Free Republic

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...

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....

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...

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...

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...

The battle for the heart and soul of the Republican Party has begun. On one side is the Tea Party. On the other side stands Karl Rove and his establishment team, posing as tacticians while quietly undermining conservatism. Yesterday, the New York Times reported that the “biggest donors in the Republican Party” have joined forces with Karl Rove and Steven J. Law, president of American Crossroads, to create the Conservative Victory Project. The Times reports that this new group will dedicate itself to “recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who...

The biggest donors in the Republican Party are financing a new group to recruit seasoned candidates and protect Senate incumbents from challenges by far-right conservatives and Tea Party enthusiasts who Republican leaders worry could complicate the party’s efforts to win control of the Senate. -snip- The Conservative Victory Project, which is backed by Karl Rove and his allies who built American Crossroads into the largest Republican super PAC of the 2012 election cycle, will start by intensely vetting prospective contenders for Congressional races to try to weed out candidates who are seen as too flawed to win general elections.

With Brown out, GOP mulls Romney energy (He's back; Mr. RomneyCARE and family for MA Senate)) "Massachusetts Republicans are desperately scrambling to find a strong Senate candidate to replace Scott Brown, with some even trying to persuade Mitt Romney’s wife or son to jump into the race to avert another electoral disaster. ... Other GOP leaders also raised the prospect of Mitt’s eldest son, Tagg, launching a surprise Senate campaign. Tagg Romney was a close campaign adviser and surrogate for his father and is a successful businessman living in Belmont."

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...

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...

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...

Today, on Fox News Sunday: Video at Site

DENVER — Mitt Romney said in an interview Thursday that his plan to provide universal health insurance in Massachusetts was superior to President Obama's own health care plan. "My health care plan I put in place in my state has everyone insured, but we didn't go out and raise taxes on people and have a unelected board tell people what kind of health care they can have," Romney said in an interview with CBS' Denver affiliate, KCNC. Obama's plan was modeled on Romney's, which has made some conservatives wary of the former Massachusetts governor. Some GOP activists were angered when...

Equal Protection for PosterityBaldwin: “Disclose your tax returns and everything else about Stericycle.� Bain investment “would make Herod blush� TAMPA, FL (Thursday, August 16, 2012) – Republican spokesmen for a rising “DUMP ROMNEY� rebellion today charged that Mitt Romney is “hiding Bain abortion profits in his tax returns� from investments that “would make Herod blush.�     Steve Baldwin, former Republican Whip of the California State Assembly, said recent journalism about the actual date of Romney’s departure from Bain Capital “has almost certainly revealed the real reason Romney refuses to release any more than two years of personal IRS data:  Bain’s craven...

"At the top of my list of programs we don't need is one that costs $100 billion a year I'm going to get rid of and that's Obamacare," he said to cheers at a rally. But then, a telling pivot: "By the way, that doesn't mean that health care is perfect. We've got to do reforms in health care and I have some experience doing that, as you know. And I know how to make a better setting than the one we have in health care."

Under the plan, all Massachusetts doctors, hospitals and other providers must register with a new state bureaucracy as a condition of licensure—that is, permission to practice. They'll be required to track and report their financial performance, price and cost trends, state-sanctioned quality measures, market share and other metrics. Massachusetts takes 360-degree surveillance and converts it into a panopticon prison. An 11-member board known as the Health Policy Commission will use the data to set and enforce rules to ensure that total Massachusetts health spending, public and private, grows no more than projected gross state product through 2017, and 0.5 percentage...

Last week, I got into a debate with David Frum over his post arguing that Mitt Romney should use his Massachusetts health care law to counter charges that he’s unsympathetic to the middle class. We’ll now have a chance to see how that strategy plays out, as it appears as if the Romney campaign has decided to take Frum’s advice. Andrea Saul’s response here creates a huge opening for defenders of the national health care law. [....] It isn’t too hard for the Obama campaign and his liberal allies to use Saul’s comments in defense of Obamacare. The essential argument...

A Mitt Romney spokesperson offered an unusual counterattack Tuesday to an ad in which a laid-off steelworker blames the presumptive GOP nominee for his family losing health care: If that family had lived in Massachusetts, it would have been covered by the former governor’s universal health care law. “To that point, if people had been in Massachusetts, under Governor Romney’s health care plan, they would have had health care,” Andrea Saul, Romney’s campaign press secretary, said during an appearance on Fox News. “There are a lot of people losing their jobs and losing their health care in President [Barack] Obama’s...

