Free Republic

The ruling of one liberal federal judge proves that America is no longer a republic and doubtful if it is even a democracy. WhatÂ’s the difference? A republic is what our Founding Fathers sacrificed so much to establish. ItÂ’s a government where the people elect leaders to do the will of the majority of the people.A democracy is best described as a government where the people elect leaders to rule over them, regardless of the will of the people. So many people erroneously think America was a democracy but it was NEVER intended to be that way. Also notice that...

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) - Republican governors from seven states are calling for dramatic changes to Medicaid, which provides insurance to more than 70 million low-income Americans, as they nervously watch President Donald Trump and GOP congressional leaders move to repeal and replace the Obama-era health law. At the same time, they’re telling Washington: Don’t scrap the Affordable Care Act without a viable alternative. According to a draft of the proposal obtained by The Associated Press, the governors are urging Congress to adopt an alternative that would change Medicaid from an open-ended federal entitlement to a program designed by each...

In a new video, former Planned Parenthood employees reveal they were incentivized to pressure women into getting abortions to meet monthly corporate quotas.In the video from Live Action, Sue Thayer, a former Planned Parenthood manager in Storm Lake, Iowa, explained that if her center met its quota for abortion referrals, employees would be rewarded with pizza parties, paid time off, and other rewards.After administering a pregnancy test to a woman, Planned Parenthood employees would tell her how much it cost and ask how much she would be able to pay towards it. If a woman was unable to pay for a...

California officials have fined health care giant Kaiser Permanente $2.5 million for failing to turn over required data on patient care to the state’s Medicaid program. The California Department of Health Care Services said this was the first fine imposed against one of its Medicaid managed care plans since at least 2000. The state relies on the data to help set rates, ensure adequate care is available and monitor how taxpayer dollars are being spent in the program, known as Medi-Cal in California. Jennifer Kent, the department’s director, notified Kaiser of the sanctions in a Jan. 13 letter that was...

“A bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire.”  Matthew 7:18-19Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act (ACA), is truly the fruit of a “bad tree.” The roots of this tree are decades old and include moral relativism and socialism with all their offshoots. Obamacare incorporates and perpetuates many of these offshoots thereby sustaining a twofold crisis in healthcare: ethical and economic.The ethical crisis is a direct, albeit largely unrecognized result of the sexual revolution of the 1960’s and its fruits, particularly the two Supreme Court...

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...