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That small voice caught the attention of the Illinois State Trooper who had just delivered Christmas packages to a needy family. "No, son, that's not yours." Trooper Bridget Rice had thought that the little boy whose face had lit up at the sight of all of the Christmas presents that she and an executive from one of their corporate sponsors had just delivered was one of the children benefitting from Operation C.A.R.E. Bears.

WASHINGTON (AP) — Starting in 2012, the government will charge a new fee to your health insurance plan for research to find out which drugs, medical procedures, tests and treatments work best. But what will Americans do with the answers? The goal of the research, part of a little-known provision of President Barack Obama’s health care law, is to answer such basic questions as whether that new prescription drug advertised on TV really works better than an old generic costing much less. But in the politically charged environment surrounding health care, the idea of medical effectiveness research is eyed with...

In an effort to push back against criticism of its health care reform plans, the Obama administration is sending one of the many former journalists in its employ onto the digital airwaves of Youtube to attack Matt Drudge and other critics for spreading "disinformation" and "lies." Since "we can't keep track of all of them here at the White House," health reform Communications Director Linda Douglass says, "we're asking for your help. If you get an email or see something on the web about health insurance reform that seems fishy, send it to flag@whitehouse.gov." Reason.tv's Dan Hayes is nothing if...

Mitt Romney: "I'm for keeping the Bush tax cuts in place and holding down the tax rates. I want to lower our federal tax rates. So across a wide array of issues, I think conservatives in my party will see that I'm a rock solid conservative. Look, you pointed it out a moment ago. Last time around John McCain and Rudy Giuliani were running, I was the conservative choice. Mike Huckabee and I. We were the two guys that were on the conservative side. I have the same views today I had back then."

The Supreme Court, or so we are told, follows the election returns. Perhaps, but it shouldn’t anticipate them — or, for that matter, rule with the campaign calendar in mind. The proper legal course — and, as it happens, by far the best thing for the country — is for the court to decide on the constitutionality of the health-care law by next summer, despite the fact that the opinion would come down in the heat of President Obama’s reelection campaign. ----- Or — and here is where things get interesting — a future president “might not enforce the individual...

The Obama administration cut a major planned benefit from the 2010 health-care law on Friday, announcing that a program to offer Americans insurance for long-term care was simply unworkable. Although the program had been dogged from the start by doubts about its feasibility, its elimination marks the first time the administration has backed away from a key piece of President Obama’s signature legislative achievement. Republican critics of the law immediately said the decision proved that the legislation is unsound and unsustainable. Every major GOP presidential candidate has pledged to work to repeal it.

** Page 50/section 152: The bill will provide insurance to all non-U.S. Residents, even if they are here illegally. ** Page 58 and 59: The government will have real-time access to an individual's bank account and will have the authority to make electronic fund transfers from those accounts. ** Page 65/section 164: The plan will be subsidized (by the government) for all union members, union retirees and for community organizations ** Page 203/line 14-15: The tax imposed under this section will not be treated as a tax. ** Page 241 and 253: Doctors will all be paid the same regardless...

There has been no shortage of court cases regarding the constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act. Before today, four courts, including the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals, examined the health reform law and found it constitutional. Today, a different court ruled against the Affordable Care Act’s individual responsibility provision. We strongly disagree with this decision and we are confident it will not stand. The individual responsibility provision – the main part of the law at issue in these cases – is constitutional. Those who claim this provision exceeds Congress’ power to regulate interstate commerce are incorrect. Individuals who choose to...

SPRINGFIELD, Ill. (AP) — An Illinois judge on Tuesday put Catholic Charities back in the business of finding foster and adoptive homes for children, reinstating — at least temporarily — contracts that were halted when the not-for-profit agency refused to recognize the state's new civil unions law. The Sangamon County Circuit Court ruling applies to contracts between the agency and the Department of Children and Family Services. The decree is temporary until the matter can be decided after an August hearing. DCFS ended its decades-long relationship with the agency last month because Catholic Charities refused to recognize Illinois' new civil...

