In the runup to the passage of last year’s tax reform bill, readers may recall, former Treasury secretary Larry Summers predicted that 10,000 people would die every year as a direct result of the bill’s passage. He had in mind the bill’s provision repealing the individual insurance mandate…
Public views of abortion in all 50 states (plus the District of Columbia) would take on an added importance if Roe v. Wade were overturned.
Senators are coming together to examine ideas on paid family leave Wednesday, encouraged along by the support of first daughter and senior White House adviser Ivanka Trump.
Conservatives are now challenging the law's regulations in court, not Congress. A key Republican says it's a bad idea.
A court in Ontario, Canada, has ruled that a patient’s desire to be euthanized trumps a doctor’s conscientious objection. Doctors there now face the cruel choice between complicity in what they consider a grievous wrong—killing a sick or disabled patient—and the very real prospect of legal or…
Activists who oppose abortion doubted Donald Trump when he was a candidate because he had once described himself as "very pro-choice." A year into his presidency, however, they happily point to victories he has achieved for them.
One day in October, Arkansas senator Tom Cotton approached Mitch McConnell on the Senate floor to pitch the majority leader an idea: In the tax reform bill, Republicans should repeal Obamacare’s individual mandate, the tax penalty most Americans lacking federally approved health insurance must pay.…
As the Republican effort to repeal and replace Obamacare withered on the vine, the self-described socialist senator from Vermont rushed to fill the political vacuum. Bernie Sanders’s Medicare for All Act of 2017 is a single-payer proposal that shamelessly attempts to harness the popularity of…
To those feverishly speculating, whether in glee or in terror, that the election results in Virginia and New Jersey portend loss of GOP control of the House of Representatives in midterm elections a year from now, I ask this question: What difference does that prospect make not as of January 2019…
House Speaker Paul Ryan on Wednesday pushed back against criticisms of the provision repealing the adoption tax credit in the Republican bill to overhaul the tax code, saying the bill overall would benefit families. "It is a tax credit that goes to higher income individuals. Middle and low income…
Obamacare “repeal and replace” may have failed this year, but that doesn’t mean the Affordable Care Act can’t be significantly defanged. For example, there is still time to excise the Independent Payment Advisory Board from the law before it is up and running.
Obamacare “repeal and replace” may have failed this year, but that doesn’t mean the Affordable Care Act can’t be significantly defanged. For example, there is still time to excise the Independent Payment Advisory Board from the law before it is up and running.
Jimmy Kimmel has recreated himself. Where the late night comic once stood, an inflatable liberal tube man now waves franticly and flaps hysterically to warn about the evils of rolling back Obamacare. It's not funny, and worse, it's not even original.
Vice President Mike Pence departed New York City immediately after President Trump concluded his speech before the United Nations General Assembly Monday morning to attend a Senate policy lunch in Washington, D.C. to help wrangle votes on the latest Obamacare repeal effort.
Eight months into its current session, Congress has passed no major legislation.
The effort to repeal and replace Obamacare isn’t quite dead. It will officially expire on September 30 without any further congressional intervention. According to guidance handed down by the Senate parliamentarian just before Labor Day, the end of the federal fiscal year is when this year’s budget…
The failed Republican effort to kill Obamacare had a saving grace. It’s small but significant. We now know the chief cause of skyrocketing health-insurance premiums since Obamacare was activated in 2013. And it’s not the “essential benefits” everyone is forced to buy, though they’ve often been…
What a week! Newly minted White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci goes nuts; White House chief of staff Reince Priebus gets fired and is replaced by retired Marine general John Kelly; General Kelly fires Scaramucci; Kelly then reassures Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had…
This week on the Confab, executive editor Fred Barnes asks what we learned about Obamacare's skyrocketing premiums from the Senate healthcare-legislation fiasco. And then senior writer John McCormack talks about how the legislative wreckage of repeal and replace may still provide a vehicle for…
What a week! Newly minted White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci goes nuts; White House chief of staff Reince Priebus gets fired and is replaced by retired Marine general John Kelly; General Kelly fires Scaramucci; Kelly then reassures Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had…
What a week! Newly minted White House communications director Anthony Scaramucci goes nuts; White House chief of staff Reince Priebus gets fired and is replaced by retired Marine general John Kelly; General Kelly fires Scaramucci; Kelly then reassures Attorney General Jeff Sessions, who had…
The failed Republican effort to kill Obamacare had a saving grace. It’s small but significant. We now know the chief cause of skyrocketing health-insurance premiums since Obamacare was activated in 2013. And it’s not the “essential benefits” everyone is forced to buy, though they’ve often been…
When Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, endorsed the latest draft of the Senate healthcare bill after it included a tweaked version of a proposal he had pushed, many observers expected his longtime ally and original co-author, Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, to quickly follow.
