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Tag: Obamacare

  • ObamaCare’s Birth Control Mandate Divides Supreme Court

    The issue of ObamaCare’s birth control policy is currently dividing the Supreme Court. The conflict revolves around a religious nonprofit objection to paying for an insurance plan covering contraception.

    Generally the issue also touches on health care, abortion, and religious freedom. The eight Justices will be deciding on whether institutions that are religiously affiliated can be exempted from having to pay for birth control and other reproductive health coverage in their ObamaCare health plans.

    The 90-minute debate grew tense as the Justices discussed ideological differences over moral and administrative implications of the law.

    Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg said in a recent statement that an exception for Little Sisters of the Poor, a Catholic charity of nuns involved in the issue, could make the law impractical.

    However, Chief Justice John Roberts countered the statement by arguing that the religious nonprofit and other petitioners’ mechanism against the birth control mandate can be used to provide services because the government still wants continuous coverage.

    The Little Sisters of the Poor are led by nuns but they also employ lay workers who could be eligible for the exemption from paying birth control and other reproductive health coverage if they win. Other possible groups and establishments to be included in the exemption are hospitals, parochial schools, and private faith-based universities.

    However, a 4-4 split amongst the Justices could leave the provision in place for now. The death of Justice Antonin Scalia has left the legal fight about the birth control mandate up in the air.

    Other appeals courts have agreed that the accommodation offered to religious groups is lawful. However, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit says that it violated the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993.

    By definition, birth control is prescribed not only to avoid pregnancy but also to treat various female medical conditions.

  • 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?

  • Ben Carson Announces He is Officially Running for President

    Ben Carson has officially announced he is running for president, adding yet another candidate to the Republican field. The retired neurosurgeon spoke with KOMO News on Sunday, and said he is in the 2016 race.

    “I’m willing to be part of the equation and therefore, I’m announcing my candidacy for President of the United States of America,” Carson said.

    “Many people have suggested to me that I should run for president, even though I’m not a politician,” Ben Carson added.

    Dr. Ben Carson rose up out of poverty in Detroit–eventually becoming the head of neurosurgery at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore. He was first recognized politically when he admonished President Barack Obama two years ago during the National Prayer Breakfast. He spoke out against a few White House policies, including Obamacare.

    “I began to ask myself, ‘why are people clamoring for me to do this?’ I represented a lot of the same thoughts that they have,” Ben Carson says. “I’m not 100 percent sure ‘politics as usual’ is not going to save us. I think we are in a severe problem…a problematic situation.”

    Ben Carson is known for shunning political correctness. He refers to himself as a ‘reluctant warrior’ and admits there’s no way he can solve all of the problems the United States is facing.

    Ben Carson is expected to make a formal announcement about his presidential candidacy on Monday at an event in Detroit.

    Are you surprised to learn the retired neurosurgeon is throwing his hat into the proverbial ring? Can he earn the Republican nomination?

  • Ted Cruz Reveals How He Would Change Obamacare

    Ted Cruz, the conservative Texas Senator who announced his intent to run for president this week, says he’ll replace the Affordable Care Act with a different healthcare system if he makes it to office, calling it the “single largest job-killer in this country”.

    Cruz sat down for an interview on CBS This Morning on Tuesday and shared his ideas, saying he simply wants to “tell the truth”.

    “My plan is to speak the truth and to defend the common-sense conservative values. I think millions of Americans recognize the path we’re on, it isn’t working, and they’re looking for a change that they want to get back to free-market principles,” Cruz said.

    As far as Obamacare goes, the plan has been heavily criticized by both parties, and Cruz says that good health care reform means keeping the government out of the equation.

    “Five years ago, maybe good faith reasonable minds could have differed on whether Obamacare might have worked. At this point, it is the single largest job killer in this country. We need health insurance reform but reform should expand competition, it should empower you, the consumer and patient, keep the government from getting between you and your doctor, and we need health insurance that’s personal, that’s portable and affordable. I think that’s what most people want.”

    Despite dismal numbers from polls in early-primary states, Cruz says he plans to win the race by using the same plan he’s used in the past.

