A <a href="https://paragoninstitute.org/private-health/the-greater-obamacare-enrollment-fraud/">new report</a> from an institute whose president coordinated the development of health policies during President Donald Trump&#8217;s first term says millions of people are fraudulently obtaining health insurance subsidized by the federal government.
The Paragon Health Institute is a think-tank whose president, Brian Blase, is determined to root out corruption in the federal healthcare plan. “We don’t just write white papers,” he <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/12/20/conservative-policy-shop-helping-shape-gop-priorities/">stated</a> last December. “We focus on trying to make change.”
“The Biden administration’s attempts to make it easier for people to sign up for insurance through the federal marketplace website also allowed insurance brokers to commit fraud, experts across the political spectrum agree,” The Washington Post <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2025/06/17/affordable-care-act-obamacare-fraud/">noted</a>, adding, “The report estimates that the income of more than a quarter of the 24 million marketplace enrollees this year was misrepresented, often by brokers, so that the plan would be fully subsidized.”
“We have found that this improper enrollment and fraud surged over the past year—rising by more than one-quarter to now total nearly 6.4 million ineligible recipients,” the report, titled, “The Greater Obamacare Enrollment Fraud: The Fraud Got Much Worse in 2025,” states. “The Biden administration took a host of administrative actions that prioritized higher enrollment numbers over eligibility verification, allowing fraud to grow unchecked.”
The report explains:
<blockquote>
Exchange enrollment fraud is driven by a combination of four factors: (1) the enhanced Obamacare subsidies, enacted as a temporary pandemic-era policy, which fully subsidize plans for people who report income between 100 and 150 percent of the FPL; (2) Biden administration policies that prioritized enrollment over eligibility verification and program integrity; (3) limits on how much the federal government can recover if insurers receive excess advance subsidies because of improper eligibility determinations; and (4) automatic re-enrollment, which perpetuates improper enrollments year after year.
&#8230; the perverse incentives of the system have attracted unscrupulous brokers. These brokers understand how to game Obamacare. They are driving fraudulent enrollments by exploiting the enhanced direct enrollment feature of HealthCare.gov, which allows third parties to enroll consumers without their direct interaction with the exchange.
</blockquote>
In <a href="https://paragoninstitute.org/private-health/the-great-obamacare-enrollment-fraud/">The Great Obamacare Enrollment Fraud</a>, the precursor to the current report, the institute made six recommendations to deal with the fraud it found:
<ol>
<li>Congress should permit the enhanced subsidies to expire after 2025.</li>
<li>Congress should raise subsidy recapture limits to reduce incentives for people to misestimate their income.</li>
<li>Congress or the next administration should limit automatic re-enrollment into exchange plans and end it for people moving from or into fully taxpayer-subsidized plans.</li>
<li>Congress should appropriate cost-sharing reduction payments and prohibit silver-loading.</li>
<li>Congress should conduct aggressive oversight of the Biden administration’s management of HealthCare.gov, enhanced direct enrollment, and insurer and broker actions to take advantage of misestimating income.</li>
<li>Congress or the next administration should reverse policies of the Biden administration that enabled such widespread fraudulent enrollment, particularly the continuous open-enrollment period for people who report income below 150 percent of the Federal Poverty Level.</li>
</ol>
The current report staunchly supports President Trump’s budget bill, stating, “If the provisions of The One Big Beautiful Bill become law, five of Paragon’s six recommendations from The Great Obamacare Enrollment Fraud would be implemented. &#8230; The remaining reform, and the most important, is for Congress to permit the enhanced subsidies to expire after 2025.”

