Free Republic

Many of us cheered in January of this year when Marilyn Tavenner, the woman who headed the disastrous rollout of the healthcare.gov website, announced she’d be stepping down from her position as Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). At the time, we weren’t too focused on who would be replacing her. Waiting in the wings was Andrew M. Slavitt, now Acting Medicare Chief, who had been biding his time as CMS’ deputy administrator since July 2014. Even though he’s been accused of possible cronyism and conflicts of interest, Andy Slavitt has a special brand of insurance...

Detectives investigating the murder of UnitedHealthCare CEO Brian Thompson reportedly found shell casings with the words 'deny', 'defend' and 'depose' inscribed on them. Police sources told ABC News that casings were found at the scene with the cryptic messages left on them. Detectives are now working to determine what the words mean and if they could possibly hint at a motive for the slaying of the 50-year-old. Officers are still searching for the unknown assailant who gunned down Thompson outside of the Hilton Hotel in Manhattan on Wednesday morning. Authorities say he fled the scene on foot before then making...

WASHINGTON—A post on a hacker forum popular with cybercriminals has claimed UnitedHealth Group paid $22 million in a bid to recover access to data and systems encrypted by the “Blackcat” ransomware gang, according to two researchers. Neither UnitedHealth nor the hackers involved have commented on the alleged ransom payment, but a cryptocurrency tracing firm partially corroborated the claim on Monday. It is not uncommon for large companies that have been victimized by ransomware gangs to decide to pay the hackers to regain control of their networks, especially in instances where a significant disruption to customers and partners occurred. The forum...

".... likely in concert with the White House — and to the chagrin of many HHS employees — Sebelius and other senior HHS officials decided that word could too easily get out about the firewall project. If it did, it would alert people to UnitedHealth Group’s having gained a potentially huge competitive advantage — a political concern for the White House on the cusp of the election, especially in light of the crony capitalism charges that have plagued this administration. Therefore, HHS, under Sebelius’s leadership, suspended work on the firewall and told United-Health Group not to alert the SEC to...

History was made this week! For the first time in four election cycles, Democrats are not attacking the Diebold Corp. the day after the election, accusing it of rigging its voting machines. I guess Diebold has finally been vindicated. So the left won the House and also Nicaragua. They've had a good week. At least they don't have their finger on the atom bomb yet. Democrats support surrender in Iraq, higher taxes and the impeachment of President Bush. They just won an election by pretending to be against all three. Jon Tester, Bob Casey Jr., Heath Shuler, possibly Jim Webb...