Free Republic

"""Democrats’ Border Separation Bill Would Let Nearly All Parents Who Commit Federal Crimes Get Off Scot-Free"""" Democrats’ proposed legislation to prohibit so-called border separations would actually prevent federal law enforcement agencies almost anywhere inside the United States from arresting and detaining criminals who are parents having nothing to do with unlawfully crossing the border and seeking asylum. Every Senate Democrat has now signed on to cosponsor a bill written so carelessly that it does not distinguish between migrant children at the border and U.S. citizen children already within the United States. The bill further does not distinguish between federal officers...

IDozens of protesters, many in wheelchairs, demonstrated Sunday outside the Northside Indianapolis home of a member of President Donald Trump's cabinet. The protesters from ADAPT chanted and hoisted signs at the home of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar, near 75th Street and Washington Boulevard, in Meridian Hills. ADAPT, a national advocacy group for the disabled, says the protest was meant to draw attention to its claim that shock devices are used on developmentally disabled patients at the Judge Rotenberg Educational Center in Canton, Mass., and the Food and Drug Administration has stalled on rules on that would end...

On Friday, President Trump’s Department of Health and Human Services announced it would be updating the Title X regulation framework to better enforce the letter of the law, which outlaws federal funding for abortion, and to ensure that federal family planning dollars do not go to facilities that perform abortion. This new framework is based largely on President Reagan’s similar Title X regulation in 1988, which was challenged in court but eventually upheld by the Supreme Court in Rust v. Sullivan.However, up to now, the framework has never truly been enforced. President Clinton quickly ditched it as soon as he took...

Abortion proponents on Monday made clear their displeasure with the Trump administration’s proposed conscience protections for healthcare providers, saying in effect that doctors and nurses who have religious objections to abortion should be forced to participate in the practice nonetheless. The Department of Health and Human Services’ (HHS) proposed rule, which largely reinstates a George W. Bush-era policy that had been scuttled by the Obama administration, is founded on a number of federal laws guaranteeing that individuals and associations participating in healthcare programs receiving federal funding — a category that today encompasses the vast majority of care in the United...

Planned Parenthood, the nation’s largest abortion provider, is encouraging their supporters to tell the Department of Health Human Services (HHS) that a proposed rule to strengthen conscience protections for healthcare providers is “dangerous” and “encourages discrimination.” The rule requires health care providers to notify their employees of protections against religious discrimination on job applications and employee manuals. The rule also allows the HHS Office of Civil Rights (OCR) to enforce protections for religious medical providers.  Add your comment against the Trump administration's rule that encourages discrimination. https://t.co/cXcbOvypn8 #LicenseToDiscriminate pic.twitter.com/AHzgrVzzle— Planned Parenthood (@PPact) February 1, 2018 Planned Parenthood says the rule...

<p>Idaho officials said they will begin allowing insurers to sell new plans that don't meet requirements set by the Affordable Care Act, a move that will test the limits of states' ability to carve out their own health-insurance rules.</p> <p>Wednesday, the Idaho Department of Insurance said it would allow insurers in the state to begin offering "state-based plans" to consumers. These products could leave out some of the benefits mandated by the ACA for individual coverage. Insurers would be able to consider enrollees' medical history in setting their premiums, a practice known as underwriting, which isn't authorized under the ACA. The new state-based plans could also include dollar limits on total benefit payouts, which the ACA banned.</p>

A former pharmaceutical industry official who says drug prices are too high will now be in charge of buying more medications than anyone in the world. Alex Azar, former president of the U.S. arm of Eli Lilly & Co., was confirmed Wednesday as the secretary of health and human services. In that role, he'll oversee the Food and Drug Administration, which regulates prescription drugs including those produced by his former employer. He'll also oversee Medicare and Medicaid, which together spend hundreds of billions of dollars each year on prescription medications. He'll take over the agency at a time when rising...

Donald Trump once described himself as “pro-choice in every respect.” On Thursday, his administration announced a new office to protect doctors and nurses who object to providing abortion services and other medical care on moral and religious grounds. Acting HHS Secretary Eric Hargan announced the new “Conscience and Religious Freedom” office, housed in the agency’s Civil Rights division, saying Trump had promised his administration “would vigorously uphold the rights of conscience and religious freedom. That promise is being kept today.” It’s a major victory for the pro-life movement, especially given Trump’s past comments about his support for abortion. Trump is...

The Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) released Jane Moe, a 17-year-old unaccompanied minor seeking an abortion, Sunday from a federally funded shelter to a sponsor where she will be free to obtain an abortion with her own funding. ORR had previously planned to release her by January 26th but did so two weeks early after the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) issued a complaint on Moe's behalf.In their Thursday complaint, the ACLU was seeking not only a preliminary injunction preventing government officials from obstructing Moe’s abortion access but also a permanent injunction against ORR’s...

