Free Republic

The Affordable Care Act is set to cost students enrolled in the government’s loan program $8.7 billion in extra interest over the next decade, according to a report published by the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO). If savings were kept inside the loan program, instead of transferred to Obamacare, as some Republican senators are suggesting, they could allow the Department of Education to lower student interest rates to 5.3 percent from 6.3 percent, according to the CBO. The nearly $9 billion being used to fund Obamacare is derived from $61 billion the government says it will save by administering student...

I don’t know if Members of Congress will be hearing about it in town hall gatherings and other meetings back home over the Fourth of July recess, but the rolling thunder of the approaching ObamaCare train can be heard in the distance. Smart Democrats are beginning to get frantic about the need to suppress the confusion and hide the cost of ObamaCare between now and the 2014 midterm elections. We are just three months away from the October 1st enrollment start date and so far, nothing about the ObamaCare implementation process should be politically encouraging for Democrats. In fact, the...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Thursday that health insurance premiums will go up under Obamacare because people who did not buy insurance before, and thus had no premium at all, will now be forced to buy insurance.She also urged people to be “optimistic” about Obamacare. “You just see,” Pelosi said. “I mean be optimistic about it. It is a very, very exciting enterprise.” … “It’s also about what you get for the money,” Pelosi added. “In other words, people will be getting no lifetime or annual limits on their coverage, no discrimination because of a preexisting medical...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Thursday that health insurance premiums will go up under Obamacare because people who did not buy insurance before, and thus had no premium at all, will now be forced to buy insurance. She also urged people to be “optimistic” about Obamacare. “You just see,” Pelosi said. “I mean be optimistic about it. It is a very, very exciting enterprise.” Pelosi told reporters during a Capitol Hill press conference on Thursday that she never promised that every single American

The cheapest Obamacare health insurance plan will cost a family $20,000 per year. Americans will be forced to purchase the plan or face the Obama IRS. CNS News reported: In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year. Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS. The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives...

Blue Cross/Blue Shield of Tennessee (BCBST) is warning that its customers will face sticker shock with premiums next year because of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as “Obamacare.” Many of the 2010 law’s key provisions kick in next year, including the requirement for all Americans to have health insurance. BCBST, the state’s largest insurance provider covering more than 3 million Tennesseans, is projecting that individual policy holders will see average premium increases around 30 percent, while small group customers will pay about 10 percent more. Large employers will see a 3 to 5 percent spike, BCBST officials said.

Reid: More funding needed to prevent ObamaCare from becoming 'train wreck' By Alexander Bolton - 05/01/13 05:45 PM ET Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says he shares colleagues’ concerns that the Affordable Care Act could become a “train wreck” if it’s not implemented properly. Reid warned that people will not be able to choose health insurance plans on government health exchanges if federal authorities lack the resources to set them up and educate the public. “Max said unless we implement this properly it’s going to be a train wreck and I agree with him,” Reid said, echoing a warning...

According to the newly filed bill, immigrants who are allowed to enter the United States under a work visa, will be ‘granted’ a cellular phone. Move over “Obama phone,” we present the new ‘Hola, Como Estas?!’ MarcoPhone. Here is the actual mention of the free phones in the bill- SEC. 1107. ACCESS TO EMERGENCY PERSONNEL. (a) SOUTHWEST BORDER REGION EMERGENCY COM-MUNICATIONS GRANTS.— The Secretary, in consultation with the governors of the States in the Southwest Border region, shall establish a 2-year grant program, to be administered by the Secretary, to improve emergency communications in the Southwest ELIGIBILITY FOR GRANTS.—An individual...

Buried deep within President Obama’s $3.77 trillion budget is a tiny little proposal to increase Medicaid spending by $360 million. In a budget as large as this one, $360 million is scarcely worth mentioning. It amounts to less than one-hundredth of one percent of total outlays. But this 0.01 percent is worth mentioning, because it proves the president’s health-care law will not work.While many uninsured patients pay their medical bills, the Medicaid program offers “disproportionate share hospital” payments to hospitals that treat lots of patients who don’t. The president’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act cuts Medicaid’s DSH payments,...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Physicians could face dramatic financial challenges for treating patients who receive health coverage through the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) exchanges starting next year. Insurance companies will not process claims on patients who haven't paid their premiums in 3 months, leaving doctors on the hook to recoup payment directly from the patients. The ACA provides a 3-month grace period to individuals who haven't paid their premiums, and the provision could prove problematic for physicians, said Elizabeth McNeil, vice president of federal government relations at the California Medical Association (CMA) in Sacramento. Plans will hold off on processing claims...

