Tag: healthcare

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ObamaCare Politics

In December, Almost 1 million People Signed Up for Obamacare

HONOLULU (AP) — A December surge propelled health care sign-ups through the government’s rehabilitated website past the 1 million mark, the Obama administration said Sunday, reflecting new signs of life for the problem-plagued federal insurance exchange.

Of the more than 1.1 million people now enrolled, nearly 1 million signed up in December, with the majority coming in the week before a pre-Christmas deadline for coverage to start in January. Compare that to a paltry 27,000 in October —the website’s first, error-prone month — or 137,000 in November.The figures tell only part of the story. The administration has yet to provide a December update on the 14 states running their own exchanges. While California, New York, Washington, Kentucky and Connecticut have performed well, others are still struggling.

Still, the end-of-year surge suggests that with HealthCare.Gov now functioning better, the federal market may be starting to pull its weight. The windfall comes at a critical moment for Obama’s sweeping health care law, which becomes “real” for many Americans on Jan. 1 when coverage through the exchanges and key patient protections kick in.

“As we continue our open enrollment campaign, we experienced a welcome surge in enrollment as millions of Americans seek access to affordable health care coverage,” Marilyn Tavenner, the head of the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a blog post.

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Healthcare ObamaCare Politics

States See Huge Increase in Healthcare Sign up

WASHINGTON – States with their own well-running health insurance exchanges reported Wednesday an increase of 30 percent to 40 percent in enrollments from last week to this week.

“We’re seeing huge interest,” said Peter Lee, director of California’s exchange, during a conference call sponsored by Families USA, a health care advocacy group that supports the Affordable Care Act.

Six months ago, “no American knew about” the state exchanges.

In the first week of December, 50,000 people signed up for insurance in California.

Last week, 15,000 people were signing up every day, Lee said. He expects the interest to increase as local organizations, such as libraries or even cities, launch their own campaigns to encourage people to buy health insurance.

Lee and other officials in states that have expanded Medicaid coverage and spent millions promoting their exchanges said they are seeing an increasing diversity among the people buying insurance and the types they are purchasing.

The numbers show interest in buying insurance is increasing after the initial problems that hurt the site when it launched Oct. 1, said Ron Pollack, the founding executive director of Families USA. States that are doing well, he said, can share how they succeeded with other states and the federal government.

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Healthcare Politics

Colin Powell Endorses a Single Payer Healthcare System

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell has waded into the health care debate with a broad endorsement of the kind of universal health plan found in Europe, Canada and South Korea.

“I am not an expert in health care, or Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, or however you choose to describe it, but I do know this: I have benefited from that kind of universal health care in my 55 years of public life,” Powell said, according to the Puget Sound Business Journal, last week at an annual “survivors celebration breakfast” in Seattle for those who, like Powell, have battled prostate cancer. “And I don’t see why we can’t do what Europe is doing, what Canada is doing, what Korea is doing, what all these other places are doing.”

Europe, Canada and Korea all have a “single-payer” system, in which the government pays for the costs of health care.

Some Democrats who strongly advocated for, and failed to get, a single-payer system in the 2010 Affordable Care Act, still believe the current law doesn’t go far enough to reform the US health system.

A retired four-star general and former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Powell told the audience about a woman named Anne, who as his firewood supplier, faced a healthcare scare of her own. Anne asked Powell to help pay for her healthcare bills, as her insurance didn’t cover an MRI she needed as a prerequisite to being treated for a growth in her brain. In addition, Powell’s wife Alma recently suffered from three aneurysms and an artery blockage. “After these two events, of Alma and Anne, I’ve been thinking, why is it like this?” said Powell.

“We are a wealthy enough country with the capacity to make sure that every one of our fellow citizens has access to quality health care,” Powell. “(Let’s show) the rest of the world what our democratic system is all about and how we take care of all of our citizens.”

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Healthcare Politics

New Texas Rule – You Cannot Advise Texans On The Benefits of Healthcare

It’s like a massive push to keep the American people ignorant to the benefits of having healthcare, and this push is happening in Republican governed states.

