Free Republic

On September 22, 1862 President Lincoln used the news from Antietam (fought on September 17, 1862) to announce his proclamation freeing the slaves in those states still in active rebellion against the Federal Government as of January 1, 1863. Amazingly, 150 years later, our recent national election endorsed a philosophy that embraces many of the core tenets of slavery. Ironically, this tightening of our shackles is being led by our first black president, was endorsed by well over ninety percent of American blacks and was supported by a super-majority of Jews who have had a history with slavery – and...

Health Reform: If ObamaCare is such a great idea, why are so many governors — including several Democrats — refusing to play along? What do they know that the administration isn't telling the rest of us? So far, not one part of ObamaCare has worked as planned. Almost immediately, the administration had to distribute huge numbers of waivers to companies because its initial rules would have forced them to drop their low-cost plans. ObamaCare's high-risk pools promised to cover hundreds of thousands, but ended up attracting almost no one. The small-business tax break has been a complete bust. Insurance premiums...

Nullification is yet again picking up steam in Dixie. Pursuing an archaic legal theory that punctuated pre-Civil War disputes between the federal government and states, South Carolina state Rep. Bill Chumley last week pre-filed a bill for the upcoming legislative session that would criminalize implementation of President Barack Obama's 2010 healthcare reform law. If his bill becomes law, any state official caught enforcing the healthcare law would be guilty of a misdemeanor and "must be fined not more than one thousand dollars or imprisoned not more than two years, or both." [snip] "I think we're within our rights to do...

Rep. Frank Pallone (D-N.J.), ranking member of the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee, said Thursday that he wants to “be here one day when Republicans finally realize that we did the right thing, the world is not coming to an end, and in fact, the nation will be better because of the Affordable Care Act.” … “Let me start out by saying that I’m beginning to learn the Republican playbook on the Affordable Care Act. First, they spent a year and a half holding repeal votes. When that didn’t work, they advocated that the Supreme Court would most certainly reverse...

Dominos Pizza Founder Sues Obama Admin Over HHS Mandate by Steven Ertelt | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 12/17/12 3:07 PMThe Catholic businessman who is the founder and former owner of the Domino’s Pizza chain has filed a lawsuit over the HHS mandate that forces religious employers to purchase drugs that may cause abortions for their employees.Tom Monaghan calls requiring businesses, schools and other religious places to pay for such drugs a “gravely immoral” practice and filed suit late Friday in federal court for Domino’s Farms, a business development complex he owns.Monaghan says he currently offers his employees health insurance...

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi was widely mocked when she said of Obamacare, “We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.” At the time, March 2010, Pelosi's words accurately described the Democrats' just-get-it-done approach to passing a national health care bill. But now it turns out Pelosi was wrong. In fact, we have to implement Obamacare so that you can find out what is in it. Amid the other momentous events coming in 2013 -- bitter fights over federal spending, debt, entitlements and immigration -- the biggest story of the year, and of...

December 14 has come and gone—and President Obama’s Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—better known as Obamacare—has received a stunning blow. State governments had until December 14, 2012 to decide whether or not they would build their own health insurance exchange, an online service that would allow individuals to purchase private health insurance if it wasn’t provided for by their employees. That date has now passed, and the exchange has been rebuked by half the states—with 25 state governments refusing to participate in this critical component of Obamacare. Their refusal won’t stop exchanges in their states. Under the law, states...

Elections have consequences. The president signed a law which forces citizens to purchase a product simply on the virtue that they are alive. Our Supreme Court upheld the law, giving the government the power to tax inactivity. When the law is fully implemented, we may see a shift from our role as citizens to subjects. Instead of “pay for play,” it will become “pay, if you play our way.” We are moving slowly down this path, and can begin to see the cliff before us. Still, there is time to slow the process and change course. Knowing the risk and...

A top federal appeals court signaled Friday that it might act on Obamacare’s HHS Mandate—requiring employers to cover birth control and abortion-related services. After repeated assurances that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would not mandate abortion or people of faith violating their religious beliefs, ...Secretary Kathleen Sebelius issued a rule from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) saying that a vague provision in the ACA requiring employers provide “preventive care” means that employer healthcare policies must cover birth control, abortion-related, and sterilization services. A torrent of lawsuits have flooded the federal courts, with people of faith arguing...

Democrats: Put Obama's Medicare board on the tableBy Elise Viebeck - 12/15/12 10:05 AM ET The healthcare law's controversial Medicare board should be on the table in deficit-reduction talks, House Democrats said this week. Killing the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), which Sarah Palin decried as a "death panel" in June, could ease Republican concessions as part of a year-end deficit deal, Dems said. "I think everything has to be on the table," said Rep. Dan Boren (Okla.), one of healthcare reform's most consistent Democratic opponents. "Anything that could help along the way to get some agreement," said Rep. David...

