Free Republic

Personalized medicine is the future. It's where the science is going. It's where the technology is going. It's where doctors and patients will want to go. Yet, unfortunately for many of us, this is not where the Obama administration wants to go. First, the good news. All this is great news. Unless you happen to be in traditional Medicare. Or in Medicaid. Or unless you acquire subsidized insurance in a health insurance exchange. Or in some cases, even if you get health insurance from an employer. Implantable or attachable devices already exist — or soon will exist — that can...

Vermont could be first in line for single payerBy JOANNE KENEN | 9/17/12 4:28 AM EDT **SNIP** Shumlin can’t get there by 2014. He may not get there by 2017, when states get more flexibility under the health law to design their own health care systems. He may not get there at all. But he believes that even small states must aim big. **SNIP** The rest of the United States has no interest in single payer, of course, not now nor in the near future. Not only did the 2010 health law reject single payer or a public option, its...

80 million hours needed to tackle Obamacare tax rulesPaul Bedard - Washington Secrets September 18, 2012 | 10:02 am A week after small businesses warned that Obamacare taxes will eat up to half of their profits, a new government report reveals that simply complying with the new tax rules in the health care act will cost American families and businesses nearly 80 million hours--essentially a whole new tax. **SNIP** "So, what can be done in 79,229,503 hours? The Empire State building, which took 7 million man-hours to build, could be constructed 11 times. The Curiosity Lander could travel from Earth...

Romney: Obama wants vets to cough up $$$ to pay for ObamacareJoel Gehrke - Commentary Writer August 29, 2012 | 4:31 pm Mitt Romney attacked President Obama, during a pre-convention speech to the American Legion, for raising military health care costs in order to pay for Obamacare. “The Obama administration has also requested $12 billion in TRICARE fee increases,” Romney said today. “I will not ask our wartime military to shoulder more sacrifices while the rest of government grows. I will not ask our service members – active or retired – to pay more for their health care to free...

ObamaCare's 'Great Rebate' Was Supposed To Get Votes, Gets Confusion InsteadMerrill Matthews, Contributor 8/15/2012 @ 11:28AM It appears Democrats have utterly mangled ObamaCare’s much-hyped health insurance rebate that was supposed to be hitting your mailbox. Now, rather than taking credit for putting money in your pocket just a few months before the presidential election, the Obama administration is scrambling to explain, and defend, the plan to millions of confused families and employers. **SNIP** The roughly 12 million people who buy their own health insurance will be mailed a rebate check directly if they’re entitled to it. However, for employer-sponsored coverage...

Obama: Healthcare reform deficit neutralPublished: June 15, 2009 at 5:06 PM CHICAGO, June 15 (UPI) -- The $1 trillion, 10-year price tag for reforming the U.S. healthcare system is steep, but inaction will cost more, President Obama told physicians Monday. Obama touted his vision of healthcare reform before the American Medical Association's annual meeting in Chicago, saying providing affordable healthcare for all Americans "will come at a cost" but only in the short-run. "(Failing) to reform our healthcare system in a way that genuinely reduces cost growth will cost us trillions of dollars more in lost economic growth and lower...

Reid Again Prevents Vote on Obamacare RepealFriday, 03 Aug 2012 12:30 PM By Newsmax Wires Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid yet again stymied a Republican attempt to vote on repealing the healthcare reform law Thursday evening. Minority Leader Mitch McConnell proposed that the Senate vote on repeal of Obamacare soon after it returns from vacation in September, The Hill reports. “Let’s have a vote,” McConnell said on the floor. “Is Obamacare making things better or worse? Let’s show the American people what they want. It’s a vote they deserve.”

Colorado judge's order on ObamaCare restores faith to the systemBy Quin Hillyer Published July 30, 2012 FoxNews.com Faith just won a round in court. As President Obama’s mandated insurance coverage of sterilization, contraception, and abortion-inducing drugs takes effect on August 1 for ordinary businesses, the Health and Human Services mandate’s ultimate survival suddenly appears blessedly jeopardized. Federal district Judge John J. Kane of Colorado on Friday issued a temporary injunction blocking the mandate from being applied to Hercules Industries, a family-owned manufacturer of air-conditioning products. **SNIP** Comparatively little attention, though, had been paid to the private businesses that also object...

Rep. Pelosi praises progress, warns against complacency in fighting AIDSBy Mike Lillis - 07/27/12 04:56 PM ET House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi on Friday urged a greater commitment to the fight against HIV/AIDS. Speaking before the International AIDS Conference in Washington, D.C., the California Democrat said recent successes in combating the disease are welcome but shouldn't lead the world's governments to curtail their search for a cure. "Where there is scientific opportunity, there is a moral obligation to fund it," Pelosi said. "Where there are people in need of drugs and care – and communities in need of prevention –...

