Free Republic

The majority of hospitals in England are being given financial rewards for placing terminally-ill patients on a controversial “pathway” to death, it can be disclosed. Almost two thirds of NHS trusts using the Liverpool Care Pathway have received payouts totalling millions of pounds for hitting targets related to its use, research for The Daily Telegraph shows. The figures, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act, reveal the full scale of financial inducements for the first time. They suggest that about 85 per cent of trusts have now adopted the regime, which can involve the removal of hydration and nutrition from...

However, in August, 2011 the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced new guidelines to ensure women receive preventive health services at no additional cost to them. The guidelines require insurance plans to cover certain women’s preventive services at 100%. These new required Health Care Reform mandates added a significant increase to our health care plan. With this in mind, we would like to announce the following for 2013. Please use the information below as a check-off list when completing your open enrollment: HEALTH COVERAGE – BlueCross BlueShield remains the Health Plan provider for 2013. There are no...

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as ObamaCare, contains the largest new entitlement since the Great Society in the form of health insurance subsidies. As anyone with even a modicum of historical knowledge would expect, that entitlement’s cost is already growing much faster than originally projected. In fact, even though the subsidies have not yet gone into effect, they are expected to cost almost 25 percent more than initial estimates from just two years ago. Furthermore, the subsidies’ price tag is likely to continue to rise as a result of increasing healthcare costs, a sluggish economy,...

I decided to support Barack Obama pretty early in the Democratic primary, around spring of 2007. But unlike so many of his supporters, I never experienced a kind of emotional response to his candidacy. I never felt his election would change everything about American politics or government, that it would lead us out of the darkness. Nothing Obama did or said ever made me well up with tears. Possibly for that same reason, I have never felt even a bit of the crushing sense of disappointment that at various times has enveloped so many Obama voters. I supported Obama because...

In just 14 months, Americans will be required to prove that they have federally "qualified" health insurance or face an Obamacare tax of $695 to $2,085. That is unless you are in prison, below the poverty line, or are an undocumented immigrant, according to the anti-tax group Americans for Tax Reform. When added together, those three groups total up to one-sixth of the nation's population of 314 million: 218,929 are in federal prisons, 12 million are illegals and 42 million are below the poverty line and eligible for welfare, though some fit into all three categories, according to federal reports....

Dear Mr. Chairman: On Thursday June 28, 2012 the Supreme Court of the United States upheld the monstrous legislation known as “Obamacare.” As I am sure you are aware, the Washington State Attorney General and a Republican candidate for Washington State Governor, Rob McKenna, has said that he opposes a repeal of any portion of the Affordable Care Act and is ready to implement it if elected Governor of Washington. This statement by a Republican candidate is both shocking and offensive. I had the honor and privilege of representing my congressional district as delegate to the 2012 WSRP Convention. As...

Mitt Romney tells people he won't fire federal workers or cut education spending. He says he'll spend more on the military. He sounds like a big-government guy. Or is he just pandering for votes? Ann Coulter came on my TV show to defend Romney. "What you call pandering is called getting elected," Coulter said. Romney says he'll repeal Obamacare. Great! But he wants to keep popular parts: coverage for pre-existing conditions and keeping grown kids on their parents' policies until age 26. Those mandates are popular. But that's not insurance. That's welfare. "If we do not repeal Obamacare in...

Talk to an investment guy, talk to a real estate gal, talk to a banker and you will hear that there's scads of money 'on the sidelines' pending the election. Conventional wisdom amongst most of the money folks is that a Romney win will be a quick and clear signal for people to invest again in the private sector. I hope it's true. It feels true. But there is something no one is talking about, and that's the 'sideline doctors'. Every single physician in this country is watching this election with keen interest. For many it will be the deciding...

With the Presidential election one week away, it’s worth reviewing how Obamacare will impact the residents of key swing states. A new survey of physicians has found that 30 percent of doctors in Florida intend to place new or additional limits on accepting Medicare patients, with 27 percent altogether refusing to accept new Medicare patients, because of Obamacare’s impact on the fees that Medicare pays to providers of health-care services. In addition, Obamacare will deeply cut Medicare Advantage for 1.2 million Florida seniors who are enrolled in the program, and drive up the cost of private health coverage, especially for...

President Barack Obama promised that Obamacare would cut family health insurance premiums by $2,500 by the end of the first term--but instead they have risen by $3,000, according to a new Kaiser Family Foundation study cited by Investor’s Business Daily. The cost of health insurance today is more than 50% higher than Obama promised it would be--and the costs are expected to continue to rise as Obamacare is impemented. John Merline of Investor's Business Daily notes the rising costs specifically contradict a campaign promise Obama reiterated several times, including in debates with Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) and at events along...

