Free Republic

The latest data on Obamacare analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office shows that 10 million Americans are likely to lose their employer-based insurance by 2021 as companies dump their workers onto the Obamacare exchanges. That's 10 times the number originally projected by the CBO. About 1 of every 16 workers will be affected. The latest CBO report has not garnered a lot of attention, even though it contains the modestly good news that Obamacare is not costing as much as the CBO thought it would in 2010. That said, another reason the left and the administration may not be touting...

Vice President Joe Biden wrapped up his California visit on Friday by telling doctors that the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, had “ended the debate” about whether health care is a privilege or a right, according to the Orange County Register. Biden was speaking to the Patient Safety, Science & Technology Summit, congratulating doctors on a rapid reduction in the rate of hospital-borne infections in recent years. Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton also spoke to the meeting. There is no provision in the Constitution or in the text of the Obamacare bill that refers to health care as a...

Another Benghazi Cover-UpObama Administration Violates Obamacare Judicial Watch Exposes Government Cover-Up and Media Hypocrisy Another Benghazi Cover-Up Contrary to what the Obama administration had initially claimed in its public comments, top U.S. diplomatic officials knew the U.S. compound in Benghazi, Libya, was under terrorist attack on September 11, 2012. This is big. In testimony before the U.S. House Oversight Committee on October 10, 2012, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Charles Lamb let the cat out of the bag. Apparently, the agents within the Diplomatic Security Commander Center in Washington, D.C., knew that U.S. embassy personnel were under a terrorist attack...

Say conservatives have their way with Obamacare, and the Supreme Court deals it a death blow or a Republican president repeals it in 2017. Some people who got health insurance as a result of the Affordable Care Act may lose it. In which case, liberals like to say, some of Obamacare’s beneficiaries may die. Columnist Jonathan Chait wrote recently that those who may die are victims of ideology — “collateral damage” incurred in conservatives’ pursuit “of a larger goal.” If these are the stakes, many liberals argue, then ending Obamacare is immoral. Except, it’s not. In a world of scarce...

Some Buffalo Wild Wings customers are noticing an extra charge on their bill that up until now has not been seen in the Panhandle. The Buffalo Wild Wings restaurants in both Amarillo and Lubbock recently attempted to pass their employee health insurance costs on to their customers by adding an Affordable Care Act surcharge. The two percent surcharge started appearing on bills January 1--the same day businesses with 100 or more employees were mandated to provide insurance to at least 70 percent of their full-time employees. The Howard Restaurant Group who owns the Buffalo Wild Wings said it implemented the...

"A new survey released Thursday by Grand Valley State University is showing that since the Affordable Care Act was implemented, more small businesses are deciding not to offer health insurance to their employees."

Paying Your Fair Share:: By: Larry Walker II ::In Tax Simplification, Part II, I expounded on a 2010 Annual Report to Congress, in which National Taxpayer Advocate Nina E. Olson focused on the need for tax reform as the No. 1 priority in tax administration. In particular, she focused on the problem of delivering social benefits through the tax system, which complicates the mission of the Internal Revenue Service (IRS), resulting in a dual mission of welfare administration as well as revenue collection. But instead of taking heed, the federal government doubled down, adding a new health care excise tax...

Seven months after federal officials fired CGI Federal for its botched work on Obamacare website Healthcare.gov, the IRS awarded the same company a $4.5 million IT contract for its new Obamacare tax program. CGI is a $10.5 billion Montreal-based company that has forever been etched into the public’s mind as the company behind the bungled Obamacare main website. After facing a year of embarrassing failures, federal officials finally pulled the plug on the company and terminated CGI’s contract in January 2014. Yet on Aug. 11, seven months later, IRS officials signed a new contract with CGI to provide “critical functions”...

The NHS is ‘not fit for the future’ and unless it undergoes radical change it may be forced to abandon free healthcare for all, in the future, the service's top doctor has warned. Medical director of NHS England Professor Sir Bruce Keogh said the NHS must become far less reliant on hospitals and needed a ‘complete transformation’ of the way it operates. Sir Bruce told the Guardian: ‘If the NHS continues to function as it does now, it’s going to really struggle to cope because the model of delivery and service that we have at the moment is not fit...

Those Americans who didn’t get health insurance last year could be in for a rude awakening when the IRS asks them to fork over their Obamacare penalty — and it could be a lot more than the $95 many of them may be expecting. The Affordable Care Act requires those who didn’t have insurance last year and didn’t qualify for one of the exemptions to pay a tax penalty, which was widely cited as $95 the first year. But the $95 is actually a minimum, and middle- and upper-income families will actually end up paying 1 percent of their household...

