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Tag: Affordable Care Act

  • Obamacare Deadline Looming, So Are Doubled Penalties For Not Being Insured

    Obamacare deadline hysteria should be setting in at your state and for good reason.

    The Obamacare deadline for 2016 is January 31st and many states are scrambling to get people signed up.

    Of course, they want everyone covered by a healthcare plan, but also because the penalties are WAY steeper this year.

    For those who are scoffing at the Obamacare deadline and thinking they will just pay the penalty, you may want to reconsider.

    This year, if you miss the Obamacare deadline and don’t sign up, you will be facing fines of up to $695 per adult and $347.50 per child.

    That is over double what you paid last year when fines were $325 per adult and $162.50 per child, and way up from 2014 when Obamacare first became enacted.

    In 2014 fees for missing the Obamacare deadline and not signing up were only $95 per adult and $47.50 per child.

    So, will mounting fees finally force those who have chosen to remain uninsured to beat the Obamacare deadline and sign up this year?

    What do you think of the upcoming Obamacare deadline and the jump in individual mandates?

  • Affordable Care Act: Why Decision In Latest Challenge Will Likely Be In Favor Of The Government

    The Affordable Care Act is likely here to stay, despite the hopes of many on the right.

    The Affordable Care Act was dealt yet another challenge recently in the case of King vs. Burwell.

    The case has come down to the oral arguments which will be made in front of the Supreme Court next week.

    In this suit against the Affordable Care Act, all eyes will be on Chief Justice John G. Roberts Jr. as the deciding factor.

    That doesn’t bode well for plaintiffs, as Justice Roberts was the deciding vote in favor of the government when the last challenge was brought before the Supreme Court.

    The plaintiffs’ case against the Affordable Care Act basically hinges on four words in the Act pertaining to tax credits: “established by the State.”

    These are the same words that have brought other challenges to the Affordable Care Act. However, Justice Roberts has been a proponent of the act from the beginning and doesn’t find the phrase of serious consequence.

    In fact, an opinion was written in 2006 by Justice Anthony M. Kennedy on the matter of the words and Justice Roberts later agreed with it.

    In it, Justice Kennedy stated, “Interpretation of a word or phrase depends upon reading the whole statutory text, considering the purpose and context of the statute, and consulting any precedents or authorities that inform the analysis.”

    The fact is, considering Justice Roberts’ history of voting in favor of the government when it comes to the Affordable Care Act, we can only assume that he will again vote that way in this particular challenge.

    I guess we will have to wait to find out for sure until after oral arguments are heard, but chances are slim of the plaintiffs winning this one.

    What do you think about the current challenge to the Affordable Care Act?

  • Affordable Care Act Touted by Kentucky Governor Ahead of Grimes and McConnell Faceoff

    In a letter dated October 28 and sent to all Kynect enrollees in Kentucky, Democratic Governor Steve Beshear got a message to voters in the Bluegrass State that could help Alison Lundergan Grimes in her race against Republican incumbent Mitch McConnell.

    While the letter does serve the understandable official purpose of informing current enrollees about the upcoming open enrollment period, it also was an opportunity for Beshear to tout a program that Republican McConnell has expressed a desire to gut if re-elected to the Senate, where he hopes to become Senate Majority Leader.

    The letter reads, in part:

    “Dear Fellow Kentuckian:

    “You are one of the 521,000 Kentuckians who signed up for health insurance for yourself or your family through Kynect, our health benefit exchange, over the last year. I hope that you had a chance to visit a doctor and perhaps have some long-standing medical concerns addressed. You may have been treated for a chronic condition, received a now-affordable prescription, or been screened for cancer or heart disease. Maybe you were finally able to convince your spouse to get a nagging problem checked out, or get eyeglasses for your child.

    “If you did any of these things, congratulations. You know firsthand how life-changing health insurance can be. I have talked with many of you personally and I have been overwhelmed by the stories you have shared. For many of you, having health insurance didn’t just improve your quality of life – in many cases it saved lives.

    “Before Kynect, many Kentuckians were refused health care because they had a pre-existing condition; insurers were allowed to discriminate against women just because of their gender; and kids were dropped from their parents insurance at age 18, before many were on their feet and able to afford their own coverage.”

    The letter then put the situation in terms that voters could chew on in the few days leading to the elections.

    “We can’t go back to those old ways, and let families like yours lose the affordable, comprehensive health insurance you’ve waited so long to find.

    “Kynect is working, and you are the proof.

    “In Kentucky, we need healthy kids and a healthy workforce, and affordable health insurance is a key part of keeping kids in school and workers on the job. Kynect, and your improving health, are the keys to our future success!”

    Meanwhile, Mitch McConnell is being sued by Grimes for a mailer that some say smacks of voter suppression.