    “The only way we win this race and — more importantly than that — the only way we turn the country around is if we energize and mobilize an army of courageous conservatives. The core of this campaign will be at the grass roots,” Cruz told the Washington Post.

  • Health Insurance Enrollment: Will Obamacare Improve?

    Health insurance enrollment is never an easy process, and if we learned anything from last year’s Obamacare enrollment fiasco, it should only be uphill from here.

    But will it?

    Obamacare health insurance enrollment opens up on November 15th.

    Experts say it looks like the experience will be an improvement over last year. Since consumers encountered error messages and ridiculously long waits online, the administration is hoping this year’s enrollment will be smoother.

    Health insurance enrollment on Healthcare.gov is on track to be easier to use and even a little quicker than last year. The website has even undergone more than five weeks’ worth of testing. A complete battery compared with just 10 measly days before last year’s embarrassing rollout.

    There should also be a more streamlined process now for health insurance enrollment, as consumers will face as few as 16 screens of questions, compared with as many as 76 for people who applied for plans last year.

    According to Bankrate.com, 7.3 million Americans who got covered through the exchanges during the last signup season should be able to find better plans that cost less this time around.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7m2gDTVulyE

    However, if you’re intending to let last year’s plan renew automatically without revisiting the health insurance enrollment websites, there could be a few issues with cancelled plans and changes in doctor and hospital networks.

    Stemming from last year’s issues, consumers might be a little leery of seeking health insurance enrollment through the government website or the exchanges.

    Those advocating for Obamacare say this is no time to lose faith in the system.

    “We really urge consumers to go to their marketplace and shop for new coverage,” says Rachel Klein, director of organizational strategies for Families USA, a nonprofit health care consumer group. “Not only are there new plans and prices available, but you also need to update your income information so you get the correct amount of tax credits.”

    Good luck as you begin to think about this year’s health insurance enrollment!

  • Obamacare: Mitch McConnell Wants It Gone

    Obamacare: Mitch McConnell Wants It Gone

    Republican Senator Mitch McConnell is in the midst of a fiercely competitive re-election campaign in his home state of Kentucky against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes. However, the 72-year-old Minority Leader of the Senate is already talking about the future of Obamacare should he win in the upcoming election.

    McConnell recently told Fox News this week that taking aim at the Affordable Care Act is at the top of his list of priorities for next year, although he knows that getting rid of the law isn’t going to happen as long as President Obama is in office.

    “Obviously, he’s not going to sign a full repeal,” McConnell said.

    McConnell also knows that it would take 60 votes in the Senate to make it happen. “No one thinks we’re going to have 60 Republicans. And it would take a presidential signature. No one thinks we’re going to get that,” McConnell told Fox News.

    But Brian Gottlief, a Republican strategist for Purple Strategies, says that he thinks the GOP will bring up enough controversial pieces of Obamacare to force Democrats to take tough votes. “Issues like the employer mandate,” he said, “and the medical device tax will certainly come up for votes.”

    McConnell agrees.

    “There are pieces of [the law] that are extremely unpopular with the American public that the Senate ought to have a chance to vote on,” he said, mentioning that a number of Democratic senators already support the repeal on Obamacare’s tax on medical devices.

    “I’d like to put the Senate Democrats in the position of voting on the most unpopular parts of this law, and see if we can put it on the president’s desk and make him take real ownership of this highly destructive Obamacare,” he said.

    However there are some that no longer believe what Senator McConnell says.

    “He says he wants to rip Obamacare out ‘root and branch,’ but then flips days before his election and says he plans to surrender,” said Mary Vought, spokeswoman for the Senate Conservatives Fund, a group that has pushed Tea Party candidates in GOP primaries against establishment incumbents.

    But despite what McConnell’s hopes are, should Republicans take control of the Senate with the 114th Congress, his margin of control is likely to be much smaller than what Democrat Harry Reid currently holds. In addition, some of the new GOP senators will be replacing red-state Democrats who had already been voting with Republicans on many issues. This means that McConnell will get fewer votes on many bills than the numbers suggest.

