Free Republic

Dayton-based Premier Health is seeking an average 40 percent premium increase next year for the health plans its sells on Ohio's federally-run health insurance marketplace, while the area's largest marketplace insurer, CareSource, has proposed an average rate hike of about 14 percent, based on the latest rate filings with the Ohio Department of Insurance. Of the more than 266,000 Ohioans who signed up for marketplace plans by the end of open enrollment for 2016, about 88 percent, or nearly 235,000 consumers, were eligible to receive premium tax credits, according to figures from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

At least one professor in America does not feel the Bern. University of Massachusetts Dartmouth Professor Jack Stauder says his political and ideological conversion away from socialism and Marxism occurred when he actually witnessed these systems in action. After traveling to more than 110 countries to pursue various forms of research, notably cultural anthropology, Stauder described his conversion from Marxism as a process of disillusionment. “I gradually became disenchanted with Marxism by visiting many of the countries that had tried to shape their societies to conform to its doctrines. I was disillusioned by the realities I saw in … socialist...

Venezuela's super-rich are enjoying lavish parties and gourmet cuisine, while middle-class people are forced to scavenge for food as the Socialist country's economy collapses. In the opulent Caracas Country Club, where membership costs an astonishing £77,000 – 458 times the average Venezuelan salary – glamorous women in cocktail dresses were seen relishing a banquet of beef and lobster, followed by a colourful selection of puddings. Meanwhile, in the Petare slum a few miles away, home to 370,000 Venezuelans, ordinary middle-class people were rummaging in stinking piles of rubbish for rotten cabbage leaves, desiccated limes and scraps of fetid meat.

The linchpin of California's climate change agenda, a program known as cap and trade, has become mired in legal, financial and political troubles that threaten to derail the state's plans to curb greenhouse gas emissions. The program has been a symbol of the state's leadership in the fight against global warming and a key source of funding, most notably for the high-speed rail project connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles. But the legality of cap and trade is being challenged in court by a business group, and questions are growing about whether state law allows it to operate past 2020....

GENEVA - The U.N. weather agency is warning of "fundamental change" afoot in the global climate and continued warming, accompanied recently by unusually high rainfall in parts of the US and Europe. The World Meteorological Organization was pointing Tuesday to data released by NASA a day earlier showing that this May was the hottest on record, and the Northern Hemisphere spring has been the hottest spring ever.

A clause in the Affordable Care Act (ACA) allows individuals who are between jobs to purchase temporary health insurance policies. The Department of Health and Human Services has announced it will change the rules to limit these policies to three months duration and ban renewals. The problem with these policies according to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell is "they fall short of the President's vision for how Americans ought to be insured. These temporary plans don't cover everything we think should be covered. Notably absent from most temporary coverage policies are items like gender reassignment surgery,...

The Paris floods, that saw extreme rainfall swell the river Seine to its highest level in decades, were made almost twice as likely because of the manmade emissions driving global warming, scientists have found. As artworks in the Louvre were moved to safety and Paris's cobbled walkways were submerged, the French president, Francois Hollande, blamed the floods on climate change. Now a preliminary analysis by a group of scientists, including the Dutch weather agency and the University of Oxford, has concluded the risk of the flooding event in Paris was almost doubled - multiplied by a factor of 1.8 -...

The force that is driving Venezuela into the ground is socialism. I've had a front-row seat to the consequences of socialism, watching the hardships of my friends and family in Venezuela. I read the messages telling me they had to go to five different markets that day to find bread. Even basic staples like Harina-Pan are missing from the shelves or skyrocketing in price. I've heard them break down crying because they lack basic needs like toilet paper. And I hear the fear of not knowing what's next or when these struggles will end. In the midst of this chaos,...

Remembering the Forsaken Written by Francis Slobodnik    Tuesday, 12 January 2010 18:51   A Review of the book The Forsaken, An American Tragedy In Stalin’s Russia by Tim Tzouliadis     In times of social and political turmoil, it is not uncommon for men to grasp for what appear to be easy solutions. Oftentimes, these impulsive decisions can have disastrous consequences. There is nothing meritorious about change in and of itself. The virtuous person prayerfully reasons through the options before making decisions. Men with little virtue grab desperately for anything that, on the surface, appears will improve their...

Doctors Now Have to Steal Food From Hospitals to Feed Their Own Families The increasing shortage of food and other basic products in Venezuela, on top of inflation, is now takingits toll on the health of the nation — most notably, on its malnourished children. Children frequently arrive to the San Felipe Central Hospital after having fainted from malnourishment, officials told the PanAm Post, and are given medicine to take three times a day, Mothers tell physicians they don’t have enough food in their homes, even after rationing. “Children under five months of age come in here with diarrhea and...

