Free Republic

Along with the individual mandate to buy insurance, the employer mandate has been one of the more controversial aspects of Obamacare. Implementation of the employer mandate has been delayed twice, and other aspects of the law are being phased in, with "transitional relief" to help businesses cope. However, according to Healthcare.gov, an employer "mandate" doesn't even exist. A search for "employer mandate" on Healthcare.gov doesn't return any applicable information, but there is a page on the site entitled "Which businesses must cover their employees." The answer begins with the unequivocal statement, "No employer is required to offer health insurance to...

The latest data on Obamacare analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office shows that 10 million Americans are likely to lose their employer-based insurance by 2021 as companies dump their workers onto the Obamacare exchanges. That's 10 times the number originally projected by the CBO. About 1 of every 16 workers will be affected.

The latest data on Obamacare analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office shows that 10 million Americans are likely to lose their employer-based insurance by 2021 as companies dump their workers onto the Obamacare exchanges. That's 10 times the number originally projected by the CBO. About 1 of every 16 workers will be affected. The latest CBO report has not garnered a lot of attention, even though it contains the modestly good news that Obamacare is not costing as much as the CBO thought it would in 2010. That said, another reason the left and the administration may not be touting...

The latest data on Obamacare analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office shows that 10 million Americans are likely to lose their employer-based insurance by 2021 as companies dump their workers onto the Obamacare exchanges. That's 10 times the number originally projected by the CBO. About 1 of every 16 workers will be affected. The latest CBO report has not garnered a lot of attention, even though it contains the modestly good news that Obamacare is not costing as much as the CBO thought it would in 2010. That said, another reason the left and the administration may not be touting...

Health Reform: The Congressional Budget Office now says ObamaCare will push 10 million off employer-based coverage, a tenfold increase from its initial projection. The "keep your plan" lie just gets bigger and bigger.

Remember the issue in Halbig? There’s a section in the ObamaCare statute that says federal subsidies to pay premiums are available to anyone who buys their insurance through “an Exchange established by the State.” But that phrase is vaguely worded. Is the federal ObamaCare exchange, Healthcare.gov, an exchange established by the state? Or was the idea that subsidies should apply only to exchanges created by the individual states, as an economic incentive to encourage state governments to create their own insurance marketplaces? You know what Jonathan Gruber thinks, or thought, about that. By this summer, we’ll know what John...

Senate Republicans are preparing a legislative plan of action in case the Supreme Court strikes a major blow against ObamaCare and rules subsidies provided to people on the federal exchange are illegal. GOP senators are confident the justices will rule in their favor, and they want to be ready to act if millions of people lose their subsidies to buy insurance through the healthcare law. “If the Supreme Court were to say the law says what the law says, we would like to be ready with a response to that that makes practical sense for the 5 or 6 million...

Next year, doctors and hospitals will no longer get paid according to the fee for services model. They will get a fixed salary according to how well patients do. We will see the equivalent of patient report cards. Personalized care is out, government one-size fits all healthcare is in. The more tests, scans, surgeries that hospitals and doctors do, the less they will make. What could possibly go wrong? It will have a devastating effect on patients’ access to care. Patients who come back for the same problem will be included in the one-time bulk rate. Beginning next year, Medicare,...

The Obama administration on Monday announced an ambitious goal to overhaul the way doctors are paid, tying their fees more closely to the quality of care rather than the quantity. Rather than pay more money to Medicare doctors simply for every procedure they perform, the government will also evaluate whether patients are healthier, among other measures. The goal is for half of all Medicare payments to be handled this way by 2018. Monday’s announcement marks the administration’s biggest effort yet to shape how doctors are compensated across the health-care system. As the country's largest payer of health-care services, Medicare influences...

Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Pence is moving ahead to extend Medicaid coverage to hundreds of thousands of Hoosiers under the federal health law after securing a key concession from the Obama administration. The deal, to be announced Tuesday, could pave the way for half a dozen more states to seek similar deals, boosting Medicaid expansion proposals in Republican-led states including Florida, North Carolina and Wyoming. Indiana and Washington officials had been locked for months in negotiations over an issue that could shape the future of Medicaid, the 50-year-old federal-state health program that covers more than 60 million low-income Americans. Mr....