    Republican Steve King (Iowa) still believes that the GOP should continue to vote to completely repeal the law to set an agenda for 2016.

    “It’s not so much about what could be passed but setting the agenda and debate for the next presidential race,” he said.

    President Obama still has two years in office and will most likely block any major changes to the law. After that, questions rise as to who will take his seat. If Hillary Clinton runs and wins, many of these arguments will be moot.

    In the meantime, many residents in McConnell’s home state of Kentucky are taking advantage of Kynect, Kentucky’s healthcare connection that is currently providing Medicaid and private insurance to more than 400,000 state residents.

  • Obamacare In Trouble If Senate Goes Republican

    Obamacare, also known as the Affordable Care Act (or ACA), has a pretty sketchy future should the elections next week yield a Republican Senate.

    This could make things a lot easier for opponents of the controversial Obamacare law.

    Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) revealed that, unsurprisingly, his aim is focused on getting rid of Obamacare. If Republicans take over the Senate after next week’s elections, McConnell will likely take over as Senate Majority Leader.

    This will allow him much greater power to wield against Obamacare, although he acknowledges a full repeal will be impossible while Obama is still seated in The White House.

    “Obviously, he’s not going to sign a full repeal,” McConnell said to Fox News.

    The GOP’s focus will likely be on the more controversial pieces of Obamacare for now.

    “There are pieces of (Obamacare) that are extremely unpopular with the American public that the Senate ought to have a chance to vote on,” McConnell said.

    Brian Gottlieb, a Republican strategist for Purple Strategies, agrees, saying, “I believe the GOP will bring up the controversial pieces of Obamacare and force Democrats to take tough votes. Issues like the employer mandate and the medical device tax will certainly come up for votes.”

    Obamacare could be facing a decline when it comes to young healthy people, who were supposed to be the backbone of Obamacare. Many are now looking into new alternatives like short-term health plans that cost half as much as exchange plans.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bUvQf1yhkVs

    “If the ObamaCare health insurance exchanges are to function properly, it is crucial that a substantial number of people ages 18-34 join them,” the National Center for Public Policy Research wrote in a study last year.

    They continued, “This age group that is young and relatively healthy must purchase health insurance on the exchanges in order to ‘cross-subsidize’ people who are older and sicker. Without the young and healthy, the exchanges will enter a ‘death spiral’ where only the older and sicker participate and price of insurance premiums will increase precipitously.”

    However, it seems clear that the GOP will only be biding its time picking out pieces of Obamacare to trash until Obama is out of office.

    However, Rep. Steve King (R-IA) told The Daily Beast on Tuesday that he thinks that the GOP should continue voting to repeal the law.

    He said the focus should be to set an agenda for Obamacare in 2016.

    “It’s not so much about what could be passed but setting the agenda and debate for the next presidential race,” he said.

    What do you hope the future of Obamacare will be?

  • 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?

  • Health Insurance Plans About To See Major Shift

    Health insurance plans have been disappearing with the enforcement of standards set up by The Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

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

    Blue Cross Blue Shield sent letters out to many people from the area, including 13,000 who had supposedly been grandfathered in with the “if you like your plan, you can keep your plan” promise, stating that their plan doesn’t meet the standards of the ACA and that they will have to get a new one.

    According to Janice Torrez, vice president of external affairs and chief of staff at Blue Cross, the carrier is “moving our (affected) members toward selecting other plans.”

    She continued, “There are so many plans available that I believe that members are going to find something that’s going to fit their needs.”

    Hopefully that is the case, but many are worried that they are giving up plans that fit their needs and budget for more expensive health insurance plans with Obamacare that have coverage they don’t think they’ll need.

    However, New Mexico Insurance Superintendent John Franchini thinks that all New Mexicans should be able to find a health insurance plan on the Exchange that’s right for them.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lc6ulrAUaFk

    “We got together and said, ‘This would be the right time to make sure all the citizens in the state who had a plan that wasn’t ACA-compliant would have the opportunity to convert to one’,” he said. “I look at this as a positive thing, not as a negative.”

