Free Republic

A conference to discuss the impact of coronavirus on business in the US has been cancelled - because of a sudden rise in infections in New York. The roundtable, called Doing Business Under Coronavirus, was canned after 173 cases of the infection were confirmed in the east coast city, where the conference was supposed to be held on Friday. The Council on Foreign Relations organised the event to help support the businesses facing increased pressure from the impact of Covid-19. Other conferences, scheduled from March 11 to April 3, also had to be scrapped - including roundtables in New York...

COLUMBUS, OH (WOWK) – Ohio Governor Mike DeWine advises all indoor sporting events to eliminate spectators in an attempt to control the spread of COVID-19. DeWine said he also advised Ohio colleges and universities to cancel face-to-face classes and use remote learning. He says schools should stop all school-sanctioned international travel. All those who have traveled internationally recently, or spent their Spring Break on a cruise ship, should be evaluated. The governor does not call for K-12 schools to close at this time but says it could be a possibility in the future.

In an effort to stop the spread of the coronavirus, Ohio State is suspending all in-person classes through at least March 30, instead moving to virtual instruction, according to a university-wide email from Ohio State President Michael Drake. Ohio State also announced a hiatus on the scheduling of "new, non-essential events" through April 20, and is encouraging event organizers for scheduled non-essential events between now and then "to immediately evaluate whether these events should continue in person." The Buckeyes' spring game is currently slated for April 11. Students, currently on spring break, will be permitted to work from their current...

Drag Queen Story Hours started out as niche events on the West Coast, but these events—aimed at children as young as age 3—have spread to libraries and schools across the United States, dividing local communities. These story hours are “just what they sound like,” Drag Queen Story Hour’s official website states: drag queens reading to children. The events are designed to be about 45 minutes long for children aged 3 to 8 years old, intended to capture children’s imagination and help children explore their gender fluidity through “glamorous, positive, and unabashedly queer role models.” Books used during Drag Queen Story...

WASHINGTON, D.C., November 22, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) — At Chick-fil-A, the politically correct handwriting was on the wall for a long time, but most of us missed it. Until now. Just four days since the popular chicken restaurant’s infamous announcement about reprioritizing its corporate giving, and despite the launch of a counter-narrative by conservatives Rev. Franklin Graham, Erik Erickson, and others, it’s clear that Chick-fil-A (CFA) has been on a troubling leftward trajectory for quite some time. The revelations are stunning. Chick-fil-A evolving into a pipeline of cash to leftist causes CFA fans wouldn’t have been caught by surprise if they...

Most cite high costs and insurers dropping coverage! Roughly 1.9 million Americans canceled their Obamacare coverage in 2017. Most cited high premiums and disruptions in coverage as the reason, according to two reports from the Department of Health and Human Services. The agency announced that 12.2 million consumers had selected an Obamacare plan or were reenrolled by the end of open enrollment on January 31, 2017. Only 10.3 million of those consumers, however, committed to the purchase by paying their premiums, leaving roughly 1.9 million Americans who essentially canceled their coverage. "In order to get a complete picture about enrollment...

Has MSNBC finally had enough of leaning forward into a full-tilt decline in ratings? Despite some suggestions that the cable channel’s carriage fees immunizes it from the ratings issue, it’s apparently not enough for the new president of NBC News. Poor ratings may spell the end of three shows, two of which appear in the channel’s ailing prime-time lineup, according to Mediaite’s Andrew Kirell: Mediaite has learned that Lack is now beginning to take an active role in the herculean task of trying to right that left-leaning ship: Specifically, Lack is now often attending MSNBC chief Phil Griffin‘s 11:30...

Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner (R) said he’s “utterly appalled” by the Colorado Division of Insurance decision to cancel 190,000 health plans that don’t comply with Obamacare regulations — even though they have the authority to continue the old plans for another year under grandfathering rules announced last year. “Coloradans were promised by supporters of this healthcare law that if they liked their plans, they could keep their plans,” he said. “DOI should follow through on that promise, and prove that last year’s extension wasn’t simply an empty election year ploy to fool people into believing they were going to be...

The latest data on Obamacare analyzed by the Congressional Budget Office shows that 10 million Americans are likely to lose their employer-based insurance by 2021 as companies dump their workers onto the Obamacare exchanges. That's 10 times the number originally projected by the CBO. About 1 of every 16 workers will be affected.

There's a bizarre reason why millions of Americans saw their health plans cancelled in 2013 and, as explained in a new video featuring Robert Graboyes of the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, millions more will lose their plans in years to come.

