Free Republic

Now that Obamacare jokes have become the norm on late night TV, it was a no brainer for the Country Music Awards to open last night’s show with a parody song from hosts Brad Paisley and Carrie Underwood called “Obamacare By Morning.” But that didn’t stop The Five’s Greg Gutfeld from commending the “rare” sight of “Obama mockery” on TV. Eric Bolling was equally impressed with the “hilarious” song, but noticed a bit of a divide in the reactions from those sitting in the live audience. “You could see the real, true Republican conservatives, heart and soul of the country,...

The chaotic launch of President Barack Obama's healthcare law has Democrats in Congress increasingly anxious about its potential impact on them in the 2014 elections and scrambling to protect themselves if the program's problems persist. Particularly nervous is a group of 16 Senate Democrats who are defending their seats next year, as Republicans will seek a net gain of six seats to try to take over the 100-seat chamber.

Democrat Terry McAuliffe – a close ally of the president and super-wealthy Democratic Party fundraiser – is poised to be that bellwether candidate. He has loudly and repeatedly promised to march his state into a full-monty embrace of Obamacare. Meanwhile Republican Ken Cuccinelli is the nation’s most prominent state official opposing the massive law. He led state attorney generals in their anti-Obamacare lawsuits. There is also a Libertarian candidate in the race. But if he proves a spoiler, count on Democrats nationally to hold ranks. National Democrats will see the anti-Obamacare coalition as too fractured to be a viable threat...

The White House argued Tuesday that President Barack Obama didn’t mislead the public when he repeatedly promised Americans “If you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan” under the Affordable Care Act.Press secretary Jay Carney said the president’s declaration was still technically true even as almost two million Americans across the country are getting, or are about to get, letters canceling policies purchased on the individual market.“No, the president was clear about a basic fact,” Carney said Tuesday when asked directly whether Obama had misled Americans about the impact of his signature domestic achievement....

he fact that many current health-care plans do not offer all the benefits required under Obamacare means that many premiums are likely to jump dramatically, Aetna CEO Mark Bertolini told CNBC. Bertolini, appearing on Tuesday's "Closing Bell," said that most Americans with current plans are below the 60 percent essential Affordable Care Act benefit requirement, and individual plan participants will have to pay a minimum of a 20 percent increase to upgrade, he said.

Despite President Obama’s assurances to the contrary, millions of Americans are discovering that they will not be able to keep their current health insurance when the Affordable Care Act takes full effect next year. Reports Tuesday from CBS and NBC News document this development. According to CBS, US insurance firms have sent health policy cancellation notices to more than 2 million people, with 800,000 in New Jersey alone. NBC estimates that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million Americans .. can expect a cancellation letter, .. Mr. Obama has long insisted .. Americans who like their current health plan...

October 28, 2013 Democrat on Obamacare: ‘We Will Own This Problem Forever.’ Jim Geraghty Ron Fournier, of National Journal, formerly of the Associated Press: “Dem Party is F****d.” That was the subject line of an email sent to me Sunday by a senior Democratic consultant with strong ties to the White House and Capitol Hill. The body of the email contained a link to this Los Angeles Times story about Obamacare “sticker shock” . . . The Democratic consultant said none of this is news to him, but he wonders why Obama wasn’t honest with Americans. He predicted surprise and...

Barack Obama waltzed to victory in California last year, trampling Mitt Romney by 21 percentage points. For many middle class families in the Golden State, Obamacare's chicken are coming home to roost. A few weeks back, we highlighted some priceless quotes from Bay Area residents who are reassessing their views on the president's signature law. One man said he'd been "laughing" at Republicans...until his saw his new premiums. Another offered this pitch-perfect distillation of the tension between feel-good liberalism and economic reality: "Of course, I want people to have health care. I just didn't realize I would be the one...

In finding the Affordable Care Act (ACA) constitutional, 5 justices of the Supreme Court literally ignored the statutory language of the law and the wishes of Congress. In fact, Chief Justice Roberts rewrote portions of the Act in order to bring its substance into line with his own politically motivated preferences. In May, the IRS also ignored the will of Congress as expressed in the ACA. The law specifically states that subsidies and tax credits provided to certain ObamaCare enrollees may be awarded ONLY by “a governmental agency or nonprofit entity [ObamaCare exchange] that is established by a state.”(My emphasis)...

