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A veteran is extremely disappointed with the Veterans Administration after he says he was locked inside a community clinic for hours on Monday. Jeffrey Duck explained that he arrived at the clinic located on South Volusia Ave. at 1 p.m. as a “walk in” patient. The Marine veteran sat in a consultation room for more than three hours before he realized he was the only one left in the building. “I was apparently left there and forgotten,” Duck told WKMG. Duck began taking video of him walking around the lobby with his cellphone to show that he wasn’t trying to...

It’s been almost one year since Minnesota rolled out its state version of Obamacare, called MNsure. How is this experiment with government-run health care working? Let’s start with the basic fact that Minnesota’s health care is second to none. Before MNsure, close to 97 percent of Minnesotans had health insurance coverage or were eligible to procure it at very low or no cost. This was among the highest percentage of insured people in the nation. Some $160 million in taxpayer money has been spent to launch MNsure, and we are no better off today. The state had two unique programs:...

It’s an odd world in which judges are accused of usurping the role of Congress for ruling that the executive branch must follow the text of a law Congress wrote. But that’s what has happened today. In Halbig v. Burwell, the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that Congress never gave the federal government power to provide subsidies and assess penalties under the Affordable Care Act in states that haven’t established their own health-insurance exchanges. President Obama and the Congress that passed the law assumed this wouldn’t be a problem: States were expected to go along and establish their own...

At first blush, a federal appeals court’s decision on Tuesday that dealt what many considered to be a near” fatal blow” to the Affordable Care Act could also appear to be a blow to Republicans’ hopes for retaking the Senate in November. Obamacare supporters are enraged. The decision in Halbig v. Burwell, which invalidated the federal government’s ability to provide subsidies for those Americans who purchased insurance through a federal health insurance exchange, could mean a major increase in premium rates for more than half of the 8 million who enrolled in ACA plans. The appeals court ruled that, as...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Yeah, it's big. It's very, very big, but what the heck? Obama could just rewrite the law again if he wants to. He's already done that 71 times. That's the official count. It's either 41 or 71. I'm not sure, one of the two, probably 71. All the waivers, all the delays, all the rewrites, 71 executive changes to Obamacare, if you count the IRS and their interpretation of things. Anyway, it's a big ruling, if it holds, ladies and gentlemen. How are you? Great to be back with you. Rush Limbaugh here at the Limbaugh Institute...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Now, back on July 3rd, 2012. You can go look it up, with our brilliant exhaustive search feature at RushLimbaugh.com. "These 'State Exchanges' Are a Health Care DMV," is the slug line of the segment, and I am just gonna read to you excerpts of what I said that day, July 3rd, 2012. "[Michael Tanner]: 'One last wrinkle: It is those subsidies that trigger the penalty,' or the tax, whatever you want to call it, 'under Obamacare for employers who fail to provide workers with insurance. So states that don't set up exchanges could also escape the...

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, often described as the second-highest court in the land, could rule on Halbig v. Burwell as early as tomorrow. Halbig is one of four lawsuits challenging the legality of the health-insurance subsidies the IRS is dispensing in the 36 states that did not establish a health-insurance Exchange under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, or “ObamaCare,” and thus have Exchanges established by the federal government. Though the PPACA repeatedly states those subsidies are available only “through an Exchange established by the State,” and there are indications IRS officials knew they...

Washington (CNN) -- The battle over Obamacare took a dramatic turn Tuesday with a federal appeals court rejecting subsidies paid by the government to millions of new enrollees. In a 2-1 ruling, a three-judge panel found the federal money that helped people afford health insurance only could go to those who signed up through exchanges run by states.

A surprising ruling from the notoriously liberal DC Circuit Court. By a 2-1 vote, judges ruled that the subsidies received by purchasing insurance through healthcare.gov website are invalid. In a potentially crippling blow to Obamacare, a federal appeals court panel declared Tuesday that government subsidies worth billions of dollars that helped 4.7 million people buy insurance on HealthCare.gov are illegal. A judicial panel in a 2-1 ruling said such subsidies can be granted only to those people who bought insurance in an Obamacare exchange run by an individual state or the District of Columbia — not on the federally run...

EXCERPT Republicans like Sen. Ted Cruz from Texas were quick to pounce on the decision as one that reveals the Obama administration’s ongoing attempts to implement the law in a way that exceeds the parameters set in the law that Democrats themselves devised and passed. Cruz called the ruling a “repudiation of Obamacare and all the lawlessness that has come with it.” “The Obama administration, through the Internal Revenue Service, has attempted to dispense revenues to the states without proper congressional authorization, robbing Congress of its constitutionally-provided power of the purse,” Cruz said. “This decision restores power to Congress and...

