Free Republic

Maryland’s Obamacare insurers are asking for a 30 percent average rate increase for 2019, with some plans seeking hikes as high as 91 percent. The proposals Monday come a few days after Virginia insurers also called for double-digit rate increases. Democrats have pounced on the rate hikes to say they are examples of how President Trump’s health policies are leading to high premiums. Maryland Obamacare insurers CareFirst, BlueCross, and BlueShield plan to raise rates for an HMO plan on the law’s exchanges by 18 percent, and 91 percent for an extended network, or PPO, plan. Kaiser Permanente, the state’s other...

Twenty Republican-led states are seeking to temporarily invalidate former President Barack Obama’s health care law while their larger lawsuit against it proceeds. In a February suit, Texas and Wisconsin led a coalition arguing that the Affordable Care Act is no longer constitutional after the Republican-backed tax overhaul eliminated fines for not having health care coverage. Sixteen states with Democratic governors later sought to intervene. …

Former President Barack Obama denied that his administration had any scandals that embarrassed him or his team. It is unclear why Obama clarified that there were no scandals “that embarrassed us.” “There were mistakes,” he admitted. “We’d screw up, but there wasn’t anything venal during eight years. I know that seems like a low bar, but you look at the presidency; that’s no small thing.” Conservatives remember the Obama years differently, citing the Fast and Furious scandal, the IRS scandal, wiretapping journalists, the terror attacks in Benghazi, delivering pallets of cash to Iran, and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s...

House Speaker Paul Ryan, saying entitlement reform is essential to limiting budget deficits, criticized Sen. John McCain on Tuesday for voting last year against the repeal of Obamacare. “The house has passed these bills, but John McCain said no instead of yes,” Ryan said during an exclusive interview with FOX Business’ Maria Baritromo on “Mornings with Maria.”

Maryland lawmakers want to create an individual health care mandate at the state level — in response to Washington gutting it at the federal level — and turn it into a down payment for people to pay for health insurance. Supporters outlined the proposal Tuesday, a day before the Maryland legislative session begins, adding it could also work in other states to help keep insurance premiums from skyrocketing. The Maryland General Assembly is controlled by Democrats. The federal tax overhaul approved last month removed the federal penalty that was charged to people without health insurance. Under Maryland legislation, the state...

Marguerite Moniot felt frustrated and flummoxed. Despite the many hours she had spent in front of the computer this year reading consumer reviews of health insurance plans offered on the individual market in Virginia, she still did not know what plan was right for her.

Jimmy Kimmel held his baby son as he returned to his late-night show after a week off for the boy’s heart surgery. Kimmel was crying from the first moment of his monologue Monday night as he pleaded with Congress to restore and improve children’s health coverage, a cause he has championed since his son Billy was born with a heart defect in April. Billy needed one surgery just after his birth and had a follow-up operation last week. …

President Donald Trump’s decision to end a provision of the Affordable Care Act that was benefiting roughly 6 million Americans helps fulfill a campaign promise, but it also risks harming some of the very people who helped him win the presidency. Nearly 70 percent of those benefiting from the so-called cost-sharing subsidies live in states Trump won last November, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.The subsidies are paid to insurers by the federal government to help lower consumers’ deductibles and co-pays. People who benefit will continue receiving the discounts because insurers are obligated by law to provide them....

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: Oct 9 2017 Ferguson asks court in Seattle to declare new rules unlawfulSEATTLE — Attorney General Bob Ferguson today filed a lawsuit in federal court to block the Trump Administration’s new rules undermining women’s access to contraception.The new rules would allow any company to deny coverage for contraceptive services to its female employees based on religious grounds. Additionally, certain types of organizations would also be able to deny this coverage on moral grounds. If allowed to go forward, President Trump’s rules could have a significant impact on the more than 1.5 million Washington workers and their dependents who receive...

