Free Republic

Thanks to Obama and the Democrats (read Socialists) my cancer insurance is up 340% and the older I get, it will go up each year (was a fixed amount for everyone regardless of age before). My families healthcare premium went up 37%, but that's not the worst of it. Rather than having co-payments, now I have a deductible of $1901 before I see a dime of benefits. Thanks Obama for screwing my family over. We will let your, so called, Democratic Party (IE Socialist) exactly how we feel at the ballot box and every blog we know.

In this clip, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., gets a taste of the same medicine Democrats have been dishing out in the Obamacare debate for years. Why, he is asked by CNN’s Dana Bash, will he not go forward if the House passes a bill restoring NIH funding so that about three dozen kids with cancer can get treatment right away? Reid, looking a bit flummoxed, personally attacks Bash’s intelligence for asking the question...Speaking of the House, Reid asks, “What right do they have to pick and choose what part of government’s going to be funded?” There is actually...

Perhaps Obama was onto something when, as a young author, he zeroed in on the term "audacity" to (subconsciously) telegraph his ambitious designs to fundamentally transform our beloved America. What word could describe better than audacity Obama's refusal to accept responsibility for his dreadful policies; his standing before the American people -- even today -- in the face of the avalanche of evidence proving how terrible Obamacare is and continuing to lie about what it will do; his persistence in mislabeling his unaffordable monstrosity "the Affordable Care Act;" his failure to address the legitimate, undeniable complaints about Obamacare and his...

The Obamacare that consumers will finally be able to sign up for next week is a long way from the health plan President Barack Obama first pitched to the nation. Millions of low-income Americans won’t receive coverage. Many workers at small businesses won’t get a choice of insurance plans right away. Large employers won’t need to provide insurance for another year. Far more states than expected won’t run their own insurance marketplaces. And a growing number of workers won’t get to keep their employer-provided coverage.

Even most Republicans, in their candid moments, admit that the Affordable Care Act won't be defunded. But for former Vice Presidential Nominee and Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, that's not good enough. "We’d like to believe that the GOP establishment would applaud the way [Sens. Ted Cruz and Mike Lee] have rallied the grassroots to their cause," Palin writes, in an op-ed penned for the conservative website Breitbart. "But, no, such praise would require a commensurate level of guts and leadership, and the permanent political class in D.C. is nothing if not gutless and rudderless." "But the permanent political class is...

Paul Ryan, the wonky Wisconsin GOP congressman, was standing next to Michelle Bachmann, the folksy Minnesota Republican. ... As Boehner and the rest of the House leadership entered the room after Friday’s vote, the Republican members of Congress in attendance let out a hurrah of support. “Our message to the United States Senate is real simple: the American people don’t want the government shut down,” Boehner said. “And they don’t want Obamacare.” Added Boehner, as the conference roared in applause: “The House has listened to the American people. Now it’s time for the United States Senate listen to them as...

A riveting day has dawned. House Speaker John Boehner, long criticized for inconsistent conservative passion, is actually allowing members to vote on a budget bill that ties continued government operations to a defunding of Obamacare. This would be the strategy Ted Cruz and his allies have been offering for weeks, earning them harsh criticism from Democrats and timid Republicans alike. The House, run by Republicans, will pass the measure. The Senate, run by Democrats, will not. No matter what those votes might be, a presidential veto pen stands ready to kill the whole idea of a bill that funds...

U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is in the Sunshine State to continue trying to inform people about the Affordable Care Act,which launches October 1. “It is particularly difficult in some states where there is a lot of misinformation being circulated on a regular basis so we have a double challenge in states like Florida,” said Sebelius during a visit to Miami-Dade College.

Death Panels by a thousand cuts. No one could have seen this coming, no one. From the L.A. Times, that hotbed of right-wing scare-tactics, Insurers limiting doctors, hospitals in health insurance market: The doctor can’t see you now. Consumers may hear that a lot more often after getting health insurance under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act. To hold down premiums, major insurers in California have sharply limited the number of doctors and hospitals available to patients in the state’s new health insurance market opening Oct. 1. New data reveal the extent of those cuts in California, a crucial test bed...

[Dear xx,] This is the last thing I wanted to talk about before Labor Day weekend, but you gotta hear this: Former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin just joined the "Defund Obamacare" movement -- a group of people, including 80 members of Congress, who are willing to sabotage the economy because they don't like Obamacare. This is the kind of reckless nonsense President Obama is up against in trying to pass a smart budget that actually grows the economy for the middle class. OFA is here to fight back -- because when it comes down to it, I doubt the American...

