Free Republic

Former Gov. Mitt Romney, the Republican party's presidential nominee in 2012, received large applause as he was introduced on Friday's broadcast of The Tonight Show by host Jay Leno in his first appearance on the late night show since he lost to President Barack Obama in November. Leno asked Romney about the Obama administration's scandal-plagued week and gave him ample time to address the AP, IRS and Benghazi investigations. After making it clear he was done in politics, Romney was given nearly ten minutes to slam Obama's handling of Benghazi and his administration's involvement in other scandals. While discussing the...

Start with people who have individual and small-group health insurance. These policies are most affected by ObamaCare's community-rating regulations, which require insurers to accept everyone but limit or ban them from varying premiums based on age or health. The law also mandates "essential" benefits that are far more generous than those currently offered. According to consultants from Oliver Wyman (who wrote on the issue in the January issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries), around six million of the 19 million people with individual health policies are going to have to pay more—and this even after...

In an almost-impossible-to-believe collapse of principle and political smarts, the House GOP appears committed to stalling out the bipartisan effort to repeal the onerous, job-destroying medical device tax.In an interview with me on Thursday, House GOP Deputy Whip Peter Roskam attempted to explain why the House Republicans would not be moving a stand-alone repeal bill, even though the Senate’s test vote on repeal passed by a 79-20 margin the week before the Easter recess began.The transcript of my interview with Roskam is here.A week ago Roll Call’s David Drucker had reported that House Ways and Means Committee Chair David Camp...

West Virginia Democratic Sen. Jay Rockefeller, one of the towering architects of Obamacare, on Tuesday openly criticized program managers for not moving quickly enough to build the system, warning that if it gets off to a bumpy start it will just get worse. Decrying the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as way too complex, he warned the acting Medicare director that Obamacare is "so complicated and if it isn't done right the first time, it will just simply get worse."The retiring senator also told Marilyn Tavenner at her Senate Finance Committee confirmation hearing to be administrator of the Centers...

A few minutes after the Supreme Court issued its landmark decision upholding President Obama’s health care law last summer, a senior adviser to Mitch McConnell walked into the Senate Republican leader’s office to gauge his reaction. McConnell was clearly disappointed, and for good reason. For many conservatives, the decision was the death knell in a three-year fight to defeat reforms that epitomized everything they thought was wrong with Obama’s governing philosophy. But where some saw finality, McConnell saw opportunity — and still does. Sitting at his desk a stone’s throw from the Senate chamber, McConnell turned to the aide and,...

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A new study finds that insurance companies will have to pay out an average of 32 percent more for medical claims under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. What does that mean for you? It could increase premiums for at least some Americans. If you are uninsured, or you buy your policy directly from an insurance company, you should pay attention.

Watching "Time" editor Rana Foroohar in action on Morning Joe today, it was quickly evident how, on a range of issues from gun control to gay marriage, she toed a predictable liberal line. But it wasn't until talk turned to health care that it became apparent just how far out Foroohar is on the left. She sang the praises of single-payer on steroids--the socialized system in the UK. Willie Geist had cited a USA Today article reporting on a non-partisan study projecting medical claim costs to rise an average of 32% under ObamaCare, and as much as 80% in Ohio....

I first learned about this at Texas Fred, who is more than a little stirred up about the implications of the coming implementation of the Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare. As many of you know, more than a few states are fighting back against Obamacare and are trying to slow or stop the onslaught of new federal regulations and requirements that are the backbone and teeth of the legislation. Oklahoma is on the forefront of that fight and Oklahoma Insurance Commissioner John Doak is leading the effort in our state. (The New American) In an exclusive telephone interview...

OLYMPIA, Wash. - A study by the Society of Actuaries estimates that the new federal health care law will raise medical claims costs in Washington state by an average of 13.7 percent per person. Medical claims costs are the main driver of health insurance premiums. The study estimates that President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act will raise claims costs nationally by an average of 32 percent per person in the individual health insurance market by 2017. That's partly due to sicker people joining the pool. The study finds wide disparities among states, and it did not make similar estimates for...

Democrats hope to retake the House of Representatives in next year’s elections. They won’t — and they’ll have themselves to blame, because 2014 is when ObamaCare kicks in. With a vengeance.

Women in Britain are dying quicker of breast cancer than in comparable countries, even though they are being diagnosed at the same time, suggesting care on the NHS is not as good as it is elsewhere. Academics at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine found the proportion of women in the UK surviving at least three years after being diagnosed was 87 to 89 percent, which was similar to Denmark. In Australia, Canada, Norway and Sweden three-year survival was 91 to 94 per cent for the period examined, between 2000 and 2007. Britain’s breast cancer survival rates have...

