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Tag: Health Insurance

  • Shannen Doherty Breast Cancer Could Have Been Stopped If All Americans Had Insurance?

    Shannen Doherty Breast Cancer Could Have Been Stopped If All Americans Had Insurance?

    Shannen Doherty has come out to the public about having breast cancer. It’s not clear whether she would have done so of her own volition, but rather was “outed” when court documents made public by TMZ revealed that Doherty had breast cancer.

    “Yes, I have breast cancer, and I am currently undergoing treatment,” Doherty said.

    “I am continuing to eat right, exercise and stay very positive about my life,” Doherty continued. “I am thankful to my family, friends and doctors for their support and, of course, my fans who have stood by me.”

    So how did Shannen Doherty’s breast cancer end up in court documents? Apparently Doherty is suing her former business manager in a case that directly relates to her cancer.

    Court documents indicate that Doherty is accusing her former business manager of failing to pay her insurance premiums, which caused Doherty’s health insurance to lapse. While her insurance was lapsed, Doherty could not receive medical care since the United States does not have Universal Health Care Coverage like every other First World country on the planet.

    Once Doherty got her for-profit health insurance back, she had an exam where she “discovered that she had invasive breast cancer metastatic to at least one lymph node,” the lawsuit shows, and “was informed that her cancer had spread during 2014 (when she was uninsured).”

    Shannen Doherty “was also informed that, had she been insured and able to visit her doctor, the cancer could potentially have been stopped, thus obviating the need for future treatment (including mastectomy and chemotherapy) that [Doherty] will likely have to suffer through now.”

    The moral of the story: If you don’t pay your for-profit insurance premiums in the United States, even if you are a rich celebrity, and even if you hired someone to take care of just such a thing, you can get life-threatening cancer and have to endure all manner of ills that the poorest persons in Cuba do not have to worry about.

  • 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?

  • 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

  • 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.

  • Medicare Funding Decreases, Hurts UnitedHealth

    The UnitedHealth Group (UNH) spoke out this Thursday about its fourth-quarter profits, which was the first quarter under ObamaCare. UNH says that they still saw a slightly better than expected fourth quarter, due to an “overall lower medical spending trend” as fewer customers were checking into hospitals. (The rise was from $29 billion to $31 billion, about 8%.) However, funding cuts to their Medicare Advantage plan hurt the company in its shares, which fell 3%.

    The Medicare Advantage plan is a program provided by private companies (like UnitedHealth) to provide both Part A and Part B benefits to people already enrolled in Medicare. The insurer claims that overall, their Medicare Advantage program has always been “underfunded.” UnitedHealth estimated that the government underfunded the Advantage program by almost 7% in 2013. CEO Stephen Hemsley says the cuts are to be blamed on “ObamaCare savings,” and that the company will “continue to be watchful of funding pressure” and “advocate for strong and reasonable funding.”

    Despite the cuts, UnitedHealth is still sticking to its pre-ObamaCare outlook, which projects a revenue of $128 billion for 2014, and around $5.40 per share. The projections are based on an upward trend of more and more people signing up for the program; UnitedHealth added 425,000 Medicare Advantage members in 2013, a 17% gain.

    The Centers for Medicare are expected to announce a proposed funding plan in February.

    Image via Dept. of Health & Human Services

  • Over One Quarter of U.S. Uninsured Don’t Plan on Purchasing Health Insurance

    Over One Quarter of U.S. Uninsured Don’t Plan on Purchasing Health Insurance

    With the Healthcare.gov website slowly crawling toward full functionality, uninsured Americans are now faced with a choice. The Affordable Care Act (ACA, colloquially known as Obamacare) mandates that all Americans purchase health insurance while providing subsidized plans for those who cannot afford it. Those who still don’t want to purchase health insurance, however, will have to pay a fine.

    A new Gallup poll this week revealed that a substantial number of Americans are planning to do just that. The poll found that 28% of Americans who are currently uninsured plan to pay the fine rather than purchase health insurance. This represents a sizable portion of the estimated 17% of U.S. adults who do not currently have health insurance. Gallup estimates that these numbers mean around 5% of all Americans will opt out of insurance and pay the government fine.

