Free Republic

The electorate isn’t buying the “Trump broke it” propaganda.For a year, the Democrats and the legacy media have waged a relentless propaganda campaign calculated to convince the public that Obamacare’s myriad failures — from skyrocketing premiums to stagnant enrollment — are the result of sabotage by President Trump and congressional Republicans. This headline from the Hill is typical: “Many states blame Trump, GOP for Obamacare premium increases.” It seems, however, that “the stupidity of the American voter” has been greatly exaggerated. A new survey shows that more than two-thirds of registered voters believe former President Obama and the Democrats are...

The Daily Caller reports Senate Democrats sent a letter to the Health and Human Services (HHS) Department asking for a reprieve from ObamaCare for small businesses scheduled to be brought under its regulatory umbrella in 2016. Apparently, the group fears it will be “particularly harmful and disruptive” to businesses.The Caller reports that the letter was sent March 12 by Democrat Senators Claire McCaskill, Heidi Heitkamp, Chris Coons, Joe Manchin, Joe Donnelly and Jon Tester, and independent Sen. Angus King. They asked for a two-year deferment: Under the law, employers with 51 to 100 employees will be included in the ACA’s definition of small group market starting...

House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) says fellow Democratic Sen. Charles Schumer’s (N.Y.) recent comments on ObamaCare are "beyond comprehension." Schumer caused a stir last month when he said Democrats “blew the opportunity the American people gave them” in 2008 by focusing on healthcare out of the gate instead of on measures to boost the middle class. In an interview with The Washington Post published Monday, Pelosi noted that Schumer wrote the 1994 assault weapons ban that was blamed for Democratic losses that year. She hit Senate Democrats for distancing themselves from President Obama in the midterm elections, and the...

Senator Chuck Schumer of New York said Tuesday that he and his fellow Democrats made a mistake in pursuing health care legislation that eventually became Obamacare. Bloomberg Politics's Kathleen Hunter has the story: “Unfortunately, Democrats blew the opportunity the American people gave them” in electing Obama and a Democratic Congress in 2008 amid a national recession, Schumer of New York said in a speech in Washington. “We took their mandate and put all our focus on the wrong problem -- health care reform.”Democrats should have addressed issues aiding the middle class to build confidence among voters before turning to the...

Some people want you to suspend your imagination and your memory regarding what the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) actually states in terms of who can receive subsidies for their health insurance. Of course, as usual, when you have right on your side, truth does not matter. But we will explain why the subsidies disbursed from the federal exchange fails the test of what is right. As you know by now, there were two rulings issued in a Court of Appeals that were diametrically opposed to each other. The issue revolves around whether the federal exchange (operating in 36 states)...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Politico has a story today that might as well be called "The Democrat National Committee PR Site." "Why Liberals Are Abandoning the Obamacare Employer Mandate." Now, folks, this is so obvious as to be risible. For those of you in Rio Linda, it means laughable. The Politico is now pretending that the Democrats have changed their minds about the employer mandate, yeah, because, you know, you got an election coming up and the employer mandate -- providing health care -- employer mandate, we can't, oh, no, that's not gonna look good for us going into the election....

Inside the sleek hillside headquarters of Valley Health Systems, built with a grant from the health care law, two employees played an advertisement they had helped produce to promote the law’s insurance coverage for young, working-class West Virginians. Health professionals, state officials, social workers, insurance agents and others trying to make the law work for uninsured Americans say the partisan divisions and attack ads have depressed participation in some places. They say the law has been stigmatized for many who could benefit from it, especially in conservative states like West Virginia that have the poorest, most medically underserved populations but...

President Obama proudly promoted record Obamacare signup numbers Thursday, boldly calling for Democrats to defend the law. "I think that Democrats should forcefully defend and be proud of the fact that millions of people like the woman I just described, who I saw in Pennsylvania yesterday, we are helping because of something we did," Obama said. "I do not think we should apologize for it. I don't think we should be defensive about it." When questioned by reporters, Obama dismissed the idea that the law was deeply unpopular.

Health Overhaul: The midwife of ObamaCare exits stage left, leaving behind wreckage that once was the finest health care system in the world, less affordable health insurance and patients unable to find doctors and hospitals. Kathleen Sebelius, the secretary of Health and Human Services — referred to in the increasingly un-Affordable Care Act's iconic use of the phrase "the Secretary shall determine," which appears in ObamaCare's guiding document no fewer than 1,005 times — has determined that it's time to go. Or rather it's been determined for her by a White House in whose parallel universe ObamaCare's current alleged enrollment...

WASHINGTON (CBSDC/AP) — Sen. Ted Cruz believes Senate Democrats are the ones who forced Kathleen Sebelius to step down as health and human services secretary.Cruz told NBC News that Democrats are worried that Republicans will take back the Senate because of Obamacare.“Kathleen Sebelius’ resignation is the latest indication of just what a disaster Obamacare is. Obamacare is the most disastrous, the most damaging piece of legislation in modern times,” Cruz told NBC News. “And I believe she resigned because Senate Democrats are scared.”Cruz told Fox News that Senate Democrats “demanded Kathleen Sebelius’ head.”“They are running scared because every one of...

