Free Republic

Medical costs for enrollees in the health-care law’s high-risk insurance pools are expected to more than double initial predictions, the Obama administration said Thursday in a report on the new program. The health-care law set aside $5 billion for a Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, meant to provide health insurance to those who had been declined coverage by private carriers. Since its launch last summer, nearly 50,000 Americans have enrolled in the program. The PCIP program will phase out in 2014, when insurers will be required to accept all applicants regardless of their health-care status.Those who have enrolled in the program...

It's been two weeks since George Soros bought himself a major economic conference designed to remake the entire global economy. Just because the event received little major news attention, it still had an impact Americans might be reeling from for years. When the anti-American Soros spent $50 million creating the New York City-based Institute for New Economic Thinking (INET), he set in motion a major move against the dollar. The billionaire who once crushed the British pound through currency trading openly declared his plans to 'reform the currency system.' In the Machiavellian mind of Soros, the dollar needed to take...

The House health-care reform bill proposes to decrease hospital visits by establishing a “medical home pilot program” for elderly and disabled Americans. Such a medical home would not require a physician to be on the staff, and therefore could be run solely by nurse practitioners and physician assistants. Medical homes also would practice “evidence-based” medicine, which advocates only the use of medical treatments that are supported by effectiveness research. But physicians’ groups say the legislation could lead to restrictions on which treatments may be used for certain conditions, despite the fact that some patients might require a unique or unconventional...

WASHINGTON -- It’s unlikely that the United States will ever live down the shame of torture during the Bush-Cheney administration. It’s history now and all the piety and wit of those former U.S. officials responsible for this horrendous chapter cannot wipe out a word of it. Mark Danner published in the New York Review of Books excerpts of a leaked report by the International Committee of the Red Cross on CIA interrogation techniques used at secret U.S. "black site" prisons abroad and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The Red Cross report is based on Red Cross interviews in 2006 with 14 "high...

Rumors about the death of Cuban President, Fidel Alejandro Castro Ruz, are nothing new and have circulated many times before, but many Cuban exiles in Miami believe this one is for real. With no word from Fidel Castro on his birthday (August 13), speculation about his “departure” have increased. If Castro is not already dead, it is probably safe to say that, from a political point of view, he longer exists. Fidel transferred his presidential powers to his brother (and successor) Raúl Modesto Castro Ruz earlier this year (although this happened provisionally in July 2006), while receiving surgery to repair...

Every theater-style seat in the White House briefing room, now closed for renovation, had a brass plaque inscribed with the name of a news organization. Only one, in the middle of the front row, had a name: “HELEN THOMAS,” it said. The unique assigned seat between the chairs for CBS News and ABC News was reserved for the legendary United Press International correspondent who is now a columnist for Hearst Newspapers. The press corps is scheduled to move from temporary facilities back into the spiffed-up, rewired briefing room in May or June. Thomas, who has been questioning presidents and press...

America Radio, the liberal news and talk radio network headlined by the comedian Al Franken, has another week to find a buyer. A lawyer for the network, Tracy Klestadt, told a bankruptcy hearing Monday that the company was in "advanced negotiations with a few parties" about a sale, and expected to have more definitive news on a deal in a week. Under its financing agreement, the network had faced a deadline of this Wednesday to have a deal in place for a buyer, but Klestadt said the network's lender had informally agreed to extend the deadline by about a week....

Because I think it's important to know what they're saying, I was listening to Air Amerika tonight and one of the young Kennedy's was doing a commercial urging a Democratic Vote. He was railing on the Diebolds and how they were sure to skew the votes in favor of the Republicans. He then said that the votes were tampered in the 2000 elections, the 2004 elections, the 2006 elections and we must be sure they don't do it in the 2008 elections. He said the 2006 votes were tampered with and we haven't even gone to the polls! Sounds like...

HOLLYWOOD - Movie star and activist Jane Fonda has blasted President George W. Bush on national TV because his international politics make her worry for the safety of her grandchildren. Speaking on advertising mogul Donnie Deutsch's nightly chat show on Thursday, the actress got angry when she was asked to explain her feelings for Bush. She fumed, "I am so frightened for this country and if we don't see change in the mid-term elections... I have grandchildren and I have never in my 68 years been so frightened for what's happening to our country. "We're turning the world against us....

A Kurdish villager testified Tuesday he left behind his mother and two sisters as he fled a 1988 attack by Saddam Hussein's forces. Years later, his relatives' identity cards were found in a mass grave, he said. "Congratulations! You are in a cage, Saddam," witness Ghafour Hassan Abdullah said as he stared at the ousted president. Saddam listened silently but lost his temper when a lawyer described Iraqi Kurdish rebels as freedom fighters. "You are agents of Iran and Zionism! We will crush your heads!" he shouted. Saddam and six others are on trial for their roles in the 1987-88...

