Free Republic

David Delfiner and Lisa Parsons received a shocking letter from their health insurance provider when they checked their mail last week. Their monthly health insurance cost will increase from $350 a month this year to $2,221 starting in 2026. “It’s insane. It’s unbelievable,” said Parsons, a 59-year-old retiree living in South Lake Tahoe. The couple is not alone as open enrollment begins and 1.7 million Californians are facing an average 97% surge in premiums for next year’s health insurance plans available on the open marketplace. Covered California, the state’s health care exchange, expects prices to increase 10% on average for...

Stacy Cox used one word repeatedly as she described how she felt after learning her ACA premium could jump over 300% without the enhanced tax credits: "devastating." "I don't know if I've ever cried opening a letter from an insurance or before, but it happened this time," she told ABC News. Cox's premium this year has been $495.32 for coverage for her and her husband. Without the credit in 2026, she was informed that it's increasing to $2,168.68. "It's devastating because we can't afford that," she said. "Just that bill right there, that's more than our mortgage, our insurance, most...

A new analysis published by the nonpartisan Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) found that out-of-pocket premium payments will more than double if ObamaCare’s enhanced premium tax credits expire. According to the CBPP’s projections, annual out-of-pocket premium payments would more than double, exceeding $1,000 on average if the credits aren’t extended. Open enrollment for Affordable Care Act (ACA) Marketplace plans begins this Saturday. “Since Congress has not acted sooner and many enrollees likely have already experienced sticker shock and decided not to enroll, it should also extend the open enrollment period (scheduled to end January 15 in most states)...

The rates, pricing and other data for 2026 Affordable Care Act (ACA) insurance plans were publicly posted on the federal Healthcare.gov marketplace on Wednesday, just three days ahead of the start of open enrollment. The health research nonprofit KFF said the average increase in premiums for ACA plans will be 26 percent next year, based on data for “benchmark” silver plans, which are the midtier plans in each region that most people purchase and are used to set the subsidy amounts. But KFF found the amount that people pay for coverage is set to rise 114 percent on average because...

Senate Republicans tried and failed for the ninth time to reopen the government and are starting to believe that Senate Democrats won’t budge until next week. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and Senate Democrats again blocked the House-passed continuing resolution (CR) in their push for an extension of expiring Obamacare subsidies. They argue that unless congressional Republicans and President Donald Trump come to the table and negotiate an extension to the expiring tax credits, they won’t provide Senate Majority Leader John Thune, R-S.D., the necessary votes to reopen the government.

Democrats shut down the government partly to force Republicans to extend COVID-era boosts in Obamacare subsidies that Dems once called “temporary” but now say are needed to keep the program viable. This reveals what a true disaster Obamacare has been, as its critics warned even as Dems were ramming it into law with not a single Republican vote in 2010. Blindly tossing fresh trillions down that hole is nuts: Time to fix it — or scrap it altogether. The 10-year cost of Dems’ current demand totals almost a half-trillion dollars, to benefit primarily insurers and wealthier Americans. Under the expiration...

“Mr. Trump has promised working-class tax cuts and protection for working-class social insurance, such as Medicaid,” Hawley wrote. “But now a noisy contingent of corporatist Republicans — call it the party’s Wall Street wing — is urging Congress to ignore all that and get back to the old-time religion: corporate giveaways, preferences for capital and deep cuts to social insurance.” Hawley has consistently spoken up about his opposition to the House plan to use Medicaid cuts to pay for the party-line megabill. The House Energy and Commerce Committee has been charged with finding at least $880 billion in federal spending...

Contrary to Marjorie Taylor Greene’s claim, most of the Obamacare subsidies are not expiring, for good or for ill.Into the debate on extending the Biden administration’s Covid subsidies for health coverage stepped Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, R-Ga. In an X post Monday evening, Greene claimed that “when the tax credits expire this year my own adult children’s insurance premiums for 2026 are going to DOUBLE, along with all the wonderful families and hard-working people in my district.” She went on to repeat the claim that premiums would “DOUBLE” — with all caps in the original — two other times in...

It's been quite a while since I've done one of these, but here it goes: As of October 2025, Democrats in the Senate are using the filibuster to block a Republican bill that would temporarily fund the government, triggering a government shutdown. This is meant to pressure Republicans to negotiate on health care and other policy demands. Given that Republicans control both the White House and Congress, Democrats are using the filibuster to provide them a measure of leverage in budget negotiations. Democrats are demanding an extension of enhanced subsidies for health care plans under the ACA, aka "ObamaCare" which...

Halloween could come early this year. The Democrats have named their price to avoid a government shutdown come October – an additional $350 billion for healthcare over the next decade. Critics say a big chunk of that money may go to ghosts. At issue are the generous subsidies the Biden administration created for Affordable Care Act policies, sweeteners that are slated to expire in December. Making healthcare essentially free for millions of Americans, those policies have skyrocketed enrollment in Obamacare plans. But a recent study found they have also sparked a curious phenomenon: an estimated 12 million enrollees “without a...

