Free Republic

Small-business owners across the U.S. are bracing for the health-care law that kicks in next year, fearing it will increase the cost of providing insurance to employees. But Rick Levi, a business owner in Des Moines, Iowa, is among those considering the government's escape hatch: paying a penalty to avoid the law's "employer mandate." Under the Affordable Care Act, employers with 50 or more full-time workers will be required to provide coverage for employees who work an average of 30 or more hours a week in a given month. An alternative to that mandate is for business owners to pay...

Can we stop calling ObamaCare the Affordable Care Act now? A Young America's Foundation activist forwarded an email from the Vice President for Finance at his school, Guilford College (Greensboro, NC), informing him that, "For the 2012-13 academic year, the annual cost of the student health insurance is increasing from $668 to $1,179. This insurance premium has been charged to your student account." Why the increase? "Our student health insurance policy premium has been substantially increased due to changes required by federal regulations issued on March 16, 2012 under the Affordable Care Act." Guilford College has been forced to raise...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Starting in 2012, the government will charge a new fee to your health insurance plan for research to find out which drugs, medical procedures, tests and treatments work best. But what will Americans do with the answers? The goal of the research, part of a little-known provision of President Barack Obama’s health care law, is to answer such basic questions as whether that new prescription drug advertised on TV really works better than an old generic costing much less. But in the politically charged environment surrounding health care, the idea of medical effectiveness research is eyed with...

There has been no shortage of court cases regarding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Before today, four courts, including the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, examined the health reform law and found it constitutional. Today, a different court ruled against the Affordable Care Act’s individual responsibility provision. We strongly disagree with this decision and we are confident it will not stand. The individual responsibility provision – the main part of the law at issue in these cases – is constitutional. Those who claim this provision exceeds Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce are incorrect. Individuals who choose to...

No one knows more about the massive failure of public housing “revitalization” than Team Obama and its hapless Chicago social engineers and architects. In 2009, I put the spotlight on Altgeld Gardens and the unfulfilled promises of Richard Daley and Valerie Jarrett’s “Plan for Transformation.” Flashback: For decades, the public housing boondoggle has provided lucrative jobs and windfalls for Daley cronies and developers. The failure to make the communities safe for families and kids touches not only Obama, but his closest advisers — including real estate mogul/Daley operative/consigliere/city planning commissioner/Habitat Company chief Valerie Jarrett. Daley/Jarrett’s “Plan for Transformation” for Chicago...

VANITY: I tried doing a search to find the list of the 1,000+ companies/unions/etc. that have been granted waivers from the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." Needless to say, it is not a featured link on the HHS.gov website. I'm sure there are some great Freeper sleuths who know where we should be able to find this -- Google and Bing don't seem to want to help. Maybe HHS doesn't want people to know who is being granted waivers... Maybe HHS doesn't want people asking the question. I think it should be a FAQ on the HHS website because...

Market research showed a need for more low-income senior housing in Rochester, but the numbers of people applying for 53 new rent-subsidized independent living apartment units brought that need home. As of several weeks ago, more than 80 people had applied to live at Kenosha Drive Apartments, a new low-income senior housing facility for those age 62 and older in northwest Rochester, which is set to become the flagship property for Accessible Space, a national nonprofit affordable housing provider based in St. Paul. That's the most applications the non-profit has received for a new facility, said Devin C. Vander Schaaf,...

U.S. President Barack Obama holds a town hall meeting at the Holiday Park Multipurpose Senior Center to discuss the Affordable Care Act in Wheaton, Maryland, June 8, 2010. REUTERS/Larry Downing

Obama is already showing mental and emotional fatigue - won't last another term with this weak display of performance. There is no doubt he wouldn't last another term of the presidential spotlight. The democrats will have pay a high price for his lack of 'savvy skills' thus the demise of the party.

Former senator and presidential candidate John Edwards called it a "moral shame" that 37 million Americans live in poverty, but committed to lifting them out by working with ACORN to raise wages and supporting Sen. Barack Obama for president. "We can walk together and end the great shame of poverty in the United States," Edwards told nearly 2,000 ACORN members Monday, June 23, the final day of the group's National Convention at the Cobo Center. Edwards serves as chair of the ACORN-affiliated "Half in Ten" campaign to cut poverty in half in the U.S. within 10 years. Edwards called the...

July 17, 2008 Britain's Axon claims that its newly patented mass-production techniques will make carbon composite car frames and bodywork even cheaper than their metal counterparts - and only 40% as heavy. What a revolutionary technology this could be - the power to weight ratio of any vehicle on the planet could be dramatically increased for no extra cost! The company plans to release a highly affordable 500cc Review-of-Three-Wheeled-Vehicles Mar-08 passenger car making at least 100mpg from a basic petrol http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gasoline engine in 2010, and Axon is confident its simple, lightweight solution to the fuel economy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fuel_efficiency challenge will be...

