Free Republic

WASHINGTON, March 24 -- FreedomWorks issued the following news release: Tonight, the National Republican Senatorial Committee (NRSC) headquarters is hosting a fundraiser for North Carolina moderate and Senatorial candidate Thom Tillis. Headlining the fundraiser invite was a "who's who" of beltway establishmentarians, including Senator Mitch McConnell, Senator Lamar Alexander, and Senator Richard Burr. Attendees must pay a minimum of $1,000 per PAC or $500 per person to rub elbows with the D.C. elite. According to the Washington Post, (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/03/21/nrsc-chairman-obamacare-has-helped-dramatically-expand-senate-map/) NRSC Chairman Jerry Moran (R-Kan.) explained today that playing in races like this one are a priority because the "map and...

When liberal pro-Obama scholars question the legality of President Barack Obama's actions to implement Obamacare, the issue of illegal presidential use of power moves from partisan to frightening. George Washington Law School's Jonathan Turley is the second most quoted law professor in the nation and a two-time Obama voter. He recently testified before Congress on Obama's extensive use of executive orders and administrative actions to make unilateral changes in Obamacare, immigration policy, minimum wage and the IRS qualifying standards for non-profit status. As to Obamacare, Obama, so far, changed it in at least a dozen major ways, including, but not...

By voting repeatedly to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) over the past 4 years, Republicans have risked being identified as a party without a positive health policy agenda. On January 27, 2014, however, three Republican senators — Orrin Hatch (UT), Tom Coburn (OK), and Richard Burr (NC) — unveiled a proposal that would not only repeal the ACA, but also replace it with comprehensive legislation based on Republican health policy principles.1 Although the proposal recycles long-standing Republican prescriptions, it also offers new ideas. The proposal would not entirely repeal the ACA. Republicans seem to be coming to terms with...

**SNIP** There are a whole bunch of problems with this most recent scramble to save the Senate majority: 1. Democrats have opposed in lock-step every change or delay that Republicans have offered (e.g. repeal or suspension of the individual mandate, prohibition on insurance company bailouts, relief from the medical-device tax). It’s hard to declare Obamacare “the law of the land,” block serious consideration of changes and then concede it needs changing. 2. Why did they vote for the law in its current state? Maybe they were hoodwinked by the president’s promises that it would be a pro-growth, pro-jobs reform, or...

Slowly but surely President Obama is unwinding, rolling back, and even cancelling his very own Obamacare. A couple of years ago he told Republicans not to mess with his plan. He said he’d veto any changes. But now, in substantial ways, he’s messing with his own plan. By various counts, the president has made 25 to 30 key changes to the Affordable Care Act. They all violate the legislation passed in 2010. Many believe Obama’s executive actions are unlawful or unconstitutional. Whatever the case, at this rate, there may not be much if any Obamacare in the next couple of...

The federal overhaul has had a bumpy start, but with insurance payments they can handle, many have stopped gambling on their future Lost amid all the fury, however, have been the success stories.

Sen. Ron Johnson, a tea party Republican from Wisconsin, knows that the politics of Obamacare are changing. “It’s no longer just a piece of paper that you can repeal and it goes away,” he told the New York Times. “There’s something there. We have to recognize that reality. We have to deal with the people that are currently covered under Obamacare.” Jan. 1 isn't likely to be a glitch-free day for Obamacare. There will be people who try to use their insurance and find they can't, or it's not the plan they meant to buy, or it's not a plan...

DENVER – There are nearly 250,000 Coloradans whose health care policies have been or will be cancelled as a result of the Affordable Care Act, the state’s Dept. of Insurance announced on Wednesday. So far, just 3,408 Coloradans have purchased new insurance plans on the exchange; many more, 34,168 Coloradans, have enrolled in Medicaid since the program expanded under the law. “To have almost a hundred health plan cancellations for every exchange sign up in Colorado under Obamacare is exponentially worse than even the most extreme skeptic could have predicted,” said Kelly Maher, executive director of the group Compass Colorado.

I keep hearing this Democrat talking point being trotted out, accusing the Republicans of harming their constituents by not doing everything in their power to "fix" the Affordable Health Care Act. This one must test well in focus-groups because it keeps getting repeated. I've yet to hear one Republican answer this coherently. Here's my suggestion for a response: "If I saw a friend's house being looted would I do everything in my power to stop the looting, or would I walk over and try to negotiate with the looters? Would I call the police and try to get some neighbors...

Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, who lost the 2012 election to President Barack Obama, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday that he believed New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie could “easily” become the GOP presidential nominee in 2016 and “save our party.” Christie most recently made national news when he decided to drop a legal challenge to rulings in New Jersey state courts that declared same-sex marriage legal there. And not long before that, he changed his position on the question of whether illegal aliens should get in-state tuition rates at New Jersey state colleges. Now he backs legislation...

