Free Republic

Through family, I heard about a couple in WI who started a small business and were planning to expand. Now, with their ACA premiums TRIPLED due to congressional inaction, they've had to scrap plans to expand & grow. I'm sure that scenario is repeating itself all over the U.S.

Most days, Joe Cato is confined to sitting in a chair or lying in bed, heavily medicated or asleep, debilitated by back pain that’s left the 41-year-old husband and father of four unable to work, attend seminary, or run his construction business. He has degenerative arthritis in his lower back and pelvis, a condition brought on after years of working on construction sites as a stonemason and hauling music gear as a worship leader in his church. Even riding in a car is painful, which he must do to get to his health-care provider 30 miles from his home in...

If you’re waiting for the administration to replace the Affordable Care Act, you should pray that you won’t need an ambulance. If you do call the 911 emergency services, then you’ll be waiting longer than you would have before President Obama’s signature healthcare reform was implemented. How much longer? On average, close to 20 percent more, according to new research from the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Rand Paul might soon go down as the Republican who saved Obamacare — and he couldn’t care less. "I'm actually happy to be out there as the leading advocate for repealing Obamacare, not keeping it," the Kentucky Republican said in an interview. Of his GOP colleagues, Paul added: "These people, they so totally do not get it."

A federal judge ruled on Tuesday that Obamacare’s special protections for transgender individuals and women who choose to have abortions violate religious freedom. Judge Reed O’Connor of U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas, a George W. Bush appointee, overturned the protections by vacating the Obama-era rule that banned health insurers and providers who receive federal taxpayer funds from denying coverage or treatment to any individual based on sex, gender identity, or termination of pregnancy. As the Hill noted, Reed is the same judge who ruled last December that Obamacare in its entirety is unconstitutional. In January 2017...

A judge in Texas has struck down an Obama-era federal regulation that would have required healthcare providers and insurers to perform gender-transition procedures and abortions even if they go against their medical judgment or violate religious convictions. U.S. District Court Judge Reed O’Connor, an appointee of President George W. Bush, vacated a 2016 Obamacare mandate that critics feared could have forced faith-based doctors out of work if they refused to perform gender-transition procedures or abortions on patients referred to them. This was the second time that O’Connor ruled against the regulation, with the first coming in January 2017 when he...

President Trump sharply criticized President Obama's Affordable Care Act (ACA), saying "time has shown that this plan is not affordable and does not provide the results promised. The majority of those on the ACA were not able to keep their doctors. Nearly half of those on the ACA have just a single provider where they live. The premiums they must pay are high as are the deductibles. Most would've fared better if they had been allowed to buy catastrophic coverage, but the ACA didn't allow that. We need a better system." "My Great Healthcare Plan shifts the decision-making authority to...

Remember how Democrats once hailed ObamaCare as a "big f---ing deal?"Nowadays, as inadvertently revealed by Politico, many Democrats have turned their backs on the 15-year-old program they have come to loathe (while urging continued funding for it) and instead increasingly demand its replacement with Medicare For All.On Sunday, Politico reporters Lisa Kashinsky and Elena Schneider revealed the deep Democrat discontent with ObamaCare in "Democrats are united in bashing GOP on Obamacare. Medicare for All could reopen a rift."The article began with how fervently many Democrats are in their desire to ditch ObamaCare in favor of the entirely government-financed Medicare For...

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...