(CNSNews.com) –When asked whether the House Republicans would permit or not permit funding for Obamacare in whatever legislation is enacted to fund the government after Sept. 30--when the current funding legislation runs out--House Speaker John Boehner responded that "our goal would be to make sure the government is funded," thus indicating that House Republicans do plan to fund implementation of Obamacare past Sept. 30. Unless a special provision is put into the bill to fund the government past Sept. 30 that expressly prohibits funding specifically for the Obamacare regulation that requires health-care plans to cover, without cost-sharing, sterilizations, artificial contraceptives...

When asked whether the House Republicans would permit or not permit funding for Obamacare in whatever legislation is enacted to fund the government after Sept. 30--when the current funding legislation runs out--House Speaker John Boehner responded that "our goal would be to make sure the government is funded," thus indicating that House Republicans do plan to fund implementation of Obamacare past Sept. 30. Unless a special provision is put into the bill to fund the government past Sept. 30 that expressly prohibits funding specifically for the Obamacare regulation that requires health-care plans to cover, without cost-sharing, sterilizations, artificial contraceptives and...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: You know who's next? Doctors. And it's not Obamacare. It's not Medicare copayments. It's not any of that. You know how they're gonna go after doctors? Very simple, and I might even see Obama make this speech this summer. It might even happen before the campaign. It depends on how successful they judge this current tactic to be. See if you can envision President Obama, the president of the United States, after giving a speech where he says, "You got a business? You couldn't build that! Somebody else made that happen," transform to doctors. "Is it really...

OLYMPIA, July 12.—If you think the cost of health insurance is going to go down under health care reform, think again, says the CEO of Washington state’s largest individual-insurance health plan. Many purchasers of individual insurance plans may see premiums rise 50 to 70 percent.

Yes, if Mitt Romney wins the White House and his Republican allies retake the Senate, he could shred most of President Barack Obama's health care law without having to overpower a Democratic filibuster. But it won't be as easy as some Republicans portend, and it certainly won't be quick. Why? Because any realistic effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act —as opposed to last week's quixotic vote in the GOP-controlled House —is sure to get jumbled together with lots of other issues, including Medicare, taxes, food stamps and defense spending.

Stopping Obamacare by essentially doing nothing is worth considering. It makes the Left chase a constantly moving target which will make rallying their troops very difficult. What do they protest when the process could so easily be manipulated to actually stop the implementation of the bill without a vote or a debate? While it is difficult to determine exactly what is in Obamacare, there are a few sections that are settled. One thing for sure is the federal government has to build “health insurance exchanges” for states that can’t or won’t make them for themselves. Since twenty seven states joined...

It's becoming clear that Romney has decided to focus on the economy at the expense of everything else, even issues that could play to his political benefit. He's avoided criticizing the administration's handling of the botched Fast and Furious operation, even as it threatens to become a serious vulnerability for the president. He's been silent in responding to Obama's immigration executive order, not wanting to offend receptive Hispanics or appear like a flip-flopper. He appears more likely to tap a safe, bland running mate like Ohio Sen. Rob Portman or former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty who won't do him any...

Mitt Romney’s presidential campaign on Monday rejected a Republican attack on the Affordable Care Act, repudiating a contention made in last week’s Supreme Court decision that the law’s requirement that individuals carry medical coverage amounts to a tax. The Romney team’s refusal to invoke the word “tax” with regard to the individual mandate puts the candidate at odds with others in his party at a moment when Republicans are attempting to capi­tal­ize on the Supreme Court’s decision, which deemed President Obama’s health-care law constitutional. Some Republican-led states are trying to thwart the legislation’s effort to cover the poor. In an...

If the new health care law wasn’t enough of a mess before last week’s Supreme Court decision, that ruling actually added another layer of cost, complexity and political contentiousness to the bill. By striking down part of the law that required states to expand their Medicaid programs, the court tossed a very hot potato into the laps of state lawmakers everywhere. ObamaCare required states to increase eligibility for Medicaid to 133 percent of the poverty line, or roughly $30,000 per year for a family of four. The expansion would also make childless single men (a notoriously high-cost group) eligible for...

Last Thursday, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to uphold Obamacare's individual mandate (indictment) to collect more taxes from you and me. President Barack Obama's taxation shell game, which flies in the face of the freedoms we celebrate this week, is just one more reason his presidency and Obamacare need to be overturned this November. Chief Justice John Roberts wasn't kidding when he offered the commentary about the court's ruling: "It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices." Obamacare is taxation unleashed! Despite the fact that in 2009, Obama repeatedly denied to ABC...

