Free Republic

* Many CEOs are angry with the Obama administration thanks to three new cases challenging parts of his 'wellness program' * In order to participate in the 'wellness program' and receive a low health care rate under Obamacare, employees must take a physical * Now it is being argued in three cases that forcing someone to take a physical for work violates the Americans with Disabilities Act * The CEOs now have a number of ways they can undermine Obama because of this developmentLeading U.S. CEOs, angered by the Obama administration's challenge to certain 'workplace wellness' programs, are threatening to...

Because many doctors and hospitals have been dropped from ObamaCare, their services are not eligible for ObamaCare payments. What would happen to their patients who are now suddenly forced into ObamaCare? The Affordable Care Act specifies in Section 1401of its voluminous content that subsidies cannot be paid to people residing in states that do not have a State Exchange. The decision was upheld in the D.C. Federal Circuit Court and the Supreme Court will make a decision in June 2015. In the Commonwealth of Virginia, no subsidy will thus be paid on the 80 percent of subscribers’ premiums who enrolled...

On October 20, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan lost in the U.S. Supreme Court. The justices dismissed their case without review. The charges of fraud, as well as the court-ordered $6 million penalty, are now a matter of record. Blue Cross is guilty of "self-dealing," or looking after its own self-interests. Blue Cross stole money for years. Since 1993, it inflated hospital bills and charged hidden administrative fees to Michigan-based Hi-Lex Controls Inc. Hi-Lex is not the only one. At least 50 other lawsuits have been filed. Hi-Lex Controls is a self-insured auto parts dealer. Thus, it uses its...

LANSING, Mich., Nov. 17 -- The Michigan State Senate Republicans issued the following news on the behalf of Michigan State Sen. Patrick Colbeck: On Saturday, November 15, state Sen. Patrick Colbeck, R-Canton, spoke at the national ProFamily Legislators Conference in Dallas on potential health care changes in Michigan that would lower prices, provide better care and reduce bureaucracy.

Crony Capitalism: The New York Times this week reports that ObamaCare has made strange bedfellows between the insurance industry and the federal government. Who could have imagined that?

Members enrolled in Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania’s Affordable Care Act plans will see their premium rates rise by an average of 6.9 percent in 2015. Officials for the Wilkes-Barre-based insurer declined to specify how many members are covered by its Affordable Care Act plans. Its website shows 12 available 2014 “Blue (Affordable Care Act) Metal” plans. “The increases are necessary to meet the coverage requirements, including essential health benefits, of the (Affordable Care Act) and to keep up with the cost of care for members in our ACA products,” said Anthony Matrisciano, spokesman for Blue Cross of NEPA, which...

Happiness is having health insurance only institutionalizes the idea that one can’t enjoy life if they don’t have coverage In all likelihood, you haven’t taken a look at the new vocabulary of healthcare and the change that it has instituted in how we perceive health and, as a result, healthcare—these perceptions that underlie the concept of necessary healthcare. In fact, it goes to the very core of what we think health is. If someone asked you to define health, would you say it was well being? Or a state or condition of the body and/or mind? Common usage, anymore, lies...

Next year, thousands of English professors head to Vancouver for the annual Modern Language Association (MLA) convention. Let’s hope they stay healthy so they don’t get to use the type of national health care they’ve always wanted. The Canadian Frasier Institute offers a depressing recap on the results of Canada’s single-payer system: “Since 1993, the average wait for treatment has almost doubled (to 18.2 weeks in 2013), per capita public healthcare expenditures have increased by about 40 per cent (after adjusting for inflation), and it is becoming increasingly apparent that patients are suffering the consequences,” Bachus Barua reports in the...

So it turns out there is an Obamacare death panel after all. It has nine members and it operates out of a marble building directly across the street from the Capitol. When the Supreme Court on Friday announced that it would take up another challenge to the Affordable Care Act in March, it delivered the threat of two mortal blows to the signature achievement of the Obama presidency. First, it raised the possibility that the justices, who narrowly spared the law in 2012, will in June come out with a new ruling that would dismantle the law on different grounds....

"Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. Call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass." That was MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the key architects of ObamaCare, explaining how ObamaCare was purposefully designed to obfuscate how it was financed, how the subsidies worked and other unpleasant features of the law. [snip] Gruber's comments, made at a 2013 conference but just now making the rounds on the Internet, are the polar opposite of what Democrats promised the public.

For the first time in modern history, the Obama administration has forced insurance companies to withhold 2015 prices until after the election. So he can shield Democrats. In the past, new prices were announced 60 days before the first day of the year. Not this year. Warner Todd Huston reported: Barack Obama is again playing political games with our health insurance industry and has turned in another underhanded move against it by forcing insurance carriers, brokers and agents to withhold their 2015 prices until after the 2014 midterm elections are over all so that the news of higher prices won’t...