This weekend, first lady Jill Biden is traveling in Eastern Europe, meeting with Ukrainian refugees, humanitarian aid workers and others impacted by Russia's war in Ukraine. As the Biden administration continues to express its unwavering support for Ukraine's battle to preserve its independence, the first lady's trip is another opportunity to demonstrate America's commitment to Ukraine. It also will serve as an important reminder to all American and NATO allies that US commitment to Ukraine will extend well into the postwar period -- whenever that might be. Jill Biden's first ladyship is a long way from cookie bake-offs and state...

President Trump will get back all of his classified documents and personal belongings seized by the FBI in the Mar-a-Lago raid, CNN reported. WATCH: President expected to get personal belongings back from DOJ that were seized by the FBI at Mar-a-Lago – including birthday cards, golf shirts and a photo of Celine Dion. I joined @jimsciutto @SitRoomCNN with more. pic.twitter.com/Gv2YucyAUv — Paula Reid (@PaulaReidCNN) February 5, 2025 Biden’s FBI raided Mar-a-Lago in 2022 and seized boxes of records from Trump’s Florida estate. More than 3 dozen machine-gun-toting agents descended on Mar-a-Lago in August 2022, and by November, Biden’s DOJ appointed...

SEATTLE — A “No to Blue Angels” billboard just went up in Seattle’s Rainier Valley. The Blue Angels have been a fixture of Seafair for more than 50 year-- their thunderous roar could is the soundtrack to summer’s in Seattle. “I miss it more now because I don’t live on this side of town anymore,” said Carolyn Finney. She says she enjoyed the acrobatic show before moving to SeaTac. “Just seeing them fly around just close to the house down on, by the beach, that kind of stuff,” Finney said. “Yeah, it was exciting to see that.” However, a group...

Federal health officials on Monday touted pledges they have received from the health insurance industry to streamline and reform the prior authorization process for Medicare Advantage, Medicaid Managed Care and Affordable Care Act Health Insurance Marketplace plans which account for most insured Americans. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Administrator Mehmet Oz took part in a roundtable discussion with insurers in which the payers pledged commitments to six key reforms to the prior authorization process. Health care providers must obtain approval from an insurer before a specific service is...

FBI Attorney 2 was assigned to the Midyear investigation early in 2016. FBI Attorney 2 was not the lead FBI attorney assigned to Midyear and he told us he provided support to the investigation as needed. FBI Attorney 2 told us that he was also assigned to the investigation into Russian election interference and was the primary FBI attorney assigned to that investigation beginning in early 2017. FBI Attorney 2 told us that he was then assigned to the Special Counsel investigation once it began. FBI Attorney 2 left the Special Counsel’s investigation and returned to the FBI in late...

When Neera Tanden assumed a role as senior adviser at the White House last week, after her bid for a Cabinet post went off the rails, it was viewed as a consolation prize. In reality, Tanden may have just stepped into a more quietly powerful position: entering President Joe Biden’s inner sanctum and avoiding the scrutiny from her detractors that would have come with a more public-facing role. As senior adviser, Tanden is now among a small, select circle of advisers in the White House. She’s included in daily briefings. She’s one of a half dozen senior advisers and one...

The Democratic response to the murder of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson raises questions about the scope and significance of the federal healthcare reform legislation they passed without any Republican votes under former President Barack Obama. President Joe Biden, then the vice president, famously called the enactment of the Affordable Care Act a “big f***ing deal” at the 2010 signing ceremony. But when he sought the Democratic presidential nomination himself 10 years later, he was the only top-tier candidate running on Obamacare rather than other more government-centric healthcare plans. Biden won the nomination, defeating several proponents of Medicare for All, including...

A new report released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that if the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) extended subsidies are allowed to expire at the end of 2025, millions of people will become uninsured and premiums will rise. Responding to the Senate Finance Committee, the CBO found that “not extending the credit will increase the number of people without health insurance and raise the average gross benchmark premiums for plans purchased through the marketplaces.” The extended tax subsidies were first enacted in 2021 through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and extended to the end of 2025 through the...

Tomorrow morning, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will hear oral arguments in Halbig v. Sebelius, a case that challenges the IRS’s ability to implement ObamaCare’s health insurance subsidies and mandate penalties in the 34 states with federally established health “exchanges.” Though the IRS prevailed at the district-court level, its allies have been inadvertently undermining the agency’s case ever since. First, a little background. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 clearly, repeatedly, and consistently says that the above-mentioned subsidies and penalties are authorized only “through an Exchange established by the State.” The IRS breezed...

Even the left now admits that Obamacare failed. The former Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary who helped oversee implementation of the disastrous Obamacare law just argued that “27-28 million” Americans have no health insurance. And that’s about 10 years after the Affordable Care Act, also known as “Obamacare,” was enacted in 2010.