The Obama campaign has seized on remarks made by Romney adviser Eric "Etch-A-Sketch" Fehrnstrom this morning on MSNBC, to the effect that the individual mandate in Obamacare (and Romneycare) is not a tax. Fehrnstrom allowed Chuck Todd to push him off message--and re-ignited the fears that conservatives have long had about Romney's will and ability to fight. In response, conservatives--who had just coalesced around opposition to what many now call "Obamatax": Mitt, start fighting, or give up and let someone else do it. Fehrnstrom's point--in defense of Romneycare--was that the Supreme Court was wrong to uphold Obamacare under the taxing...

(Sketch of the Supreme Court justices hearing the health care reform case in March by Bill Hennessy.)By Mr. CurmudgeonRecently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress has the power to do just about anything it desires provided it's called a tax. It's hard not to notice that the Progressive march toward totalitarianism in America has a decidedly bipartisan feel. Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the high court's majority opinion, is an appointee of "compassionate conservative" George W. Bush.This ruling positions the Tea Party as the only alternative to our broken two-party system.At the center of the controversy, stands...

<p>Recently, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that Congress has the power to do just about anything it desires provided it's called a tax. It's hard not to notice that the Progressive march toward totalitarianism in America has a decidedly bipartisan feel. Chief Justice John Roberts, who wrote the high court's majority opinion, is an appointee of "compassionate conservative" George W. Bush.</p>

Now that the Supreme Court has upheld the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act, Republicans from Mitt Romney to Speaker John Boehner have pledged to repeal the ACA, which is set for full implementation by 2015. Until the decision was announced, it seemed almost unthinkable that the Supreme Court and its constructionist majority would deem a law giving Congress the power to mandate commerce a valid exercise of its constitutional powers. Four justices felt that the individual mandate, which requires every American to purchase health insurance or pay a fine, fell within the ability of Congress to regulate interstate commerce....

Thank you, SCOTUS. This Obamacare ruling fires up the troops as America’s eyes are opened! Thank God. This proves to be such an unsettling time in America as we undergo the fundamental transformation that Barack Obama promised he would do to us if elected. Obamacare was dealt in deception and confusion by flooding the public with an overwhelming amount of conflicting “rationale” via thousands of pages of unread legislative detail, which is the radical left’s M.O. Obama promised the American people this wasn’t a tax and that he’d never raise taxes on anyone making less than $250,000. We now see...

The U.S. Supreme Court today voted to uphold the Affordable Care Act, refusing to overturn the unpopular law and sending the issue back to voters to decide in the upcoming presidential election. The 5-4 decision found the individual mandate at the heart of the law was a tax and therefore allowable under Congress’ constitutional power to levy taxes. Roberts joined the conservative wing in finding the law otherwise would have violated the Commerce Clause, however, by exceeding the power of Congress. The decision is a victory for liberals who for decades had been pushing for a federal law to provide...

Conservatives around the country may be regretting Chief Justice John Roberts’ appointment to the Supreme Court after Thursday’s ruling upholding [Alleged] President Barack Obama’s health care law, but Mitt Romney‘s campaign website still holds him up as the paradigm of a Supreme Court justice. “As president, Mitt will nominate judges in the mold of Chief Justice Roberts...

Supreme Court's Obamacare decision hands federal government unlimited power to force you to spend 100% of your paycheck on things you don't even want by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger, NaturalNews Editor Regardless of whether you agree with the fundamentals of Obamacare, the fact that the U.S. Supreme Court has now ruled the federal government has the power to tax Americans into mandatory purchases of private industry products means an end to economic freedom in America. Why? Because it hands the federal government the power to force the American people to buy anything the government wants or face tax penalties...

What say you to the king? He deemeth that thou shalt buy insurance, or face the wrath of a dictator scorn. You ready to stand on your feet? Or are you living on your knees?

With all eyes on the individual mandate Thursday, Mitt Romney got a shout-out from Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg in her opinion on the Affordable Care Act.Writing on the subject of providing affordable insurance to those with preexisting conditions, Ginsburg noted that Massachusetts “cracked [the] adverse selection problem.” and highlighted briefs explaining “the success of Massachusetts’ reforms.”Under the Massachusetts health system, most residents were required to buy insurance so that insurance companies wouldn’t be left only with sick customers – and thus skyrocketing premiums.“As a result, federal lawmakers observed, Massachusetts succeeded where other States had failed,” Ginsburg wrote.