Implementation hits hurdle after hurdle — let us count the ways. By Andrew Stiles The White House plans to delay yet another provision of Obamacare, the New York Times revealed on Monday, in what was described as “another setback for President Obama’s health-care initiative.” Indeed, it seems that every week the administration offers up a new example of the implementation “train wreck” of which Obamacare architect Max Baucus (D., Mont.), among others, has warned. Here are nine examples of how Obamacare implementation hasn’t gone according to plan:

<p>Obamacare would keep running even in a government shutdown, a new congressional report suggests.</p> <p>The new health care law draws funding from sources that are not subject to the congressional budget process, according to the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service. Also, the revenue collected under Obamacare is considered to be part of a category that ensures the "safety of human life or the protection of property," which makes it immune to government shutdowns, the report said.</p>

A race to define Obamacare to the masses began today between the stacks at the Centreville Library... Just one volunteer stayed to help work the phone bank for the health law, and the event’s organizer bolted after 20 minutes — although he was bound for another Obamacare event, a house party. The poor turnout here in Centreville wasn’t necessarily indicative of what’s happening across the country at other OFA events Sunday afternoon and evening, which coincide with President Barack Obama’s birthday.

We must be forever vigilant in protecting and defending our Country — because one mistake, one terrorist attack that we don’t prevent, can cost untold lives and suffering. That said, we must also do the smart and Constitutional thing, and not just everything we can think of, and get away with, with terrorism as the excuse. With that in mind, lets look at this from a medical perspective: Let’s say you’re healthy overall but you develop a cough, it’s lasted for a month, and it seems to be getting worse. It might just be allergies, or bronchitis, or pneumonia, or...

The NHS’s medical director will spell out the failings of 14 trusts in England, which between them have been responsible for up to 13,000 “excess deaths” since 2005. Prof Sir Bruce Keogh will describe how each hospital let its patients down badly through poor care, medical errors and failures of management, and will show that the scandal of Stafford Hospital, where up to 1,200 patients died needlessly, was not a one-off.  Show that the warning signs were there for managers and ministers to see, including alarming levels of infections, patients suffering from neglect and appalling blunders such as surgery performed...

President Barack Obama will tell Americans they are getting a good deal out of healthcare reform during a trip to California on Friday, where an argument is raging over whether it is living up to its name as the Affordable Care Act. Support for the reform in California, the nation's most populous state, is seen as crucial to the success of Obama's signature domestic policy when millions of uninsured Americans are able to choose health plans beginning on Oct. 1.

Health Reform: Months before ObamaCare takes full effect, its popularity has hit an all-time low. And that's before the public experiences firsthand the many ill effects it will impose on the nation's health care system. Shortly before Democrats rammed ObamaCare through Congress, President Obama's pollster, Joel Benenson, wrote in the Washington Post that "once reform passes, the tangible benefits Americans will realize will trump the fear-mongering rhetoric opponents are stoking today." Not quite.

Start with people who have individual and small-group health insurance. These policies are most affected by ObamaCare's community-rating regulations, which require insurers to accept everyone but limit or ban them from varying premiums based on age or health. The law also mandates "essential" benefits that are far more generous than those currently offered. According to consultants from Oliver Wyman (who wrote on the issue in the January issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries), around six million of the 19 million people with individual health policies are going to have to pay more—and this even after...

“Obamacare” looks increasingly inevitable, but one lawsuit making its way through the court system could pull the plug on the sweeping federal health care law. A challenge filed by the Pacific Legal Foundation contends that the Affordable Care Act is unconstitutional because the bill originated in the Senate, not the House. Under the Origination Clause of the Constitution, all bills raising revenue must begin in the House.

A few minutes after the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision upholding President Obama’s health care law last summer, a senior adviser to Mitch McConnell walked into the Senate Republican leader’s office to gauge his reaction. McConnell was clearly disappointed, and for good reason. For many conservatives, the decision was the death knell in a three-year fight to defeat reforms that epitomized everything they thought was wrong with Obama’s governing philosophy. But where some saw finality, McConnell saw opportunity — and still does. Sitting at his desk a stone’s throw from the Senate chamber, McConnell turned to the aide and,...