Free Republic

Should you be able to drive without car insurance? Yes, in some states you can. If you have a major car wreck — without insurance — should you be able to call the insurance company from the crash site to buy it then and there? GLENN: Look, the best way to explain this — the best way to explain what’s happening to our insurance companies is this: Would anyone think it’s fair to say to an auto insurance company, I’m not going to buy any auto insurance unless I’m in a wreck. PAT: Uh-huh. GLENN: So when the police comes...

I can understand a government case per the 16th amendment for a tax deduction (not a tax credit) extended to individuals and small business to offset the cost of health care premiums, however, I see no constitutional authority for the federal government to dictate to private insurance providers that they MUST cover preexisting conditions or that they MUST charge a 30% (or whatever) surcharge if a customer lets his policy lapse and then wants to sign up again later. Whether these are "good ideas" or not, where is the constitutional authority?

There are a lot of unpleasant numbers for Republicans in the Congressional Budget Office’s assessment of their health care bill. But congressional leadership found one to cheer: The report says that the bill will eventually cut the average insurance premiums for people who buy their own insurance by 10 percent. House Speaker Paul Ryan pressed that point in a series of appearances Monday night, suggesting that the budget office had found that the House bill would increase choice and competition and lead to lower prices. The Senate majority leader, Mitch McConnell, issued a statement saying, “The Congressional Budget Office agrees...

The CBO has released its estimated cost of the new GOP health care plan and the numbers are getting some bad spin from the usual suspects. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) on Monday projected that the number of people without health insurance would grow by 14 million in 2018 under the Republican ­ObamaCare replacement bill, with that number rising to 24 million in a decade. The Hill described the report as a "bombshell."The Washington Post called it "cruel."The New York Times said Republicans were anticipating an "almost certain to be a bleak accounting" of the plan.The implicit standard in...

It’s hard to imagine a more sensitive type of personal information than your own genetic blueprints. With varying degrees of accuracy, the four-base code can reveal bits of your family’s past, explain some of your current traits and health, and may provide a glimpse into your future with possible conditions and health problems you could face. And that information doesn’t just apply to you but potentially your blood relatives, too.Most people would likely want to keep the results of genetic tests highly guarded—if they want their genetic code deciphered at all. But, as STAT reports, a new bill that is...

The first sentence of Congress' Obamacare repeal should read: "There shall be a free market in health insurance.” Right there, I've solved the health insurance crisis for 90 percent of Americans. Unfortunately, no one can imagine what a free market in health care looks like because we haven't had one for nearly a century. On NBC's "Meet the Press" this weekend, for example, Chuck Todd told Sen. Tom Cotton that his proposal to create affordable health care that would be widely available, "sounds good," but "do you understand why some people think that's an impossible promise to keep?” (The "do...

The tax agency has stopped requiring individual filers to indicate whether they maintained health coverage or paid the mandate penalty as required under the law How much difference does a single line on a tax form make? For Obamacare's individual mandate, the answer might be quite a lot. Following President Donald Trump's executive order instructing agencies to provide relief from the health law, the Internal Revenue Service appears to be taking a more lax approach to the coverage requirement. The health law's individual mandate requires everyone to either maintain qualifying health coverage or pay a tax penalty, known as a...

Liberals are notorious for caring about “groups” of people, but when it gets down to individual persons, not so much. You’re about to see this play out in spades as Democrats cry crocodile tears over the coming repeal of Obamacare.You hear it over and over again: “This will be catastrophic for the 20 million people who were previously uninsured but now have coverage! You can’t take away their health care!”First of all, no one is talking about doing that. Any repeal legislation will have a transition period for those who got coverage through Obamacare to move to new plans. And...

Thursday, I laid out the case for why Obamacare should be repealed, instead of propped up and tinkered on by additional top-down, boardroom thinking. It’s clear that whatever replaces Obamacare must focus on quality and incremental local solutions, not one-size-fits-all government mandates.In this respect, the federal government’s biggest task for replacing Obamacare is to get out of the way and let state policymakers and health care providers innovate.First off, let’s get clear what Americans want: They’d like many choices of affordable health insurance plans that allow them to choose their doctors. They want to buy a plan when they are...

Obamacare, the left’s grand attempt to create a national government-run health care system, has failed. They promised lower health insurance premiums, but delivered higher ones. They promised more choice and competition, but delivered less. They promised continuity and better access to care, but delivered disruption and dislocation. Despite promises that people could keep their plans and doctors, thousands of Americans were forced into more expensive insurance with higher deductibles and plans that didn’t include their doctors. After spending billions in tax dollars, Obamacare managed to increase the number of people with health insurance by much less than predicted—with over 80...