ROMNEY's statement

GOP promises to rid nation of healthcare lawBy Ian Swanson - 06/23/12 06:00 AM ET Republicans are using their weekly radio address to reiterate their promise to repeal President Obama’s healthcare law. The address is timed for this week’s decision by the Supreme Court, which is set to announce its ruling on the controversial law as early as Monday. The justices could uphold the law, they could throw it out, or they could throw out the mandate that consumers buy health insurance but leave the rest of the law standing. Many expect the ruling to at least go against the...

MSNBC's supposedly most intelligent "news" anchor almost had a total meltdown on HBO's Real Time Friday. When repeatedly asked by host Bill Maher and guest Nick Gillespie for her opinion of Massachusetts' healthcare program, Maddow whined like a little girl, "Leave me alone about RomneyCare, all of you" (video follows with transcript and commentary): Maddow Almost Melts Down on HBO's Real Time: 'Leave Me Alone About RomneyCare, All of You' BILL MAHER, HOST: Mitt Romney said on the campaign trail last week, he said, “We're going to get rid of ObamaCare and return to personal responsibility.” This is the return...

Red Mass Group has learned that the Allocation Committee of the Massachusetts Republican State Committee has informed seventeen delegates and alternates that they are not qualified to go to the convention in Tampa. The reason given is failure to return the proper, signed, affidavit by the given deadline. Allocation Committee Chairman, Ed McGrath, told Red Mass Group in an emailed statement that, "no one who was elected as a delegate and who has followed the rules has been disqualified so far." The Massachusetts Republican State Committee held congressional district caucuses on Saturday April 28, 2012 to elect 27 delegates and...

On the surface, the title of this article seems paradoxical. How can any conservative in the USA even contemplate the concept of the government creating a single-payer health insurance system covering all Americans and, in effect, ending private major medical health insurance? In this post I hope to make the conservative case for a single payer incontrovertible for those occupying the centre-right politically. Conservatives are supposed to be the defenders of business. Yet our current health care system works as an albatross around the neck of American business. Likewise, the piecemeal reforms of ObamaCare seem only to make some problems...

The National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence has issued draft guidance turning down the drug on the grounds that it is too expensive and the long-term benefits of it are not clear. The drug named Zelboraf, or vemurafenib, is for malignant melanoma that has spread and carries a specific genetic mutation and costs around £1,750 per patient per week. The makers Roche agreed an undisclosed discount for the NHS but Nice still felt it was not cost effective. Sir Andrew Dillon, chief executive of Nice said: “We need to be sure that new treatments provide sufficient benefits to patients...

During the summer of 2009, conservative activists turned up the heat on Democratic politicians to protest the innovation-destroying, liberty-usurping Obamacare mandate. In the summer of 2012, it’s squishy Republican politicians who deserve the grassroots flames.In case you hadn’t heard, even if the Supreme Court overturns the progressives’ federal health care juggernaut, prominent GOP leaders vow to preserve its most “popular” provisions. These big-government Republicans show appalling indifference to the dire market disruptions and culture of dependency that Obamacare schemes have wrought.GOP Sen. Roy Blunt of Missouri, vice chair of the Senate GOP Conference, told a St. Louis radio station two...

Once-secret emails from Mitt Romney's time as governor that were revealed today spurred a flurry of comments about the candidate's support for the so-called individual mandate. Yet there's another issue that's been revived: Romney's secrecy. When Romney left the governor's office in Massachusetts, his staff erased all the emails from a computer server and bought the hard drives used to store data, so that their correspondence would stay hidden. Or so they thought. Tom Trimarco, Romney's administration and finance secretary, never deleted his emails. Some of them surfaced today in The Wall Street Journal, which submitted a public information request...

When Mitt Romney left office as Massachusetts governor, his aides removed all emails from a server computer in the governor's office, and purchased and carted off hard drives from 17 state-owned personal computers, according to a current state official. But a small cache of emails survived, including some that have never publicly surfaced surrounding Mr. Romney's efforts to pass his now-controversial health-care law. The emails show the Republican governor was closely engaged in negotiating details of the bill, working with top Democratic state leaders and drafting early copies of opinion articles backing it. Mr. Romney once trumpeted the overhaul as...

Mitt Romney has appointed ObamaCare profiteer and former Utah governor Mike Leavitt to head his presidential transition team.