Free Republic

“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...

Help! The Affordable Care Act is not affordable for me! Remember Mike Elk, the former lethargic Politico labor reporter? The word "lethargic" will forever be attached to his name because despite writing a grand total of five stories in fourteen weeks followed by several months of doing absolutely nothing, while being paid, he compained about the heavy work load at Politico. Nowadays Elk is writing about labor unions at his own Payday Report website funded by his Politico settlement. Unfortunately for Elk, money management doesn't seem to be his strong point since he now has his hand out for money to pay for ObamaCare...

Two Republican senators on Monday unveiled the outlines of an ObamaCare replacement plan that they hope would be able to attract some Democratic support. The plan, from Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), contains less drastic changes than some Republican proposals. It envisions keeping many of ObamaCare’s taxes in place in order to provide revenue for the replacement plan and gives states the choice of whether they want to keep ObamaCare. Under the plan, known as the Patient Freedom Act, state legislatures would have the choice of whether to keep ObamaCare operating in their states, complete with its...

Now that President Donald Trump is in the Oval Office, thousands of American lives that were previously protected by provisions of the Affordable Care Act are in danger. For more than 30 years, we have studied how death rates are affected by changes in health-care coverage, and we're convinced that an ACA repeal could cause tens of thousands of deaths annually. The story is in the data: The biggest and most definitive study of what happens to death rates when Medicaid coverage is expanded, published in the New England Journal of Medicine, found that for every 455 people who gained...

Just saw an ad on espn for Obamacare, saying that people have until 1/31 to sign up before the penalty. What are we doing here, these ads should be pulled.

Senator Susan Collins of Maine and Senator Bill Cassidy of Louisiana, two very different politicians, plan to unveil their proposal for replacing Obamacare on Monday.  This combination of sponsors gives hope that a compromise will be possible with Senator Charles Schumer of New York, the minority leader.  This is necessary since the Democrats can filibuster any replacement plan.  Budgetary reconciliation process can allow removal of Obamacare funding via a simple majority but does not allow for replacement legislation.  Replacement legislation is required to remove the negative impact for Republicans and to the 13 million users of the federal exchanges resulting...

Freepers,John Fund(?) on Fox News broke the story Senator Collins and I think a M.D. from the House will unveil Obamacare's Replacement tomorrow.It should be a busy day, recognition of Jerusalem as Israel's Capital, Defunding Intl Planned Parenthood and Now this!

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell predicted Sunday that Republicans in his chamber would confirm all of President Trump's remaining Cabinet nominees, even though the GOP has struggled to overcome Democratic roadblocks and confirmed only two nominees so far.

WASHINGTON — In his first executive order, President Trump on Friday directed government agencies to scale back as many aspects of the Affordable Care Act as possible, moving within hours of being sworn in to fulfill his pledge to eviscerate Barack Obama’s signature health care law. The one-page order, which Mr. Trump signed in a hastily arranged Oval Office ceremony shortly before departing for the inaugural balls, gave no specifics about which aspects of the law it was targeting. But its broad language gave federal agencies wide latitude to change, delay or waive provisions of the law that they deemed...

Hours after taking the oath of office, President Donald Trump followed up on his campaign pledge to start chipping away at Obamacare and curb federal regulations. Trump signed an executive order Friday evening in the Oval Office “to ease the burden of Obamacare as we transition to repeal and replace,” White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters. White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus also sent a memo titled “Regulatory Freeze Pending Review” to block all pending regulations under review but not yet in the Federal Register. The new president’s goal is to repeal the Affordable Care Act, better...

As soon as Republicans took the first steps toward repealing ObamaCare, stories started popping up all over about how ObamaCare "saved my life." CNN ran an op-ed called "ObamaCare saved my life. What now?" and Salon one titled "ObamaCare saved my dad's life — and then he voted for Donald Trump." Another reported on how a "Sedona cancer survivor tells Paul Ryan: 'Obamacare' saved my life." Huffington Post had a piece about how "ObamaCare Saved My Mom's Life." The list of such stories grows by the day. They all tell the same tale. Someone got insurance because of ObamaCare, got...