After a barrage of guidance, the IRS finally published its proposed regs on the Affordable Care Act’s “Employer Shared Responsibility” provision, along with a practical Q&A with real-life examples for employers. Here’s help making sense of it all. At this point, virtually every organization knows that all “large” employers — those with 50 or more full-time employees — must provide all full-time equivalent employees (FTEs) with health insurance or pay a “shared-responsibility” penalty. Obamacare considers individuals who work at least 30 hours each week to be an FTE, However, many employers will be surprised by at least one clarification the...

The Affordable Care Act is looking less and less affordable. Start with the IRS’s new estimate for what the cheapest family plan will cost by 2016: $20,000 a year to cover two adults and three kids. And that will only cover 60 percent of medical bills, so add hefty out-of-pocket costs, too. The next surprise is for parents who thought their kids would be covered by an employer. Sloppy wording in the law left that unclear until last week, when the IRS ruled that kids won’t be covered. Starting in 2014, the law will require employers with 50 or more...

Actually, we already saw it last quarter and there’ll be no escaping it this year. To the shock of many, U.S. GDP shrank in the fourth quarter of 2012 by 0.1%. Immediately, however, economists and commentators flooded the media with reassuring explanations. Super Storm Sandy reduced economic activity in the areas it ravaged; worries about the fiscal cliff and sequestration dampened business spending and government defense spending; businesses let inventory levels dwindle. Even the Federal Reserve commented that the GDP drop was the result of “weather-related disruptions and other transitory factors.” All this is true, to some extent. But none...

The Congressional Budget Office on Tuesday quietly raised the 10-year cost of ObamaCare's insurance subsidies offered via the health law's exchanges by $233 billion, according to a Congressional Budget Office review of its latest spending forecast. The CBO's new baseline estimate shows that ObamaCare subsidies offered through the insurance exchanges — which are supposed to be up and running by next January — will total more than $1 trillion through 2022, up from $814 billion over those same years in its budget forecast made a year ago. That's an increase of nearly 29%. [snip] The CBO also expects 7 million...

The federal government has once again driven a wedge between patients and physicians by creating its own criteria for the screening of these two prevalent malignancies. Instead of trying to improve on something that was working pretty well, Washington decided to scrap the idea because it did not fit the current agenda. Our own government is avoiding early diagnosis and treatment of these two known killers, turning a blind eye as these malignant terrorists invade our bodies. Only Washington could take something as straight forward as cancer screening and turn it into a complicated quagmire, and a deadly one at...

Why did the Tea Party–backed governor of Ohio just say yes to a key part of President Obama's health care law? Ohio Gov. John Kasich (R) is the latest governor to accept the hefty Medicaid expansion authorized by President Obama's health care overhaul. He's not the first Republican to do so — Brian Sandoval (Nev.), Susana Martinez (N.M.), Jack Dalrymple (N.D.), and Jan Brewer (Ariz.) have, too — but Kasich's opt-in is a bigger deal. As House Budget Committee chairman during the Newt Gingrich years, the "fiercely conservative" Kasich "built his political identity arguing for smaller government," says David Nather...

Here in the darkest days -so far- of the nightmarish Obama era, it seems the monstrous statist power-and-tax-grab known as 'Obamacare' is here to stay... or is it? Judge Roberts might have sold us down the river, but there's still plenty of fight left in conservatives. And it's not just us right-wingers-clingers either: fact is, Dear Leader's unwanted and unloved quasi-nationalization of the US healthcare industry has never enjoyed majority public support in this country- same as the day they rammed it through. At least half the electorate still wants it repealed. We all know we're being screwed here, yet...

With Scott Brown backing out of the special election to the Senate in Massachusetts, some wondered whether former Governor and erstwhile presidential candidate Mitt Romney might take a shot at filling the rest of John Kerry's term in office. Instead, the Boston Herald reports that the task might go to the next generation of Romneys: Tagg Romney is considering a run in the special Senate election now that Scott Brown has opted out, the Truth Squad has learned.Calls for Romney, 42, to join in the short campaign to replace Secretary of State John F. Kerry have increased since the Herald...

As the federal government moves forward to implement President Obama's Affordable Care Act, the Department of Health and Human Services is slated to spend millions of dollars promoting the unpopular legislation. In the face of this publicity blitz, it is worth remembering that the law was originally sold largely on four grounds—all of which have become increasingly implausible. • Lower health-care costs. One key talking point for ObamaCare was that it would reduce the cost of insurance, especially for non-group insurance. The president, citing the work of several health-policy experts, claimed that improved care coordination, investments in information technology, and...

