Free Republic

WASHINGTON — Donald J. Trump once declared that campaigning for “substantial” changes to Medicare would be a political death wish. But with Election Day behind them, emboldened House Republicans say they will move forward on a years-old effort to shift Medicare away from its open-ended commitment to pay for medical services and toward a fixed government contribution for each beneficiary. The idea rarely came up during Mr. Trump’s march toward the White House, but a battle over the future of Medicare could roil Washington during his first year in office, whether he wants it or not.

An online campaign to raise money for a US man trying to pay his late wife's medical bills by selling wood on the side of the road has raised almost $20,000 (£16,136) in just three days. Kenneth Smith, 80, spends hours a day standing on the roadside in Mississippi, selling bags of kindling. Last year, he was joined by Helen, his wife of more than 30 years, as they struggled to pay her medical expenses. After she died in October Mr Smith was left to raise the money by himself. Her two-year battle with lung cancer not only took large...

Americans are still signing up for Obamacare, despite President-elect Trump's promise to repeal it soon after he takes office. More than one million people selected plans for 2017 on the federal exchange in the first 12 days of open enrollment, which began November 1, according to the Department of Health & Human Services. That is 53,000 more than in the comparable period a year ago. Administration officials are using enrollment data to promote the importance of Obamacare to Americans, trying to counter Republicans' assertions that it is pricey and broken.

Embattled Theranos CEO Elizabeth Holmes is a victim who has been "totally attacked," venture capitalist Tim Draper told CNBC on Tuesday. Holmes has been under fire since a series of reports by The Wall Street Journal suggested the blood-testing start-up's testing devices were flawed. "Elizabeth Holmes is a great example of maybe why the women are so frustrated. She is a woman entrepreneur who built a fabulous company, did great things for consumers and she got attacked," the founding partner of Draper Associates and Draper Fisher Jurvetson said in an interview with "Closing Bell." "This is a great entrepreneur who...

Republicans are pushing the limits of Congress’s complex budget process to finish up an ObamaCare repeal bill in time for Donald Trump’s inauguration. The House Budget Committee could bring back its budget resolution from April – which never made it to the chamber floor – to deal an immediate blow to the president’s healthcare law after he leaves office. The unusual move is among several strategies under consideration to speed up legislation to repeal ObamaCare, which has been a central GOP campaign promise since 2010.

House Speaker Paul Ryan has his eyes on privatizing Medicare. The Wisconsin Republican leader, who has long expressed his disapproval of the Affordable Care Act, will also be the leading voice in health-care reform. “What people don’t realize is that Medicare is going broke, that Medicare is going to have price controls. Because of Obamacare, Medicaid is in fiscal straits,” Ryan said in an interview with Fox News Thursday. “So you have to deal with those issues if you’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare. Medicare has got some serious problems because of Obamacare. Those things are part of our plan to replace Obamacare.”

Sen. Al Franken (D., Minn.) blamed Republicans for the major premiums hikes under Obamacare set to hit next year while speaking with CNN’s Jake Tapper on Thursday. . . . “The people they should be mad at, really, are Republican officeholders who refused to do anything other than vote to repeal the [Affordable Care Act],” he said.

WITH THE OBAMACARE exchanges collapsing and millions of people being battered by ghastly increases in health insurance premiums, what’s to be done? Forgetting that socialism doesn’t work–never mind that it’s deeply immoral–Democrats are addicted to the idea of government-dominated health care. They see ObamaCare’s terminal crisis as the perfect opportunity to realize their age-old ambition of socialized medicine, hence the current mouthing of such slogans as “a single-payer system,” “Medicare for all” and the offer to consumers of “a public option,” i.e., subsidized policies from a health insurance company run by Uncle Sam. Republicans should be ready with proposals that...

Northville, MI (Law Firm Newswire) - Frontline staff are failing to answer more than one-third of calls to the Department of Veterans Affairs’ (VA) suicide hotline. Former hotline director Greg Hughes pointed out that poor work habits, low productivity and other departmental issues were to blame. Several weeks prior to leaving his job in June, Hughes sent an internal email saying workers “spend very little time on the phone or engaged in assigned productive activity.” Some Veterans Crisis Line employees answer under five calls per day. They also end their shifts early despite the sharp rise in the volume of...

Guy has written extensively on the policy trainwreck that is the Affordable Care Act. It is a complete nightmare, with double-digit premium spikes about to hit the nation (on average) next year. ThatÂ’s a Tomahawk missile strike to most home budgets, especially those in AmericaÂ’s middle class. An ironic twist since Obamacare was supposed to help this economic demographic, which now finds itself being more squeezed by this law. Even CNN Money noted that Obamacare is turning into another government program that helps predominantly lower income Americans. Simply put, the law isnÂ’t affordable. Republicans have known this. Minnesota Democratic Gov....