In an appearance on MCNBC’s Morning Joe, Nicole Wallace (former George W. Bush adviser and McCain/Palin campaign adviser) ruined all of the gang’s orgasmic revelry of false equivalency over Obama’s bad numbers in the latest NBC/WSJ poll by pointing out that Republicans have even worse numbers, and there seems to be no bottom for the party. Wallace then warned Republicans to stop being about nothing but criticism, “So I think the peril in looking at these numbers for President Obama is to continue down the path of railing against his administration’s policies.” (VIDEO-AT-LINK)The Republican Party’s approval ratings are at an...

With his signature health-care law under fire, President Obama flew to Boston Wednesday in an effort to remind the public that ObamaCare is modeled on the plan of his former GOP opponent and Massachusetts governor, Mitt Romney. “Your law was the model for the nation’s law,” Obama told supporters in Faneuil Hall on Wednesday.

October 30, 2013 In Romneycare Birthplace, Obama to Ask for Patience by Alexis Simendinger & Caitlin Huey-Burns In the shadow of Mitt Romney’s Massachusetts health care model, President Obama will argue Wednesday that Obamacare merits the patience and bipartisan backing the Bay State mustered seven years ago for what was then a radical new approach. The president will speak at Boston’s Faneuil Hall, hoping to draw parallels to the state-based, mandated health coverage signed by Romney, the former Republican governor defeated by Obama nearly a year ago. Romney was not invited to attend the event, a White House official said....

Editor, Times-Dispatch: I am self-employed and I pay for my own health insurance. I assumed I would pay a surcharge for the Affordable Care Act every month. I assumed incorrectly that I would have the freedom to choose, that my future and security were in my hands. My insurance agent visited my office and asked me what provision of the ACA I wanted to sign up for. I thought he was kidding; he wasn’t. I do not have a choice. My policy will go from $325 a month to more than $900 a month, my coverage will be nowhere near...

“If you think health care is expensive now, wait until you see what it costs when it's free.” – P.J. O’Rourke Okay, that used to be funny. Before it was hijacked by the Teahadists and used to hold hostages and make ransom demands. Butt now I see that sticker shock is starting to stun people all across America, even journalists: Obamacare is not just creating havoc in state exchanges, it is roiling the larger private health insurance market. Costs are skyrocketing thanks to the expensive mandates, regulations and taxes buried in the Affordable Car Act. Call it the Unaffordable...

The continuing resolution Congress approved last night with the help of the Republican leaders in both the House and Senate funds and permits implementation of an Obamacare regulation that forces Christians to act against their faith by forcing them to buy and/or provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs and devices. An earlier version of the CR that the Republican-controlled House passed on Sept. 29 had included language that would have at least “delayed” the regulation’s impact on religious liberty until Jan. 1, 2015. That language said that until then the administration could not force employers, insurers or individuals to buy...

Why is no one in Congress pointing out the illegal way by which Harry Reid and his cohorts rammed through the very punitive Obamacare bill in the first place? Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) delivered an outstanding one hour exposition of the skullduggery these partisans used to shove this socialistic atrocity down the throats, “into the bathrooms, the bedrooms, the kitchens” of we ordinary US citizens. No one else has the courage to point out that Harry Reid and company rewrote out of whole cloth a unanimously passed H.Res 3509 called “Sevice Members Home Ownership Tax Act of 2009.” This bill’s...

Here’s some free market advice to GOP legislators at all levels thinking about introducing bills supporting the state health exchanges under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA): Be prepared to wear the “Care” moniker around your name. You know? As in HillaryCare, RomneyCare or ObamaCare. Colorado’s Amy Stephens, a Republican state representative from El Paso County, was once considered a future Lt. Governor, or member of Congress. Instead, she may have flamed out her career by sponsoring a bill that would opt Colorado out of ObamaCare by implementing a so-called “health exchange” under PPACA. Yet that didn’t stop...

Breitbart News reported that House Republicans have offered a new deal to the White House to end the fiscal stalemate. The GOP plan, authored primarily by House Budget Chair Rep. Paul Ryan according to Hill sources, would meet Obama's demands in exchange for negotiations on a longer-term budget agreement. At least two high-ranking Capitol Hill sources have told Breitbart News that Ryan’s plan would also help protect Obamacare as it is currently implemented. Ryan's office deny the claims. “What your sources are attempting to attribute to Congressman Ryan is not accurate,” Kevin Seifert, Ryan’s spokesman, said in an email. But...

President Barack Obama spoke with House Speaker John Boehner on Friday but did not wholly accept the House Republican plan to open government, raise the debt ceiling and open budget talks, sources said. -snip- Senior Republican sources say Obama is amenable to changes to mandatory and discretionary spending, but needs Republicans to commit to increasing governmental revenue.