Free Republic

Congressional Democrats have yet another thing to worry about going into this year's midterm elections.A temporary pandemic relief program aimed at lowering healthcare premiums under the Affordable Care Act (ACA), also known as Obamacare, is set to expire unless Democrats can revive a reconciliation bill that extends the financial assistance past the end of the year. And that means striking a deal with Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV).If they can't, roughly 13 million Americans will be hit with steep price hikes amid crippling inflation, in what Insider describes as a "time-bomb.""There's no denying that if they are not extended, then there...

Former Vice President Joe Biden is escalating attacks on Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren, decrying her "elitism" and her "my way or the highway" approach to politics amid a heated debate over health care. "It's representative of an elitism that working- and middle-class people do not share: 'We know best; you know nothing.' 'If you were only as smart as I am, you would agree with me,'" Biden wrote in a post on Medium Tuesday evening. He was responding to comments Warren made in Iowa last week that the former vice president is "running in the wrong presidential primary" and "repeating...

Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) expresses some skepticism about single-payer health insurance in a new interview, asking how the trillions of dollars in new spending would be paid for. “That is, administratively, the simplest thing to do, but to convert to it? Thirty trillion dollars. Now, how do you pay for that?” Pelosi said of single-payer in an interview with Rolling Stone. The roughly $30 trillion price tag over ten years of single-payer health insurance, sometimes referred to as "Medicare for all," has been one of the leading criticisms of the proposal. **SNIP** Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.), who is the main...

Jan. 7 (UPI) -- The Justice Department has asked a federal judge in Texas to delay a motion in a lawsuit connected with the Affordable Care Act because of the ongoing partial government shutdown. Federal attorneys filed the request Friday, but it did not appear on the court docket until Monday. The request stems from House Democrats filing a motion asking the lower chamber to intervene in the lawsuit against the ACA, filed by Republican officials. The Democrats took over the House last week and made their request to support the ACA one of their first orders of business. U.S....

Today, breast cancer kills 39 percent fewer women than 25 years ago. Prostate cancer kills 52 percent fewer men, the American Cancer Society announced last week. You can thank new technologies that detect cancer early and defeat it for many of the lives saved. Americans diagnosed with most types of cancer have better odds of surviving it in the U.S. than anywhere else on the planet. But watch out. These staggering achievements are at risk. A chorus of Democratic politicians is kicking off 2018 with renewed calls for universal, government-run health care. Leading the pack for single-payer are presidential contenders...

Republicans' tax overhaul gets rid of the tax penalty for people who fail to maintain insurance coverage. If it becomes law, what happens to the deficit and the number of uninsured? RAY SUAREZ, HOST: As the House and Senate vote to overhaul the tax code, they're also voting to undo a key part of the Affordable Care Act, or Obamacare. The bill gets rid of the tax penalty for failing to maintain insurance coverage. It's known as the individual mandate, and it's probably been the most vilified part of the healthcare law. Joining us now is NPR health policy correspondent...

BRUNSWICK, Ga. — The long August congressional recess, which Republicans hoped would begin a conversation about tax reform and must-pass budget measures, has so far seen another round of angry town halls focused on President Trump and the stalled effort to repeal the Affordable Care Act. Over just one day, in three small towns along Georgia’s Atlantic coastline, Rep. Earl L. “Buddy” Carter (R-Ga.) spent more than four hours answering 74 questions, many of them heated. Just three focused on tax reform; nearly half of all questions focused on health care. “We did our job in the House,” Carter said...

Even when there was a note to not rehire an employee on the personnel file, IRS rehired them anyway The Internal Revenue Service rehired employees who were previously involved in agency misconduct such as falsifying documents or having unauthorized access to sensitive taxpayer information, according to an audit from the Treasury Inspector General for Tax Administration. Considering that identify theft is a major concern, auditors wanted to inspect the agency to ensure the individuals they hire are of high integrity in safeguarding sensitive taxpayer information. The auditors found there were 200 employees who were rehired between January 2015 and March...

As Obamacare was winding its way through the Senate in 2009, Sen. Chuck Grassley (R., Iowa) slipped in an amendment requiring that members of Congress, and their staff, enroll in Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges. The idea was simple: that if Congress was going to impose Obamacare upon the country, it should have to experience what it is imposing firsthand. But now, word comes that Congress is quietly seeking to rescind that provision of the law, because members fear that staffers who face higher insurance costs will leave the Hill. The news has sparked outrage from the right and left. Here’s...