    Those who are worried about the cost could probably qualify for the federal subsidies. The Kaiser Family Foundation said that 83% of exchange enrollees in 2014 qualified for some form of federal subsidy or another.

    Would these subsidies be of comfort to you if your perfectly good health insurance plan was about to disappear?

  • Phil Robertson Says Obamacare Can’t Keep You Out of the Grave, No Matter What Obama Says

    It may be one of the strangest claims or implications about Obamacare since “death panels”. Duck Dynasty star and patriarch of the Robertson clan, Phil Robertson, recently spoke to Sean Hannity, holding forth on all kinds of topics that his duck call business apparently makes him an authority on.

    Robertson has been on a mission lately to support his book unPHILtered: The Way I See It. There is quite a market out there for advice and motivational bon mots from a man who has “never turned on a computer”, as he calls himself. Folks have sought out Phil for advice on marriage, preaching the gospel, and business.

    On marriage, Phil’s advice is simple: Have her cook for you first.

    But, during the Hannity interview, Phil’s attention took a swing toward something that his Fox News host was more interested in.

    “Always remember this,” Robertson announced, “television, fame, money – listen, here is a news flash America. Fame cannot remove your sin and all of the money you ever amass cannot raise you from the dead,” Robertson said.

    Well, there may be a segment of the population out there for whom this comes as shocking news. Money can not raise the dead.

    But, wait.

    “And contrary to what Obama has said about Obamacare, Sean, it’s not going to keep you out of the ground, dude. And not only that, you’re going to spend a lot of money to have it. What I’m giving the American people is eternal health care, and it’s free. Give me a break.”

    As of this writing, claims of statements by President Obama that the Affordable Care Act could keep a person “out of the ground” have yet to be verified.

    Despite the faith-based nature of Robertson’s statements, which pretty much move them out of the realm of what is verifiable and debatable, pundits are saying that he “shot down Obamacare in 43 seconds”.

  • 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

  • Obamacare: Messing With Your Subsidies

    Obamacare has hit another snag in its wobbly existence. “If you like your plan, you can keep it” rings false again, but now the victims are not those who were already perfectly happy with what they had. Now, the victims of Obamacare are the poorer recipients who qualified for taxpayer subsidies to take the edge off of high premiums.

    In 2015, the rules for Obamacare’s taxpayer-funded subsidies will change, and out the window will go the plans that used those subsidies. Connecticut, Indiana, Maryland, Oregon, Rhode Island, Virginia and Washington Obamacare customers will all have their two lowest premium silver plans change and will see the subsidy calculation change for the worse.

    Those who are using the Obamacare subsidies will have to change plans to avoid paying the high premiums, because the premiums just keep climbing.

    “Those receiving federal premium subsidies may need to switch plans in 2015 to avoid paying more than the limits established by the ACA, and the impact will be more profound for lower-income consumers,” said Caroline Pearson, Avalere Health’s vice president.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsnBOommc1Q

    Now, we face the joy of the website.

    For, not only does the website have to handle new Obamacare sign-ups, it has to deal with all of the customers who received subsidies in these states (which means the majority) that now need to scramble to find a new plan.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRKFwj8RHcM

    The Obama administration has not even finished building the back end portions of the federal Obamacare website, but hopes to have it up and running with all the updates soon.

    The Department of Health and Human Services said on Tuesday that they would offer automatic re-enrollment for those on subsidies who want to stick with their current plan, but they warned that a double-check should be made on the price of that Obamacare plan for 2015.

    Hopefully the changes won’t have too much of a negative effect on those who are already struggling to keep up with rising costs.

    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

  • Kathleen Sebelius Resigns as Secretary of Health

    Kathleen Sebelius will resign from her post as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, President Obama will announce today, the White House said.

    Sebelius, 65, will step down just after enrollment in President’s Obama healthcare program topped first-year goals.  A former Democratic governor of Kansas, Sebelius spent five years as secretary, and presided over one of the biggest changes in healthcare in the U.S. since Medicare and Medicaid started nearly 50 years ago.