  • Health Insurance Costs Going Up In Many States

    Health insurance costs are going up in many states across the nation. October is generally when open enrollment begins for many health insurance providers, and this year, it seems the choice may be a little harder to make.

    Many states are seeing numerous plan cancellations for their citizens as the Affordable Care Act regulations for health insurance kick into high gear. There are some states that also feel the pressure from the increasing rates that are intended to help provide the subsidies that an average of 83% of applicants qualify for.

    In New Mexico about 30,000 people are going to have to find new health insurance plans before January 1st or risk going uncovered.

    In Louisiana, some of the biggest health insurance providers like Blue Cross-Blue Shield and Vantage are giving notices of increasing premiums, some as high as 20%.

    Louisiana Insurance commissioner Jim Donelon blames ACA regulation and those who pay for health insurance having to cover those that are provided with subsidies.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TdgPauuMmJI

    “For the first time in the history of the country, the Affordable Care Act imposed a federal premium tax on health insurance premiums,” Donelon said. “That’s the first time the government has taxed health insurance premiums. It’s adding to the cost about $50 a month.”

    That’s a pretty good chunk of money for the average American household to keep their health insurance.

    Families USA spokesman Ron Pollack said of the uncomfortable increases in health insurance premiums, “Ultimately, the hospitals have to increase the costs of everyone insured to make up for lost payments, and that results in higher premiums.”

    Everyone’s health insurance premiums seem to be going up as coverage shifts and changes, usually not for the better.

    How has the Affordable Care Act affected your health insurance coverage? Are you impressed or not?

  • Medicare Drug Premiums Set to Rise Yet Again

    In a sign of what may become the new normal over the next few decades, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services this week announced that the price of Medicare premiums for prescription drugs will be rising again this year. This would mark the second year in a row that the average monthly Medicare prescription drug plan premium has risen.

    According to an Associated Press report, the average monthly Medicare drug plan premium will hit $32 next year. This represents a one-dollar increase over this year’s average monthly premiums.

    The rise in drug costs for Medicare comes as seniors are living longer and prices for some drugs are increasing significantly in the U.S. As more of the baby boomer generation begins to retire and take up Medicare for their medical costs, the expenses incurred by the government program are expected to rise accordingly. Medicare is currently in its 49th year of operation.

    To counter the news of higher Medicare drug premiums, the Department of Health and Human Services this week released statistics claiming that millions of seniors have saved money since the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA, colloquially known as Obamacare) was signed into law in 2010. The department claims that 8.2 million seniors on Medicare currently have prescription drug plans due to the ACA. The department also claims that the ACA has saved those seniors a combined $11.5 billion over the past four years, an average of around $1,407 per patient.

    This savings amount refers to out-of-pocket drug costs saved by patients via the “donut hole” (drug plans coverage gap) rebates and discounts that began in 2010. Average savings due to donut hole discounts and rebates has risen over $340 since last year.

    “Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, seniors and people with disabilities are saving on needed medications,” said Sylvia Burwell, secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services. “By making prescription drugs more affordable, we are improving and promoting the best care for people with Medicare.”

    Image via ThinkStock

  • Megyn Kelly Holds No Punches; Now No. 1 News Show

    Megyn Kelly Holds No Punches; Now No. 1 News Show

    For the past 150 consecutive months, Fox News has ruled the ratings roost, being the most watched news program on cable television. For the grand majority of those years, Bill O’Reilly has led the charge for the “fair and balanced” news station. However, O’Reilly has a new challenger, and she shows no signs of holding back.

    For the second time in her show’s existence, Megyn Kelly has surpassed Bill O’Reilly in the cable news wars, bringing in 413,000 viewers in the 25-54 age demographic compared to O’Reilly’s 402,000. This past week was the first time Kelly had directly beaten O’Reilly, however, as her previous victory came when O’Reilly had someone else filling his chair.

    If one has not tuned into Fox News to watch The Kelly File, one may be confused as to how a woman on a conservative media station has risen to such prominence in less than a year. The answer lies in Kelly’s aggressive beliefs and on-screen personality.

    In a recent interview with former Weather Underground leader Bill Ayers, Kelly held no punches, asking Ayers questions many would never dream to utter in such a politically correct age, such as “How many bombings are you responsible for?” and “What would it take to make you bomb this country again?”

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=53R8ky14VKA

    While Kelly could have never expected to get the answers she wanted from Ayers, she was able to twist the interview to something useful for Fox News – a slam piece against Barack Obama. Throughout the interview, Kelly constantly hearkened back to the supposed relationship between Bill Ayers and Barack Obama in Chicago during the 60’s and 70’s, despite the fact that both men deny having a close relationship at any point in time. Kelly also seemingly wanted to insinuate a friendly relationship between Obama and al Qaeda, referring to Ayers as both Osama bin Laden and Adolf Hitler during the interview.

