Free Republic

Donald Trump declared Tuesday that “Obamacare is just blowing up,” hoping for powerful late-campaign ammunition against Hillary Clinton after the government projected sharp cost increases for President Barack Obama’s health care program. Just two weeks before Election Day, the New York businessman addressed the health care development during an appearance at one of his Florida golf resorts that highlighted the extraordinary intersection of his business and political interests. His message was somewhat scattershot, leaving questions of how well he and his party can capitalize on a revived emphasis on “Obamacare.” …

Nearly a third of U.S. counties will be left with just one insurance option next year on the ObamaCare exchanges, according to a new analysis fueling warnings about the impact of the insurance company exodus from markets across the country. The Kaiser Family Foundation study found residents in Pinal County, Ariz., are even at risk of having no insurance options on the exchanges, which provide subsidized plans. Republicans seized on the report Monday to claim that the health care overhaul is not providing the choices promised by President Obama and others. […] The Kaiser Family Foundation study found that overall,...

When Obamacare’s fourth open enrollment period begins on November 1, many customers will face fewer insurance options and much higher prices. “Only the sick people sign up. And that’s why the premiums are going up, up, up,” said Obamacare critic Betsy McCaughey, who is the former Lt. Gov. of New York. Premiums will go up by double digits, she predicted — “20 percent for the biggest plans in New York, 40 percent in Tennessee, and somewhere in between around the country.” …

National Public Radio collaborated with Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation to survey Americans’ recent experience with health care. As to the Affordable Care Act, the survey’s findings are damning. They suggest that Obamacare has been worse than a complete waste of money. This is the survey’s only question directly on Obamacare. Most respondents say that Obamacare hasn’t affected them; where it has affected them, most say the law’s impact has been harmful: The promises that President Obama made about the ACA–cheaper premiums! lower co-pays and deductibles! better coverage!–have completely failed to materialize....

Minuteman Health has drawn down $100 million in federal loans in anticipation of continued losses from the Affordable Care Act. The Massachusetts co-op insurer, which also operates in New Hampshire, will report the draw down and a second-consecutive year of operating losses as part of its fiscal 2015 financials. Minuteman officials said the borrowings are needed to offset certain components of Obamacare, which financially punish insurers for doing the very things the federal law was intended to address: to provide affordable health insurance to previously uncovered segments of the population. What ObamaCare's architects didn't anticipate, and what local insurers are...

All at once... If you’ve been paying attention, you’ve known since 2009 that ObamaCare was never going to “lower the average family’s premiums rates by $2,000.” That was just the lie that architects like Jonathan Gruber told you to sell their anti-constitutional boondoggle. When they say passage of the law relied upon the “ignorance of the American voter,” that’s what they’re talking about. Those who weren’t ignorant always knew that the ACA would cause rates to skyrocket, and most believe that’s exactly what it was designed to do. It’s failure was “baked in” to ensure that it was - as...

Democrats’ strategy for keeping their ObamaCare losses to a minimum in the 2014 elections is a combination of denial and obfuscation. The “denial” part consists of loudly insisting that nobody is complaining about ObamaCare any more, so it must not be that big of a political liability for them. The fact that people across the country are complaining about ObamaCare is irrelevant; this is a Jedi mind trick, not a reasoned argument. As for the obfuscation part, well, that’s simple: the Administration contrived to keep 2015 insurance premiums under wraps until after the election. The new and improved HealthCareDotGov is...

More than a dozen states plan to cancel health care policies not in compliance with ObamaCare in the coming weeks, affecting thousands of people just before the midterm elections. "It looks like several hundred thousand people across the country will receive notices in the coming days and weeks," said Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. The policies are being canceled because states that initially granted a reprieve at the request of President Obama are no longer willing to do so. In coming weeks, 13 states and the District of Columbia plan to cancel such policies, which generally...

On November 15, open enrollment in the Obamacare exchanges begins again. Before the second act of our national healthcare drama commences, let’s review what we’ve learned in Act I. For starters, everyone now knows that federal officials are challenged when it comes to setting up a website. But they’ve demonstrated the ability to dole out a huge amount of taxpayers’ money for millions of people signing up for Medicaid, a welfare program. And they’ve proved they can send hundreds of millions of federal taxpayers’ dollars to their bureaucratic counterparts in states, like Maryland and Oregon, that can’t manage their own...

