Free Republic

Republicans can forget about campaigning against Obamacare in 2016 if Ohio Gov. John Kasich is on the party’s presidential ticket. Conventional wisdom says Kasich will need to explain his Obamacare Medicaid expansion to Republican primary voters — but he’s been explaining it for two years. That’s the problem: most of Kasich’s arguments for Medicaid coverage for working-age adults with no kids and no disabilities sound like they were written by Democratic strategists. The longer Kasich is in the presidential race, the greater the potential for Democrats to capitalize on Kasich’s promotion of Obamacare. ... The governor told the Ohio General...

As we approach the 50th anniversary of President Lyndon Johnson signing the Medicare bill into law (July 30th), what better time to consider the seemingly intractable problem of healthcare? FDR tried to include a federal health insurance component into the Social Security Act of 1935, but backed off. Harry Truman, his successor, took up the cause again in 1945, 1947, and 1949. JFK would pick up the banner in 1961. During the 1965 signing, LBJ called the 81-year-old Truman “the real daddy of Medicare,” and presented him and his wife Bess with the first two Medicare cards. With the passage...

Expanding Medicaid to working-age Ohioans with no kids and no disabilities was supposed to cost $2.56 billion in its first year and a half. So much for that. After just 18 months, Ohio Gov. John Kasich’s Obamacare [Go to article to see graph.] Kasich underestimated the cost of the first 18 months of his Obamacare expansion by roughly $1.5 billion. Enrollment was almost 600,000 at the end of June, compared to Kasich’s projection of 366,000. Ohio’s Obamacare expansion has cost far more than expected because enrollment and per-member costs have both rocketed past expectations. Benefit costs have exceeded $325 million...

During the debates on ObamaCare, Medicaid got little attention. That was a mistake, since enrollment and the cost of treating all those jumping onto the program is surging beyond expectations.

After failing to persuade his Legislature to expand Medicaid, Gov. Bill Walker of Alaska said Thursday that he planned to unilaterally accept the federal funds available to cover more low-income residents under the program. Mr. Walker, an independent who took office in December, said in a news conference in Anchorage that he could not wait any longer to offer health coverage to the roughly 42,000 people his administration projects will be eligible under the expansion. Expanding Medicaid — an option for every state under President Obama’s Affordable Care Act — was a campaign priority for Mr. Walker, who couched it...

I’m sure most of you already know this, but Medicaid expansion–a critical component of Obamacare–is an abject disaster. In Virginia, almost a quarter of doctors aren’t accepting new Medicaid recipients–and those already enrolled into this government-run health care program experienced no improvement in care.CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO  So, how is this a good blueprint for the rest of the country? Well, as you know, it isn’t–and the figures get worse regarding who is actually receiving care under this government program. As the Foundation for Government Accountability reiterated during their conference in June, there are still a lot...

Rep. Barbara Lee (D-Calif.), along with about 70 other House Democrats, introduced a bill in Congress on Wednesday that would provide taxpayer-funded abortion coverage to all women who are covered by an insurance plan through the federal government—including federal workers, military members, women incarcerated in federal prisons, and low-income women covered by Medicaid. The Equal Access to Abortion Coverage in Health Coverage Act, or EACH Woman Act, states that “The Federal Government shall (1) ensure coverage for abortion care in public health insurance programs, including Medicaid, Medicare and the Children’s Health Insurance Program” and “in its role as an employer...

What? The Supreme Court’s recent blessing of Obamacare has precipitated a rush among the nation’s biggest health insurers to consolidate into two or three behemoths. The result will be good for their shareholders and executives, but bad for the rest of us – who will pay through the nose for the health insurance we need. .... Insurers are seeking rate hikes of 20 to 40 percent for next year because they think they already have enough economic and political clout to get them. ... The alternative is a government-run single payer system – such as is in place in almost...

A recent draft of the Trans-Pacific Partnership free-trade deal would give U.S. pharmaceutical firms unprecedented protections against competition from cheaper generic drugs, possibly transcending the patent protections in U.S. law. POLITICO has obtained a draft copy of TPP’s intellectual property chapter as it stood on May 11, at the start of the latest negotiating round in Guam. While U.S. trade officials would not confirm the authenticity of the document, they downplayed its importance, emphasizing that the terms of the deal are likely to change significantly as the talks enter their final stages. Those terms are still secret, but the public...

Soon after the Supreme Court salvaged a key part of the nation’s Affordable Care Act on Thursday, Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe was rallying the troops in the state capital to expand Medicaid under the law.“[N]ow is the time to drop cynical efforts to prevent families from accessing care that will make their lives better,” McAuliffe said in a written statement. “With this issue decided, I hope we can now put partisan politics aside and . . . close the coverage gap.”McAuliffe (D) led a pitched and ultimately unsuccessful battle to add 400,000 uninsured Virginians to the Medicaid rolls during his first year...

