Free Republic

**SNIP** Dear Leader Reid and Leader Pelosi: When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat. Right now, unless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class. **SNIP** Since the ACA was enacted, we have been bringing our deep concerns to the Administration,...

When Sarah Palin first warned about death panels and ObamaCare, the president and his allies were quick to laugh. Sending grandma off to an icy, watery grave was the stuff of Inuit legends, never the intention of liberals fighting to pass a law that could and would have serious implications for America’s senior citizens, despite the AARP’s inexplicable endorsement. Reading Charles Blow’s column in the New York Times yesterday, however, one can appreciate the origins of Palin’s concerns. Considering progressives’ descriptions of children as burdens, not blessings, it’s understandable that they would feel similarly about another “useless” subsection of our...

ELMA — A partisan dispute briefly eclipsed the fun at the Grays Harbor County Fair on Friday when the director of the fair had to ask Republicans to stop shooting Nerf guns at a poster poking fun at Democrats. Since Wednesday, the Grays Harbor Republicans have had a poster of a donkey up in their booth in the fairgrounds pavilion. The donkey states, “Help me try out Obamacare! I don’t know what’s covered because I haven’t read it yet.” And there’s a bull’s eye with points like a dart board on the donkey’s forehead and the donkey’s rear end. Former...

The president said that Republicans have one unifying principle - denying 30 million Americans the right to health care. Ummm... The CBO said that there would be 30 million without insurance even with ObamaCare fully implemented. Obama. Mixed up. Fail.

This is another “guest post” by The Very Honorable Ima Librul, Senator from the State of Confusion Utopia. He was the first person of consequence to announce changes to the Bill of Rights enacted by President Obama and we are honored to have a post of this caliber by a quintessential Librul such as the Senator. He is a charter member of President Obama’s Go For It Team, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Meretricious Relations Subcommittee. He is also justly proud of his expertise in the care and breeding of unicorns, for which his...

Republican backers of the Michigan Senate work group's version of House Bill 4714, the Medicaid expansion measure, are trying to sell it as Medicaid reform. In reality, as even the regular news media has focused on, the legislation is about expanding Medicaid and cooperating with the implementation of Obamacare. It now appears that even the so-called reforms in the bill, are of questionable value. "My goodness, these are out of the Stone Age,” Linda Gorman, senior fellow and director of health policy with the Independence Institute in Denver, said regarding the list of reforms. "Couldn't they at least have brought...

The House assistant Democratic leader said on Sunday that his party will campaign on President Obama’s controversial healthcare law in 2014. “We will be running on ObamaCare in 2014,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “In fact, we set it up to run on it in 2014,” he continued. “We fully expect to run on it; we expect to win on it. The American people will be the winner.” Clyburn noted that major provisions of the law are expected to go into effect on Oct. 1 and Jan. 1, 2014, leaving Democrats...

In a fiery address over the weekend, Sen. Ted Cruz's father told a crowd of Christian conservatives in Iowa that the United States is edging toward socialism under President Barack Obama, as he joined his son in denouncing Obamacare. According to ABC News, Texas pastor Rafael Cruz also offered a veiled comparison of Obama to Cuban leader Fidel Castro as he spoke of being a Cuban immigrant who fled the perils of socialism at the time of Castro's communist revolution and later became a U.S. citizen. In an apparent reference to Obama's 2008 campaign theme of "hope and change," Cruz...

Boehner’s spokesman, Michael Steel, told The Daily Caller on Sunday that the talk took place, but he declined to provide any details. Early this year, Boehner swore off future closed-door negotiations with Obama, after Obama used his post-election clout, plus his allies in the media, to force a tax increase through Congress.

Vitriol has gone beyond partisan give-and-take in the nation’s politics. It is now seeping into and poisoning the ranks of the Republican Party. Mainstream Republican politicians are cringing at the proposal of tea party Senators -– Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Marco Rubio (R-FL) -– to hold federal appropriations legislation hostage in their quest to defund Obamacare. Republicans opposing this strategy see it as lose-lose. They don’t believe this tactic will work. And at the same time, they see it producing more antipathy toward Republicans and branding them as zealots and obstructionists. I think the tea partiers are on...

Obamacare was sold to the public with a series of Big Lies. They were repeated endlessly, and for the most part, they were not challenged by the media. Here is an excellent reminder of the bold lies... [snip] Rational people know that government does not do things efficiently, inexpensively, or well. No thinking person would believe that adding over 100 new government bureaucracies to the provision of health care would decrease costs or improve quality. Just look at the economics of Medicare and Medicaid. Universal health care is an economic black hole of major proportions... [snip] UPDATE 2: Harry Reid...

