Free Republic

Donald Trump is backing a GOP proposal depositing $1,500 checks into the health care accounts of millions of Americans. The legislation, which is being led by Republican Louisiana Senator Bill Cassidy and Idaho Senator Mike Crapo, gives qualifying Affordable Care Act (ACA) enrollees a $1,000 deposit for those aged 18 to 49, as well as recipients aged 50 to 64 for $1,500. While speaking to reporters on board Air Force One on Tuesday, the president

As federal health care subsidies barrel toward expiration, a bipartisan group of 35 U.S. lawmakers is calling on leaders in the House and Senate to hold a vote on extending the benefits before the end of next week. The group includes Rep. Jeff Hurd, a Grand Junction Republican who has been pushing for a renewal of the subsidies, known as the enhanced premium tax credit. The subsidies, passed by Democrats in Congress during the COVID-19 pandemic, helped lower insurance premiums for plans purchased through Affordable Care Act marketplaces, but are now slated to expire on Dec. 31. Many Coloradans have...

After successfully holding strong in the face of a Democrat-led government shutdown over Obamacare, a cabal of House Republicans is now waiving the white flag on the issue.On Thursday, nearly three dozen Democrats and Republicans introduced a proposal to extend taxpayer-funded Obamacare subsidies. As Federalist Senior Contributor Christopher Jacobs has regularly reported in these pages, these Biden-era subsidies — which are set to expire at the end of this year — have been a complete and total disaster. Spearheaded by Reps. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., and Jen Kiggins, R-Va., the measure “would extend and reduce the tax credits in a two-step...

Glenn Medical Center in Willows closed Oct. 21 after losing “critical access” status for being 3 miles closer to the nearest hospital than rules require. The closure strips emergency care from a poor farming community, eliminates 150 jobs and puts rural residents at risk of preventable deaths. Many other California hospitals also face risks of closing because of federal healthcare cuts affecting cash-strapped rural healthcare systems. These are questions that elected officials and policymakers may soon be confronting in rural communities across California and the nation. Cuts to Medicaid funding and the Affordable Care Act are likely to roll down...

As families gather to celebrate Thanksgiving, many worry about the impossibly high cost of health insurance. Let’s play a game of What If? (It will be fun, I promise.) What if healthcare dollars currently going to insurance companies were paid instead to the consumers themselves? Would good things result, or bad? This “what if” exercise was prompted by President Trump’s offhand suggestion to give ACA subsidies “directly to the people...[instead of]...BIG, BAD insurance companies”? (Republicans are currently considering this idea but only for the ACA.) Specifically, what if all the money called employer-sponsored health benefits that presently goes to insurance...

President Donald Trump is delaying a planned announcement of a proposal to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies, according to two White House officials, after congressional Republicans pushed back against the president’s sudden embrace of the expiring subsidies. Trump was expected to unveil a plan aimed at halting ACA premium spikes on Monday, as first reported by MS NOW. But the reveal has been postponed — though not canceled — said the White House officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss the internal strategy. Both White House officials noted that Trump’s announcement — which was never officially on the schedule —...

"The bottom line is this: Under this law, the share of Americans with insurance is up, and the growth of healthcare costs is down. And that's good for our middle class, and that's good for our fiscal future." - President Barack Obama, 4/26/2016

11/4/2013 - During an OFA summit, President Obama addressed claims that health care reform forces people off their original plans.

MADISON, Wis. — A Wisconsin woman who gets her health insurance through the Affordable Care Act says she’s bracing for next year — when tax credits expire. “This is going to hurt our family,” Shana Verstegen, a Madison fitness instructor, log roller, and mother, told News 3 Now Tuesday. Like log rolling, raising a family requires a lot of risk. “We have two young boys and don't feel good about not having health insurance with the two boys,” Verstegen said. However, Verstegen and her husband are now preparing to pay a lot more for peace of mind next year. “It's...

Dr. Mehmet Oz, the administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said Sunday the Trump administration is holding “discussions” on extending subsidies offered under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). “There are discussions around extending the subsidies, if we deal with the fraud, waste and abuse that, right now, is paralyzing the system,” Oz told host Dana Bash on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Lawmakers are racing toward a mid-December deadline, with Republicans hoping to present side-by-side legislation with Democrats’ plan to extend ACA subsidies.President Donald Trump has again promised a “far better and far less expensive” alternative to the Affordable Care Act, and Republicans are rushing — again — to deliver one.For weeks throughout the longest government shutdown in history, Trump avoided negotiating with Democrats on the health care concerns fueling their standoff. Now lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are speeding toward a self-imposed deadline of mid-December to hold dueling health care votes.Democrats maintain the simplest and most popular option is...

