Free Republic

In a case called King v. Burwell, the Supreme Court will soon decide whether it agrees with two lower courts that President Obama is breaking the law by subjecting 57 million employers and individuals to illegal taxes, and spending the illegal proceeds to hide the cost of HealthCare.gov coverage from 6.5 million enrollees. Today the president delivered a speech designed to cow the Supremes into turning a blind eye to the law. Instead, he offered what for some is the missing piece of the King v. Burwell puzzle. He displayed the very ideological fervor that leads powerful people to break...

House Republicans settled on the outlines of a plan Wednesday to wean the country off of Obamacare’s subsidies in anticipation of a Supreme Court ruling this month that could throw the massive health program into chaos. Described as a “work in progress,” the plan would continue to pay full subsidies under the Affordable Care Act to all beneficiaries regardless of where they live, but starting next year states could begin to opt out of Obamacare, taking the money as a block grant to help their residents obtain insurance however local officials see fit. The block grants and subsidies, including those...

Senate Republicans are coalescing around a plan to extend Obamacare subsidies for up to two years if the Supreme Court strikes them this month. The court is due to rule within days on whether the president’s health care law allows people using HealthCare.gov to get insurance subsidies. If the court rules against the White House and strikes the subsidies, Republicans say they want to be ready to protect the more than 6 million people who could lose their subsidies. In a closed-door meeting Wednesday, Republicans crafted the outline of a plan that would extend the subsidies for a period of...

After spending more than $1 billion on startup costs, California’s state-run Obamacare health insurance exchange has failed to produce the expected returns and is rapidly running out of money. Covered California signed up fewer people than was required for it to become self-sufficient, Lanhee Chen of the Hoover Institution says. “Even spending all of the money they did on advertising, they still managed to sign up far fewer Californians than they expected,” Chen said. “In fact, they’ve signed up about 1.27 million people, when they expected to enroll 1.8 million. “Covered California receives $13.95 for each enrollee into the program,...

The Kentucky Health Cooperative, the largest insurer on Kynect, Kentucky’s Obamacare health insurance exchange, proposed a 25.1 percent health insurance premium rate increase for 2016. Despite the daunting numbers, Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) is unconcerned about the double-digit rate in his administration’s signature policy. “System-wide averages don’t give a good picture of what an individual’s out-of-pocket costs may be,” Beshear said. Beshear bypassed the legislature and created Kynect, the nation’s first state-run health-insurance exchange, through an executive order. “The rates for private health plans on Kynect have been filed but have not yet been approved or certified, so we...

Before the end of its current term (June 30th), the United States Supreme Court will determine whether the law of the land is established in the Constitution or by the various bureaucracies working to impose the agenda of the Obama Regime. IF the Court decides in favor of the Constitution, ObamaCare–the Affordable Care Act–will be destroyed financially. It will effectively cease to exist. In November of last year, the Court agreed to hear King v Burwell, a suit filed against the Internal Revenue Service for usurping the power of Congress by granting itself the authority to spend $800 billion tax...

I'm serious. Are you done yet? Are you ready to grab the wood, the nails, the hammer and the rope? Are you ready to demand that this crap -- all of it in the medical system -- be stopped? All of it -- not some of it, all of it. Monopolist practices, refusal to disclose prices before services are rendered, billing $157 worth of a nutritional supplement out for more than $44,000 and more? WHEN IS YOUR TOLERANCE LIMIT REACHED AMERICA? WHEN? Is it before or after you're financially and personally decimated? Why do you tolerate "Obamacare" or "Medicare" when...

The title as designated and fixed by the Board is as follows: STATE TAXES SHALL BE INCREASED $25 BILLION ANNUALLY IN THE FIRST FULL FISCAL YEAR, AND BY SUCH AMOUNTS THAT ARE RAISED THEREAFTER, BY AN AMENDMENT TO THE COLORADO CONSTITUTION ESTABLISHING A HEALTH CARE PAYMENT SYSTEM TO FUND HEALTH CARE FOR ALL INDIVIDUALS WHOSE PRIMARY RESIDENCE IS IN COLORADO, AND, IN CONNECTION THEREWITH, CREATING A GOVERNMENTAL ENTITY CALLED COLORADOCARE TO ADMINISTER THE HEALTH CARE PAYMENT SYSTEM; PROVIDING FOR THE GOVERNANCE OF COLORADOCARE BY AN INTERIM APPOINTED BOARD OF TRUSTEES UNTIL AN ELECTED BOARD OF TRUSTEES TAKES RESPONSIBILITY; EXEMPTING COLORADOCARE...