Friday, Barack “Reach Across the Aisle� Obama had an amped-up message for low-information voters: It is the “holy grail� of Republicans to make sure that 30 million Americans don’t have health insurance. As reported by The Hill, in addition to saying that blocking ObamaCare has become the GOP’s “holy grail,� Obama called Republican opposition to his troubled healthcare plan (which is opposed by ever-increasing percentage of Americans) an “ideological fixation� as well.Not only is this guy absolutely horrendous with a terrible record of reaching across the aisle outstanding at “reaching across the aisle,� he’s also pretty good at ridiculing, too....

Ah, some gallows humor on a Sunday evening. Currently trending on Twitter is the now popular hashtag: #obamacarehitsongs. Here are some of the offerings... #obamacarehitsongs Highway to Hell Let's Get Retarded ‘Who Let the Docs Out?' And we'll have fun, fun, fun till the doctor takes the oxygen away... (Don't Fear) The Death Panel. Bill me, Maybe Money for Nothin' Back in the U.S.S.R. Livin on a prayer. We Don't Need No Obstetrician How much is that Doctor in the Window Take it to the limit .... Or whatever my co pay is Another one bites the dust. Proud Barry...

House Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Sunday that Democrats deliberately structured Obamacare to use as an issue in the 2014 election. During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Candy Crowley noted that many of the law’s more popular items (coverage for pre-existing conditions, for example) kick in in 2014, while the part requiring all employers to provide health insurance, for instance, was delayed until after the 2014 election. “The fact of the matter is, we will be running on Obamacare in 2014. In fact, we set it up to run on it in 2014,” Clyburn...

Joseph E. Schmitz' Perspective: The Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, and 19 House colleagues co-sponsored H.Res. 153 on April 12, “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 violates article I, section 7, clause 1 of the United States Constitution because it was a ‘Bill for raising Revenue’ that did not originate in the House of Representatives.” The Supreme Court has never before addressed an Origination Clause challenge that was so blatantly obvious. The only surprise is that no one raised...

We’re talking about non-profit hospitals, but a sizable percentage of them are religious hospitals affiliated with the Catholic Church, various Jewish and Protestant hospitals, formerly or currently representing some religious status. Catholic hospitals make up some of the largest non-profits in the country. Indeed the top four systems in the country are Catholic. Next on the list is Kaiser Permanente, which is non-religious and which Obama described as a model for Obamacare. Its CEO, George Halvorson, has met with Obama and his top people and pushed Obamacare. Draw your own conclusions. In either case, the Obamacare non-profit clampdown will empower...

On July 18, President Obama held an event at the White House to promote Obamacare. It was Calculated Deception writ large, which is Obama’s rhetorical style of taking advantage of what he shrewdly calculates the great majority of average Americans will not know, and what he is certain the so-called mainstream media will not tell them. That smacks of third world style, authoritarian propaganda. Obama falsely claimed, “In states like California, Oregon, Washington, new competition, new choices, market forces are pushing costs down.” I have already discussed in prior posts the misrepresentation regarding proposed premiums for 2014 on the California...

Ames, Iowa — Ted Cruz argued today that it was vital that Obamacare be defunded. “A lot of politciians in Washington in both parties are telling the American people it can’t be done,” Cruz said in a speech at The Family Leader Summit. “Why? Because Barack Obama will always stand for his principles, so America, apparently conservatives have to give up on ours.” “Our friends in the media happily repeat that much,” he added. “They say ‘this is a fool’s errand, you’re tilting at windmills.’ Let me tell you, if we can hold 41 Republicans in the U.S. senate or...

In the just-released Spring 2013 issue of Harvard Health Policy Review, I have an article titled “ObamaCare: The Plot Thickens.” The article examines the IRS rule that purportedly implements ObamaCare’s tax credits, but actually violates that statute by taxing, borrowing, and spending hundreds of billions of dollars contrary to Congress’ explicit instructions. The article is a less-technical version of my Health Matrix article (coauthored with Jonathan Adler, “Taxation Without Representation: The Illegal IRS Rule to Expand Tax Credits Under the PPACA.”) Here’s an excerpt: In broad daylight, the Internal Revenue Service is attempting to tax, borrow, and spend [roughly] $800 billion—contrary to...

