Free Republic

Since 1970, the health care industry has undergone a revolutionary change. Before that time people were overwhelmingly (about 70%) in traditional indemnity plans where patients pay a certain percentage of health care costs. With the passage of the Health Maintenance Organization Act written by Ted Kennedy (D-Mass), very quickly over 70% of Americans were covered by HMOs. The structure of HMOs was also largely different than traditional indemnity plans. HMOs require primary care physicians to act as gatekeepers of advanced care and it empowered insurance companies to challenge the medical judgment of doctors. It restricted choice to those doctors and...

Apparently, according to Michigan law, advocating for people to vote in an election in which they are unqualified to do so is a felony... Yesterday, I filed a complaint with the Michigan Attorney General against Daily Kos' blogger Markos Moulitsas, requesting an investigation into whether Moulitsas is encouraging voter fraud in next week's Michigan GOP primary. The idea of the freedom to vote is part of the bedrock foundation of this nation. Vote fraud is not a new concept; likely it reaches back even to the time of the founders. However, once vote fraud is discovered, it should be prosecuted...

Today, in the United States District Court in San Francisco, California, the ACLU has filed suit against the United States over the holidays that are designated as federal holidays were the federal government is closed. They argue that Christmas is the only religious holiday on the list and that it does not recognize religious holidays of other religions and it leaves out atheists. The suit, filed by the ACLU on behalf of several San Francisco plaintiffs, states that those individuals were unfairly discriminated against because they either would not get their religious holiday off or that as an atheist, they...

The filer of the FEC complaint against the DailyKos lashes out in a recent article. The argument is that political speech should be free of the FEC all together, so I shouldn't be filing complaints. Let me get this straight, because you're free to blog we should ignore the myriad people who do have to register with the FEC and are subjected to their onerous rules? Free speech is vindicated as long as bloggers can post their half-baked unthinking diatribes to the web, even though hundreds and thousands of others who actually do have intelligent contributions are silenced by the...

A complaint was filed against the Daily Kos for violating federal election rules. The filer writers on the story over at BC Magazine.: Federal Election Commission rules apply for organizations that spend or contribute an equivalent of $1,000 per year in trying to influence elections for federal office. DailyKos is owned by Kos Media, a company, which makes it fit the definition of an organization. It surely spends at least $1,000 per year in hosting and based on what they charge (and get) for advertising, their support of candidates is certainly worth over $1,000 per year. Lastly, their self-identified purpose...

According to an IRS spokesperson in an article about anti-war tax resistance, 16.3% of Americans are in non-compliance with their taxes according to the Associated Press.That isn't fudging the numbers or coming up with creative tax deductions; it's simply evading taxes outright. While the story about the anti-war movement calling on people to not pay taxes to protest the war is interesting, the fact that a growing number of Americans are simply evading taxes is startling. According to IRS estimates, that means there is $345 billion in uncollected taxes per year or roughly 2.6% of the national GDP. As a...

There is a latent idea that the public is unable to come to the "correct" conclusions on policy because talk radio is indoctrinating them. This vicious, un-American and treasonous idea is unworthy of political debate in this country. People can be trusted to make up their own minds and much research indicates that people listen to conservative talk radio not to make up their minds, but because their minds are already made up. If people can't be trusted to make their own minds up, then we ought to be having a discussion on repealing the right to vote, not about...

Saw this from Digg: The National Organization for Women (NOW) and other women advocacy groups have filed suit against the Bush Administration seeking to abolish Fathers Day. During a press conference held after the filing of the lawsuit, Kim Gandy of NOW said, "the day clearly indicates that it is meant to recognize only fathers." The American Civil Liberties Union, filing on behalf of the organizations said the day runs afoul of equal protection and Title IX provisions and should be abolished because it is discriminatory against women. "It is time to move beyond the pattern male discrimination against women...

The latest in the quest by the ACLU to force liberalism down our throats through the courts. more here: The ACLU is arguing before a federal appeals court that the United States is funding AIDS prevention unconstitutionally. Specifically, they argue that having a ban on funds to organizations that promote commercial sex work inhibits free speech. It should be no surprise that the ACLU is in bed with those who want to legalize prostitution. It is true that advocating the legalization of prostitution is free speech. That doesn't mean that such speech needs to be funded by the government. As...