Free Republic

The uneasy alliance between President Obama and health insurers is being put to the test by the troubled rollout of ObamaCare. With the botched enrollment website dragging Obama’s approval rating to record lows and threatening to undermine his biggest legislative achievement, some Democrats say the president should deflect blame onto the industry. The healthcare companies in many ways represent an ideal political target, as they are unpopular and intimately involved in the rollout — and Democrats haven’t hesitated to go after them in the past. Democrats highlighted what they said were the heartless business practices of insurers during the debate...

San Francisco architect Lee Hammack says he and his wife, JoEllen Brothers, are “cradle Democrats.” They have donated to the liberal group Organizing for America and worked the phone banks a year ago for President Obama’s re-election. Since 1995, Hammack and Brothers have received their health coverage from Kaiser Permanente, where Brothers worked until 2009 as a dietitian and diabetes educator. “We’ve both been in very good health all of our lives – exercise, don’t smoke, drink lightly, healthy weight, no health issues, and so on,” Hammack told me. The couple — Lee, 60, and JoEllen, 59 — have been...

(CNSNews.com) – The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) spent almost $29 million to cover Medicare Part D prescription drugs for 4,139 individuals “unlawfully present” in the U.S. and thus ineligible to receive federal health care benefits, according to an audit by Daniel Levinson, inspector general of the Department of Health & Human Services. (See Medicare prescription drugs.pdf)

PLO official urges global probe into Arafat "killing" (Perfect timing for release as PLO-Israeli talks stalling?) A PLO official on Thursday called for an international inquiry into "the killing" of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, a day after Swiss scientists said he probably died from polonium poisoning. RAMALLAH: A PLO official on Thursday called for an international inquiry into "the killing" of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, a day after Swiss scientists said he probably died from polonium poisoning. "The (test) results proved Arafat was poisoned by polonium, and this substance is owned by states, not people, meaning that the crime was...

Police continue to investigate this morning after at least seven people were wounded in shootings in Chicago Wednesday evening, including three men shot to death and a 6-year-old boy who suffered three gunshot wounds to the shoulder and chest, authorities said. Police News Affairs Officer Amina Greer said no arrests have been made this morning in the child's shooting.

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Now, I am the first to say that the first month I have not been happy with. You've all heard about the website woes. Nothing drives me more crazy than the fact that right now, there is great insurance to be had out there -- choice and competition -- where people can save money for a better product, except too many folks have not been able to get through the website. Now, this is like having a really good product in the store and the cash registers don't work and there aren't enough parking spots and nobody can...

Three local Internal Revenue Service employees collected unemployment compensation while working for the agency, federal prosecutors say. A Pittsburgh federal grand jury on Wednesday issued separate indictments charging Jennifer Lang, 39, of Crafton, Sandra Delval, 28, of Scott and Sharday Thornhill, 27, of Turtle Creek with theft of government money and making false statements.

Bob: "Did you hear about the Obama administration scandal...? Jim: "You mean the Mexican gun running?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "You mean SEAL Team 6?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "You mean the State Dept. lying about Benghazi ?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "You mean voter fraud?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "You mean the military not getting their votes counted?" Bob: "No, the other one." Jim: "You mean that 3 or 4 of Obama's GAY friends were mysteriously MURDERED when they came forward with claims he was gay too?" Bob: "No, the other...

I am gathered with over 200 brother priests from the Archdiocese for a convocation on the New Evangelization. And we are blessed to have Dr. Ralph Martin as our Keynote speaker.Of course some wonder at the title “new” in the New Evangelization. On the one hand it is new in the sense that we are having now to reach back to once Christian cultures and people and repropose the gospel. The is a “new” (and unfortunate) development that is in a way harder than opening new “virginal” territory for the Kingdom. The ancient Western world was as a virgin awaiting...

Saudi Arabia has a secret deal with Pakistan offering funding for Islamabad’s nuclear weapons programme in return for access to warheads, according to the BBC’s Newsnight show. Rumours of a deal have long circulated in the Middle East, amid Saudi anxiety at its principal regional rival Iran developing a “Shia bomb”. Fresh details emerged on the eve of talks in Geneva to find a deal on Iran's nuclear capabilities. Citing American intelligence reports and a former Pakistani security officer, the BBC said nuclear weapons made in Pakistan for Saudi Arabia were ready for delivery. However, the Pakistan government dismissed the...