To the long list of degradations the people of Venezuela have to suffer because of their awful socialist government, you can now add dumpster diving. The Associated Press reports that people desperate for food have now turned to rooting through the garbage for meals: Until recently, Julio Noguera worked at a bakery. Now he spends his evenings searching through the garbage for food. “I come here looking for food because if I didn’t, I’d starve to death,” Noguera said as he sorted through a pile of moldy potatoes. “With things like they are, no one helps anyone and no one...

Thousands of Venezuelans living near the border discovered years ago that smuggling heavily subsidized food into Colombia made them far more money than the meager wages from regular jobs. But with crisis-hit Venezuela suffering drastic food shortages this year and local resale prices spiraling, some have decided to flip the business model: zipping into Colombia to buy flour, rice and even diapers for desperate shoppers back in Venezuela. "There's nothing left in Venezuela, what's left is hunger. Colombia is what's saving us," said one 30-year-old smuggler who now rides his motor bike to shop in Colombia's buzzing border town of...

The Obama administration on Wednesday moved to sharply limit short-term health insurance plans, which a growing number of consumers have been buying even though they offer less coverage than what the Affordable Care Act decreed, all people should have. The plans, designed for people in between jobs or in need of temporary insurance until they secure a regular policy, are cheaper than regular insurance plans. But they also can lack features that the health law requires for other policies, such as coverage for preexisting medical conditions, maternity care and prescription drugs. In addition, insurers are allowed to refuse to sell...

Until recently, Julio Noguera worked at a bakery. But he now spends his evenings searching through the garbage for food. "I come here looking for food because if I didn't, I'd starve to death," Noguera said as he sorted through a pile of moldy potatoes. "With things like they are, no one helps anyone and no one gives away meals." Across town, unemployed people converge every dusk at a trash heap on a downtown Caracas sidewalk to pick through rotten fruit and vegetables tossed out by nearby shops. They are frequently joined by small business owners, college students and pensioners...

Currently, about 40% of Americans support Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election, and about 40% of Americans are not worried about global warming. While short of a majority, this is a substantial fraction of the American public failing to grasp the risks associated with a Donald Trump presidency and potentially catastrophic climate change impacts. The threat of catastrophic climate change isn't as tangible as a burning house, car accident, or lung cancer. Americans tend to view climate threats as distant in both time and space. We can only hope that the fraction of Americans failing to grasp the immense...

Time and again I hear the term, predatory capitalism. All the liberals love to whine about it, in their conversations they talk of how the little guy is being devoured and chewed up by the rich and the high and mighty and how those nasty republicans, (that's us!) are responsible in taking from the poor and giving it away to rich mostly white folks. They compare us to Hitler and say he was a capitalist, they say things are bad now all because of the GOP and not for Obama and the left. Meanwhile, these same leftists and nit pickers...

Before you let Socialist dictators dictate your life, consider what you’re giving up and what they’re taking away Thanks to Bernie and Hillary, Socialism is on everyone’s mind. These politicians, like so many in our media and universities, claim it’s a glorious idea. Usually thought of as an economic philosophy, Socialism is more sweeping than that. It dictates how all of society must be organized. It claims to be fairer; it claims to deliver happiness. Socialism is a philosophy of life that, I’ll argue, steals the life right out of you. The central vision, indeed the central requirement, is that...

Republicans controlling the Senate are abandoning an effort to use their power over the federal purse strings to block implementation of the Affordable Care Act. The more pragmatic approach with a huge $164 billion spending measure reflects a hope by top Republicans like Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to remove veto bait from must-pass spending bills in hopes of advancing them more easily. …

Her body, like the remains of so many lost souls here, was discarded along one of the capital’s highways, notorious dumping grounds for the ever-rising toll of homicide victims. Savvy motorists avoid certain thoroughfares after dark, when carjack gangs set up ambushes, sometimes laying down nail-embedded strips to puncture tires of vehicles ferrying potential quarry. Motorists speak matter-of-factly of spotting body parts along roadways.

Though the Bureau of Labor Statistics report for May showed an anemic 38,000 new jobs were created during the month and a record 94,708,000 Americans were not in the labor force, Obama Administration Press Secretary Josh Earnest insisted that "we are not disappointed with these numbers." "Those who can't grasp the President's goals for the transformation of this country harp on the point that 38,000 new jobs are far too few to accommodate this country's monthly 200,000 population increase," Earnest complained. "Likewise, they see the expansion of the contingent not in the workforce as a negative. They've got it exactly...