Free Republic

Republican lawmakers have made it clear they have no intention of repealing Obamacare in the current Congress. Republicans in the nation’s top lawmaking body have never really wanted to get rid of Obamacare. They would prefer to present the program, which David Horowitz correctly describes as “the greatest assault on individual freedom and individual choice in our lifetimes,” as a villain and whip up sentiment against it and run against it every election. They view Obamacare as good for the business of politics. They may chip away at it from time to time or tinker with it at the margins,...

Despite numerous promises from congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama when they passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the health care law has created far more problems than it has solved. Premiums, deductibles, and health care choices have all worsened since Obamacare went into effect, and there’s no sign America’s health insurance system will improve anytime in the near future. President Trump inherited a health insurance crisis when he took office in January 2017, so he and congressional Republican leaders immediately began to work to implement their plan to replace Obamacare with a more market-centered approach to improving the...

Few states have expanded Medicaid eligibility under the Affordable Care Act (ACA) since 2016, but a new trend may accelerate the pace of adoption. Last year, voters in Maine used their state’s citizen-initiated ballot referendum process to pass Medicaid expansion, and this November, four states will follow Maine’s lead. On Friday, Nebraska’s Secretary of State certified that supporters had collected enough signatures to put the question of Medicaid expansion to voters on Election Day. Nebraska joins Idaho and Utah, both of which will have Medicaid expansion on their November ballots. And late last month, the Secretary of State in Montana...

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton is leading a five-state coalition that on Thursday won an $839 million judgment against the federal government in an Obamacare lawsuit, a massive blow to the Obama administration’s namesake legislation. The Affordable Care Act (ACA, better known as Obamacare) requires medical providers to pay a Health Insurance Provider Fee (HIPF). Even though the ACA exempts states from paying that fee when providing health care, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) during the Obama era created a regulation requiring states to pay the fee anyway, a fee that is styled as a tax...

Red-state Democrats are embracing one of Obamacare’s most popular provisions to help them win re-election in November. Democratic Sens. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota unveiled ads this week slamming GOP opponents for trying to gut Obamacare’s protections for people with pre-existing illnesses, such as diabetes or cancer. Sen. Joe Donnelly, D-Ind., did the same in a Twitter video. Each of the candidates is seizing on actions by congressional Republicans and the Trump administration to unravel Obamacare. But instead of highlighting the law in general, they are centering on its rules obligating insurers to cover...

Despite numerous promises from congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama when they passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the health care law has created far more problems than it has solved. Premiums, deductibles, and health care choices have all worsened since Obamacare went into effect, and there’s no sign America’s health insurance system will improve anytime in the near future.President Trump inherited a health insurance crisis when he took office in January 2017, so he and congressional Republican leaders immediately began to work to implement their plan to replace Obamacare with a more market-centered approach to improving the...

https://khn.org/news/once-its-greatest-foes-doctors-are-embracing-single-payer/ By Shefali Luthra 08/07/2018 When the American Medical Association — one of the nation’s most powerful health care groups — met in Chicago this June, its medical student caucus seized an opportunity for change. Though they had tried for years to advance a resolution calling on the organization to drop its decades-long opposition to single-payer health care, this was the first time it got a full hearing. The debate grew heated — older physicians warned their pay would decrease, calling younger advocates naïve to single-payer’s consequences. But this time, by the meeting’s end, the AMA’s older members had agreed...

The Trump administration has approved a plan in Wisconsin allowing the state to shore up its Obamacare market. The plan is expected to lower premiums in 2019 by an average of 3.5 percent. Without it, premiums would rise by 11 percent in 2019, even after seeing hikes of 44 percent for 2018. “People in the individual market saw their premiums go up by 44 percent on average last year, and some saw much larger increases – that’s unsustainable and unacceptable,” said Republican Gov. Scott Walker, an Obamacare opponent. “Thankfully, the federal government is giving us the flexibility to implement a...

Sunday, December 7 | 1:00 a.m. BY JOHN LAIRD, OPINION EDITOR Vancouver, Washington Let’s assume that Rush Limbaugh is right, that liberals are “invested” in a U.S. defeat in Iraq because it would accelerate their anti-military agenda. Using that same logic, conservatives are invested in the economic recession because it accelerates their reduced-government agenda. And, oh, how our governments are about to be reduced. While America’s economy is in the toilet, some conservatives are flushed with excitement over budget cuts on the horizon. Even Democrats know that now is not the time to raise taxes. That leaves politicians no choice...

The House voted to repeal a 2.3 percent medical device tax, a provision that both parties have criticized for harming innovation. The medical device tax was first imposed in January 2013 to help fund the ACA. After harsh criticism from legislators and the medical device industry, Congress passed a two-year suspension of the levy in 2015. While the suspension was set to expire Jan. 1, a stopgap bill signed into law by President Donald Trump Jan. 22, further delayed the medical levy. It was set to take effect Jan. 1, 2020. The tax applies to products such as pacemakers and...

