Free Republic

It’s a good thing Democrats made health insurance “affordable” when they passed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in 2010. I’d hate to see how much health insurance would cost if it were expensive. The Kaiser Family Foundation just released its annual survey of employer-sponsored coverage, finding that the average premium for family coverage increased 5 percent to $19,616. To put that in perspective, the real median household income in 2017 was $61,372. Thus family health coverage costs nearly a third of the median family’s income. But citing the average family premium of nearly $20,000, as high as that...

The NBC/Marist Poll released figures for the statewide Senate and Governor's races in Nevada this week with Republican Adam Laxalt leading 46-45 in a 'head to head' contest with Democrat Steve Sisolak for Governor. But there are other candidates in the race like Libertarian Jared Lord and Independent Ryan Bundy. NBC/Marist did create a three way set-up and there Laxalt gets a wider lead over Sisolak 44 to 40 percent with Jared Lord at eight percent. But again no Ryan Bundy listed in the poll. They put other categories in with the three candidates with "None of these candidates" getting...

(this story is 1 year old) Evidence shows that John Roberts, chief justice of the United States Supreme Court, was “hacked” by a Deep State surveillance operation overseen by Obama administration CIA director John Brennan and Obama director of national intelligence James Clapper. Roberts, the Bush appointee who made the decisive vote to uphold the constitutionality of Obamacare before the 2012 election, was allegedly the victim of the same Deep State surveillance program that spied on President Donald Trump. (continues at source)

For 2019, Social Security is getting a 2.8% increase. Medicare Part B is increasing from $134 to $135.50. Other rates for high earners.

No excerpts allowed from USA Today, story here.

This is an absolute classic out of the Dem/MSM playbook. Take a huge, expensive, inefficient, government program. Find someone with a heartwrenching story who is helped by it. Highlight that story as if it represents the essence of the program in question. Bonus points if you can get someone to choke up on camera. Reporters noticed that after Kavanaugh was confirmed, the Democrats shifted the agenda to health care as the central issue of the midterms. And thus it was that today's Morning Joe featured a segment in which NBC reporter Morgan Radford traveled to Ohio ahead of President Trump's...

The Senate on Wednesday defeated a Democratic measure to overrule President Trump’s expansion of non-ObamaCare insurance plans as Democrats seek to highlight health care ahead of the midterm elections. The Democratic measure would have overruled Trump’s expansion of short-term health insurance plans, which do not have to cover people with pre-existing conditions or cover a range of health services like mental health or prescription drugs. It was defeated on an extremely narrow, mostly party line 50-50 vote, with Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) voting with Democrats in favor of overturning the short-term plans. Republicans argue the short-term plans simply provide a...

Senate Judiciary Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) promised to raise $3 million to support Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine) to counteract anger over her vote to confirm Justice Brett Kavanaugh. "I'm going to help raise $3 million to match that," Grassley told Marth MacCallum during an interview on Fox News Tuesday, when asked what he thought of a fundraising effort against Collins in Maine that has raked in about $3 million. Collins has come under fire from many on the left for supporting Kavanaugh in a narrow confirmation vote, who was accused of sexual assault by Christine Blasey Ford and other women....

Democrats are planning to force a vote in the Senate this week on overturning a Trump administration rule expanding non-ObamaCare insurance plans. The Democratic resolution, which will likely get a vote on Wednesday, would overturn a rule finalized in August that expanded the availability of short-term health insurance plans. Democrats decry the plans as “junk” insurance because they does not need to cover pre-existing conditions or follow other ObamaCare rules. Republicans argue the plans provide a cheaper option alongside ObamaCare plans. The resolution, which is supported by all 49 Senate Democrats, is unlikely to pass given that it would need...

Whenever one segment of an economy exhibits, year after year, inflation above the general rate, and when there is no constraint on supply, then either a cartel is in operation or there is a lack of price transparency—or both, as is the case with American medical care. So it is clear that there is something terribly wrong with how health care is financed in our country. And a consensus on how to fix the problem—how to provide Americans the best medicine money can buy for the least amount of money that will buy it—has proved elusive. But the history of...

It seems that Democratic socialist and New York City congressional hopeful Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez has a lot to learn about Congress. Ocasio-Cortez spoke Monday at her alma mater of Boston University, raising eyebrows with a comment on implementing her campaign promises if she wins in November. "It doesn't mean you get everything tomorrow. As much as I would love that, I would love to get inaugurated January 3rd [and] January 4th we're signing health care, we're signing this."

