Free Republic

The Obama administration is sending a new message to people on the Obamacare e-mail list. Sign up for health insurance by December 15 or face big fines. “Important,” the new email warns subscribers. “The penalty for not having health insurance is increasing. If you don’t sign up for coverage, you’ll risk having to pay $695 per person or more for the year.” Since the new enrollment period is in session, email messages from the Obamacare website have increased urging more people to sign up for coverage or face fines. When asked about the fines faced by Americans without insurance, White...

The Veterans Administration (VA) has an enormous backlog of paperwork, and as a result, hundreds of thousands of veterans have died waiting for the VA to process their records. Meanwhile, over 10,000 records were deleted without processing, and the employees responsible were not disciplined. Those are the conclusions of a new report from the VA’s inspector general (IG). At the request of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs, the IG undertook an investigation of a series of allegations made against the VA. The IG substantiated the allegations with only minor caveats.

One out of four U.S. employers may soon face a steep new Obamacare tax on the insurance coverage they offer workers, unless they take steps to reduce overall spending on the plans. A new analysis released Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation found that 26 percent of employers offer health benefits that could be subject to the Affordable Care Act's "Cadillac" tax on high-cost plans when it starts in 2018. The tax kicks in when the total spending on a health plan — including the employer and employee premium contributions — exceeds $10,022 for an individual or $27,500 for a...

Medical researchers are growing human organs in mice by implanting dead human baby organs into rodents, a practice that stands to gain greater scrutiny in light of undercover videos exposing what appears to be Planned Parenthood affiliates selling aborted baby parts to medical procurement companies like StemExpress.

Former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin has long been an outspoken opponent of the Affordable Care Act. One of her main concerns about the law had to do with its so-called “death panels,” which have been summarily dismissed by the left and it allies in the media — but which were just confirmed by the administration to in fact exist. Though “death panels” may be something of a misnomer, it specifically refers to the use of taxpayer funds for reimbursement of “end-of-life” care and counseling mandated by Obamacare, along with the inevitable healthcare rationing that will come about due to government...

In March, the federal government removed the latest vaccine injury court statistics—more than a year’s worth of data—from one of its publicly reported charts. It was an abrupt departure from the normal practice of updating the figures monthly. Wiping the latest data means the “adjudication” chart on a government website no longer reflects the recent, sharp rise in court victories for plaintiffs who claimed their children were seriously injured or killed by one or more vaccines. Since January of 2014, twice as many victims have won court decisions than the previous eight years combined.

At a recent White House science fair celebrating inventors, a Girl Scout who helped design a Lego-powered page-turning device asked President Obama what he had ever thought up or prototyped. Stumbling for an answer, he replied: “I came up with things like, you know, health care.” Ah, yes. “Health care.” Remember when the president’s signature ObamaCare health-insurance exchanges were going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, the remote control, jogger strollers, Siri, the Keurig coffee maker, driverless cars and Legos put together? The miraculous, efficient, cost-saving, innovative 21st-century government-run “marketplaces” were supposed to put the “affordable” in President...

.... Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi predicted Wednesday that Republicans will "rue the day" if the Supreme Court buys their arguments and invalidates tax subsidies for millions of people under President Barack Obama's health care law. Republicans have said they will try to ensure people don't lose insurance if the high court rules this summer against tax subsidies for health care coverage in certain states. But they haven't said how they would do it.

January 22, 1973 is the date that most associate with Roe v. Wade. That is the day when Justice Harry Blackmun read a summary of the Supreme Court’s decision in Roe and that of its companion case, Doe v. Bolton. Every year there are demonstrations in Washington on January 22 to commemorate or protest the Supreme Court’s decision recognizing a woman’s right to an abortion. But there is another date that actually might be far more significant in the history of these decisions: May 25, 1972. That is when these cases should have been decided, and likely were decided, but...

April 28, 2015 (LifeSiteNews.com) -- More than half of all Dutch physicians specialized in euthanasia would consider approving euthanasia for a demented patient, according to a survey carried out last year and made public last week at an academic symposium held at the VUmc Free University in Amsterdam.“SCEN” doctors – as they are known – form the Support Consultation Euthanasia Network Netherlands whose members can be called upon by family doctors who face a euthanasia request and who need help with the procedure, specialized and independent advice as to whether their patient should “benefit” according to the requirements for “careful”...

