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Health Reform: No good deed will go unpunished under ObamaCare. If a charitable hospital treats a homeless person who staggers into the emergency room without insurance, it may be punished with taxes and fines. One of the "unintended" consequences of the misnamed Affordable Care Act was to place charitable tax-exempt hospitals in a medical Catch-22: To maintain their tax-exempt status they're required to treat a minimum number of patients who can't pay, yet ObamaCare requires everyone to have health coverage. Right now, about 60% of the 6,000 or so hospitals in the U.S. are tax-exempt nonprofits, while 25% are government-owned....

Even by the standards of Washington, this is one sick, twisted and deceitful deal. Quite possibly, it is a whole new low, even for the federal government. Had we innocent, taxpaying citizens not long ago lost our capacity to be outraged by the disgraceful manner in which this place operates, we would already be in all-out political revolt. Against President Obama. Against Democrats in Congress. And, especially, Republicans. Literally, revolutionary wars have been fought over less. Last week, while many Americans spent hard-saved money on long-overdue vacations, the snakes and weasels inside the federal bureaucracy schemed until they hatched an...

WASHINGTON — In another setback for President Obama’s health care initiative, the administration has delayed until 2015 a significant consumer protection in the law that limits how much people may have to spend on their own health care. The limit on out-of-pocket costs, including deductibles and co-payments, was not supposed to exceed $6,350 for an individual and $12,700 for a family. But under a little-noticed ruling, federal officials have granted a one-year grace period to some insurers, allowing them to set higher limits, or no limit at all on some costs, in 2014. The grace period has been outlined on...

Donald Trump has called on divided Republican lawmakers to unite and defund the Affordable Care Act, which he fears will "shut down the government" if not stopped. "The hard part for the Republicans is you have a group of people who want to do it and you have a group … [who] don't want to do it and that puts the ones that want to do it in a very bad position," Trump told "The Steve Malzberg Show" on Newsmax TV. Trump disputes the argument by some GOP lawmakers who oppose defunding that they would be blamed for a government...

“We can't have a system that works better for the insurance companies than it does for the American people…. And they will keep on doing this for as long as they can get away with it.” -- President Obama in a March 8, 2010 speech at Arcadia University calling for passage of his health law. The wealthy and well-connected seem to be having a much better go of getting exemptions from Obamacare. When President Obama’s health legislation was teetering after the election of Sen. Scott Brown, the president and his administration went on the attack, ripping into the profits of...

Sen. Rand Paul outlined his fears about President Obama’s health care law on “The Daily Show” late Monday, arguing “dinosaur syndrome” has prevented well-intentioned authors of the law from crafting effective reforms. “I’m afraid it’s going to be unaffordable and that’s the real problem,” the Kentucky Republican told John Oliver, interim host of “The Daily Show” in Jon Stewart’s absence. “I’m afraid that everyone will pay a lot more for insurance. And I think precisely the people it was intended to help it may well hurt, because they may not be able to afford it.” Mr. Paul, a potential presidential...

It seems that yet another aspect of Obamacare is being delayed. The Obama administration has delayed a provision that would cap out-of-pocket health costs. The administration is giving some insurers and employers a grace period of a year before they have to adhere to the legal limit. Obamacare caps individual costs at $6,350 a year but this requirement is being pushed back to 2015. This just continues to show Obama's contempt for the rule of law and his innate desire to rule by imperial edict. As the chief executive officer of the country, Obama is obliged to enforce all the...

The delay in implementation of ObamaCare's employer fines won't keep them from growing between now and when they finally hit in 2015. Each year, the fines will grow in line with the growth in average per-person health insurance premiums relative to 2013. Here's the problem: Average wages generally grow slower than health premiums, and the wages of low-income workers lag average wage growth. That means the penalties will gradually loom larger and larger relative to wages for modest-skilled workers, giving employers a bigger incentive to cut them to part-time. Even if health premiums grow at an average 3.5% annual rate...

