Free Republic

I’m posting this report, not because I think anyone actually expected the Obama administration to abide by the requirements it set out for itself when devising this leviathan of a law (LOLz) — I mean, the thing is huge, and it would just be totally unreasonable to expect the administration to be able to churn out regulations and studies on time, every time, right? …Which is exactly my point. I’d just like to take this opportunity to once again highlight the practically unknowable degree to which Obama’s crowning legislative achievement is expanding our bureaucracy and its involvement in one-sixth of...

Lost in the overall shuffle concerning the many problems with Obamacare’s exchanges is the central problem of enforcement of those aspects of the law the president hasn’t waived or delayed yet – including the particular challenge when it comes to verifying the immigration status of those applying for taxpayer subsidized insurance. On April 1st, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services issued a new guidance document to health insurers. The CMS guidance says that people whose immigration status is uncertain will be presumed eligible for subsidized coverage in Obamacare’s marketplaces while a further review is pending. Emphasis mine: If there...

[Carter appointee Judge Harry Edwards] prodded Carvin to explain why Congress saw it as such an advantage to have states rather than the federal government manage the exchanges. “Why does it matter who establishes the exchanges?” he asked. “Your argument makes no sense.” He said, “Who cares?” At that point, [GHWB appointee Judge Raymond] Randolph jumped in and said, “Ben Nelson.” Carvin agreed, arguing that Nelson, the former senator from Nebraska, was withholding support for Obamacare, in part, because he wanted exchanges to be state-based rather than federally-run. To get the law across the finish line, the Senate voted to...

The Obama administration is requiring health plans in Obamacare insurance marketplaces to include a more robust offering of care providers in 2015 after some early backlash over limited networks in the health care law's first year. Health plans selling on the federal marketplaces in 2015 must include 30 percent of area "essential community providers," which are usually health centers and other hospitals serving mostly low-income patients. That's up from a 20 percent requirement in 2014, the first year of expanded overage under the health care law. The federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which oversees the marketplaces, will also...

Participants in the federal high-risk pool created in the health law will have another month to find coverage, the Obama administration announced Friday. This is the third extension for the program, known as PCIP, which was previously set to close Dec. 31, 2013. Existing funds will be used to cover the extension. In a notice posted on the Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan website, officials announced that program enrollees who have not yet purchased coverage through the health law’s online marketplaces, or exchanges, could keep their current coverage until April 30 while they continue their search. But they must enroll in...

March 12, 2014 4:35 PM Sebelius Won't Promise No More Obamacare Delays By Josh Encinias “There are 37 changes to the law,” Republican representative Dave Reichert said today at a House Ways and Means Committee hearing, noting that HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius had promised the American people during a Fox News appearance there would be no more changes to the law. “Can you make a promise to the American people that there will be no more delays to the so-called Affordable Care Act?” Reichert asked the secretary. Sebelius responded, “We will continue to put out regulations to the policies as...

Obama is not a dictator, but there is a danger in his aggregation of executive power. Recently, a bizarre scene unfolded on the floor of the House of Representatives that would have shocked the framers of the Constitution. In his State of the Union address, President Obama announced that he had decided to go it alone in areas where Congress refused to act to his satisfaction. In a system of shared powers, one would expect an outcry or at least stony silence when a president promised to circumvent the legislative branch. Instead, many senators and representatives erupted in rapturous applause;...

If you’d like the government to change something about Obamacare, give the White House a ring. They’re in a flexible mood. President Obama this week approved yet another delay to provisions in the Affordable Care Act, giving insurers until 2016 to sell a type of insurance policy that’s supposed to be banned under the health-reform law. The ban, which was supposed to begin this year, would prevent insurers from selling bare-bones plans that might be affordable but don’t abide by 10 “essential service rules” required under the new law. When insurers began canceling such coverage last year, however, several million...

The Obama administration will let people with health insurance plans that don't comply with Affordable Care Act standards keep them through October 2017 if their states allow it, officials said Wednesday in announcing a series of final Obamacare rules. New rules also simplified the paperwork that larger employers will have to file when the the mandate obliging them to offer affordable health insurance to workers begins next year. And the rules gave a financial break to the types of self-insured health plans run by many unions, excluding them for two years from the $63-per-capita "reinsurance contribution" assessed for each enrollee....

That the bulk of Americans (especially those 4+ million whose insurance policies have recently been cancelled as a result of the ACA) have to pay more for healthcare as a result of Obamacare, is now largely accepted and well-known. But did you know that the cost of Obamacare is slowly metastasizing to other places? Such as your restaurant bill. Presenting Exhibit A.From CNN: Several restaurants in a Florida chain are asking customers to help foot the bill for Obamacare. Diners at eight Gator's Dockside casual eateries are finding a 1% Affordable Care Act surcharge on their tabs, which comes...

