Free Republic

Be gentle, this is a draft put out for the purposes of: a. letting you find errors and suggest corrections and b. providing Republican lawmakers with a coverage-expanding plan that keeps costs down 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 coverage) mandates have made the cost of drugs and medical care very expensive.] Only coverage for US citizens may be subsidized. Drug coverage and healthcare service coverage would have separate subsidies. [Having drug-only coverage plans allows hospital...

If Mike Barnicle is right, our country is in trouble . . . On today’s Morning Joe, Barnicle declared that Medicare and Medicaid are “two of the pillars of our culture.” Barnicle described Americans as having “fealty” to the programs. Have we really gone from a culture of self-reliance and rugged individualism to a culture in which Americans pledge “fealty” to big-government programs? Let’s hope not! View the video here.

My First Ever Post and it’s About Obamacare Enrollment. Hello Y’all. Because of the wonders of Obamacare I lost insurance many years ago and never applied again. Thanks to Obamacare I’m forced to buy a new insurance plan, which I should have now with a few health changes, ONLY through ‘healthcare.gov.’ There are a whopping 2 providers in my county. It is a total nightmare. I am self-employed and make sure to keep my adjusted as low as possible and minimize my tax liabilities. Some years are really good. Some years are really bad. The past 4 years have been...

The United States Digital Service is a startup at The White House, using design and technology to deliver better services to the American people. www.usds.gov For people who need timely access to critical benefits, interacting with the government can become as time consuming as a part-time job. As William has encountered time and again, enrolling in these programs can be cumbersome, duplicative and at odds with the demands of working and caring for one’s family. In recent years, non-profits, academia and state and federal government agencies alike began studying and experimenting with a shift toward a more family-centered — as opposed to...

Does anyone know how Medicaid handles the disposal of property they have retained against medical bills by a deceased person? I have been trying to buy some property from a gentleman who ended up in a nursing home with Medicaid coverage. His widow said she had to sign papers and was not allowed to sell or even rent the property.

Setting up more conflict with the Republican-led legislature, new North Carolina Democratic Gov. Roy Cooper on Wednesday announced plans to expand Medicaid through the federal health care overhaul, even though a state law specially prevents such unilateral action. Cooper, the attorney general for the past 16 years before narrowly beating GOP Gov. Pat McCrory in November, announced at a New-Year economic forum that he plans to file paperwork with federal regulators by Friday. Cooper’s action comes in the waning days of the administration of President Barack Obama, who championed the 2010 health care law and wants to protect his legacy,...

After more than a year of delays, Texas is officially kicking Planned Parenthood out of the state’s Medicaid program. In a move that could affect thousands of low-income women, state health officials on Tuesday delivered a final legal notice to defund the organization from the Medicaid program through which it provides family planning and women’s health services to the poor. Planned Parenthood had previously received $3.1 million in Medicaid funding, but those dollars will be nixed in 30 days, according to the notice which was obtained by The Texas Tribune. That cut-off day will only be delayed if the organization...

The government spent a breathtaking $26 million to provide dead people—who were poor when they were alive—with health insurance in one state alone, according to a new federal audit. The benefit was administered through Medicaid, the federal-state health insurance program for the needy and the astonishing multi-million-dollar figure applies to just Florida but similar atrocities are likely occurring in other states. American taxpayers may wonder how this could possibly happen, though fraud and corruption are rampant in government, especially in welfare programs. First let’s explain how Medicaid, jointly funded by federal and state governments, functions. The Centers for Medicare &...

Health Reform: Cost overruns are endemic to government health programs, and ObamaCare is turning out to be no different. Not only are its Medicaid expansion costs exploding, skyrocketing premiums are now pushing insurance subsidy costs through the roof. A new study from the Center for Health and Economy finds that because of the double-digit premium increases across the country, federal spending on ObamaCare's insurance subsidies will shoot up by nearly $10 billion next year That's because the amount of the subsidy is directly tied to the cost of insurance in any given market.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Wednesday that House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wisc.) proposal to cut Medicaid spending over time to help balance the federal budget would prevent seniors from seeing the doctor of their choosing. “And I might add with what they want to do to the Affordable Care Act and what they want to do in the Ryan budget to Medicaid — a trillion dollars over 10 years taken out of Medicaid,” Pelosi said. “Two thirds of that goes to long-term heath care to our seniors.” “They won’t be able to go to their own doctor...

