Free Republic

The New York Times reports that the "cash-rich group aiding Jeb Bush’s White House run has filmed a provocative video casting his rival Marco Rubio as ultimately unelectable because of his hard-line stand against abortion." According to Times reporters Maggie Haberman and Michael Barbaro, the man running Bush's Right to Rise super PAC recently showed the video to a focus group of Republicans in New Hampshire. During the first GOP debate, Rubio had this exchange with Megyn Kelly: KELLY: If you believe that life begins at conception, as you say you do, how do you justify ending a life just...

Supporters of universal health care have gathered enough signatures to put on next year's ballot a plan to make Colorado the first state to opt out of the federal health law and replace it with taxpayer-funded coverage for all. Proponents submitted 158,831 qualified signatures, about 60,000 more than required to put the measure on the ballot, Secretary of State Wayne Williams said Monday. The question would make Colorado the first state to opt out of the federal Affordable Care Act and replace it with universal health care. The campaign is expected to face intense opposition and could make for a...

One of the 12 failed co-ops created under Obamacare is now under investigation by regulators after the co-op was found to have downplayed its poor financial condition in official filings, the Daily Caller reported. The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) found that the Health Republic of New York co-op’s “financial condition is substantially worse than the company previously reported in its filings.” “Among other issues, the investigation will examine the causes of the inaccurate representations to NYDFS regarding the company’s financial condition,” they said.

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Right here in the New York Times, even today. Paul Krugman -- who hates everything conservative, hates everything Republican, and despises personally Ronald Reagan -- has a piece called, "Despair, American Style." "A couple of weeks ago President Obama mocked Republicans who are 'down on America,' and reinforced his message by doing a pretty good Grumpy Cat impression. He had a point: With job growth at rates not seen since the 1990s, with the percentage of Americans covered by health insurance hitting record highs, the doom-and-gloom predictions of his political enemies look ever more at odds with...

Its no secret that taxpayers are footing the bill for abortion giant Planned Parenthood, despite claims that taxpayer dollars are not being used to subsidize the group and its activities. Here are three ways Planned Parenthood is benefiting at the expense of the American taxpayer.1. State fundingCurrently, 17 states directly fund elective abortions under Medicaid, the federal health care program for low income Americans. The Guttmacher Institute reports that Alaska, Arizona, California, Connecticut, Hawaii, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Minnesota, Montana, New Jersey, New Mexico, New York, Oregon, Vermont, Washington, and West Virginia, use public funding to pay for abortion procedures.While the 1976 Hyde Amendment prevents federal taxpayer dollars from funding abortions through Medicaid—with the exception of...

So this is the world we live in now. Asked by the Huffington Post whether he would go back in time and kill baby Hitler, Jeb Bush said, "Hell yeah, I would! You gotta step up, man." But do you? Should you? Given certain assumptions, killing baby Hitler isn't a hard question. Assume that going back in time merely eliminates Hitler, and that the sole effect of that is that the Nazi Party lacks a charismatic leader and never takes power in Germany, and World War II and the Holocaust are averted, and nothing worse than World War II transpires...

Former Gov. Jeb Bush (R-Fla.) said in an interview Monday that he would personally kill an infant Adolf Hitler. “Hell yeah I would,” he told The Huffington Post when asked about killing the Nazi leader as a baby.

Congressional Democrats led by Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi are quietly working to repeal the "Cadillac tax," a 40 percent excise on certain expensive health-insurance policies enacted as part of the so-called Affordable Care Act, which grows less affordable by the minute. The Cadillac tax was never going to be long-lived. It was a lie from the beginning, a part of the great fiction that allowed Democrats to claim that Barack Obama's signature health-insurance initiative would add "not one dime" to the deficit, as the president repeatedly insisted. But the tax was and is bitterly opposed by important Democratic constituencies:...

With sickening suddenness, the second-largest insurer on New York's health care exchange is kaput at the end of the month - leaving 215,000 New Yorkers scrambling to secure new coverage. Among them are 250 patients at Manhattan's Memorial Sloan-Kettering who had selected Health Republic as the only plan on the exchange that included the renowned cancer center. In all, one in five New Yorkers who enrolled on the state's insurance exchange are affected - and all have until next Sunday to find a new health plan, or go without for all of December. With the clock ticking, Gov. Cuomo must...

And Republicans across the country should take note. According to all the polls leading up to last Tuesday’s gubernatorial election in Kentucky, Republican businessman Matt Bevin wasn’t supposed to have a chance. This was the same Matt Bevin who had launched a lamentably unsuccessful primary campaign last year against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and was treated by much of the press in the state (OK, technically the commonwealth) as a loose cannon who couldn’t be taken seriously. But Mr. Bevin pounded away at ObamaCare. And if you’re wondering why, since that’s ostensibly a national issue, you might recall that...

