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BELFAST, Northern Ireland -- While the Obama administration offers life support to its Affordable Care Act, in the UK a growing number of people are asking whether it's time to pull the plug on the National Health Service (NHS), which is in critical condition. For many years the UK media have carried stories that not only bode ill for the future of government-run health care, but also continue to serve as a "code blue" warning to the U.S. as to what might be in our future if we decide to go down that road. Writing in The Daily Telegraph under...

The individual mandate, Obamacare's requirement that all Americans have health insurance that includes "minimum essential coverage," has been in effect for two weeks now. No one has noticed because nothing has happened. But it will. The mandate is the heart of Obamacare; without it, supporters believe, the system won't work. So the Obama administration hopes millions of Americans will voluntarily comply with the mandate and purchase government-approved coverage. If they don't do it voluntarily, they'll be punished. Starting next year, the government will collect a penalty — the administration calls it a "shared responsibility payment" — from Americans who don't...

Many folks who signed up for coverage through the state and federal exchanges are running into roadblocks now that they are trying to use their new benefits. And though exchange officials and insurers have urged consumers to call their insurers if they encounter problems, many say they either wait endlessly on hold or get the runaround. Patterson's journey started New Year's Day, when she landed in the emergency room for a stomach ailment. The Independence policy number she received didn't work and the hospital required her to sign a form saying she would pay for care herself, though it agreed...

They’re nervous. “We are becoming increasingly concerned about momentum that is quickly building among some leading conservatives for elimination of the risk corridor and reinsurance programs,” [Blue Cross Blue Shield Association CEO Scott] Serota wrote…“Their efforts, along with growing support for repealing the risk corridor and reinsurance programs, could combine to create a perfect storm to, at a minimum, dissuade the Administration from modifying risk corridor program rules to provide increased funding in light of the recent ‘transitional policy’ allowing insurers to offer consumers the option to renew their 2013 health plans for 2014,” Serota wrote.In attached talking points, seemingly...

Brittany Mathis can't afford the operation because she doesn't have health insurance, so her boss Michael De Beyer is selling his Texas eatery Brittany Mathis, 19, was diagnosed with the small tumour in December but can't afford surgery to remove it because she doesn't have health insurance. Manager and boss Michael De Beyer has offered to sell his Kaiserhof Restaurant in Montgomery, Texas, which he has run for 17 years, to help his employee out.

BAY CITY — The Affordable Care Act was supposed to help families with pre-existing conditions, not hurt them. But that has not been the case for the Davert family. Their health insurance bill has gone up 300 percent and the family is looking at taking out loans and returning to work while on disability to pay the increased costs. The Davert's experience with Obamacare is not just frustrating, it could be dangerous given the medical issues and special needs of the family. "We have such a unique family and we've overcome many obstacles," said Ken Davert, who has cerebral palsy....

As first reported by Todd Shepherd at Complete Colorado, liberal U.S. Senator Mark Udall and his staff pressured the Colorado Division of Insurance to revise the number of Coloradans whose insurance policies were canceled as a result of Obamacare. From Shepherd’s report: “At the height of controversy surrounding President Obama’s promises on the federal health care overhaul, U.S. Senator Mark Udall’s office worked assiduously to revise press accounts that 249,000 Coloradans received health care cancellation notices. Because the 249,000 figure was produced inside the Colorado Division of Insurance, Udall’s office lobbied that agency to revise the figure, or revise their...

The last time John Nunnemacher had health insurance was 15 years ago, when his employer paid for his coverage. Since then, the freelance graphic artist hasn't been able to afford a policy. Luckily, he didn't get seriously ill or have a bad accident -- which could have left the San Jose man bankrupt. But as of New Year's Day, the 43-year-old Nunnemacher was once again insured. Nearly four years after Congress passed a controversial health care law, tens of thousands of Californians like Nunnemacher can now see a doctor without begging for charity care.

Any health insurer providing coverage in Connecticut will now have to include sex-change surgery and hormone therapy in their plans, as ordered by the state insurance department. The Hartford Courant reported that the state agency sent out a notice to insurance companies, ordering that “individuals with gender dysphoria … are not denied access to medically necessary care because of the individuals’ gender identity or gender expression.” Now state officials are advancing on that notice with active campaigns. Deputy insurance commissioner Anne Melissa Dowling told the Courant that the state wanted to “go out and affirmatively make [the policy] very clear.”...

At the end of 2013, after serving five years, Barack Obama is a complete failure as President, by his own standards, as reflected in his own words. How many times has President Obama told us that he is “fighting for the middle class”? But real median family income has been in a continuous downward spiral since he became President, actually falling more since the recession ended in the summer of 2009 according to the National Bureau of Economic Research than during the recession. That has added up by now to the middle class losing a month’s pay a year under...