On November 11 of 2014, the Supreme Court granted cert to hear King v Burwell, a suit filed to prevent the Internal Revenue Service usurping the role and authority of Congress by re-writing the Affordable Care Act (ACA). The Affordable Care Act provides tax credits and subsidies for the purchase of health insurance through exchanges that are run by “a governmental agency or nonprofit entity that is established by a state.” Currently, 34 states have refused to build an ObamaCare Exchange and of the 16 (plus the District of Columbia) which did cobble together an exchange, 13 are still in...

Millions of people will be able to see a doctor on their smartphones or laptops for everyday ailments once the nation's largest drugstore chain and two major insurers expand a budding push into virtual health care. Walgreens said Wednesday that it will offer a smartphone application that links doctor and patients virtually in 25 states by the end of the year. That growth comes as UnitedHealth Group and the Blue Cross-Blue Shield insurer Anthem prepare to make their own non-emergency telemedicine services available to about 40 million more people by next year.... Doctors say telemedicine can help improve access to...

A top Obama administration health official considered putting MIT economist Jonathan Gruber to work on Obamacare to be an initiative of such “key political importance” that it was expedited because of “political push” from the Obama administration, emails released by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reveal. The agency released 750 pages of heavily-redacted records on Monday to The Daily Caller and other news outlets in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. In one telling exchange after Gruber’s Obamacare work was first reported in 2010, one HHS analyst told another that having Democrats in charge “across...

But here’s another way it might play out: health insurance premiums will soar, people will be unable to afford coverage, and… the public will blame it on President Obama and the Democrats, because they passed this law in 2010 and suddenly health insurance is really expensive. Thing “A” happened, and now thing “B” happened, so Thing “A” must have been a terrible idea. Republicans will say, look at how much the IN-surance costs now! as part of their pitch for electing a Republican president who would eliminate this original sin from the federal code. Republicans always suffer in government shutdowns...

Republicans in Congress are worried the Supreme Court will hand them a major headache this month if it rules against the federal health insurance exchanges in more than 30 states, ending subsidies for millions of people. While the Affordable Care Act remains broadly unpopular, two new polls show a majority of Americans don’t want to do away with its subsidies, a core component of the law. This poses a conundrum for Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Speaker John Boehner. They are under pressure from colleagues up for reelection in swing states and districts to extend the subsidies, at...

Tuesday in Washington D.C. at the the Catholic Health Association’s annual assembly, President Barack Obama defended his Affordable Care Act saying it was a “critical part” of his administration’s attempt to “restore the basic promise of America.”

President Obama will tout his healthcare law Tuesday to a Catholic group that has consistently supported the law despite deep divides over its birth control requirement. In a speech to the Catholic Health Association — which represents hundreds of hospitals and nursing homes across the U.S. — the president will talk about the law's major tenets and make his case that it has improved health plans for virtually everyone, in addition to expanding coverage to millions. The address comes just days before the Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling that could halt the healthcare law's insurance subsidies to...

Before the month ends, the U.S. Supreme Court will decide whether millions of Americans will be able to keep government subsidies used to purchase health insurance. It’s unclear how the court will rule, but the high-stakes case has already ignited a flurry of doomsday predictions and political posturing in the event the subsidies are struck down. Republicans, who control Congress, have put forward a few proposals that would protect the subsidies in some form but only by repealing major tenets of the Affordable Care Act, President Barack Obama’s signature health law. But some health experts and advocacy groups say these...

After months on life support, the Hawaii Obamacare exchange will shutter operations due to the site being economically unsustainable. The state sought more cash from the federal government - after spending more than $200 million - but when that option fell through, Hawaii had little choice but to close it down. Fox News:The once-highly praised Hawaii Health Connector has been “unable to generate sufficient revenues to sustain operations,” Gov. David Ige’s office said in a statement. The federal Centers for Medicaid and Medicare Services (CMS) informed the exchange last week that federal funds were no longer available to support long-term...

The cost of Obamacare could rise for millions of Americans next year, with one insurer proposing a 50 percent hike in premiums, fueling the controversy about just how “affordable” the Affordable Care Act really is. The eye-popping 50 percent hike by New Mexico insurer Blue Cross Blue Shield is an outlier, and state officials may not allow it to go through. But health insurance experts are predicting that premiums will rise more significantly in 2016 than in the first two years of Obamacare exchange coverage. In 2015, for example, premiums increased by an average of 5.4 percent, according to PwC’s...

WASHINGTON -- About a decade ago, a doctor friend was lamenting the increasingly frustrating conditions of clinical practice.

President Obama's second-term agenda, it seems, is in the hands of the courts. Same-sex marriage. Obamacare. Climate change. And now immigration. And in many cases, there is significant doubt about whether his signature initiatives will stand legal scrutiny. The latest blow to Obama's second-term plans came Tuesday when a federal appeals court in New Orleans denied the administration's request to move forward with implementing his expanded executive action on immigration to defer deportation for millions of undocumented immigrants. Texas and 25 other states have sued to have it shelved. The drama is sure to ensue for months, writes the Post's...