Free Republic

Residency, in case you haven’t heard, is difficult work. 124,000 of us have dedicated three to seven years of our life to communities around the country, collectively making life and death decisions for millions of patients each day. Our weekly duty hour limit is twice that of most working Americans.... completely repeal Obamacare. Although he has reneged and stated that he would keep the ban on preconditions and coverage for young adults on the table, he has been much less clear about what he’d do to the quality and payment schemes of the ACA. A worrisome contingent of conservatives nonetheless...

President-elect Donald Trump is tapping Congressman Tom Price (R-GA) to be Secretary of Health and Human Services and Seema Verma as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, according to a release from the transition team. “Together, Chairman Price and Seema Verma are the dream team that will transform our healthcare system for the benefit of all Americans,” Trump said in a statement. Price, the chairman of the House Budget Committee, is a physician and a fierce opponent of Obamacare. “It is an honor to be nominated to serve our nation as Secretary of Health and Human Services....

WASHINGTON — President-elect Donald J. Trump has selected Representative Tom Price, a six-term Republican congressman from Georgia who has led opposition to the Affordable Care Act, to be secretary of health and human services, according to a transition team official. Mr. Price, an orthopedic surgeon, has been a severe critic of the health law, saying it interferes with the ability of patients and doctors to make medical decisions. And he says that events have borne out his warnings. “Premiums have gone up, not down,” Mr. Price said recently. “Many Americans lost the health coverage they were told time and time...

Obamacare insurers will not receive any payments for the 2015 coverage year from a federal program designed to help them ease losses. Insurers are asking for about $5.8 billion from the federal government for 2015 in Obamacare's risk corridor program, according to an estimate from Brian Blase of the right-leaning think tank Mercatus Center. However, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said last week that all payments would go toward paying off the money owed the insurers for 2014.

If you have not already you can still do so as House Speaker Paul Ryan is conducting a phone survey regarding experiences with the Affordable Care Act (ACA). If you are a patient, you can give the House Speaker your opinion on the ACA. As of November 2016, Ryan’s Washington D.C. office is allowing callers to express their opinion regarding the the ACA or, more simply, Obamacare. The Affordable Care Act was passed by Congress and then signed into law by the President on March 23, 2010. On June 28, 2012 the Supreme Court rendered a final decision to uphold...

VIDEO AT SOURCE: Tucker Carlson interviewed Ezekiel Emanuel on his new primetime Fox News show Tuesday night, an interview the Obamacare architect probably wishes he skipped. Carlson, who co-founded The Daily Caller, opened by noting “Obamacare is the biggest piece of social reorganization passed in [his] lifetime, and yet it has never, as far as I know, received majority support.” “Shouldn’t you get buy-in from the public before reorganizing their health care?” he asked. “The public likes many of the provisions,” Emanuel responded. “Yeah, some,” Carlson admitted.

Americans are still signing up for Obamacare, despite President-elect Trump's promise to repeal it soon after he takes office. More than one million people selected plans for 2017 on the federal exchange in the first 12 days of open enrollment, which began November 1, according to the Department of Health & Human Services. That is 53,000 more than in the comparable period a year ago. Administration officials are using enrollment data to promote the importance of Obamacare to Americans, trying to counter Republicans' assertions that it is pricey and broken.

After reiterating his promise to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, President-elect Donald Trump has indicated that he may keep two of the law’s most popular provisions. One is straightforward enough — children up to the age of 26 being allowed to stay on their parents’ plan. The other — preventing insurance companies from denying coverage because of preexisting conditions — offers a perfect illustration of why Trump and most of the other Republicans critics of Obamacare don’t understand the health insurance market. Let’s say that in the beautiful new world of “repeal and replace,” insurers are required to...

Jonathan Gruber, a well-known architect of President Obama’s Affordable Care Act, caused a ruckus two years ago after he was caught on tape saying “the stupidity of the American voter led us to hide Obamacare’s true costs from the public.” He told the FOX Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo that CEOs are wrong about Obamacare. The MIT professor sparked a heated debate with Bartiromo after she stated that “businesses are not hiring workers because the legislation is too expensive.” Gruber had a different take: “Please don’t use the word ‘fact’ because you’re not saying facts, you’re saying antidotes.” “I’ll tell you...