Opinion Print Article | Email Friend | Reprint Permissions Obama's new budget calls for $30 million more in abortion funding by Elise Hilton Fri Apr 12, 2013 09:40 EST Comments () Tags: abortion funding, barack obama WASHINGTON, D.C., April 12, 2013 (Acton Institute) - Obama’s new budget is in. The usual political wrangling is taking place, but there are some undeniable facts about the budget. Taxes are going up (is anyone surprised?), but some of those taxes are “sneaky” ones on senior citizens designed to fund things other than their health. In all, the president’s budget will raise taxes by...

Setting up insurance exchanges — the centerpiece of President Obama's healthcare reform law — is costing the Health and Human Services Department a whole lot more than it originally expected. According to budget documents released Wednesday, the department expects to spend $4.4 billion on exchange grants to the states by the end of this year — double its estimates a year ago. The HHS is also asking Congress for another $1.5 billion to set up a federal exchange in 26 states. The department has cobbled together money from other programs to get started, but officials said they need another $800...

Jobless claims stopped their record-breaking, fearsome, FOUR-WEEK job-creation rampage today as the BLS reported that initial claim rose- again- by more than economists expected. “First-time jobless claims rose by 16,000 to 357,000 in the week ended March 23,” reports Reuters, “the highest level in more than a month, Labor Department data showed today in Washington. The median forecast of 48 economists surveyed by Bloomberg called for an increase to 340,000. The four-week average climbed from the lowest level in five years.” Economists, says Reuters, were expecting claims to come in between 330,000 at the low end and 355,000 at the...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Thursday that President Obama´s healthcare law has helped keep costs under control while providing new benefits to millions of Americans. The number of double-digit increases in healthcare premiums has dropped significantly in the three years since Obama signed the law, she said on MSNBC´s "Morning Joe." "What we´re seeing is costs really come down for the first time in a very ling time," Sebelius said. "Medicare costs are significantly lower than they were." Greater access to preventive medicine will help

An exhaustive study by three congressional committees delivers startling news about the dire effects of Obamacare: President Barack Obama’s signature legislation could increase health insurance premiums by over 200 percent and render insurance coverage unaffordable for millions of Americans. Broadly, the new report declares that Obamacare “breaks its core promise” to make healthcare coverage affordable. The report, “The Price of Obamacare’s Broken Promises,” was prepared by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Majority Staff; Senate Committee on Finance, Minority Staff; and Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Minority Staff. “Studies and analyses from the Congressional Budget Office,...

This was WAY back in 2010 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUd-slJc-GY"...your employer, it's estimated, would see premiums fall by as much as 3000% which means they could give you a raise."Steve Gilbert had some fun with this: Let’s say an employer pays $4,000 in health care premiums for an employee. If his premium goes down 100% he will save $4,000 dollars. If it goes down 3,000% that is a savings of $4,000 x 30 which = $120,000. Which means that an employer will make a $120,000 profit on each employee’s healthcare insurance once Obama-care is passed. You can buy a lot of unicorns with...

A notice of our open healthcare enrollment had this statement through it repeatedly: "Increased due to the requirements in the Patient Protection and Affordable Healthcare Act..."

The Republican side of the Senate Budget Committee will later today release the following chart, detailing the rising projected cost of President Obama's signature legislation, Obamacare: The latest estimate, as the chart details, is that Obamacare will cost $2.6 trillion dollars in its first real decade. The bill does not fully go into effect until 2014, therefore the estimate begins with that year. "President Obama promised a joint session of Congress in 2009 to spend $900 billion over ten years on his health care law: 'Now, add it all up, and the plan that I’m proposing will

While the Supreme Court’s decision upholding the Obamacare law may potentially benefit some people, this is not good news for me and other small businesses. To preface, health-care premiums for my business have risen as much as 20 percent in a single year. In the last two years, the increases have stabilized as we’ve become larger and more adept at seeking out cost effective plans. If I thought that this plan would result in decreased health-care premiums, I might support it, but there is no reason to think that it will do this. One of the main reasons health care...

Million of Americans of modest means will pay more Several issues are being distorted in the wake of the Supreme Court’s contradictory, backdoor ruling that up-held President Obama’s health care law on a disputed word definition. Others are virtually absent from the discussion, such as who will pay the onerous penalty tax and what it will cost them if the uninsured refuse to obey Mr. Obama’s order to purchase medical insurance? It turns out, the court’s decision means Mr. Obama’s tax will fall most heavily on lower- to middle-income people whom he has vowed to shield from his proposed tax...