    Diving deeper into Gallup’s poll numbers, it is clear that some Americans are choosing to eschew health insurance for purely ideological reasons. While only 15% of uninsured Democrats intend to pay the fine, nearly half (45%) of uninsured Republicans will not acquire health insurance and pay the fine. Despite these numbers, Gallup has stated that it is “unclear” whether Republicans will follow through with paying the fine or are simply using their survey answers as a form of protest.

    These poll results have remained largely unchanged from just a few months ago, before the healthcare exchange websites went live in October. Though Gallup saw a small spike in the proportion of uninsured Americans who planned on paying the fine in mid-October when the federal website was experiencing its worst outages, that percentage seems to have now stabilized.

  • HealthCare.gov Better, But Initial Problems Persist

    The Affordable Health Care Act website at HealthCare.gov has been the talk of the town, with endless chatter of frustration, anger and downright shock at the failure of an operating website for the public to take advantage of the new health care act. One in five Americans who wanted to sign up for heath insurance found it nearly impossible. The website was simply not functioning, freezing or completely malfunctioning since inception in October.

    As of Friday, though, CNN reports that “the front end of HealthCare.gov is working better, but many problems identified in the days after its launch persist, according to a team of Web engineers.”

    The problem lies in governmental websites being outdated, as explained by Obama in his “Fumbled” speech. If you’ve ever tried to navigate Social Security or any other government site, you’d agree. And that is the biggest hurdle with HealthCare.gov, out dated applications, badly written code, incorrect testing codes and more. The website that was supposed to support this brand new health care system, designed to help millions of people get health insurance, has failed miserably.

    There were alternatives though, such as calling in to get insurance quotes, however with the website down, the wait time was extremely long, many reporting 3-5 hours to complete this daunting task, and some even longer.

    Jeff Zients, the management expert brought in by the White House to oversee the site’s repair, repeated the administration’s assurances that “most users” will be able to navigate from start to enrollment by the end of the month.

    The point is that ObamaCare is a good program and will enable many uninsured Americans to have health insurance at an affordable cost. Not only that, people with preexisting conditions cannot be turned away. It is going to help so many millions of people that perhaps it is worth the wait?

    Or could this just be blown out of proportion so that certain “other party” representatives can claim an Obama fail? After all, they hated the idea from the get go. But, remember, having a website fail is not a life or death situation, and by the looks of things, the opposition just seems to have finally grabbed onto something they can turn into a national case.

    The White House representatives stated that it is functioning now, and within a month it should be fully operational. That should be good enough for Americans who have been paying high health insurance rates and have been turned down for preexisting conditions. Its a blessing in disguise, but may take a little patience.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • HealthCare.gov Aims to Sign Up 4 of 5 Americans

    The Washington Post reported today that the Affordable Care Act’s primary website, HealthCare.gov, will be capable of getting 80 percent of Americans on an insurance plan, but that still leaves 20 percent who will remain without insurance.

    According to the best-case scenario from the Obama administration, those 20 percent will be unable to purchase insurance online because of either their personal lives’ complexity or the site’s ineptitude; that conclusion is based on an internal target that has not been made public by the Obama administration.

    Whether the government succeeds in getting 80 percent of Americans enrolled is a central factor of President Barack Obama’s healthcare effort. Although administration officials acknowledged that they had no concrete definition for a successfully functioning Obamacare site, creating one wouldn’t have made any sense until they had a site to define; I.E., HealthCare.gov.

    Julie Bataille, communications director for the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said “We are very focused on measuring performance of the site now and moving forward and making sure we have ways to demonstrate progress… [HealthCare.gov will] work smoothly for the vast majority of users [by the end of November].”

    The “vast majority” quote has become a repeated mantra for the administration, with little exposition about what it could mean. It was coined by former White House management official Jeffrey Zients, who was assigned to oversee the repair of HealthCare.gov.

    CNN notes Zients speaking with reporters on Friday about the site’s functioning: “As we prioritize fixes on HealthCare.gov, we focus on system performance and functionality, things like site stability, speed and usability that make a real difference to the consumer,” he said. “But to be clear as you would experience with any major new site, new bugs and other glitches will surface in December and beyond and as they surface we will fix them.”

    Additionally, two of the engineers who worked on analyzing HealthCare.gov said the site looks “a lot cleaner.” Media Temple president and COO Russ Reeder told CNN that “You can tell from the website that there are people working it and making changes. And those changes are good. [But] there are still many changes they can still make.”

