Free Republic

“How do you think we … Health care is not free. Now, we pay for health care in a variety of ways, pretty complicated. About half of health care dollars, more or less, comes from taxes.” Quick — who said that? None other than Sen. Bernie Sanders, Congress’ original and most enduring Socialist. The 2020 Democratic presidential contender admitted in a recent interview with the Washington Post that yes, every American will have to be taxed in order to afford a socialism-style, one-size-fits-all, government-run healthcare system. What Bernie isn’t honest about is just how much such a system will cost....

A federal appeals court panel will hear arguments Tuesday on whether a federal judge in Texas was correct in striking down the Affordable Care Act, a case with enormous stakes not only for millions of people who gained health insurance through the law but for the political futures of President Trump and other candidates in the 2020 elections. The case, which could make its way to the Supreme Court ahead of those elections, threatens insurance protections for people with pre-existing medical conditions and many other sweeping changes the 2010 law has made throughout the health care system. It was filed...

A legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act went before a panel of three federal judges on Tuesday and got a credulous, sympathetic-sounding hearing from the two judges who were appointed by Republicans. Yes, it’s happening again. This latest lawsuit, which comes from GOP state officials and has support from President Donald Trump, is the third major attack on the law’s constitutionality. In the past two cases, Republican conservatives and allies have won key battles in the lower courts ― only to have the Supreme Court stymie them and leave most of the Affordable Care Act, which is now commonly...

The threat to do away with Obamacare is once again on the rise nearly 10 years after it was passed, as a major challenge to the health care law got a sympathetic-sounding hearing in a federal appeals court this week. If the case does ultimately reach the Supreme Court, and five justices agree to strike down the Affordable Care Act, experts say it would upend the U.S. health care system and strip health insurance from an estimated 20 million people. Many millions more would lose crucial protections they might need in case of catastrophic medical issues ― including coverage for...

The U.S. Supreme Court said on Monday it will take up cases over whether the federal government must pay billions of dollars to health insurers that sold coverage on the Affordable Care Act exchanges. The Supreme Court will consider whether the government had an obligation to pay private health insurers under the so-called "risk corridor" program that was meant to offset insurer losses in the early years of the ACA exchanges. That three-year program has ended, but health insurers argue the HHS owes them more than $12 billion in unpaid funds. The Supreme Court will hear three consolidated cases during...

Gillibrand admitted to Martha Raddatz today on This Week, “We all knew,” Obama was not being honest when he told Americans they could keep their insurance. Raddatz: Do you feel misled by Obama? Gillibrand: He should have been more specific… Raddatz: So were you misled? http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2013/11/wow-ny-senator-admits-we-all-knew-obama-was-lying-about-o-care-video/ Gillibrand: No, we all knew. The whole point of the plan is to cover things people need.

Washington is set to become the first state to enter the private health insurance market with a universally available public option. A set of tiered public plans will cover standard services and are expected to be up to 10% cheaper than comparable private insurance, thanks in part to savings from a cap on rates paid to providers. But unlike existing government-managed plans, Washington’s public plans are set to be available to all residents regardless of income by 2021. The Legislature approved the plan last month, and Gov. Jay Inslee is scheduled to sign it into law Monday. The move thrusts...

Taking a harder line on health care, the Trump administration joined a coalition of Republican-led states Wednesday in asking a federal appeals court to entirely overturn former President Barack Obama's signature health care law — a decision that could leave millions uninsured. Congress rendered the Affordable Care Act completely unconstitutional in 2017 by eliminating an unpopular tax penalty for not having insurance, the administration and GOP states told the court. The "Obamacare" opponents hope to persuade the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in New Orleans to uphold U.S. District Court Judge Reed O'Connor's ruling late last year striking down...

A new Rand study found that with ObamaCare robbing Medicare of $716 billion, payments to primary care doctors plunged to just 3.5 percent of total program spending. Despite funding of primary care doctors being “associated with higher quality, better outcomes, and lower costs,” the Rand Corporation was concerned that ObamaCare delivery system reforms “devoted to primary care have not been estimated nationally." Congressional Budget Office estimated after ObamaCare passed in 2010 that over a 10-year period beginning in 2013, the law would take $716 billion from Medicare to subsidize ObamaCare exchange premiums and its broad expansion of Medicaid. Pres....

