Free Republic

When insurance costs more than survival, coverage is just a word. Obamacare didn’t protect families, it priced them into submission. A system that only works for the rich or the dependent is not a safety net. ====================================================================================== BRIEFING It’s been just over a decade since Obamacare was implemented, and for a majority of Americans, it’s done jack diddly squat for them. As a matter of fact, one American family sat down, did the Obamacare math honestly, and realized that working, paying premiums, and playing by the rules still left them staring at a literal dead end. Let’s break it down....

President Donald Trump has reopened the healthcare debate with a mix of ideas that do not align. He has pledged to “terminate” Obamacare, then signaled openness to extending ACA subsidies, then endorsed personal freedom accounts that would send money directly to individuals. These proposals represent very different diagnoses of what is wrong with American health care. No serious reform effort can point in contradictory directions. But this problem extends far beyond Trump. Republicans have offered inconsistent signals, with some now willing to extend ACA subsidies again despite a decade of arguing – correctly – that these subsidies inflate premiums and...

We’ve been here before: congressional Democrats and Republicans sparring over the future of the Affordable Care Act. But this time there’s an extra complication. Though it’s the middle of open enrollment, lawmakers are still debating whether to extend the subsidies that have given consumers extra help paying their health insurance premiums in recent years. The circumstances have led to deep consumer concerns about higher costs and fears of political fallout among some Republican lawmakers.

House Republicans passed a bill they say will lower healthcare costs for a broad swath of Americans by roughly 11%. It's a victory for Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., who has been managing deep divisions within the House GOP on the topic of healthcare as insurance premiums are set to spike across the country in a matter of weeks. One glaring issue that remains unresolved is Obamacare subsidies, which were enhanced during the COVID-19 pandemic but are set to expire at the end of this year. The legislation passed 216 to 211. Just one Republican, Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Ky., voted against...

Four moderate House Republicans are rebelling against Speaker Mike Johnson, R-La., to join his Democratic counterpart in forcing a vote on enhanced Obamacare subsidies set to expire at the end of this year. Reps. Brian Fitzpatrick, R-Pa., Ryan Mackenzie, R-Pa., Rob Bresnahan, R-Pa., and Mike Lawler, R-N.Y., all joined a discharge petition by House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., on his push for a three-year extension of the subsidies. A discharge petition is a mechanism for overriding the will of House leaders to get a chamber-wide vote on specific legislation, provided it has support from a majority of lawmakers. In...

While members of the U.S. Senate continue to battle over whether to extend enhanced Affordable Care Act (ACA) subsidies just days before they expire, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson (R-LA) is sharing some harsh truths. Johnson, in a post on X, recalled how Democrats sold the ACA to the American people as a form of relief that would lower their health care premium costs but instead has raised those premium costs 3 times faster than the the rate of inflation. The Speaker shared a chart showing how, since 2014, premium costs on the ACA exchange have risen twice as...

House Republicans released legislation Friday aimed at lowering healthcare costs through expanded insurance options for small businesses and unprecedented transparency requirements for pharmacy benefit managers, setting up a crucial vote next week as enhanced Obamacare subsidies expire at year’s end.The Lower Health Care Premiums for All Americans Act, introduced by Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks (R-Iowa-01), is the GOP's alternative to Democratic proposals as Democrats push to extend expiring ACA premium tax credits that help 22 million Americans purchase insurance.Speaker Mike Johnson announced the measure would receive a floor vote next week, though GOP leadership indicated moderate Republicans seeking subsidy extensions may...

Few people lie awake at night worried about the federal debt. So the Republicans' plan to allow "temporary" COVID-19-era enhanced subsidies for Obamacare to expire because of their exorbitant cost won't win many votes. It will save Uncle Sam money. A staggering 93% of premiums are currently paid directly by the federal government to the insurance companies, reports the Paragon Health Institute. But will it win votes in the coming midterm elections? No. Democrats are gloating that reducing the subsidies will mean higher costs for enrollees and an increase in the number of people who go without insurance. Sen. Chris...

Earlier this year, when Elon Musk's Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) began reporting on massive amounts of fraud in our social programs, the Democrats scoffed at him. They ran before any camera they could find to claim breathlessly that Musk was going to take away Social Security and leave Grandma out in the cold.That's not true, of course. Musk and DOGE were trying to not only save America from fiscal ruin, but to make these programs sustainable for the people who actually need and paid into them — the American taxpayers.Democrats, on the other hand, seem to view those programs...

An analysis of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA), commonly known as Obamacare, has unveiled massive fraud that could be costing American taxpayers billions of dollars, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) said in a report released on Dec. 3. Under the program, the federal government pays credits to health insurance companies, called advance premium tax credit (APTC), on behalf of eligible Obamacare participants to reduce their monthly premium payments. In plan year 2024, almost $124 billion in such credits is estimated to have been paid out to insurance companies, accounting for around 19.5 million enrollees. The GAO report...

