Free Republic

There is a growing sense among Democrats that they will not be able to accomplish the entire agenda leaders set for 2009, pushing major policy debates into the midterm election year. Concerns over the cost of overhauling the nation’s healthcare system have served as a wake-up call to lawmakers. They had planned for a busy summer of healthcare and climate change debate, a dozen spending bills, a defense authorization and hearings on President Obama’s first Supreme Court nominee. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) even promised to add a sweeping overhaul of immigration to that list. But the revelation that...

We notice that the Obama administration is making a big push this week to try to recreate lost momentum on so-called "healthcare reform" in the United States Congress. It appears the once-monolithic Democrat rush to enact a comprehensive health care package that would provide health services to every man, woman and child in the country is splintering into various factions. Reasons for this are varied, but a very large one seems to be that more than a few legislators have been stunned at the costs to provide even a third of persons currently having no health insurance with some form...

Health Care: President Obama defends his federal plan as a tool to "discipline" private insurers. If that's really what he wants, why not set up a national market with real competition for a change?We ask the question with a strong suspicion of what the answer will be. It's that Obama, along with the liberal leadership of his party, wants something a bit stronger than mere "discipline" for private insurers. They're itching for punishment — to flog them for the sin of greed. Obama said as much in his press conference Tuesday when he accused the insurers of putting profits before...

MSNBC eats its own.

President Barack Obama said it is “not logical” to think that a government-run health care program competing with private health insurers would eventually drive the private firms out of business. The concern expressed by many Republicans and some private insurers has been one of the leading arguments against the president’s plan to establish a “public option” health care program. At a White House press conference on Tuesday, Obama said: “Why would it drive private insurance out of business? If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best quality health care; if they tell us that they're offering a good...

Live thread for commentary on the ABC News Primetime ObamaCare Infomercial tonight at 9:00 PM CT/10:00 PM ET. John Boehner recommends this handy guide to the healthcare informercial from The Freedom Project.A Guide to the President's Health Care Infomercial Obama's Thinking 'Evolves' on Health Care Requirements Acknowledging that his thinking on the issue has "evolved," President Barack Obama says he could support a law mandating that individuals purchase health care coverage, with fines for those who do not, but he stressed that there must be some kind of waiver for those who are simply unable to afford it. (snip) During...

As the Obama administration pushes for a national health care plan, studies show that most Americans are overwhelmingly happy with their own health care -- but they are dissatisfied with the country's overall system, because most Americans who have insurance believe that those who don't have it are not receiving care. Those same studies, however, show that a surprisingly large 70 percent of the estimated 46 million Americans who don't have insurance say they do, in fact, receive health care, and that a vast majority of them are satisfied with it. A survey conducted jointly by the Kaiser Family Foundation,...

There is that old saying, "There are three kinds of lies; Lies, Dammed Lies and Statistics. Having spent over 30 years in marketing, I assure you that numbers can be made to prove anything. The unscrupulous will show twist numbers to prove a point without clearly noting how they were derived. Neither the NY Times nor CBS has not been accused of having scruples, at least not since Uncle Walter retired. Late last week, a highly promoted NY Times/CBS poll reported that almost 3/4 of Americans were solidly behind the Obama heath plan. When you examine the way the poll...

Cap and trade is the tax that dare not speak its name, and Democrats are hoping in particular that no one notices who would pay for their climate ambitions. With President Obama depending on vast new carbon revenues in his budget and Congress promising a bill by May, perhaps Americans would like to know the deeply unequal ways that climate costs would be distributed across regions and income groups. Politicians love cap and trade because they can claim to be taxing "polluters," not workers. Hardly. Once the government creates a scarce new commodity -- in this case the right to...

I realize how maddening it must be for you to watch our fellow citizens hypnotized by an over packaged, glorified street agitator with a used car salesman’s smarmy, phony self-deprecating “charm,” a braying jackass grin and a smooth TelePrompTer dependent spiel that bears no relationship to the truth, seemingly happy to hand over what they and their families have worked so hard for in the service of his vision of a socialist utopia. Why don’t these people get it? Are they blind? Isn’t it blatantly obvious what Obama has in mind? Particularly infuriating is the fact that they haven’t exactly...