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 family of five will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan. “The annual national...

Some families could get priced out of health insurance due to what's being called a glitch in President Barack Obama's overhaul law. IRS regulations issued Wednesday failed to fix the problem as liberal backers of the president's plan had hoped. As a result, some families that can't afford the employer coverage that they are offered on the job will not be able to get financial assistance from the government to buy private health insurance on their own. How many people will be affected is unclear. The Obama administration says its hands were tied by the way Congress wrote the law....

The 15-member Independent Payment Advisory Board (i.e. the so-called “death panel”) included in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) has run into a bit of problem: Very few want to join. Jonathan Gruber, for example, helped lay the groundwork for Massachusetts’ health-care law and played an important role in making “Obamacare” the law of the land. So you’d think he’d be an obvious choice for the panel, right? “No way,” he said, according to the Washington Post. “Maybe if it was a part-time gig. But full time? I can’t see it.” And he’s not alone. “It is supposed...

Conservatives instinctively ground all of their ideas and policies in time-tested philosophies of man and of government. Most successful Republican candidates also paint a picture of what they can do and how their ideas are better than their opponents. This is why people evoke the memory of Ronald Reagan so often; because he is the last Republican candidate for president to conduct his campaign explicitly and consistently within this framework. During the presidential campaign, Romney did talk about what he could do and what he would do as president, but he never presented his ideas and policies in the context...

Mitt Romney promised that he won’t vanish from politics during a meeting in Washington Friday morning with a group of former campaign donors and aides. Two people at the meeting told Politico that Romney said he will help Republican candidates in upcoming elections.

A homeless man who was arrested after threatening the life of President Barack Obama claimed that he only did so in order to get needed medical attention. The prisoner, 57-year-old Stephen Espalin, reportedly told the court his story Friday while addressing Senior U.S. District Judge Kenneth Ryskamp. “I would have no intent to hurt the president,” Espalin was quoted as saying by the Florida Sun-Sentinel. “I realize it wasn’t the right thing to do. I uttered those words knowing the [federal agents] would come and take care of me.” His threat allegedly extended to Obama’s family – his wife, Michelle,...

Kevin Madden, a GOP strategist who worked on Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign last year, said the retreat gives lawmakers a chance to start laying the groundwork necessary to re-establish the GOP brand. “Right now, we are caught in a vicious cycle of just reacting to events that happen in two-week increments. Instead, we have to look at our challenge of rebuilding in a much more comprehensive fashion,” Mr. Madden said. “What is the positive impression that we want voters to have two years from now, and then four years from now, when we have another presidential election?” SNIP Ford O’Connell,...

s it relevant that the man who helped craft Obamacare’s regulations on insurers will now make lots of money by suing insurers based on those regulations? The firm that hired him seems to think so. Here’s the press release: KEY OBAMACARE ARCHITECT JOINS MEHRI & SKALET, PLLC Former HHS Director, Longtime Insurance Regulator Jay Angoff to Lead Firm’s Insurance and Healthcare Practice as PartnerWASHINGTON, DC (January 14, 2013)—After nearly three years at the Department of Health and Human Services—as the first Director of Obamacare insurance implementation, as Senior Advisor to the Secretary, and as a Regional Director—longtime insurance regulator and...

Hospitals are denying patients the latest life-extending cancer drugs, a report reveals. Dozens of trusts are failing to hand out treatments for bowel, ovarian, lung and brain cancer that have been approved by the NHS watchdog NICE. Some of these drugs have been shown to boost survival rates by a quarter while others have extended the lives of terminally-ill patients by over a year. The report - commissioned by the Department of Health - also reveals that many hospitals are failing to prescribe the latest treatments for heart attacks, asthma, multiple sclerosis, arthritis and Crohn’s Disease. In fact some of...

Beginning next year, people without health insurance through their employer will be able to buy it monthly on "exchanges." They are encouraged to buy the insurance, or else face a penalty for each month and family member not covered. Let's suppose for the moment that the penalty is enforced (even though law limits how the IRS can enforce it). By law, people can let their insurance lapse for three months with no penalty. Moreover, they can choose when the three month lapse occurs, and accelerate and/or delay medical procedures to fall outside the lapse interval, without concern for being denied...