Hospital staff broke the news to a Tacoma, Wash. woman that her operation to remove a tumor from her breast would not be happening. Medical benefits tied to her retired husband’s U.S. Army service had expired just 12 hours before, a detail on the 41-year-old woman’s benefits card that no one noticed until she was already prepped for surgery at Madigan Army Medical Center, according to a KING-TV report. Patricia Zuniga described the bearers of bad news as “upfront” about the awkward discovery. “You’re not having your surgery today. You do not have health care. You do not have benefits,”...

Democratic state lawmakers on Thursday shot down a proposal that would have required all California state legislators to get their health insurance from Covered California, the benefits exchange set up to implement Obamacare in the state. The Assembly Rules Committee split along party lines, with seven Democrats opposing AB 1109 and three Republicans in support of the bill by Assemblyman Scott Wilk. The measure would have forced lawmakers to give up the taxpayer-subsidized health plans provided by the Legislature and individually sign up for Covered California. Wilk introduced the measure after hearing complaints from several constituents about difficulties in signing...

Doctors Medical Center in San Pablo, CA is closing its doors today. The Bay Area facility has been serving the community for 50 years, but has been losing approximately $18 Million a year for the past several years. The West Contra Costa Healthcare District board voted in March to begin the closing process, which included selling off land and nearby buildings that were part of the campus. The city, of course, picked up that tab. The reason for the closure? 80-90% of the patients are on the dole. More specifically, Medicare and Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. As the bureaucracies...

In a radio interview Sunday, Princeton University ethics professor Peter Singer argued it is “reasonable” for government or private insurance companies to deny treatment to severely disabled babies.Singer contended the health-care system under Obamacare should be more overt about rationing and that the country should acknowledge the necessity of “intentionally ending the lives of severely disabled infants.”Throughout the interview, Singer repeatedly referred to a disabled infant as “it.”Singer was speaking on the “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” broadcast on New York’s AM 970 The Answer and Philadelphia’s NewsTalk 990 AM.The Princeton professor is known for his controversial views on abortion and...

The Obamacare "Cadillac tax," which will tax businesses for employee health plans that are above a certain level by 40 percent, could be the next big fight in the push to either repeal or change the Affordable Care Act. This particular piece of the Obamacare law will not go into effect until 2018, but it is already causing headaches for businesses as they put together employee benefit plans. Politico has an in-depth story about the "Cadillac tax," which will apply to individual health plans worth more than $10,200 and family plans worth more than $27,500. The current system in place...

Overlooked in the media coverage of and academic debate about physician-assisted suicide: it’s not the people most likely to receive it who are promoting it. “It’s the well off and healthy who are calling for it,” Farr A. Curlin, M.D., the Josiah C. Trent Professor of Medical Humanities at Duke University School of Medicine said at the Heritage Foundation on March 30, 2015. On the same panel on which Dr. Curlin spoke, Ryan Anderson of the Heritage Foundation noted that disability rights groups are actively opposing such measures. Moreover, Anderson pointed out, in Oregon, which has physician-assisted suicide, “95 percent...

March 24, 2015 (NationalReview.com) -- I have repeatedly warned about articles published in medical and bioethics journals advocating killing the profoundly disabled or dying for their organs.The assault on the “dead donor rule” has now filtered down to the popular media. The Atlantic has an article advocating that dying patients be killed for their organs rather than having to actually, you know, die first. From, “As They Lay Dying:” A more useful ethical standard could involve the idea of “imminent death.” Once a person with a terminal disease reaches a point when only extraordinary measures will delay death; when use (or...

It’s horrible. As Twitchy reported, citizens are feeling the pain of Obamacare as they start filing their tax returns. The New York Times mysteriously used “health care act” in its headline. Weird, huh? We wonder why it chose not to use “Obamacare” or “Affordable Care Act.” Oh, that’s right. This is why; Check out just how “affordable” it is:

Obamacare exchange customers could see a significant spike in their premiums.... a new analysis finding Obamacare is both cheaper and less comprehensive than predicted.

Doctors believe that a terminally-ill teenager who has a brain tumour will die within weeks after a judge gave them permission to withhold treatment. The 18-year-old man’s parents wanted chemotherapy to continue and his mother had launched a “passionate” fight “for his life” at a fraught late-night hearing at the Court of Protection in London. She said her son was “absolutely adored” and a “miracle child” and urged judge Mrs Justice Hogg not to rule that he “has to die”.