**SNIP** Remember: The law passed in March 2010. It was to go into full effect on Jan. 1, 2014. That means the administration had almost four years to get its ducks into a row. Four years. That was more time than it took us to win World War II, which we fought across three continents, a bunch of islands and two oceans. And yet here we are, four years later, and the administration has spent the past six months effectively rewriting the law for both political and practical reasons. It shouldn’t be able to do this, because it is, you...

Old and busted: Businesses will love ObamaCare for its cost savings in health care! New hotness: Businesses had better not make staffing decisions based on cost savings from ObamaCare-fueled price spikes! After its latest delay in implementing the employer mandate, the Obama administration rebuffed criticisms that the law incentivizes employers to shift to part-time work by announcing the Treasury Inquisition — ahem, excuse me, the Treasury Attestation Department: The latest announcement comes after the administration heard from businesses about their concerns with the looming ObamaCare rules. However, the change is sure to raise more questions about the health and implementation...

RUSH: Ladies and gentlemen, there´s so much going on out there. The lawlessness of this Regime knows no bounds. There´s nothing stopping this man from doing anything. If he wants to raise marginal tax rates, he can just do it. Nobody´s gonna stop him. Here is the latest. As you know, the Regime recently delayed the implementation of the employer mandate for three years, until 2016. This means that employers who have a hundred or less employees will be subject to the mandate. (Snip) I mean, this is absolutely lawless. It is against the law. They cannot, ladies and gentlemen,

(CNSNews.com) – Once again acting without Congress, President Obama has unilaterally changed his signature health insurance law, delaying its employer mandate – the second time he’s done this -- to 2016, after the mid-term elections. BUT: To be eligible for the additional delay, the Obama administration says an employer “may not reduce the size of its workforce or the overall hours of service of its employees” unless it can justify those reductions to the Internal Revenue Service. On Monday, the administration issued new regulations saying that employers with 50 to 99 workers don’t need to provide minimum essential coverage until...

KRAUTHAMMER: Remember how Democrats were complaining that when Republicans were trying to overturn Obamacare, it was somehow unpatriotic because it was an attack on the law of the land. This law of the land doesn't even exist; it exists in Obama's head. It's whatever he thinks, he wakes up in the morning and decides what the law is going to be. That is an understatement, that's not the way it's supposed to work. And we had an editorial in The Washington Post of all places, not exactly a right-wing rag, saying that Obama has really overstepped the lines arbitrarily, changing...

As the country's first 'Imperial President' threatens to rule by Executive fiat and just simply run-over the Republicans' feckless leadership, he's also made clear he intends to continue ongoing, previous strategies (lie, obfuscate, and withhold) he's utilized thus far. The latest example of unconstitutional+underhanded mischief from the habitually-dishonest Obama was unearthed by Megyn Kelly on Fox Monday night, when in the course of researching the ObamaCare Employer Mandate delay they found 'on one little nugget... found under a mountain of new regulations': any employer who dare “reduce the size of its workforce or its overall hours of service of its employees' will...

WASHINGTON – The Obama administration will phase in a requirement that large employers provide their workers with health benefits in 2015 and 2016, offering businesses more relief from the so-called employer mandate in the president’s health law. Under regulations issued Monday, only employers with more than 100 full-time workers will be subject to fines in 2015 unless they offer coverage. The requirement that all employers with more than 50 full-time employees provide health benefits or pay fines – which was supposed to begin in 2014 under the Affordable Care Act – will not take effect until 2016. snip

Insurance companies working under the Obamacare umbrella have secretly added a surcharge to cover the cost of abortions, an apparent violation of federal law that forbids the practice, congressional leaders charge. Consumers signing up for insurance in an Obamacare exchange won't find a single sentence telling them that they will pay at least $1 a month to fund abortions.

The Obama administrationÂ’s interest in creating a streamlined application process [1] for Medicaid, CHIP, and subsidized health insurance via the state Obamacare exchanges has come at the expense of effective [2] security [3] and fraud prevention [4].As of January 1, 2014, this easing of requirements now includes the mandate that states accept applications completed entirely via telephone. Rather than require such applications be later accompanied by the electronic or mailed transmission of a signed document, HHS instead requires states to accept a spoken assent on a telephone call as the equivalent of an actual signature.Says J. Christian Adams, PJ...

In 2014, 25 million to 30 million Americans who have employer-provided health insurance are likely to lose it thanks to Obamacare’s requirement that all plans cover what Washington deems “essential benefits.” Some employers will consider that unaffordable and drop coverage altogether, when their current, lower cost plans expire over the course of the year. These 25 to 30 million are in addition to 6 million who bought plans in the individual market and had them cancelled by January 1. The plight of those 6 million made headline news and caused the first cracks in the Democratic Party’s support for the...