Put another way, Kathleen Sebelius has resigned and “Senior Administration Officials” are telling the media it is because of healthcare.gov. You do not have a celebration event last week to celebrate 7 million sign ups and have Sebelius there to get credit then this week throw her under the bus because of a screw up that happened last October. They have been standing with her since last October. They stood with her when the President’s polling was nosediving and throwing her under the bus could have stopped the bleeding. They are doing so now. Sebelius actually resigned last week and...

Anxious Senate Republicans are worried party leaders are focusing too much this election year on ObamaCare and not enough on jobs and the economy. The concern among GOP centrists comes as President Obama and congressional Democrats are crowing about a surge in late enrollments and claiming the political winds are shifting around the Affordable Care Act. A growing rift in the GOP was exposed when a group of Senate Republicans recently struck a bipartisan deal to extend unemployment benefits. Neither Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) nor Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) embraced the agreement. Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.), who spearheaded...

When Democratic National Committee operatives describe something as "undemocratic," they mean it's not good for the Democratic Party. "We believe that we should expand democracy -- that expanding democracy is good for the nation; it is good for our party," Democratic National Committee spokesman Mo Elleithee told reporters during a conference call in which he attacked "undemocratic" Republican voter ID laws and other state-level election laws.

Says one progressive strategist: "This is a coming divide for the Democratic Party." Bracing for a rough midterm-election outcome, Democrats aren't waiting until Election Day to start blaming one another for the party's problems. Anticipating the possibility that Republicans will flip the Senate, the finger-pointing game is already underway between the party's warring factions.

March 29, 2014, 12:17 pm Clinton tells Dems: Deal with ObamaCare drama By Justin Sink President Bill Clinton says Democrats would be making a “terrible mistake” if they choose not to directly confront controversy over the Affordable Care Act ahead of the upcoming midterm elections. The former president pointed to his widely heralded speech at the 2012 Democratic National Convention as an example of how his party could turn a perceived problem into an advantage, in an interview with Real Clear Politics. “When the president asked me to speak for him in North Carolina, I said that I would do...

Pollster Celinda Lake's advice to fellow Democrats to take a midway position in the 2014 congressional campaigns is flawed because it can't be sold as honest. Reacting to results from her bipartisan Battleground Poll that show Obamacare to be a political loser, Lake said: "Don't defend it. Say it was flawed from the beginning and we're going to fix it." Note that she didn't advise to reject it outright, apparently because she knows that's never going to fly with Obama and the Democratic establishment and probably because it would be tantamount to an admission that the party has failed in...

Several Democratic senators reportedly plan to introduce as soon as Thursday a set of principles and legislation aimed at fixing parts of ObamaCare amid concerns the law could cost Democrats House seats and possibly the Senate in November. Sens. Mark Warner, D-Va.; Mark Begich, D-Alaska; Mary Landrieu, D-La.; Heidi Heitkamp, D-N.D.; Joe Manchin, D-W.Va.; and Sen. Angus King, I., Maine, will introduce proposals to improve the law, The Wall Street Journal reported. Begich and Warner have called for allowing "copper" plans on the government-run health exchanges. The new insurance plans would offer lower premiums and higher out-of-pocket costs than the...

One of the nation's leading Democratic pollsters and strategists is urging embattled House and Senate incumbents to abandon their defense of Obamacare and instead pledge to “fix it.” Celinda Lake, whose firm Lake Research Partners provided the Democratic analysis of the new George Washington University Battleground Poll released Tuesday morning, summed up her advice to Democrats when it comes to Obamacare: “Don't defend it.” (video at link)

By nearly every metric, Democrats are finding that Obamacare is a millstone around their necks for the upcoming 2014 midterm elections. Yet so-called Republican Karl Rove is telling the GOP to stop attacking Obamacare? What is he thinking? Yet, even as Rove says Republicans shouldn’t Attack Obamacare, elections statistician Larry Sabato Says Obamacare is killing Democrats. What is Karl Rove thinking by telling Republicans not to attack Obamacare very hard while Larry Sabato is saying the Dems are extremely vulnerable on Obamacare? Rove made his comments in a new Wall Street Journal piece. “The only thing that could rescue Democrats...

When I spoke just feet away from President Obama about the dangers of political correctness at last year’s National Prayer Breakfast, many were surprised. After all, my background is medicine, not politics. But it doesn’t take a brain surgeon like me to see that America is facing serious problems. And right now, the number one problem is Obamacare. Dropped coverage, failing websites, skyrocketing premiums - the list goes on and on. I wish I could snap my fingers and make Obamacare disappear tomorrow, but we both know that won’t happen. That’s why we’re launching Save our Healthcare - a national...