A few years ago, my small local hospital asked a Senate staffer if she could assist them in obtaining federal money for a new building. So she did, expediting the process by which that particular corner of northern New Hampshire was deemed to be “under-served” and thus eligible for the fed gravy. At the ribbon-cutting, she was an honored guest, and they were abundant in their praise. Alas, in the fullness of time, the political pendulum swung, her senator departed the scene, and she was obliged to take a job out of state. Last summer, she returned to the old...

Conestoga Wood Specialties president and CEO Anthony Hahn. Photo via catholicnewsagency.com Three Mennonite Christians who own a wood manufacturing company in Pennsylvania have filed a lawsuit challenging the federal contraception mandate for threatening their right to religious freedom, reports Catholic News Agency. “Being told that we must provide a health plan that includes a provision that violates the Christian beliefs of our family and the Christian values that our company was founded on is deeply troubling,” said Anthony Hahn, president and CEO of Conestoga Wood Specialties Corporation. “Forcing Americans to surrender long-standing, deeply-held principles in order to own and run...

Birmingham police are on the scene at Saint Vincent's Hospital this morning, where somebody fired a gun early this morning. We have now learned that a police officer and two hospital employees were injured during that shooting, and they have been taken to UAB hospital. Their injuries were not life threatening. The gunman was killed during the shooting. Police say that the public is not in any danger, and that the situation is under control. Our reporter on the scene says additional nurses have been called in to work.

The other ObamaCare middle class tax hike arrives in 2014By: John Hayward 12/12/2012 09:14 AM If you think it’s been horrifying to watch ObamaCare pop open like a jack-in-the-box filled with tax increases over the last couple of weeks, just wait until the huge new taxes on health insurance companies hit in 2014. A study commissioned by America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) lays out the details: The [Affordable Care Act] imposes a new sales tax on health insurance that starts at $8 billion in 2014, increases to $14.3 billion in 2018, and will continue to increase each year. The Joint...

<p>"Tom Monaghan, a devout Roman Catholic, says contraception is not health care and instead is a "gravely immoral" practice. He's a plaintiff in a lawsuit filed Friday in federal court, along with his Domino's Farms, which runs an office park near Ann Arbor.</p>

“Would socialized medicine lead to socialization of other phases of life? Lenin thought so. He declared socialized medicine is the keystone to the arch of the socialist state.”1945 AMA Pamphlet Warning From the Socialists Workers Party– When the administration of John F. Kennedy discussed a plan for government health care that would cover people of Social Security age, the American Medical Association (AMA) fought back, along with the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, with a well-funded campaign–complete with a commercial featuring actor Ronald Reagan, who was determined to talk to America about an “imminent threat”: Now, back in 1927, an American...

The federal government will likely be involved in running the ObamaCare exchange in at least 30 states, 26 of which expressly declined to establish state exchanges. One health-policy expert refers to it as an "administrative nightmare" for the Department of Health and Human Services. Friday was the deadline for a state to let HHS know if it planned to establish a state exchange. Thus far only 18 states and the District of Columbia are planning on doing so. As of right now only Utah and Florida remain undecided. Utah may still decide to set up a state exchange, but few...

Only 15 states have told HHS that they will develop their own online insurance exchanges. This means the government has to design 35 different sites, with 35 different criteria for coverage -- all by next year. From CNBC: Only 15 states have told the federal government they plan to operate health insurance exchanges under President Barack Obama's reform law, leaving Washington with the daunting task of creating online marketplaces for two-thirds of the country. On the eve of a federal deadline for states to say whether they will run their own exchanges, a top health care policy official told lawmakers...

Here’s more evidence that government “cures” are inevitably worse than the “diseases” they seek to wipe out. Buried in the trillion-dollar stimulus law of 2009 was an electronic-medical-records “incentive” program. Like most of President Obama’s health-care rules, this top-down electronic record-sharing scheme is a big fat bust. Oversight is lax. Cronyism is rife. The job-killing and privacy-undermining consequences have only just begun. The program was originally sold as a cost-saving measure. In theory, modernizing record-collection is a good idea, and many private health-care providers have already made the change. But as with many government “incentive” programs, the EMR bribe is...

With all the chatter about the fiscal cliff, you may not have heard of a tax change that will take effect on January 1 — and why going to the dentist now may be the right response to it. If you’re under 65, on January 1 your medical tax deduction rate (including expenses for dental work) will take a big jump from 7.5% of gross income to 10%. (No change for folks 65 and older.) If you’re like me, your health insurance pays a minimal amount for routine dental work — with most of the dentist’s bill being paid out...