The Thomas More Society filed a complaint Thursday with the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Civil Rights (OCR) against the state of Illinois over a new law that requires pro-life pregnancy centers to discuss the benefits of abortion and sterilization procedures. The law also requires the centers, if asked, to refer patients to abortion providers despite the centers’ opposition to these procedures.The Thomas More Society is representing Dr. Jim Gallant and Hope Life Center, a pro-life pregnancy center in Sterling, Illinois. In the complaint, the groups argue that the new requirements violate existing federal law including the Hyde-Weldon...

Multiple agencies in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have reportedly been told by the Trump administration that they cannot use certain phrases in official documents. Officials from two HHS agencies, who asked that their names and agencies remain anonymous, told The Washington Post that they had been given a list of "forbidden" words similar to the one given to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). A second HHS agency was told not to use the phrases “entitlement,” “diversity” and “vulnerable," in documents. It was also told to use "ObamaCare" as opposed to the "Affordable Care Act" and...

Christian groups and businesses once again may be forced to pay for birth control, including forms that may cause abortions, after a federal judge ruled against the Trump administration Friday. In October, President Donald Trump’s administration provided relief from the Obamacare birth control mandate by granting wider exceptions to religious groups. The new rules provided relief to groups like the nuns of Little Sisters of the Poor and the religious owners of Hobby Lobby, which were forced to challenge the mandate to the U.S. Supreme Court or face crippling fines. However, several state attorneys general challenged the decision. On Friday,...

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing the March for Life Education and Defense Fund have filed motions in two federal courts asking to be allowed to help defend Department of Health and Human Services rules issued in October that protect pro-life nonprofit organizations from the Obama-era abortion-pill mandate. ADF attorneys also represent Dordt College in Iowa in one of the motions. Both March for Life and Dordt College have been involved in separate lawsuits challenging the mandate, which forces employers, regardless of their moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs under threat of heavy financial penalties. The new HHS...

Full title: Leftist Group that Gets Millions from U.S. Offers to Pay Legal Fees of Arrested Tax Reform Protesters A leftist nonprofit that offered to pay the legal and transportation expenses of tax reform protestors receives tens of millions of dollars from the government, according to records obtained by Judicial Watch. The New York City-based group, Housing Works, describes itself as a “healing community of people living with and affected by HIV/AIDS.” Its mission is to end homelessness and AIDS through advocacy, lifesaving services and businesses that sustain the efforts. Last week, Housing Works organized a big demonstration in Washington...

The Department of Health and Human Services is set to make a very public stand for unborn Americans. In a break from previous administrations, including when George W. Bush was in office, the HHS has indicated that life begins at conception in their new strategic plan, which will cover fiscal years 2018-2022. As the American Center for Law and Justice explains, stating this in official public policy is huge for the pro-life cause, emphasis mine. Starting in 2010, HHS has been required to release a strategic plan every four years. This time their plan, for the first time ever, has...

Obama Administration Used Confidential Taxpayer Information to Push Obamacare It’s Government Gone Wild Time In Washington, DC Judicial Watch Sues Justice Department for Mueller Russian Special Counsel Budget Obama Administration Used Confidential Taxpayer Information to Push Obamacare Your Judicial Watch uncovered yet another Obama IRS scandal – and one that includes the massive Health and Human Services (HHS) running Obamacare AND the Obama White House directly! We received two productions of documents, 77 pages and 108 pages , from the IRS revealing that the Obama IRS coordinated with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Obama White...

Make no mistake: Bobby Jindal is far and away the best choice to replace Tom Price as secretary of Health and Human Services. Dan McLaughlin at NRO and Steve Berman at The Resurgent both made the case earlier this week for why President Trump would be wise to pick Jindal, whose health-care policy chops and general seriousness about good governance are undisputed. Berman notes that, among all the other candidates floated recently by Axios and Politico, “Jindal is the best qualified person to run HHS, to craft health care policy, to shepherd legislation through Congress, and to speak intelligently on...

America hired a reality television star with no experience in government. All the electorate remembered was that Donald Trump was good at saying "you're fired" on prime-time television. So, they hired him as president, and, on Friday at around 5 p.m., they got their money's worth. Trump just accepted the resignation of disgraced Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price. It's the right thing to do, and it's a great move. What's more, by cutting Price, Trump has shown a leadership that Obama never would.For one of the first times in almost a decade, the buck has stopped at the...

As the body and injury counts rise in East Texas and Louisiana, an uncounted number — one that doesn’t bring the same media attention as deaths — is rising too: the number of lives saved. When President Trump called Hurricane Harvey a natural disaster and Health and Human Services Secretary Dr. Tom Price followed by declaring a public health emergency, they initiated a coordinated federal, state and local health care response that has likely saved thousands of lives. Price spoke to me at his operations center at HHS last week, and he emphasized that responders are facing everything from a...

DENVER­–The Left views The American Legislative Exchange Council as a pawn of corporate influence. There were some protests at the organizations annual meeting in Denver, Colorado in July. They were mild. No fires were started, and no vandalism occurred. They came, they chanted, and then they dispersed. That was it. While progressives chanted the usual liberal talking points outside of the Hyatt Regency in downtown Denver, a significant number of state legislators were figuring out a way to knock out what seems to be an unstoppable killer: opioids. Around 1,700 people attended the event held in July, where the topic...