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WASHINGTON (AP) - A huge new paperwork headache for the government could also be jeopardizing coverage for some of the millions of people who just got health insurance under President Barack Obama's law. A government document provided to The Associated Press indicates that at least 2 million people enrolled for taxpayer-subsidized private health insurance have data discrepancies in their applications that, if unresolved, could affect what they pay for coverage, or even their legal right to benefits. The final number affected could well be higher. According to the administration the 2 million figure reflects only consumers who signed up through...

The federal government may reimburse doctors for talking to Medicare patients and their families about “advance care planning,” including living wills and end-of-life treatment options — potentially rekindling one of the fiercest storms in the Affordable Care Act debate. A similar provision was in an early draft of the federal health care law, but in 2009, former Republican vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin took to Facebook to accuse President Barack Obama of proposing “death panels” to determine who deserved life-sustaining medical care. Amid an outcry on the right, the provision was stripped from the legislation. Now, quietly, the proposal is headed...

Liberals wanted a national enrollment system under Obamacare. They might just get it. Right now, 36 states rely on HealthCare.gov, the federal exchange, to enroll people in health coverage. At least two more states are opting in next year, with a few others likely to follow. Only two states are trying to get out. That’s precisely the opposite of the Affordable Care Act’s original intent: 50 exchanges run by 50 states. The federal option was supposed to be a limited and temporary fallback. But a shift to a bigger, more permanent Washington-controlled system is instead underway — without preparation, funding...

BILOXI, Mississippi — When Sen. Thad Cochran (R-MS) goes on the record with reporters, it always seems to bring a surprise or two. This time, in an interview with veteran Washington Post reporter Dan Balz at a campaign stop, Cochran accidentally called Obamacare “an example of an important effort by the federal government to help make health care available, accessible and affordable.” “I’m glad to be involved in that effort,” Cochran added. According to Balz, Cochran was asked how he evaluated the state of play over the health care law. But afterward, a Cochran adviser phoned Balz to claim it...

Rep. Corrine Brown (D-Fla.) says that over 4 million Florida residents will die if Medicaid is not expanded there. “In fact, we’ve got over 4 million people that need medical expansion of health care that we are sending back, that’s going to die because they’re not getting the quality health care that they need,” Brown said during Wednesday night’s Veteran’s Affairs Committee hearing. Brown was being critical of Gov. Rick Scott’s (R-Fla.) move to sue the U.S. Department of Veteran’s Affairs for not allowing state hospital officials to inspect federal medical care facilities. …

CKE Restaurants' roots began in California roughly seven decades ago, but you won't see the parent company of Carl's Jr. and Hardee's expanding there much anymore. Related Stories What's causing what company CEO Andy Puzder describes as "very little growth" in the state? In part it's because "the minimum wage is so high so it's harder to come up with profitable business models," Puzder said in an interview. The state's minimum wage is set to rise to $9 in July, making it among the nation's highest, and $10 by January 2016. In cities in other states where the minimum wage...

Type “Obamacare rollout disaster” into the Google search engine, and you get approximately 290,000 results, most of them dating back to the days immediately following the catastrophic October 2013 launch of Healthcare.gov. Significantly, however, the most recent results focus on the Judicial Watch release on May 19, 2014. That’s the date Judicial Watch released a 106-page document we obtained on May 1 from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) that reveals the shocking details of the rollout disaster. Though the Obama administration tried to cover up the full extent of the website failure in the days following...

From California to Rhode Island, states are confronting new concerns that their Medicaid costs will rise as a result of the federal health care law. That’s likely to revive the debate about how federal decisions can saddle states with unanticipated expenses. Before President Barack Obama’s law expanded Medicaid eligibility, millions of people who already were entitled to its safety-net coverage were not enrolled. Those same people are now signing up in unexpectedly high numbers, partly because of publicity about getting insured under the law. For states red or blue, the catch is that they must use more of their own...

House conservatives will press their leaders this week to move on an ObamaCare replacement bill before the August recess. But it’s unclear if there are enough votes to pass it. According to several GOP lawmakers, members of the conservative-leaning Republican Study Committee (RSC) plan to wear lapel pins to the weekly conference meeting that state, “HR 3121, There’s a Better Way” as a sign of support for moving a bill that is co-sponsored by 130 House Republicans. Rep. Phil Roe (R-Tenn.) the lead sponsor of H.R. 3121, the “American Health Care Reform Act of 2013,” told The Hill that RSC...

Many employers had thought they could shift health costs to the government by sending their employees to a health insurance exchange with a tax-free contribution of cash to help pay premiums, but the Obama administration has squelched the idea in a new ruling.

