. We're talking an average of 43 percent nationwide and almost...

Grace Brewer says she never thought she would be without health insurance at this stage of her life. "I'm a casualty of Obamacare," says Brewer, 60, a self-employed chiropractor in the Kansas City, Kansas, area. She wanted to keep the catastrophic health insurance plan she once had, which she says fit her needs. But under the Affordable Care Act, the government's health care reform law, the plan was discontinued because it did not comply with the law's requirements, and her bills doubled to more than $400 a month. "I wanted a minimal plan and I’m not allowed to have it,"...

For nearly five years, Republicans have been fighting to repeal President Obama’s healthcare law. But repeal is not enough. Even if simple repeal were politically obtainable, Americans would still be left with a broken healthcare system. Government regulations would still be stifling competition and individual choice and government healthcare programs would still be driving the nation’s unsustainable long-term debt problem. If Republicans achieved repeal without agreeing on a way to reform healthcare along free market lines, it’s inevitable that Democrats would eventually lead another overhaul of the system that would grant even more power to the federal government than the...

Rep. Dan Nordberg, the author of last year’s audit bill, had this to say in a statement: “With only a limited performance audit, the state auditor found Connect for Health Colorado committed numerous federal law violations, and nearly 40 percent of sampled contracts had problems totaling more than $32 million dollars. “Sadly, I am not surprised. I have had ongoing concerns about how Connect for Health Colorado was managing tax payers’ funds, which is why I pushed so hard last year to expand the auditor’s oversight of this organization. I hope Democrats will see the light and support my efforts...

Republicans “will get walloped” in 2016 if they do not deliver on campaign promises, such as working to scrap the controversial national health care law and blocking President Barack Obama’s immigration proposals, Sen. Ted Cruz said Monday. The freshman Texas lawmaker said fellow Republican candidates promised during last year’s elections to scrap the health care law, which they call Obamacare, and to deny Obama’s executive actions, which they call “amnesty.” Cruz, a tea party favorite considering a White House campaign in 2016, said voters will punish Republicans in two years unless lawmakers have something to show for their new majority...

On Sunday evening, CBS’ 60 Minutes did a feature story on Steven Brill’s new book, America’s Bitter Pill, in which Brill complains that Obamacare didn’t do enough to tackle the exorbitantly high price of U.S. hospital care. “Obamacare does zero to change any of that,” says Brill. That’s not exactly right. What Brill—and CBS—don’t tell you—is that Obamacare is driving hospitals to charge you more than they already do. Steven Brill, founder of The American Lawyer and Court TV took a starring role in the health care debate when he published the Time article “Bitter Pill,” describing how hospitals charge...