Look, I don’t even know anymore. I’m just gonna put these out there for you as yet another indication of how tough getting anywhere close to solving our deficit and debt problems is. It’s a nice complement to the latest in the fiscal cliff saga, in which allegedly intractable, unreasonable Republicans offer a Simpson-Bowles-like compromise that might actually come within a couple ballparks of acknowledging our debt problems while Democrats seem rather enthusiastic about cliff-diving and yet the press and public are determined to blame Republicans for going over. Let’s see if that can change in the near future. Presumably...

Ann Clwyd broke down as she spoke about the final moments of Owen Roberts, who contracted pneumonia after being admitted.[Snip] She said her husband was squashed against the side of his bed, his lips dry, and cold from a fan that had been turned on for a patient in an adjacent bay. A light had been flicked on in the four-bed ward and someone shouted out “anybody for breakfast?” just moments before he died., Ms Clwyd said. She painted a picture of nurses who treated her husband with “coldness, resentment, indifference and even contempt"

Republicans believed a Mitt Romney win would seal Obamacare's fate. Democrats - or rather, the lonely two-fifths of Americans who support the president's beleaguered healthcare law - believed an Obama win would secure its future. Both sides were kidding themselves.Romney may have pledged to repeal the law, but his positions on Obamacare had the life span of a rainbow. He supported an identical law when he got the credit for signing it as governor of Massachusetts. He then opposed Obamacare when that's what GOP primary voters wanted to hear, and later endorsed parts of it when he thought that's what...

President Barack Obama and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney talks in the Oval Office following their lunch. Bitter campaign foes just weeks ago, President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney met for lunch at the White House on Thursday, sitting down with an eye on overlapping interests rather than the sharp differences that defined their presidential contest. In their first meeting since the election, Obama and the Republican nominee met in the White House's private dining room, fulfilling a promise Obama made in his victory speech the night of Nov. 6. Romney arrived at the White House early Thursday afternoon in...

What a difference an election can make. Just a week after the re-election of Barack Obama ended all Republican hopes of overturning the new health care law known as " Obamacare," Gov. Rick Scott and other Florida leaders who have steadfastly rejected the idea are now willing to at least talk about implementing it for the state's 3.8 million uninsured. " Mitt Romney did not win the election," Scott told reporters Friday in Washington D.C., hours before he released a letter to Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius asking for a meeting to discuss implementing the law. "So it's...

There are a lot of differences between Obamacare and Romneycare, even though President Barack Obama said that the two plans were based on an "identical model" during the first presidential debate in Denver on Wednesday night. "We've seen this model work very well," Obama said, "in Massachusetts." Wrong, countered Mitt Romney. As Massachusetts governor, he passed a health care plan "on a bipartisan basis." President Obama, said Romney, "instead of bringing America together," rammed through a bill that garnered no support across the aisle. "Something this big, this important," Romney concluded, "has to be done on a bipartisan basis." Note...

TOLEDO, Ohio — Mitt Romney, while campaigning in Ohio on Wednesday, highlighted the healthcare law that he passed while governor of Massachusetts as proof of his empathy for people. “I think throughout this campaign as well, we talked about my record in Massachusetts, don't forget — I got everybody in my state insured,” Romney told NBC News in an interview before he headlined a rally here. “One hundred percent of the kids in our state had health insurance. I don't think there's anything that shows more empathy and care about the people of this country than that kind of record.”

(CNN) – Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney pointed Wednesday to the Massachusetts health reform law he signed – and particularly its coverage of children – when asked about his compassion for middle class people. Romney raised the law in an interview with NBC News. Conservatives have criticized Romney for supporting the law, which is similar to the health reform law signed by President Barack Obama. Romney has said his law was constitutional and appropriate in Massachusetts, but was not meant to be implemented nationally. "I think throughout this campaign as well, we talked about my record in Massachusetts, don't forget...

Until recently Mitt Romney has been telling us he intends to get rid of Obamacare. Until recently, that is. Now we learn of reports that Romney wants to preserve "parts" of Obamacare such as coverage for pre-existing conditions and coverage of "at home children" through twenty-six years of age. Trust me. This isn't good. All vestiges of Obamacare MUST GO! Socialized medicine in America whether Obamacare or Romneycare is a curse on freedom and liberty and there is no place for either in a free society. Back in June, 2012, I wrote the following: As we suspected, all along, Obamacare...

Skaneatles Falls, NY -- Welch Allyn told employees at companywide meetings this morning that it plans to cut 275 jobs, or about 10 percent of its worldwide workforce. The uncertainty surrounding the future of the Obama health care package is creating turmoil in the domestic market, [Chief Executive Steve Meyer] said. Hospitals and doctor offices aren't investing in new equipment until they see how the health care issues will play out, Meyer said. Welch Allyn and other medical device makers face a new federal tax hike come January when a new 2.3 percent tax on sales of medical devices called...

