Free Republic

Yesterday, the attorney general of Oklahoma amended that state’s ObamaCare lawsuit. The amended complaint asks a federal court to clarify the Supreme Court’s ruling in NFIB v. Sebelius, but it also challenges an IRS rule that imposes ObamaCare’s employer mandate where the statute does not authorize it: on employers in the 30 to 40 states that decline to implement a health insurance “exchange.”

Death panels on the march!  The Telegraph is reporting that UK hospitals are paid to put patients on the Liverpool Death Care Pathway. (The Pathway is supposed to sedate patients whose pain cannot otherwise be controlled. But serious charges have been made that it is actually sometimes used when not needed medically, in other words, as backdoor euthanasia, including of the non terminally ill.) From the story: 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 majority of NHS hospitals in...

The ObamaCare regulation that will require employers to provide insurance coverage with access to a wide variety of contraception has prompted numerous lawsuits across the country challenging that mandate, and opponents are scoring key victories. The latest legal showdown came Thursday in a federal courtroom in Oklahoma, where the owners of the Hobby Lobby arts and crafts store tried to convince a federal judge to issue an injunction against the mandate, arguing that it would violate the owners' religious beliefs by requiring them to provide access to "abortion-causing drugs and devices." Though it could take days, even weeks, for Judge...

As he begins his commentary in the New York Times, a former Obama administration official offers a breathtaking suggestion for American health care. “We need death panels.” Having arrested his readers’ attention, Steven Rattner explains. “Well, not death panels, exactly, but unless we start allocating health care resources more prudently — rationing, by its proper name — the exploding cost of Medicare will swamp the federal budget.” Rattner, a former Treasury Department counselor who helped design the $82 billion bailout of General Motors and Chrysler, has extensive experience on Wall Street and in journalism — but none in medical practice...

A Catholic-owned family business in Michigan does not have to comply with the provision of the new U.S. healthcare law that requires private employers to provide employees with health insurance that covers birth control, a federal judge in Detroit has ruled. U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland, in a ruling late Wednesday, temporarily blocked the government from forcing the owner of Weingartz Supply Company, which sells outdoor power equipment, to include contraception in its health coverage of employees. The ruling only affects the company's Catholic proprietor, Daniel Weingartz, and the approximately 170 people who work for him. But it opens the...

Now Or Never Political Action Committee will spend $800,000 on television ads for Republican Todd Akin, who is campaigning against incumbent Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill, The Hill reports. The group’s ad asks voters who “don’t agree with everything he says” to back Akin anyway, and it focuses on winning Senate control and defeating McCaskill. “In the Senate, Akin will vote for Romney’s policies to get Americans working again,” according to the ad. “Claire McCaskill would fight Romney every step of the way. To avoid Washington gridlock and get this country back to work, our best choice is Todd Akin.”

The Justice Department said it does not object to a new round of legal arguments over President Obama's healthcare law. In a brief filed with the Supreme Court late Wednesday, the Justice Department said the court should clear the way for a possible new hearing in the lawsuit filed by Liberty University. Although the Supreme Court has already ruled that the healthcare law's individual mandate is constitutional, Liberty has asked for a new hearing because it challenged the mandate on different grounds. A lower court declined to rule in Liberty's suit because it said the challenge was barred by the...

Here's why the IRS will require Americans to disclose their personal health ID information starting in 2014 When Obamacare’s individual mandate takes effect in 2014, all Americans who file income tax returns must complete an additional IRS tax form. The new form will require 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 insurance coverage, and/or making a payment”. So why will the Obama IRS require...

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,...