Free Republic

Obamacare will cost large companies between $4,800 and $5,900 more per employee and add hundreds of millions to their overhead, according to a new survey. The American Health Policy Institute conducted a confidential survey of 100 large employers—those with 10,000 or more employees—asking what costs they expect to incur from Obamacare over the next decade. Factoring in the health care law’s added mandates, fees, and regulatory burdens, employers anticipate cost hikes between $163 million and $200 million in 2016, a 4.3 percent increase. By 2023, employers will be paying 8.4 percent more than “what they would otherwise be spending” for...

Remember Julie Boonstra? She’s the single mother fighting leukemia who appeared in an anti-Obamacare television ad running in Michigan: (see video at link) Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid assailed Ms. Boonstra, and others like her, in a breathtakingly mean-spirited floor speech — going so far as to say that “all” of their negative experiences were “untrue” and “lies.” Reid now claims he doesn’t remember saying any such thing, but there’s video tape: (see Reid video at link) In his effort to discredit Boonstra, Reid relied on a Washington Post “fact check,” which effectively ruled her story half true. In fact,...

Washington, DC -- During the third and final presidential debate last week, Barack Obama mentioned investment guru Warren Buffet as a financial advisor. Obama called Buffet a "my friend and supporter," but failed to mention Buffet has given millions of dollars to pro-abortion groups.

“Tonight Show” host Jimmy Fallon had some tough words for ObamaCare following the deadline for people to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Speaking on Tuesday April 1, Fallon joked that regarding the 7 million Americans that have signed up for health insurance, “It's amazing what you can achieve when you make somethingmandatory and fine people if they don't do it and then keep extending the deadline for months.” [See video below.]

The White House may be celebrating its ObamaCare sign-up figures, but they appear to have misjudged the mood of the electorate. Few are celebrating the law or its impact, according to the latest poll from Quinnipiac, and that’s not the only issue on which they are dissatisfied, either. While Barack Obama declared the debate “over” on ObamaCare, 55% of people declared it very much open (via Jeff Dunetz): American voters oppose the Affordable Care Act 55 – 41 percent and 40 percent are less likely to vote for a candidate who supports Obamacare, while 27 percent are more likely and...

Earlier this year I took to the pages of The Hill to encourage Democratic strategists to focus on what conditions would look like in November, and not be demoralized by what they look like in February and March. I pushed them to act like they were running the fast break in the NCAA tournament and to throw the lead pass, and to have some confidence that conditions would improve. And it sure does seem, if you look at the latest ABC/Washington Post poll, that the receiver of that pass has moved somewhat. Focusing on the biggest issue, ObamaCare, we can...

hamden >> Seniors and U.S. Rosa L. DeLauro planned their next move Friday as they looked for ways to keep UnitedHealthcare and federal agencies accountable after the large insurer cut Yale-New Haven Hospital and more than 2,200 doctors around the state from their Connecticut networks. DeLauro, D-3, said she will ask the federal General Accounting Office to investigate the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services on how it determined the remaining practitioners will be enough to serve patients and whether UHC gave the required notice to Greater New Haven clients. The letter has been signed by all five of Connecticut’s...

A federal judge on Wednesday ordered HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius to allow 10-year-old Sarah Murnaghan to be moved to the adult lung transplant list, giving her a better chance of receiving a potentially life-saving transplant. The quick and unusual ruling, made after a hastily scheduled emergency hearing, follows a campaign by the family and some members of Congress to pressure the Obama administration to change a federal policy that puts children under age 12 at the bottom of the list of those who can receive donated adult lungs. Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2013/06/sarah-murnaghan-lung-transplant-ruling-kathleen-sebelius-92299.html#ixzz2VSM7MrLz

n the year since President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law, the individual mandate requiring Americans to buy insurance or pay a fine has attracted the most attention. Another key ObamaCare feature has received little notice, but could end up just as controversial. It goes by the mundane name of the Independent Payment Advisory Board. A growing and bipartisan array of critics says it will end up rationing care for seniors and is pushing to scrap IPAB entirely. Some of its fiercest opponents have even resurrected the "death panel" label. Under the law, the president would appoint 15...

