Free Republic

Two Republican senators on Monday unveiled the outlines of an ObamaCare replacement plan that they hope would be able to attract some Democratic support. The plan, from Sens. Bill Cassidy (R-La.) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), contains less drastic changes than some Republican proposals. It envisions keeping many of ObamaCare’s taxes in place in order to provide revenue for the replacement plan and gives states the choice of whether they want to keep ObamaCare. Under the plan, known as the Patient Freedom Act, state legislatures would have the choice of whether to keep ObamaCare operating in their states, complete with its...

The Congressional Budget Office has stepped into the Obamacare repeal fight, issuing a fierce warning to Republicans in the form of … a sternly worded blog post. CBO is the government’s nonpartisan scorekeeper, the agency that tells Congress how much new programs cost and who they’ll cover. This is important, because in principle you could provide insurance coverage to everyone while spending practically nothing if you were willing to make the insurance totally worthless.

WITH THE OBAMACARE exchanges collapsing and millions of people being battered by ghastly increases in health insurance premiums, what's to be done? Forgetting that socialism doesn't work--never mind that it's deeply immoral--Democrats are addicted to the idea of government-dominated health care. They see ObamaCare's terminal crisis as the perfect opportunity to realize their age-old ambition of socialized medicine, hence the current mouthing of such slogans as "a single-payer system," "Medicare for all" and the offer to consumers of "a public option," i.e., subsidized policies from a health insurance company run by Uncle Sam. Republicans should be ready with proposals that...

Shares of a key biotech ETF plunged to their lowest point since the election, after President-elect Donald Trump pledged in an interview with Time Magazine to curb spiraling drug prices. In morning trading on the stock market today, the iShares Nasdaq Biotechnology Index (IBB) exchange-traded fund was down more than 3%, near 266. The index had jumped 9% on Nov. 9, after Trump beat Hillary Clinton in the race for the White House, on the belief that high drug prices would not be as big a focus for Trump as it would have been for Clinton. IBD's 421-company Medical-Biomed/Biotech industry...

He has repeatedly called the law a “disaster” and pledged full repeal. President-elect Donald Trump just announced his first big possible compromise. And it’s on, of all things, the Affordable Care Act (ACA), aka Obamacare. Trump made President Obama’s health reform law one of his scariest political boogeymen during the 2016 campaign. He called it a “disaster” that’s crushing consumers with spiraling costs and fleeing insurers (the reality is considerably more complicated despite very legitimate problems with the ACA). And Congressional Republicans, who have voted to repeal Obamacare upwards of 60 times during the now-lame duck president’s tenure, have pledged...

Trump-backing congressman says GOP will use budget 'reconciliation' to repeal Obamacare in first 100 days – depriving Democrats of the chance to filibuster it * Rep. Chris Collins, the first Republican to endorse President-elect Trump, says the GOP will move legislation to repeal Obamacare within Trump's first 100 days * Party would use budget procedure that would let them jam it through on a simple majority vote, depriving Senate Democrats of the filibuster * Medical device tax, 30-hour workweek for coverage, employer mandate, employee mandate all could go, gutting the plan * Says there would be a 'transition' for 2017...

Donald Trump called Obamacare a “catastrophic event” at a rally Wednesday in Ohio, telling supporters that insurance premium hikes have exposed the lies President Obama relied on to promote the health care law. Mr. Trump said Mr. Obama also lied to voters when they would be able to keep their health care plans and their doctors. “They have caught him in a lot of lies lately, folks,” Mr. Trump said. “Hillary Clinton, talking about liars, wants to double down … on Obamacare and make it even worse.” Mr. Trump pledged to repeal and replace Obamacare with a new law that...