Free Republic

A federal judge has halted President Joe Biden’s plans to open the Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare, to illegal aliens enrolled in the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program. In May, Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris announced a final rule to open Obamacare rolls to some DACA illegal aliens enrolled in the program. Former President Barack Obama first created the DACA program via executive order, shielding more than a million illegal aliens from deportation through the years. On Monday, District Judge Daniel Traynor granted a preliminary injunction and stay to ensure that Biden’s agencies cannot implement such...

The Affordable Care Act (ACA), more commonly referred to as Obamacare, was signed into law by then-President Barack Obama in March 2010. According to the law’s proponents, Obamacare would expand access to affordable health insurance, improve healthcare quality, and reduce costs. Well, the media is finally admitting Obamacare hasn’t made health insurance more affordable — a stunning admission, considering “affordable” is quite literally in the official name of the law. No one can pretend that making health insurance more affordable for Americans wasn’t the supposed point of the law. Yet it seems like each year, health insurance not only costs...

Colorado Democrats are celebrating a new law that will go into effect on January 1 that will extend free Medicaid coverage to illegal migrants who are pregnant as well as migrant children. Dubbed “Cover All Coloradans,” the program opens up state Medicaid funding for prenatal and postpartum care, physical, dental, vision, and mental health care for children, with an initial price tag of up to $51 million in costs to the Colorado taxpayer, according to CBS News. Democrat Gov. Jared Polis’ administration is working with a list of immigrant activist groups to alert migrants that they are eligible for the...

Healthcare, as much as the left hates to admit it, is a market item, like any other good or service. Until the mid-20th century, the provision of healthcare was like any other business; you went to the doctor, you paid him, and that was that. Granted, now modern, high-tech medicine is more expensive, and there is therefore a market for health insurance to spread that cost out. That, too, is a market item. When the government meddles in markets, they almost always screw it up. The Biden administration has never and will never learn this lesson; now, in the latest...

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a high-profile case brought by the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT). The decision mandates the FDA to release the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) file for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine no later than June 30, 2025.

A new report released by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that if the Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) extended subsidies are allowed to expire at the end of 2025, millions of people will become uninsured and premiums will rise. Responding to the Senate Finance Committee, the CBO found that “not extending the credit will increase the number of people without health insurance and raise the average gross benchmark premiums for plans purchased through the marketplaces.” The extended tax subsidies were first enacted in 2021 through the American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) and extended to the end of 2025 through the...

The United States District Court for the Northern District of Texas ruled against the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) in a high-profile case brought by the Public Health and Medical Professionals for Transparency (PHMPT). The decision mandates the FDA to release the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) file for the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine no later than June 30, 2025. The case stemmed from a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request by the PHMPT, which sought comprehensive data related to the Pfizer-BioNTech COVID-19 vaccine. The FDA initially claimed it would need up to 75 years to process and release the requested documents....

You might have been waiting for this moment your entire life, or perhaps you’re just looking for a reason to embrace 50 years of life. But, friends, 50 is when you officially hit the “Senior” stage and start reaping the benefits of an AARP membership. While we don’t quite agree with being called a “Senior” at such a young age, we can’t deny the incredible perks of being an AARP member. Right now, you can get a year-long membership for just $9 per year. After that, a second membership for anyone in your household will be free. What comes with...

<p>The Obama administration has decided to retain Quality Software Services Inc. as its general contractor for HealthCare.gov, even as it has hired a new contractor to do most of the work on the Web site.</p> <p>In a joint statement Tuesday, Optum/QSSI and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said they would keep working together to ensure the online federal health insurance marketplace works well for consumers. On Saturday, CMS signed a contract with the global consulting firm Accenture to serve as the site's primary contractor in the coming year.</p>

Repeal, Undoable Although a sweeping overhaul of Obamacare is unlikely and probably not possible, Congress could pass reforms to repair some of the damage, says Devon Herrick, Ph.D., a health economist and policy adviser to the Heartland Institute, which co-publishes Health Care News. “Obamacare so thoroughly destroyed the health insurance market that it would be impossible to go back to risk-related health coverage,” said Herrick. “I suspect Trump will tinker around the edges, possibly scaling back Biden’s premium subsidies. The Trump administration will possibly enforce greater transparency and maybe address shortcomings in the No Surprise Act.”