Person Holding and Counting US Dollar Bills

Millions Of Americans Illegally Getting Subsidized Obamacare: Report

Budget Bill

Fraud

Obamacare

The website in California where consumers can shop for and enroll in health insurance plans that comply with Obamacare sent users’ personal health information to LinkedIn.
Covered California, the state-run marketplace for Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act), had a website on which consumers were asked about whether they were blind, pregnant, or used a high number of prescription medications, CalMatters <a href="https://calmatters.org/health/2025/04/covered-california-linkedin-tracker/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reported</a>, adding, “Kelly Donohue, a spokesperson for the agency, confirmed that data was sent to LinkedIn as part of an advertising campaign. &#8230; Visitors who filled out health information on the site may have had their data tracked for more than a year, according to Donohue.”
Covered California sending data to a company such as LinkedIn is “concerning and invasive,” Sara Geoghegan, senior counsel at the Electronic Privacy Information Center, said, calling it  “wholly irrelevant” for LinkedIn to have the information. “People don’t expect that their health information will be collected and used in this way,” she added.
“LinkedIn is already facing multiple proposed class-action lawsuits related to the collection of medical information,” CalMatters noted. “In October, <a href="https://www.bankinfosecurity.com/lawsuits-accuse-linkedin-tracking-users-health-info-a-26668" target="_blank" rel="noopener">three new lawsuits in California courts alleged</a> that LinkedIn violated users’ privacy by collecting information on medical appointment sites, including for a fertility clinic.”
Rep. Kevin Kiley (R-CA), a former candidate for governor, wrote on X, “This is incredibly disturbing. California&#8217;s Obamacare website tracked users&#8217; personal health information – such as pregnancy and prescription drug use – and sent it to LinkedIn for a &#8216;marketing campaign.&#8217; We are asking Secretary Kennedy to investigate for HIPAA violations.”
“Covered California has identified that some sensitive data was inadvertently collected by the tags, including first names, the last four digits of Social Security numbers, and other sensitive health information like pregnancy status. To our knowledge, access to this data was limited to Covered California credentialed users for the limited purpose of managing Covered California’s account,” the agency <a href="https://www.coveredca.com/newsroom/news-releases/2025/04/28/statement-on-data-and-information-sharing/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">acknowledged</a>.
“Covered California is now the largest state-based health insurance marketplace in the country,” the organization boasts on its <a href="https://www.coveredca.com/marketing-blog/what-is-covered-california/">website</a>. “Over the last decade, we’ve helped reduce the percentage of uninsured adults under the age of 65 from 19.4 percent to just 7.5 percent — well below the national average.”

Open Enrollment Insurance ObamaCare Patient Protection, Affordable Care Act Guide

California Obamacare Marketplace Sent Users’ Personal Info To LinkedIn

California

Health

Health Insurance

LinkedIn

Privacy

U.S.

A federal judge in North Dakota on Monday stopped the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/biden-administration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Biden administration</a> from implementing a new policy that would make certain illegal immigrants eligible for government-backed health care coverage.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Traynor <a href="https://www.bloomberglaw.com/public/desktop/document/KansasStateofetalvUnitedStatesofAmericaetalDocketNo124cv00150DNDA/1?doc_id=X341THOR6K38NURUPN1CEL94VDR" target="_blank" rel="noopener">granted</a> a request to block a new policy from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) that would allow individuals given Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) status to enroll in Obamacare. Traynor said that Kansas and the 18 Republican attorney generals who sued the Biden administration were likely to succeed and gave them a stay against the policy. 
Traynor said that CMS broke the law earlier this year when it <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/slap-in-the-face-biden-blasted-after-giving-certain-illegal-immigrants-access-to-gov-health-care" target="_blank" rel="noopener">changed</a> the definition of people “lawfully present” in the United States to include DACA recipients. Those with DACA status crossed illegally into America as minors with their parents and were shielded from deportation via an executive order from President Barack Obama. 
“The authority granted to CMS by the ACA [Affordable Care Act] is to ascertain whether an individual meets the requirements for lawful status. It by no means allows the agency to circumvent congressional authority and redefine the term ‘lawfully present,’” Traynor wrote. 
“As it currently stands, the ACA does not allow federal healthcare subsidies or coverage for aliens who are unlawfully present in the United States,” he added. 
Traynor also agreed with the Republican attorneys general that the policy would encourage illegal aliens to remain in their states with the draw of health care. 
The decision was praised by Kansas Attorney General Kris Kobach, who led the suit against the policy. 
&#8220;Big win for the rule of law. Congress never intended that illegal aliens should receive Obama care benefits,” he said. “Indeed, two laws prohibit them from receiving such benefits. The Biden administration tried to break those laws. But we fought back, and defeated the Justice Department.&#8221;
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The other states that were part of the suit included Ohio, Idaho,  Nebraska,  South  Carolina, Alabama, Virginia, Tennessee, Indiana, Missouri, Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Iowa, New Hampshire, Kentucky, Texas, Florida, and Arkansas. They argued that the rule from the Biden administration was arbitrary and capricious, and would incentivize illegal immigration. 
In response to the ruling, CMS <a href="https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/5031527-federal-court-blocks-aca-coverage-for-dreamers/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a> that it was reviewing the decision but could not comment further. 
The rule change was opposed by President-elect Donald Trump, with campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt decrying it in May as &#8220;unfair and unsustainable.&#8221; 
“Joe Biden‘s handouts for illegal immigrants are especially devastating to Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and union workers who are forced to watch their jobs and public resources stolen by people who illegally entered our country,” Leavitt, Trump&#8217;s incoming press secretary, said at the time.
Last month, another judge struck down a parole program from the Biden administration that would have granted legal status to hundreds of thousands of illegal immigrants.

