Free Republic

The Christmas Candle, Rick Santorum’s movie about a Christmas candle, is very nice. It’s nice in every sense of the word. There’s not a lot else to say about it. I was really, really tempted to just e-mail my editors a document that said this: “:-| :-| :-| :-| :-| :-| :-| :-|” and try to convince them that publishing it would be subversive and hip. Reluctantly, I decided not to do that. But here’s why it’s so much of a pain to write about this movie: It’s trying very hard to be something, and you feel like a jerk...

I’ve written about how Obamacare is a costly boondoggle.I’ve written how it victimizes children, low-income workers, and retirees.And I’ve explained how it exacerbates the real problem in our healthcare system.I’ve even pointed out that there’s something good in the law.But I’ve never bothered to discuss how bad laws usually aren’t as damaging as we think because folks in the private sector often figure out ways to work around some of the most onerous rules created by our overlords in Washington.For example, some employers have figured out how to avoid Obamacare while still providing health insurance.That’s the good news. The bad news is that the crowd in Washington...

International Business Machines Corp. plans to move about 110,000 retirees off its company-sponsored health plan and instead give them a payment to buy coverage on a health-insurance exchange, in a sign that even big, well-capitalized employers aren't likely to keep providing the once-common benefits as medical costs continue to rise. The move, which will affect all IBM retirees once they become eligible for Medicare, will relieve the technology company of the responsibility of managing retirement health-care benefits. IBM said the growing cost of care makes its current plan unsustainable without big premium increases. IBM's shift is an indication that health-insurance...

Health insurance giant Anthem Blue Cross said it won't participate in California's new insurance market for small businesses. Anthem, a unit of WellPoint Inc., is California's largest insurer for small employers. This surprising move could hamper the state's ability to enroll businesses in its new exchange called Covered California that opens Jan. 1 as part of the federal healthcare law. Instead, Anthem said it will keep selling coverage to small firms outside the exchange in direct competition with the state-run market. Anthem also remains one of 13 health insurers that will offer policies to individuals in Covered California. Nonetheless, Anthem's...

We must pass the bill to find out what’s in the bill. The Obama administration announced Friday that it would significantly scale back the health law’s requirements that new insurance marketplaces verify consumers’ income and health insurance status. Instead, the federal government will rely more heavily on consumers’ self-reported information until 2015, when it plans to have stronger verification systems in place. Well, I can’t imagine what could possibly go wrong there. I mean, if you need to be below a particular income and not have access to a particular level of employer provided coverage to qualify for a chance...

The Obama administration announced Friday that it would significantly scale back the health law’s requirements that new insurance marketplaces verify consumers’ income and health insurance status. Instead, the federal government will rely more heavily on consumers’ self-reported information until 2015, when it plans to have stronger verification systems in place. After encountering “legislative and operational barriers,” the federal government will not require the District and the 16 states that are running their own marketplaces to verify a consumer’s statement that they do not receive health insurance from their employer. “The exchange may accept the applicant’s attestation regarding enrollment in eligible...

In a situation that could previously only be conjectured as happening in North Korea, Nazi Germany, or some other tyrannical nation, schoolchildren are going to be used as pawns of the State to promote Obamacare. Where is this Orwellian event occurring, you ask? It's happening in the big government loving state of California. It seems that the Los Angeles school district is using a state grant to teach students to be "messengers" for the law. The district was awarded $990,000 for this purpose, and the California health insurance exchange is spending $37 million in grants overall according to the Heartland...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: I want to go to the audio sound bites, 'cause this was fascinating. On C-SPAN's Washington Journal show today, the guest was the NPR correspondent Julie Rovner, and they had the viewer call-in segment, and they had a caller named Don from Cambridge, Nebraska. The caller knows more about how the regime is using the exchanges than anybody at C-SPAN or NPR. We have two sound bites, and here's the first one. This is the caller, Don from Cambridge, Nebraska. DON: I was just kind of curious about this health care deal. If it's such a good...

When Covered California, the Golden States' health insurance exchange being set up under ObamaCare, initially announced its rates beginning in 2014, it claimed that rates will go down. Kevin Drum at Mother Jones ("if these early results hold up, Obamacare's structure seems to be doing a pretty good job at its core mission of controlling prices.") and Rick Ungar at Forbes ("the reality is that the early report card on Obamacare—at least in those states willing to give the law a chance to succeed—is looking pretty darn good. ") got suckered in. It isn't so, as Avik Roy explained yesterday...

SAN FRANCISCO -- Physicians could face dramatic financial challenges for treating patients who receive health coverage through the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) exchanges starting next year. Insurance companies will not process claims on patients who haven't paid their premiums in 3 months, leaving doctors on the hook to recoup payment directly from the patients. The ACA provides a 3-month grace period to individuals who haven't paid their premiums, and the provision could prove problematic for physicians, said Elizabeth McNeil, vice president of federal government relations at the California Medical Association (CMA) in Sacramento. Plans will hold off on processing claims...

Under pressure from large health insurance companies, the Obama administration last week announced it would delay implementation of a key aspect of its signature health reform law that will provide affordable health insurance to small businesses and their employees. Although the federal and some state governments must still set up Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) exchanges to allow small business employees access to lower rates, the SHOP exchanges will not be required to offer a choice of plans to individual employees by January 1, 2014, as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) had contemplated. That mandate will be pushed back...

Parts of ObamaCare are starting to fray, even before full implementation. The Obama administration now says a special system of exchanges designed to make it easier for small businesses to provide insurance will be delayed an entire year -- to 2015

NEW YORK CITY, March 1, 2013, (LifeSiteNews.com) – An insurance company known for not keeping its contractual obligations has received $340 million in federal loans to set up a health care exchange under ObamaCare. Critics say the only apparent criteria for the loan is the fact that the company is led by a friend of Barack Obama during his community organizer days. She is also a former leader of a George Soros-funded politically radical organization. The confluence of incompetence, cronyism, and political donations have many asking if the arrangement is above-board – and what that signals about America's future after...

Democrats understand that when they are losing a political fight, their best move is to change the political lexicon. When progressivism fails, they become liberals; when liberalism fails, they become progressives. Now they’re using that rhetorical trickery to try to save the wildly unpopular centerpiece of President Obama’s first term: Obamacare. Obamacare sets up what were originally termed state health care “exchanges.” These “exchanges” were supposedly set up to pool risk between health care insurance companies. Of course, if the market saw a benefit in such pooling, it would have done so already. In fact, many insurance companies already pool...