The Trump administration announced Tuesday it planned to end what it suggested was an illegal Obama-era rule allowing unions to collect dues from state subsidies intended for home health workers -- including family caregivers. Federal law generally prohibits states from skimming money from Medicaid payments bound for independent in-home personal care workers. But in 2014, the Obama administration created an exception, saying that states could divert some of that Medicaid money to unions, on the theory that these workers effectively were public-sector employees. Eleven left-leaning states have used that provision to raise more than $200 million a year for unions...

Did Judge Brett Kavanaugh write the roadmap for saving ObamaCare? That question has dwelled at the center of passionate debate in the conservative legal community for days as Kavanaugh, a federal appeals judge in the District of Columbia, finds himself as one of President Trump’s four finalists for a place on the U.S. Supreme Court. The allegation from conservative critics is rooted in a 2011 ObamaCare case where Kavanaugh dissented against the ruling but acknowledged that the Affordable Care Act’s “individual mandate provision” could fit “comfortably within Congress’ Taxing Clause power.” Kavanaugh's detractors say that language helped provide the roadmap...

Brett Kavanaugh has by far the strongest, most consistent, most fearless record of constitutional conservatism of any federal court of appeals judge in the country. Judge Brett Kavanaugh should be the next Supreme Court justice. He has by far the strongest, most consistent, most fearless record of constitutional conservatism of any federal court of appeals judge in the country. Over 12 years and 300 opinions, he has repeatedly fought for principles of textualism and originalism, reined in regulatory overreach, and ensured that administrative bureaucrats are accountable to the elected president. Nominating Kavanaugh would continue President Trump’s exemplary record of selecting...

As a physician whose career in medicine was dedicated to preserving and improving my patients’ health, I know firsthand how important it is for everyone to have access to care. This is a fundamental precept, morally and pragmatically sound, that should be honored by all who seek to transform for the better America’s flawed system of health care delivery. Regrettably, since its passage in 2010, the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has had the net general effect of raising the cost of health insurance while reducing the quality and variety of the services that insurance covers. This is the opposite of...

A federal appellate court ruled health insurers are not owed billions of dollars in funding under the ACA's risk corridors program, according to Law360. Here are five things to know: 1. In two cases brought by insurers Moda Health Plan and Land of Lincoln Mutual Health, the federal appellate court decided Congress could legally withhold risk corridors funds from the two health plans. 2. The temporary risk corridors program was designed to level the financial playing field for payers during the first three years of the ACA's implementation, 2014-16. Under the program, the government collected payments from insurers with lower...

Democrats are seizing on the Trump administration’s push in court to overturn ObamaCare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions, hoping to leverage the issue ahead of November’s midterm elections as some Republicans rush to distance themselves from the move. The Department of Justice’s (DOJ) decision to join a legal battle arguing that one of the most popular parts of ObamaCare should be struck down is being viewed by Democrats as a political gift, with the party apparatus quickly using the issue to attack GOP candidates and rally their base. Ever since the DOJ joined 20 GOP-led states last week in...

The Trump administration’s new attempt to have key pieces of the Affordable Care Act struck down in federal court — particularly the ban on insurance companies turning people away or charging them higher premiums based on a pre-existing condition — could have a serious and damaging domino effect throughout the health care sector. Insurance trade groups, health care experts and lawmakers say the fallout is likely to extend beyond the individual market, impacting many of the tens of millions of Americans who get their health insurance from an employer. The Justice Department is arguing in a new court brief that...

Congressional Democrats are seizing on the Department of Justice's (DOJ) decision to not defend key parts of ObamaCare in court, signaling they think the issue could pay political dividends in November. The DOJ, as part of its announcement late last week, argued the law's protections for people with pre-existing conditions should be invalidated because the individual mandate that required people have insurance or pay a penalty is now repealed. Despite a flurry of North Korea news on Tuesday, Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.) started his weekly news conference with reporters by talking about health care, saying his caucus would...

A senior career Department of Justice (DOJ) official has resigned, one week after the Trump administration made a controversial announcement that it would argue key parts of ObamaCare are unconstitutional. A DOJ official confirmed to The Hill that Joel McElvain resigned and his last day is July 6, but declined to comment on whether the resignation was due to last week’s announcement. Last week, the DOJ wrote in a filing that it wouldn’t defend ObamaCare’s protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The move broke with historical practice, where the DOJ defends federal laws, and sided in part with a challenge...

Most of the discussion of the Trump administration's decision not to defend the Affordable Care Act — and to urge the courts to throw out its protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions — has focused on what happens to the individual insurance market. But the political impact may be even greater. Why it matters: Protections for people with pre-existing conditions are hugely popular, and the administration may have handed Democrats their strongest health care weapon yet — because now they can make the case that the administration has gone to court to take away protections for people with pre-existing...