A proposal to repeal Obamacare entitlements and replace them with grants to states would reduce premiums for individual coverage by as much as 32 percent, according to an analysis by the Center for Health and Economy.The Health Care Choices Proposal also would modestly reduce the deficit, increase the number of people with private health insurance, and cut Medicaid spending, according to Center for Health and Economy.The proposal, the product of national and state think tanks, policy analysts, and others in the conservative community, embarks on a new path to empower consumers and return authority to the states to provide people...

...Senate Republicans declared in effect that all allegations against Brett Kavanaugh must be heard no matter how frivolous or obviously fraudulent they are...If Brett Kavanaugh, who is a mainstream, moderate judge, a man who's literally married to George W. Bush's assistant, can't get confirmed to Supreme Court, then no Republican can...You wanted secure borders. You wanted an end to ObamaCare and you wanted non-crazy people on the Supreme Court of the United States...Republicans in the Senate don't care...

A Georgetown University associate professor had a month-long meltdown after a Muslim woman explained why she voted for President-elect Donald Trump. Asra Q. Nomani, a former Georgetown journalism professor and Wall Street Journal reporter, wrote an op-ed in The Washington Post Nov. 10 explaining why she, as a Muslim woman and “long-time liberal,” voted for Trump. “I support the Democratic Party’s position on abortion, same-sex marriage and climate change,” Nomani wrote. “But I am a single mother who can’t afford health insurance under Obamacare.” C. Christine Fair, a previously “friendly colleague,” went on a 31-day screed against Nomani spanning across Twitter...

President Donald Trump heads to Nevada, where the Affordable Care Act is perhaps the most important issue in a pivotal Senate race. GOP Sen. Dean Heller, who voted for a bill to repeal parts of Obamacare after pledging to oppose an earlier version, is facing a tough re-election bid against Democratic Rep. Jacky Rosen. Nevada saw a massive decrease in its uninsured rate after it expanded Medicaid under the health care law. As he pushed Senate Republicans to repeal the Affordable Care Act last year, President Donald Trump zeroed in on Sen. Dean Heller. When the president had lunch with...

Tanisha Gordon doesn’t see what white people love so much about cottage cheese. Or salads, especially when they’re topped with fussy ingredients like candied almonds, pickled carrots or Brussels slaw. Gordon is a 37-year-old employee at an IT company in the Washington, D.C. area, and until recently, her diet was deeply saturated with fast food - McDonald’s, Taco Bell, you name it. When her doctor diagnosed her last year with pre-diabetes and prescribed her a CPAP machine to help her sleep through the night, she began working with a nutritionist to clean up her diet. But the lifestyle change she...

As a left-leaning state that has embraced the expansion of Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act, California is unlikely to pursue work requirements for that program. But with the Trump administration backing efforts by a handful of states to impose such requirements, backers of the measure said it was important to enshrine in state law that California would not do the same. Critics have said that work requirements will limit the care of those unable to work, including those with chronic physical ailments, mental illness or substance abuse problems. Four states have already taken action to move toward work mandates,...

Gavin Newsom, Democratic candidate for governor of California, said on liberal podcast "Pod Save America" that the state government should pay for universal health care for illegal immigrants. In the episode, released Tuesday, the candidate and current lieutenant governor of California touted his involvement in San Francisco having "the only universal health care plan for all undocumented residents in America." "I did universal health care when I was mayor—fully implemented, regardless of pre-existing condition, ability to pay, and regardless of your immigration status. San Francisco is the only universal health care plan for all undocumented residents in America. Very proud...

Former San Francisco mayor and current Democratic candidate for governor of California Gavin Newsome has pledged to make health care free for all illegal immigrants if he wins in November. “When I was mayor I extended the boundaries of freedom beyond what is provided in any other city in America,” Newsome boasted. “The most well-known of these freedoms is, of course, the freedom to defecate in public without fear of penalty. But an overlooked freedom was using public funds to ensure that every undocumented person residing in the city received the same benefits that citizens are required to purchase under...

1) After Obamcare was passed, unions that supported its passage requested and received special exemptionsWithin months after Obamacare was passed, Obama gave some organizations an exemption from some of the requirements of Obamacare. As time went on, more than 1,300 organizations received these exemptions.More than half of the people who are covered by insurance plans that received these exemptions are in union insurance plans. These unions supported the passage of Obamacare. But immediately after Obamacare was passed, these unions wanted exemptions from the very same law that they wanted to force everyone else to obey. This reveals an extreme level...