I’ve argued many times that the politician Mitt Romney most closely resembles is John Kerry, primarily due to the Mittster’s legendary penchant for flip-flopping, a trait Kerry is also known for. I stand by my Kerry comparison, but Jonah Goldberg has an excellent point when he compares Romney to another Massachusetts politician: Michael Dukakis. Meanwhile, the Republicans seem to have become Dukakified. It was Michael Dukakis, the 1988 Democratic presidential nominee, who insisted that the election should be entirely about “competence, not ideology.” Romney has avoided saying that in so many words, but it’s certainly how he’s campaigning. After running to the right in...

(CNSNews.com) - If Mitt Romney becomes president, he says he won't get rid of Obamacare in its entirety. In an interview on NBC's "Meet the Press" Sunday, Romney indicated he would keep the provisions dealing with pre-existing conditions and young adults: "Well, I'm not getting rid of all of healthcare reform," Romney told NBC's David Gregory. "Of course, there are a number of things that I like in health care reform that I'm going to put in place. One is to make sure that those with pre-existing conditions can get coverage. Two is to assure that the marketplace allows for...

Throughout his campaign, Mitt Romney has constantly voiced one rock-solid promise: the repeal and replacement of Obamacare. This morning on NBC’s “Meet the Press,” Mitt Romney was pressed about his plans for healthcare. During his answer, he said "Well, I'm not getting rid of all of healthcare reform." Voices from both ends of the spectrum have pounced on the line. The left (including most major media websites) claims he said he’ll keep parts of Obamacare intact. Meanwhile, the right is busy calling him a turncoat and sellout who’s dumped his plan to repeal the Affordable Care Act. In reality, they’re...

Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said he wouldn’t do away with all health care reform, vowing to keep coverage for those with pre-existing conditions and allow children to have policies on their family’s plan “up to whatever age they might like.” Romney has said repeatedly he would “repeal Obamacare” if elected, but his replacement plan would include at least two of the Affordable Care Act’s more popular provisions. “I’m not getting rid of all of health care reform,” Romney said in an interview broadcast Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.“ ”Of course there are a number of things that I...

SHREWSBURY, Mass. — Ida Davidson is the first to admit her weight goes up and down, but the Shrewsbury resident said she was stunned when a new primary care physician said she could not become a patient because she weighed more than 200 pounds.

Surprise! I’m the first to admit that Mitt Romney wasn’t my first choice for president. I think the majority of the Republican Party was with me on this one. I was on the Rick Perry train, which turned out t be an epic failure. However, the primaries are over and Mitt came out on top. However, given that a lot of conservatives may still be suspicious of Romney’s shoddy conservative credentials, it doesn’t help that the RNC goodie bag contains a copy of his book No Apologies, which endorses his decision, as Governor of Massachusetts, to institute an individual mandate...

Lung cancer patient, Barbara Wagner, was recently notified that her oncologist-prescribed medication that would slow the growth of cancer would not be covered by the Oregon Health Plan; the plan, however, she was informed, would cover doctor-assisted suicide should she wish to kill herself. "Treatment of advanced cancer that is meant to prolong life, or change the course of this disease, is not a covered benefit of the Oregon Health Plan," read the letter notifying Wagner of the health plan’s decision. Wagner says she was shocked by the decision. "To say to someone, we’ll pay for you to die, but...

Can we stop calling ObamaCare the Affordable Care Act now? A Young America's Foundation activist forwarded an email from the Vice President for Finance at his school, Guilford College (Greensboro, NC), informing him that, "For the 2012-13 academic year, the annual cost of the student health insurance is increasing from $668 to $1,179. This insurance premium has been charged to your student account." Why the increase? "Our student health insurance policy premium has been substantially increased due to changes required by federal regulations issued on March 16, 2012 under the Affordable Care Act." Guilford College has been forced to raise...

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Mitt Romney is invoking his Massachusetts healthcare law in the lead-up to the Republican convention, alarming conservatives who argue it’s a losing issue for his campaign. Romney's new willingness to talk about the issue could be a sign that he thinks the Massachusetts law could help him in November. "My healthcare plan I put in place in my state has everyone insured," Romney told a CBS reporter on Thursday. In a second interview, he called the law an "important accomplishment" that is "working, by and large, pretty well."  [.....] "I will be able to show that I have a passionate...