Free Republic

When President Obama signed his health-care reform last month, he declared it will "lower costs for families and for businesses and for the federal government." So why are Democrats scrambling to pass a new bill that would impose price controls on insurance? In now-they-tell-us hearings on Tuesday, the Senate health committee debated a bill that would give states the power to reject premium increases that state regulators determine are "unreasonable." Some 27 states currently have some form of rate review , but generally don't leverage it because insolvent insurers are expensive for states and bankruptcies limit consumer choices. One exception...

Yeah, I don’t get it either but Newsweek’s pretty sure that Jon Stewart’s right, so QED. Jim Treacher:

Obama: Is He Helping Or Hurting Your Business? Timothy Shea has been providing IT solutions for 21 years and has never worked as hard or felt as much economic pressure. Shea, CEO and senior consultant at Alpha NetSolutions, a solution provider based in Marlborough, Mass., says his income as the owner of an "S" corporation that files a personal tax return has dropped 25 percent from 2007 to 2009. At the same time, the health-care costs for his eight-employee, $1.2 million business have doubled over the past three years. Shea is one of many small-business solution providers interviewed for this...

"Health Law Bans New Doctor-Owned Hospitals, Blocks Expansion of Existing Ones" SNIPPET: "The rules fall under Title VI, Section 6001 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. The provision is titled “Physician Ownership and Other Transparency – Limitations on Medicare Exceptions to the Prohibition on Certain Physician Referral for Hospitals.” More than 60 doctor-owned hospitals across the country that were in the development stage will be canceled, said Molly Sandvig, executive director of Physician Hospitals of America (PHA). “That’s a lot of access to communities that will be denied,” Sandvig told CNSNews.com. “The existing hospitals are greatly affected. They...

Patients are paying record amounts out of their own pockets to buy private treatment from the National Health Service, which was set up to offer services for free. Middle-class and wealthy people now routinely receive better or earlier treatment on the NHS, including cancer diagnosis, heart bypasses and hernia operations.

The Vote: Conned by the promise of an ephemeral executive order, the last holdouts cave and ObamaCare advances. It doesn't add a single doctor or hospital room, but needs 17,000 new IRS agents to enforce it. Congressman Bart Stupak, D-Mich., spent months spelling out in minute detail how the Senate version of the health care overhaul permitted federal funding of abortion through its failure to expressly prohibit it. In the end, he cashed in his principles for an unenforceable executive order that is trumped by the Senate bill he voted to pass. An executive order is not the law of...

In rural areas of the country, obtaining a doctor's appointment is practically mission impossible. Even in cities such as Boston and Manhattan, it can be very difficult for patients to attain the medical care they badly need, particularly for Medicare and Medicaid patients. From New York's Upper East Side to the heartland to San Francisco's Haight Ashbury, a striking physician shortage exists in this country. The reasons for the dearth of doctors are complex, but one thing is certain: The "health care reform" that President Obama ardently pushed down the public's throat and recently signed into law will not increase...

Dependency: The Democrats' reform bill had hardly become law before doctors and insurers began getting calls asking about free health care. The growing sense of entitlement is disheartening, to say the least. 'Where do we get the free ObamaCare, and how do I sign up for that?" That's what Carrie McLean, an agent for eHealthInsurance.com, told McClatchy newspapers she's been hearing from callers. She said that the company's phone center has been "inundated by uninsured consumers who were hoping that the overhaul would translate into instant, affordable coverage." The McClatchy reporter also talked to Sandra Preston, a state employee in...

"[W]e have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of the controversy." House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., famously said that about President Obama's health care reform package. She was right. We are just finding out what was contained within that Obamacare law that Obama signed weeks ago. Here are five things we've learned so far: One: No sooner had Obamacare passed than the White House discovered that someone goofed. Despite all of Obama's promises and talking points, Obamacare as passed by Congress does not require insurers to cover children...

Vice President Joe Biden did it again. He reiterated what was once a central theme of Barack Obama’s presidential campaign, and what has been a central tenet of our government since Mr. Obama became President. And the idea is, simply, this: when government takes wealth away from certain individuals and groups, and gives it to certain other individuals and groups, such actions are NOT to be called “economic re-distribution.” Such actions are to be described as “fairness.” Biden, of course, has been a government employee for nearly forty years, earning a six-fugure salary paid for with our tax dollars. He...