Triple-digit monthly parking fees, $12 movie tickets, clogged intersections and weekly grocery bills that rival some mortgage payments. Welcome to life in the Big Apple. And Los Angeles. And Chicago. But, it's possible to enjoy such amenities without the hassles. Step one? Look for more affordable spots that offer a similar or better quality of life, and where the dollar goes far. The Cities are: Minneapolis Indianapolis Cincinnati St. Louis Houston Milwaukee Dallas Pittsburg Columbus Atlanta

The Hypocritical Ingratitude of Christian Affordable Housing Advocates The Pasadena Pundit - July 10, 2007 National talk radio show host and Jewish theologian Dennis Prager is most perceptive in his comment: "Of all the ugly human traits, ingratitude ? the refusal to acknowledge the good that has been done for us ? is probably the ugliest. Yet its awfulness is only exceeded by its ubiquity." Paradoxically, the scope of ingratitude and a sense of entitlement has apparently pervaded even the Christian community in its self-righteous political and media advocacy for affordable housing for the poor, most notably by both Protestant...

BANGKOK, Thailand - Delegates from 120 countries approved the first roadmap for stemming greenhouse gas emissions Friday, laying out what they said was an affordable arsenal of anti-warming measures that must be rushed into place to avert a disastrous spike in global temperatures. But a U.S. official raised concern about the economic costs. The report, a summary of a study by a U.N. network of 2,000 scientists, said the world has to make significant cuts in gas emissions through increasing the energy efficiency of buildings and vehicles, shifting from fossil fuels to renewable fuels, and reforming both the forestry and...

In the never-ending game of Whack-A-Mole the media play with the Bush administration, the alarms over defense spending take the cake. The Times story, for instance, notes that projected spending is “near historic highs, even when adjusted for inflation.” True enough, in rough dollar terms. That $481 billion planned for defense is a lot of money. But defense spending as a share of GDP — the most meaningful measure for how much of our nation’s resources we devote to government — is actually way below historic norms and expected to go even lower. Last year, as the Pentagon notes, we...

Nearly five years ago, my husband and I left a university clinic practice to explore ways to spend more time with our patients. Denied the right to provide services to my patients because the patients' insurer did not deem it necessary, we felt we were losing personal control of the practice of medicine. Much of my practice was women's care, and the idea of providing comprehensive women's care in 12-minute visits was absurd. Furthermore, to maintain an "efficient" patient flow, my schedule was typically filled weeks in advance with physicals and Pap smears, so that acute care was frequently shunted...

WASHINGTON (Army News Service, July 5, 2006) – Department of Defense ID cardholders are eligible for weekly condominium rentals at 3,500 resorts in 80 countries worldwide. Provided by Morale, Welfare and Recreation and sponsored by Resort Condominium International, the Armed Forces Vacation Club offers space-available condominiums for $299 a week. The program gives Soldiers and other DoD workers affordable accommodations in condominiums that would otherwise go empty, according to Verlin Abbott, RCI director of AFVC. While the program provides low-cost accommodations to vacation resorts across the globe, Abbott stressed that the condos are “space available” only. “Don’t expect to go...

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (Army News Service, May 17, 2006) – Morale, Welfare and Recreation patrons will be hard-pressed to beat the cost of an Australian vacation purchased through their Information, Ticket and Reservation office. A five-night stay in Sydney or Melbourne is available for $838 per person based on double occupancy. The “G’Day Good Deal” packages include three- or four-star accommodations for five nights, round-trip airfare from Los Angeles or San Francisco aboard Qantas Airways and a 15-hour calling card that can be used to dial the United States. Taxes and surcharges are not included in the base price. “Normally, when...

The high cost of housing in California is prompting nearly a quarter of the Golden State's residents to seriously consider moving to cheaper digs elsewhere. What's more, when Californians buy a second home, more and more of them are buying out of state in cheaper housing markets. California has the nation's third fastest rate of home price appreciation this year, behind Nevada and Hawaii, rising more than 18 percent compared to last year, 84 percent in the past five years and a whopping 338 percent since 1980, according to the Office of Federal Housing Enterprise Oversight's Home Price Index. Nationwide...

Affordable-housing law OKdHighland Park puts requirement on developers By Amanda Vogt, Tribune staff reporter. Freelance reporter Julie Ewart contributed to this report August 27, 2003 Prompted in part by complaints that young people cannot afford to raise families in the community where they grew up, the North Shore city of Highland Park has approved what an observer called a "precedent-setting" zoning ordinance requiring a portion of new multifamily developments to be reserved for affordable housing. The ordinance, passed unanimously by the City Council Monday night, requires 20 percent of new multifamily residential construction with five or more units to be...