    [Image via HealthCare.gov]

  • Health Insurance: Obama to Enforce Mental Health Rules

    Just after President Barack Obama issued an apology to the people who have lost their healthcare coverage thanks to Obamacare, the Obama Administration has announced plans to implement new rules regarding mental health coverage. Five years ago, former president George W. Bush signed a law that guaranteed mental health parity, but it has taken half a decade for Obama to fully implement the law.

    In what may be considered a win for Obama by some, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius made the announcement of plans to fully implement the mental health law starting Friday. “For way too long, the health care system has openly discriminated against people with behavioral health problems,” Sebelius said. “This is the largest expansion of mental health coverage in more than a generation.”

    The law will guarantee that most insurance providers treat mental health issues and addiction problems with the same regard as physical conditions. For example, people who need to meet with a mental health provider will pay co-pays and deductibles that are comparable to those paid to doctors and surgeons.

    Similar visit limits will also be in place. With some insurance companies, people are only covered for a certain number of visits with a mental healthcare provider per year. Under the new law, should insurance companies choose to enforce limits on such visits, they will have to be comparable to limits in place for medical and surgical benefits.

    Many people believe that the implementation of this law could potentially decrease the occurrences of mass killings and other violent acts committed by people with mental issues, such as the Newtown, Connecticut massacre. Since most people with coverage will have equal access to mental healthcare, they should be able to get the help they need or could at least have the opportunity to throw up red flags for providers.

    Former Representative Patrick J. Kennedy of Rhode Island, a co-sponsor of the 2008 law, said the rules should help veterans. “No one stands to gain more from true parity than the men and women who have served our country and now need treatment for the invisible wounds they have brought home from Iraq and Afghanistan,” he said. Considering that more soldiers committed suicide than died in battle last year, the new rules should go a long way towards helping veterans.

    “We feel actually like we’ve made a lot of progress on mental health as a result in this year, and this is kind of the big one,” said a senior official with the Obama Administration.

    What do you think of the new rules regarding mental health coverage? Respond below.

    [Image via YouTube]

  • Obama Apologizes To Americans Losing Their Health Insurance

    Obama Apologizes To Americans Losing Their Health Insurance

    President Obama on Thursday apologized to all Americans who are now receiving cancellation notices from their health insurers. His apology comes after his assurances that no one would have to give up a health plan they like.

    President Obama told NBC news that he failed to do enough to ensure that the law did not force the termination of insurance policies that people like because they do not meet the requirements. “But obviously, we didn’t do a good enough job in terms of how we crafted the law,” Obama said. “And, you know, that’s something that I regret. That’s something that we’re going to do everything we can to get fixed.”

    Millions of Americans who had purchased health coverage on their own have been receiving cancellation notices from their insurers. Health insurers are now cancelling customer plans because they no longer meet the new minimum standards set under the Affordable Care Act. This comes days after NBC News’ Lisa Myers had reported the Obama administration knew that about 5% of Americans could lose their insurance under the new law, Affordable Care Act. Despite that, Obama has repeatedly told people that they can keep their health plan if they like it.

    Obama said that he regretted any confusion that resulted from the roll-out and said that, “we weren’t as clear as we needed to be in terms of the changes that were taking place. And I want to do everything we can to make sure that people are finding themselves in a good position, a better position than before this law happened.”

    In the NBC News Interview, Obama said that he did not purposely mislead people because it was his intention that no one should lose a plan they like. However, he assured those who had lost their plans that they could find better insurance cover that was cheaper and provided better coverage than what they had before.

    The president has come under increasing pressure from the public, including members from his own party to address the situation. Earlier in the week, he met senate democrats who also vented their frustrations on problems that are plaguing the ObamaCare website.

    (image via NBC)

  • Is Obamacare a Rip Off or an Affordable Option?

    Many people are asking themselves this question after logging in to view the rates on the Healthcare Marketplace.  Several states received so many visitors that technical problems occurred on the server. The majority of people who are interested in obtaining health coverage through Obamacare are those who are currently unemployed, underemployed, not insurable with traditional providers due to their past health history, feel coverage is too expensive, or have recently lost their coverage due to losing their job.

