Free Republic

Story HighlightsLess than half now rate U.S. healthcare quality as excellent or goodAmericans’ 72% positive rating of own healthcare quality also a new lowEvaluations of U.S. healthcare coverage, cost are more subdued but steadyWASHINGTON, D.C. -- For the first time in Gallup’s two-decade trend, less than half of Americans are complimentary about the quality of U.S. healthcare, with 48% rating it “excellent” or “good.” The slight majority now rate healthcare quality as subpar, including 31% saying it is “only fair” and 21% -- a new high -- calling it “poor.”The latest excellent/good rating for U.S. healthcare quality is just two...

The Trump administration said Thursday night it is pulling back advertising to promote HealthCare.gov as open enrollment draws to a close for this year. The Health and Human Services Department said in a statement that the government has pulled back about $5 million in ads as part of an effort to cut costs. The statement said HHS has already spent more than $60 million to promote sign-ups this year under former President Barack Obama’s health care law. Former Obama officials immediately accused the new administration of “sabotage.” …

The lone health insurance cooperative to make money last year on the Affordable Care Act's public insurance exchanges is now losing millions and suspending individual enrollment for 2016. Maine's Community Health Options lost more than $17 million in the first nine months of this year, after making $10.9 million in the same period last year. A spokesman said higher-than-expected medical costs have hurt the cooperative.

This, unfortunately, is absolutely true: 1. In order to insure the uninsured, we first have to uninsure the insured. 2. Next, we require the newly uninsured to be re-insured. 3. To re-insure the newly uninsured, they are required to pay extra charges to be re-insured. 4. The extra charges are required so that the original insured,who became uninsured, and then became re-insured,can pay enough extra so that the original uninsured can be insured,so it will be ‘free-of-charge’ to them. This is called "redistribution of wealth or, by its more common name, SOCIALISM - the politically correct name for COMMUNISM.

Thanks to the Supreme Court’s willingness to make stuff up, Obamacare has been saved once again. In order to save Obamacare from utter disaster, Chief Justice Roberts essentially rewrote the law. If you are thinking that the Supreme Court is not supposed to do that, you would be right. But this is what our judicial system has devolved into. When I was in law school, I was horrified to discover that most judges in our country just do whatever they feel like doing. Instead of applying the law to the facts and coming to a fair and unbiased judgment, most...

During today's White House Youth Summit, President Obama called on young people to do whatever they can to promote his signature health care law — including plying their customers with cheap booze. "If you are a bartender, have a happy hour," Obama said as the crowd laughed. "And also probably get health insurance because a lot of people don't have it."

If anyone is still so deluded as to think Obama actually cares about the poor, this should extinguish your delusion for good. The (un)Affordable Care Act, better known as Obamacare and more truthfully should be called Lucifercare, will fine charitable hospitals that provide healthcare for poor people — for free. The fines can be as high as $50,000. After that, Lucifercare — via its minions in the IRS — will remove the nonprofit status from those hospitals. Currently, some 60% of U.S. hospitals are nonprofits. Of those, a sizeable number are Catholic. 615 Catholic hospitals account for 12.5% of community...

Okay, so if the Continuing Resolution that was supposed to fund the National Parks, Obamacare, and etc. hasn't been passed and the Fed has now had to shut down the parks and etc. due to a lack of funding then why isn't Obamacare being shut down? Is anyone asking this question because I haven't seen it or heard it being asked anywhere.

Back in 2008, when then-candidate Obama promised Joe the Plumber and the rest of America that he intended to spread the wealth around, most democrat and liberal voters embraced the notion of wealth redistribution under the guise of equality. A universal health care plan, that would be free for all Americans, was the promise from the candidate of hope and change. Tens of millions of Americans jumped on the bandwagon waving their flags, fainting at his appearances, and fawning over his every word. None ever thought about where the money would come from for all this new found wealth...

This is taking a beating.

Obamacare is so helpful, so ready for action, so vital to the nation’s health, that… the Obama Administration is delaying another major part of it. News broke yesterday that the Administration is delaying the employer mandate, which would force businesses with 50 or more full-time workers to provide government-approved insurance, until 2015. When Obamacare was engineered, the Administration and its allies in Congress made sure that the major parts affecting all Americans would be delayed until after the 2012 presidential election. Now, however, the Obama Administration is delaying one of the most well-known elements of Obamacare until after the...

On Saturday, President Obama marked the birthday of his “most important domestic achievement” with a statement in which he catalogued the miracles this prodigy has already performed in its first three years. Among these, you may be surprised to learn, is that it is saving us money: “Most importantly,” he said, “the growth of health care costs is beginning to slow.” He made the same claim in his SOTU address, and his toadies in the establishment media dutifully repeated it, but the facts reveal this to be just another example of Presidential prevarication. In reality, the costs associated with...

(CNSNews.com) – House Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) said he would not include language to defund Obamacare in the continuing resolution bill when it returns to the House, stating, “our goal” is “not to shut down the government.” Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) offered an amendment to the Senate version of the CR that would have defunded Obamacare. However, the Senate is controlled by Democrats and, on Wednesday, Cruz's amendment failed. Cruz pointed out, however, that if the Senate CR differs at all from the one passed previously by the House, the House would have another chance to vote on it, and...

<p>Even the people set to serve in Barack Obama’s cabinet apparently don’t like ObamaCare.</p> <p>It’s a bit like the old Democratic congressiona trick of not applying new regulations to Congress. Too expensive, of course!</p> <p>It turns out that President Barack Obama’s supporters—at least those rich or important or influential enough to serve in his Cabinet—apparently don’t much like ObamaCare. Too expensive, of course!</p>

Governor turns to mathematically-challenged progressives for talking points Governor John Kasich worked with the far-left Universal Health Care Action Network of Ohio (UHCAN Ohio) to build his case for Medicaid expansion, a central piece of President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Washington Post blogger Sarah Kliff detailed Kasich’s strategy in a February 6 Wonkblog entry. “Rather than having to convince the governor, Obamacare supporters were asked to focus their efforts on convincing businesses and legislators,” Kliff explained in her story, which was titled, “How Ohio’s Republican governor sold the state on expanding Medicaid.” While the Kasich administration...

(CNSNews.com) – The Internal Revenue Service warned employers in a new regulatory proposal not to come up with clever schemes to avoid Obamacare’s employer health insurance mandate. The IRS said it would soon issue “anti-abuse rules” to discourage employers from taking advantage of any regulatory loopholes. “The Treasury Department and the IRS are aware of various structures being considered under which employers might use temporary staffing agencies (or other staffing agencies)… to evade application of section 4980H [the employer insurance mandate],” the IRS said in a proposed regulatory announcement issued December 28. The IRS said it would issue a so-called...

Tuesday's Poll Are you OK with paying $63 a year if it means coverage for those with pre-existing conditions? Yes No

CNSNews.com) – Sixteen states have set a limit on the number of prescription drugs they will cover for Medicaid patients, according to Kaiser Health News. Seven of those states, according to Kaiser Health News, have enacted or tightened those limits in just the last two years. Medicaid is a federal program that is carried out in partnership with state governments. It forms an important element of President Barack Obama's health-care plan because under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act--AKA Obamcare--a larger number of people will be covered by Medicaid, as the income cap is raised for the program. With...

What should happen to the rest of the health care overhaul if the individual mandate is struck down? The whole law should be invalidated. And let us never return to health care reform again The whole law should be invalidated. But Congress should craft a better law to replace it The rest of the law should stand as is Only the parts most closely tied to the mandate should go

Is the law's health-insurance requirement constitutional? Yes No