One of the primary health insurance companies in Nebraska and Iowa is folding, after federal grants and loans were cut off in mid-December. The lack of emergency loan money has put CoOpportunity Health Care on the ropes, according to the Iowa Insurance Commission. Policy holders are scrambling to switch to one of the only two remaining health insurance companies in Nebraska – Coventry or Blue Cross/Blue Shield.

The leader of the agency charged with the ObamaCare rollout is stepping down after five years on the job. Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS), announced her departure Friday, which will take effect next month. "It is with sadness and mixed emotions that I write to tell you that February will be my last month serving as the administrator for CMS," Tavenner wrote in an email to staff. Tavenner is leaving after five turbulent years overseeing the agency. Her tenure included the disastrous rollout of the government’s HealthCare.gov website as well as, most recently,...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Not only do more Americans have health insurance, but the number struggling with medical costs has dropped since President Barack Obama’s health care law expanded coverage, according to a study released Thursday. The Commonwealth Fund’s biennial health insurance survey found that the share of U.S. adults who did not get needed care because of cost dropped from 43 percent in 2012 to 36 percent last year, as the health care law’s main coverage expansion went into full swing. The proportion of people who got treatment but had problems paying their bills also dropped, from 41 percent in...

Politifact was right to name President Obama’s “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor” proclamation as its 2013 “Lie of the Year.” Yet, they missed out on another whopper of a fib a few years earlier in 2009. At the Heritage Foundation’s Conservative Policy Summit in Washington, DC on Tuesday, Rep. Chris Smith (R-NJ), a pro-life warrior who has been involved in the movement for 42 years, exposed President Obama’s misleading statement about his signature legislation: “On Sept 9, 2009 in a joint session of Congress, Obama said in his health care reform, under our plan, no...

President Obama signed a memorandum Thursday granting paid leave for federal workers after the birth of a child. But the rest of what he wants requires Congress to pass legislationWashington — President Obama is announcing several initiatives Thursday aimed at helping working parents. One was achieved by executive action: Thursday morning, the president signed a memorandum that grants federal workers six weeks of paid leave after the birth or adoption of a child, plus the right to six additional weeks of unpaid leave. The directive also applies to federal workers caring for ailing family members. Beyond that, Mr. Obama needs...

King v. Burwell, the court case that will determine if Obamacare’s language about federal subsidies and their availability on exchanges “established by the state”, will be heard in oral arguments at the Supreme Court on March 4, with a decision to come down later this year. The Obama White House is apparently so confident that they’ll win the case that they’re not preparing any back-up plan in case the Supreme Court wrecks the structure of their signature legislation. As Politico’s health care newsletter wrote this morning:Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) says that at a roundtable discussion with congressional leaders he asked...

In the coming weeks, Americans will embark on the painful process of filing their tax returns. While this annual ritual leaves most people confused, depressed and overwhelmed, many will be faced with the additional step this year of paying hundreds or thousands of dollars if they chose not to purchase health insurance under ObamaCare for 2014. Under the individual mandate required by the president’s new health care law, Americans for the first time must pay the higher of two penalties if they are uninsured and did not enroll in ObamaCare last year—either $95 per adult and $47.50 per child under...

KALAMAZOO, MI -- Planned Parenthood Mid and South Michigan is closing its Battle Creek clinic, citing "increasing competition and declining patient demand" as a result of the Affordable Care Act. The last day of operation will be Jan. 31. Spokeswoman Desiree Cooper said the need for Planned Parenthood's health-care services has declined because of the ACA, which has greatly improved access to subsidized contraceptives and women's health-care services. The ACA requires insurances plan to provide women with an annual physical and contraceptives without a deductible or co-pay. That means women who formerly were reliant on Planned Parenthood for services and...

The recent successes of the Affordable Care Act pose a challenge for the right, at least in theory. The more “Obamacare” works effectively, and the more Republican predictions are discredited, the more difficult it should be for conservatives to deny what is plainly true. And yet, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) doesn’t seem to mind. The Texas Republican delivered some predictable red meat at the Heritage Action Conservative Policy Summit yesterday, taking aim at the health care law he loves to hate. Obamacare, he asserted, has wrought “devastation.” He called it a “train wreck” that has cost millions of Americans their...

The Supreme Court on Monday rejected a 2-year-old legal challenge to a central provision of ObamaCare from a conservative doctors group. The case, which was led by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, sought to strike down the law’s individual mandate, which fines individuals who fail to purchase health insurance.