Free Republic

President Trump said Sunday that it could take “sometime into next year” until his ObamaCare replacement plan is ready, a slower timetable than he and other Republicans have put forward in the past. Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly asked Trump in an interview before the Super Bowl if Americans can “expect a new healthcare plan rolled out by the Trump Administration this year.” “Yes, in the process and maybe it’ll take till sometime into next year but we’re certainly going to be in the process,” Trump replied. “You have to remember Obamacare doesn’t work so we are putting in a wonderful...

A Texas mosque has received nearly $1m in donations after it was destroyed in a fire over the weekend. More than $900,000 had been raised to rebuild the Islamic Center of Victoria as of Monday afternoon, according to a GoFundMe page. Texas officials have yet to determine the cause of the blaze, which happened in the early hours of Saturday.

<p>California Democrats have been showing defiance towards President-Elect Donald Trump since the election, promising to resist his immigration policies, keep their murderous “Sanctuary cities” and pledging to extend medical insurance coverage to millions of illegal aliens.</p> <p>It was all an act.</p>

I was involved in an accident this past Sunday where a lady pulled out of a side street onto my lane and panicked and stopped. I was able to swerve and avoid t-boning her driver's side door. I clipped her rear fender and damaged my vehicle. She admitted her fault, the police reported such, etc. I got an email from USAA, my insurance company, and they said the total repair bill is ~$5,500. The email also said they paid the auto repair company $4,500 as my deductible is $1,000. Is this SOP? The accident was the other party's fault. Should...

Millions of motorists face higher premiums to fund ‘crazy’ payouts for uninsured drivers. The European Union has ruled that even motorists who break the law by driving without insurance should be protected if their car is damaged. However it means that law-abiding drivers who do pay for cover face an increase in bills to cover the cost. Transport Secretary Chris Grayling last night said he was furious that ‘hardworking drivers will foot the bill for the irresponsible actions’ of criminals. But he added that, until the UK leaves the EU, he is powerless to stop it. The Cabinet minister, who...

And it shall be when thy son asketh thee in time to come, saying, What is this? That thou shalt say unto him, By strength of hand the Lord brought us out from Egypt, from the house of bondage: Exodus 13:14 The Marxists are crying the old You Broke it, You Own It chant as they hold a handful of shattered splinters. Is there anything they do which does not come with a 60’s cliché? Time for the Repubs to put the nail in the coffin and say, You Broke it, We Own It. This election was won on two...

One more time: If you like your plan, you can keep your plan. A senior adviser to President-elect Donald Trump said Tuesday that after Obamacare is repealed and replaced with different health-care law no one who has health insurance would lose their coverage. "That is correct. We don't want anyone who currently has insurance to not have insurance," the adviser, Kellyanne Conway, said on MSNBC's "Morning Joe." How that will be avoided, however, is a very big question. Trump and his fellow Republicans, who control both houses of Congress, have said they intend to quickly repeal the Affordable Care Act...

With California in full revolt against the incoming Trump Administration swearing to go to war with the other 49 states, the elected Leftists who run the state struck again against small businesses in the state. The government enacted 900 (yes, you read that correctly) new laws for 2017. One they snuck under everyone’s nose is a revision of the very expensive worker’s comp system. As you probably know worker’s compensation insurance is paid by employers to cover medical costs for an employee getting injured on the job. It is a sure bet, as you suspected, that California has the costliest...

Here is my health coverage proposal: BABIES Babies, born and unborn, would be covered under their mother's (or father's) policy until the end of a policy term. Mandatory issue coverage for babies would be available: a. effective at the end of that policy term or b. effective the six month after the sign-up month Mandatory issue baby coverage would only cover the care of the baby after it is delivered. SUBSIDIES [The Founding Fathers would be astonished at the mere thought of federal health care/product coverage subsidies, but federal patent exclusivity and state law crimping of provider supply and (drug...

