Free Republic

Many Americans think the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) protects their medical privacy, but federal bureaucrats issue thousands of subpoenas every year without prior judicial approval to get around the law.“If you don’t have a reasonable expectation of privacy against government in your medical care, then where does it exist at all? If that’s not private, then what is?” Adam Bates, a criminal justice policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, told The Daily Caller News Foundation.Congress passed HIPAA in 1996 with a promise that it would clamp down on waste, fraud and abuse in the health care...

Encourages states to follow Texas’ lead WASHINGTON, D.C. — U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) today released the following statement praising the Texas Health and Human Services Commission’s decision to drop Planned Parenthood from the state’s Medicaid program:“Today, my home state of Texas proved that states can make a real difference in the fight to block taxpayer funding for Planned Parenthood,” Sen. Cruz said. “I’m proud of Texas for leading the way in affirming the sanctity of life, and I thank Gov. Abbott for his principled commitment to protecting the lives of unborn children. I encourage every state to follow Texas’...

Job Description Company DescriptionPlanned Parenthood of Los Angeles is Los Angeles County's women's and reproductive health care educational and clinical delivery Center of Excellence. PPLA provides the highest quality, most cost-effective services to residents, regardless of their insurance status or ability to pay. PPLA develops innovative partnerships with public and private insurance companies, provider organizations, and California's health benefit exchange to provide leadership in improving women's and reproductive health outcomes; to ensure and increase patient access; to increase patient satisfaction, by providing patient-centered care that is timely, efficient and equitable; and, to coordinate care that improves clinical, financial, and administrative...

“The detonation of an improvised nuclear device would produce intense heat, resulting in many patients with severe burns,” says a September 30 news release from the Department of Health and Human Services. The announcement says HHS has contracted for the development of “four novel products to treat severe thermal burns.” The products will boost the number of treatment options in case of disaster, and they’ll also be used in “routine” burn care situations. The four treatments—one commercially available right now and three in development—“will be added to the Strategic National Stockpile (SNS) or managed by vendors to help protect people...

South Dakota may join 30 other states in expanding its Medicaid program if federal officials approve a plan Gov. Dennis Daugaard is set to outline to the nation’s top health and human services administrator in Washington on Tuesday. The Republican governor is meeting with Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell to explain the plan, and the federal government has so far been more open to discussions than in the past, said Tony Venhuizen, chief of staff to Daugaard. The proposal, which is in its early stages, would make about 48,500 South Dakota residents newly eligible for the program. It’s...

For the first time in a decade, there was a notable increase last year in the number of U.S. children in foster care, according to new federal figures released Wednesday. The annual report from the Department of Health and Human Services tallied 415,129 children in the foster care system as of September 30, 2014, up from about 401,000 a year earlier. The peak was 524,000 children in foster care in 2002, and the number had dropped steadily since 2005 before rising slightly in 2013. The long-term drop resulted primarily from shifts in the policies and practices of state and county...

The week-long outcry over secretly-taped videos revealing Planned Parenthood's practice of selling body parts of aborted fetuses won't be investigated by the federal agency that provided $67.2 million between 2010 and 2012 -- or even watched by the department's boss.The House Education and the Workforce Committee Tuesday released videos of testimony from Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell explaining why she won't probe the Planned Parenthood affair. It included this back and forth:(video at link)Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.): Have you seen those videos?Burwell: I have not seen the videos. I have read the articles about them.Also:Rep. Rick Allen (R-GA):...

Sends letter to Secretary Kerry questioning inappropriate use of UAC funds among other concernsWASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) recently sent a letter to Secretary of State John Kerry asking more questions about a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) document that appears to contradict key aspects of the Administration’s policy regarding the handling of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC). This letter represents the latest step in Sen. Cruz’s thorough examination of the Administration’s multi-agency approach to last year’s UAC influx, and follows two prior letters to HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell on the subject: Sen. Cruz’s...

A Catholic politician sued the Obama administration, arguing that as a Catholic he has a right to be able to purchase health insurance that doesn't cover contraceptives, sterilization procedures, and abortifacients. Paul Wieland serves in the Missouri House. He is a member of the Knights of Columbus. He has three daughters, who, because of the actions of the Obama administration, will have access to free contraceptives. “As a parent, it is disturbing,” said Wieland in an older news report. “We value our faith and make a sacrifice to teach our children the faith, to send them to Catholic schools. We...

Christians are called to live in the real, fallen world, not a wistful fantasyland where everyone tells the truth, secretly means well, and is just a winsome podcast or three-minute hug away from repentance and salvation. Stuff’s getting real out there. The principalities and powers are waxing cocky. They’ve started to drop their masks and strut their horns and hooves by daylight. Believers can only benefit by calling things as they are. Our thin-skinned friends might wince at first and shun us, but give them a little while, and one after another will call late at night and say, “I...

