Free Republic

The coverage of two recent events in the District of Columbia shows how the old media in this country has dropped all pretence of impartiality. The first image is from yesterday, 25 January, in Washington, D.C. Please consider how much media coverage you have heard about it. It was a pro-life protest. The second image is from the next day, today, the 26th of January. It was from a protest against the the people's right to keep and bear arms: Consider how much media coverage that you have heard of this event. The camera shots are completely different. The first...

Forty years after Roe v. Wade, a powerful shift is taking place within Big Abortion. What abortion advocates could not win through choice, they intend to impose through coercion. Even Time magazine recently acknowledged on their cover that, for those so inclined to celebrate Roe’s anniversary, the rejoicing over abortion on demand should be tinged with concern.  On January 14th Time asked “What Choice?” and then answered their own question:  “40 years ago, abortion rights activists won an epic victory with Roe v. Wade,” the cover noted and then concluded: “They’ve been losing ever since.” When viewed through the lens...

Biases upfront: I'm a 46 year-old health nut obsessed with exercise and eating right. I don’t smoke or drink, and there are supermodels who worry less about their weight. However, I do admire those who don't live like that; who might not live as long as I do, but will probably enjoy their overall quality of life more than my somewhat Spartan one. Oh, and I also realize that this is America. And if people want to pursue happiness through a double cheeseburger and a pack of Newports, any joyless, left-wing bossy-pants who has a problem with that can go...

The Truth About Obamacare “Obamacare” is neither about health nor care. It is ultimately about control, the devaluation and the elimination of human life. Here is the Vulcan mind-meld translation of the core premise of the Left: you have no right to live. By their lights, you are no more than a thing, or an animal, or a machine. Therefore, you have no right to the fruits of your labors. You are a ‘resource’ at best, a fungible, and ultimately disposable asset of the State. Or you are in their way and must be eliminated. There are the last 200...

Faced with the high cost of caring for smokers and overeaters, experts say society must grapple with a blunt question: Instead of trying to penalize them and change their ways, why not just let these health sinners die? Annual health care costs are roughly $96 billion for smokers and $147 billion for the obese, the government says. These costs accompany sometimes heroic attempts to prolong lives, including surgery, chemotherapy and other measures. But despite these rescue attempts, smokers tend to die 10 years earlier on average, and the obese die five to 12 years prematurely, according to various researchers’ estimates....

NEW YORK (AP) -- Faced with the high cost of caring for smokers and overeaters, experts say society must grapple with a blunt question: Instead of trying to penalize them and change their ways, why not just let these health sinners die?

Now that Obama has secured another four years in the White House, it is time for the administration to crank out more Obamacare propaganda, specifically arguments about the cost ineffectiveness of keeping old people alive. Enter the internet’s liberal bellwether, Salon.com. Earlier today, the website posted an article by Matthew Yglesias, a blogger and Democrat operative who spent time at the Soros’ project, ThinkProgress. According to Yglesias, old folks are “the key issue in the federal budget” and their welfare accounts “for the remarkable lack of apparent cost effectiveness of the American health care system.” “When the patient is already...

Last week was a bleak one at Thomson Reuters, the financial news and wire service giant. According to sources, as many as 3,000 people were let go, out of approximately 50,000 employees around the globe. Most of the layoffs came from the financial sector—the sales, training and analysts’ divisions—but some were on the editorial side. “Yes, I can confirm there have been layoffs across Thomson Reuters today, including editorial,” Barb Burg, vice president and global head of communications at Reuters, told Talking Biz News last week. “Similar to efforts across the company, the Reuters organization is focusing attention on our...

Comprehensive immigration reform could make millions of people suddenly eligible for assistance under President Obama's healthcare law, assuming a final deal paves the way for undocumented immigrants to receive papers. Illegal aliens are now prohibited from purchasing coverage through the Affordable Care Act's insurance exchanges, which will launch next year. They are also ineligible for Medicaid under most circumstances, making the law's expansion of the program fruitless for people without documents. Even young illegal immigrants with "deferred action" status, known as "DREAMers," cannot access the law's benefits. But the picture could change completely if Hispanic lawmakers get their wish —...

WASHINGTON (AP) — Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Barack Obama's health care law, according to experts who are just now teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation. The Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" to its detractors — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1. For a 55-year-old smoker, the penalty could reach nearly $4,250 a year. A 60-year-old could wind up paying nearly $5,100 on top of premiums. Younger smokers could...

Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Obama’s health-care law, according to experts who are teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation. The Affordable Care Act — or “Obamacare” — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1. For a 55-year-old smoker, the penalty could reach nearly $4,250 a year...