    Kelly’s tactics aren’t reserved for strictly political issues, however. Recently, she also attacked Sandra Fluke for her comments on the Supreme Court Hobby Lobby case.

    On MSNBC Sunday night, Fluke told Chris Matthews that “What this [the Hobby Lobby ruling] is really about at its base is trying to figure out as many ways as possible to limit women’s access to reproductive healthcare.” Apparently, Kelly did not appreciate Fluke’s statement, going on a diatribe defending the stance of Hobby Lobby and its owners:

    She [Fluke] doesn’t know what she’s talking about… So it’s a lot of corporations that could be affected, but only those who feel strongly about their religious beliefs. Those folks aren’t going to have to provide abortion-related drugs: drugs that terminate an already-fertilized egg. That’s the only — out of 20 birth-control drugs that are available, they still have to cover 16. They just said we don’t want to fund those forms of birth control that end a fertilized egg…

    Women were buying their own [birth control]; for the past 20 years and beyond, they’ve been buying their own. And then what happened was we passed Obamacare. And then Kathleen Sebelius had some of her HHS minions go down in the basement and write a regulation that said as part of Obamacare, you have to cover 20 out of 20 birth-control drugs — 20 out of 20.

    And then women like Sandra Fluke started saying, ‘I’m entitled. Oh my God, I didn’t realize how victimized I was all those years when I was paying for it on my own.’ And Hobby Lobby, which is an evangelical company, came out and said, ‘Alright, we’ll do it, we’ll do it for all of it except four that end a fertilized egg.

    Whether one appreciates Kelly’s hard interview tactics and personal vehemence or not, one thing is for certain – As long as Fox News continues to give shows to big personalities who are willing to look a bit ridiculous in order to pull ratings, it will continue to rule the cable news scene for quite some time. (Especially with the retirement of Stephen Colbert.)

    Image via YouTube

  • Stacey Campfield Goes Godwin’s Law on Obamacare

    Over the past two years, and particularly last fall, the rhetoric coming from Republican opponents of the Affordable Care Act (AKA “Obamacare”) has been rather heated. Opposition to the new healthcare law is one of the main issues Republicans are campaigning on for next year’s midterm elections, and conservatives across the U.S. have derided Obamacare with ferocity, even going so far as to shut down the U.S. government in protest. As heated as things have gotten, however, Republicans have been tactful enough not to bring Nazis into it – until now.

    Tennessee state Senator Stacey Campfield this week posted a provocative “Thought of the Day” to his public blog. In it, he directly compared Obamacare to the holocaust:

    Democrats bragging about the number of mandatory sign ups for Obamacare is like Germans bragging about the number of manditory sign ups for “train rides” for Jews in the 40s.

    The comparision, of course, caused an outcry in political circles, cable news channels, and on social media:

    In the midst of the criticism, Campfield replied to his own blog post to clarify, but not apologize, for his comment. He characterized his post as a warning against “the continued taking of freedom by the federal government” and stated that he regrets “that some people miss the point of my post.” Campfield wrote that he “will continue to support freedom and life,” citing “the slippery slope” and “government funded abortion” in his post.

    Campfield is no stranger to controversy. He is the same politician who in in 2012 made headlines for his belief that the origin of AIDS was “one guy screwing a monkey.” In the past Campfield has sponsored legislation including a bill to issue death certificates to aborted fetuses and a bill to ban public school teachers from mentioning homosexuality in the classroom.

    Image via Tennessee

  • Health Insurance: Obamacare Costs Lower Than Expected

    Health Insurance: Obamacare Costs Lower Than Expected

    One of the largest criticisms of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, also known as “Obamacare“) is that the program is simply too expensive. Lawmakers opposed to the ACA have continually called the program an expensive waste and even shut down the U.S. government in protest over the ACA’s rollout. Now it appears that ACA proponents have some ammunition to use against these arguments.

    The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) today released a new report estimating the costs that the Affordable Care Act’s insurance coverage provisions will bring to the U.S. government. These new numbers are substantially lower than previous estimates of the program’s cost.

    The report shows that the insurance coverage mandates brought about by the ACA will cost the U.S. $36 billion during 2014 – $5 billion less than projections made back in February. For the years 2015 to 2024 the program is expected to cost $1,383 billion, $104 billion less than previous estimates.

    Gross subsidies, costs for the exchanges, increased Medicaid spending, and increased Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) spending are now expected to total $1.8 billion from the years 2015 to 2024. This will be offset slightly by an estimated $456 billion in revenue obtained through the program, mostly penalty payments made by employers and individuals as well as excise taxes on high-premium health plans.

