Free Republic

Many freshman Democrats in the House are defying Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and not voting with the party on key issues. They told Politico they are there to represent their constituents and not make big points with House leadership. Dan Maffei (D-NY) has voted less with his party than any other freshman Democrat. He voted with Republicans to delay the mandates in Obamacare for one year. Fourteen of his colleagues joined him and Pelosi accused them of undermining her. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Shultz (D-FL) took to the House floor to attack the defectors, but Maffei does not regret his actions:...

Just as the Obama administration continues to reel from three major scandals, Republicans are zeroing in on yet one more — this one involving Obamacare as it nears implementation. GOP legislators are targeting Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and the solicitations she made to some of the nation’s top insurance companies and other groups for donations to Enroll America, the nonprofit group charged with selling Obamacare to the public. “Our guys on the Hill think this is the fourth scandal,” Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak told Reuters this week. “It fits into that narrative Republicans are building not only about incompetence...

Note: The following text is a quote: www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/seniors-across-america-host-local-meetings-participate-health-care-tele-town-hall-m Home • Briefing Room • Statements & Releases The White House Office of the Press Secretary For Immediate Release June 07, 2010 Seniors Across America to Host Local Meetings, Participate in Health Care Tele-Town Hall Meeting with President Obama Senior Obama Administration Officials to Attend Local Meetings WASHINGTON—On Tuesday morning, senior citizens across the country will gather at a series of local meetings to participate via phone in a national tele-town hall meeting on the Affordable Care Act with President Barack Obama. Additionally, more than a dozen senior Obama Administration officials will...

A new coalition on Thursday is launching $12 million in television ads to support President Barack Obama’s health-reform plan, in the opening wave of a planned tens of millions of dollars this fall. The new group, funded largely by the pharmaceutical industry, is called Americans for Stable Quality Care. It includes some odd bedfellows: the American Medical Association, FamiliesUSA, the Federation of American Hospitals, PhRMA and SEIU, the service employees’ union. The ads start airing at about 11 a.m. ET Thursday. The group is likely to be the biggest spender in support of health reform. The campaign will serve as...

THE BRIEFING ROOM • THE BLOG THE BLOG TUESDAY, AUGUST 4TH, 2009 AT 6:55 AM Facts Are Stubborn Things Posted by Macon Phillips Opponents of health insurance reform may find the truth a little inconvenient, but as our second president famously said, "facts are stubborn things." Scary chain emails and videos are starting to percolate on the internet, breathlessly claiming, for example, to "uncover" the truth about the President’s health insurance reform positions. In this video, Linda Douglass, the communications director for the White House’s Health Reform Office, addresses one example that makes it look like the President intends to...

IBD Exclusive Series: Government-Run Healthcare: A Prescription For Failure Discourse: At a town hall last week in Dallas, an elderly "mob" with "manufactured" outrage questioned AARP's support for nationalized health care, asking: "Do you work for us or do we work for you?"There were no swastika-wearing grannies at Tuesday's meeting, as House Speaker Nancy Pelosi might claim. Nor were they "taking their cues from talk show hosts, Internet rumor-mongers . . . and insurance rackets," as Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has said. But they were mad as hell at the perception that AARP was selling them out in the...

DNC: GOP 'inciting angry mobs' of 'rabid right wing extremists' @ 4:13 pm by Michael O'Brien The Democratic National Committee (DNC) accused Republicans of fueling "mob rule" by way of encouraging conservative protesters of Democratic lawmakers and the Obama administration across the country. DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse brought out the heavy artillery in a lengthy statement issued late Tuesday blasting the GOP and enablers in interest groups for spurring the protests. "The Republicans and their allied groups — desperate after losing two consecutive elections and every major policy fight on Capitol Hill — are inciting angry mobs of a small...

Those who would push for national healthcare, in addition to bombarding the rest of us with meaningless statistics about the supposed number of Americans who have no insurance and also create the fictitious ranking of American healthcare vs other countries are usually the same people who supported free and unlimited emergency room care for everyone who walks through the door - paid for by the rest of us in our insurance costs and our taxes. There is no-one in the USA who cannot afford a $20 – 30 co-payment for emergency room care once or twice a year (which would...

WASHINGTON (PAI)--The Bush administration poses a large threat to health care, and especially for the poor through its proposed Medicaid changes, Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y.) said. Clinton told hundreds of health care activists Jan. 27 at a Families USA conference that Bush wants to "block grant" Medicaid. That would limit federal dollars to the states. The money helps pay medical costs for 50 million people, including the poor and the elderly poor. Such block grants in turn would throw more of the burden of paying for medical care onto cash-strapped state governments, she said. That already forces some of them,...

E-mail Author Send to a Friend <% printurl = Request.ServerVariables("URL")%> Print Version June 22, 2004, 8:56 a.m. PharmaPez?Drug studies; are as fake as sugar pills. By Michael Fumento Americans have a love-hate relationship with pharmaceutical companies. We're delighted that they've done so much to increase the quality and lengths of our lives and that they consistently develop better products. We just wish the prices were a bit lower — perhaps on the order of Pez candy. Unfortunately some "citizens groups" exploit this ambiguity with self-published "studies" claiming drug companies exist only to gouge us — especially seniors. One such,...