For an event that would turn a page in American history, former president Jimmy Carter has agreed in principle to host former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami for talks during his visit to the United States starting this week. Carter's term as president was dominated by the rupture in relations after the 1979 Iranian revolution and the takeover of the U.S. Embassy in Tehran, where 52 Americans were held hostage for 444 days until the day he left office. Iranians made the overture for the meeting, and the Carter Center in Atlanta is working on the possible timing, said Phil Wise,...

Former US president Jimmy Carter lashed out at British Prime Minister Tony Blair for being "so compliant and subservient" to the Bush administration in Washington. "I have been surprised and extremely disappointed with Tony Blair's behaviour," Carter told the Sunday Telegraph newspaper as he promoted his new book "Faith and Freedom." "I think that, more than any other person in the world, the prime minister could have had a moderating influence on Washington, and he has not," said the 81-year-old former head of state. He faulted Blair for not having been a constraint on US President George W. Bush's decision...

"Thousands Remember Coretta Scott King" ---------- I was watching Fox News and they showed Jimmy Carter speaking at Coretta Scott King's funeral, and sure enough, he started talking about illegal wire-tapping and other examples of government run amok. I am appalled that he would use this opportunity to bash the President, but not really surprised. :-(

President Bush today again avoided taking a question from White House doyenne Helen Thomas during his 45-minute press conference, even though he took questions from every reporter around her front-row, center seat. "He's a coward," Thomas said afterward. "He's supposed to be this macho guy. He'll take on Osama bin Laden, but he won't take me on." Thomas, who worked as the UPI White House reporter for 57 years and is now a columnist, raised her hand every time the president was concluding an answer to a reporter's question, but he never called on her. Thomas, who worked as the...

Is She Alive? -Amos the Prophet She lays unthinking-unfeeling-unknowing that she is alive. Now dying of thirst and hunger but peaceful, beautiful and serene. She does not, cannot, know of the uproar that surrounds her. She is oblivious, unreachable, beyond all we cherish as human. Or she is not. Or she is aware and knows the terror that dominates her. Or she knows the names and faces of her enemies and fears their horrible power. Or she longs for a few more minutes with those who cherish her. Or she yearns for a drop of water. Does she know that...

I've got news for President George W. Bush. Since its birth, the United States has always been a beacon light of freedom and has spread the good word about democracy and self government through ideas and aid -- but not at gunpoint. Has Bush ever heard of the Marshall Plan, the Peace Corps, the Voice of America and exchange student programs? The United States was the model of freedom for the rest of the world until the president kicked off his new, macho doctrine of preemptive war, with the unprovoked attack on Iraq being the first test of that theory....

Ramallah - Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat is suffering from a potentially fatal blood disorder which will require more tests outside the West Bank to determine the cause, one of the doctors treating him said Thursday. "His blood cells which should normally destroy microbes are currently destroying blood platelets," the doctor said on condition of anonymity. The disorder could have been triggered "by an inflammation caused by a virus, a cancer or blood poisoning," he told reporters. The supplemtary tests could not be conducted in Arafat's West Bank headquarters where he is currently being treated, he added. "The doctors think that...

CNN breaking news red banner Arafat refusing to go to Paris.

WASHINGTON (AP) - Actor Tony Randall has a fantasy: when he dies President Bush and Vice President Cheney show up to pay their respects but they're turned away - because his family knows he didn't like them. Feeling his own mortality while suffering a cold, Randall, 83, made his remarks as the National Funeral Directors Association announced a new code of ethics for its members, beginning in 2004. Funerals should be planned as a celebration of life and "a touch of humor doesn't hurt a bit," Randall said. A comedian, Randall is best known for his role as Felix Unger...

Former Ugandan leader Idi Amin - whose 1971 to 1979 regime was one of the bloodiest in African history - reportedly remains in a coma after three days on a life support machine. A hospital official told the Associated Press news agency that his condition had deteriorated on Monday after stabilising on Sunday. "He is still alive. But he remains in critical condition in the intensive care unit" at King Faisal Specialist Hospital in the Red Sea port city of Jeddah, one of Saudi Arabia's top medical centres, another medical source at the hospital was quoted as saying by...

PRESIDENT Fidel Castro was at the forefront of very special and emotive events in Ecuador related to the inauguration of the Chapel of Humankind and other activities during an official three-day visit to that country at the invitation of President Noboa Bejarano.After two previous visits (1971 and 1988), on this occasion Fidel, as guest of honor, was proclaimed an Illustrious Guest of the City of Quito, an honor likewise conferred on Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez, another participant at the festivities.In a solemn ceremony, and to his evident emotion, the Cuban leader was presented with a replica of the key of...