Free Republic

Obamacare had problems even before it launched in 2014. Marketplace websites were glitchy during the open enrollment period, frustrating many would-be customers.Sweeping changes ushered in by the Affordable Care Act, the law creating Obamacare, all but guaranteed that premiums would increase—which they did by 23 percent in the program’s first year.Even so, public opinion swung in favor of Obamacare starting in 2017 and remains positive, according to KFF Health Tracking polls.More than 24 million people were insured through the program by 2025.And insurers learned to thrive under the new rules, more than doubling annual revenue to $1.1 trillion and consistently...

In 2008, Californians voted on what they were told would be a modern transportation system — a sleek, high-speed rail line connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco in under three hours, financed in part by private investment, delivered at a defined cost, and built within a reasonable timeframe. Eighteen years later, all that has been delivered is one of the largest eminent domain land grabs in modern history. No serious person disputes that infrastructure requires land. But the power of eminent domain is not merely an administrative tool. It is among the most formidable powers government possesses: the authority to...

Why the artificial-intelligence advertising spree could be the last hurrah - like the dot-coms in 2000 OpenAI and Anthropic are losing enormous amounts of money, yet are given valuations as if they were real companies making real profits. During Super Bowl XXXIV on Jan. 30, 2000, 14 of the 61 television advertisements were for internet startups. Perhaps they should have heeded the advice offered by E-Trade's "Waste of Money" ad that year, which featured a dancing monkey and ended with the on-screen punchline: "Well, we just wasted $2,000,000. What are you doing with your money?" That Super Bowl was played...

The FBI recently raided Fulton County’s Election Hub and Operations Center. What comes next? The FBI raided Fulton County’s Election Hub and Operations Center. The raid was authorized by a judge’s warrant, which is under seal. However, some news organizations have gotten a copy and are reporting that the FBI is seeking several types of records. ABC News reports: The search warrant authorized the FBI to search for “all physical ballots from the 2020 General Election,” in addition to tabulator tapes from voting machines and 2020 voter rolls, among other documents. It is likely that the warrant also includes items...

Every Democrat elected official in Fulton County seems to be absolutely losing their minds over the FBI raid where the Trump Admin finally got a hold of the 2020 ballots and election evidence. If there’s nothing to hide why freak out? If everything was above board they’d be happy to have this put to bed. They’re freaking out because they know they’re about to be exposed.

We hear all the time about how young men have lurched rightward, moving toward a fascist view of things. There are endless thinkpieces out there trying to divine why men have become so right-wing. The evidence, they say, is clear: the gender gap between men and women is growing, which obviously shows that something is deeply wrong with men. But...if you dive into the available data, it shows that men have not moved much at all ideologically. The movement is almost entirely among women, who have lurched—dramatically, as a group—leftward. So far left that in many cases, they verge on...