    Today’s new report shows that the costs of subsidies for insurance exchanges will be significantly lower than previously expected. It also, however, shows that the revenue expected to come from employer and individual penalty payments will also be lower than previously estimated.

    According to the CBO the costs of the ACA’s insurance coverage provisions come almost entirely from insurance exchange subsidies and an increase in Medicaid spending. In addition to the costs associated with the insurance coverage portion of the ACA, the law’s other provisions are expected to actually save the U.S. money. The CBO estimates that a total cost analysis of all the ACA’s effects will, overall, reduce federal deficits.

    Image via the White House

  • Kathleen Sebelius Says She Told Obama Staying “Wasn’t an Option”

    Kathleen Sebelius, who resigned last week as U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary, said on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday that she made the decision to leave and told President Barack Obama last month that staying “wasn’t an option.”

    Sebelius’ appearance on Meet the Press was her first interview since the White House announced her resignation Friday. She said that she and the president first spoke about her future after the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act – also known as Obamacare – started to show it was recovering from a problematic launch on October 1.

    “The president and I began to talk after the first of the year, and I went back to him in early March,” Sebelius said.

    “I made it pretty clear that it really wasn’t an option to stay on, Sebelius said.

    “I thought it was fair to either commit to January 2017 or leave with enough time that he would get a strong, competent leader,” Sebelius said.

    “That really wasn’t a commitment I was willing to make and he knew that,” Sebelius continued.

    Sebelius was responding to speculation that she was asked to resign after the failed Obamacare rollout last fall.

    President Obama announced her resignation on Friday, as well as his nomination of budget director Sylvia Mathews Burwell to take over as health secretary.

    Although the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act had a rocky start because of technical glitches with the program’s website, enrollment totals after the March 31 deadline exceeded projections. Sebelius’ resignation comes at a high note for the program. She announced last week that 7.5 million people signed up for private health coverage under the law. 

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Obamacare Sees Surge In Sign-Ups On Eve Of Deadline; Republicans Question Transparency

    With only a day to go before the first batch of signups closes, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act—more popularly known as “Obamacare”—has yet to reach its target of 7 million registrants. President Obama’s trademark health care legislation has faced controversy since its inception, and it looks like the Republicans’ steady opposition is taking its toll.

    Obamacare’s primary purpose was to make health insurance more affordable and accessible to the public without sacrificing the quality of claimable benefits. It aimed to minimize the number of uninsured Americans through increasing the coverage of public and private insurance and lowering insurance costs. It imposes certain requirements on insurance companies, such as covering new applicants with the same rates regardless of pre-existing conditions or sex, in exchange for incentives. Insurers such as WellPoint and CoOpportunity Health are, for the most part, satisfied with the way the program is running.

    The program met a disastrous launch in October of last year, with many of the state-hosted sites for signup experiencing glitches. This resulted in lost application data, crashes, and delays. Interventions performed for weeks after the launch were able to get some of the sites running smoothly; others could not be fully recovered. Since then, the program has attracted over 6 million participants, many of whom are late applicants. Over a million signed up through the federal site just this weekend. White House Senior Advisor David Plouffe claims the enrollees actually numbered around 10 million, taking into account direct signups with private insurance companies, Medicaid, and children’s health care.

    Republicans question the transparency in the handling of the program. They argue that because Obamacare aims to reduce the uninsured, the administration should show the extent to which this goal is being achieved. A McKinsey & Co. survey reports that 27% of respondents participating in Obamacare were previously uninsured. Supporters of the law take this as a positive sign. Still, Republicans and Democrats alike have come up with various proposals to improve the law. Many Republicans call for its complete repeal, with some like Senator Barrasso calling it unfixable.

    The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that 14 million Americans will sign up for insurance in 2014 through private insurance agencies or the Medicaid expansion. Obamacare is expected to be in full swing in 2018, when the CBO predicts the program will have enrollees numbering 25 million through private insurance, and 12 million through Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program.

    Does The Obamacare Deadline Mean Anything?

    Image via YouTube

  • Obamacare Sees 6 Million Enrolled As Deadline Approaches

    Obamacare Sees 6 Million Enrolled As Deadline Approaches

    As the Affordable Care Act (or commonly referred to as “Obamacare”) approaches its March 31st deadline, there’s been much debate about whether Obamacare would hit its enrollment goal of 7 million. The White House announced on Thursday that there’s been just over 6 million Americans who’ve enrolled already, and they’re expecting a huge surge during Obamacare’s last open week of enrollment. In March alone, 1.8 million have signed up for Obamacare, surpassing the projected 1.2 million for the month. “We are seeing near record numbers of consumers coming to check out their options and enroll in coverage,” says Marilyn ­Tavenner, head of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

    Already, Obamacare has dropped the uninsured rate in America from 18% to 15.6%. The official measure is likely to come in the fall, when the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention releases its National Health Interview Survey. However, it’s still predicted that there will be 30 million Americans that remain uninsured for the long haul. The reason? Many are illegal, undocumented immigrants, or residents of low-income neighborhoods who simply can’t afford it.

