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WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — Sen. Ted Cruz believes Senate Democrats are the ones who forced Kathleen Sebelius to step down as health and human services secretary.Cruz told NBC News that Democrats are worried that Republicans will take back the Senate because of Obamacare.“Kathleen Sebelius’ resignation is the latest indication of just what a disaster Obamacare is. Obamacare is the most disastrous, the most damaging piece of legislation in modern times,” Cruz told NBC News. “And I believe she resigned because Senate Democrats are scared.”Cruz told Fox News that Senate Democrats “demanded Kathleen Sebelius’ head.”“They are running scared because every one of...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) said that, if the mainstream media and Democrats are correct that Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius resigned because Obamacare succeeded, then every other Democrat should follow her out of the Obama administration.  Speaking at the New Hampshire Freedom Summit, which was organized by Americans for Prosperity and Citizens United, Cruz joined other potential 2016 GOP presidential contenders at the event the day after Sebelius left the administration after the disastrous Obamacare rollout.Cruz said that if people listen to Democrats or the mainstream press (Cruz apologized for repeating himself – to much laughter), "they will tell...

People participating in the food stamp program outnumbered the women who worked full-time, year-round in the United States in 2012, according to data from the Department of Agriculture and the Census Bureau. In the average month of 2012, according to the Department of Agriculture, there were 46,609,000 people participating in the food stamp program (formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program). That contrasts with the 44,059,000 women who worked full-time, year-round in 2012, according to the Census Bureau’s report on Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage in the United States. For each woman who worked full-time, year-round in 2012,...

Count Ted Cruz among the unimpressed about the HHS claim that over seven million Americans enrolled in ObamaCare by the end of the open-enrollment deadline. Javier Manjarres conducted a short telephone interview with Sen. Cruz, pointing out an earlier story broken by talk radio host Drew Steele about notification letters from HHS of ObamaCare auto-enrollment and questioned whether those were part of the HHS calculations. Cruz called this part of the mystery around the “funny numbers” coming out of the Obama administration, and wondered how many of the 7.1 million were only partial sign-ups:CLICK ABOVE LINK FOR THE VIDEO The...

Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear had ten days to veto the General Assembly’s agreement to defund ObamaCare in Kentucky and start a huge fight for today and tomorrow, but he didn’t do it. Now, he must accept reality and start taking down the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange. At the top of page Page 124 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act it states “No federal funds for continued operations … In establishing an Exchange under this section, the state shall ensure that such Exchange is self-sustaining beginning on January 1, 2015, including allowing the Exchange to charge assessments or user...

Obamacare has reportedly enrolled 7.1 million individuals since its exchanges opened in October. However, according to a recently released RAND report, just 1.4 million of those individuals were previously uninsured.Avik Roy of Forbes reports: Last week, I wrote about an article in the Los Angeles Times, on a then-as-yet unpublished report from the RAND Corporation. The report indicated that only one-third of Obamacare’s purported 7.1 million exchange sign-ups were from the previously uninsured. But Noam Levey, the author of the Times article, didn’t disclose RAND’s actual findings as to the actual number of previously uninsured exchange enrollees. Well, now we know why. RAND published the full...

Health Overhaul: The midwife of ObamaCare exits stage left, leaving behind wreckage that once was the finest health care system in the world, less affordable health insurance and patients unable to find doctors and hospitals. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services — referred to in the increasingly un-Affordable Care Act's iconic use of the phrase "the Secretary shall determine," which appears in ObamaCare's guiding document no fewer than 1,005 times — has determined that it's time to go. Or rather it's been determined for her by a White House in whose parallel universe ObamaCare's current alleged enrollment...

Donald Trump said that “not only is Obamacare a disaster, it is the single greatest lie that I have ever witnessed. As far as immigration is concerned, Trump boasted that he is a builder and that he likes to build things. He said that, if he was in charge of America, “I would build a border fence like you have never seen before.”

I want the GOP to win both houses of Congress, but not at the cost of getting home. This means that we have to have leadership and candidates who support the values we as Republicans hold dear, not the values of the Washington D.C. establishment. Maybe if we stuck to just a few points, we can have a general direction home? Repeal Obamacare, repeal it not fix it Stop the growth of government in all directions - not slow it down, not cut the rate of increase, stop it If Republicans can't get agreement on these two points in the...

In contrast with the early stumbles in most of the country, New York State, almost from the start, has provided a textbook lesson in how to make the Affordable Care Act work. But it has done so by making some tough decisions. But New York also took some aggressive and unpopular steps that few other states have taken, by creating a highly centralized system limiting consumer choice, essentially giving insurance seekers little incentive to shop off the exchange. As a result, most New Yorkers who are not insured through an employer are effectively barred from choosing any doctors or hospitals...

