Free Republic

1) 1 In 4 Voters Already Know Someone Who Has Lost Insurance because of Obamacare: One in four Americans have either lost their health insurance because of Obamacare or know someone who has, according to a new poll shared first with The Daily Caller. The YG Network Congressional District Poll of 1,652 likely voters in 11 competitive U.S. House districts indicates Obamacare will be a powerful issue that motivates voters in important races in 2014. Twenty-seven percent of respondents claimed knowing someone or personally receiving a health-insurance cancellation notice. 2) Almost all of the people signing up for Obamacare lost...

AOL Inc. blamed President Barack Obama’s health-care law for its plan to reduce its spending on contributions to employees’ 401(k) retirement plans. AOL, owner of websites such as the Huffington Post, will still match employee contributions to retirement plans up to 3 percent of their paychecks, Chief Executive Officer Tim Armstrong said. Under the new policy, it will make the matching payments in a lump sum at the end of the year, forcing employees who leave before then to forfeit the benefit, he said in an interview today on CNBC. “Obamacare is an additional $7.1 million expense for us as...

This is either a glaring admission of defeat from the White House or… no, that’s really all it could be. After weeks of defending the cancellation of health plans insurers discontinued in 2013 in order to comply with the Affordable Care Act’s coverage mandates, the White House announced in November of last year that it was urging insurers to reinstate those plans. The catch was, of course, that most insurers would be unable to turn on a dime and reinstate those plans. Furthermore, the administration allowed individual states leeway to determine whether or not they would even allow insurers to...

‘The House should sharply reduce IRS funding until the agency is more responsive.” Well, I’d have omitted everything after “funding” but this was still an astute observation, offered at the conclusion of Thursday’s excellent Wall Street Journal editorial. I’m grateful to have smart guys on the team, even if slumming with us power-of-the-purse radicals may get them booted from the GOP’s “We’re only one-half of one-third” circle of submission. The editors were exercised over the revenue agency’s latest shenanigans, which include covering up its past shenanigans — the willful targeting of conservative groups in order to frustrate their opposition to...

<p>The Obama administration is considering letting people keep existing individual insurance policies that are not ObamaCare compliant beyond 2014, perhaps as long as three years.</p> <p>Late last year millions of Americans learned that President Obama's promise, "if you like it plan, you can keep it," wasn't actually true. Their insurance plans were being canceled because they didn't meet ObamaCare provisions.</p>

When a locomotive crashes, it stops. Obamacare, on the other hand, just keeps on going like a cancer that’s ignored, perpetuating itself and destroying everything in its path. While we thought the health care act was a train wreck, it’s more like cancer. Discovering you’ve got a problem should be the first step on the road to recovery. You’re supposed to go in and confront it like you would if you found a tumor. You wouldn’t just leave it there, wondering what it was up to, hoping it would go away on its own. No, you’d enlist some help and...

When millions of health-insurance plans were canceled last fall, the Obama administration tried to be reassuring, saying the terminations affected only the small minority of Americans who bought individual policies. But according to industry analysts, insurers and state regulators, the disruption will be far greater, potentially affecting millions of people who receive insurance through small employers by the end of 2014. While some cancellation notices already have gone out, insurers say the bulk of the letters will be sent in October, shortly before the next open-enrollment period begins. The timing — right before the midterm elections — could be difficult...

The introduction of an Obamacare replacement plan by Republican senators Richard Burr (N.C.), Tom Coburn (Okla.), and Orrin Hatch (Utah) has given Obamacare’s apologists — who admittedly have had very tough duty over the past four years — a rare opportunity to get out of their defensive crouches and go on the attack. Not surprisingly, fast out of the gate has been Ezekiel Emanuel, who has a piece up at the New York Times website claiming that the fatal flaw of the Republican senators’ plan is that it would raise taxes on millions of American households. There are a couple...

Moody's rating agency has lowered the outlook for health insurers from stable to negative, blaming ObamaCare. Section 1342 of the Affordable Care Act forces taxpayers to make insurers whole for most of the losses incurred selling ObamaCare exchange plans through 2016. The bailout is designed to conceal the failure of the president's signature health law until he is out of office. No one in the Obama administration talked up the advantages of bailing out insurers. It was kept under wraps until the fall of 2013. As any business owner will tell you, a temporary bailout is no substitute for the...

Tennessee nullification legislation of Obamacare and all federal gun laws is being pushed by lawmakers in the Volunteer State. On one hand lawmakers are pushing new legislation, that if passed, would gut the implementation of Obamacare. On the other hand legislation that is an expansion of the 2009 Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act was introduced yesterday, which is designed to protect Tennessee citizens from Congress’ violations of the Second and Tenth Amendment. First, SB1680 is being sponsored by Sen. Mae Beavers (R-Mt. Juliet), along with eight co-sponsors in the Tennessee senate and a companion bill in the House by Rep. Mark...

