Free Republic

President Donald Trump’s decision to end a provision of the Affordable Care Act that was benefiting roughly 6 million Americans helps fulfill a campaign promise, but it also risks harming some of the very people who helped him win the presidency. Nearly 70 percent of those benefiting from the so-called cost-sharing subsidies live in states Trump won last November, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.The subsidies are paid to insurers by the federal government to help lower consumers’ deductibles and co-pays. People who benefit will continue receiving the discounts because insurers are obligated by law to provide them....

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct 9 2017 Ferguson asks court in Seattle to declare new rules unlawfulSEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson today filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the Trump Administration’s new rules undermining women’s access to contraception.The new rules would allow any company to deny coverage for contraceptive services to its female employees based on religious grounds. Additionally, certain types of organizations would also be able to deny this coverage on moral grounds. If allowed to go forward, President Trump’s rules could have a significant impact on the more than 1.5 million Washington workers and their dependents who receive...

Prayers were requested in August and answered for Sophia, daughter of FReeper lilyramone, a sick little girl. Good news. I'll post an excerpt from a recent email from her. She thanks everyone for their prayers and Glory be to God for the answers! :::Three days before we were to leave for Boston, Sophia's stroke team in Dallas scheduled a meeting with us. When I arrived I was shocked to hear every department (Neurology, Neurosurgery, Hematology, Pediatric Neuro-radiology, etc) told me they advised against the surgeries at this time. They told me she may need these surgeries in the near future...but...

A**clown!!!!!!! Somebody needs to ask that POS what he wants for obummercare. Get him on record.

Only half of America’s smallest businesses now offer health coverage to their workers because many say steady cost hikes have made it too expensive to afford a benefit that nearly all large employers still provide. The Kaiser Family Foundation said Tuesday that 50 percent of companies with three to 49 employees offered coverage this year. That’s down from 59 percent in 2012 and 66 percent more than a decade ago. “There’s just not as much money around for compensation, including benefits,” said Gary Claxton, a Kaiser vice president and lead author of the nonprofit health policy organization’s annual health benefits...

Sarai was 25 years old when she died of Wilson’s disease, an inherited disorder that causes liver failure. A liver transplant could have cured her, but she was uninsured and was denied an appointment at two prominent Chicago transplant hospitals, including my own. Sarai’s plight was brought to my attention when a local religious group held a hunger strike advocating transplant access for Sarai and other uninsured patients. When she died, her congregation marched seven miles, holding her photograph and lugging coffins emblazoned with her name, to launch a sit-in in front of Northwestern University Hospital. Her death certificate named...

Charlie Dent, the Allentown congressman who has frequently clashed with President Trump and become one of the most prominent national voices for centrist Republicans, will not seek reelection next year, he announced Thursday night.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says people should not be surprised by the challenges that come with governing, saying that’s the way it is in the U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized McConnell for the Senate’s failure to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s health care law. […] McConnell praised the Trump administration for his appointment of conservative judges while seeming to remind the president of where the power lies in getting those appointments to the bench. …

Connecticut, home to hedge fund billionaires alongside cities mired in poverty, is racing against the clock to pass a budget or face further spending cuts to education and municipal aid across the state. Nearly two months without a budget, Connecticut is getting crushed by a burdensome debt load that has squeezed spending and amplified legislative discord. State lawmakers must agree on a biennial budget soon or else Governor Dannel Malloy’s executive order to slash state aid to municipalities and eliminate school funding for some districts will go into effect in October. The state faces a $3.5 billion deficit over the...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says there is “zero chance” Congress will allow the country to default on its debts by voting to not increase the borrowing limit. McConnell’s comments came Monday during a joint appearance in his home state of Kentucky with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. It was one of McConnell’s first public appearances since President Donald Trump publicly criticized him for failing to pass a repeal and replacement of former President Barack Obama’s health care law. McConnell did not mention Trump in his remarks, and he did not take questions from reporters after the event. But in...