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP -- The day U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg died, Alieta Eck was treating a patient at the free health clinic for the poor and uninsured she operates with her husband in Somerset County. The patient, she said, had just learned her minimum-wage job was being cut from 37 to 29 hours a week, with her employer blaming the costs associated with President ObamaÂ’s health care overhaul. "She didnÂ’t know what she was going to do," Eck said. "I realized: Obamacare is going to hurt people. How are we going to stop it?" Eck paused. "Then," she said, "I got...

Just saw it mid day saturday. theatre was pretty crowded but not packed. i kind of liked it. damon was good as low level criminal that gets into a big big mess. Jodie Foster was really good as the evil b*&%h that runs the space station habitat. For reasons never explained she speaks French, and has some odd kind of French accent. Aside from that she fills the roll. She also fills out her tight skirt, looks like Ms. Foster has ballooned a little. Might have gone another way on the rear tight skirt shots. Double wide. Lot of stuff...

AMES, Iowa — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is the subject of endless 2016 presidential speculation, and if he does decide to run, he’s already learned one important lesson. “You all had the opportunity earlier this afternoon to get to know my father. And as you saw, my dad is very soft spoken,” Cruz joked during a speech in Iowa this weekend. “I will confess, I am today violating what has been a cardinal rule, which is never, ever, ever follow my father at the podium.” Cruz and his father, Rafael, a Texas pastor, both addressed a gathering of Christian conservatives...

“Looks like Obamacare is more “on track” than “train wreck,” gloated the experts on Barack Obama’s Think Progress website as they reported the Master’s healthcare scheme was literally forcing America’s insurers to lower their premiums. (1) The glad tidings arose back in May after Oregon providers Providence Health Plan and Family Care Health requested premium rate reductions from the state-run ObamaCare exchange. (Actually, the state just gets to PAY for the exchange. It’s RUN by Kathleen Sebelius at HHS.) Naturally this was big news for Affordable Care Act fans. After all, what could be better than private insurers wanting permission...

The U.S. Department of Justice has said it will not oppose a lawsuit filed by a Michigan-based Christian-run business that is seeking suspension of enforcement of the abortion pill mandate against it. In the lawsuit by Trijicon, which manufactures sights and scopes for the military, law enforcement, and hunter, the Justice Department has notified the court it will not oppose the business' request for a court order that would suspend enforcement of the mandate against the company, Alliance Defending Freedom said in a statement on Friday. "All Americans, including job creators, should be free to honor God and live according...

The way D.C. political operatives are reacting to the news that Liz Cheney is challenging Sen. Mike Enzi in the Wyoming GOP primary, you’d think the Republican Party had another Sharron Angle on their hands — someone so much more conservative and rhetorically unrestrained than the incumbent or establishment candidate that she wins the primary only to lose a winnable general election race by a wide margin.Well, Cheney is famously unrestrained. But that’s about where the similarities end. Wyoming is so deep red that the winner of the GOP primary will sail through the general, no matter who it is....

WICHITA, KS, August 9, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Numerous mainstream and left-leaning media outlets have highlighted the “Abortion Rights Freedom Rides,” a caravan of activists now traveling to 14 states to support "Abortion on demand and without apology." However, no media outlet has reported that the event is being conducted by the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, a cult-like Maoist sect that calls for “millions of people to rise up in mass armed revolution” against the United States “when the time is right.” The abortion freedom rides are being led by Stop Patriarchy, a front group for the Revolutionary Communist Party USA...

Why is it we are so appalled when we hear of some grotesque botched abortion procedures or of over over zealous abortion workers carrying out their paid duties? I mean, after all we are a country that legally endorses abortion — infanticide actually. Truthfully speaking, what exactly are we to expect to happen in a death mill? There job isn’t exactly to save lives. Their operation is death. So why are we outraged to hear of the details? For starters, it begins with principles. To simply admire choice is really refusing to choose. However, that tiny sense of morality shocks...

--snip-- Detroit is hardly the first city to think of having ObamaCare subsidize its retirees. Chicago, which is in financial difficulty but not bankruptcy, announced a similar plan even before Detroit. Other cities — some not even financially distressed — are contemplating doing the same thing. And why not? ObamaCare imposes no penalties on governments that offload their retirees — in contrast to large employers who offload their active employees.

An abortion center that’s open seven days a week in Florida is giving away coupons to poor women in a crisis pregnancy so they can save money on their abortions!

Video at link

Sarah Palin joined Eric Bolling on Fox News this morning to take a mini-victory lap over some Democrats suddenly embracing the idea she put forth years ago over health care “death panels.” Palin felt somewhat vindicated, but didn’t want to “condone them… for trying to jump off the Obama train wreck.” She told Bolling that rationing was in the health care law from the beginning, and the Democrats who didn’t notice it until now did not want to look like “buffoons.” Palin also took the media to task for wasting an opportunity at President Obama‘s big press conference to grill...