President Biden Delivers Remarks On Situation In Syria

Judge Blocks Biden Admin From Giving DACA Recipients Obamacare

Biden Administration

Courts

Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)

Health Care

Illegal Immigration

Kansas

House Speaker <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/mike-johnson" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mike Johnson</a> said “massive” reforms to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), known as Obamacare, would be a Republican priority if former president Donald Trump wins the White House.
Johnson made the remark while speaking in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, at a campaign event for GOP House candidate Ryan Mackenzie, according to <a href="https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/speaker-johnson-criticizes-obamacare-promises-massive-reform-trump-win-rcna177853" target="_blank" rel="noopener">NBC News</a>. Trump has campaigned on reforming Obamacare in a second Trump term, calling it a “lousy” program.
“Health care reform’s going to be a big part of the agenda. When I say we’re going to have a very aggressive first 100 days agenda, we got a lot of things still on the table,” Johnson said.
When one attendee questioned, “No Obamacare?” Johnson responded: “No Obamacare.”
“The ACA is so deeply ingrained, we need massive reform to make this work, and we got a lot of ideas on how to do that,” the Louisiana Republican added.
Vice President Kamala Harris’ campaign attacked the speaker over the comments, accusing him of attempting to repeal the Obama-era healthcare law.
“Health care is on the ballot this November. Speaker Mike Johnson is making it clear – if Donald Trump wins, he and his Project 2025 allies in Congress will make sure there is ‘no Obamacare,’” a campaign spokeswoman said in a statement.
<a href="https://www.amiracist.com/?_gl=1*jtghwp*_gcl_au*ODQ1NjYzNTg2LjE3Mjg5MDk3OTE.*_ga*MTc2NzM0NDQ2NS4xNzI4OTA5Nzkx*_ga_CZKR9ZYKJP*MTczMDEyMDgwOS40OS4xLjE3MzAxMjA4MzkuMzAuMC4w" target="_blank" rel="noopener">MATT WALSH’S ‘AM I RACIST?’ NOW STREAMING ON DAILYWIRE+</a>
Johnson pushed back, telling <a href="https://thehill.com/homenews/house/4962432-johnson-republicans-obamacare-harris/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">The Hill</a>: “Despite the dishonest characterizations from the Harris campaign, the audio and transcript make clear that I offered no such promise to end ObamaCare, and in fact acknowledged that the policy is ‘deeply ingrained’ in our health care system.”
“Still, House Republicans will always seek to reduce the costs and improve the quality and availability of health care for all Americans. Anyone who has been a patient or known a loved one who has struggled with health issues understands why this is so important,” he added.
Trump attempted to repeal and replace Obamacare during his first term. The push <a href="https://www.politico.com/story/2017/07/28/how-mccain-upended-obamacare-repeal-241070" target="_blank" rel="noopener">fizzled</a> when a trio of Republican senators – Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, and the late John McCain of Arizona – voted with Democrats to kill the legislation.
Trump used executive orders and riders on other legislation to make piecemeal reforms to the healthcare law, one of the most impactful being the repeal of the individual mandate. A tax bill passed in 2017 <a href="https://money.cnn.com/2017/12/15/news/economy/obamacare-individual-mandate-tax/index.html?iid=EL" target="_blank" rel="noopener">scrapped</a> penalties set to take effect in 2019 for people who refused to sign up for the ACA exchanges or pay for private health insurance.

Mike Johnson

Mike Johnson: Reforming Obamacare ‘A Big Part Of The Agenda’ If Trump Wins White House

Donald Trump

Economy

Pennsylvania

Politics

President <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/joe-biden" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Biden</a> announced on Friday that he would make certain illegal immigrants eligible for government-backed health care coverage, prompting criticism from Republicans who said it was a “slap in the face” to American citizens. 
Biden said that illegal immigrants in the United States who had received Deferred Action for Childhood Arrival (DACA) status because they had been taken into the country with their parents, would be able to now enroll in Obamacare. In a statement, Biden said that the illegal immigrants might be eligible for financial assistance to give them coverage. 
“While President Biden continues to call on Congress to provide a pathway to citizenship to Dreamers and others, he is committed to protecting and preserving DACA and providing Dreamers with the opportunities and support they need to succeed, including access to affordable, quality health care coverage,” Biden <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2024/05/03/fact-sheet-biden-harris-administration-expands-health-coverage-to-daca-recipients/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. 
The decision was made possible by a Biden admin rule changing the definition of “lawfully present” to include DACA recipients for Obamacare and will go into effect just before the presidential election as DACA recipients will be able to register for coverage on November 1. 
“Thanks to the Biden-Harris Administration’s actions, today’s final rule will remove the prohibition on DACA recipients’ eligibility for Affordable Care Act coverage for the first time, and is projected to help more than 100,000 young people gain health insurance,” the president added. 
The decision prompted harsh criticism from conservatives, including former President Donald Trump. 
“This is unfair and unsustainable,” Trump campaign spokesperson Karoline Leavitt <a href="https://twitter.com/_StephanieMyers/status/1786442978032267429" target="_blank" rel="noopener">said</a>. “Joe Biden‘s handouts for illegal immigrants are especially devastating to Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, and union workers who are forced to watch their jobs and public resources stolen by people who illegally entered our country.”
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“President Trump will put America and the American worker first. He will seal the border, stop the invasion, and expand economic opportunity for American citizens, not illegal aliens,” Leavitt added. 
Last summer, Republicans in both the House and Senate <a href="https://tiffany.house.gov/media/editorials-letters-and-articles/gop-lawmakers-urge-biden-admin-not-fund-healthcare-illegal" target="_blank" rel="noopener">urged</a> Biden to not finalize the rule.
On Friday, Senator J.D. Vance (R-OH) said that Biden should be focusing on getting the border under control and reducing inflation instead of giving benefits to illegal immigrants. 
“There’s an unprecedented crisis at our southern border, we&#8217;ve got major conflicts around the world, and families all across Ohio are getting crushed by inflation,&#8221; he said. &#8220;Joe Biden&#8217;s response to all this is to give your hard-earned money away to illegal immigrants in the form of taxpayer-funded healthcare. This is a slap in the face to every hardworking American who plays by the rules, and it would never happen if Donald Trump were president.”