The Obama administration claims 20 million more Americans today have health care due to Obamacare. The reality is that when you look at the actual net gains over the past two years since the program was fully implemented, the number is 14 million, and of that, 11.8 million (84 percent) were people given the “gift” of Medicaid. And new research shows that even fewer people will be left without insurance after the repeal of Obamacare. Numbers are still being crunched, but between statistics released by the Congressional Budget Office and one of the infamous architects of Obamacare, the Massachusetts Institute...

Earlier this month, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer tried to turn Donald Trump's signature line – "Make America Great Again" – against him by saying that Trump was trying to "make America sick again." Though Schumer was talking specifically about the Republican attempt to repeal Obamacare, this slogan is becoming increasingly appropriate for the entirety of the GOP platform.

Obamacare has cost roughly 300,000 small business jobs due to higher health care costs, according to a new report. The American Action Forum, a center-right policy institute, released findings Wednesday that rising premiums and regulations under the Affordable Care Act have had “dire” consequences for the labor market. The report found the law has cost $19 billion in lost wages per year and forced 10,000 small businesses establishments to close their doors. The study covered employers with 20 to 99 employees. “Research from the American Action Forum (AAF) finds regulations from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are driving up health...

Do these people know anything about anything? Maybe I’m giving Democrats and their media allies too much credit by ascribing ignorance to them on the matter of Tom Price and the so-called “allegations” against him. I realize Democrats don’t know much about business, but I assume most of them know the law. And if that’s the case, then they know the suggestion our soon-to-be Secretary of Health and Human Services engaged in anything like “insider trading” is so much nonsense.

Two Republican senators are working on legislation that would let states decide whether they want to keep Obamacare or move to a different system. Sens. Bill Cassidy of Louisiana and Susan Collins of Maine both hinted on the Senate floor Tuesday about a bill that would preserve Obamacare, but only for states that choose to keep it. The move comes as the GOP-controlled Congress is pushing to repeal the law, but some Republican senators are concerned about repealing the law without an immediate replacement. Cassidy said the bill would be essentially the same as a bill he introduced in the...

Liberals are notorious for caring about “groups” of people, but when it gets down to individual persons, not so much. You’re about to see this play out in spades as Democrats cry crocodile tears over the coming repeal of Obamacare.You hear it over and over again: “This will be catastrophic for the 20 million people who were previously uninsured but now have coverage! You can’t take away their health care!”First of all, no one is talking about doing that. Any repeal legislation will have a transition period for those who got coverage through Obamacare to move to new plans. And...

As the debate continues over repeal of the Affordable Care Act and what might replace it, a growing share of Americans believe that the federal government has a responsibility to make sure all Americans have health care coverage, according to a new Pew Research Center survey. ... The belief that the government has a responsibility to ensure health coverage has increased across many groups over the past year, but the rise has been particularly striking among lower- and middle-income Republicans. Currently, 52% of Republicans with family incomes below $30,000 say the federal government has a responsibility to ensure health coverage...

With the repeal of Obamacare gathering a considerable amount of corporate media attention, it is important to remember the UniParty, Democrats and Republicans, have been paid by the U.S. CoC to retain it at all costs. ♦ The U.S. Chamber of Commerce constructed a short list of Wall Street-centric legislative priorities back in 2014 for legislative years ’15 and ’16. Among those priorities was: Retention of Obamacare Implementation of Common Core federal education standards. Passage of the Trans-Pacific Trade Deal (TPP) Comprehensive immigration reform to include amnesty. the-big-club-2 U.S. CoC President Tom Donohue has spent hundreds of millions via K-Street...

Thursday, I laid out the case for why Obamacare should be repealed, instead of propped up and tinkered on by additional top-down, boardroom thinking. It’s clear that whatever replaces Obamacare must focus on quality and incremental local solutions, not one-size-fits-all government mandates.In this respect, the federal government’s biggest task for replacing Obamacare is to get out of the way and let state policymakers and health care providers innovate.First off, let’s get clear what Americans want: They’d like many choices of affordable health insurance plans that allow them to choose their doctors. They want to buy a plan when they are...