Free Republic

President Donald Trump announced on Monday night his nomination of D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh to succeed Justice Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court. Kavanaugh, who was included in The Heritage FoundationÂ’s original list of potential Supreme Court nominees, is a very promising choice.The battle lines were already drawn before Trump made his announcement, with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., declaring he would not vote for any of the individuals on TrumpÂ’s short list.Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., promised the confirmation vote would happen this fall. Now, the Senate Judiciary Committee will begin the process of reviewing...

America has a big, big problem on its hands. Healthcare costs are rising at astronomical and unsustainable rates, and the country’s leader seems powerless to stem the tide. Perhaps that would not be a big problem if the economy was keeping pace. But it isn’t. In fact, growth in healthcare spending is projected to outflank economic growth by a factor of more than 2:1. The U.S. might be the largest economy in the world, but it still spends a disproportionately large amount on healthcare. In 2016, health care expenditure per capita clocked in at $10,348--about double the average spend by...

When it comes to supporting families, paid parental leave is a solution to a number of problems. Studies show that paid leave can reduce infant mortality, increase breastfeeding rates, can improve maternal mental health and strengthen the connection between fathers and babies. There are a ton of benefits to parental leave, ones that American families should be seeing, but aren't. While some employers have been modernizing parental leave policies, federal policy lags behind. The last major policy change came in 1993, when the Family and Medical Leave Act passed with bipartisan support, guarantees more than half of American workers 12...

The Trump administration announced Tuesday it planned to end what it suggested was an illegal Obama-era rule allowing unions to Federal law generally prohibits states from skimming money from Medicaid payments bound for independent in-home personal care workers. But in 2014, the Obama administration created an exception, saying that states could divert some of that Medicaid money to unions, on the theory that these workers effectively were public-sector employees. Eleven left-leaning states have used that provision to raise more than $200 million a year for unions by taking it from health workers who often didn't even realize it, according to...

The Trump administration announced Tuesday it planned to end what it suggested was an illegal Obama-era rule allowing unions to collect dues from state subsidies intended for home health workers -- including family caregivers. Federal law generally prohibits states from skimming money from Medicaid payments bound for independent in-home personal care workers. But in 2014, the Obama administration created an exception, saying that states could divert some of that Medicaid money to unions, on the theory that these workers effectively were public-sector employees. Eleven left-leaning states have used that provision to raise more than $200 million a year for unions...

Did Judge Brett Kavanaugh write the roadmap for saving ObamaCare? That question has dwelled at the center of passionate debate in the conservative legal community for days as Kavanaugh, a federal appeals judge in the District of Columbia, finds himself as one of President Trump’s four finalists for a place on the U.S. Supreme Court. The allegation from conservative critics is rooted in a 2011 ObamaCare case where Kavanaugh dissented against the ruling but acknowledged that the Affordable Care Act’s “individual mandate provision” could fit “comfortably within Congress’ Taxing Clause power.” Kavanaugh's detractors say that language helped provide the roadmap...

Health insurers warned that a move by the Trump administration on Saturday to temporarily suspend a program that was set to pay out $10.4 billion to insurers for covering high-risk individuals last year could drive up premium costs and create marketplace uncertainty. The Affordable Care Act’s (ACA) “risk adjustment” program is intended to incentivize health insurers to cover individuals with pre-existing and chronic conditions by collecting money from insurers with relatively healthy enrollees to offset the costs of other insurers with sicker ones. President Donald Trump’s administration has used its regulatory powers to undermine the ACA on multiple fronts after...

Bill and Cathy Stapp stand on the deck of their sailboat Kruzin’ Kitty in Alameda. After being told they were eligible for the Covered California health care plan, they learned their income was too high to qualify for subsidized coverage

A federal court has granted a Christian liberal arts college in Pennsylvania a permanent injunction against the Obama-era abortion pill mandate that required the school to be complicit in providing health care coverage that violated its religious convictions. On Thursday, Judge Joy Flowers Conti of the United States District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania granted permanent relief to Geneva College, a liberal arts school affiliated with the Reformed Presbyterian Church of North America. Conti ruled that the Department of Health and Human Services Obamacare contraception mandate violated the college's rights under the Religious Freedom Restoration Act by requiring...

Brett Kavanaugh has by far the strongest, most consistent, most fearless record of constitutional conservatism of any federal court of appeals judge in the country. Judge Brett Kavanaugh should be the next Supreme Court justice. He has by far the strongest, most consistent, most fearless record of constitutional conservatism of any federal court of appeals judge in the country. Over 12 years and 300 opinions, he has repeatedly fought for principles of textualism and originalism, reined in regulatory overreach, and ensured that administrative bureaucrats are accountable to the elected president. Nominating Kavanaugh would continue President Trump’s exemplary record of selecting...

