Free Republic

Kathleen Sebelius is in the hot seat amid rising angst over the administration’s implementation of ObamaCare. The Health and Human Services (HHS) secretary is implementing the biggest change to the nation’s healthcare system in decades, and the stakes couldn’t be higher. ObamaCare will be a top issue for voters, if not the top issue, in the 2014 election. President Obama is aiming to help Democrats retain the Senate and win back the House for his last two years in office. If ObamaCare stumbles badly next year, Republicans could control both chambers of Congress in 2015. ObamaCare has always been controversial,...

MADISON — Federal health bureaucrats know applying for health insurance through the federal health care exchanges won’t be easy. If it were, there wouldn’t be the need for tens of thousands of taxpaye- backed “navigators,” new positions that soon will be created to help steer consumers through the rough waters of Obamacare. The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will provide Wisconsin with $829,300 in navigator grant funds as part of the $54 million HHS set aside nationally for one year’s worth of navigators. There is $1.7 million more available for community health centers through HHS. Republicans on the...

President Obama believed that opposition to his healthcare reform law would fade after the 2010 election, according to former Sen. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine). Obama courted Snowe’s support in an attempt to make the bill bipartisan. He assured her GOP opposition to the law would be short-lived, she said. “He thought the opposition to it would lessen after the [2010] election. I said, ‘It’s just the beginning.’ I said, ‘It’s going to grow because I can tell you it’s not going to go away and it’s going to get worse,’” Snowe said in a radio interview moderated by Julie Mason, host...

Amid the controversy over Uncle Sam singling out politically conservative groups, Matt Drudge took to Twitter on Monday morning to offer his take. Linking the IRS scandal to President Obama‘s health care law, the Drudge Report creator foreshadowed civil war, an “American Holocaust,” and a “brave new president.” Recently, Sarah Palin, too, drew a connection between health care and the IRS, noting that the “same corrupt” agency “will be in charge of enforcing Obamacare.” Drudge weighed in thusly — including some interesting hypotheticals: (TWEETS AT LINK)

In the last few weeks, numerous Hawaii healthcare industry leaders have stepped forward to create deniability for themselves in the upcoming Hawaii Health Connector/Health Exchange disaster. Those who are implementing Obamacare in Hawaii are now putting themselves on the record explaining that Obamacare will mean higher insurance premiums, fewer doctors and nurses, and shuttered hospitals. Here are their statements, accumulated in one place so that it can be clearly seen that many of those who are in charge are predicting failure: HMSA Chief Predicts Obamacare 'Rate Shock' for Hawaii Maui News May 9, 2013: If Hawaii consumers think health care...

Many small-business owners worry that a new tax on insurance providers in the health-care law will mean higher premiums for them, undermining the law’s capacity to lower their health-care costs. Starting next year, the federal government will charge a new fee on health insurance firms based on the plans they sell to individuals and companies, known as the fully insured market. Meanwhile, the provision exempts health-insurance plans that are set up and operated by businesses themselves (the self-insured market). Revenue from the tax will help pay for the health-care overhaul, which is expected to extend coverage to millions of uninsured...

en. Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said Wednesday he fears a "train wreck" as the Obama administration implements its signature healthcare law. Baucus, the chairman of the powerful Finance Committee and a key architect of the healthcare law, said he fears people do not understand how the law will work. "I just see a huge train wreck coming down," Baucus told Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius at a Wednesday hearing. "You and I have discussed this many times, and I don't see any results yet." "Small businesses have no idea what to do, what to expect," Baucus said. Citing anecdotal...

As Democrats grow increasingly worried that ObamaCare will explode on the launch pad just as midterm elections get going, the Obama administration seeks to pin blame on Republicans. Good luck with that. Earlier this week, Health and Human Services head Kathleen Sebelius admitted that she didn't realize how complicated getting ObamaCare off the ground would be. Sebelius complained that "no one fully anticipated" the difficulties involved in implementing ObamaCare, or how confusing it would be with the public. She wasn't talking about the massive and impossible task of imposing central planning on one-sixth of the nation's economy. Instead, she was...

Unable to meet tight deadlines in the new health care law, the Obama administration is delaying parts of a program intended to provide affordable health insurance to small businesses and their employees — a major selling point for the health care legislation. The law calls for a new insurance marketplace specifically for small businesses, starting next year. But in most states, employers will not be able to get what Congress intended: the option to provide workers with a choice of health plans. They will instead be limited to a single plan. This choice option, already available to many big businesses,...