Obamacare program costs $50,000 in taxpayer money for every American who gets health insurance, says bombshell budget report It will cost the federal government – taxpayers, that is – $50,000 for every person who gets health insurance under the Obamacare law, the Congressional Budget Office revealed on Monday. The number comes from figures buried in a 15-page section of the nonpartisan organization's new ten-year budget outlook. The best-case scenario described by the CBO would result in 'between 24 million and 27 million' fewer Americans being uninsured in 2025, compared to the year before the Affordable Care Act took effect. Pulling...

Federal deficits may have been falling since the end of the recent recession, but thanks to spending increases in major health care programs, including Obamacare, deficits are set to explode in 2017, according to a new report by the Congressional Budget Office. Thanks to the recent recession and President Obama's trillion dollar stimulus, the federal budget deficit reached an all time $1.4 trillion high in 2009. Then, as the economy slowly improved and Obama's stimulus trickled to end, the deficit began to fall. According to the CBO, the deficit will continue to fall to $467 billion in 2016. Immediately...

(Newser) Seniors had better brace themselves: Some US hospitals are now administering the "death test," which estimates their chance of dying over the next 30 days. Invented in Australia, the test weighs 29 different criteria—including blood pressure, respiratory rate, and medical history—to determine whether hospitalization is worthwhile or the patient should return home or go to a hospice, the Sydney Morning Herald reports. The idea is to prevent needless and expensive procedures while allowing patients to spend their last days with loved ones. "Most terminally ill people want to die at home, but in fact three quarters end up dying...

Vice President Joe Biden wrapped up his California visit on Friday by telling doctors that the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, had “ended the debate” about whether health care is a privilege or a right, according to the Orange County Register. Biden was speaking to the Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit, congratulating doctors on a rapid reduction in the rate of hospital-borne infections in recent years. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also spoke to the meeting. There is no provision in the Constitution or in the text of the Obamacare bill that refers to health care as a...

Some Buffalo Wild Wings customers are noticing an extra charge on their bill that up until now has not been seen in the Panhandle. The Buffalo Wild Wings restaurants in both Amarillo and Lubbock recently attempted to pass their employee health insurance costs on to their customers by adding an Affordable Care Act surcharge. The two percent surcharge started appearing on bills January 1--the same day businesses with 100 or more employees were mandated to provide insurance to at least 70 percent of their full-time employees. The Howard Restaurant Group who owns the Buffalo Wild Wings said it implemented the...

This might come as a shock; you had better sit down. An internal review released on Friday revealed that the federal government did not properly vet the contactors it hired to develop the web portal that would service customers shopping on the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchange. Of course, disastrous debut of HealthCare.gov led every rational person to reach this same conclusion months ago, but it’s now official. “One of the reports showed that CGI Federal, a key contractor in the development of the site, had ties to failed projects, while an earlier story revealed that the company...

Privacy advocates say the Obama administration needs to make more changes to protect consumer privacy on the government’s health insurance website. The administration reversed course Friday and scaled back the release of personal information from HealthCare.gov, after The Associated Press reported that such details as consumers’ income and tobacco use were going to private companies with a commercial interest in the data.The episode could become a blemish on what’s otherwise shaping up as a successful open enrollment season for the second year of expanded coverage under President Barack Obama’s health care law. Lawmakers continue to insist on a full explanation....

Staff of the Washington Health Benefits Exchange, which manages the state’s Wahealthplanfinder health-insurance exchange, told its board today that it had significantly improved the processing of account invoices and payments to insurance carriers. Richard Onizuka, CEO of the exchange told board members that of the accounts processed in December, those with carrier-payment problems were down to 1.7 percent, and those with invoicing problems were 1.5 percent. “We are seeing some improvement,” Onizuka said. “It still means that too many people are being affected.” “It seems enormously high to me,” new board member Mark Stensager said. “And it’s a trend that...

Paying Your Fair Share:: By: Larry Walker II ::In Tax Simplification, Part II, I expounded on a 2010 Annual Report to Congress, in which National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson focused on the need for tax reform as the No. 1 priority in tax administration. In particular, she focused on the problem of delivering social benefits through the tax system, which complicates the mission of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), resulting in a dual mission of welfare administration as well as revenue collection. But instead of taking heed, the federal government doubled down, adding a new health care excise tax...

WASHINGTON – Republican lawmakers are facing rising pressure from conservative groups and activists to go big – or potentially go home – in their fight against ObamaCare. After taking control of Congress thanks to big victories in the November midterms, Republicans who ran in part on their opposition to the law are starting to roll out legislation undoing pieces of it. But the party is stuck in an internal debate over how far they can really go – risking a potential backlash from the party’s right flank if they don’t go far enough. Tea Party activists say they are frustrated...