Little Sisters of the Poor. Courtesy of the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty. Denver, Colo., Jul 14, 2015 / 11:29 am (CNA/EWTN News).- The Little Sisters of the Poor have reiterated their commitment to following their conscience as they care for the poor and dying, following a federal appeals court ruling that they must obey the federal contraception mandate. “As Little Sisters of the Poor, we simply cannot choose between our care for the elderly poor and our faith,” said Mother Provincial Sr. Loraine Marie Maguire. “And we should not have to make that choice, because it violates our nation’s...

Despite repeatedly losing its cases over the Obamacare contraceptive mandate at the U.S. Supreme Court, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Friday that it will continue to force religious organizations to distribute contraceptives – including the “week-after pill” – to their employees. As a news release at the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty states, the Obama administration has been handed “multiple losses in contraceptive mandate cases at the Supreme Court,” including the Hobby Lobby decision, and cases involving the Little Sisters of the Poor and Wheaton College. Last week, the Supreme Court ordered the Obama administration not to...

The Obama administration wants you to bring a side of healthcare politics to your family picnic this weekend. After ObamaCare’s big win at the Supreme Court last week, federal health officials are serving up some tips about talking to family members who may be less-than-enthused that ObamaCare is here to stay. “You should be prepared when Aunt Janine says something like, ‘Obamacare hasn’t helped anyone!’” a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services wrote in a blog post on Thursday. For instance, if your Uncle Ted starts calling Obamacare a train wreck, you should calmly explain that he’s...

Earlier this week, religious employers suffered another loss at the hands of the coercive Obamacare Health and Human Services mandate. A U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit panel ruled against East Texas Baptist University and a group of other non-profit religious employers in their challenge to the Obamacare requirement that they facilitate health care coverage for employees that includes contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs and devices, or fill out a form notifying the Department of Health and Human Services that they have a religious objection to providing such coverage. This so-called “accommodation” then initiates the process of the government...

The federal government cannot verify nearly $3 billion in subsidies distributed through Obamacare, putting significant taxpayer funding “at risk,” according to a new audit report. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released an audit Tuesday finding that the agency did not have an internal system to ensure that subsidies went to the right enrollees, or in the correct amounts. “[The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] CMS’s internal controls did not effectively ensure the accuracy of nearly $2.8 billion in aggregate financial assistance payments made to insurance companies under the Affordable Care Act...

The Obama administration on Monday ordered all insurers to provide IUDs, the contraceptive patch and other birth control free of out-of-pocket charge to all women, rewriting the rules after reports that some insurance carriers were refusing to cover all types of contraceptives. Insurers must cover at least one brand of contraception in each of 18 different methods outlined by the Food and Drug Administration, such as oral contraceptive pills, the emergency contraceptive morning-after pill and intrauterine devices. Insurers can in some cases still impose costs to prod women to use generics rather than brand-name drugs, under the new guidance —...

The Supreme Court issued an order today preventing the Obama administration from forcing a Catholic group in Michigan to obey the HHS mandate that requires them to pay for abortion-causing drugs for their employees. This is the fifth time the Supreme Court has rebuked the Obama administration and prevented it from making such a mandate. For the sixth time in a row, the Supreme Court took steps to protect another religious objector from the HHS mandate. It ordered a lower court to reconsider its ruling that denied a group of Catholic ministries in Michigan the freedom to follow their faith.  “The government keeps making the same...

The Supreme Court has again thwarted the Obama administration’s illegal crusade to coerce employers into violating their religious convictions. Late last Wednesday, Associate Justice Samuel Alito stayed an order secured by the administration in a lower court that would have forced several Catholic organizations to comply with Obamacare’s contraception mandate. Despite a high-profile Supreme Court defeat last June in Burwell v. Hobby Lobby, President Obama’s HHS bureaucrats and lawyers have continued their attempts to bully obviously exempt entities into obeying the mandate. Justice Alito’s action constitutes the fifth time SCOTUS has been compelled to rein the government in. The Court...

U.S. Supreme Court. Washington D.C., Apr 18, 2015 / 04:25 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The U.S. Supreme Court has continued its trend of decisions stopping enforcement of a federal contraception mandate against religious employers with moral objections. On April 15, Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito issued an order barring the federal government from enforcing the mandate against Catholic Charities affiliates, Catholic schools and social service organizations in the dioceses of Erie and Pittsburgh. “Every time a religious plaintiff has gone to the Supreme Court for protection from the government’s discriminatory mandate the Court has protected them,” Lori Windham, senior counsel for...

The Obama Justice Department has filed its much anticipated corruption indictment against Senator Robert Menendez. He is the New Jersey Democrat who, from his powerful senior seat on the Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee, has vehemently opposed President Obama’s negotiations with the jihadist regime in Iran, as well as his outreach to Castro’s Cuba. Two things about the Obama administration cannot be denied. First, the president is desperate to cut a deal with the mullahs on their nuclear program, so much so that he has erased virtually every red line he ever purported to draw and has not been shy about...