".......[snip]........ But still I must be. And so must you. Your impatience cannot be made patient unless you are still. I speak from personal experience. You cannot control what you do not control, but you can be still and know that God controls. Friends, I realize this is an esoteric topic to start your Thursday. But I have friends demanding strategies for this, that, and the other, I have things I myself want to move forward and can’t, some of you have similar things in life and are frustrated, and all of us just need to stop. We will not...

Coachella Valley High School’s Arab mascot logo has changed over the decades, from the original one on horseback, to one wielding a scimitar and wearing a fez, to the one used today, bottom right. Hot on the heels of the Washington Redskins name controversy, an Arab-American advocacy group wants a California high school to abandon its decades-old sports mascot and associated imagery on the grounds it offensively stereotypes Arabs.The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) is unhappy with the Coachella Valley High School’s “Arab” mascot – the name, the logo, half-time shows that feature an “Arab” figure and a belly dancer,...

Changes to our current medical insurance paying system, are another way Obama uses the system to get every cent he can out of the Rich AND Poor. Before Obamcare, on avaerage, most folks had simple insurance plan or even employer plans that had two basic components: Co Pay, and out of pocket limits... IE....I had a plan where there was a 70% portion of every bill you pay AND my co payment wich was the rest: 30%, and I would only be responbible for up to $5K, at which point I paid nothing...and it is the 80/20 where people really...

Full title too long, here's the rest: "when he reported van stolen to stop teenager from buying cigarettes"

Two junior clerical workers say they told NHS managers that they were being ordered to falsify data, so that it seemed that patients were being treated far more quickly than was the case. Police are considering whether to launch a criminal investigation after regulators the Care Quality Commission (CQC) found evidence that staff were put under pressure to falsify data, leaving some patients waiting up to four months for urgent treatment. The chief inspector of hospitals has said lives may have been risked by “shocking” decisions taken at Colchester Hospital University Foundation trust to delay crucial treatment for cancer patients,...

President Xi Jinping vowed last month that country would break free of the "middle income trap", the fate of countless states in Latin America and around the world after their catch-up booms in the 1960s, all failing to make the switch in time to a grown-up growth model. The Plenum will deliver a "profound revolution". It will rival the Third Plenum of Deng Xiaoping in 1978, the moment when China turned its back on Maoist autarky and unleashed the creative forces of the market, lifting 500m people out of poverty. The reforms will, in theory, break China's destructive reliance on...

NEW YORK (AP) — Veteran ABC News reporter and "20/20" anchor Elizabeth Vargas is in treatment for alcohol dependency, the network said Wednesday. Vargas, who is 51 and married to singer-songwriter Marc Cohn, last appeared on ABC in October. The network confirmed a New York Daily News story that said she has been in a treatment facility for a few weeks and has a few weeks more to complete the program.

President Obama urged Republican governors to move forward and allow the Affordable Care Act expansion of Medicaid in their states, using an appearance in Dallas to make the case that the governors should stop playing politics. While Obama didn't call out Texas Gov. Rick Perry by name for not participating in the expansion, he asked states like Texas, to take advantage of the program and not deny people healthcare because of ideology. "There's no state that actually needs this more than Texas," Obama said, speaking briefly at local synagogue in the Lone Star state, before moving on to a fundraiser....

In the wake of reports that First Lady Michelle Obama’s classmate at Princeton earned the no-bid contract to build the failed Obamacare website, we learn of another no-bid deal going to a marketing firm with close ties to President Barack Obama. According to documents obtained by Judicial Watch, Shepardson, Stern & Kaminsky was the recipient of a plum no-bid contract for $100,000 to design the “Let’s Move” logo for Mrs. Obama’s childhood obesity campaign. An arrangement that violates federal contracting rules and is acknowledged by federal officials as an “unauthorized commitment,” the documents show.

<p>There have been bad presidents--see Jimmy Carter. Yet has there ever been a president as staggeringly incompetent as Barack Obama? Really,can there be any other explanation for his performance as president than the man is, well...a moron?</p>