We are almost there, folks! November 8th will end this miserable election cycle and determine our fate for the next four years. If you have not already voted and are still thinking about which presidential candidate or party to support, you should focus like a laser on the one issue of the many important ones in this election: Obamacare. Unfortunately, as this election focused more on personal characteristics and irrelevant comments, the principal legislation of the past eight years has been largely ignored as an election issue. While the plan continues to alter the healthcare landscape in a major...

On a new episode of Netflix’s futuristic sci-fi show “Black Mirror,” (warning: mild spoilers ahead) the British government devises a way to mitigate the environmental damage done when bees become extinct. A secret department creates tiny mechanical, self-replicating bees that distribute pollen, allowing flowers to flourish and the ecosystem to continue on unimpeded. That is, until a devious programmer learns to hack the bees, wreaking havoc and terror on the public. “The government is a (expletive),” says the episode’s protagonist, played by the wonderful Scottish actress Kelly Macdonald. “We knew that already.” Of course, in real life, we have not...

Third Way, a progressive think tank with ties to the Democracy Alliance, has removed newly appointed Ebola czar Ron Klain from its website, following a Washington Free Beacon report. The Free Beacon reported Friday on Klain’s status as a trustee for Third Way, and his past experience lobbying on behalf of a drug company that was accused of denying life-saving drugs to dying cancer patients. The choice of Klain to head the administration’s emergency response to Ebola was criticized as a political move. Klain is a political operative with no medical experience and a former advisor to former Vice President...

Obamacare premiums are going through the roof, which is one of the main problems plaguing President ObamaÂ’s heath care law. Donald Trump has taken a swipe at the deductibles from the plans offered under the bill, saying theyÂ’re so high that youÂ’d need to get hit by a Komatsu tractor in order benefit from the law. With Obamacare falling apart, more Americans are opting to pay the penalty to remain uninsured since itÂ’s more economical to take a risk than pay monthly premiums that are simply torpedoing home budgets. Health insurance companies werenÂ’t expecting to cover this many claims and...

The panic over ObamaCare premiums is putting new focus on the individual mandate and how much people should pay when they don't obey it. Under current law, the penalty for being uninsured is 2.5 percent of a person's taxable income or $695 -- whichever is greater. Jonathan Gruber, a key ObamaCare adviser, declared Wednesday that he thinks that penalty needs to be greater. In an interview with CNN, Gruber pointed directly to the penalties when asked what part of the law he would change if he could go back. "I think probably the most important thing experts would agree is...

Just got my renewal for Blue Cross here in Texas. A 67% increase and deductible raised from $6000 to $6500.

Sorry for the vanity, folks, but I'm looking for some input from Freepers who are members of one of the Christian health-sharing ministries I've heard advertised on the radio. I'm in the application process for an individual medical insurance plan, and I just learned that I'm not eligible for a mid-year enrollment because I don't have a "qualifying life event" under Federal law. At first I thought I would just need to cover a two-month gap in my insurance coverage between November 1st of this year and January 1st of next year when I'll be eligible through open enrollment, but...

The architects of the Affordable Care Act thought they had a blunt instrument to force people — even young and healthy ones — to buy insurance through the law’s online marketplaces: a tax penalty for those who remain uninsured. It has not worked all that well, and that is at least partly to blame for soaring premiums next year on some of the health law’s insurance exchanges. The full weight of the penalty will not be felt until April, when those who have avoided buying insurance will face penalties of around $700 a person or more. But even then that...

Word that ObamaCare premiums will soar 25 percent in the 39 states that operate off the federal healthcare.gov system is only the tip of the iceberg: The so-called Affordable Care Act is inflicting damage all across America's health-care sector - with no end in sight. Just as critics warned from the start. [Snip] Still ahead: Budget crises in the states that accepted temporary federal bribes to massively expand their Medicaid rolls. More premium hikes on the exchanges, as ever fewer healthy people sign up for coverage - prompting even lower enrollment, and more price hikes, in a sharp "death spiral."...

(CNN) — On November 1, the Affordable Care Act health insurance marketplaces will open for their fourth open enrollment period. On Monday, Healthcare.gov, the federal marketplace serving 39 states, pulled back the curtains to allow consumers to window shop for 2017 plans. As it did so, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a report analyzing the premiums consumers will have to pay for 2017 marketplace coverage and the coverage choices they will have available. The HHS report documents what has already been widely reported -- that after two years of moderate premium increases (2% for 2015 and...