For I will restore you to health and I will heal you of your wounds delares the Lord, because they have called you an outcast, saying: “It is Zion; no one cares for her.”’ Jeremiah 30:17 Why should anyone be surprised there were death lists at the VA, it is the natural process of Marxism. There is no way a socialist enterprise can compete with a free market one due to the lack of profit incentives which are replaced with political ones. There is no natural selection or efficiency necessities due to budgeting and making dollars go as far as...

ObamaCare could have been even worse. (via James Taranto)In 2009, the Campaign for America’s Future, a collection of influential lefties within the Democratic Party, ran a blog post that proposed to use the VA as a national health care model.CAF events had featured Obama, Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth Warren. It was an influential organization pushing the party further to the left.The post was by health care consultant Joe Paduda, who recently dismissed the people suffering under ObamaCare by writing, “‘When one person suffers it is a tragedy, when millions do, it is a statistic.’ As abhorrent as quoting Josef Stalin...

Abortion advocate Planned Parenthood is under investigation after it was revealed that one of the organization's counselors in Arizona failed to report a rape allegedly carried out by accused 18-year-old serial predator, Tyler Kost, because it was too much of a "hassle." Kost, of San Tan Valley, Arizona, was recently charged with assaulting 11 girls between the ages of 12 and 17, spanning the period from October 2009 to April 2014, according to Fox News. Authorities, however, believe that he has assaulted at least 18 students from Poston Butte High School.

A half-century ago, a governor named Brown persuaded the California Legislature to embark on what those involved thought would be a modest new program of health care for poor Californians. Medi-Cal, as it was dubbed, was California's version of the national Medicaid program that had been attached to the new Medicare system of health care for the elderly. At the time, California's poor obtained medical care, if they did, from either charity or county-owned hospitals, and Medi-Cal was seen as a way of easing the burden on the counties' taxpayers. But as one of the participants in the Medi-Cal legislation,...

The governor's office says federal prosecutors have subpoenaed state records for a grand jury investigation of the troubled Cover Oregon health insurance website. The state abandoned its plans for an independent site after it didn't work. They decided to switch to the federal portal, the first state to do so. The governor's office released subpoenas Tuesday issued by the U.S. attorney's office. They demand records of communications between state officials involved in developing the website, five of whom have resigned.

“Free” preventive health care is one of Obamacare’s chief selling points. But as millions of newly covered people begin to seek that benefit, some are still getting stuck with bills. The Affordable Care Act requires insurers to pay the full cost of services like cholesterol checks, women’s birth control, immunizations, colonoscopy screenings and a host of other items. It also covers “well visits” for children and adults — periodic checkups not triggered by a particular health complaint. But does a free colonoscopy cover just the screening or the immediate removal of polyps, too? Does the smoking-cessation benefit include counseling, medication...

Burned by the failed rollout of his health care law, President Barack Obama is seeking to build a team for the final years of his administration where management expertise may trump keen political or legislative skills. Gone from the White House are nearly all the high-profile political gurus who ran Obama’s two presidential campaigns. In their place are mostly lesser-known figures who have spent years in government, often in the type of policy implementation jobs that only make the news when something goes wrong. The shift is in part an indication of the White House’s low expectations for passing new...

With a little tax planning -- or even divorce -- wealthy Americans can easily bilk Obamacare out of tens of thousands of dollars in taxpayer subsidies to cover their insurance costs, according to a “how-to” written by a well-known financial advisor. David John Marotta, of Marotta Wealth Management in Charlottesville, Va., said just a few lifestyle changes would enable a family that owns a business providing income of $140,000 to legally win enough subsidies to cover all but $600 of a $10,825 Obamacare silver plan policy. “In trying to make Obamacare a middle-class entitlement, the legislation encourages even wealthy people...

WASHINGTON, May 19 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama chastised his Republican opponents on Monday for focusing criticism on the events surrounding the deaths of four Americans in Benghazi, Libya, and on his signature healthcare law."The debate we're having now is about what, Benghazi? Obamacare? And it becomes this endless loop. It's not serious. It's not speaking to the real concerns that people have," Obama said.He was speaking to more than 60 people at a fundraising dinner for Democratic candidates for the House of Representatives.The event took place at a physician's home in the Washington suburb of Potomac, Maryland, as Obama...

WASHINGTON-- This week, U.S. Senators John Cornyn (R-TX) and Ted Cruz (R-TX) and U.S. Congressman Pete Sessions (TX-32) and his colleagues filed an amicus brief and joined a court challenge to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, specifically challenging the legality of that law. The PPACA, which effectively originated as legislation in the Senate, raises revenue through the individual mandate, which violates the Constitutional clause that requires any bill which raises revenue to originate in the House of Representatives. “The President has changed the law six ways to Sunday in order to satisfy political donors, provide breaks to Big...