    However, national figures aren’t as important as federal numbers, as insurance is based on local markets. The success of Obamacare is more dependent on how many enrollees sign up in each state. “There definitely is no magic number,” says Drew Altman, chief executive of the Kaiser Family Foundation. “It will vary a lot around the country.” Premiums also range in price around the country, depending on density of hospitals to residents, and rates of obesity and heart disease in a given area. In places like rural Georgia and Texas, applicants are facing higher premiums and costlier deductibles.

    After the March 31st deadline passes, uninsured Americans (who haven’t qualified for an extension) face a $95 tax penalty. Obamacare is allowing enrollment after March 31st only if applicants have tried earlier and prevented by technical problems with the website. If Americans miss the deadline, they cannot sign up for coverage again until the start of 2015.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Affordable Care Act Deadline Nears, Obama Urges People to Enroll

    President Obama marked four years on Sunday since he signed the Affordable Care Act into law on March 23, 2010, and urged people to enroll in the program as the March 31 deadline approaches.

    The president celebrated the law’s anniversary and urged people to sign up for coverage, which has come to be more commonly referred to as Obamacare, as the deadline to enroll approaches later this month. Individuals who are not enrolled in a health care program after March 31 will be fined.

    President Obama said in a statement:

    “Since I signed the Affordable Care Act into law, the share of Americans with insurance is up, and the growth of health care costs is down, to its slowest rate in fifty years – two of the most promising developments for our middle class and our fiscal future in a long time.”

    Obama admitted the controversial program has been difficult to sell, even as the deadline approaches. In his statement, he promised to spend the next year with his administration making improvements.

    “This is what’s at stake any time anyone, out of some outdated obsession, pledges to repeal or undermine the Affordable Care Act.  And that’s why my administration will spend the fifth year of this law and beyond working to implement and improve on it,” said Obama.

    Obama concluded by encouraging people to enroll.

    “If you’re an American who wants to get covered – or if you know someone who should – it’s now last call for 2014.  March 31st is the deadline to get covered this year,” Obama said.

    The HealthCare.gov website had a hard time getting up and running, but the Department of Health and Human Services said a wave of people has enrolled in the last week, and enrollment recently passed the 5 million mark.

    Officials have scaled back their original estimate of seven million enrolled to six million. According to recent enrollment figures released March 17, more than one million sign-ups were still necessary to reach the reduced goal by March 31.

    There is a concern that there needs to be an increase in the number of customers ages 18-34 enrolled in the program, and the White House has in recent weeks been appealing to younger people through various media outlets. During the past month, Obama urged daytime viewers to sign up for coverage during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show from the White House.  The President also sat down in the Diplomatic Reception Room for separate interviews with comedian Zach Galifianakis and a health care expert from Web M.D., and dialed in to Rickey Smiley’s hip hop radio show to appeal to listeners.

    From January until the end of March, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs the HealthCare.gov site and administers the Affordable Care Act, will have spent $52 million on paid media, officials said.

    You can read Obama’s statement on the fourth anniversary of the Affordable Health Act here.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Jonah Hill’s Mom Wants You to Sign Up for Obamacare

    The open enrollment period for the Affordable Care Act is dwindling, as the March 31st deadline is fast approaching. Let’s call this part two of the White House’s celebrity-oriented campaign to get people to sign up in the next two weeks.

    The White House’s new hopefully viral video promoting Obamacare comes with its own hashtag: #yourmomcares. It features the mothers of some famous actors and musicians urging Americans to sign up for health care, you know, for your mommas’ sanity.

    “Trust me, us moms put up with a lot,” says Sharon Feldstein in the video. “But one thing we should never have to put up with is our kid not having healthcare.”

    Feldstein is joined by the mothers of Adam Levine, Alicia Keys, and Jennifer Lopez–as well as by Michelle Obama to urge people to get covered.

    “Get covered at healthcare.gov. Moms put up with a lot, but there’s nothing worse than feeling their child isn’t protected. Go to healthcare.gov and get covered before enrollment ends on March 31. Do it for your mom,” says the Your Mom Cares initiative.

    It’s unlikely that this video will further the White House’s goals as efficiently as the last one the President participated in. Earlier this week, Obama appeared on an episode of ‘Between Two Ferns,’ Zach Galifianakis’ long-running online comedy show. That appearance on the Funny or Die-produced webseries caused a giant spike in traffic at healthcare.gov.

