Free Republic

It's almost become a cliché: If the new health care law makes it here, it can make it anywhere. As thousands of California procrastinators try to beat Monday's midnight deadline to apply for a health care plan, they'll be joining more than 1 million others in the Bellwether State who already have enrolled through California's health insurance exchange. And another 2 million have been determined eligible for Medi-Cal, the state's program for the poor.

In an address to the House on Wednesday, Alabama Representative Mo Brooks read aloud a letter sent to him by Dr. Marlin Gill of Decatur. The letter holds nothing back while detailing the excessive costs and regulations that Dr. Gill calls Obamacare’s “war against doctors.” Here is the full text of the letter, courtesy of Rep. Brooks’ office: Dear Congressman Brooks, As a practicing family physician, I plead for help against what I can best characterize as Washington’s war against doctors. The medical profession has never before remotely approached today’s stress, work hours, wasted costs, decreased efficiency, and declining ability...

I've been thrown off my health insurance -- THANKS, OBAMACARE! -- and have spent hours and hours over the past month trying to figure out my options now that the Democrats have made my old plan, which I liked, "illegal." (I prefer to think of my plan as "undocumented.") Whom do I bill for the hours of work Obamacare forced me to perform? How about you, Mickey? You're the smartest living liberal (faint praise), and you assured us that Obamacare was going to be fantastic. By now, Obama has issued "waivers" from Obamacare to about 99 percent of the country....

Consumers who’ve tried to sign-up for the Affordable Health Care Act in Colorado are frustrated and uncertain if they are covered, despite signing up for coverage last year... complaints about the lack of action taken by Connect for Health Colorado, the state created health exchange. The viewer complaints were primarily about the exchange not sending insurance application over to insurance companies, leaving some consumers in limbo on whether or not they have medical insurance. ... Republican State Senator Kevin Lundburg, who serves on the state’s Health and Human Services committee, is equally frustrated by the lack of answers coming from...

“I sold my business because of Obamacare.”I opened my restaurant, Schu’s Grill & Bar, in 1990. There’s no question that the new health law has impacted not only my current business but future projects, too, to the point where I sold my restaurant in January and I’m in the final stages of moving on. I won’t be working in a brick-and-mortar business and putting people to work. I’ve chosen to go into consulting for myself and the ACA was one of the reasons, though not the only reason. During our busy season, we are well over the 50 full-time employee...

An Oklahoma man is facing over $100,000 in hospital bills because he lost his health insurance plan due to Obamacare. Lenny Hubbs, a “healthy man,” as his wife describes him, is a self-employed contractor who was previously on his wife’s health insurance plan. Her employer announced that his employees would no longer be allowed to pay for their spouses’ premiums. They could not afford to purchase health insurance. Lenny’s wife told KXII-TX that “good” health insurance would have cost them $500 a month. They do not qualify for Medicaid. Hubbs became sick about two weeks ago. Doctors told him his...

Back in September, our family received an Obamacare-induced health insurance death notice. We joined millions of other Americans whose individual market health plans died after Democrats lied about our ability to keep the plans and doctors we liked. President Obama tried to "fix" the mess he created. But as usual, the federal government's solutions have made things even worse. Confusion and chaos reign not just in our household, but across the country. As I reported last fall, our letter from Anthem BlueCross BlueShield of Colorado informed us that we could no longer keep our high-deductible PPO plan with a wide...

As Scott noted a little while ago, the Obama administration has again pushed back the deadline for individual and small group policies to comply with Obamacare’s requirements. They are doing this, obviously, because they are trying to put off the political fallout when millions of Americans lose the coverage they had, and find that coverage under Obamacare will be more expensive and/or more limited. Which gives a special resonance to the story of Julie Boonstra. Mrs. Boonstra, as you likely recall, is a Michigan resident who suffers from leukemia. She filmed a television ad for Americans For Prosperity in which...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: Patty Murray, senator from Washington, on the Senate floor yesterday urged people to stop listening to me 'cause I am, along with Fox News, part of the cabal spreading lies about all these people who are suffering after Obamacare. She says like Harry Reid, it's all lies. There are no problems. Nobody's having a problem. Nobody's been cancelled. Nobody. Harry Reid's actually out there and said that: It's all lies. Here grab the sound bite. This is Patty Murray on the Senate floor speaking about Obamacare yesterday. MURRAY: I hope that everybody can turn off the Fox...