Michael Grimm’s supporters have latched on to the Bill Maher issue as a reason to vote against Domenic Recchia, as though Maher is Recchia’s boss instead of just an irrelevant fool. But Grimm’s actual boss in Congress is far more meaningful — the man who contributed thousands to Grimm’s campaign, John Boehner.

Betsy McCaughey, who knows as much about Obamacare as anyone who wasn’t involved in writing it, offers a preview of the new disasters about to unfold as the health care law kicks in. If the law were a disaster film, her article could serve as the trailer for part 2.She expects a wave of premium defaults, and explains why even the AMA, a big proponent of the law, is worried: First-time insurance purchasers, especially those living paycheck to paycheck, will be shocked by ObamaCare’s high deductibles, about $3,000 for the silver plan (the most commonly selected) and $5,000 for the...

The replacement of Kathleen Sebelius by Sylvia Mathews Burwell as the Secretary of Health and Human Services has been portrayed by the legacy “news” media as a new lease on life for Obamacare. The party line is that Sebelius was mortally wounded by GOP exploitation of a single uncharacteristic mistake—the botched rollout of Healthcare.gov—while Burwell is a brilliant Beltway veteran unsullied by controversy and possessing the very administrative skills needed to save Obama’s “signature domestic achievement.” … This tale fails to conform to the facts, however … The vessel is taking on water at an alarming rate, and Sylvia Burwell’s...

“Well, we couldn’t be happier to have that conversation,” the senator declared, starting off strong by highlighting people in his state who received timely preventive care thanks to their new insurance. But that one point was about all the Democratic lawmaker could muster. “Over and over again,” he went on, “people still on the uh… healthcare benefits from uh, the… um… um… of the seniors who are… uh… getting their, uh, pharmaceuticals paid for… I’m struggling for the, for the — donut hole! There we go!” “It’s been very good for most Rhode Islanders,” an embarrassed Whitehouse continued. “And there...

We are a family of six – two parents and four children – who, because of a rough year in 2013, had to apply for subsidized healthcare coverage under the new Obamacare rules. Yes, count us among the 7.1 million that Kathleen Sebelius is currently claiming are active Obamacare signups. We live in Orange County, Southern California, so our coverage comes through the state exchange, Covered California ...

Imagine a Yankees-Red Sox game during which the Yankees broadcasters acknowledged mistakes by their team and good plays by the Sox, while the Boston announcers ranted relentlessly that the Yankees stank and were lucky not to finish 0-162.   According to Kevin Drum of Mother Jones, something similar happens routinely in political media. Drum believes that both in general and regarding Obamacare specifically, liberal pundits are far more likely than their conservative counterparts to discuss their side's failures and give the other side credit where it's due. From Drum's Friday post (emphasis added): "Watch the right search desperately for bad...

Andrea Mitchell needs to turn in her journalism  card...now! She completely blew the opportunity to ask outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius a question that would have shed light on whether she voluntarily resigned or, as many have speculated, she was fired by the White House. Despite interviewing Sebelius for over five minutes on Meet The Press (video after the jump), Mitchell absurdly neglected to point out a big discrepancy in Sebelius' accounts of her departure.

Outgoing Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says the administration's own predictions that the new health care law's online sign-up system would be ready by Oct. 1 were "just flat out wrong." Sebelius told NBC's "Meet the Press" in an interview airing Sunday the health care website's launch was "terribly flawed and terribly difficult." She says that eight-week period was her low point of her tenure. Sebelius last week announced her resignation. She says she wanted to give President Barack Obama enough time to bring in a new health chief.

Ahead of the April 15 tax deadline, a record-high 60% of Californians say that they pay "much more" or "somewhat more" in taxes than they should, according to a recent survey by the Public Policy Institute of California (PPIC) (and noted by John Seiler of Calwatchdog.org and Stephen Frank of CApoliticalnews.com). However, as PPIC Mark Baldassare notes at Fox&Hounds, Californians still believe that the answer is to tax wealthy earners or corporations more--not to reform and broaden the current tax system. The PPIC survey, which was conducted in March among 1,702 adults, notes: While about half of Californians view the...

The promotional budget for ObamaCare alone would cover much of the actual medical expenses for the people involved. But this was never about paying for medical care, it was about taking over health care for political reasons. New Congressional estimates show the Obama administration is requesting another $774 million for Obamacare “outreach” and advertising in the 2015 budget. This is on top of the estimated $684 million they spent this year and the $52 million they spent on high-profile ads with athletes and Hollywood celebrities. That means the combined total in taxpayer funded advertising will be over $1.5 billion. Barack...