Free Republic

Remember when Sarah Palin was excoriated for suggesting that ObamaCare contained death panels? Then we learned that the nonexistent death panels were actually deleted from the law and then, oops, economist Paul Krugman let slip that "...we're also going to have to make decisions about health care, doc pay for health care that has no demonstrated medical benefits. So the snarky version... which I shouldn't even say because it will get me in trouble is death panels and sales taxes is how we do this [.]" Such is the usual seesaw when a law which should never have seen the...

"it was pretty critical that the President threw the gauntlet down last time on the Court, warning them in the first case that it would politicize the role of the Court for them to rule against the ACA. As a close reader of the case, I honestly believe that was vital to scaring Roberts off"

Minnesota's Democratic governor said Wednesday that the Affordable Care Act is "no longer affordable," a stinging critique from a state leader who strongly embraced the law just a few years ago. Gov. Mark Dayton made the comments while addressing questions about Minnesota's fragile health insurance market, where individual plans are facing double-digit increases after all insurers threatened to exit the market entirely in 2017. They follow cost concerns and criticism nationwide, including President Bill Clinton saying last week that the law was "the craziest thing in the world" before he backtracked.

Once was a shock. Twice was an outrage. Thrice is a nightmare that won't end. Over the past three years, my family's private, individual health insurance plan -- a high-deductible Preferred Provider Organization -- has been canceled three times. Our first death notice, from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield, arrived in the fall of 2013. Our second, from Rocky Mountain Health Plans, came last August. Three weeks ago, we received another ominous "notice of plan discontinuation" from Anthem informing us that the insurer "will no longer offer your current health plan in the State of Colorado." Every time we...

The economist often referred to as the architect of Obamacare called Donald Trump's healthcare policy incoherent on Monday, firing back at the GOP nominee for criticizing him during Sunday night's debate. "My only comment is that last night showed the difference between a candidate with a strong and coherent health care agenda [Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton] and one with a garbage salad of right-wing talking points," Jonathan Gruber said in the Boston Business Journal. Gruber is an economics professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who played a pivotal role in crafting the Affordable Care Act. He said several years...

When Bill Clinton recently criticized ObamaCare as “the craziest thing in the world,” it looked to everyone like he had given Donald Trump a stick to beat Hillary with at their second presidential debate this Sunday at Washington University in St. Louis. But as usual, the Big Dog was crazy like a fox. According to multiple sources both in the White House and the Clinton campaign, Bill was following a carefully crafted script that was poll tested and endorsed by his wife and Barack Obama. “Barack warned Hillary that she was going to have to confront an attack from Trump...

The cost of expanding Medicaid under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul is rising faster than expected in many states, causing budget anxieties and political misgivings. Far more people than projected are signing up under the new, more relaxed eligibility requirements, and their health care costs are running higher than anticipated, in part because the new enrollees are apparently sicker than expected. Rising drug prices may also be a factor. As a result, at least three expansion states, Arkansas, Kentucky and Ohio, have been pushing to require Medicaid recipients to pay more toward their health insurance - a step that...

UnitedHealth Group has been sued by three customers who accused the largest U.S. health insurer of charging co-payments for prescription drugs that were higher than their actual cost and pocketing the difference. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Minnesota by three UnitedHealth customers, seeks to represent a nationwide class that it says could include "tens of thousands" of people insured by UnitedHealth. The lawsuit said Minnesota-based UnitedHealth and affiliated companies charged customers co-payments for drugs that were significantly higher than prices it negotiated with pharmacies for those drugs. For example, the lawsuit claims, one class member paid a...

President Barack Obama is “quite proud” that his signature health care law has expanded coverage to 20 million more Americans. But he admits the law could be strengthened, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday. “The president does have some ideas for things that we could do to further strengthen Obamacare. The first is to find a way to ensure that every state across the country is expanding Medicaid, consistent with what was envisioned in the law.” Earnest said “too many Republican governors” have blocked Medicaid expansion “just because of political differences” with Obama. But some of those governors...

