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Trump's Medical Plan, By The Numbers Let's update one of my Tickers from a few years ago. We're going to use official government figures here, ignoring, for now, the private sector. The figures of note are the following (figures to the nearest billion), out of a total of $3,688 billion. Military programs: $563 billion or 15% Social Security Old Age: $741 billion or 20% Social Security Disability: $146 billion or 4% Medicare and Medicaid: $1,297 billion or 35% (Medicaid amounts to $350 billion granted to the States (no breakdown on what part is drugs), Medicare Part D (drugs) is $75...

Shortly after he claimed to be a “unifier” during his Super Tuesday press conference, Donald Trump was at it again, lambasting “so-called conservatives” who don’t share his liberal position on Planned Parenthood, continuing to insist he applauds the group because it allegedly “does a lot of good of good things” for women’s health. Similar logic applies to his position on ObamaCare. He loves the coercive freedom- and job-killing individual mandate, which is the heart of ObamaCare, because he doesn’t want to see bodies in the street, a classic liberal rhetorical scare tactic. Planned Parenthood may do the occasional mammogram referral,...

Donald Trump released his health care plan Wednesday evening, finally detailing the way in which he would fulfill his campaign trail promise to repeal and replace Obamacare. In a seven-point plan posted to his website and publicized by a tweet, Trump says he will do away with the individual health insurance mandate, as well as allow competition over states lines for health care plans, and block grant Medicaid to the states, allowing them to follow through on his prescription to "eliminate fraud, waste and abuse to preserve our precious resources." The decision to go against the idea of an...

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. Barack Obama began peddling his national healthcare system. On more than one occasion, he pointed to Canada and the United Kingdom as examples of a workable national healthcare system. When I first heard him point to them, I instantly thought of Rachel, a work acquaintance who lived and worked in the United Kingdom. She was experiencing abdominal pains and having problems eating for months before England’s National Health Service doctors finally diagnosed the problem to be her gall bladder. The doctor said it needed to be removed. However, from the time they wrote the...

An official with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told lawmakers last week that eight of the 11 remaining Obamacare co-ops have been selected for "corrective action plans" and "enhanced oversight." Twenty-three co-ops were created under the president's health care overhaul, and so far more than half have collapsed and are no longer selling plans in the marketplace. The 12 co-ops that went out of business operated in Arizona, Michigan, Utah, Kentucky, New York, Nevada, Louisiana, Oregon, Colorado, Tennessee, South Carolina and a co-op serving Iowa and Nebraska. The agency's chief operating officer, Dr. Mandy Cohen, told the House...

ust 15 percent of people say they have personally benefited from ObamaCare, although more than one-third believe it has helped the people of their state, according to a poll released Monday. Most Americans -- a total of 56 percent -- say they haven't felt directly affected by the Affordable Care Act. Among those who have felt affected, more people say the law has hurt them than helped them, according to polling by National Public Radio and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Twenty-six percent of U.S. adults say they have been personally harmed by the healthcare law since its passage --...

When Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump momentarily embraced Obamacare's individual mandate before disavowing it, Rush Limbaugh and other conservatives caught the vapors. But where is conservative outrage over Marco Rubio's health plan, which actually contains an individual mandate? Rubio, unlike his opponents, has offered details on how he would replace Obamacare. (Trump merely promises "something terrific.") He builds his replacement plan around an individual mandate, and an expansion of Obamacare's spending. Rubio's plan is so similar to Obamacare, so disruptive, and so easily demagogued, you would think he was a Democratic mole. The centerpiece of Rubio's proposal would "provid[e] every...

Either Donald Trump suffers from memory loss or he is completely lying about his healthcare plans. During Thursday night's debate Ted Cruz simply asked Trump, "True or false, you said the government should pay for everyone's healthcare?" Trump emphatically denied, claiming the accusation was completely false. To those watching who have been keeping up with this election cycle, the claim seemed dubious. After the debate, Cruz's campaign helped Trump and the rest of America understand the truth behind the spar: ...

How many more of these stories are out there waiting to be told? The Daily Caller has struck again in their ongoing investigation of corruption at the VA, as well as the impossibility of getting rid of anyone who is failing at their job, incompetent or simply breaking the law. This time it’s a story which dates back to 2013. The head of the St. Louis Department of Veterans Affairs hospital at that time was one Rima Nelson. Things didn’t go so well with Rima in charge, and by “not so well” I mean that 1,800 patients were potentially exposed...

