Free Republic

A new analysis by a leading MIT economist provides new ammunition for Democrats as the Senate begins formally debating the historic health-reform bill being pushed by President Barack Obama. The report concludes that under the Senate’s health-reform bill, Americans buying individual coverage will pay less than they do for today's typical individual market coverage, and would be protected from high out-of-pocket costs. So Democrats will argue that under the Senate bill, Americans would pay less for more. The new document arms Democrats with a response to the contention of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) that the bill would mean...

"...The most recent person to distance herself from the embattled MIT economist is Neera Tanden, president of the liberal Center for American Progress, who wrote an op-ed published in the Wall Street Journal Thursday claiming that “Mr. Gruber was not, as many claim, the architect of the health-care law.”......... [snip of her denial] [picking up with the facts].....According to Tanden, Gruber provided essential budgetary information that the Congressional Budget Office needed to score the bill. “The most important arbiter of everything was the C.B.O.,” Tanden told The New York Times for a profile of Gruber. “We knew the numbers he...

The Department of Health and Human Services (DHHS), Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE), intends to negotiate with Jonathan Gruber, Ph.D. on a sole sources basis for technical assistance in evaluating options for national healthcare reform. The basis for restricting competition is the authority of 41 USC 253(c)(1) 106-1(b) because there is only one responsible source and no other supplies or services will satisfy DHHS requirements. The anticipated contract period will be eight months.

As Congress voted on the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare, in 2010, one of the bill's architects, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, told a college audience that those pushing the legislation pitched it as a bill that would control spiraling health care costs even though most of the bill was focused on something else and there was no guarantee the bill would actually bend the cost curve. In recent days, the past comments of Gruber -- who in this 2010 speech notes that he "helped write the federal bill" and "was a paid consultant to the Obama administration to help develop...

It started out as a joke this morning. I often listen to the Steve Kane talk radio show here in South Florida. Kane's co-host on the show is Brian Craig and I often text message jokes or humorous observations to him while the show is on the air. Since they were talking about Jonathan Gruber and later about Obama's ILLEGAL executive order on the illegals I sent him a joking observation: "Was Jonathan Gruber the architect of the executive order amnesty plan?" Well, a few moments after sending that message to Brian, I got to thinking if it could actually...

Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber said Tuesday that he regrets saying that aspects of Obamacare needed to be concealed from the public due to the “stupidity of the American voter.” “Do you stand by the comments in that video?,” MSNBC host Ronan Farrow asked Gruber, referring to a video of Gruber explaining how a lack of transparency helped Obamacare pass into law. “The comments in the video were made at an academic conference,” Gruber said. “I was speaking off the cuff and I basically spoke inappropriately and I regret having made those comments.” Farrow then argued on Gruber’s behalf that

Covering pre-existing conditions and ‘essential benefits’ raising insurance plan costsThe Affordable Care Act was supposed to make health care more affordable, but a newly released study of insurance policies before and after Obamacare shows that average premiums have skyrocketed, for some groups by as much as 78 percent. Average insurance premiums in the sought-after 23-year-old demographic rose most dramatically, with men in that age group seeing an average 78.2 percent price increase before factoring in government subsidies, and women having their premiums rise 44.9 percent, according to a report by HealthPocket scheduled for release Wednesday. The study, which was shared...

The son of a former Virginia state senator has told federal investigators that U.S. Sen. Mark R. Warner discussed the possibility of several jobs, including a federal judgeship, for the senator’s daughter in an effort to dissuade him from quitting the evenly divided state Senate.

A Stockton couple is worried that they may face a bill of more than $70,000 for a hospital stay that was initially covered by insurance. Their health plan, Anthem Blue Cross, sent them a letter last month telling them that their insurance coverage has been canceled retroactively, back to the first day of the year -- and that they may be responsible for paying bills for medical care during that time. We called Anthem Blue Cross, and they said, ‘Well, we can cancel people whenever we want. We can do whatever we want,’” Xanttopulos said. A spokesman for Covered California...

A devastating new Health and Human Services (HHS) Inspector General report released on Tuesday reveals that the Obama administration has yet to determine whether 1,295,571 of the over 8 million Obamacare enrollees are U.S. citizens lawfully in the country. The finding, located on page 11 of the report, states that 44% of the remaining 2,611,780 application "inconsistencies" are related to verifying "Citizenship/national status/lawful presence." Another 960,492 application inconsistencies were related to verifying whether subsidy applicants provided accurate income information.