NEW YORK (AP) — Weary Republicans in Washington may be ready to move on from health care, but conservatives across the United States are warning the GOP-led Congress not to abandon its pledge to repeal the Obama-era health law — or risk a political nightmare in next year’s elections. The Senate’s failure this past week to pass repeal legislation has outraged the Republican base and triggered a new wave of fear. The stunning collapse has exposed a party so paralyzed by ideological division that it could not deliver on its top campaign pledge. After devoting months to the debate and...

Betty La France found a way to deal with a doctor who demanded she pay her entire bill upfront because the state could not be counted on to pay insurance reimbursement: She stopped going. While IL leaders waged a two-year budget battle, the state fell years behind in reimbursing medical providers for their services, skimping physicians and dentists even if their patients were up-to-date with their premiums. At public universities, officials and workers say some doctors and dentists, particularly those outside an insurance plan's provider network, increasingly asked patients to pick up the state's tab during the impasse. Some physicians,...

On July 29th, Americans are coming together all across the country to say: OUR LIVES ARE ON THE LINE if Republicans pass Trumpcare and strip our health coverage

The Democratic Party will consider proposing a single-payer health insurance system, Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York said. “We’re going to look at broader things [for the nation’s health care system.] Single-payer is one of them,” Schumer said to ABC News Chief Anchor George Stephanopoulos on “This Week” Sunday. The top Democrat in the Senate added that single-payer is among a number of health insurance options. “Many things are on the table,” Schumer said. “Medicare for people above 55 is on the table. A buy-in to Medicare is on the table. Buy-in to Medicaid is on the table.”

The prospects of a government-run health care system in California dimmed Friday when the leader of the state Assembly announced he doesn't plan to take up the single-payer bill this year. Speaker Anthony Rendon called the bill "woefully incomplete." "Even senators who voted for SB 562 noted there are potentially fatal flaws in the bill," the Los Angeles-area Democrat said in a statement. The bill, which has passed the Senate, lays out a plan for a government-run health system in California, but it doesn't include a way to pay for it. Rendon said the bill also doesn't adequately address delivery...

Bad move by Trump. Ryan and the globalist big government GOPe RINOs are the problem not the Freedom Caucus. Trump is supposed to be draining the swamp by now, not swimming in it. Put the interest of American citizens first! Freedom not socialism and tyranny!! Good grief! Dump Obamacare already! Should have been done on day one and we’d be way on down the road to draining the swamp by now! We the people have been demanding a full repeal for seven long years and that's the position Trump took with his original health care goal at the beginning of...

Just breaking on Fox Business.....no vote.

Never gets old. As true today as it was then. And just as important. Freedom vs socialism. Ronald Reagan on Socialism & Liberalism [Socialized Health Care]

Our big spending national government—whether Republican, Democrat or whatever—ran up a national debt approaching ten trillion dollars during the 220 and some odd years prior to Obama taking office. During Obama’s 8 year term, our big spending government nearly doubled that debt. No one’s fault (cough, cough), but we and our posterity are now staring at an unbelievable, unmanageable, unsustainable, unpayable mountain of twenty trillion dollars in accumulated debt with no let up in sight! In fact they want to continue the wholesale printing and spending of money we don’t have and they’re planning on raising the debt ceiling to...

State Sen. Ed Hernandez, chair of the Senate Health Committee, warns of a major financial hit on millions of Californians if Obamacare is repealed. Claudia Buck The Sacramento Bee BY DAN WALTERS dwalters@sacbee.com Eric Bauman, a registered nurse who aspires to become the next chairman of the California Democratic Party, says it’s time for California to become a “healthcare sanctuary” by providing universal, state-operated medical coverage. Citing efforts by a Republican-controlled federal government to repeal Obamacare, Bauman wrote in an op-ed article, “we cannot miss the historic opportunity the moment presents us: enacting single-payer healthcare into California. Let’s take that...

Obamacare has cost roughly 300,000 small business jobs due to higher health care costs, according to a new report. The American Action Forum, a center-right policy institute, released findings Wednesday that rising premiums and regulations under the Affordable Care Act have had “dire” consequences for the labor market. The report found the law has cost $19 billion in lost wages per year and forced 10,000 small businesses establishments to close their doors. The study covered employers with 20 to 99 employees. “Research from the American Action Forum (AAF) finds regulations from the Affordable Care Act (ACA) are driving up health...