Free Republic

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...