Free Republic

More than 150,000 doctors, health care organizations and others have flooded the Federal Register with comments condemning a Trump administration plan that would make it harder for immigrants to maintain their legal residency status if they seek federal assistance for food, health care or housing.

...sign-ups through HealthCare.gov, the federal Affordable Care Act exchange, are down 11 percent through the first five weeks compared with the same time last year -- and experts say final numbers are on track to be lower overall at the end of enrollment. ... ...Get America Covered, published an analysis predicting total enrollment on the federal exchange would fall by 800,000. There are also fewer people enrolling for the first-time in the marketplaces. ew consumers were down about 18 percent compared with last year, and the number of people visiting Healthcare.gov down almost 21 percent. “You look for explanations, is...

On the first of the month, D.C. Mayor Muriel Bowser held an event at Freedom Plaza to celebrate the start of Obamacare’s annual open enrollment period. She appeared with Mila Kofman, head of the District’s health insurance exchange, D.C. Health Link. In conjunction with the event, the mayor issued a proclamation declaring the open enrollment period “Get Covered, Stay Covered” months, and noting that “residents should visit [D.C. Health Link’s website] to shop for and compare health insurance.” But in encouraging others to “get covered,” and promoting the D.C. Health Link site, Bowser omitted one key detail: She does not...

The City Council on Thursday put its political clout behind a proposal in Albany to overhaul state health care by creating a “Medicare for all” program that would raise taxes by $139 billion a year. The single-payer plan would extend coverage to the roughly 1 million uninsured New Yorkers — including undocumented immigrants — and eliminate all co-pays and deductibles.

Before we delve into her new "argument," I'd like to make a point about why the conservative commentariat sometimes seems fixated on Congresswoman-elect Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.  First, she entered the national spotlight as a media fascination and darling -- a young woman of color who shook up the Democratic Party from the left by defeating an establishment fixture.  She wasn't randomly plucked from relative obscurity by right-wing writers or pundits for sport; she was elevated by a mainstream media that loves covering, and sympathizes with, rising liberal stars.  And please recall the DNC Chairman referring to her as "the future of...

The Trump administration on Thursday outlined ways states will be allowed to waive parts of the Affordable Care Act, a move that has been welcomed by conservatives, spurred rebukes from Democrats and risks legal action. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which implements the health law, released four templates detailing how states may use waivers. States will get significantly more leeway to change the way they distribute and structure ACA premium subsidies that now go to almost nine million people. “The specific examples laid out today show how state governments can work with HHS to create more choices and...

On a sunny, cold Sunday in November, Victoria Laverde walked up to an information table at Plaza Las Americas in Lilburn and asked for federal help in signing up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. It’s exactly what officials under the Trump administration hoped would happen when they made big changes to funding for ACA navigation. The government has made news as it stripped down the grant money, reducing Georgia’s enrollment navigator funding to $499,995, down from $1.4 million last year and $3.7 million in 2016. It’s virtually eliminated advertising, and it fired the major statewide nonprofits that...

A little more than 1.9 million people signed up for health insurance in the first three weeks of the Affordable Care Act open enrollment for 2019 coverage. That compares with almost 2.3 million during the first three weeks of open enrollment last year, which included an additional day. Americans are signing up for coverage through the federal marketplace at a slower rate this year, but the CMS numbers don't include enrollment in states that operate their own exchanges. It also does not include those who will be automatically enrolled in plans during the last week of open enrollment, which ends...

The Obamacare Supreme Court ruling seemed strange. Chief Justice John Roberts’ reasoning was incoherent. The conservative’s dissent read like it was originally meant to be a majority opinion. Now, we know why. According to Jan Crawford of CBS News, John Roberts switched sides in May, withstanding a “one-month campaign” from his conservative colleagues to change his mind.

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley of Iowa said he had reservations about Chief Justice John Roberts' response to President Donald Trump's controversial characterization of a federal judge and the 9th District court, and suggested it was a hypocritical move based on Roberts' previous interactions with Trump's predecessor. "Chief Justice Roberts rebuked Trump for a comment he made [about a] judge's decision on asylum," Grassley said in a tweet on Wednesday. "I don't recall the Chief attacking Obama when that Prez rebuked Alito during a State of the Union." Grassley, the Judiciary Committee Chairman, appeared to be referencing a State of the...