A week after an attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act failed, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he’d consider a bipartisan effort to continue payments to insurers to avert a costly rattling of health insurance markets. McConnell told reporters Saturday there is “still a chance” the Senate could revive the measure to repeal and replace “Obamacare,” but he acknowledged the window for that is rapidly closing. The Kentucky senator noted Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is working on “some kind of bipartisan approach” that would involve subsidies for insurance companies. Alexander recently said he will work with the...

Posobiec said that after the vote, a staffer near McCain’s office heard McCain say, “Let’s see Donald make America great again now.”

PHOENIX — Incumbent John McCain found himself on the defensive Monday over the fact it took months for him to conclude that Donald Trump is not fit to be president. http://tucson.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/much-of-mccain-kirkpatrick-debate-is-about-trump-clinton-obama/article_3071ba38-490d-570d-9a8f-9756ab117b75.html

4 Sen. Jeff Flake (R-Ariz.) on Sunday said that Republican leaders who do not call President Trump out are complicit. “I do think so,” Flake told CBS’s “Face the Nation” when asked if GOP leaders are complicit if they fail to call out Trump. “I think that you know, obviously the last thing you want to do is wake up every morning and see a tweet and think, ‘I just---‘ you know, it’s tough not to just say ‘I’m not going to respond.’ And we can’t respond to everything. But there are times when you have to stand up...

Some of Hollywood’s biggest stars took to social media to celebrate and express their gratitude for the Republican senators who voted Friday morning against the so-called “skinny repeal” of Obamacare. “Great respect to @JohnMccain who put country over party,” comedian and actor Billy Crystal tweeted, thanking Senator McCain for putting “country over party” and voting against repeal.

Former House Speaker John Boehner said at an event in Las Vegas last week that he used to “sneak into” the White House to see President Barack Obama to avoid scrutiny from the “right-wing press”.... ...Boehner also lamented the fact that Americans now have too many choices of where to go for news and information. “What’s making everything even worse today is because we have so much news, people get to choose where they get their news,” Boehner said, according to the Post. “It used to be we had three big TV networks, five big newspapers, and five big radio...

PARASITES IN US HEALTH CARE In early May my wife and I returned from a short vacation in Peru. Two weeks later I came down with severe diarrhea that has now continued unabated for six weeks. The cause has been identified as a parasite—Blastasytis Species. This parasite is believed to be present in 23% of the American population and 100% of people in “less developed countries” (Wikipedia). Albendazole is the first line of treatment for this infection. Albendazole tablets are sold throughout the world (outside of the US) for 1 penny to six cents each and are usually available as...

In firm control of the federal government, President Donald Trump and his Republican Party have so far failed to deliver on core campaign promises on health care, taxes and infrastructure. But in New York’s Trump Tower café, the Gentry family blames Congress, not the president. Like many Trump voters across America, the Alabama couple, vacationing last week with their three children, says they are deeply frustrated with the president’s GOP allies, faulting them for derailing Trump’s plans. As the family of five lunched in Trump Tower, Sheila Gentry offered a pointed message to those concerned with the GOP’s ability to...

As of April, there were 74,531,002 people enrolled in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program as of April, according to the latest data released by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. That is up 16,705,235 in the 49 states that reported their Medicaid/CHIP enrollment numbers for both the July-to-September period of 2013 (the last quarter before the Obamacare exchanges opened) and this April. The 74,531,002 enrolled in Medicaid/CHIP as of April includes the numbers for all 50 states and the District of Columbia. In the 49 states that reported both before the Obamacare exchanges opened in 2013 and...

I remember the day after the 2016 Election, a friend of mine who happens to be white, remarked on social media that he "finally wasn't embarrassed of America and our President." I sprained my eyes rolling them and they have never fully recovered. Since then I've heard this sentiment echoed by more white folks than I can count, especially in recent months; supposed relief at once again having a leader who instills pride. I don't have the time to ask each of the individually, I'll ask here: So, you were embarrassed for the past 8 years, huh? Really? What exactly...