Republicans were right about Obamacare and Democrats were wrong. Before Obamacare was passed, when Democrats were telling the public that it would make health care cheaper, better, and would cure cancer right after it makes your bed in the morning and cuts your grass, Republicans were pointing out the very flaws that the American people are bitterly complaining about today. This is why we're not going to help the Democrats "fix" Obamacare. The fact of the matter is that we've been right every step of the way so far and what we're telling people is that the worst is yet...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will determine what medical treatments are and are not available to you under the Senate health bill. It is quite possible she will determine if you live or die. A serach of the Senate health bill will bring up "secretary" 2,500 times, according to Susan Ferrechio, Chief Congressional Correspondent for the Washington Examiner. Ferrechio continues: Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius would be awarded unprecedented new powers under the proposal, including the authority to decide what medical care should be covered by insurers as well as the terms and conditions of coverage...

Sarah Palin said it: The Obama administration's health care plan could create "death panels" that could kill Americans. And people listened and acted, from the U.S. Senate to President Barack Obama. So if you think the former Alaskan governor is irrelevant or doesn't know what she is talking about (and clearly on the death panel comment she didn't), it doesn't really matter. This week, the Senate Finance Committee said it would not include advance care planning consultations in its health care bill. The panel clearly was scared off by Palin's contention and all the white-hot attention it had received, including...

...Palin was able to shame the Democrats into dropping aggressive end-of-life counseling from ObamaCare during passage, but like everything else about the most disastrous bill of the modern era, it was a lie. The New York Times approvingly reports (Saturday) that the Administration is quietly restoring these provisions through regulation, specifically a Medicare policy that will “pay doctors who advise patients on options for end-of-life care, which may include advance directives to forgo aggressive life-sustaining treatment.” And just who will be writing those “advance directives?” I’d say the odds of this Orwellian government naming it the “Life Panel” are better...

The final nail in the coffin for a bipartisan Senate Finance Committee bill? According to the Huffington Post, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R) -- the ranking member on the panel who's working with Committee chairman Max Baucus (D) -- appeared to endorse the untrue "death panel" argument on health care. "There is some fear because in the House bill, there is counseling for end-of-life. And from that standpoint, you have every right to fear. You shouldn't have counseling at the end of life. You ought to have counseling 20 years before you're going to die. You ought to plan these things...

The liberal apologists at the Tampa Bay Times’ PolitiFact have denied for more than 2 years that Obamacare has death panels. How it could assure us in 2009 of just what was in a law that was not finalized until 2010 is a mystery that defies the laws of chronology; maybe in addition to having the power to divine the truth in politics, the personnel of PolitiFact have the power of prophecy. If so, they should know what is next: A repudiation of the group’s labeling as Lie Of The Year the death panels. They do exist. the government will...

I didn't mean to kill Grandma. I didn’t even mean to create death panels. But now that I and my fellow lawmakers in the House have passed a health care bill, I’m finally free to explain what I learned as the author of the now-famous end-of-life provisions. [snip] The most bizarre moment came on Aug. 7 when Sarah Palin used the term “death panels” on her Facebook page. She wrote: “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so...

"Lies" are what Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid calls the television ads complaining about Obamacare. But the people in those ads are not liars. They have pre-existing conditions and can't see the specialists or get the medications they need. They're the people President Barack Obama claimed he would help, but instead they're getting hurt. They had insurance, but their plans got canceled because of the Affordable Care Act, forcing them into Obamacare. Now they're discovering that Obamacare plans are not for sick people. They offer "free" mammograms, "free" colonoscopies and "free" contraceptives, meaning there is no copay. But if you...

She's been ridiculed by the so-called masters of the universe in the mainstream media for warning President Barack Obama's health care proposals could result in one of one of her loved ones having to stand in front of one of "Obama's death panels" to determine their "level of productivity in society" to see if they are worthy of health care. But despite the criticism, she's not backing down from those statements. Aside from submitting written testimony to the New York State Senate, as Noel Sheppard pointed out for NewsBusters on Sept. 8, Palin wrote an op-ed that appeared in the...

The first Obamacare Death Panel, headed by Ezekiel Emanuel, issued death sentences to 3,500 patients. After evaluating their cases, the panel determined that the patients did not meet the minimum economic cost-benefit criteria and would be terminated within a week. Having a semblance of humanity, the ordered slow death would be painless and with dignity. All 3,500 patients will be loaded on a Carnival Cruise ship and set off on a 1 week cruise. Patients will be plied with liquor and drugs until they were in an absolute stupor. No toilet facilities or food will be provided as all the...

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is refusing to intervene in a case of a young girl who needs a lung transplant as doctors have only given her weeks to live. From a local news report: The Newtown Square girl has been hospitalized for three months with end-stage cystic fibrosis. Sarah is not giving up hope. She wants to be a singer, but needs a lung transplant to live. Her parents have been with her constantly while she waits at The Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. “She worries that she’s dying, because she’s not — she’s a smart kid. And she says to...