If you buy one of the less expensive insurance plans sold through the health law’s marketplaces, you may be in for a surprise. Some plans will not pay for a doctor visit before you meet your annual deductible, which could be thousands of dollars. This could be the next shoe to drop, as people don't realize that if they're buying a bronze plan, they may have to pay $5,000 out of pocket before it contributes a penny," said Carl McDonald, senior analyst with Citi Investment Research, speaking at a Washington, D.C., conference last month. Plans that list a price for...

During our family gathering yesterday my father-in-law (who is an labor arbitrator in a blue state) told me employers of 50+ full timers have always been required to offer health insurance. He essentially said the ACA's employer mandate is nothing new. I was flabbergasted and told him I thought he was wrong. He got HOT quick. So I dropped it. But its something I would like to verify and haven't been able to find anything. The subject is a big one for me because my 35-40 hours a week as a part time EMT will soon be cut down to...

A primary rationale of ObamaCare's insurance reforms limiting age-rating and precluding pricing based on health status has been to ensure that people will be able to afford health coverage when they need it most. An IBD analysis finds that middle-class households in their late 50s and early 60s could spend 25% or more of their income on health care — before their deductible is exhausted and ObamaCare's benefits kick in. Covered California's shop-and-compare tool shows that a 58-year-old couple in Los Angeles County with $65,000 in income buying a bronze plan would have to spend $19,400, including $9,400 in premiums...

The unraveling of the Affordable Care Act presents a historic opportunity for change. Its proponents call it "settled law," but as Prohibition taught us, not even a constitutional amendment is settled law—if it is dysfunctional enough, and if Americans can see a clear alternative. There is an alternative. A much freer market in health care and health insurance can work, can deliver high quality, technically innovative care at much lower cost, and solve the pathologies of the pre-existing system.

One week ago, we got a letter from NJ Horizon BCBS saying our current plan qualified under the Affordable Care Act. Today, we got a letter saying they were discontinuing our plan in April. Their "Bronze" Plan substitute , not covering our oldest two children, would cost 50% more, or 17K per year, and requires a 50% copay for specialists, and a 50% copay on drugs (the old plan didn't cover drugs.) We can't afford it. We barely can afford the old one. And I guess "Bronze" means "Lose your home and go bankrupt if you get cancer, but, hey,...

Krauthammer: Insurance Companies Ruined By ObamaCare Will Need a Bailout Next Year By Noel Sheppard Created 12/22/2013 - 12:00pm Syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer made a dire prediction Sunday. Appearing on Fox News Sunday, Krauthammer said that all the exemptions the President has given to ObamaCare will ruin insurance companies thereby necessitating the White House to ask for a huge government bailout of these companies next year that Republicans in Congress should prevent (video follows with transcript and commentary): CHRIS WALLACE, HOST: I want to go back to this point that George was talking about, because the President in his news...

Pajama Boy’s place in Internet infamy was secured as soon as the insufferable man-child was tweeted out by Organizing for America. The vision of the Obama Democrats, distilled to its essence, is of a direct relationship between the state and the individual without the mediating institutions of family, church and community that are an inherent check on government power. Alexis de Tocqueville wrote long ago of the infantilizing tendency of all-encompassing government. “It would be like the authority of a parent,” he wrote in a famous passage, “if, like that authority, its object was to prepare men for manhood; but...

Of all of the last-minute delays, website bungles, and Presidential whims that have marred the roll-out of Obamacare’s subsidized insurance exchanges, what happened on Thursday, December 12 will stand as one of the most lawless acts yet committed by this administration.

‘ObamaCare was sold on a trinity of lies.” That ornate phrase, more suitable for the Book of Revelations or perhaps the next “Game of Thrones,” installment comes from my colleague Rich Lowry. But I like it. Most people know the first deception in the triumvirate of deceit: “If you like your health insurance you can keep it, period.” The second leg in the tripod of deception was “If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor.” But the third plank in the triad of disinformation hasn’t gotten much attention: ObamaCare will save you, me and the country a lot...

ObamaCare Fail: An urgent mass email to all Senate staff warns not to trust any confirmation from the D.C. health exchange and they may not have insurance come January. Why aren't the rest of us being warned? We have chronicled the fact that ObamaCare, the increasingly unaffordable Affordable Care Act, has caused many with pre-existing conditions like stage-four cancer, the very people it was supposed to help, to lose their insurance at a critical point in their lives. For others, the skyrocketing premiums and often five-figure deductibles have made having insurance almost irrelevant. If you can't afford the premiums or...