Hint: They don't care about your healthcare in the least. • Impossible to argue otherwise • Pivot Toward Single Payer This morning, Dan discussed a recent Bill Clinton speech in which the former President trashed Obamacare as a “crazy” system which hurts small business. In case you haven’t seen the clips, seen below. So, if they’re admitting what conservatives said all along - that ObamaCare is an unworkable mess - you have to ask why. Here’s the answer:

Former President Bill Clinton criticized the Affordable Care Act as a "crazy system" during a presidential campaign stop in Flint, Mich., for his wife Hillary Clinton. During the rally Monday, the former president said Obamacare is causing premiums to rise because of the exchange markets. "It doesn't make any sense. The insurance model doesn't work here," Clinton said.

Bill Clinton understands the public is fed up with the skyrocketing costs, stratospheric deductibles, and vanishing insurance providers of Obamacare, and he wants to save Hillary from going down with the ship. So President Obama’s signature legislative accomplishment gets thrown under the bus.... "Former President Bill Clinton attacked President Barack Obama’s signature health care legislation Monday, calling it a “crazy system” that “doesn’t make any sense” during a Michigan campaign event for Hillary...."

BILL CLINTON ON OBAMACARE: “IT’S THE CRAZIEST THING IN THE WORLD” Bill Clinton ripped Obamacare during a campaign rally for his wife in Michigan today. Calling Obamacare, “a crazy system” and “the craziest thing in the world,” the former president said “it doesn’t many any sense; the insurance model doesn’t work here.” Clinton went on to say that Obamacare “works fine” for people with “modest” incomes or who are eligible for government subsidies, but “the people that are getting killed in this deal are small business people and individuals who make just a little too much to get any of...

New York magazine published an interview with President Obama Sunday night which is really Obama recounting some of the high profile political arguments of his tenure. One of the arguments which gets a lot of space is Obamacare. Here’s a sample picking up from the moment Scott Brown won a special election which ended Democrats’ 60 vote majority in the Senate: The most important phone call I made after that was to Nancy Pelosi, because the question I posed to her and to Harry Reid was, “Are you guys still game? Because if you guys are still game, we’ll find...

Frenemy. He’s right, of course, although you suspect his preferred solution is not a free market system that lets individuals make their own economic arrangements without the interference of the state. ObamaCare is just about the craziest thing in the world, and not only for the people who make just too much to get subsidies. It’s crazy for the people with subsidies too because the quality of the care they can receive under such a cost-controlled structure is far less than if they simply paid the same money out of pocket directly for services.

Published on Oct 3, 2016 Bill Clinton: ObamaCare Insurance Model “Doesn’t Work,” “Doesn’t Make Any Sense” (October 3, 2016)

Minnesota’s individual health care market is in “an emergency situation,” the state’s top industry regulator said Friday, noting that it took the approval of massive rate increases to persuade all its remaining insurance companies not to pull out for next year. After a major insurer’s exit from the market earlier this year, the state scrambled to convince the seven remaining companies to continue offering plans to those residents who aren’t covered by an employer or through a public program, Department of Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman said. The state agreed to rate increases that range from an average of 50 percent...

Since everyone's still buzzing about Monday night's debate seen 'round the planet, I figured I'd offer some counter-programming. Hillary Clinton has said on multiple occasions that Obamacare is "working," but that it needs some "fixes" such as an even bigger government role and more taxpayer funding. Just last week, Harry Reid claimed that Americans who read the news know that the law has been a positive for the country. (Click through on those links for our detailed rebuttals at the time). The ongoing reality is that this failed, unpopular, party-line policy experiment is collapsing under its own weight. The latest...

Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska said Friday it won’t sell individual health insurance on the Affordable Care Act marketplace next year because of continuing losses. Blue Cross’ departure removes the state’s largest health insurer from the individual marketplace, leaving only Aetna and Medica Health to offer individual policies on the Nebraska’s exchange for 2017. Steve Martin, the chief executive of Blue Cross, told The World-Herald that the company has lost $140 million on the exchange policies since 2014. If the trend continued, losses could total $250 million by the end of 2017, he said. As of this year, around...

Are you one of 20 million uninsured Americans who hasn’t signed up for Obamacare? Then you might be getting a note from the IRS this year “suggesting” you enroll. “Getting a letter from the IRS can be a threatening and nerve-racking experience; it seldom is seen as a suggestion and more of a threat,” Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner wrote in a Forbes column Wednesday. The IRS is reportedly “reaching out” to Americans who claimed an exemption or chose to pay the tax penalty for not purchasing mandatory health insurance. The ploy is intended to “attract” Obamacare enrollees. “The government...