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(Reuters) - Office Depot Inc (ODP.N) said it would close at least 400 stores in the United States over two years as it looks to consolidate operations after acquiring OfficeMax, and the company raised its forecast for full-year adjusted operating income. Shares of Office Depot, which also reported better-than-expected quarterly results, rose as much as 20 percent in early trading. The stock was among the highest percentage gainers on the New York Stock Exchange on Tuesday. "This stock looks to be a beat and raise story throughout 2014," Janney Capital Markets analyst David Strasser wrote in a note, implying Office...

We've been throwing cold water on the administration's so-called exchange "enrollment" figures for months, and for good reason: They're incomplete to the point of deception. The Washington Post reported back in November that official tabulations were including anyone who's "selected a plan," which is the equivalent of placing an item in a virtual shopping cart online, regardless

"The ploy that could sink Obamacare Case contends Reid violated Constitution by launching bill in Senate" The fact that Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., manipulated the legislation that eventually gave America Obamacare means that the entire law was adopted unconstitutionally and should be canceled, including its $800 billion in taxes, a federal appeals court is being told. The case, brought by the Pacific Legal Foundation, is based on the Constitution’s Origination Clause, which requires all tax-raising bills to begin in the U.S. House.

On May 8th, oral arguments will take place in the D.C. Circuit Court Of Appeals concerning the unconstitutional manner in which the Affordable Care Act was assembled and placed before congress for passage. According to the Origination Clause in Article 1 of the Constitution, “All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills.” In 2009, the House passed a bill concerning proposed tax credits for members of the military who were first time home buyers. The Senate took that Bill, removed ALL of the...

The Obama administration clarified rules Friday regarding plans covered under ObamaCare to help people quit smoking. Group health plans and health insurance issuers under ObamaCare must provide free tobacco use screening and offer smokers at least two tobacco cessation attempts each year. Each attempt should also include four tobacco cessation counseling sessions and 90-day prescriptions for approved medication to help patients break the habit. The clarifications were posted on the Department of Labor's website but were drawn up in collaboration with Health and Human Services, and the Treasury Department. While ObamaCare requires most health plans to cover tobacco cessation services,...

A local mother is battling for her life with an unknown bone disease, and making matters worse, her insurance has just been ripped from under her. Aubry Domeikis is spending every moment trying to make memories with her 5-year-old son, not knowing if she will live to see tomorrow. "He said he was scared to be alone with me because what if he woke up and I was dead?" Domeikis told Action News tearfully. "It's terrifying, I'm scared." Domeikis needs a life-saving blood infusion every single day while her doctors try to figure out if the bone infection that's wracking...

Obamacare has made drastic changes in Medicare procedures for obtaining durable medical equipment (DME) for home health services. Most patients will not be aware of the hidden new rules until they are hit with higher costs or denial of services or needed supplies. Medicare's new rules cut prices by 45 percent below the current fee schedule, on average, and 72 percent below current rates for diabetic supplies. What reputable business can survive a 45 percent or 72 percent cut in revenue? When patients' home health services are cut, the hardest hit are patients with chronic lung disease, congestive heart failure,...

Conservatives have known from the start that the true purposes of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are: 1.) the eventual implementation of single payer; and 2.) extortion of “acceptable” behavior on the part of the American people in return for life giving, medical care. And the deliberately catastrophic shortcomings created by the authors of ObamaCare have put this fraudulent healthcare scheme right on track to accomplish both. That the Affordable Care Act has little to do with providing healthcare–affordable or otherwise–could not be more obvious. If the intent of politicians was to provide access to medical care for America’s 30...

Outgoing Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius is now refusing to testify before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, a Senate aide told The Daily Caller Tuesday. Sebelius had originally been set to testify before the subcommittee about the department’s 2015 $70 billion budget request on April 2. According to another aide, however, several weeks after confirming the hearing date, she requested a date switch with the National Institutes of Health budget hearing on May 7. The committee accommodated her request. Now, after announcing her resignation on April 11, she is...

Sen. Ron Johnson’s lawsuit challenging the legality of federal contributions to the health care plans of members of Congress and congressional staffers has a new ally: the Republican National Committee. “Senator Ron Johnson is suing the Obama Administration for exempting Democrat Members of Congress from the ObamaCare law,” the RNC petition said. “It’s unfair to make American citizens live under a law that politicians are exempt from.” The RNC solicited support for the petition Sunday on Twitter, along with a graphic:

Nearly half of plans available through Obamacare’s state and federal insurance exchanges didn’t list what drugs patients had access to or made that information difficult to find on their websites, according to a new survey. The study, conducted by Avalere Health, analyzed consumer experience on Healthcare.gov in five states and another 12 state-run insurance exchanges. In 38 percent of cases, plans did not include a drug formulary, a list of covered medications. In another 11 percent of cases, the list of covered drugs was “difficult” or “very difficult” for consumers to find. The study is likely to spur criticism that...