The Obama Administration is handing out waivers far and wide for its health-care bill, but behind the scenes the bureaucracy is grinding ahead writing new regulations. The latest example is the rule for Accountable Care Organizations that are supposed to be the crown jewel of cost-saving reform. One problem: The draft rule is so awful that even the models for it say they won't participate. *** The theory for ACOs, as they're known, is that hospitals, primary-care doctors and specialists will work more efficiently in teams, like at the Mayo Clinic and other top U.S. hospitals. ACOs are meant to...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says patient outcomes in the United States are like those in “a developing country” – and that they’ll stay that way if the health care reform law is repealed. “The delivery system changes are what will affect underlying costs, and that impacts everybody,” Sebelius said Thursday. “We pay 2 1/2 times what anybody else pays in the world, and our care outcomes look like we're in a developing country.” The United States actually ranks well above developing countries on multiple health indicators, coming in right above the European Union on infant

WASHINGTON, March 16, 2011 – On Jan. 25, Egyptians began protesting against the government of then-President Hosni Mubarak. By Feb. 1, the U.S. State Department had ordered the departure of all nonemergency U.S. government personnel and their families from Egypt. After many Americans evacuated Egypt, their pets were left behind, but Army Capt. Eric Coulson helped to set up an impromptu pet kennel to care of the animals. Courtesy photo  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. But not all "members" of the families departed. The four-legged ones stayed behind. "A lot of people had pets that they really didn't have...

Before he was alleged to have become a spy for Saddam Hussein's regime, Muthanna Al-Hanooti's charity work and political activism provided him with access to the highest echelons of government. Newsletters collected by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, some published now for the first time, show Al-Hanooti photographed with dignitaries ranging from First Lady Hillary Clinton in 1996 and Vice President Al Gore along with significant members of Congress. That may explain why Iraqi intelligence agents had confidence that Al-Hanooti would be able to persuade Congress to lift economic sanctions against Iraq. A federal indictment unsealed Wednesday accuses him of...

The Wall Street Journal has published a new op-ed that argues against the prevailing theory that the U.S health care system pre-Affordable Care Act involved a lot of cost-shifting. Essentially, regular citizens had to pay more for their health care to cover the cost of caring for the uninsured and broke. ObamaCare was supposed to fix this problem via the individual mandate. Writers John F. Cogan, R. Glenn Hubbard, and Daniel Kessler (all university professors) argue that this idea, the foundation that ObamaCare is built on, is fundamentally wrong. “Our review of the research has found that there is no...

VANITY: I tried doing a search to find the list of the 1,000+ companies/unions/etc. that have been granted waivers from the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act." Needless to say, it is not a featured link on the HHS.gov website. I'm sure there are some great Freeper sleuths who know where we should be able to find this -- Google and Bing don't seem to want to help. Maybe HHS doesn't want people to know who is being granted waivers... Maybe HHS doesn't want people asking the question. I think it should be a FAQ on the HHS website because...

<p>House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and defenders of the health care reform law unearthed an unexpected and temporary ally Monday night: Rep. Virginia Foxx (R-NC).</p> <p>Politics makes strange bedfellows. But few bunking arrangements are stranger than this.</p> <p>To be clear, there aren't many in Congress who have more antipathy for the health care law than Foxx. In fact, at a meeting of the House Rules Committee Monday night, Foxx could barely hide her contempt for the health law.</p>

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell on Tuesday night, just hours before the president's State of the Union address, began the legislative process of forcing the House-passed health care repeal bill to the Senate floor for a vote. Typically, only the leaders in the chamber use this procedure, which gets around committee action. It's a way for members to bring a bill before the Senate without the support of the Majority Leader. McConnell's Democratic counterpart, Harry Reid of Nevada, has vowed that no such repeal vote will occur,

During the stormy debate over his healthcare plan, President Barack Obama promised his program would not "pull the plug on grandma," and Congress dropped plans for death panels and "end of life" counseling that would encourage aged patients from partaking in costly medical procedures. Opponents of Obama's plan, including former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin, dubbed such efforts as "death panels" that would encourage euthanasia. But on Dec. 3, the Obama administration seemingly flouted the will of Congress by issuing a new Medicare regulation detailing "voluntary advance care planning" that is to be included during patients' annual checkups. The regulation aimed...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Opponents of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law are a cheering a federal court ruling that one of its core provisions is unconstitutional. They may not realize that Obama has a fallback option that also could do the job. Even if the Supreme Court ultimately agrees that government cannot require individuals to carry health coverage, the Obama administration could borrow a strategy that Medicare has used for decades to compel consumers to join new insurance groups. Medicare’s coverage for doctor visits is voluntary and carries a separate premium, yet more than nine in 10 older people...