Here are 13 changes in the massive overhaul that could impact your tax bill, for better or worse. The new health care reform law is chock-full of new taxes and tax increases that will affect many individuals and businesses, but it will be years before most of these hikes take a bite out of your -- or your company’s -- wallet. The law also has tax breaks to help both individuals and small businesses pay for insurance. 1. A new 10% excise tax on indoor tanning services on services provided after June 30, 2010. 2. The new law gives small...

Americans of modest means may soon get a lesson in the power of the IRS. ### Is there an IRS agent in your future? Shortly before Barack Obama signed the health-care bill, Republicans on the House Ways and Means Committee created a stir with a report suggesting our new law will lead the Internal Revenue Service to hire as many as 16,500 new agents. The Republicans came up with the figure by extrapolating from the IRS budget, the amount spent on employees, and the $10 billion in new funding that the Congressional Budget Office says the IRS will need to...

Politics: Rep. Henry Waxman vowed to haul CEOs into hearings after they revealed just how much ObamaCare will cost their firms. It's an absurd war on bookkeeping, from a Congress desperate to avoid heat for this fiasco. In the wake of President Obama's presidential signature on the gargantuan Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act last Thursday, big companies have crunched their numbers and come up with an ugly picture. In legally mandated filings, AT&T reported that ObamaCare will cost it $1 billion. Deere & Co. reported $150 million in new costs. Caterpillar must cough up $100 million. 3M must pay...

A new attempt at immigration reform may require a biometric ID card for all working Americans. Privacy advocates aren't pleased National identification cards, long feared by privacy advocates, may soon become mandatory for American workers. In a bipartisan effort to curb the hiring of illegal immigrants, Sens. Charles Schumer (D-NY) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC) have proposed legislation that, if passed, will require all working Americans to carry biometric ID cards containing fingerprint records and other personal information. Sen. Schumer calls the measure "the nub of solving the immigration dilemma." But Chris Calabrese, an American Civil Liberties Union lawyer, warns the...

Relatively upbeat straight news story from Sweden's SOCIALIST daily newspaper, NSD, talking in positive terms about Obamacare's passage by the U.S. House of Representatives, how historic it was, the greatest forward movement since Lyndon B. Johnson's days, the points Obama scored which strengthened him, blah, blah, blah.What was particularly instructive was THIS gem: (excerpt) "There has been quite a effort at reform now that Barack Obama has taken office there, so this was important for him. It is historic in the sense that several US presidents before Obama has tried to get a more comprehensive health insurance system, but...

The Che Guevara-founded, official wire service of the Government of Communist Cuba, La Prensa Latina, reports Mr. Obama's victory tour to Iowa to bolster support for his Obamacare. (Link to article in Spanish above), and HERE.

.. .. The here-to-fore Communist Party of Italy newspaper run by that outfit in the past, "La Unita", [now the domain of a Socialist party in Italy] has run a positive banner story under its "Mundo (World)" section, along with a photo of Barack Obama greeting prop-guests who were at the White House during the signing of the Socialist Health Care bill.The article is here, in original Italian: HERE The Italian title is: "Sanità, un bimbo e una colf: le armi segrete di Obama" or my translation: "The Secret Weapons (i.e.,to pass the bill) of Obama: A Boy and...

Newspaper: Akahata ("Red Flag"). The Daily Japanese newspaper which is the central organ of the Japanese Communist Party.Highlights in its edition today the U.S. House of Representatives' passage of Obamacare in a positive light.Makes references to obstructionist, reform opponents, the U.S. Republican Party.Otherwise paints in a positive light from a Socialist perspective, the passage by the US Congress of this legislation.

Almost every sector of American society greeted yesterday's signing of a historic health care law as a major step toward guaranteeing affordable health insurance for all. Labor unions, health care professionals, small business owners, retirees, students, and ordinary people from throughout the country applauded President Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi for having the tenacity to push through what's being called the most sweeping health care legislation since the establishment of Medicare in the 1960s. We join with those who hail this legislation both as a measure that will save lives now and begin curbing the insurance...

From Sacramento Figure $2 billion to $3 billion. That's the state of California's rough estimate of what national healthcare expansion ultimately will cost it each year. Forget the Washington gobbledygook about it saving the federal treasury money over the next 10 or 20 years. Nobody seems to be able to predict federal spending over a two-month period, let alone two decades. But if the feds do realize a net gain, as backers of the legislation predict, it will be at the states' expense. While Democrats in Washington have been rejoicing in victory and Republicans have been predicting Armageddon, California officials...