When President Obama said during his press conference Friday, "The one unifying principle in the Republican Party at the moment is making sure that 30 million people don't have health care," the liberal media predictably echoed his sentiments. Yet if they did a little research, such folks would find that almost half of that 30 million are those being forced to buy health insurance against their will. One such clueless individual is the Washington Post's Nia-Malika Henderson who said on MSNBC's Politics Nation Friday, "I think that Obama framed it very nicely today when he said that they want to...

People who have no substance in their arguments have only one thing to fall back on. When the positions they have taken, be it on political, societal, or religious issues, have no basis in fact, they can only do one thing. How else can they argue their points, if they have no real argument? Their only option is to use demagoguery to drown out their opponents. Many liberals are masters at demagoguery, but none are as adept at it than President Obama and Harry Reid. To get a sense of what I mean, we need to look at the definition...

Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he hopes Republicans who oppose the president do so “based on substance and not the fact that he's an African-American.” The comment came during a wide-ranging interview Friday with Las Vegas-based National Public Radio affiliate KNPR, in which Reid lamented Republican filibusters and claimed opponents do everything they can to make Obama fail. … Reid’s comments went unchallenged by the program’s moderator, but not by Newsmax contributor and Conservative African-American columnist Clarence V. McKee, who said there was no reason for Reid to bring up the race issue during the interview. … He...

As I wrote about in my earlier post....the whole system was designed to fail and either lawmakers were too stupid to understand this or knew it from the beginning, and wanted it: From the administration’s point of view, conceding that key parts of Obamacare cannot be implemented isn’t a failure if the effect is to swell enrollment on the exchanges. The insurance subsidy entitlement, administered through the exchanges, is the single-payer scheme at the heart of the law. If you peel away provisions like the employer mandate and Medicaid expansion, what’s left is a universal health care entitlement—enforced through the...

One smart-as-a-whip sci-fi thriller does not a summer make, but "Elysium" is good enough to suggest that the cyborgs of Hollywood have not, in fact, risen up and taken over. Starring Matt Damon in extra muscles and a shaven skull, it contains enough hardware for all the Home Depots of the future, and an atmosphere of grimy oppression one can almost taste.... The year is 2154. A dusty, rusted, wasted Earth has become the despoiled home of the have-nots; the haves are in residence aboard a wagon-wheel-shaped space station named for the Elysian Fields of the ancients Greeks, the inside...

In just about seven weeks, people will be able to start buying Obamacare-approved insurance plans through the new health care exchanges. But already, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is predicting those plans, and the whole system of distributing them, will eventually be moot. Reid said he thinks the country has to “work our way past” insurance-based health care during a Friday night appearance on Vegas PBS’ program “Nevada Week in Review.” “What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever,” Reid said. When then asked...

The Las Vegas Sun reports that during an appearance on "Nevada Week In Review,"Reid answered "Yes. Yes. Absolutely, yes," when asked if "the country would have to have a health care system that abandoned insurance as the means of accessing it." The idea of introducing a single-payer national health care system to the United States, or even just a public option, sent lawmakers into a tizzy back in 2009, when Reid was negotiating the health care bill. “We had a real good run at the public option … don’t think we didn’t have a tremendous number of people who wanted...

Republicans are virtually unanimous about one thing: They want to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare). But what would they replace it with? Actually, there is a serious GOP proposal. It's called the Patients' Choice Act, sponsored by Sen. Tom Coburn (R-Okla.) and Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.). This is essentially the health reform plan that John McCain proposed when he ran for president in 2008. The GOP proposal is actually more "progressive" than ObamaCare. And, unlike the Democratic approach, it solves problems rather than creating new ones. Yet Republican politicians almost never mention it. How does it work?...

Promise the impossible, confess impotence, point fingers. Repeat.I’ve been putting off unpacking President Obama’s answer on Obamacare at his press conference today, so packed full is it of straw men and misrepresentations and fantasy and smears and straight-up lies. But here we go. The Cliffs Notes are the sentence above, if you should prefer to refer to them.The takeaway is that, despite there being literally no way to wring good news about Obamacare from any question to any poll with any demographic, the president has decided his continued confidence in the program, which reality proves to be increasingly misplaced every...