Millions of smokers could be priced out of health insurance because of tobacco penalties in President Barack Obama's health care law, according to experts who are just now teasing out the potential impact of a little-noted provision in the massive legislation. The Affordable Care Act — "Obamacare" to its detractors — allows health insurers to charge smokers buying individual policies up to 50 percent higher premiums starting next Jan. 1. For a 55-year-old smoker, the penalty could reach nearly $4,250 a year. A 60-year-old could wind up paying nearly $5,100 on top of premiums. Younger smokers could be charged lower...

With about a year left before major portions of the federal health reform law take effect, colleges around the country – including Grand Rapids Community College – are looking for more guidance about how new regulations will affect adjunct instructors. Specifically, the concern is over a provision in the act treating employees working 30 or more hours a week as full-time, thus requiring employer-assisted health care. Considering that many in academe “talk more about credit hours and course loads than hours worked, more clarification is needed,” Craig Smith, director of higher education for the American Federation of Teachers, recently told...

Immigration fallout from saying no to 'Obamacare' WASHINGTON (AP) — Governors who reject health insurance for the poor under the federal health care overhaul could wind up in a politically awkward position on immigration: A quirk in the law means some U.S. citizens would be forced to go without coverage, while legal immigrants residing in the same state could still get it. It's an unintended consequence of how last year's Supreme Court decision changed the Medicaid provisions of President Barack Obama's health care law. The overhaul expanded the federal-state program for low-income and disabled people. The Supreme Court made the...

“ObamaCare Survival Guide” has now sold more than 100,000 copies and today ranks No. 4 on Barnes & Noble’s list of the Top 100 best-selling books. “ObamaCare Survival Guide: The Affordable Care Act and What It Means for You and Your Healthcare” is the first comprehensive but easy-to-understand road map of the 2,700-page law officially called the The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The book also ranks No. 4 on Amazon.com’s list of the best-selling books in the Politics & Government category, and No. 1 in the Health Policy category. …

The excited grins we saw in the sea of faces at Barack Obama’s second Inauguration told us we lost and the socialists won. They made sure we understood that. Liberal talking heads on television and radio as well as in print and in the blogosphere have been taunting us since November and there is no reason to think they will stop any time soon. Their jobs are now safe for as far as the eye can see. “..segment of Obama supporters are learning that elections have consequences and being on the winning side doesn’t guarantee good times ahead. America’s college...

A California insurance broker, who sells health plans to individuals and small businesses, told me that she’s prepping her clients for a sticker shock. Her local carriers are hinting to her that premiums may triple this fall, when the plans unveil how they’ll billet the full brunt of Obamacare’s new regulations and mandates. California is hardly alone. Around the country, insurers are fixing to raise rates by double digits. They’re privately briefing politicians in Washington on what’s in store. Those briefings are leaving a lot of folks up and down Pennsylvania Avenue jumpy. What’s gives? President Obama, after all, said...

Four public colleges and universities: Florida’s Palm Beach State College, Pennsylvania’s Community College of Allegheny County, Ohio’s Youngstown State University, and New Jersey’s Kean University, are all planning to move adjunct and “contingent” faculty members to part-time status in order to avoid an Obamacare provision requiring businesses with 50 or more full-time employees to provide health coverage for at least 95 percent of their workers. **SNIP** Teachers’ associations like AAUP and AFT are bracing for the shift. Next week, AFT will host a webinar for its members addressing “the implications of the Affordable Care Act for contingent faculty.” In the...

On the subject of religious controversy, 2013 started off with a bang, not a whimper. Hobby Lobby, the craft chain owned by a Christian couple, chose to defy the odious HHS mandate pioneered by the administration of President Barack Obama. This edict seeks to bring religious groups to heel by requiring all employers to cover contraception and abortifacients in their health-care plans. For its defiance, Hobby Lobby faces atmospheric fines of $1.3 million dollars per day. What could motivate such response from this company, traditionally associated less with political battles than knick-knacks and sewing kits? David and Barbara Green, the...

If you want someone to lie to you and tell you how troubling it is when anyone's income is cut in Obama's economy, you'll want to stop reading right about now. I'm only willing to go as far as to say that I wish ObamaCare wasn't the cause of all this. But it simply is a beautiful thing to see the very institutions that carry Obama's water and attempt to brainwash more of his minions, deal first-hand with the consequences of their thoughtless advocacy: A new piece in the Wall Street Journal reports that many colleges are cutting back on...