    According to the White House, 4.2 million people have enrolled via the marketplace in the last five months. The administration not only hopes, but needs that number to rise sharply in the next two weeks.

    Image via Your Mom Cares, YouTube

  • Obama’s ‘Between Two Ferns’ Tactic Leads to Healthcare.gov Traffic Spike

    Let’s just assume that President Obama had reasons to sit down with Zach Galifianakis on “Between Two Ferns” other than showing the country that he could expertly pull off a fat joke.

    Of course, Obama’s move to star in one of the internet’s longest-running and funniest quasi anti-comedy bits had everything to do with pushing signups for the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges as the signup period dwindles. Americans now have until March 31st to purchase coverage. It’s crunch time, and the White House made a calculated decision to reach out to the younger crowd by throwing them an (admittedly pretty funny) elevated sales pitch.

    And it looks like it paid off–if the White House’s measure of success was simply getting people to the healthcare.gov site.

    Time will tell if a sudden boost in signups can be directly attributed to the Funny or Die video, but in terms of a sheer traffic driver, it looks as though the move payed off to the tune of a 40% spike in healthcare.gov visits.

    The video has seen over 12 million views on the Funny or Die site alone, and that figure doesn’t include the countless views the video saw on YouTube before Funny or Die removed it.

    According to Google data, “healthcare.gov” has seen a spike in searches over the past 24 hours and “Between Two Ferns” is one of the hottest search trends since Tuesday morning.

    “I can assure you that the Funny or Die video will be one of the reasons we get young Americans to HealthCare.gov–one of the reasons we get young Americans to enroll in health insurance programs, but not the only one,” said White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.

    Pageviews aren’t signups, but it’s clear that Obama got people curious when he made mentions of the open enrollment period–you know, between all the Hangover 3 jokes.

    Images via YouTube, reddit

  • President Obama Interviewed On ‘Between Two Ferns’

    Okay.

    Between Two Ferns is a deadpan internet comedy series hosted on video website Funny or Die starring comedian Zach Galifianakis as a talk show host who invites various celebrities to sit down (literally, between two ferns) for an interview on a set that resembles something out of 90’s public-access television.

    *Phew*

    If you’re familiar with The Hangover star whose last name is too complicated to type and causes anxiety levels to sky rocket, you’ll find that he’s just as awkward as he’s always been by making his guests uncomfortable.

    Filmed two weeks ago and shortly released after 7:00 AM EST on Tuesday, President Barack Obama appeared on the hot seat, plugging his Affordable Care Act, urging young people to sign up for health insurance before March 31st. If you’re like Galifianakis and “don’t have a computer”, you can get coverage by calling by telephone. If you’re without a phone (like Galifianakis) and wary of “staying off the grid” for the sake of not wanting the President’s “people looking at” your texts, you can apply for healthcare in person.

    “Have you heard of the Affordable Care Act?” Obama asked.

    “Oh yeah, that thing that doesn’t work,” Galifianakis chimed in, later unveiling to Obama his various spider bites – the President assured that his preexisting condition wouldn’t  stop him from being covered.

    Aside from the President’s plug, Galifianakis dished out questions concerning “Ambassador Rodman” and what to do with “North Ikea”, asking if Hulk Hogan would be sent to Syria, the President’s birth certificate, which team he rooted for in the Winter Olympics, and suggesting that he make same-sex divorce illegal.

    Typically, Galifianakis would take jabs at his guest, showing complete disinterest as well as hurling passive aggressive insults and other various forms of mockery.

    Mixing up food with country, he asked Obama: “In 2013 you pardoned the turkey. What do you have planned for 2014?”

    Obama, vigilant in the skit, fired back at each remark his host made: “We’ll probably pardon another turkey. We do that every Thanksgiving. Was that depressing to you? Seeing uh.. uh..  one turkey kinda taken outta circulation a turkey you couldn’t eat?”

    Image via YouTube

  • U.S. Uninsured Rate Still Falling Fast

    U.S. Uninsured Rate Still Falling Fast

    Though Republicans in the U.S. House are still dreaming up ways to get rid of Obamacare (the Affordable Care Act, ACA), they will now have to contend will millions of Americans who have health insurance as a result of the program.

    Gallup this week released poll data showing that the rate of uninsured Americans has dropped precipitously since the botched rollout of the ACA’s health marketplace websites. The survey shows that just 15.9% of U.S. adults were uninsured as of late February. This is down from an average of 16.2% in January and far below the peak of 18% seen near the end of summer 2013.

    This rise in insured Americans crosses nearly all demographics. The uninsured reate among Americans aged 26 to 34 dropped to 26.6% in January and February, and the rate among 35- to 64-year-olds dropped to just 16.3%.