While a number of industrialized nations provide health care through a single payer (government run) system, others have made a public-private system the model they use to guarantee health services to all their citizens. One of those nations is Israel which (as it turns out) has a lot to teach the United States on how to operate a universal health system that is based on both private and public inputs. Israel adopted its national health system in 1995 requiring all permanent residents be provided a standard basket of services including physician care, hospitalization, prescription drugs and dental care for children...

The right’s warnings about Obamacare proved prescient, yet Democrats keep doubling down on a failing system they refuse to admit they broke. Just over 15 years ago, when the Democrat-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate were debating the healthcare proposals offered by the Democrat president, nearly everyone on the political right was unified in opposition. It may well have been the last time the right was united on anything, but it was indeed unified and resolute. Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (MN) warned that “This monstrosity of a bill will not only destroy the private healthcare market, it will lead to massive...

I'm old enough to remember when the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) passed. It was 2010, and I had just joined Twitter the previous fall while I was on maternity leave following the birth of my second son. That means I recall exactly how Obamacare's passage unfolded. It was forced on an unwilling American people by the Democrats, who shoved it through Congress without a single Republican vote. Many people, myself included, warned it was a bait-and-switch scheme that wouldn't lower healthcare costs but would usher in single-payer socialized medicine. Now that we're facing another negotiation on Obamacare subsidies, it's time...

Senator Mike Lee (R-UT) is pushing back on the idea that the Affordable Care Act (ACA), known as Obamacare, has made health insurance costs more affordable, saying, “Obamacare makes everyone else poor.”Lee shared a graphic, first posted by President Trump on Truth social, showing how major health insurance company stocks have performed since the ACA was enacted in 2010 to November 2025.The seven major health insurance companies depicted on the graph show gains of anywhere from 414% to 1177% in their stock prices between March 2010 and November 2025.Health insurance companies are making money hand over fist—not because they’ve discovered...

It’s been over 15 years since Democrats passed Obamacare under the promise that it would make healthcare affordable. Americans were supposed to save money, keep their doctors, and finally get a system that worked for them instead of the big insurance companies. Today, those promises look like a sick joke. A recent post shared by our sister site Twitchy highlights how the Obamacare boondoggle really works, and why it doesn’t actually work for the people. Instead, it was built to enrich the healthcare industry, and the numbers prove it. Let me give you a rundown of how it works, if...

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-NY, walked off the Senate floor when being questioned about reopening the federal government during the longest shutdown in history. Schumer admitted to Sen. Bernie Moreno, R-OH, that he didn’t have a written proposal to fix the Affordable Care Act. “We can’t give you a counter in writing, but it’s very simple," Schumer said. "Because we have two sentences we would add to any proposal which would extend the ACA benefits for one year. Moreno exposed that the Affordable Care Act imposed no income caps, meaning people who make millions of dollars a year...

With the government shutdown rolling on without an end in sight and the Obamacare subsidies running out, President Donald Trump is sizing up a long-running battle against the failures of the Affordable Care Act. "OBAMACARE 'SUCKS," Trump wrote on Truth Social on Sunday morning. "THE WORST HEALTHCARE FOR THE HIGHEST PRICE." On Saturday, Trump floated a compromise amid the impasse on the shutdown, urging Republicans to redirect federal money that goes to health insurance companies under the Affordable Care Act and send it directly to individuals. "PAY THE PEOPLE, NOT THE INSURANCE COMPANIES!" Trump wrote in a message that could...

Next week my firm will hold its annual health insurance information meeting. The news won’t be good. Premiums are expected to increase 10-15% after increasing a similar amount last year. If only my 401(k) could grow like that! The bottom line is that my paycheck will become smaller and my health care costs will become larger. My wife and I have also spent most of this year scurrying through the endless maze of our byzantine and befuddling health care system. Our journey began when my wife’s father had a stroke in April… Over the past seven months we have had...

"When I talk about weak Republican men, I am pretty much talking oftentimes about the leadership in the House and Senate, and they are just not getting our agenda done," she said. In recent weeks, Greene has pushed for her own party to share an alternative plan to replace the current Affordable Care Act, specifically calling out House Speaker Mike Johnson. "Republicans never fixed it … And then the ACA tax credits were passed in 2021 … and Republicans never made a plan for that," Greene said. She criticized Johnson for keeping the House in recess, saying, "We should be...