According to Dr. Ben Carson's business manager Armstrong Williams, Dr. Ben Carson will not serve in President-elect Donald Trump's administration, a separate source confirmed that Carson was being offered a position as Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS). Williams told Circa that Dr. Carson thinks he can, "best serve the President outside the administration."

It is my understanding that Trump's plan for health insurance includes allowing people with pre-existing conditions to sign up for coverage. It also appears that this clause of ObamaCare can't be repealed through reconciliation. I'm not really sure why that is because the Democrat X-rays only had a slim majority when ObamaCare was rammed down America's throat. So I have a few questions that I think others should consider. First, how can insurance companies actually be profitable when they are forced to insure people who are already sick even with being able to sell insurance across state lines. Second, given...

The mainstream media are reporting that President-elect Donald Trump is givinHe’s not alone: those are some of the only parts of the law that are popular, and many Republicans have long since promised to preserve coverage for those with pre-existing conditions even after Obamacare is repealed. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI), for example, proposed a replacement for Obamacare in April that would cover people with pre-existing conditions by moving them into state high-risk pools.g up on his promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, because he said he would be willing to preserve coverage for pre-existing conditions and allowing...

The mainstream media are reporting that President-elect Donald Trump is giving up on his promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, because he said he would be willing to preserve coverage for pre-existing conditions and allowing children to stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26.

Since the campaigns are over and electioneering can cease, let's take a realistic look as the lay of the land and understand what is likely to occur under Trump's administration and what is not likely. Indeed, Obamacare repeal legislation has been floated numerous times by the Republican House over the past several years, only to find an unwilling Senate or Executive roadblock to kill all possibility. I contend that we are in a similar situation now. A perilously bare "R" majority in the senate will be the death knell for any repeal for at least the next two years. Democrats...

WITH THE OBAMACARE exchanges collapsing and millions of people being battered by ghastly increases in health insurance premiums, what’s to be done? Forgetting that socialism doesn’t work–never mind that it’s deeply immoral–Democrats are addicted to the idea of government-dominated health care. They see ObamaCare’s terminal crisis as the perfect opportunity to realize their age-old ambition of socialized medicine, hence the current mouthing of such slogans as “a single-payer system,” “Medicare for all” and the offer to consumers of “a public option,” i.e., subsidized policies from a health insurance company run by Uncle Sam. Republicans should be ready with proposals that...

“Disaster” sums up the skyrocketing premiums and lack of choice facing many of the 11 million people enrolled in the exchange plans. The plans are unaffordable, unless you’re a low earner getting a free ride. ObamaCare enrollees aren’t the only people being clobbered. If you get insured at work — as 155 million people do — your deductibles are up a staggering 49 percent since 2011 thanks to ObamaCare. Part-timers are working fewer hours, so business owners can avoid the law’s employer mandate. Taxpayers are on the hook for some 50 new taxes. Seniors get hit the hardest. More than...

WEST PALM BEACH, Fl. - It was the first day of open enrollment for plans for 2017 under the Affordable Care Act and Floridians are looking at a hefty price increase. According to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, premiums in the Sunshine State are set to go up by as much as 27 percent. Other states are looking much worse. Oklahoma is looking at a 75% increase. Lyne Holue will lose her coverage on Dec 31st because her current carrier dropped out of the market, leaving only three to choose from and leaving her unsure where to...

...The Collapse of the "Affordable" Care Act The ACA is now visibly crashing and burning, with premium increases of up to 116% in Arizona along with access to far fewer insurance plans as insurance companies exit the market. This always happens when a country allows its purported leaders to substitute partisan ideology for physical, natural, or economic science. What You Can Do about the ACA Mandate This is also the open enrollment period for the so-called "Affordable" Care Act. If you have no serious pre-existing medical conditions and are willing to forego unhealthy lifestyle choices, you can opt out of...

Economist Chris Butler discussed the rising cost of health insurance plans rising next year under the Affordable Care Act, saying he expects the populace to express more outrage as they learn they will be priced out of health care options. “Right now, I think you do have to say that A, it’s failing and that B, I think next year, you’re going to have a bunch of people that don’t get the subsidies that make the premiums a little bit more affordable that are just going to riot because it’s just too expensive for most people if you don’t qualify...

Video: Hillary: Before it was called "Obamacare," it was called "Hillarycare." WATCH VIDEO...