Free Republic

She was one of the most racist women in history, so virulent in her hatred of the people she called “impure” that she made it her life’s mission to decimate their population. She wrote, “[We should] apply a stern and rigid policy of sterilization and segregation to that grade of population whose progeny is tainted, or whose inheritance is such that objectionable traits may be transmitted to offspring.” Later, she said that she wanted to “give dysgenic groups [people with ‘bad genes’] in our population their choice of segregation or [compulsory] sterilization.” According to her, this was necessary, since to...

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Tex.) wants to kill Obamacare, but he admitted that he might have to sign up for it after his wife took a leave from her job and its benefits. As it turns out, Cruz never signed up for Obamacare. He purchased his family's health insurance off the open market. Cruz and his wife, Heidi, purchased a private health insurance plan from Texas Blue Cross and Blue Shield, campaign spokesman Rick Tyler said Saturday. "They didn't buy it off the exchange," Tyler said. There was no gap between coverage, and the Cruz family never enrolled in a plan...

House Budget Committee Chairman Tom Price (R-Ga.) said Thursday that he does not support an idea backed by Senate Republican leadership to temporarily extend ObamaCare subsidies if the Supreme Court cripples the law. "I don't think that I would be able to be supportive of continuing the subsidies beyond what the Court would allow," Price told The Hill. A plan from Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) to continue the subsidies until 2017 has been co-sponsored by Senate Republican leaders. Price is one of the most prominent Republicans to come out against the idea. The idea behind the temporary continuation is that...

The 2016 presidential election is attracting an unusually large number of hopefuls. The Republicans will probably field more than a dozen candidates and the Democrats, as many as five. Presently, very few of these supposed contenders have a real chance of becoming president. Republicans Ben Carson, Carly Fiorina and Ted Cruz are long shots. On the Democratic side, that term applies to everyone but Hillary Rodham Clinton.. ~snip~ If you tell them in private, "You do not have a chance to be president," they will point to underdogs who won, such as Jimmy Carter or Ronald Reagan, or front-runners who...

Nancy Pelosi is now predicting that Republicans will “rue the day” that the Supreme Court guts Obamacare subsidies for millions in three dozen states. “They’re going to then go out and say we’re going to take subsidies away from people who have health care? No, I don’t think so,” says Pelosi. “It would be really bad news for them.” Meanwhile, if anything, Republicans may be moving away from their previously-stated vow to participate in providing a contingency fix to temporarily keep those millions covered. The Hill reports that GOP Rep. Tom Price, the chairman of the House budget committee and...

Despite fury from lawmakers the day before, Colorado’s health exchange board voted on Thursday to collect millions of additional dollars from all Colorado health insurance customers, even those who have nothing to do with the exchange. On top of that “broad market assessment,” the board also voted to more than double the user fees levied on people who buy insurance through Colorado’s exchange. .. The higher broad market fee is projected to allow Connect for Health Colorado to scoop up about about $20 million in 2016. It has been set at $1.25 per member per month on all health insurance...

HONOLULU – Federal taxpayers dumped more than $205 million into Hawaii's ObamaCare insurance exchange, but after a steady downward spiral the once-highly praised Hawaii Health Connector is on life support. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has already restricted grant funds to the Hawaii Health Connector, after telling officials in March it was out of compliance with the Affordable Care Act because of fiscal instability and ongoing IT issues. With state lawmakers also blocking additional funds, the system is struggling to stay afloat. The governor's office said it is doing what it can to salvage the situation, including...

Everyone knows that Congress has exempted itself from Obamacare so lawmakers and their staff can continue to receive employer-based subsides that Americans in a similar position would not be allowed to receive. But there's a new twist here that you need to know about. To secure its Obamacare exemption, the U.S. Senate had to submit documents stating that it was a small business with less than 50 employees. This is, of course, completely false. The Senate is a massive arm of the Federal government that is completely funded with tax dollars and that employs thousands of people across the country....

At a recent White House science fair celebrating inventors, a Girl Scout who helped design a Lego-powered page-turning device asked President Obama what he had ever thought up or prototyped. Stumbling for an answer, he replied: “I came up with things like, you know, health care.” Ah, yes. “Health care.” Remember when the president’s signature ObamaCare health-insurance exchanges were going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, the remote control, jogger strollers, Siri, the Keurig coffee maker, driverless cars and Legos put together? The miraculous, efficient, cost-saving, innovative 21st-century government-run “marketplaces” were supposed to put the “affordable” in President...

Nearly two-thirds of companies facing a new ObamaCare tax say they are changing their coverage to avoid the extra costs, according to a new survey. The so-called Cadillac tax, which applies to healthcare plans above a certain expense threshold, is one of the most pressing changes still to come under ObamaCare. Only 2.5 percent of companies that would be hit by the Cadillac tax starting in 2018 said they plan to pay the tax. A total of 62 percent of companies said they have already taken action or plan to take action to avoid it. Most say they are shifting...