Ok folks, where can we find true catastrophic health insurance? I'm looking for a low cost option that will preferably have a 25K-30K deductible, do the traditional exclusions, and provide real protection in case some catastrophic health event occurs. Specifically I'm in the Republic of Texas, which might have to secede from the Union if this baloney doesn't change :( Oh yes it will not be "Affordable Care Act" (ACA) compliant. But with premiums rising through the roof that law is now essentially a 2.5% tax on anyone healthy by the year 2018. Can you say "Oh Bum No Care"?...

ObamaCare has had a disastrous effect on the health insurance market in this country, and it takes a hell of a lot of nerve for this guy to stand there and say it couldn't possibly have anything to do with him Sure, it’s classic Obama deflection. He could probably smear dog crap on the bottom of your shoe and somehow make the case that it was all because of Republicans. He is that brazen. But it’s also a classic case of something Obama shares with many other liberals - the utter failure to understand that when the government messes around...

The House of Representatives has passed a bill to protect more than 800,000 former members of 17 failed Obamacare CO-OPs from having to pay a penalty for being uninsured when they file their 2016 tax returns. The CO-OP Consumer Protection Act (H.R.954), which passed last week on a 258-165 vote, would “amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to exempt from the individual mandate certain individuals who had coverage under a terminated qualified health plan funded by the Consumer Operated and Oriented Plan (CO-OP) program.” Some of the failed non-profit CO-OPs - which American Action Forum president Douglas Holtz-Eakin called...

Are you one of 20 million uninsured Americans who hasn’t signed up for Obamacare? Then you might be getting a note from the IRS this year “suggesting” you enroll. “Getting a letter from the IRS can be a threatening and nerve-racking experience; it seldom is seen as a suggestion and more of a threat,” Galen Institute President Grace-Marie Turner wrote in a Forbes column Wednesday. The IRS is reportedly “reaching out” to Americans who claimed an exemption or chose to pay the tax penalty for not purchasing mandatory health insurance. The ploy is intended to “attract” Obamacare enrollees. “The government...

Oregon's Senator Jeff Merkley Dear Diana, Thank you for contacting me to express your concerns about the rising cost of health insurance premiums in Oregon. I appreciate hearing from you and having the opportunity to share my perspective. I believe the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a vast improvement over the system we had before. Even with higher premiums in 2017 than during the first three years of the marketplace, premiums continue to rise at an historically low rate, far below where they were predicted to be if the pre-ACA trend of premium increases had continued. Millions of Americans are...

The Obamacare insurance co-ops have collapsed. Of the original 23, only three are expected to survive past 2017. The insurance companies are losing hundreds of millions of dollars on the healthcare insurance exchanges. Their reaction is to pull out of a number of them in order to reduce their exposure; a process they repeatedly employ to shed under-performing products called “purging”. To make up for these losses, insurers are expected to raise 2017 premiums across the board on all policies. The Kaiser Foundation expects an average increase of nine percent for policies on the exchanges, but in the individual market,...

Cox told Business Insider that the situation in Pinal County will likely raise calls for a public option, or a government-run health insurance option similar to Medicare or Medicaid.

UnitedHealthcare, Humana—and now Aetna—are abandoning Obamacare exchanges because they’re unprofitable. Meanwhile, for the first time in 10 years, the U.S. death rate has increased. CDC researcher Andrew Fenelon told the Associated Press: “…it is quite rare to see it [a death rate increase] for the whole population. … Many countries in Europe are witnessing declines in mortality, so the gap between the U.S. and other countries is growing.” For 80 percent of the past decade, President Obama has been president. Obamacare was unconstitutionally rammed through Congress on Christmas Eve of 2009. Isn’t it interesting that in 2016—with Obamacare in full...

CHICAGO--Health insurance premiums for Illinois residents who buy coverage through the Affordable Care Act's marketplace could increase by as much as 45 percent according to proposals submitted by insurers and made public Monday. The leading insurer on Illinois' exchange, Blue Cross Blue Shield, is proposing increases for 2017 ranging from 23 percent to 45 percent for individual health care plans, according to proposals posted by Heathcare.gov. Another insurer, Coventry Health Care of Illinois, proposed rate increases as high as 21 percent. Harken Health Insurance Company has proposed a nearly 29 percent hike in individual premiums and Health Alliance Medical Plans...

WASHINGTON — A federal appeals court has ruled that consumers must be allowed to buy certain types of health insurance that do not meet the stringent standards of the Affordable Care Act, deciding that the administration had gone beyond the terms of federal law. The court struck down a rule issued by the Obama administration that barred the sale of such insurance as a separate stand-alone product. “Disagreeing with Congress’s expressly codified policy choices isn’t a luxury administrative agencies enjoy,” the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit said on Friday in a decision that criticized...