Thousands of people across Maryland could lose their Medicaid if they don’t act soon. The deadline to re-enroll is around the corner. […] “I beg you because your life and health may very well depend on it,” said Congressman Elijah Cummings. An urge for Marylanders to be proactive about their Medicaid coverage. By the end of June, more than 13,000 people need to re-enroll—and another 13,000 by the end of July. “Everyone who is enrolled in Medicaid in the old insurance system needs to re-enroll in Maryland Health Connection,” said Lena Hershkovitz. Throughout the year, that’s a total of 300,000...

Ohio Governor John Kasich is still officially unofficially running for President, at least until next month when he plans on making it officially official. But in the intervening time, it seems that he’s running into some headwinds when it comes to donors who have long since committed their resources to one of the candidates who got into the starting blocks early. (In the case of Kasich, he’s looking mostly to tap Jeb Bush’s donor pool.) And with the lack of results has come what appears to be a sense of desperation. (Politico) Sensing the window of opportunity is closing, John...

Republicans will risk political pushback to put entitlement programs on the agenda during the presidential election. Some changes are in the wind for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—entitlement programs that account for 45% of the federal government’s payouts. Many of the changes are still years away. But some of them will start next year, smack in the middle of the presidential election campaign, forcing candidates to address issues that they and their advisers generally try to steer clear of when they’re running. Kicking off the rare election-year debate: a move to rescue the Social Security disability fund image: http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png before...

WASHINGTON — (...) The U.S. Supreme Court will soon decide whether the subsidies can continue for 6.4 million people in 34 states who use the federal insurance marketplace at HealthCare.gov. (...) More than 4.1 million people, or nearly two out of three who could lose their subsidies in the case this year, live in just 13 Southern states – Alabama, Arkansas, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. Read more here: http://www.macon.com/2015/06/16/3799971/loss-of-health-care-subsidies.html#storylink=cpy

Broken Promises: President Obama recently claimed that ObamaCare is working even better than anticipated. That would be a tough sell to all those hospitals that thought the law would help them make ends meet.

If Ohio Gov. John Kasich can fundraise as fast as he’s spending Obamacare money, he’s a shoo-in for the Republican presidential nomination. After just 17 months, Kasich’s Obamacare expansion has cost federal taxpayers $3.7 billion. That’s over $1 billion more than the Kasich administration projected for the expansion’s first 18 months.

Two insurance carriers on the Obamacare exchange are attributing proposed double-digit premium increases to next year’s private-market alterations to the New Hampshire Medicaid program. Minuteman Health Inc. has requested rate increases ranging from 42 to 51 percent for next year, according to healthcare.gov. Maine Community Health Options asked for premium increases between 19 and 22 percent. Both companies attributed their proposed increases in part to the Premium Assistance Program, the name for the Medicaid expansion program that is scheduled to go into effect on Jan. 1. Maine Community estimated that claims from the Medicaid patients will be 61 percent higher...

SACRAMENTO - A lawmaker's proposal to offer Medi-Cal coverage to immigrants living in the country without documentation made it through a key legislative committee Thursday, although the bill was significantly scaled back to benefit primarily those aged 19 and under. SB4 by state Sen. Ricardo Lara, D-Bell Gardens (LA County) was narrowed to reduce the cost by allowing older immigrants to enroll in the medical system for low-income people each year only as state funds are available to cover them. The bill would also authorize the state to seek a federal waiver so it could extend health insurance under its...

When Chief Justice John Roberts fractured the Constitution and prostituted his own integrity by rewriting the individual mandate in order to find the Affordable Care Act constitutional, it understandably drew both public and media attention away from the Supreme Court’s 7-2 decision that, although the Obama Administration’s Medicaid expansion plans were constitutional, the federal government would NOT be permitted to withhold Medicaid funding from states which refused to implement the expansion. In short, the Obama Regime is not allowed to extort state compliance with its massive increase in Medicaid outlays by refusing to pay the Medicaid funds legitimately owed each...

If someone’s pay suddenly doubles, she may lose rental assistance, child care subsidies, and more. In L.A., a worker who currently makes $9 an hour and works 40 hours a week (which is not a given, but that would be a full-time workload) will earn $360 a week, or about $1,440 a month and $18,720 a year, before taxes. If that worker is a mom with two children, she is below the poverty line. She qualifies for a bevy of federal and state programs like food stamps, rental assistance, child care subsidies, health care for her children, and Medicaid because...