AT issue is section 1501 of this act, commonly known as the "minimum essential coverage provision"

One of the largest union-administered health-insurance funds in New York is dropping coverage for the children of more than 30,000 low-wage home attendants, union officials said. The union blamed financial problems it said were caused by the state’s health department and new national health-insurance requirements. The fund is administered by 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, an affiliate of the Service Employees International Union. Union officials said the state compelled the fund to start buying coverage from a third party, which increased premiums by 60%. State health officials denied forcing the union fund to make the switch, saying the fund had...

Is Donald Berwick, the controversial new head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, standing by the Obama administration’s double counting of savings in the new health care law? At a Senate hearing this morning, he declined to engage with official criticism of the administration's claim that the the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act extends the Medicare Trust Fund. Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius has been pushing the line that the PPACA extends Medicare’s solvency for a while, despite pushback from both the Congressional Budget Office and Medicare's chief actuary, Richard Foster. And now Berwick...

The Commonwealth Fund has another one of its surveys showing how health care in the U.S. is so much worse when compared with so many other nations. A debate on what health care system is best is well worth having. But it’s hard to take such a debate seriously when the senior vice president for the Commonwealth Fund, Cathy Schoen, makes remarks like this: The U.S. is the only country in the study where having health insurance doesn’t guarantee you access to health care or financial protection when you’re sick. This is avoidable — other countries have designed their insurance...

Yes, he actually said this in the monster New York Times magazine piece that just came out: “We probably spent much more time trying to get the policy right than trying to get the politics right. There is probably a perverse pride in my administration — and I take responsibility for this; this was blowing from the top — that we were going to do the right thing, even if short-term it was unpopular. And I think anybody who’s occupied this office has to remember that success is determined by an intersection in policy and politics and that you can’t...

A mushrooming political battle over ObamaCare involving the White House, two incumbent Pennsylvania congressmen, three Catholic hospitals and a nun has just exploded in, of all places, Scranton, Pennsylvania. Charges from the Scranton medical community of intimidation by the Obama White House and its allies are filling the air. All of this just as Vice President Joe Biden arrives in Scranton today to raise money for one of the participants.

Are you one of the 46 million Americans without health insurance? Well, you may not have that, uh, luxury for much longer. “A federal judge in Michigan on Thursday dismissed one of more than 15 legal challenges to the new health care law, becoming the first to rule that the law is constitutional,” reports The Times’s Kevin Sack. “The central question, which may ultimately fall to the Supreme Court, is whether the Commerce Clause of the Constitution gives Congress the authority to require citizens to obtain a commercial product, namely health insurance. Starting in 2014, the law will require most...

They campaign for and donate hundreds of thousands towards implementation of Obamacare, and then after the legislation becomes law and someone actually READS it, they find out some of the union members will lose their health care insurance since the programs do not meet the medical loss ratio mandate. McDonald's was not the only company to get a waiver. The branch of the American Federation of Teachers in New York City also got a waiver.

Eleven months ago, I wrote about the future physician shortage mentioned in the Wall Street Journal. This was prior to the passage of the Democrat-owned health care legislation and nobody wanted to discuss the issue. A study by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) notes the shortage will now be worse than expected. For a variety of reasons, the physician shortage is expected to be 50 percent worse than originally expected. Low Medicare reimbursement rates, the increased cost of education, and the fact Congress FROZE the number of Medicare-sponsored resident programs in 1997 are just some of the issues....

Broken record indeed. The only answer President Obama has in response to questions like the one asked yesterday in Iowa is that he knows times are tough, but at least kids have health care until they are 26 and the government took over the “terrible” student loan system. The president answered the "my son's losing hope" question with his standard BS answer ... which means NOTHING to the kid or the mom. They are running on the passed health care legislation and taking over the student loan market! That's REALLY what they are running on!