Democratic Presidential Candidate Joe Biden Speaks On His “Build Back Better” Clean Energy Economic Plan

‘Slap In The Face’: Biden Blasted After Giving Certain Illegal Immigrants Access To Gov Health Care

JD Vance

Joe Biden

There is a big lie that we in the United States keep telling ourselves. It is particularly true on the political Right, but it&#8217;s true across the board.
Here’s the lie: We want our government to be fiscally responsible in some way, shape, or form. It&#8217;s clearly a lie because we keep electing politicians who eschew being fiscally responsible in any way, shape, or form, regardless of who runs the government.
The spending keeps going in one direction — and that direction is up. There&#8217;s a reason we are running a $34 trillion national debt at this point in time, and it is likely that that more debt is going to continue to accrue because nobody takes this problem particularly seriously.
And they&#8217;re not going to take that problem seriously until we run smack into a wall.
That is typically how fiscal crises work: A country spends too much money. They&#8217;re unable to rein it back in because there are too many people who become dependent on that spending of the money. Then, instead of creating some sort of plan to get out of debt, people just keep running up those debts, keep running up those deficits until the time comes we have to take extremely harsh remediating action.
<h4><a href="https://www.dailywire.com/episode/ep-1888-the-big-lie-americans-tell-ourselves-member-exclusive" target="_blank" rel="noopener">WATCH: The Ben Shapiro Show</a></h4>
That is the high likelihood here. Why do I say this? Because yesterday the House Republicans, as well as the House Democrats, overwhelmingly passed yet another continuing resolution. And this is the way we now fund the government because we&#8217;re not able to actually have serious negotiations on any department level with regard to spending; we&#8217;re not able to negotiate over how much should be spent on defense or how much should be spent on education.
Instead, we wrap everything up into a ball and when we can&#8217;t get approval on a year-long budget, we go to continuing resolutions, which are the short-form budgets that continue the government spending. And we keep the drain running and the trend will run until the train runs completely off those tracks.
And by the way, the people who are telling you that the continuing resolution should have been pushed aside in favor of something harsher, in favor of a government shutdown, or in favor of a harder bargaining position with Joe Biden, are fibbing to you about the incentive structure. Unless you have a unified Republican control of the House, the Senate, and the presidency, you&#8217;re not going to get the kind of spending cuts that make it worthwhile for you to risk your seats. Because I&#8217;ll tell you what happens: You do a government shutdown, you&#8217;re going to end up passing a continuing resolution anyway, and a bunch more people are going to lose their seats.
The easiest thing in Congress is to get lost in a crowd, to simply side with an overwhelming majority of people who say status quo, “Let&#8217;s just keep doing what it is that we are doing right now.”  Internal Republican rules prevent any Republican from moving forward with a bill that does not have at least the support of the majority of Republicans. So it came very close to the wire on this particular bill.
Texas Republican Chip Roy, who does take the problem of spending seriously, was blasting everybody Right, Left, and Center about not only the spending, but also the fact that nobody in Congress seems to want to solve serious problems anymore. He wound up saying, “It doesn&#8217;t matter who&#8217;s sitting in the Speaker&#8217;s seat or who has the majority. We keep doing the same stupid stuff.”
That requires us to ask a pretty simple question: Why is it that we keep doing the same stupid stuff? Is that a matter of not having the right people in power? Or is it just that the American people refuse to recognize the reality about themselves, which is that we constantly say that we want to balance the budget; we constantly say we want to spend less money, and then as soon as there is a poll asking what we would like to cut, we all run for the hills and we have no idea what it is that we would like to cut.
The reality is, in order for any serious major change to get done, you must have unified party control over Congress, over the Senate, over the presidency, and a dedication by that party to take the hit. 
Democrats take the hits, by the way. There&#8217;s something the Democrats are good at.
Democrats took the hit in 2010. They passed Obamacare and then they got shellacked at the polls. It was an exceptionally bad midterm for them. And they jumped ahead because they knew if they could completely restructure the health care system, in the end, these would become entitlements people relied upon. They would rather take the short-term hit for the long-term gain.
When was the last time Republicans took a short-term hit for the long-term gain? The answer is they haven’t. The reason they don&#8217;t is because they&#8217;re afraid they will be tossed out of office. So it’s up to the American people to tell Washington that we actually want the spending cuts. 
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Politicians make a living by lying to you and you have a choice: Your choice is whether you like being lied to. You decide to go along with their lies or whether you don&#8217;t like being lied to. Any politician who says he can save you, save your family, or save your society by spending money here or by restructuring a program there is lying to you. 
The vast majority of choices in your life are up to you. When people rely on politicians too much, they end up shooting themselves in the foot. 
Then they buy into the next grifter who comes along and suggests he&#8217;s going to fix whatever problems are at hand.