Tom Hagen, chairman of Erie Insurance, remembers the exact spot his small desk occupied when he went to work at the company in 1953. Standing in that same building - now the Erie Insurance Heritage Center - Hagen on Friday said the small office building was crowded at the time with 100 employees. Sixty-three years later, local employment has grown to 2,889 and problems with crowding persist. The company announced a solution to that Friday morning - a plan to invest $135 million in a 346,000-square-foot building that's expected to make room to add another 600 employees, and possibly make...

FYI Drudge Report is starting to flash intermittent color bursts. Usually a sign of higher level breaking news about to post.

Republicans have a problem. Their plan to repeal and replace Obamacare won’t work unless they repeal first because Democrats will not be motivated to work on a replacement. However, since Republicans don’t have a replacement bill ready, it could be some time before a replacement, especially one that requires Democratic support, is in place. The current plan to solve this problem is being called repeal and delay, i.e. repeal Obamacare but phase it out over several years so Congress can work on the replacement.As Ed highlighted earlier today, repeal and delay has a big problem. Specifically, once the GOP...

Obamacare insurers will not receive any payments for the 2015 coverage year from a federal program designed to help them ease losses. Insurers are asking for about $5.8 billion from the federal government for 2015 in Obamacare's risk corridor program, according to an estimate from Brian Blase of the right-leaning think tank Mercatus Center. However, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said last week that all payments would go toward paying off the money owed the insurers for 2014.

The company said the move is an alignment with industry trends in which fewer companies offer pensions. WILMINGTON, Del. -- The DuPont Company said it will eliminate its pension contribution for active employees. ... active employees will no longer accrue additional benefits, and employees under age 50 also will no longer receive dental, medical and life insurance benefits in retirement. ... Since 1998, nearly one-quarter of all Fortune 500 companies have stopped contributing to employees' primary pension plans, and 40 percent offer only a 401(k).

The mainstream media are reporting that President-elect Donald Trump is giving up on his promise to repeal and replace Obamacare, because he said he would be willing to preserve coverage for pre-existing conditions and allowing children to stay on their parents’ health insurance until age 26.

Pension funds and other asset owners increasingly are investing in U.S. infrastructure, often buying the assets from infrastructure money managers. This could be a win-win. Investor interest comes at a time when the first crop of infrastructure funds raised in the U.S. in 2004 and 2005 are coming to the end of their 10-year life span. Managers are expected to bring more transactions to market to take advantage of growing interest by direct investors. Industry insiders expect more infrastructure core projects to change to institutional investor ownership. Investors prize the core projects, even though returns generally are lower than investments...

The basic premium for just my wife and I goes from $14,400 a year in Texas and change to $24,000 a year or more in Oklahoma. The deductible has gone from $6,000 to more than $7,000. Apparently BCBS is the only insurer in Oklahoma now, period. Exchange or otherwise. So much for competition.I guess some of you have started the agony of looking for health care coverage again. In my case not only is there sticker shock there is much complication since I am an American Indian, my wife is not and I may have some options. I can choose...

The anchors of CBS This Morning expressed bewilderment on Tuesday at the sharp premium hikes in Obamacare insurance plans, with one asking for an understanding for “why this is happening.” When Obamacare open enrollment begins in 2017, the cost of mid-level plans will rise by an average of 25 percent in the 39 states served by the federal online exchanges. In addition, major providers like Humana, UnitedHealth, and Aetna have scaled back or dropped out of the Obamacare exchanges, leaving roughly 20 percent of consumers with only one insurer to choose from. After Charlie Rose read out the report, Norah...

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...

President Barack Obama’s signature health care law is failing and his administration will go to seemingly any length to prop it up. You know the famous quote from “Animal Farm” that “all animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others?” This was George Orwell’s attempt to point out the hypocrisy that many politicians preach equality, but then give favors to only a few. Well, for the Obama administration, it turns out that the health insurance companies participating in Obamacare happen to be “more equal” than taxpayers—even to the point where the administration is willing to break the...