Take Texas for example. A new Rule in Texas makes it illegal for anyone to advise someone else on what healthcare to get or the benefits of getting healthcare. The new law even ban those who are trained in providing this information, from providing the information.

The counselors tasked with helping uninsured Texans navigate their way through the complicated process of buying health insurance will have to jump through a series of hoops to get licenses under new rules proposed by the Texas Department of Insurance.

The so-called navigators would have to prove their citizenship or employment eligibility, undergo a background check and show evidence of financial responsibility under the new rules, proposed Tuesday by Texas Insurance Commissioner Julia Rathgeber.

They would also have to receive 40 hours of education on Texas-specific Medicaid and privacy standards, then show proof that they have the proper training to guide consumers to the right health plans.

Navigators would be prohibited from charging for their services and from recommending specific health benefit plans to consumers. The proposed rules would also restrict navigators from providing advice on the substantive benefits or comparative benefits of different health plans, the department said.

“In Texas, we are being vigilant about safeguarding privacy and keeping personal information out of the wrong hands,” Rathgeber said in a statement. “These proposed rules address insufficiencies in federal regulations and make the training and qualifications of navigators in our state more readily apparent to consumers and service providers.”

It makes absolutely no sense! To be a Navigator in Texas, the individual must prove their citizenship, go through a background check and show evidence of financial responsibility. And if the get through all that, there is a 40 hour training program they must go through. And at the end of it all, Navigators are still bound by this new rule, and cannot educate people on healthcare.

How dumb is that!

Categories
Healthcare Politics

Republican House Speaker John Boehner Successfully Signs Up For ObamaCare

Congratulations House Speaker John Boehner for successfully enrolling in the Affordable Care Act; Aka: Obamacare.

It was about an hour after Boehner’s office said he couldn’t sign up for Obamacare coverage on the District of Columbia’s exchange, that his office said, he had officially enrolled.

Boehner’s office wrote, “Kept at it, and called the DC Health Link help line. They called back a few hours later, and after restarting the process on the website two more times, I just heard from DC Health Link that I have been successfully enrolled.”

Politico reports:

 Responding to Boehner’s earlier failed attempts to sign up for coverage, the District’s exchange — known as DC Health Link — said it recently identified some system errors after enrollment.

“We recently discovered the fact that after enrollment, some users have been receiving a random error message,” DC Health Link communications director Richard Sorian wrote in an email. “Despite the message, these individuals have been enrolled. Our call center has been able to quickly resolve these matters. We are working on a system-wide update that will eliminate this soon. Users will be able to verify their enrollment in their secure, online account.”
Boehner’s office on Thursday afternoon said he originally received an error screen when he tried to sign up for coverage. “Guess I’ll just have to keep trying…” his office wrote at the time.

I plan to enroll too, but I’m not a ‘shop on Black Friday’ kind of person. I’ve been waiting for things to settle down. After I enroll, it will be like Boehner and I are BFFs. Isn’t that exciting?

Stuff not covered: How long did it take to enroll for coverage by an insurance company before Obamacare?

Categories
Politics

Paul Krugman – Obamacare Will Succeed, You Can Bet On That

I haven’t been writing about the healthcare.gov thing, for the simple reason that I have nothing to say. What’s going on isn’t a policy question: we know from the states with working exchanges (including California) that the underlying structure of the law is workable. Instead, it’s about an implementation botch, which is an incredible mess, and reflects very badly on Obama. But the future of the reform depends not on policy per se but on whether the IT issues can be fixed well enough soon enough, a subject on which I have zero expertise.

Of course, that hasn’t stopped other people from breathlessly commenting on every twist and turn in the polls, every meaningless vote in the House, and so on. Hey, it’s a living.

But at this point there’s enough information coming in to make semi-educated guesses — and it looks to me as if this thing is probably going to stumble through to the finish line. State-run enrollments are mostly going pretty well; Medicaid expansion is going very well (and it’s expanding even in states that have rejected the expansion, because more people are learning they’re eligible.) And healthcare.gov, while still pretty bad, is starting to look as if it will be good enough in a few weeks for large numbers of people to sign up, either through the exchanges or directly with insurers.

