Free Republic

If the new health care law wasn’t enough of a mess before last week’s Supreme Court decision, that ruling actually added another layer of cost, complexity and political contentiousness to the bill. By striking down part of the law that required states to expand their Medicaid programs, the court tossed a very hot potato into the laps of state lawmakers everywhere. ObamaCare required states to increase eligibility for Medicaid to 133 percent of the poverty line, or roughly $30,000 per year for a family of four. The expansion would also make childless single men (a notoriously high-cost group) eligible for...

Thank you, SCOTUS. This Obamacare ruling fires up the troops as America’s eyes are opened! Thank God. This proves to be such an unsettling time in America as we undergo the fundamental transformation that Barack Obama promised he would do to us if elected. Obamacare was dealt in deception and confusion by flooding the public with an overwhelming amount of conflicting “rationale” via thousands of pages of unread legislative detail, which is the radical left’s M.O. Obama promised the American people this wasn’t a tax and that he’d never raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000. We now see...

Two illegal immigrants initially denied potentially lifesaving organ transplants could eventually receive the procedures at two area hospitals, according to a source close to the men. The University of Illinois at Chicago Medical Center last week agreed to begin evaluating Lorenzo Arroyo, 36, for a liver transplant, while Loyola University Medical Center agreed to evaluate Jorge Mariscal, 23, for a kidney transplant, said the Rev. Jose Landaverde of Our Lady of Guadalupe Anglican Catholic Mission in Little Village. The two men have been previously treated for their conditions at those respective institutions. In a statement, UIC confirmed a transplant evaluation...

On the surface, the title of this article seems paradoxical. How can any conservative in the USA even contemplate the concept of the government creating a single-payer health insurance system covering all Americans and, in effect, ending private major medical health insurance? In this post I hope to make the conservative case for a single payer incontrovertible for those occupying the centre-right politically. Conservatives are supposed to be the defenders of business. Yet our current health care system works as an albatross around the neck of American business. Likewise, the piecemeal reforms of ObamaCare seem only to make some problems...

Former Sen. Norm Coleman is advising Mitt Romney. He has also advised us not to get our hopes up about Obamacare repeal. "You will not repeal the act in its entirety, but you will see major changes, particularly if there is a Republican president," Coleman told BioCentury This Week television in an interview that aired on Sunday. "You can't whole-cloth throw it out. But you can substantially change what's been done."

Are you having difficulty finding a doctor who will see you? If you are, brace yourself. Things are about to get a whole lot worse. Right now, the biggest problems are in Massachusetts. If you live in Boston and are trying to see a new family doctor, get prepared to wait more than two months before you ever get a foot in the door. For the state as a whole, the average wait to see a new family doctor is one month. More than half of all family doctors and more than half of all internists are not accepting new...

There are quite a few problems with Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar's December 28 coverage ("New fee coming for medical effectiveness research") concerning a new fee (i.e., tax) which will imposed on health insurance companies for each person they cover starting tomorrow. Several times (twice in the body and once as seen above in the headline), the story refers to the assessment as a "medical effectiveness research" fee (without quotes). Just once, in the eleventh paragraph, does Alonso-Zaldivar call it by its far more widely-known name (written as indicated): "comparative effectiveness" research. But the item which stuck out like a sore thumb with...

Remember when they laughed off, ridiculed and otherwise denied Sarah Palin’s assertion that Obamacare would usher in death panels? Listen to this neurosurgeon, fresh from a seminar in Washington DC, tell about what it is that the HHS has in store for seniors: (AUDIO AT LINK) The Anchoress calls it what it is. Evil: So if you are a 70 year-old Nancy Pelosi, or Paul Krugman — with a potent private health insurance plan such as the one enjoyed by Members of Congress and other bureaucrats — you will get every appropriate surgery and treatment applicable. But if you are...

On the Republican campaign trail, he derides any such public aid. But the healthcare law he signed as Massachusetts governor allows it. Reporting from Washington— The Massachusetts healthcare law that then-Gov. Mitt Romney signed in 2006 includes a program known as the Health Safety Net, which allows undocumented immigrants to get needed medical care along with others who lack insurance. Uninsured, poor immigrants can walk into a health clinic or hospital in the state and get publicly subsidized care at virtually no cost to them, regardless of their immigration status.

State officials refused to say yesterday how many families they’ve fined this year for buying too little health insurance under former Gov. Mitt Romney’s controversial health-care reform after blistering criticism from GOP presidential candidate Newt Gingrich thrust the issue into the national spotlight. “We are releasing the 2009 report at the end of the year,” Health Insurance Connector Authority spokesman Richard Powers said. He said officials haven’t sorted the data to identify why the 2010 and 2011 fines were handed out but said between 46,000 to 49,000 people were fined in 2009 for having no insurance or having less insurance...