Prayers were requested in August and answered for Sophia, daughter of FReeper lilyramone, a sick little girl. Good news. I'll post an excerpt from a recent email from her. She thanks everyone for their prayers and Glory be to God for the answers! :::Three days before we were to leave for Boston, Sophia's stroke team in Dallas scheduled a meeting with us. When I arrived I was shocked to hear every department (Neurology, Neurosurgery, Hematology, Pediatric Neuro-radiology, etc) told me they advised against the surgeries at this time. They told me she may need these surgeries in the near future...but...

A**clown!!!!!!! Somebody needs to ask that POS what he wants for obummercare. Get him on record.

Only half of America’s smallest businesses now offer health coverage to their workers because many say steady cost hikes have made it too expensive to afford a benefit that nearly all large employers still provide. The Kaiser Family Foundation said Tuesday that 50 percent of companies with three to 49 employees offered coverage this year. That’s down from 59 percent in 2012 and 66 percent more than a decade ago. “There’s just not as much money around for compensation, including benefits,” said Gary Claxton, a Kaiser vice president and lead author of the nonprofit health policy organization’s annual health benefits...

Sarai was 25 years old when she died of Wilson’s disease, an inherited disorder that causes liver failure. A liver transplant could have cured her, but she was uninsured and was denied an appointment at two prominent Chicago transplant hospitals, including my own. Sarai’s plight was brought to my attention when a local religious group held a hunger strike advocating transplant access for Sarai and other uninsured patients. When she died, her congregation marched seven miles, holding her photograph and lugging coffins emblazoned with her name, to launch a sit-in in front of Northwestern University Hospital. Her death certificate named...

Charlie Dent, the Allentown congressman who has frequently clashed with President Trump and become one of the most prominent national voices for centrist Republicans, will not seek reelection next year, he announced Thursday night.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says people should not be surprised by the challenges that come with governing, saying that’s the way it is in the U.S. President Donald Trump has criticized McConnell for the Senate’s failure to repeal and replace former President Barack Obama’s health care law. […] McConnell praised the Trump administration for his appointment of conservative judges while seeming to remind the president of where the power lies in getting those appointments to the bench. …

Connecticut, home to hedge fund billionaires alongside cities mired in poverty, is racing against the clock to pass a budget or face further spending cuts to education and municipal aid across the state. Nearly two months without a budget, Connecticut is getting crushed by a burdensome debt load that has squeezed spending and amplified legislative discord. State lawmakers must agree on a biennial budget soon or else Governor Dannel Malloy’s executive order to slash state aid to municipalities and eliminate school funding for some districts will go into effect in October. The state faces a $3.5 billion deficit over the...

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says there is “zero chance” Congress will allow the country to default on its debts by voting to not increase the borrowing limit. McConnell’s comments came Monday during a joint appearance in his home state of Kentucky with U.S. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. It was one of McConnell’s first public appearances since President Donald Trump publicly criticized him for failing to pass a repeal and replacement of former President Barack Obama’s health care law. McConnell did not mention Trump in his remarks, and he did not take questions from reporters after the event. But in...

A week after an attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act failed, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says he’d consider a bipartisan effort to continue payments to insurers to avert a costly rattling of health insurance markets. McConnell told reporters Saturday there is “still a chance” the Senate could revive the measure to repeal and replace “Obamacare,” but he acknowledged the window for that is rapidly closing. The Kentucky senator noted Republican Sen. Lamar Alexander of Tennessee is working on “some kind of bipartisan approach” that would involve subsidies for insurance companies. Alexander recently said he will work with the...

Posobiec said that after the vote, a staffer near McCain’s office heard McCain say, “Let’s see Donald make America great again now.”

PHOENIX — Incumbent John McCain found himself on the defensive Monday over the fact it took months for him to conclude that Donald Trump is not fit to be president. http://tucson.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/elections/much-of-mccain-kirkpatrick-debate-is-about-trump-clinton-obama/article_3071ba38-490d-570d-9a8f-9756ab117b75.html