The Quebec government had the opportunity to be the first province to enact meaningful reform in health care, but instead it got cold feet. By cancelling its planned $25 user fee for seeing a doctor, Quebec caved in to special interest groups that refuse to acknowledge the necessity of changing how we pay for health care in this country. Quebec Finance Minister Raymond Bachand, acknowledging in his budget speech earlier this year that Quebec's health care system is in serious financial trouble, proposed two new measures: the $25 user fee for seeing a doctor, and a new health tax applied...

Six months ago, President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi rammed Obamacare down the throats of an unwilling American public. Half a year removed from the unprecedented legislative chicanery and backroom dealing that characterized the bill's passage, we know much more about the bill than we did then. A few of the revelations:

All across the United States, health insurance companies like Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Connecticut are meeting with state insurance regulators about premiums. During the past couple of weeks, Anthem proved to Connecticut state regulators an average 18 percent premium increase reflected the requirements of federal health care mandates and increased provider costs. Of course, liberals and Senate candidate Attorney General Dick Blumenthal pull the "they are screwing us" card once again.

If you read British newspapers, you know their universal health care system is cutting more and more services. There, everyone's right to health care is becoming the right to no care. Do we want that in the USA? Health care as a right means that people are entitled to medical care services, just like free speech and the right to assemble. We do not have to do anything to get them. They are ours by right, and they are free. We have no responsibility and therefore no personal control and/or need to make decisions.

So Obama does a video walking us through healthcare.gov. My first question. How much money did the federal government spend on this website … especially since all of the information on the site already is readily available on the Internet? Just do a search and you’ll see plenty of private sites that already do exactly what healthcare.gov can do, if not more! Read more...

WASHINGTON – Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst warned this morning that the new federal health care legislation will bust Texas’ budget – saddling state taxpayers with $27 billion in extra costs over the next decade. “That’s an astounding number for us,” Dewhurst told the Texas State Society over breakfast, including a half-dozen members of Congress. “We’re on the hook for all those folks we’ve been trying to get to sign up for Medicaid.” Doubling the state’s Medicaid rolls, he said, will mean that health care claims an ever-bigger share of the state budget. And that segment has already grown from one-quarter...

Here’s an interview that Donald Berwick, President Obama’s appointee charged with cutting $500 billion from Medicare, gave in October 2006: Effective leaders know their deficiencies. How do you address yours? I don’t feel like a leader, so it’s very hard for me to project myself into that situation. But inattention to detail is my biggest defect. I’m always leaning forward into something new. I can create a mess. Luckily, I have people who are willing to create the detail around the idea or, if they’re really smart, know which ideas to ignore. The second defect is more personal uncertainty than...

The legal challenge to the federal health care law will begin in earnest this morning, as Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli lobs the nation's first constitutional arguments against the law in a federal courtroom in Richmond. Cuccinelli and his team will get an hour to argue to a federal judge that the law is an unprecedented overreach by Washington that turns the Founders' intention for a limited federal government on its head. The Obama administration will likewise get an hour to argue Cuccinelli's suit is frivolous and should be tossed from court.

NEW YORK, N.Y. (AP) -- Britain's Prince Harry says the bonds between British and American military veterans are strong but can be even stronger. Harry spoke Friday on the flight deck of the Intrepid Sea, Air & Space Museum in New York City during a reception for U.S. and British veterans and their families. The third in line to the British throne said his country can learn from American advances in veterans' care and rehabilitation.....

12,000 Minnesota nurses launch 1-day walkout MINNEAPOLIS -- Outside Abbott Northwestern Hospital, what was called the largest nurses strike in U.S. history began Thursday to the sounds of "Amazing Grace" played on Michael Redmond's bagpipe. The 50-year-old nurse, wearing a red Minnesota Nurses Association T-shirt and green plaid kilt, said he picked the song because of its history as an old abolitionist rallying cry. He played as night-shift nurses walked off the job early Thursday. BuzzHe said he sees a connection between the old fight against slavery and the strike by 12,000 Minnesota nurses. "The rally cry is that we're...

