Free Republic

President Donald Trump’s decision to end a provision of the Affordable Care Act that was benefiting roughly 6 million Americans helps fulfill a campaign promise, but it also risks harming some of the very people who helped him win the presidency. Nearly 70 percent of those benefiting from the so-called cost-sharing subsidies live in states Trump won last November, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.The subsidies are paid to insurers by the federal government to help lower consumers’ deductibles and co-pays. People who benefit will continue receiving the discounts because insurers are obligated by law to provide them....

Cue the funeral bagpipes. My fourth health insurance plan is dead. Two weeks ago, my husband and I received yet another cancellation notice for our private, individual health insurance coverage. It's our fourth Obamacare-induced obituary in four years. Our first death notice, from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, arrived in the fall of 2013. The insurer informed us that because of "changes from health care reform (also called the Affordable Care Act or ACA)," our plan no longer met the federal government's requirements. Never mind our needs and desires as consumers who were quite satisfied with a high-deductible PPO...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct 9 2017 Ferguson asks court in Seattle to declare new rules unlawfulSEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson today filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the Trump Administration’s new rules undermining women’s access to contraception.The new rules would allow any company to deny coverage for contraceptive services to its female employees based on religious grounds. Additionally, certain types of organizations would also be able to deny this coverage on moral grounds. If allowed to go forward, President Trump’s rules could have a significant impact on the more than 1.5 million Washington workers and their dependents who receive...

The Internal Revenue Service was involved in a $5 million push to pressure Americans to buy Obamacare coverage, according to documents obtained from the watchdog group Judicial Watch. Under former president Obama, the Department of Health and Human Services and the White House's Behavioral Sciences Team created a $5 million program to target and pressure those who refused Obamacare and either decided to pay a penalty instead or were exempt from being forced to purchase coverage. "Attached are drafts of the letters that IRS will send to selected taxpayers who paid a penalty for failure to have coverage or who...

Two U.S. senators from both parties are close to finalizing a bipartisan deal to shore up the health insurance exchanges created under Obamacare, the chamber’s top Democrat said on Thursday. The move, which Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer said was “on the verge” of completion, would stabilize the market for individuals who buy their own insurance plans on the federal or state-based exchanges.

President Trump is preparing an executive order to allow people to purchase health insurance across state lines, a reform conservatives have long championed as a way to bring costs down and stir greater competition in the national marketplace. The executive action gives the White House a chance to follow through on at least one promise related to healthcare reform after Senate Republicans' second attempt to overhaul Obamacare failed this week. Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul "I think there's going to be big news from the White House in the next week or two, something they can do on their own," Paul...

Donald Trump is preparing an executive order that would achieve a long standing goal of insurance reform advocates.  The president's executive order will reportedly allow individuals to join group plans from out of state.  Current law allows companies to sell across state linesn but due to red tape and resistance by state insurance officials, most companies refuse to take advantage of the opportunity. The order would allow consumers to join associations and group health plans located in other states. ABC News: Current law allows companies to sell health insurance across state lines, but so far few have offered out-of-state...

Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., predicted Wednesday that President Trump would soon move on his own to make health insurance more affordable, after the Senate failed again this week to advance any bill to reform federal healthcare policy. Paul he has been pitching the idea of using the Employee Retirement Income Security Act to let people buy insurance across state lines. That law already allows corporations to buy insurance across state lines for their workers if they are located in several states. Paul's idea is to let individuals form associations and do the same thing, and he said Trump administration officials...

A**clown!!!!!!! Somebody needs to ask that POS what he wants for obummercare. Get him on record.

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) is outlining a list of demands to win his support for the GOP's latest ObamaCare replacement bill that would require major changes to the legislation. Paul's primary demand, according to his office, is to substantially reduce the central component of the bill sponsored by GOP Sens. Lindsey Graham (S.C.) and Bill Cassidy (La.): block grants to states with money to spend on health care. "Graham/Cassidy keeps and redistributes/spends over a trillion dollars," Paul says in a document provided by his office. "My promise to the voters was to repeal Obamacare - not block grant and keep...

