Free Republic

Atherton resident Evan Collins lives in the nation’s second priciest ZIP code, where $4 million barely buys you a fixer-upper.

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) said on Wednesday that House Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wisc.) proposal to cut Medicaid spending over time to help balance the federal budget would prevent seniors from seeing the doctor of their choosing. “And I might add with what they want to do to the Affordable Care Act and what they want to do in the Ryan budget to Medicaid — a trillion dollars over 10 years taken out of Medicaid,” Pelosi said. “Two thirds of that goes to long-term heath care to our seniors.” “They won’t be able to go to their own doctor...

Repealing President Barack Obama’s health care law without a replacement risks making nearly 30 million people uninsured, according to a study released Wednesday. Separately, a professional group representing benefit advisers warned congressional leaders of the risk of “significant market disruption” that could cause millions of Americans to lose their health insurance. Republicans dismiss such dire scenarios, saying that they are working on replacement legislation for a President Donald Trump to sign. […] The new study from the nonpartisan Urban Institute looks at a scenario where “repeal” goes through, but “replace” stalls. It predicts heavy collateral damage for people buying individual...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says Congress will act early next year to repeal President Barack Obama’s health care law but delay the changes as Republicans try to come up with an alternative. […] Speaking in Louisville, McConnell cautioned that the law’s critics “can’t just snap your fingers and go from where we are today to where we’re headed.” He said a replacement to the health care law will be done in a “phased-in way.” …

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is urging the public to help save his health care law, which is in serious danger of being repealed under President-elect Donald Trump.In a Facebook Live appearance, Obama says the Affordable Care Act has improved millions of lives over the six years it's been the "law of the land." He says the country can't go "backward."

Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.) says removing the federal government's individual mandate to purchase health insurance is “not American.” McDermott told C-Span’s Washington Journal Tuesday, that Republican efforts to remove the government mandate to purchase health insurance from the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) will not work. …

During the presidential campaign, Republican Donald Trump said he would not cut Social Security, Medicare or Medicaid, but no matter. Sen. Chuck Schumer, the next Senate minority leader, on Tuesday warned that Republicans are “plotting a war on seniors.” The New York Democrat said he was “so disappointed” that Trump has nominated Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) to be his Health and Human Services secretary. “When it comes to issues like Medicare, the Affordable Care Act and Planned Parenthood, Congressman Price and the average American couldn’t be further apart,” Schumer told a news conference on Capitol Hill. …

President-elect Donald Trump has selected Georgia Rep. Tom Price, a leading critic of President Barack Obama’s sweeping health care law, to head the Department of Health and Human Services, according to a person familiar with the decision. If confirmed by the Senate, Price will play a central role in Republican efforts to repeal and replace the current health care law. Trump has pledged to move quickly on overhauling the landmark measure, but has been vague about what he hopes to see in a replacement bill. …

Democratic Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York is threatening political payback if congressional Republicans and President-elect Donald Trump try to undo President Barack Obama’s major legislative achievements. “They will rue the day” they repeal Obama’s health care law, Senate Democrats’ leader-in-waiting told The Associated Press in an interview in his office on Friday. “It’s a political nightmare for them. They’ll be like the dog that caught the bus.” Trump, after meeting with Obama, said he’d like to keep popular pieces of the six-year-old law, including the requirement to extend coverage to people with pre-existing conditions and the provision allowing young...

Lies passed ObamaCare legislation, lies supported its implementation. As its death spiral begins, angry and panicked lies by Democratic apologists attempt to deflect accountability for its economic devastation. ObamaCare’s economic wreckage will insure President Barack Obama’s now classic promises regarding ObamaCare will eventually scar his legacy. History is written usually by the victors. In the case of ObamaCare, the economic losers are so numerous their bitter complaints will write the titles, fill the chapters and pack the footnotes. …

U.S. health insurer Anthem Inc on Wednesday raised the prospect of smaller participation in the individual Obamacare exchanges in 2018, saying it would have a market-by-market strategy that hinges on 2017 profitability. The company said that losses due to sicker-than-expected customers in its individual Obamacare plans were a bit less than foreseen in the third quarter and that it was planning for a slight profit in that business next year. For 2018, it is targeting 2018 profit margins in the low- to mid-single-digits from the individual business. …