"If a judge is told by a party to decide his cases in a certain way, or one party can threaten the judge’s job if the case is not decided in that party’s favor, then this central pillar of our democratic society is corroded,” Petersen said at a recent hearing called by the Senate Law and Justice Committee.

There are hundreds of aspects of Obamacare that people argue over. But there’s one question that matters above all others: does the Affordable Care Act live up to its name? Does it make health insurance less expensive? Last November, our team at the Manhattan Institute published a study indicating that Obamacare had increased the underlying cost of individually-purchased health insurance in the average state by 41 percent in 2014, relative to 2013. We’ve now redone the study on a county-by-county basis, complete with a brand-new interactive map. Depending on where you live, the results may surprise you.Our new county-by-county analysis...

In the closing days of the open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) , the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) was mailing out letters notifying certain Americans that they had already started a healthcare coverage application on their behalf. The HHS letter stated that the information they used to begin the application for individual Healthcare was obtain by the state agency in charge of implementing Obamacare. The next step for the individual would be visit Healthcare.gov and complete the already started application to see if they qualify for “Marketplace coverage.” News of the HHS letter...

A terrorist from Jordan briefly worked as an Obamacare navigator in Illinois while authorities remained unaware of her conviction for involvement in a deadly grocery store bombing and two other attacks. Rasmieh Yousef Odeh was convicted in Israel for her role in several bombings, including the 1969 attack on an upscale Shufersol grocery store, which killed two Hebrew University students who had stopped in to buy groceries for a hiking trip in the Jerusalem hills.

Colorado health-exchange director on paid leave DENVER — A director with Colorado's health-care exchange is on paid leave after it was discovered she has been accused of stealing from a nonprofit housing organization she oversaw in Montana. Christa McClure is the director of partner engagement for Connect for Health Colorado, the state program that implements the Affordable Care Act. According to the Denver Post, program spokesman Ben Davis says in her Colorado job, McClure does not have access to any of exchange's finances. The eight-count indictment against McClure was filed in U.S. District Court in Billings, Mont., in January.

PORTLAND, Ore. – You already know the process that led to the failed rollout of the Cover Oregon website was bad. But was it criminally bad? Former Republican state Rep. Patrick Sheehan told the KATU Investigators he went to the FBI in December 2012 with allegations that Cover Oregon project managers initiated the design of dummy web pages to convince the federal government the project was further along than it actually was. If Sheehan’s allegations are true, those managers could face time in jail for fraud.

The Obamacare enrollment group linked to Kathleen Sebelius still has not announced whether or not the employee stung in James O’Keefe’s latest video has been fired but said that it is “taking appropriate action.”Enroll America’s Texas state communications lead Christopher Tarango conspired to provide a list of potential Obamacare enrollees, obtained through the “commit cards” that the group hands out door to door to help them pick insurance plans, to an O’Keefe investigator posing as the representative of a political action committee.As a 501(c)(3) nonprofit, Enroll America is prohibited from engaging in political activity.“I can’t confirm anything,” Tarango said when...

<p>Sen. Ted Cruz cut to the chase and gave his view of the real reason fellow Democrats wanted to ban filibusters against certain court nominees: It’s all aimed at protecting the long-term fate of Obamacare, he said.</p> <p>The whole scheme — the passage of the rule change — was “designed to pack that court with judges that they believe will be a rubber stamp,” Mr. Cruz said, The Hill reported.</p>

Health insurance plans only count subscribers as enrolled in a health plan once they’ve submited a payment. That is when the carrier sends out a member card and begins paying doctor bills. When the Obama administration releases health law enrollment figures later this week, though, it will use a more expansive definition. It will count people who have purchased a plan as well as those who have a plan sitting in their online shopping cart but have not yet paid.

On July 16 of this year, Sarah Kliff posted a prescient piece on the Washington Post’s Wonkblog. The post, “Meet Serco, the private firm getting $1.2 billion to process your Obamacare application,” reported that 90 percent of Serco’s U.S. business is with the federal government and that the 25-year-old firm pretty much owes its existence to government contracting. In this case, Serco won a contract that will pay it $114 million in 2013 and that eye-popping number of $1.2 billion over the next five years. According to one outside study, it’s the largest single contract for implementing the Affordable Care Act,...