As a nature-loving physical therapist in Boulder, Colo., Colin O’Banion shops at farmers markets, grows organic squash in his backyard and thought he could never vote for Donald J. Trump.But during the pandemic, he said, he and his wife became social outcasts when they refused Covid-19 vaccines for themselves and their three sons. Tuning in to alternative health podcasts, he became convinced that the country’s public health establishment was corrupt, and that the only antidote was the upheaval being promised by Robert F. Kennedy Jr. as he teamed up with Mr. Trump. “That’s what brought me on board,” Mr. O’Banion,...

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An experimental eye implant could be the secret to restoring a patient’s central vision—the part of our eye that lets us see faces, details, and letters more clearly. Many patients now using the implant as part of a clinical trial have reported successful results. The implant was developed by Science Corporation, a competitor to Elon Musk’s Neuralink, which Musk plans to use to merge humans and AI together. The company announced preliminary results for its latest clinical trial this week, reporting that some study participants can now see well enough to read from books, play cards, and more. All of...

We are observing the “hacking of humans” as described by Noah Harrari when he celebrated his vision which also includes the end of the human spirit. Changes are now showing in the blood of those who were coerced into taking the covid jab and perhaps surprisingly to some, these changes are being seen in the blood of those of us who resisted the jabs. ‘Microscopic self assembling technology is draining life force out of our blood cells while assembling networks of filaments and nanochips’ according to Dr Mark Trozzi who cites the work and findings of Dr. Ana Maria Mihalcea,...

Researchers have mapped the genomes of 47 Lyme disease bacteria strains, enabling more precise diagnosis and treatment. The study also reveals the bacteria’s ancient origins and their rapid adaptation mechanisms, providing vital insights as Lyme disease cases increase. A groundbreaking genetic analysis of Lyme disease bacteria has paved the way for more accurate diagnostics, treatments, and vaccines. By sequencing the genomes of 47 strains, researchers can now identify specific bacteria that cause the disease, allowing for more targeted interventions. Mapping the Genetic Landscape of Lyme Disease A genetic analysis of Lyme disease bacteria may pave the way for improved diagnosis,...

Like millions of people in the US, artificial intelligence was just something Dianne Balon read about on the news. Little did she know the tech would come to save her life. Despite being a picture of health, an AI-powered blood test in 2022 revealed that one of the world's deadliest cancers was silently forming in Ms Balon's pancreas. It caught the tumor in its earliest form, before it had the chance to grow and spread, which is when the vast majority of pancreatic cancers are caught - at which point it's too late. The results of the test provided a...

"THE CART IS SO FAR AHEAD OF THE HORSE, IT’S LIKE HOW DO WE REIN IT BACK IN WITHOUT CAREENING OVER THE RAVINE?" You may remember a series of lawyers who have attempted to use AI tools in court — and were subsequently embarrassed and sanctioned when the chatbots screwed up, sometimes even inventing plausible-sounding cases that didn't actually exist. So consider this: how would you feel if your doctor did the same thing, feeding your symptoms into an AI system to diagnose what's wrong with you? That's a looming question, Politico reports in a fascinating story, that's currently stressing...

A small study found ChatGPT outdid human physicians when assessing medical case histories, even when those doctors were using a chatbot. Dr. Adam Rodman, an expert in internal medicine at Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston, confidently expected that chatbots built to use artificial intelligence would help doctors diagnose illnesses. He was wrong. Instead, in a study Dr. Rodman helped design, doctors who were given ChatGPT-4 along with conventional resources did only slightly better than doctors who did not have access to the bot. And, to the researchers’ surprise, ChatGPT alone outperformed the doctors. “I was shocked,” Dr. Rodman...

In total, they visited 17 different doctors over three years. But Alex still had no diagnosis that explained all his symptoms. An exhausted and frustrated Courtney signed up for ChatGPT and began entering his medical information, hoping to find a diagnosis. “I went line by line of everything that was in his (MRI notes) and plugged it into ChatGPT,” she says. “I put the note in there about ... how he wouldn’t sit crisscross applesauce. To me, that was a huge trigger (that) a structural thing could be wrong.” She eventually found tethered cord syndrome and joined a Facebook group...

The miseducation of algorithms is a critical problem; when artificial intelligence mirrors unconscious thoughts, racism, and biases of the humans who generated these algorithms, it can lead to serious harm. Computer programs, for example, have wrongly flagged Black defendants as twice as likely to reoffend as someone who's white. When an AI used cost as a proxy for health needs, it falsely named Black patients as healthier than equally sick white ones, as less money was spent on them. Even AI used to write a play relied on using harmful stereotypes for casting. Removing sensitive features from the data seems...