    People who earn less than $33,000 and have a family are considered to be at the poverty level. Some people will qualify for Medicare or Medicaid instead of Obamacare based providers depending on which state they live in. The Subsidy Calculator is a quick tool that helps users identify if there is a tax subsidy available via the state based exchange.  The annual cost of the most affordable plan based on personal income will be displayed. If higher levels of coverage are needed they are available through silver, bronze, or the gold plan.

    The Obamacare health insurance deductible is not always low. Many people are shocked at the amount of copayment for a simple doctors visit. The amount of a copayment is always cheaper than being responsible for the complete bill. A study conducted by  Harvard  mentions that being injured or having a lengthy illness leads to an increased risk of filing for bankruptcy.

    Those with preexisting conditions  don’t have to cross their fingers during the sign up process.  Adults and children who spend time each month in the hospital or in a clinic due to ongoing chronic health issues can apply. The Obamacare law eliminates preexisting conditions as a  factor for being denied insurance coverage.

     

     

    Americans that skip over the health insurance offered who do not have a policy with their employer or through another issuing agency will be fined $95 for a single person. The $95 is a bit shocking, however it gets worse. Families will pay $285 or 1% of income of course whichever is higher in 2014.

    2015 – families $975 or 2% of your income whichever is greater

    individual $325 or 2 % of your income

    2016 – families $2085 or 2.5% of income whichever is greater

    individual $695 or 2.5% of income

    Government workers are not going to make contact to inquire about not accepting the insurance. Anyone who does not pay the penalty will have the money taken from their tax return.  This fee only applies to people who do not have  health insurance, Medicare, or Medicaid.

    image via Facebook

     

     

  • Watch Out For Health Insurance Exchange Scams

    Security experts are warning that scammers are exploiting the new health insurance exchanges to trick consumers with phishing schemes.

    McAfee VP of Global Consumer Marketing Gary Davis told Fox Business, “I can say with a high degree of certainty that they will come. We live in a world where people look at compelling events and look to do something malicious. This is just the nature of the beast.”

    With all the confusion surrounding the exchanges, it would be more surprising if scammers weren’t taking advantage.

    Last week, Trend Micro blogged about the coming risk of scams related to the exchange sites. Threat Communications Manager Christopher Budd wrote:

    One way people will be able to sign up for coverage after October 1 is online. But because of the way this online registration will work and the type of information people will have to enter to get health care coverage, there’s a real risk of a perfect storm that can make this process a bonanza for identity thieves and cybercriminals. This could be the most significant new area for phishing and identity theft in the next year in the United States. It also can give established healthcare scammers a new field to look for victims.

    The root problem is that the Health Insurance Exchange isn’t made up of a single, authoritative site where people can go and register for coverage. In addition to the Federal site, people can apply for coverage at sites run by individual states. Then, within each state, there can also be legitimate third-party sites that provide assistance and even broker coverage.

    At least HealthCare.gov (pictured) does let users easily find the appropriate links for exchanges for their particular states, which should help a great deal.

    There have been actual scam sites spotted in the wild, however, and they have tended to use reasonable soujnding names for their domains, such as WashingtonHealthExchange.com or MDHealthExchange.com. These particular examples have already been reported and taken down, according to a recent Washington Post article.

    The Coalition Against Insurance Fraud (via The Post) says that most of the scammers have been targeting individuals rather than businesses, though with the legitimate exchanges catering to both, there is still significant risk to businesses as well.

  • Obamacare: Key Provision Delayed

    The Treasury Department announced Tuesday that a key component of the Affordable Care Act – commonly known as Obamacare – will be delayed a full year. The statement, issued by Mark Mazur, assistant secretary for tax policy at the Treasury Department, was called “Continuing to Implement the ACA in a Careful, Thoughtful Manner”.

    The component that is being delayed is the requirement on businesses with 50 or more employees to provide health insurance for their hires. The ACA provides that, starting in 2014, any employer fitting that description who does not provide insurance will be assessed a penalty of $3000 per employee not covered.

    The statement addressed some concerns that employers have brought to the government.

    Over the past several months, the Administration has been engaging in a dialogue with businesses – many of which already provide health coverage for their workers – about the new employer and insurer reporting requirements under the Affordable Care Act (ACA). We have heard concerns about the complexity of the requirements and the need for more time to implement them effectively. We recognize that the vast majority of businesses that will need to do this reporting already provide health insurance to their workers, and we want to make sure it is easy for others to do so. We have listened to your feedback. And we are taking action.