Obama hits back at insurance companies for opposing public option. It took a few months, but tensions between the Obama administration and private health insurers seem to be coming to a head. In a White House press conference Tuesday, President Barack Obama described a government-run health care option as "an important tool to discipline insurance companies" and brushed aside criticism that such a plan would ruin the industry. "If private insurers say that the marketplace provides the best-quality health care," pondered the president, "then why is it that the government--which they say can't run anything--suddenly is going to drive them...

GO HERE for video. Automatically Generated Transcript (may not be 100% accurate) " Earlier we told you the President Obama again today -- health care reform must provide relief to people who do not have health insurance. But who are those people and why don't they have coverage... Of all the people who are uninsured at any point in time. Half of them will find insurance within a year and 90% of them will find insurance within two years. Because many of them -- a job they lost -- left and have a brief period without insurance ... Is to...

In the health reform debate, "exchanges" haven't gotten much play. President Obama mentioned them almost in passing at Tuesday's press conference."Let's have a system, the same way that federal employees . . . (and) members of Congress do," he said, "where we call it an exchange, but you can call it a marketplace, where, essentially, you've got a whole bunch of different plans." But despite their low profile, exchanges are key to all the major Democratic proposals in Congress. Exchanges act as clearinghouses for health insurance policies, making it more convenient to shop — along with generous subsidies for lower-income...

President Obama has a green light and open eight-lane highway for health-care reform. But somehow the guy can't put his foot on the gas. He hedges in neutral while some fellow Democrats muck up policy and Republicans demagogue them into mush. A commanding 85 percent of Americans want "fundamental changes" in American health care, according to a recent New York Times-CBS News poll. On the allegedly controversial "public option" -- a government-run plan that would compete with private insurers -- 72 percent are in favor. And that includes half of self-identified Republicans. What is Obama afraid of? He apparently dreads...

Why do we need President Obama's big-bang health care reform at all? What's the real agenda here? If it's really to cover the truly uninsured, a much cheaper, targeted, small-ball approach would do the trick. But on the other hand, maybe the real goal is a larger, ultra-liberal plan aimed at a government takeover of the U.S. health system. In a recent column, Larry Elder points to an ABC News-USA Today-Kaiser Family Foundation survey showing that 89% of Americans are satisfied with their health care. That means up to 250 million people could be happy with their plans. So why...

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel joined in on a high-level, closed-door meeting on health care with top Senate Democrats on Tuesday evening, a session that comes just as President Barack Obama is turning up the heat to complete a deal this year on the controversial issue.

Today a national TV network turns its airwaves over to President Obamas pitch for government-run health care. Shouldnt this be a bipartisan discussion?

WASHINGTON (AP) — Even for a Democratic president, Barack Obama's challenge to health insurance companies and free market principles Tuesday was unusually pointed. A government-run health insurance option is needed "to discipline insurance companies," he said, part of his rallying cry for comprehensive health care overhaul. If they can't compete, it's probably their fault. Many private insurers, he said, spend too much time thinking about profits instead of helping people. "The public plan, I think, is an important tool to discipline insurance companies," he said. "Too often, insurance companies have been spending more time thinking about how to take premiums...

A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey shows that 72 percent of those questioned recently say they favor increasing the federal government’s influence over the country’s health care system in an attempt to lower costs and provide health care coverage to more Americans. Other recent polls show six in ten think the government should provide health insurance or take responsibility for providing health care to all Americans. It defies understanding that so many Americans want even more government in their lives than they already have, and make no mistake — there is a lot of government in our lives. This is particularly...

"No matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people," President Obama told the American Medical Association on June 15. "If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what." But today the president clarified that promise. It seems he wasn’t saying “no one” will take away any American’s health insurance – he was saying the government wouldn’t. Which is not to say that...