Who knew that when President Obama promised, “If you like your health care plan, you will be able to keep your health care plan. Period,” he was only referring to federal employees … and himself? A new survey of 2,500 federal employees and retirees found that 92.3 percent believe federal workers should keep their current health insurance and not be forced into ObamaCare. Only 2.9 percent say they should become part of the new health insurance exchanges. I suspect a similar percentage of private sector employees would also like to keep their coverage, but most won’t get that option. What...

A report that another provision of ObamaCare -- one that would cap out-of-pocket health care costs -- was being delayed brought a defiant challenge Tuesday from a top Senate Republican, accusing the president of "illegal and unconstitutional" acts in changing laws without congressional approval. "The president doesn't get to write legislation, and it's illegal and unconstitutional for him to try and change legislation by himself," Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., told Fox News. The New York Times first reported on Tuesday that the administration is giving some insurers and employers a one-year grace period to adhere to the limit, which otherwise...

(CBS News) Would you share your doctor's appointment with a stranger? Some people are, opting for a group visit with their physician. It's a way for patients to get more face-time with their doctor -- sometimes as much as an hour or two -- but the time is shared with other people, Dr. Devi Nampiaparampil, an assistant professor at the New York University School of Medicine, explained on "CBS This Morning." A growing number of physicians are offering the option. Since 2005, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians, the number of physicians offering group visits has doubled. The...

The on-line exchange system is the Achilles heel of the Affordable Care Act. If there is not an ObamaCare exchange doing business in a state, no one can enroll for ObamaCare coverage and Mr. Obama’s namesake “healthcare” plan will literally starve to death. But the American people must also do their part to assist in the death of ObamaCare and end the left’s drive to single payer insurance. Just 17 states have agreed to build an ObamaCare exchange. And with October 1st, the grand opening day for ObamaCare enrollment rapidly approaching, not one of these states is ready to complete...

Fox News host Gregg Jarrett became exasperated with analyst Alan Colmes over the details of Obamacare implementation, accusing Colmes and President Barack Obama of either not understanding or intentionally misrepresenting the number of people covered under Obamacare. “Maybe the president doesn’t even understand his own health care law,” Jarrett said, playing Obama’s remark, made during his Friday press conference, that the GOP’s “holy grail” is to prevent 30 million people from receiving health care. “It’s 48 million! You would think the president would understand a basic, fundamental, and important fact about his own signature law.” “That was a little bit...

Rod Coons and Florence Peace pay $403 a month for a family health plan that covers barely any medical care for either of them until he or she reaches $10,000 in claims in a given year. And that’s just the way they like it. “I’m only really interested in catastrophic coverage,” says Coons, 58, who retired last year after selling an electronics manufacturing business in Indianapolis. Beyond their premium, the couple typically spends no more than $500 annually on medical care, Coons says. “I’d prefer to stay with our current plan.” That won’t be an option next year. In 2014,...

When Obamacare was passed through Congress, calculations were made. The Democrats made the assumption that most states would support the law and would gladly jump on the band wagon of the health insurance exchanges. After the dust settled down and the insurance exchanges are about to go online October 1, that turned out to not be the case. Over half of the states, 33 to be exact, have refused to participate in the exchanges. That left the Obama administration scrambling. Their law specifically prohibits the large employers in these states from being subject to the employer mandate. I have made...

Obamacare contains a blizzard of mandates and regulations that will make health insurance more costly. One of the most significant is its caps on out-of-pocket insurance costs, such as co-pays and deductibles. Section 2707(b) of the Public Health Service Act, as added by Obamacare, requires that “a group health plan and a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage may not establish lifetime limits on the dollar value of benefits for the any participant or beneficiary.” Annual limits on cost-sharing are specified by Section 1302(c) of the Affordable Care Act; in addition, starting in 2014, deductibles are...