A federal appeals court on Tuesday dealt a setback to the Affordable Care Act, ruling that premium subsidies provided through the federal health exchange in 36 states are invalid under the writing of the law.Here's the practical effect of the ruling, if it withstands the rest of the legal process: More than 5 million, generally low-income Americans who received tax credits through the federal exchange to purchase health insurance would see their premiums explode.Avalere Health, an independent healthcare firm, released an analysis last week showing that individuals who received premium subsidies for health insurance would see a premium hike of about...

The Obama administration will continue handing out Obamacare subsidies to federal exchange customers despite a federal court’s ruling Tuesday that the subsidies are illegal. A D.C. Court of Appeals panel ruled Tuesday morning that customers in the 36 states that didn’t establish their own exchange and use HealthCare.gov instead cannot be given premium tax credits, according to the text of the Affordable Care Act itself. (RELATED: Federal Court Takes Down Obamacare: Subsidies In Federal Exchange Are Illegal) But the White House said in response that it will continue handing out the billions of taxpayer dollars in subsidies. White House press...

A federal judge said Monday that Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) cannot challenge the Obamacare policy that lawmakers and their staff obtain health insurance through the exchanges. The ruling could prove ominous for House Republicans as they prepare to file suit against the Obama administration, also against Obamacare. That suit would focus on a different issue, the president’s delay of the employer mandate. Judge William C. Griesbach, a George W. Bush appointee, said that Article III of the Constitution prevents Johnson’s lawsuit from moving forward and suggests that any remedy must come from Congress. He said that the Wisconsin Republican cannot...

Politicians here have not even figured out how yet to implement their new law requiring us to pay for everybody else’s health care, and already people are clamoring to legalize drugs that are, at the very least, hazardous to their health. The good people of Colorado and Washington state can now buy and smoke pot without violating state laws. The movement to do so is spreading among other states like a hot tropical virus through a detention facility on the Mexican border. I, for one, have never really cared one way or the other if people choose to smoke pot....

Want to know what’s happening with Obamacare? Good luck finding out. The White House recently adopted a new approach for updating Americans on the country’s most consequential law. I call it the “needle in a haystack” method: Bury the announcement in hundreds of pages of regulations and hope no one finds it. The White House tried a test run several weeks ago. Hidden in the midst of a 436 page regulatory update, and written in pure bureaucratese, the Department of Health and Human Services asked that insurance companies limit the looming premium increases for 2015 health plans. But don’t worry,...

Halbig is one of four cases challenging subsidies the Obama administration is issuing through health-insurance Exchanges established by the federal government under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The PPACA says those subsidies are authorized only through Exchanges “established by the State.” The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit could issue a ruling in Halbig at any time. First, a few words on statutory interpretation. Contrary to what Jost claims, neither I nor anyone else “presumes that ‘an Exchange established by the State under section 1311’ cannot include a fallback Exchange established on the state’s behalf by...

A new report from the Commonwealth Fund claims 20 million Americans “gained coverage under the Affordable Care Act as of May 1.” But a closer look at that number reveals it’s not all it’s cracked up to be. First, the authors, Dr. David Blumenthal, president of Commonwealth, and Vice President Sara Collins, get to the 20 million by adding together 1 million young adults who gained coverage under a parent’s policy, 8 million consumers who selected a marketplace plan, 5 million who purchased directly from an insurer, and 6 million who enrolled in Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program....

Wow. A reputable poll shows that the public believes Barack Obama is the worst president since World War II. Worse than Richard M. Nixon, driven from the presidency by Watergate? Much. Worse than Jimmy Carter, for decades the very symbol of the feckless chief executive? Loads. Worse than George W. Bush, still a lightning rod on the left and a symbol of disappointment on the right? Definitely. These startling poll results set loose the predictable reaction: A flurry of told-you-so nods on the right and a fusillade of this-tells-us-nothing assertions on the left. For once, they're both right. Obama is...

President Obama’s old Harvard Law professor, Laurence Tribe, said that he “wouldn’t bet the family farm” on Obamacare’s surviving the legal challenges to an IRS rule about who is eligible for subsidies that are currently working their way through the federal courts. “I don’t have a crystal ball,” Tribe told the Fiscal Times. “But I wouldn’t bet the family farm on this coming out in a way that preserves Obamacare.” The law’s latest legal problem is that, as written, people who enroll in Obamacare through the federal exchange aren’t eligible for subsidies. The text of the law only provides subsidies...

WMBF in Myrtle Beach, SC, reported Wednesday on the growing trend of businesses hiring only part-time workers, due to an inability to afford Obamacare. This situation leaves workers without healthcare and without a full-time income or other benefits. Local staffing agencies say more small business are starting to hire more part time employees. Not because there is more full time work, but as WMBF reporter Mandy Noell found out, it's because they can't afford to have more full time employees. Obamacare places requirements for health care benefits that many small businesses just cannot afford to pay. As a result, they...