More than half a million Swedes now have private health insurance, showed a new review from industry organization Swedish Insurance (Svensk Försäkring). In eight out of ten cases, the person's employer had offered them the private insurance deal. "It's quicker to get a colleague back to work if you have an operation in two weeks' time rather than having to wait for a year," privately insured Anna Norlander told Sveriges Radio on Friday. "It's terrible that I, as a young person, don't feel I can trust the health care system to take care of me." The insurance plan guarantees that...

As Hillary tries to secure the nomination she has been forced to run left to counter the far-left proposals of Bernie Sanders. Sanders plan for health care is to move the U.S. to a full-fledged single-payer system like the one in Canada. Hillary isn’t willing to go that far but, as Politico notes, she is willing to propose Democrats revive the next best thing: Clinton’s campaign has updated its website to note her continued support for the government-run health plan that was dropped from Obamacare during the law’s drafting. The idea was popular among progressives who prefer a single-payer...

Health Care: Bernie Sanders has been winning the hearts and minds of Democrats everywhere with a health care plan that is so reckless, extreme and fanciful that even liberals are appalled.

**SNIP** Desperate to keep insurers on board, the administration scrambled to find another source of money. Unfortunately, a big part of that money pot belongs to the public. Disregarding that fact, the administration announced on Feb. 12 that the money will be handed out to insurers - a whopping $7.7 billion this year alone. That huge handout to the insurance industry violates the law. This is money you and everyone else who already has insurance is forced to pay, called a reinsurance fee. You pay the fee whether you buy your own plan or get covered at work, even if...

Britain has "free" health care, which means it is run by the government and funded by taxpayers. Those on the left in the U.S. want to move to this model, which is often referred to as universal healthcare or single-payer since the government handles all the financing. If something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. If health care doesn't cost anything, people are going to use more of it. They're not going to think prudently about which services they really need because they don't feel the immediate cost. Consequently, 131 out of the 138 hospital trusts in...

The Obama administration will tell any lie and break any law to prevent the president’s signature health-care program from collapsing. Insurance companies such as UnitedHealthcare and Aetna are losing billions trying to sell ObamaCare plans, and the risk is they’ll drop out at the end of 2016. No insurance companies means no ObamaCare. In 2014, the White House tried to avert that disaster by promising insurers a taxpayer-funded bailout, but public outrage and quick action by Sen. Marco Rubio put a stop to it. Now the administration is at it again. Desperate to keep insurers on board, the administration scrambled...

Several Republican presidential campaigns have labeled Texas Sen. Ted Cruz's campaign as dishonest -- and now a Cruz supporter says he agrees. C. Steven Tucker, a member of Cruz's Illinois leadership team, told the Washington Examiner he could not stay silent about the falsehoods repeatedly uttered by the senator on the campaign trail. Specifically, Tucker takes issue with Cruz's comments about Donald Trump's ideas on healthcare. "Senator Cruz's quotes are very salacious and incorrect. He says if you vote for Donald Trump, you vote for Bernie Sanders-style socialized medicine; Trump, Clinton, Sanders have identical positions on healthcare," Tucker said. "That...

Donald Trump has a plan to make America's health care great again. It's very simple, he says: Lock the best health care policy minds in a room -- and don't let them out until they've crafted a plan for providing terrific coverage for everyone. But the strategy, laid out in Trump's most recent book, begs the question: Who exactly would be locked in that room? And who is advising him on ideas which are as unorthodox for a GOP frontrunner as his candidacy? Trump has repeatedly said everyone should have access to health care -- going so far as to...

According to state law, Arkansas' failed Obamacare expansion is set to expire at the end of this year. But Governor Asa Hutchinson has proposed overriding that deadline - which he signed into law last year - to continue providing welfare to able-bodied adults forever. Hutchinson's chief argument is that ending the program would create "a $100 million annual budget hole" due to lost budget "savings." It's a familiar refrain, used by former Democratic Governor Mike Beebe for years. There's just one problem: it's not true. Arkansas' so-called Private Option Medicaid expansion isn't saving taxpayers money and allowing it to end...

Donald J. Trump ‏@realDonaldTrump 26m26 minutes ago I was asked about healthcare by Anderson Cooper & have been consistent- I will repeal all of #ObamaCare, including the mandate, period. I was referring to a backstop for pre-existing conditions. I will eliminate the law, in its entirety, & replace it w/ something much better. I will replace it with private plans, health savings accounts, & allow purchasing across state lines. Maximum choice & freedom for consumer. I'm self-funding and I am going to take care of the people – not the special interests and insurance companies like the other candidates. Remember,...

Is there anybody more "all over the map" on healthcare than Donald Trump?...