Dan from Squirrel Hill's Blog Movie review: “Elysium� is implausible, because it’s based on a medical device manufacturer that does not employ any salespeople Elysium has too many loud, noisy action scenes, and not enough calm, quiet, reflective scenes of thoughtful contemplation. It didn’t have any lines of dialogue that I can see myself wanting to quote in the future. None of the characters were particularly interesting. And if I was a child, I couldn’t see myself wanting to buy any of the action figures that might be based on this movie.The machine that instantly cures cancer seems perfectly plausible. However,...

**SNIP** Dear Leader Reid and Leader Pelosi: When you and the President sought our support for the Affordable Care Act (ACA), you pledged that if we liked the health plans we have now, we could keep them. Sadly, that promise is under threat. Right now, unless you and the Obama Administration enact an equitable fix, the ACA will shatter not only our hard-earned health benefits, but destroy the foundation of the 40 hour work week that is the backbone of the American middle class. **SNIP** Since the ACA was enacted, we have been bringing our deep concerns to the Administration,...

When Sarah Palin first warned about death panels and ObamaCare, the president and his allies were quick to laugh. Sending grandma off to an icy, watery grave was the stuff of Inuit legends, never the intention of liberals fighting to pass a law that could and would have serious implications for America’s senior citizens, despite the AARP’s inexplicable endorsement. Reading Charles Blow’s column in the New York Times yesterday, however, one can appreciate the origins of Palin’s concerns. Considering progressives’ descriptions of children as burdens, not blessings, it’s understandable that they would feel similarly about another “useless” subsection of our...

ELMA — A partisan dispute briefly eclipsed the fun at the Grays Harbor County Fair on Friday when the director of the fair had to ask Republicans to stop shooting Nerf guns at a poster poking fun at Democrats. Since Wednesday, the Grays Harbor Republicans have had a poster of a donkey up in their booth in the fairgrounds pavilion. The donkey states, “Help me try out Obamacare! I don’t know what’s covered because I haven’t read it yet.” And there’s a bull’s eye with points like a dart board on the donkey’s forehead and the donkey’s rear end. Former...

The president said that Republicans have one unifying principle - denying 30 million Americans the right to health care. Ummm... The CBO said that there would be 30 million without insurance even with ObamaCare fully implemented. Obama. Mixed up. Fail.

This is another “guest post” by The Very Honorable Ima Librul, Senator from the State of Confusion Utopia. He was the first person of consequence to announce changes to the Bill of Rights enacted by President Obama and we are honored to have a post of this caliber by a quintessential Librul such as the Senator. He is a charter member of President Obama’s Go For It Team, a senior member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and Chairman of the Meretricious Relations Subcommittee. He is also justly proud of his expertise in the care and breeding of unicorns, for which his...

Republican backers of the Michigan Senate work group's version of House Bill 4714, the Medicaid expansion measure, are trying to sell it as Medicaid reform. In reality, as even the regular news media has focused on, the legislation is about expanding Medicaid and cooperating with the implementation of Obamacare. It now appears that even the so-called reforms in the bill, are of questionable value. "My goodness, these are out of the Stone Age,” Linda Gorman, senior fellow and director of health policy with the Independence Institute in Denver, said regarding the list of reforms. "Couldn't they at least have brought...

The House assistant Democratic leader said on Sunday that his party will campaign on President Obama’s controversial healthcare law in 2014. “We will be running on ObamaCare in 2014,” Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said during an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union.” “In fact, we set it up to run on it in 2014,” he continued. “We fully expect to run on it; we expect to win on it. The American people will be the winner.” Clyburn noted that major provisions of the law are expected to go into effect on Oct. 1 and Jan. 1, 2014, leaving Democrats...

In a fiery address over the weekend, Sen. Ted Cruz's father told a crowd of Christian conservatives in Iowa that the United States is edging toward socialism under President Barack Obama, as he joined his son in denouncing Obamacare. According to ABC News, Texas pastor Rafael Cruz also offered a veiled comparison of Obama to Cuban leader Fidel Castro as he spoke of being a Cuban immigrant who fled the perils of socialism at the time of Castro's communist revolution and later became a U.S. citizen. In an apparent reference to Obama's 2008 campaign theme of "hope and change," Cruz...

