Free Republic

Over the weekend, Politico broke the news that Mitt Romney had tapped Mike Leavitt, the former Utah Governor and HHS Secretary under George W. Bush, to lead the transition effort should Romney win the presidency. This is a very worrisome signal to conservatives holding out hope that Romney will live up to his promises to fight for limited government if elected. As Ben Domenech details, Leavitt is one of the few Republicans who has been actively campaigning for governors to implement Obamacare’s health care exchanges at the state level. [....] Leavitt has shown time and again that he is to...

When the history of the 2012 campaign is written, a special place may be reserved for Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of Health and Human Services and ex-governor of Kansas, who is doing her best to make the Affordable Care Act — aka, ObamaCare — disappear as a political liability for the president. The most compelling evidence of this is her decision to delegate to states the final decision on defining "essential health benefits" for minimum health insurance coverage. Some background: The ACA requires all Americans to have health insurance. But what's acceptable insurance? Under Section 1302 of the ACA, the secretary...

Seeking to defuse a potential showdown over a key part of the new healthcare law, the Obama administration moved Friday to let states, rather than the federal government, define which medical benefits insurance companies will have to offer consumers starting in 2014. That allows state leaders to retain more control of health insurance even as the law extends a new federal guarantee that all Americans can get coverage, even if they are sick. "This is significantly more state-flexible and friendly than many would have expected," said Alan Weil, head of the National Academy for State Heath Policy. It remains unclear,...