Free Republic

A fraud-infested Obamacare “outreach” program will get an astounding $1.2 billion from American taxpayers if legislation introduced by a veteran congresswoman becomes law. The preposterous measure, introduced by California Democrat Maxine Waters a few week ago, aims to recruit customers for the health insurance exchanges set up under Obama’s disastrous healthcare overhaul. The 14-term congresswoman, investigated by the House Ethics Committee for steering federal funds to her husband’s failing Massachusetts bank, crafted the law because the Trump administration slashed Obamacare outreach funding by more than 90%. “Our health care system is under attack by a president, administration, and Republican-controlled Congress...

Sixteen states (plus the District of Columbia) collected more than $5B to set up Obamacare exchanges after the Affordable Care Act kicked into action. But years later, much of that money was never directed toward the IT development costs for the exchanges or – in some cases – for any specified cost. And yet almost none of it has been returned. So what happened to all that sweet federal cash? That’s the question Fox News is asking today. About $4.6 billion was given to these 17 recipients, including California, New York, Washington state and Kentucky.But the GAO report found...

In order to be a big-government liberal, mental gymnastics and verbal tap-dancing must come naturally. In an impressive display of verbal flexibility, a Health and Human Services official explained that Obamacare is really just a benevolent feature of a loving government that is completely incapable of coercion or force. According to Joanne Grossie from the HHS, no one is being “forced” into the public exchanges. She even insisted that people who have found themselves kicked off their previous healthcare plans are actually quite lucky; because their previous plans were obviously inadequate clunkers that catered only to their gullibility and stupidity…...

<p>I feel like I have to say this every time a story like this comes out of California, and stories like these come out of California all the time.</p> <p>California’s health insurance exchange has awarded $184 million in contracts without the competitive bidding and oversight that is standard practice across state government, including deals that sent millions of dollars to a firm whose employees have long-standing ties to the agency’s executive director.</p>

President Obama urged Republican governors to move forward and allow the Affordable Care Act expansion of Medicaid in their states, using an appearance in Dallas to make the case that the governors should stop playing politics. While Obama didn't call out Texas Gov. Rick Perry by name for not participating in the expansion, he asked states like Texas, to take advantage of the program and not deny people healthcare because of ideology. "There's no state that actually needs this more than Texas," Obama said, speaking briefly at local synagogue in the Lone Star state, before moving on to a fundraiser....

I always have to wonder: Lower than who expected, exactly? I suppose the “who” is meant to be a practically irrelevant 2012 CBO estimate in this case, and sure, such optimistic and friendly-sounding spin is a good way to mask the inconvenient reality that premiums will still be going up for a hell of a lot of Americans — but the fact that that’s the best headliner they could come up with leaves much to be desired.While the Obama administration has been touting the oh-so-excellent numbers from blue states enthusiastically implementing ObamaCare of their own volition — including those whose...

Walgreens, the nation’s largest drugstore chain, reportedly will no longer offer health insurance coverage to about 180,000 employees at its approximately 8,000 US stores. Going forward, workers will need to buy coverage on so-called healthcare exchanges with an employer-provided subsidy. The company apparently attributed the major change to its benefits package to healthcare cost increases as well as Obamacare, according to the Wall Street Journal. Healthcare exchanges or marketplaces are supposed to be up in running as of October 1 under Obamacare, a.k.a. the Affordable Care Act. During an August 2009 town hall meeting, President Obama promised that “If you...

The art of jiujitsu is to use an opponent's weight and strength to your advantage. I believe we can further choke the life out of Obamacare by using this martial art technique. Let me explain. Last week, I shared with you that while Republicans' power to repeal Obamacare has been thwarted by the president's re-election, all is not lost. Conservatives can still suffocate the federal monstrosity by supporting individual-to-state efforts to impede its funding and implementation. I noted how, just two weeks ago, the U.S. Supreme Court ordered a lower federal court to take up a lawsuit by the patriots...

".... likely in concert with the White House — and to the chagrin of many HHS employees — Sebelius and other senior HHS officials decided that word could too easily get out about the firewall project. If it did, it would alert people to UnitedHealth Group’s having gained a potentially huge competitive advantage — a political concern for the White House on the cusp of the election, especially in light of the crony capitalism charges that have plagued this administration. Therefore, HHS, under Sebelius’s leadership, suspended work on the firewall and told United-Health Group not to alert the SEC to...

Now that Obama has been re-elected and Democrats still control the Senate, Republicans no longer have the chance to repeal Obamacare. But all is not lost. There's still an opportunity for America to stop this disaster by choking the life out of the federal monstrosity. Obama's signature legislative achievement is likely headed back to the Supreme Court. Just last week, the high court ordered a lower federal court to take up a lawsuit by the patriots at Liberty University, who claim Congress violated the college's religious freedoms by forcing it to provide federally mandated insurance and requiring payment for abortion-related...

If elected, Mitt Romney vows to “end” it. If re-elected, Barack Obama says he’s “open to amending” it. But regardless of who wins the presidency next month, conscientious voters need to know this: Obamacare is already costing taxpayers lots of money, and within the next few months it will cost millions of dollars more. It’s bad enough that President Obama’s “if you like your Doctor, you can keep your Doctor”promise has proven false. And it’s bad enough that his promise to “bend the healthcare cost curve downward” has proven to be fictitious, as well (according to MIT Economist Jonathan Gruber...