The new movie Elysium, starring Matt Damon and Jodie Foster, is more loaded with liberal politics than an Organizing For America fundraising pitch. It’s more loaded with liberalism than an Ivy League gender studies department. More loaded, even, than an MSNBC roundtable discussion.   Still, it’s a pretty cool movie, featuring an intelligent, if scary, take on the future. And so it merits our attention, because even if one doesn’t agree with its liberal slant, one must realize that liberals have half, at least, of the marbles in American politics--that is, the White House, the Senate, and, of course, the...

ObamaCare: Some Democrats are signing on to bills repealing the powers of the Independent Payment Advisory Board to effectively ration health care for seniors. So Sarah Palin was right about those death panels after all? Palin was mocked by liberals when at a Tea Party rally in Reno, Nev., in late 2010, shortly before the GOP retook the House of Representatives, she told attendees: "Don't be thinking that we've got victory for America in the bag yet. ... We can't party like it's 1773." Leftist know-it-alls insisted that 1776 was the correct year, when in fact Palin was right: The...

This is how Democrats say thanks– Today Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid went on KNPR in Las Vegas to discuss current affairs. One question he faced was about union uproar over Obamacare. Harry Reid said it’s time for them to give up their Cadillac plans and “put some skin in the game.” “Let’s understand where we are with the unions. One of the things we’ve learned with all of the hearings we held, dozens and dozens of them, is that if you have insurance you have to be able to have some skin in the game as we say in...

Texas is experiencing a drought of townhalls from certain Congressmen. A conservative activist from Houston poked me yesterday saying, “Ted Poe and Cornyn are not being good boys about scheduling town halls.” I had a look at the Texas Town Hall Schedule she sent, put together by the Tea Party Immigration Coalition “listing targets for townhalls from the pro-amnesty forces” and I can hardly disagree. - See more at: http://ramparts360.com/a-drought-of-texas-town-halls/#sthash.JSrmyGRp.dpuf

Financial QUESTION: Obama and Democrats Trying To SEIZE Retirement Accounts (IRAs, 401Ks) ? Aug 9, 2013 I want to know what other Free Republic Members know about this H.R. 2035: Automatic IRA Act of 2013 I got an e-mail stating: "Obama & BIG Government Are Planning To Seize Retirement Accounts!" President Obama’s FY2014 Budget Plan brings us one Large step closer to De-Privatizing IRA’s & 401k’s. Much like Obamacare, Obama’s “Automatic IRA” will force employers with 10 employees or more, to “automatically” enroll their workers in the new Government run accounts. Obama’s Automatic IRA will be managed by the Social...

Maybe it was the upbeat mood of a man about to go on vacation, but President Obama seemed feistier than usual in making the case today for his policies on surveillance, health care and immigration reform. During his second term, Obama has sometimes seemed back on his heels in defending his policies against Republican attack, but that wasn’t the case in his White House news conference Friday. He argued for what he called, at one point, “common sense” solutions, with seeming confidence that he has the upper hand politically against the GOP. Obama’s attempts to hold the middle ground, and...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Here are 239 examples of Barack Obama’s lying, lawbreaking, corruption, cronyism, etc. In the 2008 United States election, I wrote in Ron Paul for President. In the 2012 election, I voted for Libertarian Party candidate Gary Johnson. Those who are of a more leftist persuasion than myself might want to consider voting for the Green Party in future elections. Some of the things on this list are major events that should scare the daylights out of any true liberal who cares about civil liberties.Other things on this list are medium things that some Obama supporters may...

At a White House press conference Friday afternoon, President Obama said that health insurance plans offered under Obamacare will be "significantly cheaper" than plans currently on the market, but a string of recent reports say that isn't true.

The online insurance exchange that Oregon established under President Barack Obama's healthcare law will not allow residents to sign up for coverage on their own when enrollment begins nationwide on Oct. 1, state officials say. The state is the first to say it won't be open for all comers by that date, raising concerns that other states running their own "Obamacare" exchanges might also be struggling. The decision by Oregon, an enthusiastic supporter of the Affordable Care Act, gives ammunition to opponents who have warned of an Obamacare "train wreck." Instead of enrolling in health insurance online themselves, at least...

An article at a12iggymom's Blog about an environmentalist decision to terminate ninety percent of Mother Gaia's population starts with this: The Human Race has been declared a hostile species and a threat to the planet: the environmentalists have said so. Obama’s buddy Cass Sunstein, argues strongly for human euthanasia. “…what we call after-birth abortion should be permissible. …” Dave Foreman, Co-Founder of Earth First: “We humans have become a disease, the Humanpox.” Roger Martin, environmental activist, “Fewer people mean better lives.” Obamacare death panels. Democrat strategist Steven Rattner said, “We need death panels…until we start allocating health care resources more prudently—rationing, by...