HealthCare.gov, the online portal where millions of Americans must by health insurance, will not display premiums for 2015 until after the 2014 elections ... Americans will not be able to find out if their health insurance premiums are going up "until the second week of November," which conveniently falls after Americans will go to the polls November 4th.

College students overwhelmingly swung for President Obama in 2008 and 2012, but they’re now finding their on-campus work hours cut back, thanks to Obamacare. The latest example comes from the University of Colorado Boulder, where administrators posted an online notice last week informing students that their university-provided employment would be capped at 25 hours per week as a result of the Affordable Care Act.

Thousands of Iowans are now facing double-digit health insurance premium hikes due to Obamacare. On Wednesday, the Des Moines Register reported that the state's insurance commissioner has approved Des Moines-based Wellmark to hike its rates between 11.9% and 14.5%. The premium spike will affect 19,000 Iowans. "That increase is for individual policyholders who have Affordable Care Act-compliant plans," reports the Register. CoOportunity, one of the main companies offering health insurance on the Obamacare exchange, will increase its rates 19%.

According to Fox News and several print media outlets tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people are about to be notified that their health insurance policies are being cancelled, thanks to Obamacare. That could mean bad news for liberals just weeks before 2014 midterm elections, except the broadcast networks have refused to report it. ABC, CBS and NBC news programs failed to mention the latest wave of policy cancellations as of Oct. 9. Plans that could not meet regulations mandated under the Affordable Care Act will no longer be granted a reprieve in thirteen states and the District...

Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) thinks it's time for Republicans to let go of their efforts to repeal Obamacare. Speaking to an NBC affiliate in Portland on Thursday, Collins argued that the GOP has missed its chance to get rid of the health care law entirely. She noticeably did not say whether she would vote to repeal or defund Obamacare, despite being asked. "You know at this point, I think we’re past that," Collins said. "I think it would’ve been much better if there’d been a bipartisan bill crafted in 2008 that had provisions that both parties could agree on, such...

"The most transparent administration in the history of the United States" has announced that the "new and improved" Healthcare.gov website is more streamlined for this year's enrollment into Obamacare; but, the premium rates for plans will not be released on the website until after the November 4th midterm elections. "The only people who don't want to disclose the truth are people with something to hide." -Barack Hussein Obama The government has released its new website which takes only 16 pages to enroll this year as opposed to the 76 pages last year. However, customers who enroll in Obamacare will not...

Democrats seem to love death.  Whether they’re yammering about abortion or “end of life” planning, they just can’t get enough of talking up the myriad ways people can exit life’s stage.  They always claim this is simply a discussion about personal responsibility and individual choice but, since they despise those ideals in virtually every other matter, it’s a hard argument to buy. Enter Ezekiel Emanuel.  Emanuel was one of the chief architects of ObamaCare and is, of course, the brother of Rahm.  Over at The Atlantic, he’s penned an article about his own death and he’s made a shocking announcement...

The US health system needs major reform to ensure high-quality, affordable, and sustainable end-of-life care for Americans, according to a new Institute of Medicine (IOM) report called Dying in America: Improving Quality and Honoring Individual Preferences Near the End of Life. The 507-page document was released on September 17, 2014, and reports recommendations developed during the past two years by a 21-member national committee. The committee included representatives from various fields involved in end-of-life care: doctors, nurses, religious leaders, geriatric specialists, insurers, and lawyers. The study was supported by an anonymous donor whose identity remained unknown to the committee.

“Staggering Numbers” Of Virginians Will Lose Plans And Pay More Due To ObamaCare (September 11, 2014)

Consumers may soon find a surprise in their mailbox: a notice that their health plan is being canceled. Insurers are required to give policyholders 90 days notice if they’re discontinuing their plans. That means consumers whose plans will be cancelled this December should be receiving notices now. If your plan is being canceled, you have a number of options. By law, your insurer has to let you buy another of its plans if you want. You can also shop on the state health insurance marketplace for coverage, where many people qualify for subsidies that reduce the cost, or you can...

And they should know because they're the ones not collecting the premiums.Much of the left has been trying its best to push the notion that "ObamaCare is working," largely based on the announced enrollment total of anywhere from 8 million to 10 million that has come out of the White House. Since this was more than the 7 million they originally said they needed to make the system viable, viola . . . success!One problem: They counted everyone who enrolled, without regard to whether enrollees ever paid a premium. If you don't pay the premium, you're not insured and you're...