California's health exchange is violating the law by canceling private coverage for up to 95,000 people because they might qualify for Medi-Cal, the state's insurance commissioner says. At issue is health insurance for some of the poorest Californians whose incomes aren't high enough to even qualify for subsidized policies in the Covered California exchange. The state marketplace is notifying thousands of policyholders that their federal premium subsidies for Obamacare coverage will end Dec. 31 and their private health plan won't be renewed starting in January. Instead, these people will be put into Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program for low-income residents....

More than 25,000 federal employees will lose their health plans next year as insurance providers drop out of the government’s coverage network, according to the Office of Personnel Management. Affected workers will have the option of switching to other plans within the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, but the number of disruptions will reach the highest level since more than 61,000 enrollees had to change plans in 2009. Insurance providers drop out of the federal workforce’s health program every year, so this year’s changes are nothing new. Companies generally leave the network because they have not attracted enough enrollees to...

For the first time in modern history, the Obama administration has forced insurance companies to withhold 2015 prices until after the election. So he can shield Democrats. In the past, new prices were announced 60 days before the first day of the year. Not this year. Warner Todd Huston reported: Barack Obama is again playing political games with our health insurance industry and has turned in another underhanded move against it by forcing insurance carriers, brokers and agents to withhold their 2015 prices until after the 2014 midterm elections are over all so that the news of higher prices won’t...

As more and more people are bounced out of health insurance plans they liked, Health and Human Services Regional Director Joanne Grossie insisted on calling the cancellations “invitations to obtain better plans.” “A lot of times people will lapse into being satisfied with an inferior product or service out of pure inertia,” Grossie maintained. “By outlawing substandard policies the Affordable Care Act forces people to upgrade to better plans.” Grossie rejected the idea that a person might genuinely prefer a so-called substandard policy. “A single man might think he has no need to pay for coverage of gynecological services, maternity...

In order to be a big-government liberal, mental gymnastics and verbal tap-dancing must come naturally. In an impressive display of verbal flexibility, a Health and Human Services official explained that Obamacare is really just a benevolent feature of a loving government that is completely incapable of coercion or force. According to Joanne Grossie from the HHS, no one is being “forced” into the public exchanges. She even insisted that people who have found themselves kicked off their previous healthcare plans are actually quite lucky; because their previous plans were obviously inadequate clunkers that catered only to their gullibility and stupidity…...

In the last few months of 2013, Obamacare suffered a series of embarrassing setbacks dealing with everything from a clunky website to plan cancellations tothe White House feeling compelled to arbitrarily ignore the law.Since that time, though, people seem to have adapted to this new burden.But adaptation doesn’t mean approval. There are still serious problems with Obamacare, as evidenced by the fact that the Obama Administration has postponed implementation of various provisions 38 times!However, the White House wants us to believe the law is a success, even if that requires statistical contortions.So let’s look at the record.My Cato colleague Mike Tanner argues...

The next wave of ObamaCare insurance cancellations is under way, flying largely under the national media radar… until Wal-Mart announced it would be dropping coverage for all its part-time employees.

Democratic Senator Mark Warner (D., Va.) refused to elaborate on the 250,000 Virginians who are losing their healthcare plans due to Obamacare during Tuesday’s Senate debate against Republican Ed Gillespie. Moderator Karen Tumulty asked Warner to respond to taxpayers who are losing their plans, but Warner did not acknowledge the cancellations. Rather, he touted the elements of Obamacare that he believes Virginians support. “Virginians want us to fix healthcare,” Warner said.

Everyday Low Benefits Wal-Mart dumps 30,000 part-timers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. Oct. 7, 2014 7:25 p.m. ET Wal-Mart endorsed ObamaCare in 2009 and helped drag the bill through Congress, and so far it hasn’t recanted. By holding back economic growth and incomes, perhaps the law is expanding the retailer’s customer base. Another plus—at least for management—is that Wal-Mart can jettison its employees into the ObamaCare insurance exchanges. The Associated Press reported Tuesday that the largest U.S. private employer is dropping health benefits for some 30,000 workers, or about 5% of its part-time workforce. Earlier health-plan eligibility triage in 2011 had...

According to Fox News and several print media outlets tens of thousands to hundreds of thousands of people are about to be notified that their health insurance policies are being cancelled, thanks to Obamacare. That could mean bad news for liberals just weeks before 2014 midterm elections, except the broadcast networks have refused to report it. ABC, CBS and NBC news programs failed to mention the latest wave of policy cancellations as of Oct. 9. Plans that could not meet regulations mandated under the Affordable Care Act will no longer be granted a reprieve in thirteen states and the District...