Congress Approves Funding To Avert US Government Shutdown

The Big Lie Americans Tell Ourselves 

Ben Shapiro

Budget

Chip Roy

Government Shutdown

National Debt

Readers Pass

U.S. House of Representatives

President <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/biden-administration" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Joe Biden</a> announced that <a href="http://dailywire.com/topic/health-insurance" target="_blank" rel="noopener">health insurance</a> signups via HealthCare.Gov surged to a new record this year.
Created by the Affordable Care Act, a signature Obama administration legislative package often referred to as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/obamacare" target="_blank" rel="noopener">ObamaCare</a>, the website facilitated more than 11.5 million Americans seeking insurance between November 1 and December 15, marking an 18% increase since the same period last year. Enrollment for the website, which serves as a private health insurance marketplace and offers subsidies for Americans who earn between one and four times the federal poverty line, remains open.
“I promised to lower costs for families and ensure that all Americans have access to quality affordable health care,” Biden remarked in a <a href="https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/12/27/statement-from-president-joe-biden-on-record-2022-healthcare-gov-enrollment/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a> from the White House. “In recent days, we received further proof that our efforts are delivering record results and bringing families the peace of mind that comes with health insurance.”
Biden added that four in five Americans who obtain health insurance through the Affordable Care Act can expect to pay less than $10 per month; the Inflation Reduction Act extended benefits that were slated to expire by the end of the year.
The number of non-elderly Americans who did not have health insurance amounted to 27.5 million last year, according to an <a href="https://www.kff.org/uninsured/issue-brief/key-facts-about-the-uninsured-population/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">analysis</a> from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Biden added that his administration is “working to make health care a right, not a privilege.” While many leftists believe that health coverage is one of many positive rights, under which others are obligated to take an action on behalf of another individual, many conservatives contend that no such right exists and favor a negative rights framework, under which the government or other individuals cannot infringe upon specific liberties.
The report from the White House comes as <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/medicaid-enrollment-to-hit-100-million-include-nearly-one-third-of-americans" target="_blank" rel="noopener">enrollment</a> for Medicaid, which provides health care to low-income families, approaches 100 million people, or nearly one-third of the population, according to an analysis from the Foundation for Government Accountability.
“Our research and data show as welfare enrollment increases, workforce participation decreases,” Foundation for Government Accountability Data and Analytics Director Hayden Dublois remarked in a <a href="https://thefga.org/press/fga-launches-countdown-clock-to-100-million-on-medicaid/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">press release</a>. “We’re in the midst of a nationwide workforce crisis, yet the Biden administration is pushing policies to entice people into government dependency at record levels while limiting opportunities to achieve the American Dream.”
National healthcare expenditures were equivalent to approximately 18% of economic output last year, according to a <a href="https://www.cms.gov/research-statistics-data-and-systems/statistics-trends-and-reports/nationalhealthexpenddata/nhe-fact-sheet#:~:text=NHE%20grew%202.7%25%20to%20%244.3,17%20percent%20of%20total%20NHE." target="_blank" rel="noopener">report</a> from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, while the two programs respectively cost $901 billion and $734 billion.
A recent <a href="https://committeetounleashprosperity.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/12/Paying-Americans-Not-to-Work.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">study</a> from the Committee to Unleash Prosperity likewise found that unemployment insurance and the “dramatic recent expansion of ObamaCare subsidies” can <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/some-families-with-no-one-working-can-receive-up-to-six-figures-of-welfare-in-three-states" target="_blank" rel="noopener">exceed</a> the national median income in 24 states for families with two parents and two children, even with the end of supplemental programs originally passed during the lockdown-induced recession. Such families in Washington can receive more than $122,000, while families in Massachusetts and New Jersey can reap more than $117,000 and $108,000 in annualized benefits respectively.
“The federal government and the states offer a wide array of more than two dozen programs that provide cash assistance or in-kind benefits to low-income families. These ‘safety net programs’ are designed to keep families out of poverty,” the authors wrote. “But the expansion of assistance, especially in subsidized health insurance to families with children and no parents working, can mean that families can earn as much or more income from receiving government assistance than the median household does from working.”