A hard look at the cost of health carePosted By CHRISTINA BLIZZARD Posted 9 hours ago When economists start dishing out advice about health care -- at the request of the government -- get worried. Very worried. I'm alarmed by a report released Thursday, "Charting A Path To Sustainable Health Care in Ontario," by TD Bank economists Don Drummond and Derek Burleton. It's a warning shot across the bow, especially to baby boomers, seniors and doctors. You cost the health system money? Watch out. You're in the government's crosshairs. The government knows it has to make unpopular decisions. It will...

There is something to Trotsky's vision of man under communism. From all historical appearances, man under a totalitarian state functions differently than a man under liberty. And degrees of man exist as society slowly turns from liberty to slavery. The prevailing view is that man under socialized healthcare will remain the same as man today — a man living under a pseudo-free market. In fact, some even believe that man may progress. In this view, the doctor we see today will, at the very least, remain the same under socialized health care. Don't bet on it. Unlucky Ducks I once...

He must not be talking about employees of medical device manufacturers whose jobs may be on the block. He didn’t mention the large employers who may drop health insurance coverage altogether. And there was no mention of the paperwork nightmare imposed on small businesses. That’s just the tip of the iceberg for the nightmare known as Obamacare.

Florida GOP Wants Voters to Reject Obama Health Care Law By Michael Peltier The News Service of Florida Florida voters will be asked in November to defy federal attempts to require Florida residents to carry health insurance under a proposed constitutional amendment that cleared its last legislative hurdle Thursday. In separate actions and following debate in both chambers, the House and Senate approved HJR 37, a joint resolution meant to nullify recent federal health care reforms if approved by voters in November, though opponents question whether the proposal will stand up in the courts. The House vote was 75-42. The...

We -and by “we” I mean hate filled conservative types- joked about the fact that as soon as OBAMACARE was signed into law the offices of doctors and hospitals would be inundated with people looking for their *free care*. Most Obama supporters we talked to didn’t care about the details of the bill and took any criticism that we made as pure partisan lies. Instead, resting on the lofty rhetoric of Barack Obama who proclaimed they had brought “heath care to all” while conveniently bushing aside the fine print...

People are starting to contact insurance companies asking how they can sign up for Obama’s free health care plan. Do you think they will freak out when they find out they have to pay for it, and if they don’t, the IRS will ensure they do?

I intend to chronicle the havoc and devastation Obamacare causes. If you are on facebook, I invite you to join the group "Life (Sucks) Under Obamacare." My hope is that it will be used as a reference and a reminder that big unconstitutional government is destructive. Please join! http://is.gd/b7A20

The White House’s chief business liaison defended the new health-care law against corporate complaints over its costs. White House senior adviser and business liaison Valerie Jarrett said Sunday that the more than $2 billion in writedowns announced by companies anticipating higher benefits costs “is nothing compared to the enormous financial benefits to those very same companies by health insurance reform.” Speaking on ABC News’s “This Week,” Jarrett said the administration is “taking a number of measures that will dramatically reduce the cost [to] business. So on balance, business will come out way ahead, and that was one of the president’s...

Amendment 13 - Slavery Abolished. Ratified 12/6/1865. History 1. Neither slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted, shall exist within the United States, or any place subject to their jurisdiction. 2. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. This is the text of the 13th Ammendment that abolishes slavery and involuntary servitude. Obamacare is not a tax because money is not being collected by the government, but the mandatory purchase clause of Obamacare does require an individual to, against their will, purchase products from a...

While Congress spent the last year debating how to provide health insurance for the uninsured, a little-known provision slipped into the heath care law that could cost some Americans upwards of $2,000 a year. The Class Act, otherwise known as the Community Living Assistance Services and Support Act, is the federal government's first long-term care insurance program. Here's how the program will work: -- The federal government will approach employers next year about alerting workers to the proposed deduction. -- The deduction will work on a sliding scale based on age. Younger workers will be charged less, older workers more....

The Right News received the following email which we feel represents a large portion of Americans attitudes at this time in our history.  One day, we just may wake up and find out that our country has been taken away by those in Washington. To: RightNews, From: A Concerned Citizen Now first off, I am not trying to incite violence. I do have a question though. Why are these politicians surprised when desperate stripped people fight back the only way they can. These politicians live in their ivory towers, surrounded by police, private security, and their teams of bulldog lawyers while...