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety" What does this quote mean? It doesn't mean anything, when it is disconnected with the full of its author's words. Franklin wrote this in his Reply to the Governor in 1755, but how many people even know that? His letter is less than 2000 words, so it is not a long read. I recommend everybody read the full letter, because that is to the detriment of progressivism. So, what does this quote mean? It only, only means what Franklin himself meant at...

Last year, as insurance prices rose by an average of just over 20 percent around the country, people who qualified for Obamacare subsidies hung onto their insurance. But the increases appear to have been too much to bear for many customers who earned too much to qualify for financial help. According to a new government report, about a million people appear to have been priced out of the market for health insurance last year. The report is the first comprehensive look by the Department of Health and Human Services at people who buy their own insurance but don’t qualify for...

Amy Barrett, the federal circuit court judge who many are speculating could be President Trump’s next Supreme Court nominee, didn’t sound like his biggest fan before the election in 2016. During a November 3rd, 2016 speech at Jacksonville University, Barrett said “who knows” what a Trump court would look like, and even said that she was worried about either candidate choosing another justice. “He’s obviously not bound to do so. I think it would be maybe more of a mixed bag. I think maybe Trump would appoint some that were more in the mold of Scalia, maybe some more in...

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y, on Monday slammed federal judge Amy Coney Barrett, one of the front-runners to fill the vacancy on the Supreme Court, by calling her an “activist judge” who could put abortion rights and the Affordable Care Act at risk. “Amy Coney Barrett is a judge on the Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit & on @realDonaldTrump’s pre-approved list for SCOTUS. She passed his ‘litmus test’ on overturning Roe v. Wade & striking down the ACA. Here’s where she stands on Americans' big issues,” Schumer said in a series of tweets Monday. “Barrett attacked the...

President Obama gave a scathing critique of the modern Democratic Party during a fundraiser at the Beverly Hills home of a mega-donor Thursday. The former president was reluctant, however, to take any of the blame for the current state of the Democratic Party. Obama admitted that the only regret he has after being head of the party for eight years was that people loved and focused on him too much. But the majority of Obama’s speech was spent criticizing president Trump. One of the Trump policies Obama took issue with was his effort to kill Obamacare. The healthcare law is...

What is wrong with Nancy Pelosi? As the noose seems to be tightening on her prospects to return to party power after the November elections, the House Minority Leader stumbled over words, suffered brain freezes and stared at reporters during a Thursday press conference. “Last week, soy bean futures hit a nine-year low,” Pelosi told reporters. “Soy boyn— soy bean futures hit a nine-year low,” she repeated, attempting to pronounce the words clearly, accentuating each one with a pointed finger. “Pork producers, corn growers and wheat grawers, growers are reeling, too,” she said before suffering a brain freeze, staring at...

"Jimmy went to Houston to play a game of one-on-one basketball against Texas Senator Ted Cruz in what we called the “Blobfish Basketball Classic.” The reason this happened is because after Game 7 of the Western Conference Finals, Jimmy showed a picture of Senator Cruz at the Houston Rockets game and he likened him to a blobfish. Cruz did not like that so he challenged Jimmy to a game of one-on-one for charity. It’s been a dream of Jimmy’s ever since he was a little boy to one day play basketball against the most disliked member of the U.S. Senate...

President Trump again mocked Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) on Saturday for McCain’s thumbs-down vote on the Republican plan to repeal ObamaCare. Though Trump did not mention McCain by name, he has attacked the senator several times in recent weeks for his “no” on the GOP measure and has blamed McCain for the collapse of the Republican effort to repeal the act. Trump at a GOP rally in Nevada said McCain went thumbs-down on the bill, a reference to McCain using the gesture to signify his vote. "Nobody talked to him. Nobody needed to, and then he walked in: thumbs-down. It’s...

One of the top issues for U.S. voters is health care. There is a simple solution most of the world is smart enough to recognize but is lost on us: a single-payer system. There are two compelling reasons for a single-payer system. The first is the moral argument that health care security is a right for all of us. The second is a little more complicated, and that is health care economics. Sadly, most Americans do not understand this aspect of the health care debate and how it adversely affects them. Anthem announced its first-quarter profits to be $1.31 billion....

If you’re not a health care policy nerd like me and don’t pay close attention to the fear-mongering commonly found in outlets like The Washington Post and CNN, you may have missed the recent explosion of news stories and opinion articles bashing the Trump administration for allegedly putting Obamacare in grave danger — and doing so in a reckless and legally questionable manner, too.For instance, New York magazine accused the Trump administration of “standing against the rule of law.” The New York Times’ Margot Sanger-Katz wrote a recent Trump administration decision could make it “much more difficult for individuals and...