If you like your president, you can keep him. Period. But what if you don’t? Stephen Blackwood, the president of the fledging Ralston College in Savannah, Georgia, has a sad, infuriating piece about his mother’s experience with Obamacare this morning in the Wall Street Journal. […] In some ways Stephen Blackwood’s case is typical. His mother, who had been diagnosed with a particularly nasty form of cancer in 2005 when she was only 49, had been receiving treatment through her insurer. She had had the Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan for nearly 20 years. […] Then came November. She, like millions...

[SNIP] And then in November, along with millions of other Americans, she lost her health insurance. She'd had a Blue Cross/Blue Shield plan for nearly 20 years. It was expensive, but given that it covered her very expensive treatment, it was a terrific plan. It gave her access to any specialist or surgeon, and to the Sandostatin and other medications that were keeping her alive. And then, because our lawmakers and president thought they could do better, she had nothing. Her old plan, now considered illegal under the new health law, had been canceled. Because the exchange website in her...

Gayle Ayala says that while she was “once a poster child for Obamacare,” she’s finding herself increasingly frustrated. At 62 years old, she has high blood pressure, high cholesterol, and is at high risk for developing breast cancer, but it has been a struggle to confirm coverage or find an acceptable doctor. She is one of many Nevadans who have found themselves in limbo after they failed to receive their insurance cards, and who have discovered that the doctors they were promised had been dropped from their insurance plans. “I’m a huge supporter of the president,” Ayala says. However, she...

Barack Obama was in Wisconsin and Tennessee Thursday happy talking about "opportunity." He's for it, by the way. "It's good to be in Wisconsin," he told Wisconsin. Few hours later, "It's good to be in Nashville." In both places he talked about "opportunity"--the opportunity that comes with jobs and the opportunity that comes with education. As a word, "opportunity" polls well. Americans like the idea. Yet, these days whenever Obama has the opportunity to talk about his signature namesake "achievement," he rarely seizes the opportunity. It wasn't until two-thirds of the way through his 7,000-word State of the Union address...

Here is an interesting video regarding the effects of Obamacare on all the employees at at Simonetta's auto repair shop in Pennsylvania. The video was made by a local TV station. A couple premiums dropped, but most went up, some by huge amounts. In every case deductibles soared. Every person involved is worse off than before. Link if video does not play: Employees in Pennsylvania Company Learn of Increased Health Costs Due to Obamacare Partial Transcript Jeff and Dave used to have a $1,250 deductible. Since Obamacare went into effect, it's now jumped 60 percent to $2,000. That's nothing compared...

People’s Exhibit A: Josie Gracchi has breast cancer. Up until January 1st of this year she had insurance and was scheduled for a January 3rd biopsy and follow-up treatment at one the largest private cancer treatment centers in the world: Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center in New York. But once 2014 arrived, her insurance was rolled into an ObamaCare health exchange. She now has no access to the surgeons she was working with, her biopsy and treatment have been postponed and she can’t find comparable doctors and surgeons through the ObamaCare website. She pleaded on television for help from the president,...

A local news station brings viewers inside one Pennsylvania company as the employees their learn about their new health care plans under Obamacare: "Look at the numbers," says the reporter of two employees. "Jeff and Dave used to have a $1,250 deductible. Since Obamacare went into effect, it's now jumped 60 percent to $2,000. That's nothing compared to Brian, Kristi, and Judy who have kids. They are going to pay twice that, four grand." The reporter adds that co-pays are being increased, too.

Cancer-stricken Sen. Tom Coburn revealed Tuesday that his health insurance under Obamacare doesn’t cover his oncologist, but said he still is receiving excellent care. “I’m doing well from a health standpoint, got great docs,” Coburn said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” on Tuesday when asked about his health. “Fortunately — even though my new coverage won’t cover my specialist — I’m going to have great care and I have a great prognosis.” The Oklahoma Republican’s spokesman confirmed to POLITICO that since the senator enrolled in his health insurance plan under Obamacare, his coverage has been reduced and he lost coverage for...

Families shopping for health insurance through the new federal marketplace are running into trouble getting everyone covered when children are eligible for Medicaid but their parents are not. Children who qualify for Medicaid, the safety-net program for the poor and disabled, can’t be included on subsidized family plans purchased through the federal marketplace, a fact that is taking many parents by surprise and leaving some kids stuck without coverage.

The federal overhaul has had a bumpy start, but with insurance payments they can handle, many have stopped gambling on their future Lost amid all the fury, however, have been the success stories.