In order to be a big-government liberal, mental gymnastics and verbal tap-dancing must come naturally. In an impressive display of verbal flexibility, a Health and Human Services official explained that Obamacare is really just a benevolent feature of a loving government that is completely incapable of coercion or force. According to Joanne Grossie from the HHS, no one is being “forced” into the public exchanges. She even insisted that people who have found themselves kicked off their previous healthcare plans are actually quite lucky; because their previous plans were obviously inadequate clunkers that catered only to their gullibility and stupidity…...

Health Reform: The New York Times on Monday featured a huge news package claiming that ObamaCare is delivering on all its main promises. But the Bible of the liberal press has badly misled its flock. 'After a year fully in place," the Times story begins, "the Affordable Care Act has largely succeeded in delivering on President Obama's main promises." So case closed, right? After all, a team of New York Times "reporters and data researchers" came to that conclusion. In a word, no. To claim success, the Times gets things wrong or ignores the law's most glaring failures.

Documents Show Congress Submitted False Information to Participate in Exchange. Though restricted by law to small businesses with 50 or fewer employees, D.C. Exchange allows Congress to provide health insurance to 12,359 members of Congress, staffers, spouses, and dependents. Judicial Watch today filed a taxpayer lawsuit against the District of Columbia Health Benefit Exchange Authority to stop Congress from participating in D.C.’s “Small Business Exchange.” At least 12,359 members of Congress, congressional staffers, and their spouses and dependents currently purchase health insurance in D.C.’s “Small Business Exchange” even though Congress far exceeds D.C. law’s 50-employee limit for participating in the...

Business groups are bracing for another battle against Rep. Jeb Hensarling (R-Texas) in the lame-duck session over reauthorizing an insurance program designed to help businesses recoup losses after terrorist attacks. Unless Congress acts, the Terrorism Risk Insurance program (TRIA) enacted after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks will expire. The law, pitched in 2002 as a temporary program, allows the government to shoulder the costs of insurance payouts after a large-scale terrorist attack. Hensarling and other conservatives are skeptical of government involvement in the insurance industry. They argue that Congress should begin lessening its footprint in the market, in part by...

Swiss voters on Sunday rejected a plan for a seismic shift from the country's all-private health insurance system to a state-run scheme. Referendum results showed that almost 62 percent of voters had shot down a reform pushed by left-leaning parties which say the current private system is busting the budgets of ordinary residents. The results also underlined the national divisions over the hotly-contested issue as the country's German-speaking regions voted against the plan, while their French-speaking counterparts were in favour. Switzerland's private insurance lobby hailed the vote.

Minnesota Obamacare is calling it quits. PreferredOne, the insurer that sold nearly 60 percent of all private health plans on Minnesota's Obamacare exchange, on Tuesday said it would leave that marketplace. PreferredOne's plans were the lowest-cost options on that exchange, known as MNSure. PreferredOne cited the costs of doing business on MNSure as the reason for its surprising decision, saying that selling plans is "not administratively and financially sustainable going forward," according to KSTP.com, the website of that Minnesota TV News network.

Mayor Rahm Emanuel on Friday dropped another financial bombshell on Chicago’s 25,000 retired city workers and their dependents: their monthly health insurance premiums will be going up by a whopping 40 percent — in spite of a pending lawsuit and a precedent-setting Illinois Supreme Court ruling. Last year, Emanuel announced plans to save $108.7 million a year by phasing out the city’s 55 percent subsidy for retiree health care and forcing retirees to make the switch to Obamacare. For the city, the Year One savings was $25 million. For retirees, that translated into an increase in monthly health insurance premiums...

Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell insisted Monday that Obamacare is “clearly working,” trying to move past the rocky rollout of President Obama's signature health law by insisting that her agency was not concerned with fighting “last year's battles.” Burwell in a speech at George Washington University said that the verdict was in on Obama's signature domestic initiative. “The Affordable Care Act is clearly working,” the HHS chief said. “Healthcare is more affordable for families, businesses and for our economy as [a] whole. Coverage and services are more widely available to more people. Doctors and hospitals are delivering...

Malicious code was inserted into an Obamacare server and lay dormant, waiting for a command to attack other computers Obama administration claims there's no evidence attack was sponsored by an unfriendly country or exposed Americans' personal information Vulnerable server was left with its default password and wasn't supposed to be accessible from the Internet House Republicans have subpoenaed the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services chief for a September 18 grilling A computer server hosting information for Healthcare.gov, the flagship Obamacare website that millions of Americans have trusted with their social security numbers, income totals and other sensitive personal...