    All major ethnic categories in the U.S. (white, black, and hispanic) saw drops in the uninsured rate, though black Americans saw the most significant change. The uninsured rate among black Americans now sites at 18.3%, down 2.6% from the nearly 21% that were uninsured during the fourth quarter of 2013.

    All economic categories also saw a rise in the percentage of insured. The lowest economic category grouped by Gallup, those that make less than $36,000 per year, saw the largest drop in uninsured, down 2.8% from the fourth quarter of 2013 to sit at just 27.9% now.

    As in the past, Gallup is hesitant to directly cite the implementation of Obamacare as the cause of the drop in uninsured Americans. It seems clear from the poll percentages and the numbers recently released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, however, that the new healthcare exchanges – and the law’s mandate on health coverage – are driving more Americans toward healthcare coverage.

  • Health Insurance: Reimbursement to Cause Bailout?

    Health insurance is taking a mighty turn for the worse after this ill-fated attempt at “affordable care” by the Obama administration.

    Things are looking very bleak indeed after Thursday’s Moody’s rating downgrade of the outlook for inurance industry from “stable” to “negative”.

    The downgrade was put in effect because of “ongoing unstable and evolving environment,” as the Obama administration fumbles and flails, imposing “new regulations and announcements that impose operational changes well after product and pricing decisions were finalized,” according to the New York Post.

    This is due to the slow implosion of Obamacare and its ravaging of the health care industry, as well as the recently revealed Section 1342 of the Affordable Care Act, which demands the federal government (read: taxpayers) reimburse losses suffered by the insurance companies that are written into the Act and selling their policies cheaply through Obamacare.

    Section 1342 will reimburse losses accrued through 2016. You know, the date of the next election. This is what Sen. Marco Rubio so accurately described as the law’s “dirty little secret”. This thing didn’t come to light until the outrage last fall over Obama’s “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” fiasco. It most likely wasn’t intended to come to light at all. Until 2016.

    Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius then grudgingly revealed that the Obama administration had never once tried to estimate what the guarantee to insurance companies on the Obamacare train could cost us, the taxpayers. How considerate! Basically, unless at least section 1342 is done away with, we could be on the hook for a bailout of Obama’s own giant failure.

    This will keep Obamacare going long enough for the free market to die out, leaving healthcare in the feeble hands of our government with no other option to be had and stranded way beyond the turning point.

    This downgrade is coming on the heels of the latest of many snafus with Obamacare, which has parents and children separated, as parents qualify for plans through the market place, but children are automatically shuffled to medicaid programs. There is no way to get them back, either, according to the AP.

    “The children are getting stuck in this spot where we’ve enrolled the parent, but we can’t bring the children back on the family plan,” Maria Proulx, who is the senior legal counsel for Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield of New Hampshire said.

    This was the experience of Russel Clouden of North Port, FL, “Based on your income, they’ll separate your kids from your primary policy and they shift them off to Medicaid or Healthy Kids and there’s no way you can bring them back. I’m kind of in limbo with her because I’m just hoping she doesn’t get injured or sick.”

    Yeah, we’re all kind of in limbo here, hoping this gigantic mess doesn’t bring complete ruin on us and our children. Time will tell.

    Image via wikimedia commons

  • Percentage of Uninsured Americans is Dropping

    Percentage of Uninsured Americans is Dropping

    Much debate has surrounded the Affordable Care Act (AKA “Obamacare”) since the legislation’s health insurance markets went live late last year. Since that time some encouraging numbers have shown that the program is working, at least a little. In December 2.2 million Americans signed up for health insurance using either the Healthcare.gov website or a state-sponsored healthcare exchange site. Now it appears that Obamacare’s heath insurance mandate is having a significant effect on the percentage of Americans who are still without health insurance.

    Gallup today released a new poll showing that 16.1% of U.S. adults were still without health insurance during early January. This represents a slight drop from the 17.3% who were still uninsured during December, but a much more significant drop from the 18.6% peak that number reached in mid-2013.

    According to Gallup’s survey, unemployed Americans are benefitting most from the new legislation. The percentage of unemployed U.S. adults in January without health insurance was measured at 34.1%, down from the 40.8% who were uninsured in December.

    Women are also becoming insured at a faster pace than men, with the percentage of uninsured American women seeing a nearly 2% drop from December to January. This is more than double the 0.6% drop in the percentage of uninsured for men during the same period, despite the overall percentage of uninsured women (14%, as of January) already being lower than that of men (18.3%).

    Though these poll results seem to show that Obamacare is reducing the number of uninsured Americans, Gallup is cautioning that recent numbers may not represent a long-term trend. The percentage of uninsured Americans has been falling since mid-2013, possibly indicating that other factors are influencing health insurance coverage in the U.S.