President Trump announced that Republicans would not present a health care overhaul proposal until after the 2020 election, punting on coming up with a replacement for the Affordable Care Act, which the administration is currently fighting in court to invalidate. The issue now will dominate presidential campaigns in the months leading up to the 2020 election. Mr. Trump announced his new timetable in a thread of Twitter posts late Monday, putting off one of his biggest campaign promises until, the president hopes, he is re-elected. “Everybody agrees that ObamaCare doesn’t work,” began Mr. Trump, who went on to add that...

WASHINGTON, DC – The Trump-Barr Department of Justice (DOJ) informed a federal appeals court on Monday that it agrees with Texas and the other states suing over Obamacare that President Donald Trump’s repealing of the individual mandate renders the entire law unconstitutional, and therefore should be struck down in its entirety. This all turns on the legal doctrine of severability. Much of the time when a statute is unconstitutional it is actually only partially unconstitutional. Typically a court will strike down that part of the law, but sever it from the rest of the statute and uphold the remainder. Pundits...

The Department of Justice (DOJ) on Monday announced that it is siding with a district court ruling that found the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional. The move is an escalation of the Trump administration's legal battle against the health care law. The DOJ previously argued in court that the law's pre-existing condition protections should be struck down. Now, the administration argues the entire law should be invalidated......

A new book on Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts offers new details of his negotiation with liberal justices Elena Kagan and Stephen Breyer to save ObamaCare ahead of the court's landmark ruling in 2012, according to excerpts released on CNN. In Joan Biskupic's "The Chief" which is scheduled to release next Thursday, she writes that Roberts originally opposed upholding the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate that required people to buy insurance, and cast his initial vote to strike it down, but he did join the liberal justices in voting to uphold Medicaid expansion, according to the book. He later...

A White House study released on Friday found that President Donald Trump’s Obamacare reforms will save Americans roughly $450 billion over the next ten years. A White House Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) study released on Friday found that Americans will save $450 billion through Trump’s Obamacare reforms. The CEA suggested that Trump’s repeal of the Obamacare individual mandate and the expansion of short-term insurance plans and Association Health Plans (AHPs) will save Americans billions over the next ten years. The White House also suggested that the benefits of Trump’s deregulatory actions saved Americans billions, increased access to more health...

RUSH: The judge’s ruling on Obamacare. I have to assume that got discussed here yesterday. (interruption) You don’t know? (interruption) Oh, that’s right. None of you were here for the guest host. (interruption) The guest host came from the igloo, yesterday. (interruption) Okay, that’s right. You know what I don’t get? (interruption) He did not discuss it? Okay. I have just been told that it was not discussed. This is so simple to me, and the fact that it’s so simple and yet what is so simple and obvious is being ignored, is all that you need to know about...

Top insurers began the trading day on Monday with losses on Wall Street after a federal judge ruled Friday afternoon that Obamacare is unconstitutional. Anthem's stock was down 2.62 percent to $268.37 per share in trading in New York. UnitedHealth Group was down 1.6 percent to $260.78, while Centene was down 7.94 percent to $117.40.

Thanks to President Donald Trump’s slashes to the federal government’s Obamacare advertising budget and his administration’s “sabotage” of Obamacare, hundreds of thousands of clueless people have been left in the dark and aren’t enrolling in Obamacare—at least, that’s what countless reporters and pundits would have you believe. However, the truth is this issue is far more complex that what many on the Left suggest.There’s no doubt that 2019 Obamacare enrollment has dropped compared to enrollment figures from one year ago. The Associated Press reports enrollment in the federal Obamacare exchange—the health insurance exchange used by 39 states—has fallen by nearly 20...

(Bloomberg) -- Obamacare was struck down by a Texas federal judge in a ruling that casts uncertainty on insurance coverage for millions of U.S. residents. The decision Friday finding the Affordable Care Act unconstitutional comes just before the end of a six-week open enrollment period for the program in 2019 and underscores a divide between Republicans who have long sought to invalidate the law and Democrats who fought to keep it in place. U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor in Fort Worth agreed with a coalition of Republican states led by Texas that he had to eviscerate the Affordable Care Act,...

U.S. District Judge Reed O’Connor agreed with 19 States to declare the Affordable Care Act, (aka Obamacare) Unconstitutional because Congress revoked the tax penalty last year.

(Reuters) - A U.S. federal judge in Texas ruled on Friday that the Affordable Care Act, commonly known as Obamacare, is unconstitutional. U.S. District Judge Reed O'Connor in Fort Worth agreed with a coalition of 20 states that a change in tax law last year eliminating a penalty for not having health insurance invalidates the entire Obamacare law. O'Connor's decision is likely to be appealed to the U.S. Supreme Court.