An exhaustive study by three congressional committees delivers startling news about the dire effects of Obamacare: President Barack Obama’s signature legislation could increase health insurance premiums by over 200 percent and render insurance coverage unaffordable for millions of Americans. Broadly, the new report declares that Obamacare “breaks its core promise” to make healthcare coverage affordable. The report, “The Price of Obamacare’s Broken Promises,” was prepared by the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, Majority Staff; Senate Committee on Finance, Minority Staff; and Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions, Minority Staff. “Studies and analyses from the Congressional Budget Office,...

The Democrats knew what they were doing when they deferred the implementation of most provisions of Obamacare until after the 2012 election. What is surprising, really, is that Obamacare has been so unpopular, given that most of its baleful effects have not yet been felt. But it won’t be long now. The Associated Press reports that health insurers are warning of massive price increases beginning next year: Some Americans could see their insurance bills double next year as the health care overhaul law expands coverage to millions of people.

The Affordable Care Act is looking less and less affordable. Start with the IRS’s new estimate for what the cheapest family plan will cost by 2016: $20,000 a year to cover two adults and three kids. And that will only cover 60 percent of medical bills, so add hefty out-of-pocket costs, too. The next surprise is for parents who thought their kids would be covered by an employer. Sloppy wording in the law left that unclear until last week, when the IRS ruled that kids won’t be covered. Starting in 2014, the law will require employers with 50 or more...

According to projections from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), entitlements and ObamaCare spending will comprise 53 percent of all federal spending over the coming decade, totaling $24.9 trillion. In its updated Budget and Economic Outlook report released on Tuesday, the CBO projects that Social Security will account for $11.149 trillion in spending from 2014 to 2023 while federal health care entitlements, including Medicare, Medicaid, and ObamaCare, will spend $13.85 trillion. (That total includes TRICARE, CHIP, and “other” spending listed by the CBO under healthcare.) ObamaCare’s insurance subsidies, exchange costs, and other spending are expected to cost the government $949 billion...

President Obama's health care law will push 7 million people out of their job-based insurance coverage — nearly twice the previous estimate, according to the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday. CBO said that this year's tax cuts have changed the incentives for businesses and made it less attractive to pay for insurance, meaning fewer will decide to do so. Instead, they'll choose to pay a penalty to the government, totaling $13 billion in higher fees over the next decade. But the non-partisan agency also expects fewer people to have to pay individual penalties to the IRS...

Smith & Nephew eliminated nearly 100 jobs in Memphis and Andover, Mass., on Thursday, Jan. 31, as the medical device company cuts expenses in an effort to offset tax hikes included in the Affordable Care Act. The Affordable Care Act includes a 2.3 percent medical device tax, which took effect Jan. 1. The London-based company, which employs about 1,800 people in Memphis, said the new tax will cost the industry about $30 billion over 10 years. “(The tax) has impacted a number of companies across the U.S.,” said Joe Metzger, senior vice president of corporate communications. “Smith & Nephew is...

WASHINGTON (AP) - Some families could get priced out of health insurance due to what's being called a glitch in President Barack Obama's overhaul law. IRS regulations issued Wednesday failed to fix the problem as liberal backers of the president's plan had hoped. As a result, some families that can't afford the employer coverage that they are offered on the job will not be able to get financial assistance from the government to buy private health insurance on their own. How many people will be affected is unclear. The Obama administration says its hands were tied by the way Congress...

In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year. Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS. The IRS's assumption that the cheapest plan for family of five will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan. “The annual national...

The excited grins we saw in the sea of faces at Barack Obama’s second Inauguration told us we lost and the socialists won. They made sure we understood that. Liberal talking heads on television and radio as well as in print and in the blogosphere have been taunting us since November and there is no reason to think they will stop any time soon. Their jobs are now safe for as far as the eye can see. “..segment of Obama supporters are learning that elections have consequences and being on the winning side doesn’t guarantee good times ahead. America’s college...

In 2013, the tax increases in Obamacare will increasingly conspire against kitchen-table family healthcare decisions. As just one example, below are some of the taxes that will impact the purchase of dental braces: Obamacare Medical Device Tax: As of Jan.1, Obamacare imposes a new tax of 2.3 percent on medical device manufacturers, including those who make dental braces. The tax is imposed on gross sales -- even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. While the tax will be paid to the IRS by the manufacturer, the tax will be passed along as a higher...

Moe Lane highlighted a number of business in several states that are cutting their employees’ hours (when they’re not actually laying off employees), to prepare for the coming asteroid-strike that are the Obamacare taxes. The IRS, which is in charge of enforcing the bazillion-page monstrosity, recently decided 30 hours is the new “full-time” and so tens of thousands of workers will find their hours cut from a normal 32-40 down to 29, so their bosses can afford to keep them on the payroll. The whole cycle of government action/business reaction/government overreaction was as predictable as an Obama campaign speech but...