Joe Biden, Barack Obama

ObamaCare Website Signups Soar To New Record Under Biden

ObamaCare Website Signups Up Under Biden

Executive

A federal judge in Texas ruled against the Biden administration&#8217;s extension of the Affordable Care Act&#8217;s discrimination provisions to include gay and trans-identified people.
U.S. District Judge Matthew Kacsmaryk filed a <a href="https://fingfx.thomsonreuters.com/gfx/legaldocs/zjvqjkqyopx/11112022health_biden.pdf" target="_blank" rel="noopener">26-page decision</a> on Friday, finding that the Supreme Court’s 2020 decision in Bostock v. Clayton County, which bars workplace discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation and &#8220;gender identity,&#8221; does not apply to the 2010 health care law.
&#8220;Title IX&#8217;s ordinary public meaning remains intact until changed by Congress, or perhaps the Supreme Court,&#8221; said Kacsmaryk.
The ruling by Kacsmaryk came in a class action lawsuit by two doctors represented by the America First Legal Foundation, alleging HHS misinterpreted Bostock. They sued after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services said in May 2021 it would interpret Section 1557 of the Affordable Care Act, which prohibits healthcare providers from discriminating on the basis of sex, as extending to sexual orientation and gender identity.
Kacsmaryk said the Supreme Court&#8217;s 6-3 finding that Title VII&#8217;s prohibition against sex discrimination included gay and trans-identified workers did not warrant the same conclusion under Title IX&#8217;s text.
When Congress adopted the Affordable Care Act in 2010 during former President Barack Obama&#8217;s tenure, they could have included “sexual orientation” or “gender identity” in the text, but “chose not to do so,” said Kacsmaryk.
​&#8221;Congress limited Section 1557’s protections to those afforded by other federal statutes – including Title IX. Because Title IX does not protect ‘sexual orientation’ or ‘gender identity’ status, neither does Section 1557,&#8221; Kacsmaryk wrote. ​
Kacsmaryk has ordered both parties to submit “proposed judgments” within 10 days of his order.
Upon entering office, President Joe Biden signed a sweeping executive order, “Preventing and Combating Discrimination on the Basis of Gender Identity or Sexual Orientation,” which attempted to reinterpret the prohibition on discrimination based on sex — which is found in Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972 — to include discrimination based on sexual orientation and one’s &#8220;gender identity.&#8221;
&#8220;The <a href="https://womansplaceuk.org/2021/02/07/bidens-executive-order/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">problems</a> with this [Executive Order] arise with its misinterpretation of Bostock and the disregard of biological sex and the sex-based rights of women and girls.&#8221; said <a href="https://callieburt.org/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Dr. Callie Burt</a>, an Associate Professor at Georgia State University in the Department of CJ and Criminology and Center for Research on Interpersonal Violence (CRIV). &#8220;The Biden administration appears to subscribe to a worldview where gender identity should take precedence over sex.&#8221;
&#8220;This interpretation would have significant ramifications for women and girls in education, females incarcerated in federal prisons and detention centres, and the like,&#8221; said Burt. &#8220;This would represent the ‘undoing’ of women’s sex-based rights in favour of gender self-ID.&#8221;

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Texas Judge Blocks Biden’s Interpretation Of Title IX