McCainCare The dishonorable Senator from Arizona. September 25, 2017 Daniel Greenfield ​Daniel Greenfield, a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the Freedom Center, is an investigative journalist and writer focusing on the radical left and Islamic terrorism. It’s official. Senator John McCain won’t vote for ObamaCare repeal. He won’t vote for any health care bill that isn’t “bipartisan.” And any bipartisan bill will be ObamaCare plus something even worse. If McCain won’t vote for a health care bill that isn’t bipartisan, he won’t vote for ObamaCare repeal. Period. That’s information that voters could have used when Senator McCain was running for reelection...

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) told reporters on Air Force Two on Tuesday that Breitbart News and former White House Chief Strategist and present Breitbart News Executive Chairman Steve Bannon have been critical to passing a state-based Obamacare repeal bill. (snip) Breitbart News has been at the forefront of the new Obamacare repeal legislation. Breitbart News first broke the story in an exclusive interview with former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum.

We’re not all socialists yet but we’re getting there. A majority of Democrats are, in any case. The single-payer numbers in Morning Consult’s new survey not only aren’t surprising, they’re right in line with what other studies have showed this year.

The Senate’s 52 Republicans have multiple options open to keep the Obamacare repeal process alive after September 30. The only question is whether they have the political will to do so. One Earlier this month, the parliamentarian advised Senate staff of her viewpoint that the reconciliation instructions would terminate on September 30—meaning the bill and process would lose their privileged status and access to the expedited Senate procedures. But her opinion remains advisory and not binding on either the chair or the body as a whole Option 2: Pass a New Budget While that requirement has since been changed, Congress...

Sen. Rand Paul said Tuesday that he’s pushing President Trump to allow people to buy health insurance across state lines. “What I would do, and what I’ve been talking to President Trump about, is I think we should allow people to buy across state lines through health care associations, and actually I think the president is going to do this on his own within a week or two, and I think this could help millions and millions of people get affordable insurance,” Mr. Paul, Kentucky Republican, said on Fox News. “It’s not a federal program, and it doesn’t cost any...

Only half of America’s smallest businesses now offer health coverage to their workers because many say steady cost hikes have made it too expensive to afford a benefit that nearly all large employers still provide. The Kaiser Family Foundation said Tuesday that 50 percent of companies with three to 49 employees offered coverage this year. That’s down from 59 percent in 2012 and 66 percent more than a decade ago. “There’s just not as much money around for compensation, including benefits,” said Gary Claxton, a Kaiser vice president and lead author of the nonprofit health policy organization’s annual health benefits...

WASHINGTON — A last-ditch Republican effort to repeal Obamacare picked up steam on Monday as a key senator opened the door to supporting the bill, which is popularly known as Graham-Cassidy. The GOP got a boost when Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who was one of three Republican "no" votes in July that derailed the last GOP health care effort, said he might "reluctantly" vote for the bill if his governor supported it. Democrats and health care advocacy groups opposed to the legislation, which include AARP and the American Heart Association, are taking the latest Republican push very seriously. Republicans lawmakers...

Sarai was 25 years old when she died of Wilson’s disease, an inherited disorder that causes liver failure. A liver transplant could have cured her, but she was uninsured and was denied an appointment at two prominent Chicago transplant hospitals, including my own. Sarai’s plight was brought to my attention when a local religious group held a hunger strike advocating transplant access for Sarai and other uninsured patients. When she died, her congregation marched seven miles, holding her photograph and lugging coffins emblazoned with her name, to launch a sit-in in front of Northwestern University Hospital. Her death certificate named...

Public support for single-payer health care is growing—in fact, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll in July found a majority of Americans support it—but that increase comes with an important caveat. Most Americans only want government-run health care until they find out that it means the government will run their health care. I thought about that this morning while reading J.D. Tuccille's excellent piece asking, "Are You Sure You Want Medicare For All?" He walks through the various ways government-run health care seems to be appealing—it means families no longer have to bear the cost of heartbreaking medical disasters on their...

"It represents yet one more example of CMS’ ill-advised attempts to dictate what transpires in the course of the doctor-patient encounter."