Free Republic

A river in Egypt.... When we last heard from the totally-not-crazy Nancy Pelosi, she was predicting that “Civilization as we know it today would be in jeopardy if Republicans win the Senate.” Then, Nancy’s worst fears came true. We’re sure you’re aware of this, because the world fell apart last Tuesday and you probably spent the last week scrounging for food in our GOP-created post-apocalyptic wasteland. It’s so terrifying out there that Ms. Pelosi has decided that - rather than face the reality of the wasteland - she’s simply going to pretend the Republican wave didn’t happen.

Here's Jim Gruber, the architect of Obamacare who admitted that lying, as well as counting on the stupidity of American voters liberals, was essential to passing the bill.Thanks to GraceG for suggesting the mashup with SNL's MacGruber...

What rubbish. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Thursday she had no idea who Jonathan Gruber was. Gruber, an Obamacare architect, admitted in video released this week that Democrats repeatedly lied to “stupid” Americans to pass the law. Via Twitchy:

Just heard on the 1:00 PM EST Fox news that Nancy Pelosi has denied she knows who Jonathan Gruber is, although there is documentation that his input was included in writings she used and quoted in 2009 before ramming Obamacare through.

Nancy Pelosi on O-Care Architect Jonathan Gruber: “I Don’t Know Who He Is. He Didn’t Help Write Bill. Former Speaker Nancy Pelosi told reporters on Thursday she had no idea who Jonathan Gruber was. Gruber, an Obamacare architect, admitted in video released this week that Democrats repeatedly lied to “stupid” Americans to pass the law. Nancy Pelosi mentions Jonathan Gruber analysis and mentioned Gruber BY NAME

Stuart @Ringo6 Follow Pelosi today told a lie bigger than a Kardasian's butt 10:25 AM - 13 Nov 2014 And she would’ve gotten away with it if it, too, weren’t for those meddling kids at C-SPAN! Jeremy Art @cspanJeremy Follow .@NancyPelosi in 2009: “I don't know if you have seen Jonathan Gruber of MIT's analysis…” http://cs.pn/1pVO9mY

Printer-friendly version A new study published by the Brookings Institution reveals the rollout of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is imposing far more volatility and harm on people in Minnesota’s individual market than elsewhere. The study, by Yale economist Amanda Kowalski, takes “an early look at the impact of the ACA on the individual health insurance market.” It compares state-by-state coverage levels, insurance premiums and insurance costs in the first two quarters of 2014 to estimates of what they would have been if the ACA had not been implemented this year. These estimates are created by extending pre-ACA trends going...

The Obama administration has funded a new study by top consulting firm RAND Health that startlingly finds that if taxpayer subsidies are eliminated, Obamacare exchanges will fall into a “death spiral.” The study comes in the wake of a number of lawsuits which are challenging the Obama administration’s implementation of Obamacare subsidies. Three lawsuits have made it to U.S. Circuit Courts, just one step from the Supreme Court, arguing that the text of the Affordable Care Act allows premium subsidies for state-run exchanges only. (RELATED: Second Court Strikes Down Obamacare Subsidies In Federal Exchanges) The report was sponsored by HHS’s...

Should the EHR be blamed? After a Texas hospital let Liberian Thomas Duncan go home (with Ebola), hospital officials blamed the electronic health record (EHR). A day later, they retracted their statement -- without explanation. The retraction is only partially correct. EHRs don't send sick adults home with fevers spiking to 103-degrees. People do. But sometimes that's because the system makes good care difficult. In this case, the EHR is at least partially to blame. EHRs are primarily for data collection. They were built for billing, not for patient care. Ask doctors and nurses what a mess Obama's EHR mandate...

The Obama administration has already debuted its new, improved version of HealthCare.gov, but still won’t release premium rates on the website until after the Nov. 4 elections

A new study commissioned by PhRMA finds that many consumers in ObamaCare’s insurance exchanges could end up paying more than twice as much in out-of-pocket drug costs. The report for the nation’s top drug lobby was conducted by actuarial firm Milliman, which found that people on the Silver Plan, the most popular ObamaCare plan, would likely pay 130 percent more for out-of-pocket prescription drugs compared to people on similar employer-sponsored plans. One reason why out-of-pocket costs are likely to be higher is because employer plans are more generous than typical Silver Plans, according to the report. However, the numbers don’t...

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...

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has improperly paid millions of dollars to Medicare Advantage organizations on behalf of illegal immigrants. In a new report released Friday, the Department of Health and Human Services’ Office of Inspector General (OIG) revealed that for calendar years 2010 through 2012, CMS provided $26.2 million in improper payments to Medicare Advantage organizations for 1,600 “unlawfully present beneficiaries” — or nearly $16,375 per illegal immigrant.

The population of the U.S. is 314 million. On the day Obamacare was passed, the estimate of the uninsured was 60 million. So in this context, the supposed 7 million Americans signed up for insurance on the Obamacare Exchanges, even if that is a valid number, and all of those have actually started paying premiums, both of which are highly dubious, does not mean any significant success for Obamacare. That is especially so since at least 6 million Americans have lost their health insurance due to Obamacare, so far, with more to come once the illegally and arbitrarily delayed employer...

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...

President Barack Obama's home state of Hawaii's Obamacare exchange spent $35,749 per enrollee, a sum greater than the price of a new 2014 BMW 320i sedan (MSRP $32,750). "Just obscene amounts of money have disappeared into these state exchanges for very little actual performance," said American Commitment President Phil Kerpen. "You just have this huge duplication and waste in places like Hawaii and Oregon." A CNBC analysis ranking taxpayer-funded federal expenditures on Obamacare found that Hawaii enrolled just 5,744 people through its Obamacare exchange at a cost to taxpayers of $205,342,270. The second-worst performer was the District of Columbia which...

Obamacare, the plan purportedly created to provide health coverage for the uninsured, has enrolled just 1.7% of America's 48.6 million uninsured. News of the disastrous numbers comes as nervous Democrats and President Barack Obama, ahead of the November midterm elections, did their best on Monday's enrollment deadline to put a positive spin on the deeply unpopular Obamacare program. The latest Associated Press poll finds that Obamacare has now hit an all-time low approval rating of just 26 percent. The White House now claims an Obamacare enrollment figure of six million people. However, according to The New York Times, at least...

After years of anticipation, a long spell of calamitous implementation, and millions of hours spent by advocates nudging a nation to “get covered,” the Obama administration will cross a health-care threshold on March 31. The arrival of Monday’s deadline to get private health coverage (backed by federal subsidies for those who qualify) won’t be the final word on President Obama’s most controversial legislative achievement. Indeed, clashes between Democrats and Republicans over Obamacare will shift into another election-year phase.

Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the architects behind Obamacare, is now claiming that “insurance companies as we know them are about to die.” Critics of President Barack Obama’s signature health care law have long alleged that one of the real goals of law was to put private insurance companies out of business.

The critics are right, however, that some people will choose to work less because they qualify for a tax-credit based subsidy. If not for this government program, they would have to work harder and employment numbers would be higher. So might total output or gross domestic product. This aspect of the Affordable Care Act distorts economic efficiency. But don't kid yourself that this is anything new. Social Security has the same effect. About 41 million people currently get Social Security retirement benefits. Many still do work, at least part-time. But most do not. If not for their monthly checks, which...