Free Republic

The House speaker not only wants to use the coronavirus pandemic to entrench Obamacare, she wants to make taxpayers fund abortion in the process In the words of her former House colleague Rahm Emanuel, Nancy Pelosi never wants to let a crisis go to waste. The House speaker not only wants to use the coronavirus pandemic to entrench Obamacare, she wants to make taxpayers fund abortion in the process.A recent summary of the legislation Pelosi plans to introduce as an alternative to Senate Republicans’ “stimulus” bill laid out the strategy. House Democrats want to force insurers to reopen enrollment in...

When the health reform debate began more than a dozen years ago, most public health advocates touted the need for universal coverage. By the time Congress passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), however, it had become predicated on also making care accessible for people with pre-existing conditions.  Obamacare allowed people with chronic illnesses to buy health coverage at rates no higher than their healthy neighbors. This feature has always been popular. Americans feel sympathy for those who were penalized for conditions like high blood pressure, high cholesterol and heart disease. Less healthy individuals often paid higher premiums to compensate for...

As a conservative, you might want to stay mad at the insurance companies, because they are still gaming the system to make even more money off of Obamacare.  Right now, they are supporting legislation that will help health insurance companies to make even more money while harming doctors, patients and service providers. The lead trade group for health insurers, America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), were critical in helping to get Obamacare passed. They loved the idea of the federal government mandating that all Americans be forced to purchase their product. Healthcare Finance reported on March 23, 2012, “in March 2009,...

With the current third-party payment structure, you doctor does not practice as much medicine on you as insurance executives and federal bureaucrats do. Americans, who practices medicine on you? The answer may seem self-evident, but it is not. In our current health-care system, millions of nameless, faceless government or private insurance bureaucrats practice medicine on you without a license for medicine.You may think your life is in your doctor’s hands, but it is not. The bureaucrats, not you or your doctor, make your medical and financial decisions. Consider these health-care decisions: DiagnosisTreatment: what, when, where, by whomMedicationsPaying for care Your...

Now that an appellate court has upheld a U.S. District judge’s finding that the individual mandate in the Affordable Care Act (ACA), otherwise known as Obamacare, is unconstitutional, expect the Democrats' hysteria machine to be fired up and working overtime. They’ll portray millions of Americans as instantly losing their health insurance and ply the airwaves with sob story after sob story decrying evil Republicans and their plot to deny Americans the medical care they need.  The problem is none of what they’re claiming is based in reality. There will be no immediate change to the law or to the insurance...

Over the last 10 months we have seen Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) struggle with keeping her caucus in check. Months ago, she made it very clear the House would not move forward with impeaching President Donald Trump because of the it was an issue that divided Americans. She lost that fight to the extreme progressives of her party, in particular the freshman “Squad” consisting of Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ayanna Pressley (D-MA). Even though she can’t control her caucus – or the very chamber she oversees – Nancy has a word of advice...

Ronald Reagan famously mocked liberals by saying, "We're from the federal government and we're here to help." Yet Republicans are adopting that same philosophy with various feel good health care bills they're backing, and it could land us with socialized medicine if they're not careful. The new health care issue de jure is "surprise billing," when people who have health insurance end up with large medical bills because they received care from doctors outside of their insurance plan's "network." This often happens from emergency room visits, and it can be especially menacing when hospitals send their sky-high "charge master" prices,...

It's official. Democratic Party Chair Tom Perez confirms the Party fully endorses free health care for illegal immigrants. That puts illegals ahead of veterans struggling to qualify for civilian care, middle-class working stiffs priced out of Obamacare, and baby boomers facing the likelihood of Medicare cuts. At last Thursday's Democratic presidential debate, all 10 candidates on the stage flung up their hands when asked whether they'd cover illegal aliens. Not one of the debate moderators went on to ask the obvious: How much will it cost, and who will pay for it? Why spoil a Kumbaya moment? The costs would...

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez appeared on "Fox News Sunday." During the discussion with Chris Wallace, the issue of providing health care to illegal aliens came up. "Every person on that stage – all 10 of them – said that they would provide health insurance coverage for people in this country illegally, either under Obamacare or Medicare For All, whichever they supported," Wallace said. "No talk about preexisting conditions, you gotta be working in this country. No talk about you gotta be paying in taxes. The basic point was that you're in this country legally or illegally, you get health...

When I was pregnant with my first child 16 years ago, I asked my doctor how much it would cost to pay for the birth out-of-pocket. He had no clue. The truth of the matter is that in most cases, neither doctors nor their patients have any idea what their treatments cost. That's because the health care market is not a real market. The prices that emerge in this "market" aren't the result of supply and demand, influenced by innovation and competition. Instead, they're the product of a bunch of legislators who want to create a system where anyone but...

Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., backed President Trump's promise that a healthcare vote will be held after the 2020 election if Republicans can win back the House to "drive costs down" on healthcare. "The president's doing what the president does and that is he wants to solve big problems," Thune told "America's Newsroom" Wednesday. "He wants to take on healthcare and so do we. The challenge he has right now is he's running into the political obstacle of a Democrat-controlled House whose idea for healthcare reform is a $36 trillion one-size fits all government-run plan that would take health insurance coverage...

"If the Supreme Court rules that Obamacare is out, we'll have a plan that is far better than Obamacare," President Donald Trump pledged Wednesday. Democrats and their media toadies attacked, claiming Trump will sucker-punch consumers with "junk" plans and abandon people with preexisting conditions -- even cause about 20 million Americans to lose coverage, as New York Times columnist Paul Krugman warns. These claims are lies. Trump said the plan will be released after the 2020 election, but White House health experts have already put out reports suggesting what the Trump alternative will look like. The key pieces are a...

Thanks to President Donald Trump’s slashes to the federal government’s Obamacare advertising budget and his administration’s “sabotage” of Obamacare, hundreds of thousands of clueless people have been left in the dark and aren’t enrolling in Obamacare—at least, that’s what countless reporters and pundits would have you believe. However, the truth is this issue is far more complex that what many on the Left suggest.There’s no doubt that 2019 Obamacare enrollment has dropped compared to enrollment figures from one year ago. The Associated Press reports enrollment in the federal Obamacare exchange—the health insurance exchange used by 39 states—has fallen by nearly 20...

The 2018 midterms could be remembered as a turning point for America’s health care system.Until recently, only the far left of the Democratic Party openly called for the United States to completely abandon capitalism in our health care system in favor of socialized medicine. Few remember that when the Democrats last had control of the House of Representatives, in 2010, most Democrats chose to reject pushing for a single-payer health care model, despite the fact they had control of both houses of Congress and the White House. Even then-President Barack Obama, a longtime supporter of enacting a single-payer scheme, told...

Despite numerous promises from congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama when they passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, the health care law has created far more problems than it has solved. Premiums, deductibles, and health care choices have all worsened since Obamacare went into effect, and there’s no sign America’s health insurance system will improve anytime in the near future.President Trump inherited a health insurance crisis when he took office in January 2017, so he and congressional Republican leaders immediately began to work to implement their plan to replace Obamacare with a more market-centered approach to improving the...

If you’re not a health care policy nerd like me and don’t pay close attention to the fear-mongering commonly found in outlets like The Washington Post and CNN, you may have missed the recent explosion of news stories and opinion articles bashing the Trump administration for allegedly putting Obamacare in grave danger — and doing so in a reckless and legally questionable manner, too.For instance, New York magazine accused the Trump administration of “standing against the rule of law.” The New York Times’ Margot Sanger-Katz wrote a recent Trump administration decision could make it “much more difficult for individuals and...

After more than eight years of promising to end Obamacare, Republicans in Congress—despite having control of both the House and Senate—have failed to stop this disastrous health care law. But thanks to an important provision Republicans included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act when they passed the law in December 2017, the Trump administration may soon have an opportunity to end Obamacare without Congress, which might force Republican congressmen to finally get their act together and pass health care legislation that would empower states and local governments and free health care markets from costly federal government mandates. As I have...

In one of its most controversial decisions, the Supreme Court in 2012 upheld the constitutionality of a provision in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) mandating individuals purchase qualifying health insurance or else pay a fine, with Chief Justice John Roberts casting the deciding vote in favor of the law. However, nearly six years later, a provision included in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, passed mostly along party lines in December 2017, may soon force Roberts to reevaluate his decision, potentially ending the health care law without a single vote being cast in Congress.In Roberts’ majority opinion, which saved the...

Lawmakers and bureaucrats in official Washington often act as if their decisions lead the nation forward. News from Iowa this week, however, shows once again that the culture leads and politicians lag behind. Kim Reynolds became Iowa's Governor last May when her predecessor (Terry Branstad) resigned to serve as the U.S. Ambassador to China. Reynolds is now running for her own full term in a state where the average Obamacare premiums jumped 57 percent. "Many Iowans faced a choice of going broke or going without insurance," according to Reynolds. "And that's really not a real choice." Seizing the opportunity...

Upon hearing that former President Barack Obama recently boasted that he had a scandal-free administration, my first thought after regaining my faculties was: How can I possibly cram all the evidence refuting this in a little bitty column? Then I read that what he actually said was, "We didn't have a scandal that embarrassed us." At first blush, that sounds better, right? Because I assume he doesn't mean he's incapable of being embarrassed. After a little more thought, though, it occurred to me that this construction just highlights the real reason he has apparently deluded himself into thinking he served...