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is urging the public to help save his health care law, which is in serious danger of being repealed under President-elect Donald Trump.In a Facebook Live appearance, Obama says the Affordable Care Act has improved millions of lives over the six years it's been the "law of the land." He says the country can't go "backward."

During the presidential campaign, Republican Donald Trump said he would not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, but no matter. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the next Senate minority leader, on Tuesday warned that Republicans are “plotting a war on seniors.” The New York Democrat said he was “so disappointed” that Trump has nominated Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) to be his Health and Human Services secretary. “When it comes to issues like Medicare, the Affordable Care Act and Planned Parenthood, Congressman Price and the average American couldn’t be further apart,” Schumer told a news conference on Capitol Hill. …

Republicans in Congress pledge to use the first opportunity of the Donald Trump presidency to repeal ObamaCare. Trump has met that pledge by appointing people most likely to dismantle it from the inside. First Trump appointed staunch ObamaCare opponent Rep. Tom Price to head HHS, and now he’s picked a health-industry expert to run the agency responsible for its Medicaid expansion. Seema Verma has plenty of experience in working the margins of ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion to push back against it: President-elect Donald Trump on Tuesday morning picked the founder and CEO of a health policy consulting firm, Seema Verma,...

<p>Theranos, the biotech company started by a 19-year-old Stanford dropout, has another hurdle to cross in its whole "we're totally a legit blood-testing company" campaign. This time, it turns out that tens of thousands of blood tests were voided, making them totally invalid. Whoops!</p>

We haven't really written much about the insane Theranos scandal, though we discussed it on our podcast. The whole story is pretty crazy -- involving a heavily hyped up company that appeared to basically be flat out lying to everyone about what it could do. The company still exists, but barely. The company's founder and CEO, who was plastered across magazine covers and compared frequently to Steve Jobs, has been banned from running a lab for two years, and the company is now facing a $140 million lawsuit from its biggest partner, Walgreens, who claims that Theranos repeatedly lied to...

Litigator David Boies and the law firm he founded, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, have stopped doing legal work for Theranos Inc. after disagreeing about the strategy for handling ongoing government investigations of the blood-testing company, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Boies, 75 years old, has been one of the country’s best-known litigators since the late 1990s. He became Theranos’s outside counsel after being approached in 2011 by two investors in the Palo Alto, Calif., startup. He fiercely defended Theranos against questions about its technology and operations. Those efforts included threatening to take legal action against The...

Litigator David Boies and the law firm he founded, Boies, Schiller & Flexner LLP, have stopped doing legal work for Theranos Inc. after disagreeing about the strategy for handling ongoing government investigations of the blood-testing company, according to people familiar with the matter. Mr. Boies, 75 years old, has been one of the country’s best-known litigators since the late 1990s. He became Theranos’s outside counsel after being approached in 2011 by two investors in the Palo Alto, Calif., startup. He fiercely defended Theranos against questions about its technology and operations. Those efforts included threatening to take legal action against The...

It's worth asking why Elizabeth Holmes is still leading the embattled blood testing company Theranos Inc. But there may be a good reason why she still is in charge, one that has little to do with the scandal-ridden company's performance to date. Forget what venture capitalist Tim Draper — one of the first to invest in the Palo Alto company — implied this week that Holmes is being attacked because she's a young, female entrepreneur. The simple fact is that Theranos has not been able to deliver on its technology from a commercial, scientific or regulatory standpoint, and that falls...

2016 has not been too kind to Elizabeth Holmes, the Steve-Jobs wannabe in charge of fraudulent Theranos. She has thus far been banned for 2 years from operating labs, removed from hosting fundraisers for Hillary and lost her entire net worth. And now, the Wall Street Journal has published the "tell-all" story of the whistle-blower, 26 year old Tyler Shultz, who brought the the whole Theranos farce crashing down. It's a sordid tale complete with all the expected twists and turns of a Jason Bourne thriller including intimidation, coercion and private detectives. Tyler Shultz is the grandson of George Shultz,...

When a friend of mine went to their Primary Care Physician, they found out that they would be billed for the visit since the doctor was no longer their Primary Care Physician. Another doctor, born in Pakistan, had arbitrarily re-assigned this person and his Medicaid to her. This doctor is Dr. Anjum Asad. Her credentials are quite weak as she did not go to Medical School in the US (in my opinion). He still has his Medicaid card with this doctor's name on it. HE DID NOT REQUEST THIS DOCTOR TO BE HIS PRIMARY CARE PHYSICIAN. Additionally, though the person...