Fox News host Mark Levin defended President Trump on Wednesday after Chief Justice John Roberts rebuked the president's criticism of a federal judge. The conservative host argued in a Facebook post defending Trump that "there are ... too many progressive judges and justices who legislate from the bench." "Indeed, when it came to Obamacare, Roberts himself led the court’s leftists in rewriting the Constitution and imposing that damnable law on all of us," he wrote. "It appears John Roberts doesn’t live in the real world." Levin weighed in after Roberts offered a rare statement rebuking Trump's criticism of a federal...

In the waning days of her congressional race, Republican Katie Arrington attempted to paint her opponent as a one-issue candidate, concerned only with offshore drilling. The issue, however, is likely one of the main forces that helped Democrat Joe Cunningham turn the 1st Congressional District blue for the first time in four decades. And it may have resonated with an important constituency that Cunningham’s staunch opposition to fossil fuel exploration likely spoke to: conservation-minded conservatives. “It’s a huge group in the 1st District,” said outgoing Rep. Mark Sanford. Sanford, who lost to Trump loyalist Katie Arrington in a primary for...

The Republican Party lost its House majority on July 28, 2017, when Sen. John McCain ended the party’s seven-year quest to repeal ObamaCare. House leadership had done an admirable job herding cats. On the second try, we passed the American Health Care Act in May. Then McCain’s inscrutable vote against the Senate’s “skinny repeal” killed the reform effort. McCain’s last-minute decision prompted a “green wave” of liberal special-interest money, which was used to propagate false claims that the House plan “gutted coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.” That line was the Democrats’ most potent attack in the midterms. It was...

The night before the midterm elections, House Speaker Paul Ryan touted “tax reform 2.0,” the economy, and the rebuilding of the United States military as the agenda accomplishments of the Republican-controlled Congress. “Frankly, our members feel pretty good because they have a really good message … I mean look at what we’ve just been able to achieve in Congress with the President in the last two years,” Ryan told Fox News’ Bret Baier. “A record economy, the military being rebuilt, people feeling better about things … wages growing faster than they have since before the recession.” The accomplishments of the...

I blame McCain. It was Senator McCain who, out of spite, voted thumbs-down on repealing ObamaCare….

The Trump administration today issued a new rule designed to protect Americans from being forced to pay for abortions under Obamacare. Today the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services issued a new rule directing insurers selling Obamacare plans that cover elective abortion to collect a separate payment from enrollees for that coverage, as required by law. Under the Obama administration, insurers were allowed to collect these payments together in violation of clear statutory language. In 2018, taxpayer-funded Obamacare insurance plans in 24 states and the District of Columbia are allowed to cover elective abortion with an embedded abortion surcharge....

New York congressional candidate Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez had a quick answer when asked how Americans would pay for the 'Medicare for all' plan she and other socialist-leaning Democrats favor: "Just pay for it." In an interview with Jorge Ramos last week, Ocasio-Cortez was asked how she would pay for the multi-billion dollar health care plan promoted by liberal lawmakers like Sens. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Kamala Harris, D-Calif. Ramos noted critics say the the program would be "more expensive" than the current system, to which she answered that people would "just pay for it." “People often say, like, how are you...

What is a pre-existing condition? This is strictly an insurance term that was created to characterize a particular health condition a person applying for insurance may have. The vast majority of people have pre-existing conditions. They may range from migraine headaches or chronic acne to multiple sclerosis or breast cancer. Historically, insurance companies went through a process known as underwriting, which meant they assessed the health conditions, current and past, that the applicant experienced. The cost of the insurance policy was based on the perceived risk and exposure of the insurance company. In some cases, the risk was so great...

Nancy Sobin knows her way around paperwork. She started her own business three years ago, helping small business owners and elderly clients manage their finances. That's when she turned to the Obamacare exchanges for health coverage. "I was fortunate enough, because I was just starting my business, to get a subsidy … and it was pretty good insurance" for about $300 a month, said the owner of Professional Paperwork Services in Lawrenceville, New Jersey. But as her business improved, her insurance options changed last year. "I didn't get the subsidy anymore, because my business went well," Sobin explained. So, she...

I keep up with the events and politics. I am reading the book Kids These Days - Human Capital and the Making of Millennials by Malcolm Harris and it gave me a very different perspective on student Debt. Chapter Two called Go to College, discusses student debt, its design not to be discharged via bankruptcy, and the use of future earnings of millennials to fund current healthcare debt IE Obamacare and education capitol construction projects for the foreseeable future. This puts a different spin on what happened to these kids who have been encouraged to voluntarily take on debt that...