Remember how Democrats shut the government down to squeeze out three more years of Obamacare subsidies for illegal aliens? Well, a fresh report from the Government Accountability Office throws a harsh spotlight on what they were really defending. Investigators set up fake applicants and let the federal marketplace do its thing. The system welcomed them with open arms. Officials approved subsidies for 90% of those phantoms. That’s a hit rate that would make any scam artist proud. GAO agents went undercover and flagged serious “fraud risks” in the advance premium tax credits. Their findings reveal the true prize Democrats fought...

The debate over expiring Obamacare subsidies has dominated national political discourse, but some experts told the Daily Caller News Foundation that Republicans could capitalize on growing momentum around price transparency to help lower healthcare costs for Americans. The record-setting government shutdown was driven by Democrats’ refusal to budge on the expiring Obamacare premium subsidies, which they passed in 2021 without GOP support and set to expire at the end of 2025. Republicans are still debating their healthcare proposal, including whether to back a limited extension of those subsidies. Even without a resolution on the subsidies in sight, some experts note...

The ACA obscures the true costs of healthcare. The government shutdown revealed just how much.Since the enactment of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), health insurance premiums have steadily increased, as has healthcare’s proportion of the gross domestic product (GDP). In employer-sponsored insurance, escalating premiums are the primary driver for stagnant take-home wages. The structure of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and employer-sponsored insurance conceal the true cost of healthcare. The recent government shutdown exposed this underlying flaw to public scrutiny. Should the premium tax credits lapse as expected, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) projects that premiums for Americans will increase...

I started writing my blog in 2009, largely in response to America electing an anti-American president. During those first few years, I talked a lot about Obamacare. The thing was a disaster from day one; indeed, in an omen of things to come, Obama’s team spent four times more building a website that didn’t work than Apple did developing the iPhone.Image created using AI.The worst part about Obamacare? The fact that it was a solution to a problem that didn’t exist.In 2013, I wrote the following:Obamacare was passed in 2009 (sic) in reaction to anecdotal examples of Americans who couldn’t...

The White House is poised to put forward a two-year extension for the Obamacare subsidies set to expire at the end of the month. Trump’s plan will attempt to take the healthcare issue off the table ahead of the midterm elections. Healthcare was a key part of Democrats’ successful campaign in the 2018 midterm elections. Trump’s proposal for ACA subsidies will include potential caps on income, limiting the recipients of the program, while also requiring that all enrollees pay some premium. According to the healthcare non-profit KFF, should the subsidies lapse, premiums will double for Americans and an additional 2...

President Donald Trump is delaying a planned announcement of a proposal to extend Affordable Care Act subsidies, according to two White House officials, after congressional Republicans pushed back against the president’s sudden embrace of the expiring subsidies. Trump was expected to unveil a plan aimed at halting ACA premium spikes on Monday, as first reported by MS NOW. But the reveal has been postponed — though not canceled — said the White House officials, who were granted anonymity to discuss the internal strategy. Both White House officials noted that Trump’s announcement — which was never officially on the schedule —...

The act’s supporters said it would achieve the long-sought goal of universal health insurance while preserving the high quality and freedom of choice that are the hallmarks of America’s health care system. Peter Ferrara says the act’s supporters are wrong. “Obamacare,” he writes in the conclusion to this Heartland Policy Study, “is a disaster. Rather than liberate the American health care system from bureaucracy and waste, it blankets it with more of both, suffocating innovation and destroying freedom. The result is a system that is inconsistent with the freedom, prosperity, high living standards, and traditions of the American people.” Ferrara...

Taxpayers are footing the bill for up to $30 billion in fraudulent payments, one expert told The Daily Wire.Though the government shutdown has ended, the fight over Obamacare is still raging. Democrats want to extend and renew the Affordable Care Act’s expanded COVID-era subsidies, which are set to expire on December 31. Doing so would cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars over the next decade. Republicans want to let the subsidies lapse, and find a way to reform America’s healthcare system. Ryan Long, Senior Research Fellow at the Paragon Health Institute, told The Daily Wire that the expanded...

The right’s warnings about Obamacare proved prescient, yet Democrats keep doubling down on a failing system they refuse to admit they broke. Just over 15 years ago, when the Democrat-controlled House and the Democrat-controlled Senate were debating the healthcare proposals offered by the Democrat president, nearly everyone on the political right was unified in opposition. It may well have been the last time the right was united on anything, but it was indeed unified and resolute. Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann (MN) warned that “This monstrosity of a bill will not only destroy the private healthcare market, it will lead to massive...

I'm old enough to remember when the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) passed. It was 2010, and I had just joined Twitter the previous fall while I was on maternity leave following the birth of my second son. That means I recall exactly how Obamacare's passage unfolded. It was forced on an unwilling American people by the Democrats, who shoved it through Congress without a single Republican vote. Many people, myself included, warned it was a bait-and-switch scheme that wouldn't lower healthcare costs but would usher in single-payer socialized medicine. Now that we're facing another negotiation on Obamacare subsidies, it's time...