The short version? Obamacare contains a partial bailout for insurers with losses greater than 3 percent in any of the first three years...

One promise—affordability— smashed into millions more pieces this morning. As technical failures bedevil the rollout of President Obama’s health care law, evidence is emerging that one of the program’s loftiest goals — to encourage competition among insurers in an effort to keep costs low — is falling short for many rural Americans.While competition is intense in many populous regions, rural areas and small towns have far fewer carriers offering plans in the law’s online exchanges. Those places, many of them poor, are being asked to choose from some of the highest-priced plans in the 34 states where the federal government...

Amid mounting criticism, the White House said Wednesday that it plans to soften the deadline for when Americans are required to purchase health insurance. The date by when Americans would be penalized for not having signed up for health insurance could be “slid” back by as much as six weeks, administration officials told NBC News. But it was not immediately clear Wednesday whether the adjustment to a cornerstone of the Affordable Care Act would need to be approved by Congress or could be done by the Department of Health and Human Services administratively. As the law stands now, individuals are...

On live now with Sean Hannity. Developing.

link only: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/21/health-care-cancelled-obamacare_n_4138129.html

A federal judge on Tuesday refused to dismiss a case that could fatally cripple the Obamacare health insurance law. The Affordable Care Act forbids the federal government from enforcing the law in any state that opted out of setting up its own health care exchange, according to a group of small businesses whose lawsuit got a key hearing Monday in federal court. The Obama administration, according to their lawsuit, has ignored that language in the law, enforcing all of its provisions even in states where the federal government is operating the insurance marketplaces on the error-plagued Healthcare.gov website. Thirty-six states...

The Super Bowl champion Baltimore Ravens are receiving $130,000 in public funds to promote Obamacare for a year, according to documents obtained by Judicial Watch. In September, officials with Maryland Health Connection — Maryland’s Obamacare exchange — announced that the team had signed on to be a partner in the promotion efforts for President Obama’s signature health-care law. “Research shows that 71 percent of the uninsured population in Maryland have watched, attended or listened to a Ravens game in the past 12 months,” the Connection’s press announcement explained. “The partnership will provide Maryland Health Connection with the opportunity to...

Now that the president has lost the “Morning Joe” crowd, ObamaCare may be in even deeper political trouble than we thought. Mark Halperin, the “Game Change” coauthor and a regular on Joe’s show, called the rollout “unacceptable” and added that “the secrecy is unacceptable,” accusing the administration of withholding information about how many people have signed up. His fellow panelist, liberal commentator Mike Barnicle, ratcheted up from there: “They’re lying about it now,” he said. “They’re not depriving us of information, they are outright lying.” On “CBS This Morning,” the network’s political director, John Dickerson, calls the rollout “a total...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Right here my formerly nicotine-stained fingers. It prints out perfectly on one page. I will show it to you. Yep. I'll show it to you there on the Dittocam. That's what it looks like. What it does, is state by state it tells you what your health insurance premiums were before Obamacare and the exchanges, what they will be after (i.e., when you go there), and what percentage change it is for an adult age 27, an adult age 50, and a family of four. Now, I'm gonna show you this. If you look at the colors,...

SAN FRANCISCO - One reason the Republicans are so adamantly against Obamacare, is that it's driving individual insurance premiums up. And with the law now kicking in, the bills are coming due. In looking into this, we talked to health insurance companies, and representatives of Covered California, agency implementing the Affordable Care Act in California. What they told us may be a bitter pill to swallow, for those who will pay more. Cynthia Jaynes thought her family would benefit from the Affordable Care Act. The author of several young adult books says her family will see a minimum 11 percent...

Tirge Caps, a blogger at Daily Kos, says that in 2013, pre-Obamacare, he pays $150 a month for a health insurance plan from Kaiser. His wife pays $168. However, under Obamacare, their rates will nearly double, to $284 and $302, respectively: Read the comments section to see how Tirge’s compadres reacted to his situation.