The just-started enrollment period for ObamaCare exchange plans in 2016 is likely to yield one of two dismal outcomes. In the first, enrollment soars as people sign up in droves for the cheapest plan available to avoid the individual mandate tax penalty, whose minimum bite will spike from $325 to $695. Although the law's strongest backers might celebrate this, it's not clear why: Millions of modest-income individuals who opt for bronze would get policies with deductibles as high as $6,850. Yet the Obama administration's own analysis reveals that among those still uninsured, 80% have less than $1,000 in savings. Thus,...

PRESIDENT OBAMA: "What we're talking about is no longer just a law, and it's certainly not the myths and scare tactics that the cynics have peddled our way for years. This is reality. This is health care in America. And the bottom line is, Americans like it. They're happy with their plans and their premiums.So join them. Give it a shot. ......"

Humana said it will discontinue several products offered on government-run exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, impacting about 100,000 individuals currently covered by the insurer's plans across the country. The move, disclosed this morning in the company's third-quarter earnings report, comes due to higher-than expected medical costs from sick newly insured patients covered under the health law. "Operating results for the company's individual commercial medical business continue to be challenged primarily due to the volatility related to the start of the healthcare exchange program created under the Affordable Care Act as well as the morbidity of membership served under this...

Some 250 patients receiving treatment at Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center are facing a crisis because they signed up with the only ObamaCare insurer in New York that provides coverage at the world-renowned hospital - and the insurer is going bust. Now the patients either have to find new insurers and doctors or pay higher out-of-pocket costs for extended care at Sloan. State regulators are removing Health Republic Insurance of New York from the ObamaCare exchange as of Nov. 30 because the company is gushing red ink - losing more than $130 million in 18 months.

**SNIP** In addition to touting the opening of the enrollment period, Obama took on the law's critics in his weekly address. "What we're talking about is no longer just a law, and it's certainly not the myths and scare tactics that the cynics have peddled our way for years," Obama said. "This is healthcare in America. And the bottom line is, Americans like it."

When you head into the emergency room, you might assume that the doctors you see are hospital employees who accept the same insurance plans as their employer. But nearly two-thirds of hospitals now staff their ERs with freelance physicians who might not accept your insurance plan, meaning you’ll be on the hook for whatever your insurer doesn’t pay. ---SNIP-- As we’ve discussed before, "balance-billing" is the practice by which out-of-network doctors will bill patients for the balance that remains after the insurance companies pays out its contractually obligated amount to the hospital.

Many concerned Americans are following the battle in Congress to defund Planned Parenthood, spurred by videos released over the summer by the Center for Medical Progress allegedly showing the organization selling the pieces of aborted babies. However, even if the abortion organization loses its funding from the federal budget, many tax payers will still be supporting it with their hard-earned dollars. Because along with the money they get from the from the federal budget, Planned Parenthood receives money from Obamacare and from state coffers. A General Accounting Office Study requested by pro-life members of Congress and released at the end...

As open enrollment season on HealthCare.gov begins, President Obama is introducing a contest meant to motivate Americans to sign up for health insurance coverage through federal and state exchanges. "I want to see how many of your neighbors you can get signed up," the president said in a video released Saturday. "I'll come visit the city that enrolls the highest percentage of folks who aren't covered right now. That's a promise." Twenty major cities will participate in the Healthy Communities Challenge, competing to see the largest decrease for those without health insurance. A high percentage of the population in these...

The misbegotten mess known as the Patient Deflection and Unaffordable Care Act is really starting to collapse: Humana said it will discontinue several products offered on government-run exchanges under the Affordable Care Act, impacting about 100,000 individuals currently covered by the insurer's plans across the country. The move, disclosed this morning in the company's third-quarter earnings report, comes due to higher-than expected medical costs from sick newly insured patients covered under the health law."Operating results for the company's individual commercial medical business continue to be challenged primarily due to the volatility related to the start of the healthcare exchange...

WASHINGTON, D.C., August 18, 2015 (LifeSiteNews) - Republicans most trust Dr. Ben Carson and Mike Huckabee to handle the issue of abortion, according to a recent CNN poll. However, a series of statements from Carson's campaign, and from Dr. Carson himself, have led to questions about the clarity of his pro-life views about when life begins, how RU-486 works, and his views on experimenting with aborted fetal tissue, among other issues. On Tuesday, the Carson campaign defended his decision to refer women to abortionists if the child suffered from fetal deformities. "Referring it on does not mean he is advocating...