US poverty on track to rise to highest since 1960sBy HOPE YEN | Associated Press – 18 mins ago WASHINGTON (AP) — The ranks of America's poor are on track to climb to levels unseen in nearly half a century, erasing gains from the war on poverty in the 1960s amid a weak economy and fraying government safety net. Census figures for 2011 will be released this fall in the critical weeks ahead of the November elections. **SNIP** Poverty is spreading at record levels across many groups, from underemployed workers and suburban families to the poorest poor. More discouraged workers...

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Section 1401 of the Affordable Care Act is, on the surface, just as exciting as it sounds. It outlines in excruciating detail the eligibility requirements for an American to receive a tax subsidy to assist in purchasing health insurance.That’s at first glance, at least. Two experts who recently scoured Section 1401 think they found something huge: a missing word that could undercut the Affordable Care Act’s promise of affordable health insurance.Case Western Reserve University’s Jonathan Adler and Cato Institute’s Michael Cannon argue in a new paper that any federally-established health insurance exchange does not have the authority to dole out health insurance subsidies....

Health law mandate isn’t ‘largest tax,’ despite GOP claimsBy Russell Berman - 07/08/12 03:00 PM ET To hear Republicans tell it, the individual mandate to buy health insurance that the Supreme Court has now declared to be a tax is the “largest tax in America’s history.” Yet even when considered as a revenue-raising tax, the mandate at the center of President Obama's signature legislation is not even the largest tax increase in the 2010 healthcare law, much less in the history of the republic. The Congressional Budget Office projects that the penalty, or tax, for not buying health insurance will...

In 2009, when Obama was pushing universal healthcare, he quickly realized that his dreams of a single-payer, government-run socialized system would never pass Congress. His other option was a “public option,” which most knew to be a Trojan Horse for single-payer, slowly eviscerating the private insurance industry. The “compromise” (if we can say Obama compromised with himself) was ObamaCare. The ObamaCare debate has been overshadowed by whether the Individual Mandate is constitutional (it is not, despite what Roberts and the gaggle of liberal justices state.) What has been lost in the conversation is the States’ Health Care Exchanges. We have...

Amid John Roberts' craven surrender to "the political branches" on Obamacare -- a bizarre capitulation, at that, since Roberts honored a statute that he hallucinated, but neither Congress nor the president authored nor authorized -- Americans should remember just how many rules, standards, and traditions had to be twisted or bulldozed in order for the [un]Affordable Care Act to become law. For Obamacare to be enacted in the first place required each of more than a dozen, highly unlikely or even suspect, occurrences or actions. It then took some serious constitutional hocus pocus for it to survive in court. Consider...

Like all practicing physicians (and medical correspondents), I was glued to the news last Thursday morning at 10 am ET when the US Supreme Court via some questionable fancy legal footwork allowed ObamaCare to survive. Like many of my medical brethren, I was deeply disappointed by the outcome. You, the patient, will have to get used to less access to real health care solutions, fewer approvals for the very latest, personalized, genetic-based cancer treatment or surgical technology that could save your life. ObamaCare will cause your premiums to soar. ObamaCare promises to increase your access to health care but it...

Dems target vulnerable GOP lawmakers over health law repeal voteBy Meghashyam Mali - 07/02/12 06:00 AM ET The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) is launching a new campaign Monday targeting vulnerable GOP lawmakers on healthcare ahead of the House vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act. "Democrats are on offense as we expose these House Republicans for standing up for insurance companies and congressional perks instead of protecting consumers," said DCCC Chairman Steve Israel (N.Y.), in a statement announcing the drive. "For 18 months, Republicans have been on defense for protecting millionaires over Medicare and now they're planning another vote...

House to prohibit IRS from implementing healthcare lawBy Pete Kasperowicz - 07/02/12 01:25 PM ET The House as early as next week will pass legislation prohibiting the IRS from receiving any money from the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to implement the 2010 healthcare reform law. Passage of the financial services spending bill is especially timely in light of last week's Supreme Court ruling that penalties the government can impose under the law against people who refuse to buy health insurance can be seen as a tax, because it is enforced like a tax. That finding allowed the...

Today the Supreme Court struck down portions of Obamacare as unconstitutional --states cannot be "dragooned" into expanding their Medicaid programs according to the law’s dictates. However, a list of 50 particularly onerous or egregious provisions in Obamacare (with sections from the statute duly noted) reveals just how much of this bad law remains. By the most generous interpretation, the Court struck down only four of the 50 egregious policies, illustrating why Congress should immediately repeal the entire measure once and for all.  Among many other bad policies, the law:1.      Imposes $800 billion in tax increases, including no fewer than 12...

What say you to the king? He deemeth that thou shalt buy insurance, or face the wrath of a dictator scorn. You ready to stand on your feet? Or are you living on your knees?