President Barack Obama is telling workers and volunteers signing up customers for health insurance coverage that the enrollment season comes at a critical time in the Affordable Care Act’s history. […] Some insurers have bailed out of markets and premiums are jumping in many states. But Obama says government tax credits will offset the premium increases for most consumers. He says people will be pleasantly surprised at just how affordable their options are, if they shop around. …

Donald Trump declared Tuesday that “Obamacare is just blowing up,” hoping for powerful late-campaign ammunition against Hillary Clinton after the government projected sharp cost increases for President Barack Obama’s health care program. Just two weeks before Election Day, the New York businessman addressed the health care development during an appearance at one of his Florida golf resorts that highlighted the extraordinary intersection of his business and political interests. His message was somewhat scattershot, leaving questions of how well he and his party can capitalize on a revived emphasis on “Obamacare.” …

When the Affordable Care Act open enrollment period begins next week, customers will see some changes, including fewer choices and higher prices. In Pennsylvania, the number of insurers in the marketplace has gone from 13 to eight. In Philadelphia, just two insurers are left and premiums are expected to rise 53 percent.Aviva Aron-Dine of Health and Human Services says the size of the hike reflects artificially low rates early on. Pennsylvania had among the lowest rates in the nation. …

Because of market turmoil and decisions by United Healthcare and Aetna to withdraw from Affordable Care Act exchanges in Pennsylvania for 2017, the remaining insurer in the Philadelphia area, Independence Blue Cross, has been granted bigger rate increase — 28 percent — than it requested in the spring, the state Insurance Department said Monday. Insurance Commissioner Teresa Miller said additional companies beyond United and Aetna were considering ending their ACA individual-exchange businesses in Pennsylvania. If that happened, some counties might have been left without any offerings on the exchange, which is where individuals have to buy plans to qualify for...

A new study on the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, produced by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University shows that the health care law penalizes Americans who work full-time, will reduce the number of full-time workers, and rewards those who work less. “The ACA’s employment taxes create strong incentives to work less,” the study, The Affordable Care Act and the New Economics of Part-Time Work, states. “The health subsidies’ structure will put millions in a position in which working part-time (29 hours or fewer, as defined by the ACA) will yield more disposable income than working their normal full-time...

Republicans in Congress are plotting ways to block the Obama administration from paying insurance companies hundreds of millions of dollars as part of an ObamaCare program. GOP lawmakers say they are looking at “a dozen” options — including a possible provision in the year-end spending bill — to prevent the administration from using an obscure fund within the Treasury Department to pay out massive settlements to insurers. The insurance companies are suing over a shortfall in an ObamaCare program that they say is damaging their businesses. Settling the cases could help insurers deal with losses on the ObamaCare marketplaces, but...

UnitedHealth Group has been sued by three customers who accused the largest U.S. health insurer of charging co-payments for prescription drugs that were higher than their actual cost and pocketing the difference. The lawsuit, filed Tuesday in federal court in Minnesota by three UnitedHealth customers, seeks to represent a nationwide class that it says could include "tens of thousands" of people insured by UnitedHealth. The lawsuit said Minnesota-based UnitedHealth and affiliated companies charged customers co-payments for drugs that were significantly higher than prices it negotiated with pharmacies for those drugs. For example, the lawsuit claims, one class member paid a...

President Barack Obama is “quite proud” that his signature health care law has expanded coverage to 20 million more Americans. But he admits the law could be strengthened, White House spokesman Josh Earnest said on Monday. “The president does have some ideas for things that we could do to further strengthen Obamacare. The first is to find a way to ensure that every state across the country is expanding Medicaid, consistent with what was envisioned in the law.” Earnest said “too many Republican governors” have blocked Medicaid expansion “just because of political differences” with Obama. But some of those governors...

The whole idea behind the scam known as Obamacare — from its Stalinist passage along a strict party line vote, to its ludicrous state “exchanges,” to its predictably parlous financial condition, to its misuse of a politicized IRS to act as its enforcer, to its destruction of the reputation of a pusillanimous and cowardly chief justice John Roberts — was to wreck the American private-insurance industry so dramatically that a demoralized and anxious public would demand socialized medicine, aka a “single-payer” system. That day is now here. […]The departing president, the woman who seeks to replace him and nearly one-third...