Boehner’s spokesman, Michael Steel, told The Daily Caller on Sunday that the talk took place, but he declined to provide any details. Early this year, Boehner swore off future closed-door negotiations with Obama, after Obama used his post-election clout, plus his allies in the media, to force a tax increase through Congress.

Vitriol has gone beyond partisan give-and-take in the nation’s politics. It is now seeping into and poisoning the ranks of the Republican Party. Mainstream Republican politicians are cringing at the proposal of tea party Senators -– Ted Cruz (R-TX), Mike Lee (R-UT), Marco Rubio (R-FL) -– to hold federal appropriations legislation hostage in their quest to defund Obamacare. Republicans opposing this strategy see it as lose-lose. They don’t believe this tactic will work. And at the same time, they see it producing more antipathy toward Republicans and branding them as zealots and obstructionists. I think the tea partiers are on...

Obamacare was sold to the public with a series of Big Lies. They were repeated endlessly, and for the most part, they were not challenged by the media. Here is an excellent reminder of the bold lies... [snip] Rational people know that government does not do things efficiently, inexpensively, or well. No thinking person would believe that adding over 100 new government bureaucracies to the provision of health care would decrease costs or improve quality. Just look at the economics of Medicare and Medicaid. Universal health care is an economic black hole of major proportions... [snip] UPDATE 2: Harry Reid...

Friday, Barack “Reach Across the Aisle� Obama had an amped-up message for low-information voters: It is the “holy grail� of Republicans to make sure that 30 million Americans don’t have health insurance. As reported by The Hill, in addition to saying that blocking ObamaCare has become the GOP’s “holy grail,� Obama called Republican opposition to his troubled healthcare plan (which is opposed by ever-increasing percentage of Americans) an “ideological fixation� as well.Not only is this guy absolutely horrendous with a terrible record of reaching across the aisle outstanding at “reaching across the aisle,� he’s also pretty good at ridiculing, too....

Ah, some gallows humor on a Sunday evening. Currently trending on Twitter is the now popular hashtag: #obamacarehitsongs. Here are some of the offerings... #obamacarehitsongs Highway to Hell Let's Get Retarded ‘Who Let the Docs Out?' And we'll have fun, fun, fun till the doctor takes the oxygen away... (Don't Fear) The Death Panel. Bill me, Maybe Money for Nothin' Back in the U.S.S.R. Livin on a prayer. We Don't Need No Obstetrician How much is that Doctor in the Window Take it to the limit .... Or whatever my co pay is Another one bites the dust. Proud Barry...

House Assistant Minority Leader James Clyburn (D-S.C.) said Sunday that Democrats deliberately structured Obamacare to use as an issue in the 2014 election. During an appearance on CNN’s “State of the Union,” host Candy Crowley noted that many of the law’s more popular items (coverage for pre-existing conditions, for example) kick in in 2014, while the part requiring all employers to provide health insurance, for instance, was delayed until after the 2014 election. “The fact of the matter is, we will be running on Obamacare in 2014. In fact, we set it up to run on it in 2014,” Clyburn...

Joseph E. Schmitz' Perspective: The Chairman of the House Judiciary Subcommittee on the Constitution, Rep. Trent Franks of Arizona, and 19 House colleagues co-sponsored H.Res. 153 on April 12, “Expressing the sense of the House of Representatives that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2009 violates article I, section 7, clause 1 of the United States Constitution because it was a ‘Bill for raising Revenue’ that did not originate in the House of Representatives.” The Supreme Court has never before addressed an Origination Clause challenge that was so blatantly obvious. The only surprise is that no one raised...