On April 18, the President claimed "this thing is working", that "it’s well past time to move on as a country and refocus our energy on the issues that the American people are most concerned about" and that "the repeal debate is and should be over". Is the victory lap a bit premature?

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) admitted Friday it’s “difficult to turn the clock back” on ObamaCare, but proposed making the law voluntary as a possible fix for consumers. “I think it’s going to be difficult to turn the clock back. People get assumed and accustomed to receiving things, particularly things that they get for free,” he told a crowd of students at Harvard’s Institute of Politics on Friday. Paul’s comments echo those of other Republicans who have admitted it will be difficult to fully repeal the law after some of its more popular provisions took effect. The potential 2016 presidential candidate...

Though Coach is Right published this piece in early January, the subject matter may be even more pertinent today as countless doctors refuse to treat ObamaCare patients, hospitals deny them admittance and the negative impact of the law has moved from talking point to reality. When Chief Justice John Roberts sided with the Supreme Court’s Marxist bloc in ruling the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate constitutional, stunned conservatives immediately accused him of committing an “act of judicial cowardice.” “It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices,” wrote the supremely hypocritical Roberts as...

Some time in the coming months, the Supreme Court will hand down its opinion in Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby, the case of the retailer that claims that its religious freedom or that of its employees is violated by contraceptive coverage required as part of the Affordable Care Act. The attitude of the health-care act’s supporters toward such cases is irritation. How dare a little religious case trip up the mighty Affordable Care Act and jeopardize the ACA’s establishment as permanent law of the land? Cases involving religious details, however, do have a way of stopping big social legislation, and not...

Former Governor Charlie Crist went where few Democrats dare, a full endorsement of Obamacare Democratic gubernatorial candidate is doing something with his campaign that almost no other Democrat in America is willing to do: give a full-throated endorsement of the Affordable Care Act. Crist made an appearance at the Capital Tiger Bay Club and repeatedly called the ACA “great” during his lunch speech. Crist also took aim at attack ads against him being run by a political action committee backing Republican Governor Rick Scott.

Several weeks ago the World Affairs Council of Philadelphia sponsored a debate–more a discussion–between me and Thaddeus Mason Pope about end of life care under the Affordable Care Act. He supports medical futility. I oppose it. We went from there. I began my presentation with the quote in the headline above–asserting that Palin’s term “death panels” may have put a spear through the heart of Obamacare. I then said: People are afraid of centralized bureaucrats dictating whether Craig’s [the moderator’s terminally ill babies) children can have medical care, whether my 96-year-old mother can have medical care, whether people with disabilities...

Tax-preparing companies are getting paid by an Obamacare exchange to enroll people in Obamacare plans, The Daily Caller has learned. At least 79 tax service providers, including offices of major companies like Liberty Tax Service and Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, are listed as certified Obamacare enrollment entities in the state of California, according to state exchange records. California’s Obamacare exchange, Covered California, pays enrollment entities for signing people up for Obamacare. “Certified Enrollment Entities are paid a flat-fee of $58 per successful application and $25 per successful annual renewal,” according to California Health Benefit Advisers. ”The Enrollment Entities compensate the...

Although the deadline to sign up for an Obamacare insurance plan has officially past, the number of South Carolinians who are enrolled keeps climbing. The S.C. Department of Insurance reported Friday that 114,789 individuals selected a plan on the federal exchange through April 15 - up from an estimate of 97,000 earlier this month. The deadline to sign up for insurance was technically March 31, but the federal government granted an extension through mid-April to applicants who encountered any difficulty enrolling. The newly enrolled must pay their first premium by May 1 to become insured. To date, only 67,846 of...

On the Sunday, April 20, Melissa Harris-Perry show on MSNBC, as host Harris-Perry chastised Democrats for not bragging about ObamaCare for the year's midterm elections, she at one point mocked Americans angry about having their health insurance plans cancelled, which she referred to as "crappy plans," as she lamented that Democrats are not boasting about ObamaCare or declaring, "Yeah, you can't keep your crappy plans. Just deal with that!" Her mockery of the ObamaCare-induced insurance cancellations came as she compared Republicans to people who flip houses and brag about doing only a little work, as she characterized Democrats, by contrast,...