Free Republic

With the latest HHS report about Obamacare coverage, the Biden administration doesn’t want to let facts get in the way of a good narrative.In the “lies, d-mned lies, and statistics” category comes a report the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) released Saturday, in conjunction with a Zoom call from presidents Joe Biden and Barack Obama promoting Obamacare.The report wants you to believe more than 30 million people obtained coverage because of Obamacare. But the Biden administration knows that number isn’t true. So instead of discussing people “newly insured” by the law, it talks about those who were merely...

Reassuring and rosy campaign rhetoric aside, Biden’s health care plan could very well lead to the elimination of private health insurance. Joe Biden has often said that his health-care plan wouldn’t disturb individuals who currently have coverage.During the first presidential debate, he denied President Trump’s assertion that his plan would ban private insurance or take away coverage options. When rolling out his health-care plan last year, Biden went so far as to reiterate Barack Obama’s infamous “Lie of the Year;” the former vice president claimed that “If you like your employer-based plan, you can keep it.”Except many Americans may not...

The shrinkage of employee retirement resources in the US has been well documented, as employers shift more risk onto their workers. Less so is the rate at which employers have been eliminating healthcare benefits for retirees. As the Kaiser Family Foundation recently reported, retiree health coverage is becoming an endangered species. "Employer-sponsored retiree health coverage once played a key role in supplementing Medicare," observe Tricia Neuman of the foundation. "Any way you slice it, this coverage is eroding." The chances of reversing this trend, plainly, are nil. But it's important to keep an eye on it, if only as a...

Even before the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, its conservative critics warned of the perverse incentive contained within the law which could prompt employers to reduce the health benefits they offered to some of their employees. “Because of the magnitude of the new subsidies created by Congress, the economics become compelling for many employers to simply drop coverage and help their employees obtain replacement coverage through an exchange,” former Tennessee Gov. Philip Bredesen warned in a 2010 op-ed in The Wall Street Journal. “Providing incentives for employers to dump their employees into the exchanges is simply shifting...

As new provisions under Obamacare began to take effect, more and more employers are considering shifting their workers onto private health exchanges—instead of offering the traditional employer-based plans. A new survey of 1,200 businesses released today by the PricewaterhouseCoopers Health Research Institutes (PWC) found that one third of employers are now considering shifting their employees onto private health exchanges. The employers say that new costs and regulations brought on by the Affordable Care Act are prompting them to rethink the way they offer benefits to their employees. Some companies, for example, are moving toward a model where they would give...

A majority of small business owners and manufacturers are mulling drastic changes to comply with Obamacare, with 21 percent set to drop health insurance to workers altogether and 38 percent planning to make employees pay much more. In a poll done for the National Association of Manufacturers and National Federation of Independent Businesses, 59 percent said that they will have to consider changes once the full law kicks in because increased costs will jeopardize their operations. According to the poll, 67 percent expect Obamacare to raise healthcare costs.

President Obama prom ised that his health reform would "fix" our rising med ical costs and a growing legion of uninsured Americans priced out of coverage. Fix it in which direction? Data out last week shows that the price of insurance is rising even faster than before, the number of uninsured Americans is spiraling upward, and the choices people have of doctors and health plans are being sharply constrained as a result. Welcome to ObamaCare, Year One. This is the change we should start believing in. The Obama team blames the recession or the "greedy" insurance industry for these ills....

From the White House web site entry page, on two of the rotating banner announcements: "A staggering new report indicates that under the status quo, around half of all Americans under 65 will lose their health coverage at some point in the next ten years. The President pledges not to allow this future to unfold." "The President looks back at how we managed to avoid a depression, and looks forward at how we will help the economy recover and ensure the financial industry never again drags our economy down with reckless behavior." http://www.whitehouse.gov

WASHINGTON – House Democrats are crafting a plan that would require all Americans to carry health insurance and would help families making less than $88,000 pay the premiums. Employers, too, would have to help foot the bill. It's the latest development in President Barack Obama's push to fix the ailing U.S. health care system by getting the government more deeply involved. Obama has said the final legislation must rein in costs, guarantee choice of health plans and medical providers, and ensure that all Americans have access to affordable coverage. But he's leaving it to Congress to work out the details.

Brazen Bureaucrats Proposed health coverage for domestic partners violates separation of powers By Clint Bolick Extending health benefits to domestic partners of government employees is a fiercely contentious issue. Arizona voters decided last year not to prohibit such benefits, but efforts to create them have come up empty in the state legislature. No problem, says the Department of Administration, a state executive agency: we'll mandate insurance coverage for domestic partners of state employees and retirees by bureaucratic fiat. And it did just that in a proposed rule filed last November 30 to expand the term "dependent" to include domestic partners....