We’re talking about non-profit hospitals, but a sizable percentage of them are religious hospitals affiliated with the Catholic Church, various Jewish and Protestant hospitals, formerly or currently representing some religious status. Catholic hospitals make up some of the largest non-profits in the country. Indeed the top four systems in the country are Catholic. Next on the list is Kaiser Permanente, which is non-religious and which Obama described as a model for Obamacare. Its CEO, George Halvorson, has met with Obama and his top people and pushed Obamacare. Draw your own conclusions. In either case, the Obamacare non-profit clampdown will empower...

On July 18, President Obama held an event at the White House to promote Obamacare. It was Calculated Deception writ large, which is Obama’s rhetorical style of taking advantage of what he shrewdly calculates the great majority of average Americans will not know, and what he is certain the so-called mainstream media will not tell them. That smacks of third world style, authoritarian propaganda. Obama falsely claimed, “In states like California, Oregon, Washington, new competition, new choices, market forces are pushing costs down.” I have already discussed in prior posts the misrepresentation regarding proposed premiums for 2014 on the California...

Ames, Iowa — Ted Cruz argued today that it was vital that Obamacare be defunded. “A lot of politciians in Washington in both parties are telling the American people it can’t be done,” Cruz said in a speech at The Family Leader Summit. “Why? Because Barack Obama will always stand for his principles, so America, apparently conservatives have to give up on ours.” “Our friends in the media happily repeat that much,” he added. “They say ‘this is a fool’s errand, you’re tilting at windmills.’ Let me tell you, if we can hold 41 Republicans in the U.S. senate or...

In the just-released Spring 2013 issue of Harvard Health Policy Review, I have an article titled “ObamaCare: The Plot Thickens.” The article examines the IRS rule that purportedly implements ObamaCare’s tax credits, but actually violates that statute by taxing, borrowing, and spending hundreds of billions of dollars contrary to Congress’ explicit instructions. The article is a less-technical version of my Health Matrix article (coauthored with Jonathan Adler, “Taxation Without Representation: The Illegal IRS Rule to Expand Tax Credits Under the PPACA.”) Here’s an excerpt: In broad daylight, the Internal Revenue Service is attempting to tax, borrow, and spend [roughly] $800 billion—contrary to...

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP -- The day U.S. Sen. Frank Lautenberg died, Alieta Eck was treating a patient at the free health clinic for the poor and uninsured she operates with her husband in Somerset County. The patient, she said, had just learned her minimum-wage job was being cut from 37 to 29 hours a week, with her employer blaming the costs associated with President ObamaÂ’s health care overhaul. "She didnÂ’t know what she was going to do," Eck said. "I realized: Obamacare is going to hurt people. How are we going to stop it?" Eck paused. "Then," she said, "I got...

Just saw it mid day saturday. theatre was pretty crowded but not packed. i kind of liked it. damon was good as low level criminal that gets into a big big mess. Jodie Foster was really good as the evil b*&%h that runs the space station habitat. For reasons never explained she speaks French, and has some odd kind of French accent. Aside from that she fills the roll. She also fills out her tight skirt, looks like Ms. Foster has ballooned a little. Might have gone another way on the rear tight skirt shots. Double wide. Lot of stuff...

AMES, Iowa — Texas Sen. Ted Cruz is the subject of endless 2016 presidential speculation, and if he does decide to run, he’s already learned one important lesson. “You all had the opportunity earlier this afternoon to get to know my father. And as you saw, my dad is very soft spoken,” Cruz joked during a speech in Iowa this weekend. “I will confess, I am today violating what has been a cardinal rule, which is never, ever, ever follow my father at the podium.” Cruz and his father, Rafael, a Texas pastor, both addressed a gathering of Christian conservatives...

“Looks like Obamacare is more “on track” than “train wreck,” gloated the experts on Barack Obama’s Think Progress website as they reported the Master’s healthcare scheme was literally forcing America’s insurers to lower their premiums. (1) The glad tidings arose back in May after Oregon providers Providence Health Plan and Family Care Health requested premium rate reductions from the state-run ObamaCare exchange. (Actually, the state just gets to PAY for the exchange. It’s RUN by Kathleen Sebelius at HHS.) Naturally this was big news for Affordable Care Act fans. After all, what could be better than private insurers wanting permission...

