Free Republic

Obamacare’s supporters have long insisted that it is the “law of the land,” implicitly suggesting that it is immutable and permanent. Evidently, it hasn’t occurred to these people to mention that to their dear leader. His Majesty, Barack I, obviously thinks of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as a collection of royal decrees, any one of which may be altered at his pleasure. Thus, in a proclamation issued last week through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, His Highness declared that all U.S. territories are now exempt from most of PPACA’s morass of rules and regulations. Neither...

Sen. John Thune (R., S.D.) called out the Obama administration for an “outrageous” Obamacare tax exemption for certain unions that he says will be passed on to the American people. “Every American ought to be outraged,” he said. “This is cronyism at its worst. Basically, what the president said was that he and his friends are above the law, because there is a reinsurance tax in Obamacare that’s designed to apply to all self-insured plans. And what the president did is he waived that for certain, self-insured, self-administered plans, namely unions, so they don’t have to pay that tax. And...

<p>The Obama administration is considering letting people keep existing individual insurance policies that are not ObamaCare compliant beyond 2014, perhaps as long as three years.</p> <p>Late last year millions of Americans learned that President Obama's promise, "if you like it plan, you can keep it," wasn't actually true. Their insurance plans were being canceled because they didn't meet ObamaCare provisions.</p>

One of President Obama’s most ardent liberal supporters has defected from Obamacare. “We will be encouraging a waiver,” Polis told Health Policy Solutions in a story that ran today. “It will be difficult for Summit County residents to become insured. For the vast majority, it’s too high a price to pay.” Polis also wrote to Colorado’s insurance commissioner asking why an average 40-year-old mountaintop resident would have to fork over $427.80 a month while counterparts in Denver would pay $296.41 for the same plan. “People take one look at the rates and they walk out the door,” said Tamara Drangstveit,...

If there’s one thing liberals/progressives can’t handle it is being held to their own standards. They support higher taxes but shelter their wealth in trusts and tax havens, which already is earned and no longer taxable as income, so they can avoid the death tax. They claim “the rich” aren’t paying their “fair share” and decry “loopholes” but then avail themselves of every deduction their accountants can find. They will not live the way they seek to impose on others unless and until it is imposed on others, and then only maybe. In the case of Obamacare, Members of Congress...

Organized labor was one of the Obama administration's most important allies during the passage of the Affordable Care Act. But more recently, some unions have been among the law's loudest critics. A particular issue of contention has been so-called "Taft-Hartley plans" -- multi-employer health-care plans that unions run, and that aren't eligible for subsidies under the terms of the Affordable Care Act. The plans cover about 20 million Americans, and the government treats them as employer-based health-care plans for tax purposes. A recent letter signed by the powerful Teamster, UNITE-HERE, and UFCW unions warned that "under the ACA as interpreted...

Senate majority leader Harry Reid defended the special Obamacare exemptions carved out for lawmakers and their staff on Thursday during a Capitol press conference, insisting that Congress members and staff will participate in Obamacare’s exchanges.Responding to the hoopla surrounding the health insurance policies on Capitol Hill, the Nevada Democrat flatly stated Thursday, “That’s what the law says, and we’ll be part of that.”Reid said the Republicans and critics are just using the issue as a “diversion” to “try and embarrass the president.”“Let’s stop these really juvenile political games,” Reid said. “The one dealing with healthcare for Senators and House members...

Capitol Hill Republicans are trying to stop the Obama administration from offering labor unions a sweetheart deal on ObamaCare, as the White House tries to quell a simmering rebellion from Big Labor over the health care law. President Obama and White House officials reportedly have called union leaders to try and persuade them to tone down their complaints, pledging an accommodation. The AFL-CIO, though, on Wednesday approved a resolution anyway calling the law "highly disruptive" to union plans. But reports have surfaced on a plan that would give union workers -- and only union workers -- subsidies to help pay...

The federal government granted Indiana a year-long Obamacare waiver on Tuesday, allowing the state to continue to run its own Medicaid pilot program, The Washington Post reports. Indiana, along with Iowa and Arkansas, requested major exemptions from the law, and is the first state to receive one. “Securing a waiver to continue the Healthy Indiana Plan is a victory for Hoosiers enrolled in this innovative program and will ensure that Indiana remains at the forefront of consumer-driven healthcare in the United States,” Republican Gov. Mike Pence said in a statement. Pence will now consider expanding Medicaid under the state’s “Healthy...

Exactly two years ago this week, the Obama administration announced it had issued more than 100 waivers en masse to a select group of companies, unions and other health insurance providers seeking relief from the onerous federal health care law. The Obamacare waiver winner's club now totals 2,000. Where are they now? Answer: In the same miserable boat as every other unlucky business struggling with the crushing costs and burdens of the mandate. Among the first and most prominent recipients of the Obamacare waivers for favors were large restaurant chains that provide low-wage, seasonal and part-time workers with low-cost health...

Today, a top national restaurant chain partnered with First Lady Michelle Obama’s Let’s Move childhood anti-obesity campaign. Last year, that same company received a waiver exempting it from some of the most stringent mandates of ObamaCare. Michelle Obama visited an Olive Garden restaurant in Hyattsville, Maryland today as Darden Restaurants announced that it would reduce the amount of calories and sodium in its menu by 20% over the next decade. Darden Restaurants, which owns Olive Garden, Red Lobster, Longhorn Steakhouse, Capital Grille, Bahama Breeze, and Seasons 52, received a waiver from Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius on October...

If you haven’t previously read about who Judith Faulkner is, it’s imperative – especially if you live in Wisconsin – to read this post first, Will Money & Power in Wisconsin Politics Influence Health Care Policy?, particularly the last third of it. You see, it turns out that one of the biggest backers of liberal politicians and big labor in Wisconsin is actually none other than….an evil corporation!

No one seems to know what criteria HHS uses to grant or deny waivers to insurers from provisions in ObamaCare. The White House won’t release the names of those insurers and employers refused waivers or discuss denials at all. But maybe, just maybe, we could all agree that organizations that publicly pushed ObamaCare to approval should be ineligible to escape its consequences? The Daily Caller has learned that the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) rate review rules, which it finalized on Thursday, exempt “Medigap” policy providers, like the American Association of Retired Persons (AARP), from oversight when such...

If you knew a dangerous virus was about to hit America and that you could beg the government for a vaccine, you'd probably do it, wouldn't you? That's just what states and businesses alike are doing right now in preparation for Obamacare. But rather than seeking a vaccine, they're asking for waivers from the law's onerous requirements. To date, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has approved 1,372 Obamacare waivers, covering 3.1 million Americans. Yesterday, The Daily Caller reported that among HHS's most recent round of 204 Obamacare waivers, "38 are for fancy eateries, hip nightclubs and decadent...

The president cannot simply decide who does and does not have to follow the law... The constitutional dispute over the health-care law has thus far centered on the lawfulness of the statute itself — most dramatically when, last week in Florida, a federal judge held the act to be void. Waiting in the wings, however, is another constitutional question, one concerning not the statute, but waivers from it.