Insurers would be able to offer plans escaping nine Obamacare mandates by offering at least one compliant plan, according to a portion of a draft of the revised Senate healthcare bill obtained by the Washington Examiner.
Nevadans living in 14 of Nevada's 17 counties who want to purchase coverage on the state's Obamacare exchange won't have any insurers to choose from next year, after two insurers decided to exit the marketplace for 2018.
Public radio doesn't quite know what it wants us to think about the anti-addiction medicine Vivitrol.
Public radio doesn't quite know what it wants us to think about the anti-addiction medicine Vivitrol.
A new poll shows that less than a quarter of people surveyed support the GOP bill to partially repeal and replace Obamacare.
Portman and Toomey to tackle Medicaid growth rates
Rep. Mike Kelly is frustrated by his Republican colleagues' resistance to President Trump.
Ever since the American Health Care Act stalled out, Republicans have been trying to kick start the reform again. On Thursday, Speaker Ryan backed a proposal to create a $15 billion federal high-risk pool for people with pre-existing conditions.
After the failure of the American Health Care Act (AHCA)—the House Republican alternative to Obamacare—there was plenty of blame to go around. President Donald Trump pointed his finger at the House Freedom Caucus (HFC), the group of 30 or so conservatives who largely opposed the bill, tweeting,…
After the failure of the American Health Care Act (AHCA)—the House Republican alternative to Obamacare—there was plenty of blame to go around. President Donald Trump pointed his finger at the House Freedom Caucus (HFC), the group of 30 or so conservatives who largely opposed the bill, tweeting,…
Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah, said on Wednesday that the Senate parliamentarian has told him that it may be possible for Republicans to push harder on repealing Obamacare's regulations than the current House bill, which contradicts the assertion by House leadership that the legislation goes after…
The president's health care reform and his radical budget: RIP. And with them perhaps the era of The Donald as we have come to know and love or hate it.
The Congressional Budget Office on Monday dropped its highly-anticipated analysis of the House Republicans' healthcare plan, arming all sides with results that can back up their favorite talking points on healthcare. The CBO report, on the one hand, says that millions more people will be uninsured…
House Republicans on Monday released their long-awaited healthcare bill, but the plan would only repeal major parts of Obamacare starting in 2020 — when the political world will be engulfed in the next presidential election.
Nearly seven years ago, moments before President Obama signed the national healthcare legislation into law, he declared, "When I sign this bill, all of the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform."
It's the opportunity Republicans have been awaiting for six years, which invites the obvious question: Are they going to screw it up? In January, a united Republican Congress and Republican White House will finally have the ability to dispose of Obamacare, the unpopular and destructive…
It’s the opportunity Republicans have been awaiting for six years, which invites the obvious question: Are they going to screw it up? In January, a united Republican Congress and Republican White House will finally have the ability to dispose of Obamacare, the unpopular and destructive…
Should anyone outside the military be forced to kill? Most people would say no. But with the ubiquitous availability of abortion—and the push to legalize assisted suicide and euthanasia—doctors may soon find themselves required to take lives or risk being booted from the medical profession.
When open enrollment in Obamacare starts next month, enrollees in four states will be able to choose plans from only one insurer.
It has long been obvious that it's not too hard to design a health-care plan that beats Obamacare. Nonpartisan scoring now finds that the House Republican health-care plan (released earlier this summer) would beat Obamacare in terms of reducing premiums, reducing federal spending, increasing access…
In a Health Affairs article, Loren Adler and Paul Ginsburg from the Center for Health Policy at the Brookings Institution make the rather counterintuitive claim that Obamacare has actually lowered health insurance premiums. They boldly assert that "average premiums in the individual market actually…
Four months out from the general election, most pundits and commentators are acting as if Obamacare will have little effect on the results of this year's races. But given Obamacare's extraordinary unpopularity, that's hard to believe. Obamacare is horrible for middle-class Americans: It worsens…
For six years, it has been abundantly clear that Americans want Obamacare to be repealed—but only if a well-conceived conservative alternative is positioned to take its place. That's why the recent release of the House GOP health care plan is a big deal. The new plan would of course repeal…
Donald Trump deserves credit for coming out with a sketch of an Obamacare alternative. Unfortunately, his plan would not rescue us from Obamacare. Instead, it would further balloon the national debt, keep one of the worst parts of Obamacare in place, not encourage people to shop for value, keep…
Let me be clear — I am pro-life. I support that position with exceptions allowed for rape, incest or the life of the mother being at risk. I did not always hold this position, but I had a significant personal experience that brought the precious gift of life into perspective for me. My story is…
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin is shuttering his state's Obamacare insurance marketplace, the freshly elected Republican announced Monday.
The Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) is replete with bad policies. The so-called Cadillac tax is not one of them.
On August 18, Wisconsin governor Scott Walker became the first leading Republican presidential candidate to release a full-fledged Obamacare alternative. Walker’s alternative would fully repeal Obamacare and provide the sort of real reform for which Americans have long been waiting. But there has…
President Obama in a taped appearance with the Daily's Shows Jon Stewart Tuesday denied that IRS targeted conservatives, an assertion that Stewart then appeared to ridicule him for making.
In their review of House Budget Committee chairman Tom Price’s newly released Obamacare alternative, Bloomberg’s editors strain to make a virtue out of Obamacare’s maddening complexity. Whereas no one knows until tax time the following year what, if anything, they will be getting in subsidies under…
Ohio Gov. John Kasich has made clear that he's seriously considering running for the 2016 Republican presidential nomination. If he formally announces, it will be important for conservative voters to punish him for his expansion of President Obama's healthcare law in his state.
The Daily Beast’s Michael Tomasky is celebrating this April 15 by declaring that America is “the most undertaxed advanced country in the world.” He claims that this chart offers proof of his assertion.
Peter Sullivan’s story in The Hill comes with this headline:
The Supreme Court is about to hear King v. Burwell, a case that threatens to seriously undermine Obamacare. As the plaintiffs of the case have pointed out, the text of the law doesn't allow the federal government to provide health insurance subsidies to people who purchase insurance through the…
Along with the individual mandate to buy insurance, the employer mandate has been one of the more controversial aspects of Obamacare. Implementation of the employer mandate has been delayed twice, and other aspects of the law are being phased in, with "transitional relief" to help businesses cope.…
To what will Obamacare lead? If the administration’s health policies continue on their present trajectory, Obamacare will lead to some form of European-style single-payer national health system.
To begin on a positive note about the outgoing Secretary of Health and Human Services: Kathleen Sebelius was perfectly cordial the one time I met her.
Seniors disapprove of Obamacare at higher rates than other influential voting blocs and their opinion of the law could sway which political party they support in the midterm elections, according to a Republican poll shared with the Washington Examiner.
The WEEKLY STANDARD podcast, with the 2017 Project's executive director Jeffrey Anderson, on the GOP's new Obamacare repeal and replace alternative.
At least they have their health. When it comes to purchasing insurance through the Obamacare exchanges, young adults don’t have much else going for them.
In an impressive display of chutzpah, the Tampa Bay Times' fact-checking organization PolitiFact has designated President Obama's promise that "If you like your health care plan, you can keep it" as their "Lie of the Year" for 2013 while simultaneously distancing itself from its own years-long…
Now that President Obama’s oft-repeated claim that Obamacare lets people keep their current health insurance has been exposed as false, it’s a good time to examine Politifact’s track record on the matter. It isn’t good.
THE WEEKLY STANDARD podcast with senior writer Stephen F. Hayes on his recent story in the magazine, Lipstick on the Obamacare Pig.
Earlier this month, President Obama released his fiscal year 2014 budget, which calls for $1.1 trillion in higher taxes over the next decade, cuts of $400 billion from Medicare and Medicaid, and alterations to Social Security’s benefit rate worth about $130 billion.
With Obama-care poised to kick in to high gear next year, Dr. Brian Forrest routinely hears skeptics ask if the new laws and regulations will stifle his innovative primary care practice outside Raleigh, N.C.
"I heard [Obama] say, ‘If you like your health plan, you can keep it,’ ” John Wilhelm, chairman of Unite Here Health, representing 260,000 union workers, recently told the Wall Street Journal. “If I’m wrong, and the president does not intend to keep his word, I would have severe second thoughts…
Thirteen years ago I co-authored a book that I thought could cut the Gordian knot of the health care dilemma. The dozens of copies sold proved insufficient to promote the needed revolutionary change. John C. Goodman has now written the book that can do the job. He presents as clear an answer as we…
The oddly convenient academic study has long been a weapon in the Democratic party’s arsenal of election-season demagoguery. Do you need to say that conservative policies would sink the republic? Here’s a paper by scholars from a respected university, published in a respected journal, and released…