Free Republic

“CONSERVATIVE” OPPOSITION TO ENDING OBAMACARE MAKES ME SICK A Howard Kurtz article on Fox News this morning, Why Some Conservatives Don’t Like the Ruling Against Obamacare,” is mis-titled. There should have been quote marks around the word “conservative.” No self-respecting conservative would ever oppose a ruling striking down Obamacare, as has just happened when a federal judge in Texas ruled the law unconstitutional. Think about it—how is it possible for a law MANDATING that you buy a product be Constitutional? Medicine is a product. The practice of medicine is a commercial service. That’s free enterprise. If you force a doctor...

The midterm elections were, to an important extent, a referendum on the Affordable Care Act; health care, not Donald Trump, dominated Democratic campaigning. And voters delivered a clear verdict: They want Obamacare’s achievements, the way it expanded coverage to roughly 20 million people who would otherwise have been uninsured, to be sustained. But on Friday, Reed O’Connor, a partisan Republican judge known for “weaponizing” his judicial power, declared the A.C.A. as a whole — protection for pre-existing conditions, subsidies to help families afford coverage, and the Medicaid expansion — unconstitutional. Legal experts from both right and left ridiculed his reasoning...

Outraged Democrats vowed to appeal a federal judge’s ruling that could undo the US health care law known as Obamacare, saying on Saturday that they will use their new power in Congress to hold Republicans responsible and “expose their lies.” US District Judge Reed O’Connor ruled late Friday that the health insurance reform, officially known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA), is unconstitutional. The White House said it expects the ruling to be appealed to the Supreme Court. For now, it said in a statement, “the law remains in place.” But Democrats, who have seen the law survive scores of...

Barack Obama took to social media Saturday to urge people to sign up for health care on the final day of Affordable Care Act enrollment. His appeal came a day after a Texas judge struck down the former president’s signature legislation as unconstitutional. Besides reminding people that Saturday would be the final day to enroll for affordable health care for 2019, Obama appeared to play down the significance of the ruling. “You might have heard about a federal court decision on a Republican lawsuit trying to strike down the Affordable Care Act in its entirety,” he said in Facebook post....

Thanks to President Donald Trump’s slashes to the federal government’s Obamacare advertising budget and his administration’s “sabotage” of Obamacare, hundreds of thousands of clueless people have been left in the dark and aren’t enrolling in Obamacare—at least, that’s what countless reporters and pundits would have you believe. However, the truth is this issue is far more complex that what many on the Left suggest.There’s no doubt that 2019 Obamacare enrollment has dropped compared to enrollment figures from one year ago. The Associated Press reports enrollment in the federal Obamacare exchange—the health insurance exchange used by 39 states—has fallen by nearly 20...

The sugary praise, often from former critics, does his memory no favors. The past week has featured so much extravagant praise of John McCain that Jill Abramson, the former editor of the New York Times, had to admit “McCain would cringe over some of the glowing tributes pouring in.” Take this example from The New Yorker: In death, McCain had finally become one with the country that was the object of his deepest faith, and any praise lavished on him, during the funeral proceedings or at any point afterward, would redound to the greater glory of America. Yes, of course,...

 The case is Texas, et al., v. United States of America, et al., Defendants, California, et al. Intervenors-Defendants.  Case 4:18-cv-00167-O Here is the actual decision where Judge O'Conner, of the Northern District Court of Texas, has ruled that Obamacare is unconstitutional because the Supreme Court ruled it was only Constitutional because the individual mandate was a tax. That tax was removed by Congress during the first year of the Trump administration. From courtlistener.com: The United States healthcare system touches millions of lives in a daily and deeply personal way. Health-insurance policy is therefore a politically charged affair—inflaming emotions and...

Today is the fifth consecutive Saturday of "yellow vests" protests in Paris and other parts of France.... There were 92 arrests as of 730am Eastern time in the US... In London a yellow vests protest demanding "Brexit now" blocked Westminster Bridge for awhile on Friday.... On that terrorist attack in France the other day. One of the injured has died raising the death toll to four.... President Trump has named Mick Mulvaney as acting chief of staff...... In Texas US District Judge Reed O'Connor has ruled a key provision of the Obamacare law unconstitutional.... Secretary of State Mike Pompeo has...

In a ruling sure to be appealed to Supreme Court, Texas court says the ACA, also known as Obamacare, can no longer stand without the penalty against the uninsured. A federal judge in Texas struck down the Affordable Care Act on Friday night, ruling that former President Barack Obama's signature domestic legislation has fallen down like a losing game of "Jenga." But the White House said that with the ruling expected to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court, the law will remain in place for now.

