Free Republic

The Affordable Care Act added millions of mostly poor people to the insurance rolls. But the law is driving premiums so high that middle-class people can no longer afford insurance. Several million are expected to drop coverage in 2018. Under ObamaCare, poor lives matter. Middle-class lives? Not so much. The ACA is actually two laws glued together: a vast Medicaid expansion to cover the poor and a federal takeover of individual insurance markets, previously regulated by states. Since that takeover, individual premiums have more than doubled, and they’re predicted to rise another 25 percent to 35 percent next year. The...

Californians have a reputation for questioning authority. And increasingly, they appear to be questioning the High-Speed Rail Authority, which voters empowered in 2008 to issue $9.95 billion in bonds and build the nation’s largest such system. Opposition hasn’t reached critical mass — not yet. But it is broad, and it includes Republicans, some Democrats, community groups, local governments, fiscal conservatives, and neighborhood preservationists. Reports from respectable engineering and financial teams, including state agencies, paint a far gloomier picture than the happy-talk done deal that’s been portrayed in the national media. Lawsuits further complicate the picture. The more money California sponges...

THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG THE BLOG TUESDAY, AUGUST 4TH, 2009 AT 6:55 AM Facts Are Stubborn Things Posted by Macon Phillips Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things." Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions. In this video, Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, addresses one example that makes it look like the President intends to...