We’re from the government and we’re here to help. One in seven Obamacare navigators in New Mexico is listed in the FBI’s crime information database.But these “experts” are here to serve you.New Mexico Watchdog reported: An investigation by the National Review, one of the leading conservative media outlets in the country, reports that one in seven navigators in New Mexico hired to help consumers work their way through the Affordable Care Act appeared on the FBI’s National Crime Information Center database.But an official with the state’s Affordable Care Act Implementation Projects emphasizes that while a person’s name may turn up on the FBI database, it does not mean they pose any risk to...

The IRS is facing numerous lawsuits thanks to its illegal decision to provide subsidies to insurance companies in states which did NOT create an ObamaCare exchange. The Service’s unilateral decision to confiscate and distribute $700 billion in subsidies and tax credits DIRECTLY violates the language of the Affordable Care Act; language which is quite specific in stating that subsidies and the penalties they trigger are only authorized to be dealt out through STATE established exchanges. In August of 2013, District Judge Ronald White ruled that a suit filed against the IRS for this illegal ObamaCare decision may go forward. The...

BAY CITY — The Affordable Care Act was supposed to help families with pre-existing conditions, not hurt them. But that has not been the case for the Davert family. Their health insurance bill has gone up 300 percent and the family is looking at taking out loans and returning to work while on disability to pay the increased costs. The Davert's experience with Obamacare is not just frustrating, it could be dangerous given the medical issues and special needs of the family. "We have such a unique family and we've overcome many obstacles," said Ken Davert, who has cerebral palsy....

A follow-up to my Obamacare post from yesterday: The law's adverse selection problem doesn't just inflame the risk of a market death spiral. It also all but guarantees that next year's expected premium hikes will be worse than anticipated for millions. The New York Times' lede is telling: People signing up for health insurance through the Affordable Care Act’s federal and state marketplaces tend to be older and potentially less healthy, officials said Monday, a demographic mix that could threaten the law’s economic underpinnings and cause premiums to rise in the future if the pattern persists. Questions about the law’s...

CHARLESTON, South Carolina (Reuters) - South Carolina lawmakers say they have found a way to stop implementation of the U.S. Affordable Care Act in their state, an effort that could provide a template for other Republican-led legislatures looking to derail the federal program. The proposed measure would ban state agencies from helping carry out President Barack Obama's signature healthcare reform law and prevent federal money flowing through state coffers from being spent on it, said Republican state Senator Tom Davis. The legislation would give South Carolina oversight of insurance rates offered through its federal exchange and require healthcare navigators, which...

They’re nervous. “We are becoming increasingly concerned about momentum that is quickly building among some leading conservatives for elimination of the risk corridor and reinsurance programs,” [Blue Cross Blue Shield Association CEO Scott] Serota wrote…“Their efforts, along with growing support for repealing the risk corridor and reinsurance programs, could combine to create a perfect storm to, at a minimum, dissuade the Administration from modifying risk corridor program rules to provide increased funding in light of the recent ‘transitional policy’ allowing insurers to offer consumers the option to renew their 2013 health plans for 2014,” Serota wrote.In attached talking points, seemingly...

Where have we seen an anti-Obamacare threshold of two-thirds before? Oh, right. In this case, undecided voters basically fall into two categories. They're either pure independents, or they're low information voters who nonetheless say they're likely to go to the polls in November. It looks like the GOP is enjoying a significant advantage among both groups heading into the midterms -- including with those under-informed voters who are so often ripe for Democrats' picking. The perception that Obamacare stinks has calcified in the public's imagination, and it's tough to reverse those sort of sentiments, especially amidst powerful headwinds. Check out...

"To fans and defenders of the Affordable Care Act, the bill is your normal, run-of-the-mill but wholly fantastic and wonderful game-changing measure, up there with Social Security, Medicare and the Civil Rights and Voting Rights Acts as national milestones -- bills that were launched amid opposition and discord, but in time were accepted and loved. But from the beginning, this has been different in three signal ways that have been self-destructive, the last of which may be the worst."

**SNIP** In addition, there’s the hidden surprise waiting for those who are enjoying subsidies to help them pay for the insurance. If they have a “major life event” like getting married, or getting a raise or a promotion with a higher salary, not only could the subsidy disappear but any subsidy they enjoyed prior will have to be paid back. **SNIP** The clock is ticking as the November elections draw ever closer. Senate Democrats up for reelection who voted for the ACA are finding themselves facing unhappy constituents and newly energized challengers along with critical TV ads from conservative groups...

Cato education scholar Neal McCluskey revealed how a little-reported feature of the Affordable Care Act uses shady accounting to hide its overall cost. “The change in student loans was part of Obamacare — and why was it part of Obamacare?” McCluskey said in an exclusive interview with The Daily Caller. “So that the profit they were supposedly making from the student loans could then be plugged into how much money would come from Obamacare, so it didn’t look like it cost as much.” In the last days of Obamacare’s formulation, the projections had student loans folded into them to make...