Hawaii’s Obamacare exchange website will soon shut down because it is not financially viable, Americans for Tax Reform reports. The exchange website will be shutdown despite $205 million in federal taxpayer funds. The migration to a federal exchange will cost taxpayers another $30 million. [Snip] According to ATR, with only 8,592 enrollees, the state spent $23,899 on each individual.

.... Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi predicted Wednesday that Republicans will "rue the day" if the Supreme Court buys their arguments and invalidates tax subsidies for millions of people under President Barack Obama's health care law. Republicans have said they will try to ensure people don't lose insurance if the high court rules this summer against tax subsidies for health care coverage in certain states. But they haven't said how they would do it.

"The truth is that both major parties are now just commercial organisations, who raise money wherever they can get it to buy their way into office through unscrupulous election campaigns. They then presumably reward their donors once they are in office. The electorate are a constitutional necessity for this process, but otherwise their fears, hopes and desires are largely irrelevant." Peter Hitchens blog post of May 8, 2015 on British politics, but equally applicable to this country It doesn't surprise me that Leftist New York Mayor Bill DeBlasio was in Washington the other day to promote a "Progressive" agenda. The...

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi predicted Wednesday that Republicans will "rue the day" if the Supreme Court buys their arguments and invalidates tax subsidies for millions of people under President Barack Obama's health care law. Republicans have said they will try to ensure people don't lose insurance if the high court rules this summer against tax subsidies for health care coverage in certain states. But they haven't said how they would do it. Such a ruling would present a major challenge to the GOP. Without a congressional fix some 8 million people could lose subsidies, which help them pay for...

California is serving as the national model for President Barack Obama's health care reforms, but that won't continue unless the state does something about its abysmal Medi-Cal reimbursement rates for doctors and hospitals caring for the 12 million Californians with Medi-Cal coverage. Gov. Jerry Brown has a golden opportunity to fix the problem Thursday when he unveils his May revised budget plan. But don't hold your breath. It's becoming increasingly clear that the influx of 2.7 million Californians to the Medi-Cal roles is putting a strain on the state's medical system. The low reimbursement rates provide a disincentive for physicians...

Ethicist Peter Singer Says Don't Pay to Treat Disabled Babies Wesley J. Smith May 12, 2015 7:16 PM | Permalink Peter Singer is a bigot. Rather than believing in universal human equality, he would invidiously measure the capacities of human beings to determine whether they are "persons." Those with insufficient capacities are to be deemed human "non-persons," of lesser moral value, and hence, potentially subject to both killing and objectification for harvesting, medical experimentation, etc. He also supports health care rationing based on quality of life. This blatant medical discrimination would victimize babies born with severe disabilities -- whose care,...

After using most of $1 billion in federal start-up money, California's Obamacare exchange is preparing to go on a diet. That financial reality is reflected in Covered California's proposed budget, to be released Wednesday, as well as a reduced forecast calling for 2016 enrollment of fewer than 1.5 million people. A number of factors contributed to the shortfall, but health policy experts said that some uninsured folks still find health insurance unaffordable despite the health law's premium subsidies.

The Obama administration has worked for years to lure states into accepting Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion under the false promise of “flexibility.” Despite its best efforts, 21 states have rejected the expansion. And at least two states that previously expanded Medicaid under Obamacare are looking to turn back the clock and draw down their Medicaid expansions in 2016. The Obama administration is desperate for a national leader like Florida to expand Obamacare, hoping it will set off a chain reaction to convince leaders in other states to fall in line. So, frustrated with its lack of success in convincing conservatives to...

Denver -- The state's health exchange is looking at more than doubling the fee that insurers pass onto customers who buy policies. The Denver Post reports Connect for Health Colorado staff recommended the increase Monday as $177 million in federal startup grants come to a close and as insurance carriers prepare to submit their rate plans by May 29. If the health exchange board approves the 3.5 percent charge for premiums, the fee for a $4,000 yearly plan would go up by $84. Staff also recommended upping a monthly assessment charge for 1.2 million private insurance policies to bring in...

In a news story titled “Nearly half of Obamacare exchanges are struggling over their future,” The Washington Post reports the following: Nearly half of the 17 insurance marketplaces set up by the states and the District under President Obama’s health law are struggling financially, presenting state officials with an unexpected and serious challenge five years after the passage of the landmark Affordable Care Act. Many of the online exchanges are wrestling with surging costs, especially for balky technology and expensive customer-call centers — and tepid enrollment numbers. To ease the fiscal distress, officials are considering raising fees on insurers, sharing...