If all this is right, by the time open enrollment ends in March, millions of previously uninsured Americans will in fact have received coverage under the law, and reform will be irreversible. Obama personally may never recover his reputation; Democratic hopes of a wave election in 2014 are probably gone, although you never know. But anyone counting on Obamacare to collapse is probably making a very bad bet.

h/t NY Times

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ObamaCare Politics weekly address

President’s Weekly Address – Your Healthcare: “it’s a very big deal”

The President:

. A few weeks ago, we launched an important new part of the Affordable Care Act. 

It’s called the Marketplace.  And for Americans without health insurance, and Americans who buy insurance on their own because they can’t get it at work, it’s a very big deal. 

If you’re one of those people, the Affordable Care Act makes you part of a big group plan for the first time.  The Marketplace is where you can apply and shop for affordable new health insurance choices.  It gathers insurers under one system to compete for your business.  And that choice and competition have actually helped bring prices down.

Ultimately, the easiest way to buy insurance in this Marketplace will be a new website, HealthCare.gov.  But as you may have heard, the site isn’t working the way it’s supposed to yet.  That’s frustrating for all of us who have worked so hard to make sure everyone who needs it gets health care.  And it’s especially frustrating for the Americans who’ve been trying to get covered.  The site has been visited more than 20 million times so far.  Nearly 700,000 people have applied for coverage already.

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Healthcare ObamaCare

5 Things You Might Not Know About ObamaCare

1… Contrary to what 42 percent of Americans think, Obamacare really is happening. In fact, people can start signing up for state-run health insurance on October 1st. That’s when states and the federal government will open marketplaces, called exchanges, to offer subsidized benefits to the nation’s 50 million uninsured.

2… Another survey found that a majority of Americans think the law cuts Medicare benefits and covers undocumented immigrants. It doesn’t.

Actually, the government expects the average Medicare recipient to save approximately $35,000 over the next ten years.

3… Tax credits. Next year, health insurance for eligible individuals or families will be subsidized.

For example, someone making just under $23,000 a year wouldn’t have to spend more than 6.3 percent of their annual income on health insurance. Based on a $3,030 plan, their contribution would be $1,450. Under Obamacare, they’d receive a tax credit of $1,580 to put towards their coverage.

4… The 80/20 rule. Insurers are now required to spend at least 80 percent of premium dollars on providing healthcare. The other 20 percent can be used on overhead expenses like excessive administrative costs and profits. In 2012, this provision saved Americans over two billion dollars.

If insurers don’t comply, they’re required to provide customers with a rebate. In 2011, over 13 million consumers received $1.1 billion in rebates – that’s around $150 per customer.

5… taxes. No matter what you’ve heard, your health benefits under Obamacare will not be taxed. The law does require that employers report the value of your annual coverage on your W-2, but the government says that’s just for workers’ information.

h/t Yahoo

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Healthcare ObamaCare Politics Repeal

Talks Of ObamaCare Repeal Hurting Republican Rebranding Efforts

Republicans are in the midst of a vast re-branding effort. They have looked at the results of the 2008 and 2012 elections and have decided that the American people are correct – their policies are as popular as trickle down economics, and Americans are not buying those policies anymore.

The obvious next move for Republicans would be to dump the failed policies of yesterday and adopt policies that a majority of the American people want. What people want is health care; and after President Obama signed the affordable healthcare law in his first term, the American people voted overwhelmingly for him in 2012 guaranteeing him a second term.

But Republicans, in their infinite wisdom, are promising the American people that their cherished healthcare will be repealed. It is that stubbornness and their failure to accept the will of the people that is setting the foundation for more lost elections in the future.

I’m not complaining.

The LA Times reports on how Latinos, one of the fastest growing minority group, is responding to Republicans talk of health care repeal.

As Republican leaders try to woo Latino voters with a new openness to legal status for the nation’s illegal immigrants, the party remains at odds with America’s fastest-growing ethnic community on another key issue: healthcare.