A spokesperson from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services told Fox News early Saturday that open enrollment for Affordable Care Act’s health insurance will continue despite the federal judge's ruling that the law is unconstitutional and must be "invalidated in whole.” U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor, a federal judge in Texas appointed by President George W. Bush, ruled that last year's tax cut bill knocked the constitutional foundation from under Obamacare by eliminating a penalty for not having coverage. The rest of the law cannot be separated from that provision and is therefore invalid, he wrote. The decision came...

repeal Obamacare, and he hasn’t done any of those things,” Carlson said, per The Washington Post. “He knows very little about the legislative process, hasn’t learned anything, hasn’t surrounded himself with people that can get it done, hasn’t done all the things you need to do, so it’s mostly his fault

(Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge in Texas ruled on Friday that the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Fort Worth agreed with a coalition of 20 states that a change in tax law last year eliminating a penalty for not having health insurance invalidates the entire Obamacare law. O'Connor's decision is likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.

(Bloomberg) -- Obamacare was struck down by a Texas federal judge in a ruling that casts uncertainty on insurance coverage for millions of U.S. residents. The decision Friday finding the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional comes just before the end of a six-week open enrollment period for the program in 2019 and underscores a divide between Republicans who have long sought to invalidate the law and Democrats who fought to keep it in place. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth agreed with a coalition of Republican states led by Texas that he had to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act,...

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor agreed with 19 States to declare the Affordable Care Act, (aka Obamacare) Unconstitutional because Congress revoked the tax penalty last year.

Six Christian organizations have won their years-long legal battles against an Obama-era federal mandate ordering the provision of contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs in their employee health care plans.U.S. District Court Judge Phillip Brimmer in Colorado issued an order granting the organizations an injunction against the Department of Health and Human Services Affordable Care Act contraception mandate that they felt required them to violate their organizations’ deeply-held religious beliefs about the sanctity of human life or be forced to pay millions in crippling fines.Those organizations include three Christian higher-education institutions — Taylor University in Indiana, Indiana Wesleyan University and Asbury Theological...

A U.S. appeals court Thursday blocked rules by the Trump administration allowing more employers to opt out of providing women with no-cost birth control. States were likely to succeed on their claim that the changes to President Barack Obama’s health care law were made without required notice and public comment, a divided, three-judge panel of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said. The panel upheld a preliminary injunction against the rules issued by a lower court judge last year. An email to the Justice Department seeking comment was not immediately returned. Obama’s health care law required most companies to...

Barack Obama is doing everything in his power to encourage average Americans to sign up for the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare. In fact, he's doing everything he possibly can to keep the legislation that has been deemed his legacy, from dying. On Monday, Obama shared a video, reminding Americans to sign up in case they get "very sick" in 2019. No jump shots. No ferns. No memes. Not this time. I’m going to give it to you straight: If you need health insurance for 2019, the deadline to get covered is December 15. Go to https://t.co/ob1Ynoesod...

Six in 10 U.S. adults say they worry about having to pay higher health insurance premiums, according to a Gallup poll. The poll finds that 61 percent say having their premiums raised is a “major concern,” higher than several other health care-related problems. Democrats focused heavily on health care on the midterm campaign trail and won back the House majority while saying they would preserve protections for people with pre-existing conditions. The poll, though, finds that premiums are an even bigger concern for the public than pre-existing conditions. Forty-two percent of adults said being denied coverage for a pre-existing condition...

Yesterday I finished up my obamacare enrollment. I know, I could auto-renew but year after year I keep thinking "It's gotta get better than this." No such luck. But I discovered yet another thing about our fascist medicine healthcare program that I find disturbing. Monday is cleanup day for my Windows machine so first thing I ran a full anti-virus scan and a CCleaner scan for tracking cookies. As usual CCleaner found and removed about 40 tracking cookies and found no registry issues. Then I moved on to the healthcare.gov renewal task. This was simplified by the fact that we...

Internet billionaire Marc Benioff is urging the GOP Congress and President Donald Trump to fast-track 400,000 foreign visa-workers — plus 400,000 family members — to green cards, the U.S. job market, and the ballot box. “This is good for our economy,” Benioff said in a Tuesday tweet that was applauded by Silicon Valley lobbyists. “We need to grow our workers to grow our economy.” Benioff’s comment is a tautology: Expanding the population by importing more than 800,000 people would obviously grow the nation’s economy, retail sales, government taxes, company profits, and Wall Street stock options. But Benioff’s cheap-labor importation plan...