    President Obama is expected to name Sylvia Mathews Burwell, 48, director of the Office of Management and Budget, as the next health department secretary, the White House said.

    “From her work on Head Start, to expanding mental health coverage, to advancing cutting-edge health care research and, of course, her unwavering leadership in implementing the Affordable Care Act, Secretary Sebelius often calls her work here the most meaningful of her life,” Dori Salcido, a department spokeswoman, said in an e-mail confirming Sebelius’s resignation.

    Sebelius helped implement 2010 healthcare law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. It is expected that under the new law, health insurance will eventually be offered to 25 million more people in the U.S., paid for with changes to Medicare, taxes on health-care providers, a requirement that all Americans have insurance, and a provision that allows young people to stay on their parents’ insurance plans until the age of 26.

    The deadline for first-year enrollment in the program was March 31, and after a troubled start, total enrollment reached 7.1 million people, and exceeded initial projections. Enrollment has since risen to 7.5 million, as individuals were given an extended deadline to complete applications.

    Sebelius told Obama in early March that she would resign, according to an e-mail from the White House. She said the end of the health law’s first enrollment period on March 31 would be “the right time to transition the department to new leadership,” the e-mail said.

    Sebelius and Burwell are expected to join Obama for the public announcement today at the White House.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Obamacare Paradox in Kentucky Could Affect Midterms

    The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, common called the ACA or “Obamacare”, is the hottest political topic in years. Even now, four years after it took effect, there are still regular battles to repeal it, weaken it, defund it, and disparage it.

    Everyone agrees that it did not end up being a piece of legislation that anyone was happy with. No one seemed to really get what they wanted out of it, despite months of carving up and dealmaking. It became the focus of the 2008 Presidential election. And any politician running for anything above dog catcher is asked where they stand on Obamacare. And some dog catchers are even ready with a non-answer answer.

    Commonly, Obamacare is unpopular in red states – those states that typically end up going for Republican candidates in Presidential races. But therein lies the curiosity. Red states tend to also be the poorest, with the most people on the rolls of Medicaid, Food Stamps and other such government programs. Those states actually stand to most benefit from the provisions of Obamacare, especially the expanded Medicaid provisions.

    Some say that this benefit is short-lived. They say that such spending will come home to roost when those Medicaid costs are handed back to the states in a few years. Others say that the overall savings due to having healthier citizens, fewer emergency room visits for non-emergency issues, as well as good preventive care will offset those expenses, putting things on the plus side in the end.

    No matter which set of numbers you believe, there is a fight brewing. Midterm elections are coming up. People like Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky are touting their opposition to Obamacare. His Tea Party opponent out-Herods him by saying McConnell doesn’t do enough to oppose Obamacare, painting McConnell as semi-buddies with Obama.

    But the portions of Kentucky that tend to vote for either of these men are racking up some of the biggest numbers in ACA enrollment in the nation. The Courier-Journal reports that more than 370,000 people have enrolled in the expanded Medicaid program or the public exchanges provided by the law. That is one out of every 12 Kentuckians. Kentucky’s ACA website has been the talk of the nation, with its two-term Democrat governor championing it as a way to pull his state out of poverty.

    According to the Secretary of State’s website, Kentucky has about 2.8 Million registered voters, though only about 1.7 Million seem to consistently vote. It has about half a million more Democrats registered than Republicans. It went for Bill Clinton both times, but since then the Dems seem to stay home or swing Republican on Presidential election day. On the other hand, It has had only 1 Republican governor in over 40 years, and he was only single-term. Its Secretary of State, Alison Grimes, is Democrat, and she is the presumptive candidate to challenge Mitch McConnell in the mid-terms.

    This mix of factors is making some people wonder where things might swing in the mid-terms. Might folks who have voted for Mitch McConnell over and over since the Reagan years end up either voting for Grimes – who already holds a higher office in the state? Or might they even stay home, choosing to sit this one out rather than vote in opposition to their own newly-acquired health care packages?