Latinos, who have the lowest rates of health coverage in the country, are among the strongest backers of President Obama’s health care law. In a recent national poll, supporters outnumbered detractors by more than 2 to 1. Surveys show that Latinos overwhelmingly see guaranteeing health care as a core government responsibility.

Yet congressional Republicans continue to make repeal of the 2010 Affordable Care Act a top agenda item and have renewed calls for deep cuts in health programs such as Medicaid which are very popular with Latinos.

“Obamacare is a colossal mistake for our country,” Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said recently in a speech on the Senate floor. “It needs to be pulled out by its roots.”

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Healthcare ObamaCare

Dunkin Donuts And Whole Foods Among Companies Still Fighting ObamaCare

For large retail and restaurant chains, the big unknown in the year ahead is how much more they’ll pay for health coverage. Employers with 50 or more workers who put in 30 hours a week will be required to provide health care coverage or pay a fine, under the Affordable Care Act, also called the ACA or Obamacare.

That lower full-time threshold is one of the big issues business groups are trying to negotiate with the Obama administration as the rules are being finalized.  Large chains like Dunkin’ Donuts parent firm Dunkin’ Brands argue that full-time status should remain based on the traditional 40-hour work week.

“We believe that the definition of a full-time employee, and the number of hours a full-time employee works each week, should be consistent with existing Federal and State laws, and we have communicated this to the Administration,” explained a Dunkin’ Brands spokesperson in a written statement.

At upscale grocer Whole Foods, workers who put in 30 hours a week already get full health benefits. Still, John Mackey, co-founder and co-CEO of the grocery chain, said the company may still be forced to reconsider its full-time staffing levels, because the proposed rules include more expensive benefit requirements.

“Say we’re paying $3,200 a year for insurance for somebody, and the new regulations cost us $5,000 to insure somebody. If they work fewer hours, we just saved $5,000 per person” because there is no mandate to provide coverage for part-time workers, he explained.

h/t Yahoo News

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Healthcare

Mitt Romney Flips Again – Promises To Repeal ObamaCare “In Its Entirety”

Sunday: Mitt Romney went on Meet The Press and told the nation that he liked parts of ObamaCare. He reassured the American people that he will not repeal the entire bill because there are some parts he agreed with. Mr. Romney specifically mentioned the pre-existing conditions provision in ObamaCare, where insurance companies are required to provide insurance coverage to everyone no matter what their health history is. This, Mr. Romney said, was good policy and would remain in his version of healthcare.

Later on Sunday: Moments after Romney made his new position known, his campaign issued a statement basically saying, “there he go again!” The campaign explained that what Romney said on Meet The Press was incorrect, and reclaimed a previous position Romney held to repeal all of ObamaCare.

Monday: Romney backtracks on the new position he revealed on Meet The Press. On Monday, Romney bowed to his campaign and said in a radio interview that he will in fact, repeal all of ObamaCare in its entirety.

Some leader, huh? This is the man who Republicans have tapped to be the next leader of the free world, but he cannot stand up in opposition of his own campaign.

Romney’s Radio interview:

Categories
James Carville Politics

James Carville – Losing Healthcare Court Fight is “Best Thing for Democratic Party”

James Carville, the Democrat strategist who worked on the Bill Clinton campaign, had a very interesting take on the current Supreme Court case involving the President’s healthcare law.

According to Carville, having the Supreme Court vote down the bill will be great for Democrats, not so good for Republicans.

“I think this will be the best thing that has ever happened to the Democratic Party,” Carville said Tuesday on CNN’s “The Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer.”

He added: “You know, what the Democrats are going to say, and it is completely justified, ‘We tried, we did something, go see a 5-4 Supreme Court majority’.”

Carville, who gained fame working on Bill Clinton’s 1992 presidential campaign, predicted health care costs will only increase in the future, in which case Republicans will be to blame for leading the drive to expel a federal program designed to help Americans cover those costs.

“Then the Republican Party will own the healthcare system for the foreseeable future. And I really believe that. That is not spin,” Carville said.

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