Texas Judge Blocks Biden’s Title IX Inclusion Of Gender Pseudoscience

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A federal judge in <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/texas" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Texas</a> struck down a provision in the <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/obamacare" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Affordable Care Act</a> that requires employers and insurers to cover <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/topic/hiv" target="_blank" rel="noopener">HIV</a> prevention drugs, ruling that the requirement opposes the religious freedom of some Christian-led companies.
Judge Reed O&#8217;Connor&#8217;s ruling on Wednesday could have far-reaching consequences for the act popularly known as Obamacare.
“Braidwood has shown that the PrEP mandate substantially burdens its religious exercise,” he <a href="https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/22276105-braidwood-v-hhs-opinion" target="_blank" rel="noopener">wrote</a>. &#8220;The burden thus shifts to Defendants to show that the PrEP mandate furthers a compelling governmental interest and is the least restrictive means of furthering that interest. Defendants have not carried that burden.&#8221;
The case, Braidwood Management Inc. et al. v. Becerra, included six individuals and two businesses that challenged the preventive care mandates under the Constitution and Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The Religious Freedom Restoration Act prohibits any government agency from substantially burdening an individual’s religious practice. The plaintiffs argued that the coverage of the drug opposed their religious convictions as they did not desire to encourage same-sex behavior.
The drug targeted in the lawsuit is preexposure prophylaxis, popularly called PrEP. The drug was recommended by the Department of Health and Human Services in 2019 to help prevent HIV infection for those at high risk, forcing health insurance plans to cover it.
The drug reportedly reduces the risk of contracting HIV from sex by roughly 99% and from drug injection by about 74%. The drug is taken primarily by men who have sex with men, but also by heterosexual individuals who may be at high risk for the disease, <a href="https://www.cdc.gov/hiv/basics/prep.html" target="_blank" rel="noopener">according to</a> the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Survivors of sexual assaults are also sometimes prescribed PEP (postexposure prophylaxis).
O’Connor also stated in the ruling that the task force’s system for deciding which services should be fully covered under the Affordable Care Act was unconstitutional. The ruling opposed some additional preventive services covered under the U.S. Preventive Services Task Force, including colorectal and other cancer screenings, depression screenings, and hypertension screenings.
Carl Schmid, executive director of the HIV+Hepatitis Policy Institute, told Roll Call that he expects the case will be appealed.
“Preventive services covered by private insurance plans without cost-sharing, such as HIV testing, hepatitis B and C testing, and PrEP, are all critical and well-established public health preventive services that must continue,” he said in a <a href="https://rollcall.com/2022/09/07/federal-judge-rules-hiv-drug-mandate-violates-religious-freedom/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">statement</a>. “To single out PrEP, which are FDA approved drugs that effectively prevent HIV, and conclude that its coverage violates the religious freedom of certain individuals, is plain wrong.”
The ruling follows a 7-2 Supreme Court ruling in June 2021 to <a href="https://www.dailywire.com/news/supreme-court-rejects-republican-ags-challenge-to-obamacare-over-lack-of-standing-to-sue" target="_blank" rel="noopener">reject</a> a challenge to the Affordable Care Act from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and 17 other Republican attorneys general.
The attorneys general argued against the constitutionality of the law’s individual mandate, its prohibition on lifetime benefit caps, and its guarantee of protection for individuals with pre-existing conditions.

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Federal Judge Rules Against Obamacare Coverage Of HIV Prevention Drugs

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Former President Barack Obama complained on Tuesday that his administration had been forced to deal with &#8220;misinformation&#8221; when it came to the Affordable Care Act — and then came dangerously close to repeating the misinformation he had helped to spread.
Obama was on hand for President Joe Biden&#8217;s rollout of his plan to expand Obamacare, as Reuters <a href="https://www.reuters.com/world/us/obama-returns-white-house-tout-healthcare-law-with-biden-2022-04-05/">reported</a>:
<blockquote>Obama jokingly referred to Biden as &#8220;vice president&#8221; before correcting himself, inspiring a salute from Biden, then offered broad praise of the Affordable Care Act, whose passage he described as a &#8220;high point&#8221; of his time in office.
&#8220;If you can get millions of people health coverage and better protection, it is, to quote a famous American, a pretty &#8230; big deal,&#8221; Obama said to hoots of laughter from the crowd, referencing an off-color Biden remark picked up by a hot mic when the law was signed.
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But Obama also noted that there were a few clouds surrounding the Affordable Care Act — which became law in 2010 — and he blamed Republicans for stirring up doubt and spreading &#8220;misinformation&#8221; about what the law would actually do.
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="500" data-dnt="true">
Obama says &quot;There was a lot of misinformation flying around&quot; when Obamacare was going through Congress.
I can think of one: &quot;If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it.&quot; <a href="https://t.co/x03tUoWMAK">pic.twitter.com/x03tUoWMAK</a>
&mdash; Greg Price (@greg_price11) <a href="https://twitter.com/greg_price11/status/1511403547602165762?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">April 5, 2022</a></blockquote>
<script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script>
&#8220;Because the majority of Americans did have health care, some people naturally worried that they would lose what they had,&#8221; Obama said. &#8220;The media was skeptical of past failures, there was a lot of misinformation, to say the least, flying around. And it&#8217;s fair to say that most Republicans showed little interest in working with us to get anything done.&#8221;
The former president did not mention his own part in <a href="https://dailywire.com/news/obama-lies-republican-predictions-about-obamacare-ben-shapiro/">spreading misinformation</a> about the law, as Greg Price noted in his tweet: &#8220;I can think of one: &#8216;If you like your healthcare plan, you can keep it.'&#8221;
Obama alluded to the fact that some Americans had been concerned that they might lose their health care plans or be forced to choose new doctors — both of which turned out to be well-founded fears — but he did not mention the numerous times that he had falsely assured the people that was not the case.
In fact, Obama repeated the false claim &#8220;if you like your doctor/health care plan, you can keep your doctor/health care plan&#8221; so many times that Politifact awarded it with the auspicious title &#8220;Lie of the Year&#8221; in 2013.
As Politifact <a href="https://www.politifact.com/article/2013/dec/12/lie-year-if-you-like-your-health-care-plan-keep-it/">reported</a>:
<blockquote>It was a catchy political pitch and a chance to calm nerves about his dramatic and complicated plan to bring historic change to America’s health insurance system.
&#8220;If you like your health care plan, you can keep it,&#8221; President Barack Obama said — many times — of his landmark new law.
But the promise was impossible to keep.
So this fall, as cancellation letters were going out to approximately 4 million Americans, the public realized Obama’s breezy assurances were wrong.</blockquote>