  • Obamacare Enrollment Hit 2.2 Million in December

    Obamacare Enrollment Hit 2.2 Million in December

    Despite the difficult and broken start the Healthcare.gov website got off to in October, the Affordable Care Act (AKA “Obamacare“) is now quickly becoming effective, providing millions of Americans with access to health insurance.

    The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services today reported Affordable Care Act’s latest numbers, boasting that nearly 2.2 million people have signed up for health insurance under the program as of December 28, 2013. With the Healthcare.gov site’s technical problems largely resolved by December, that month accounted for a full 1.8 million of those new sign-ups, through the federal website and individual state-sponsored sites.

    “Americans are finding quality affordable coverage in the marketplace, and best of all, because coverage began on New Year’s Day, the promise and hope of the Affordable Care Act is now a reality,” said Kathleen Sebelius, secretary for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “Our outreach efforts have ramped up, so whether it’s through public service announcements, events, our champions or other means, we are doing all we can to find, inform and enroll those who can benefit from the Marketplace. There is still plenty of time for you and your family to sign up in a private plan of your choice, so visit HealthCare.gov to learn more and sign up now.”

    Along with the enrollment information, the HHS today provided some of the first demographic information for the Affordable Care Act. Around 30% of those who have signed up for health insurance via the federal or a state website have been age 34 or younger and nearly one quarter (24%) of those 2.2 million people are between the age of 18 and 24. A large majority of those signed up through the program (79%) are receiving some type of financial assistance for their healthcare insurance.

    Despite a big December for the program, Obamacare’s slow ramp-up has left many Americans with a negative perception of the healthcare reform law. A Gallup poll released last week showed that 48% of U.S. adults believe the Affordable Care Act will make eventually make U.S. healthcare worse, while a majority (54%) say that they generally disapprove of the legislation.

  • Uninsured Americans Still Having Negative Experiences With Healthcare Website

    If it hadn’t been for the government shutdown that coincided with the launch of the Healthcare.gov website, the site’s messy rollout would have been the largest political story of 2013. Americans flooded the site in its first weeks of availability only to see technical glitches if they could even access it at all.

    Eventually the Obama administration was able to get a handle on the technical issues, declaring that the site should be fully-functioning by December. Though the website has improved and over one million Americans have signed up for health coverage through the site, it seems that those needing the site most are still struggling against it.

    A new Gallup poll out today shows that uninsured Americans are still having mostly negative interactions with the Healthcare.gov website. Around 450 uninsured Americans who visited the site were surveyed in December by Gallup, with 59% saying their experience using the website was either negative or very negative. Only 39% of those same uninsured Americans were able to call their experience with the website positive or very positive.

    Though these numbers suggest that the Healthcare.gov website is still giving Americans trouble, experiences with the site have improved since the website launched. The 59% of uninsured who had negative experiences with the site is a marginal improvement from the 63% who had overall negative experiences with the site in October and November.

    According to Gallup, just over one-quarter of uninsured Americans have now visited the Healthcare.gov website. That would leave around half of uninsured Americans still needing to visit the site or face the fines that the last quarter of uninsured Americans say they intend to pay rather than get health insurance.

  • Obamacare Reaches One Million Signups

    It is almost the end of 2013, and I am sure that most of us are sick and tired of hearing about the Affordable Care Act (commonly known as “Obamacare”) with all of the woes that the registration website HealthCare.gov has encountered these past few months. Nevertheless, hope for Obamacare is in sight, because its registration count recently reached a remarkable milestone.

    According to Time Magazine, Obamacare reached a little under one million registrations within most of December alone. The reason why the registration count for Obamacare is this high is due to the recent repairs to the main registration website itself. With the Obamacare sign-up numbers being this high for December, the totals for the past few months have been on the upswing as well. In October, there were 27,000 registrants, and 137,000 in November, as observed by the Federal Health Care Marketplace.

    Even though one million registrations have been completed for Obamacare, President Barack Obama’s administration had hoped for a higher number to have been achieved by now. According to Time, the Obama administration had hoped that the number of registrants for Obamacare would have been at 3.3 million by the end of the year. The Obama administration is still hopeful, and if you are still interested in Obamacare and want to register, please be sure to sign up by January 1st.

    White House officials have yet to release the registration counts for the 14 states that manage their own healthcare exchanges; however, the Obama administrations remains optimistic and forecasts that 7 million Americans will register prior to the first-year open enrollment period that ends in March.

    With the registration numbers being so high, many Americans have already encountered success and benefits by registering with Obamacare, and have shared their experiences on Twitter.

    Image via HealthCare.gov