    It is a closely watched race, to be sure. And how this all will play out should make for some classic political theatre.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Hobby Lobby Invests in Abortion Pills

    In a discovery that is bound to rankle supporters, Mother Jones magazine revealed yesterday that Hobby Lobby is in bed with the enemy.

    After months/years of fighting the Affordable Care Act’s provisions requiring birth control to be covered by employer-provided insurance plans, including taking that fight all the way to the United States Supreme Court, it now comes to light that the company may not know where its money goes.

    In fact, it turns out that Hobby Lobby’s corporate 401(k) plan has more than $73 Million in mutual funds investments in companies that produce the very drugs and devices that they are fighting against. These include emergency contraceptive pills, intrauterine devices, and drugs commonly used in abortions.

    Mother Jones reported:

    “These companies include Teva Pharmaceutical Industries, which makes Plan B and ParaGard, a copper IUD, and Actavis, which makes a generic version of Plan B and distributes Ella … Pfizer, the maker of Cytotec and Prostin E2, which are used to induce abortions … AstraZeneca, which … manufactures Prostodin, Cerviprime, and Partocin, three drugs commonly used in abortions; and Forest Laboratories, which makes Cervidil, a drug used to induce abortions.”

    Many people don’t know exactly what is in their 401(k) mutual fund sections. That is the nature of a mutual fund: it is managed by someone else so you don’t have to pick what you are investing in. But a company that is so ardently fighting this battle should have had someone who knows how to see such things – like the someone that Mother Jones has – to check.

    Some folks have argued that Hobby Lobby’s assertions about so-called “morning after” and “Plan B” pills are unfounded, that they have a mistaken understanding about how these things work. But there is no accounting for a person’s opinions. If Hobby Lobby wanted to fight for its religious right to not pay for aspirin because they viewed headaches as God’s will, we would still be at the Supreme Court with this case. That is the nature of a religious liberty argument. It does not have to make sense to anyone else but the person making the argument.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • Obamacare: The End of Insurance As We Know It?

    Obamacare: The End of Insurance As We Know It?

    In the early days of the Obamacare debate, before the ACA was codified and passed, there was mention of and support for things like a “public option”, and even “Medicaid for all”. These possibilities sought to remove for-profit insurance companies from the loop entirely.

    Some people heard about “government death panels” and responded by saying that they had already faced interference from such “panels”, that they existed, but that they were actually part of the for-profit insurance process that we already have. Anyone who has ever been denied an MRI or other test that their doctor believes would be helpful, all because some doctor sitting afar at their insurance company thinks it might be unnecessary, knows what this bureaucracy is like.

    Some point out that the biggest buildings in any city are owned by insurance companies. What could we do with the money that they spend on CEO salaries, marketing, dividends? Should there be a for-profit angle to health insurance? Why is it a good idea to have a profit motive involved in whether or not someone gets an expensive treatment that could save their life?

    But maybe, because of Obamacare, that is in the early stages of changing.

    The Fiscal Times recently reported on a curious trend that is threatening insurance companies. This move has to do with Medicare and Medicaid, which was expanded under Obamacare.

    Most hospitals end up taking less for services they render when the payor is Medicaid. But Medicaid is not a program paid directly from “the government”. Instead, it is administered through existing insurance companies, all of whom are required to maintain certain basic coverages in their Medicaid plans. Some offer more, but none can offer less, by law.

    Hospitals are now looking at setting up their own in-house Medicare Advantage plans, thereby keeping both the payments and the premiums collected within their walls, cutting out the Humana’s, Aetnas, and other big dig insurance companies.

    Dr. Kenneth L. Davis, CEO and president of Mount Sinai Health System in New York, which is setting up just such a system, says, “Inevitably the large systems are going to move to take part of the premium dollar.”

    This model is actually not new. Kaiser Permanente has been operating as insurance company and health care delivery system for years. This is called an “integrated delivery system”. And it is where health care is headed in the future. And experts predict that insurance-only models of business, with no delivery of care, will be phased out by competition in the not-too-distant future.

    Image via Wikimedia Commons

  • 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