The U.S. Department of Justice has said it will not oppose a lawsuit filed by a Michigan-based Christian-run business that is seeking suspension of enforcement of the abortion pill mandate against it. In the lawsuit by Trijicon, which manufactures sights and scopes for the military, law enforcement, and hunter, the Justice Department has notified the court it will not oppose the business' request for a court order that would suspend enforcement of the mandate against the company, Alliance Defending Freedom said in a statement on Friday. "All Americans, including job creators, should be free to honor God and live according...

The way D.C. political operatives are reacting to the news that Liz Cheney is challenging Sen. Mike Enzi in the Wyoming GOP primary, you’d think the Republican Party had another Sharron Angle on their hands — someone so much more conservative and rhetorically unrestrained than the incumbent or establishment candidate that she wins the primary only to lose a winnable general election race by a wide margin.Well, Cheney is famously unrestrained. But that’s about where the similarities end. Wyoming is so deep red that the winner of the GOP primary will sail through the general, no matter who it is....

WICHITA, KS, August 9, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Numerous mainstream and left-leaning media outlets have highlighted the “Abortion Rights Freedom Rides,” a caravan of activists now traveling to 14 states to support "Abortion on demand and without apology." However, no media outlet has reported that the event is being conducted by the Revolutionary Communist Party USA, a cult-like Maoist sect that calls for “millions of people to rise up in mass armed revolution” against the United States “when the time is right.” The abortion freedom rides are being led by Stop Patriarchy, a front group for the Revolutionary Communist Party USA...

Why is it we are so appalled when we hear of some grotesque botched abortion procedures or of over over zealous abortion workers carrying out their paid duties? I mean, after all we are a country that legally endorses abortion — infanticide actually. Truthfully speaking, what exactly are we to expect to happen in a death mill? There job isn’t exactly to save lives. Their operation is death. So why are we outraged to hear of the details? For starters, it begins with principles. To simply admire choice is really refusing to choose. However, that tiny sense of morality shocks...

--snip-- Detroit is hardly the first city to think of having ObamaCare subsidize its retirees. Chicago, which is in financial difficulty but not bankruptcy, announced a similar plan even before Detroit. Other cities — some not even financially distressed — are contemplating doing the same thing. And why not? ObamaCare imposes no penalties on governments that offload their retirees — in contrast to large employers who offload their active employees.

An abortion center that’s open seven days a week in Florida is giving away coupons to poor women in a crisis pregnancy so they can save money on their abortions!

Video at link

Sarah Palin joined Eric Bolling on Fox News this morning to take a mini-victory lap over some Democrats suddenly embracing the idea she put forth years ago over health care “death panels.” Palin felt somewhat vindicated, but didn’t want to “condone them… for trying to jump off the Obama train wreck.” She told Bolling that rationing was in the health care law from the beginning, and the Democrats who didn’t notice it until now did not want to look like “buffoons.” Palin also took the media to task for wasting an opportunity at President Obama‘s big press conference to grill...

When President Obama said during his press conference Friday, "The one unifying principle in the Republican Party at the moment is making sure that 30 million people don't have health care," the liberal media predictably echoed his sentiments. Yet if they did a little research, such folks would find that almost half of that 30 million are those being forced to buy health insurance against their will. One such clueless individual is the Washington Post's Nia-Malika Henderson who said on MSNBC's Politics Nation Friday, "I think that Obama framed it very nicely today when he said that they want to...

People who have no substance in their arguments have only one thing to fall back on. When the positions they have taken, be it on political, societal, or religious issues, have no basis in fact, they can only do one thing. How else can they argue their points, if they have no real argument? Their only option is to use demagoguery to drown out their opponents. Many liberals are masters at demagoguery, but none are as adept at it than President Obama and Harry Reid. To get a sense of what I mean, we need to look at the definition...