President Obama himself says the government has no business being involved in women’s health and what we do with our bodies ought to be our choice, but now conveniently timed “guidelines” from doctors, in partnership with the government run Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has issued guidelines that expand coverage for sexual behavior while reducing real women’s health care coverage, proving where the real “warn on women” lies.Under Obamacare regulations women now only have a PAP smear covered every three years. In case you aren’t a woman, which the president isn’t, by the way, PAP smears are generally—were...

The Department of Health and Human Services has mandated that most large employers include in their health plans, at no cost, pharmaceutical contraceptives, sterilization procedures, and certain forms of so-called “emergency contraception.” Catholic philosophers and theologians have been debating whether complying with the mandate would be morally acceptable. They usually begin by asking whether complying would be “formal” or “material” cooperation with evil. If formal, then complying with the mandate is ruled out. But if complying with the HHS mandate is only material cooperation, then complying might be acceptable, depending on a number of considerations: whether the cooperation is mediate,...

As a service to the public, Americans for Tax Reform has released a projected tax form to help families and tax specialists prepare for the additional filing requirement required by the Affordable Healthcare Act's individual mandate. Starting in 2014, all Americans who file income tax returns must complete an additional IRS tax form. The new form requires disclosure of a taxpayer’s personal identifying health information in order to determine compliance with the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate. As confirmed by IRS testimony to the tax-writing House Committee on Ways and Means, “taxpayers will file their tax returns reporting their health...

Over the last six months or so, the Catholic Church in the United States has found itself in some tension with the executive branch of the federal government over a very grave issue: religious freedom. Can a government bureau, in this case the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), define for us or any faith community what is ministry and how it can be exercised? Can government also coerce the church to violate its conscience? Obama had personally assured me that he would do nothing to impede the good work of the Church in health care, education, and charity,...

In an effort to cut defense spending, the Obama Administration plans to cut health benefits for active duty and retired military personnel and their families while not touching the benefits enjoyed by unionized civilian defense workers. The move, congressional aides suggested, is to force those individuals into Obamacare, Bill Gertz reported at the Washington Beacon.

One week before the election that will likely determine Obamacare’s fate, Americans support its repeal by an even wider margin than they did in the immediate aftermath of its highly unpopular passage. According to newly released polling from Rasmussen Reports, by a margin of 15 percentage points (54 to 39 percent), likely voters now support the repeal of President Obama’s centerpiece legislation. In the first three polls taken in the wake of the House’s passage of Obamacare (on March 21, 2010), Rasmussen showed that likely voters then favored repeal by margins of 13 points (55 to 42 percent), 12 points...

The rabid Left has no limits to indecency. Jeff Goodby and Rich Silverstein, the founders of the advertising agency Goodby, Silverstein & Partners, have just released a pro-Obama commercial eerily reminiscent of Lyndon Johnson's controversial Daisy ad featuring children singing about a variety of horrors including an America - supposedly under President Romney - where "sick people just die" and "oil fills the sea" (video follows with full lyrics and commentary):

Ohio activists and groups opposed to ObamaCare can now screen the anti-ObamaCare movie SICK & SICKER in public from today (10/28/2012) until November 6, 2012. An anonymous donor has sponsored an open screening license for the entire state of Ohio. Ohio freedom activists that want to screen the movie before the election can visit http://www.sickandsickermovie.com and click the Instant Download link to download the movie to their laptop computer. They can then connect their laptop to a digital projector and show the movie in public.

“[The] health-care act is key because, unlike challenger Mitt Romney’s tax reform plan or Obama’s deficit-reduction plan, voters can truly count on it…. “If Obama is reelected … we will see the first iteration of a uniquely American universal health-care system. If history is any guide, it will become effectively permanent soon after it is introduced…. “If Romney wins, the Affordable Care Act will probably be fully or largely repealed....[If he] wins and Democrats still hold the Senate, they’re unlikely to have a cushion of more than a vote or two. It’s possible that [even] the Senate’s most conservative, endangered...

During his first run for president, Barack Obama made one very specific promise to voters: He would cut health insurance premiums for families by $2,500, and do so in his first term. But it turns out that family premiums have increased by more than $3,000 since Obama's vow, according to the latest annual Kaiser Family Foundation employee health benefits survey. Premiums for employer-provided family coverage rose $3,065 — 24% — from 2008 to 2012, the Kaiser survey found. Even if you start counting in 2009, premiums have climbed $2,370. What's more, premiums climbed faster in Obama's four years than they...