The portrait of a health care reformerBen SmithOctober 10, 2011 Governor Mitt Romney's official portrait in the Massachusetts State House — unveiled in 2009 — pictures him seated with various meaningful objects, including a folder on the desk behind him. That folder, the AP wrote at the time, is "a leather bill binder emblazoned with a medical seal, symbolizing the first-in-the-nation universal health care law he signed in April 2006."It is, a reader reminds me, rather strong evidence that Romney considered the law his crowning policy achievement.

Hospitals in Mass. feel fiscal squeeze 16 reported losses; service cuts feared [RomneyCARE at work] "Massachusetts hospitals are buckling under growing financial strains, with 16 - nearly a quarter of them - losing money last year ... Thirteen hospitals in the state also suffered losses in 2009, but the deficits at many of them widened in 2010 ... Health care professionals say the financial squeeze is likely to tighten ... So far, few have resorted to cutting medical services, but there are concerns that could happen." "Hard-pressed hospitals have done away with thousands of jobs over the past few years....

Modern Medical Care is a Blessing Not a Right As last year’s health reform bill again permeates our public discourse many pundits have highlighted how socializing medicine will exacerbate our already precarious budget concerns. Much was also written regarding the evasion of public sentiment when Congress employed especially repugnant procedural tactics. While these aspects ridicule the hypocrisy of our elected representatives, they are secondary. Healthcare is not a right. It's a blessing. Medical treatment or more specifically how we finance it, cannot be considered an unalienable right. It’s a form of consumption. Your right to own a car does not...

The good news for Mitt Romney is that we’ve finally found someone else who agrees that Romneycare has been a “resounding success.” The bad news? That person is this state’s liberal governor, Deval Patrick. As The Wall Street Journal noted in their devastating editorial take-down of Romneycare last week: “It’s no accident that [Romneycare’s] most vociferous defenders now are in the White House and left-wing media and think tanks.” And it’s also no accident that Romneycare’s out-of-control costs and soaring premiums have forced its defenders to reach for radical solutions. In Patrick’s case, it’s a “global payments” system. Under Patrick’s...

In a brief filed Monday in the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals, Coakley says the fact that Romney and the Massachusetts Legislature imposed an individual mandate as part of their health care law suggests that Congress had a "rational basis" for imposing a similar mandate in its law. “Obamacare is bad law constitutionally, bad policy, and it is bad for America’s families,” Romney said.

What do Mitt Romney and Mitch Daniels have in common? Both are Republican governors who have presidential aspirations, and they are making the rounds on political talk shows to keep a high profile. Both men also face a common roadblock: Both have to explain how they can oppose ObamaCare while implementing programs in their state that are awfully close to the rules of Obama’s programs.

Former Gov. Mitt Romney came under new fire from all sides yesterday over his landmark Bay State health-care overhaul as potential 2012 Republican rivals and local Democrats took turns blasting the GOP presidential front-runner. “I’ve talked to residents of Massachusetts, and what I’ve gotten is that (health-care reform is) really not working well at all,” said former New Mexico Gov. Gary Johnson, who is believed to be considering a 2012 bid. Johnson declined to comment on whether health care will hurt Romney’s candidacy, saying, “whatever the criticism is about a candidate, everyone already knows it. I don’t (have to) say...

Offering a sneak peak of the 2012 Republican primary, a spokesman for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney on Thursday defended the sweeping health insurance overhaul that Romney helped enact in Massachusetts in response to criticism from former and possibly future presidential rival Mike Huckabee. “Mitt Romney is proud of what he accomplished for Massachusetts in getting everyone covered,’’ said Romney spokesman Eric Fehrnstrom. “What's important now is to return to the states the power to determine their own health care solutions by repealing Obamacare. A one-size-fits-all plan for the entire nation just doesn't work.''

Moments ago, Rep. Tom Graves was arguing that the amendment to defund the implementation of the national health care would stop the law dead in its tracks. ... "In two previous gentlemen’s statements on the amendment, both of them referred to the Affordable Care Act, which is the accurate title of the health care reform law, as ‘ObamaCare,’" Wasserman Schultz said. "That is a disparaging reference to the President of the United States. It is meant as a disparaging reference to the President of the United States. It is clearly in violation of the House rules."

Ruling that the ObamaCare insurance mandate is unconstitutional is like saying that water is wet. Of course it's an unconstitutional abuse of federal power. If the feds can force people to buy health insurance there is virtually no limit to the reach of federal meddling into the affairs of life. In a sense, it's fortunate that the unmitigated arrogance of Obama, Reid and Pelosi -- as witnessed in the healthcare "reform" debacle -- is pushing even postmodern constitutional jurisprudence to its very limits. Two federal district court judges have concluded that ObamaCare is constitutional. In doing so, they wandered into...