Former President Obama Joins President Biden At White House To Mark Passage Of The Affordable Care Act

Obama Complains ‘Misinformation’ Surrounded His Health Care Plan — He’s The One Who Told The ‘Lie Of The Year’

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5 Times The Left Refused To Take Voters’ No For An Answer — And Won

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The Supreme Court ruled 7-2 Thursday to reject a challenge to the Affordable Care Act from Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton and 17 other Republican attorneys general on the grounds that the Republican AGs did not have standing to challenge the Constitutionality of the law&#8217;s individual mandate, its prohibition on lifetime benefit caps, and its guarantee of protection for individuals with pre-existing conditions.
&#8220;The states had argued that the law&#8217;s individual mandate was unconstitutional once it no longer carried a penalty because it had been justified as falling under the congressional power of taxation,&#8221; <a href="https://www.foxnews.com/politics/supreme-court-upholds-obamacare-law-dismissing-challenge-from-states">Fox News reported</a>. &#8220;They also claimed that the rest of the law could not survive without the mandate.&#8221;
The two other provisions, the state AGs argued, could not exist without an individual mandate that required all Americans to purchase health insurance in some form.
The Court did not rule on the questions the Republican AGs posed and did not make a determination on whether the Affordable Care Act &#8212; also known as &#8220;Obamacare&#8221; &#8212; was itself constitutional; the Court ruled that the AGs did not have legal standing to sue the federal government to force a decision on the law&#8217;s Constitutionality.
&#8220;We do not reach these questions of the Act’s validity, however, for Texas and the other plaintiffs in this suit lack the standing necessary to raise them,&#8221;  Justice Stephen Breyer, who wrote for the seven-justice majority, said in the opinion.
The Court rationalized its decision, ruling that the Republican AGs had not suffered specific harm from the provisions they challenged and that American taxpayers were not in danger from the individual mandate because &#8220;Congress has reduced the penalty for failing to buy health insurance to zero,&#8221; according to CNN.
&#8220;[W]e conclude that the plaintiffs in this suit failed to show a concrete, particularized injury fairly traceable to the defendants&#8217; conduct in enforcing the specific statutory provision they attack as unconstitutional,&#8221; Breyer wrote in his decision for the majority. &#8220;They have failed to show that they have standing to attack as unconstitutional the Act&#8217;s minimum essential coverage provision.&#8221;
Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch dissented from the ruling, suggesting that the Court had used the concept of standing to sidestep their responsibility to rule on ObamaCare&#8217;s Constitutionality.
&#8220;Today’s decision is the third installment in our epic Affordable Care Act trilogy, and it follows the same pattern as installments one and two,&#8221; Alito wrote in the dissent. &#8220;In all three episodes, with the Affordable Care Act facing a serious threat, the Court has pulled off an improbable rescue.&#8221;
&#8220;No one can fail to be impressed by the lengths to which this Court has been willing to go to defend the ACA against all threats,&#8221; Alito added in a veiled swipe at a previous decision authored by Chief Justice John Roberts. &#8220;A penalty is a tax. The United States is a State. And 18 States who bear costly burdens under the ACA cannot even get a foot in the door to raise a constitutional challenge.&#8221;
&#8220;So a tax that does not tax is allowed to stand and support one of the biggest Government programs in our Nation&#8217;s history. Fans of judicial inventiveness will applaud once again,&#8221; Alito added. &#8220;But I must respectfully dissent.&#8221;
The ruling may make it more difficult to challenge the Affordable Care Act in the future. The Court&#8217;s decision essentially blocks AGs and some individual plaintiffs from raising concerns about the law.

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Supreme Court Rejects Republican AGs’ Challenge To ObamaCare Over ‘Lack Of Standing’ To Sue

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