    The Administration is announcing that it will provide an additional year before the ACA mandatory employer and insurer reporting requirements begin. This is designed to meet two goals. First, it will allow us to consider ways to simplify the new reporting requirements consistent with the law. Second, it will provide time to adapt health coverage and reporting systems while employers are moving toward making health coverage affordable and accessible for their employees. Within the next week, we will publish formal guidance describing this transition. Just like the Administration’s effort to turn the initial 21-page application for health insurance into a three-page application, we are working hard to adapt and to be flexible about reporting requirements as we implement the law.

    The statement was clear that this delay was for the benefit of the employers alone, allowing them time to get things in order. It did not preclude the employees themselves from taking the tax credits provided for in the ACA.

  • Poorest State in America Revealed by the U.S. Census Bureau

    The U.S. Census Bureau recently released estimates from its 2011 American Community Survey showing that Mississippi is the poorest state in the U.S., with a median household income of only $36,919. Last month it was revealed by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control that Mississippi is also the fattest state in the U.S.

    West Virginia and Arkansas round out the top 3 poorest states, with $38,482 and $38,758 median household incomes respectively.

    On the other end of the spectrum, the survey shows that Maryland has the highest median household income at $70,004. Alaska and New Jersey come next, with $67,825 and $67,458 medians respectively.

    Overall, the the median for the U.S. is estimated at $50,502, down from before 2008. In fact, no state in the U.S. except for Vermont saw an increase in median household income last year. The median declined in 18 states, including Ohio and Nevada.

    A correlation with these medians is found in the poverty statistics, which the American Community Survey also tracks. Mississippi, of course, has the highest poverty rate with 22.6% if its households living below the poverty line. New Hampshire has the lowest poverty rate, at 8,8%.

    Health insurance rates among young adults are the third statistic released recently by the Census Bureau. The uninsured rate of young adults aged 19 to 25 actually increased to 71.8% in 2011, up from 68.3% in 2009. However, the rate for those age 26 to 29 declined from 71.1% in 2009 to 70.3% in 2011. Part of the reason for these seemingly conflicting statistics could be the implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“Obamacare”) in 2010, which allows young adult dependents to remain on their parents’ health insurance plan until they are 26.

    “The American Community Survey provides reliable, local statistics about our nation’s people, housing and economy that are indispensable to anyone who has to make decisions about the future,” said Census Bureau Acting Director Thomas Mesenbourg.

  • America’s Jobless More Likely to Die if They Have Fewer Skills

    According to a new study published in the American Journal for Public Health and conducted at the University of British Columbia, unemployed Americans with minimal and medium skill sets are seven times more likely to die than highly skilled workers.

    The study further made comparisons between the United States and Germany and found citizens in the U.S. to be at more risk in almost every case. The major difference being, German workers have access to more robust employment protections and insurance.

    Chris McLeod, the lead researcher on the paper and a post-doctoral fellow with the Human Early Learning Partnership at the school commented on the results:

    “Employment insurance makes a difference to the health of the most vulnerable populations, low-wage and poorly educated workers,”

    “For low-wage and poorly educated workers, it’s not just about losing your job but losing your job and being at the bottom of the labour market.”

    “It is important that we recognize how changes to employment and unemployment protections could inadvertently affect the health of the most vulnerable populations,”

    According to the press release:

    The U.S. and Germany are the world’s two most successful economies but differ significantly in their employment policies. Germany, a coordinated market economy, has high levels of both employment protection – restrictions on terminating employees – and unemployment protection – availability of unemployment benefits. The United States, a liberal market economy, has low levels of employment and unemployment protection. The study found that 75 per cent of unemployed German workers received unemployment compensation compared to only 19 per cent of U.S. workers.

    Naturally the answer is to offer more training and improved benefits, especially for those who are unemployed or come from disadvantaged backgrounds. While Germany may suffer from similar unemployment and job issues as the U.S., they have made insurance and benefits more accessible to their unemployed, which helps guarantee medical treatment and favorable living conditions.

    So, it’s more bad news for the millions of unemployed Americans. Not only should they be worried about how they are going to pay their bills, now their lives are in more danger because they aren’t having their basic needs met. I guess it’s nothing new. In May, the unemployment rate rose to 8.2% in the U.S.