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Obamacare Tag

Posted by Mike LaChance on August 31, 2014 18 Comments
Here's another item for the growing list of things we weren't told about Obamacare before it was passed. It seems the Affordable Care Act presents a direct threat to employer provided health insurance plans and could force up to 150 million people out of their current plans. Jim Angle of FOX News did a recent in-depth report on the subject:
Will ObamaCare mean the end of employer-provided insurance? President Obama's famous promise that “you can keep your plan and your doctor, no matter what” was not the only misleading argument he made for his health care plan. There is yet another controversy, with even bigger consequences, brewing for Americans who already have health care. Analysts predict that as ObamaCare takes hold, it will mean the end of employer-provided insurance, with former Obama adviser Zeke Emanuel predicting that80 percent of such plans will disappear within ten years.

Posted by Amy Miller on August 22, 2014 17 Comments
The Obama Administration announced today that they're once again changing the rules governing health care plans provided by religiously-oriented nonprofit organizations. Via The Hill:
Under the rule, the government would step in and cover the law’s contraception requirements in instances where employers announce their religious objections in writing. The organizations would not have to play any direct role in providing for contraceptive coverage to which they object, according to sources familiar with the rule. The rule had not formally been issued as of Friday afternoon. The fix is in line with a suggestion put forth by Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy in the high court ruling against the mandate in the case known as Hobby Lobby v. Burwell.
The new rule is posted in detail on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services website:

Posted by Amy Miller on August 18, 2014 9 Comments
Patient advocates are up in arms over allegations that insurance companies are violating Obamacare's anti-discrimination provisions. Groups like the AIDS Institute and the Leukemia and Lymphoma Society cite difficulties with getting coverage for expensive medications and finding quality in-network care as just two in a long list of grievances against the implementation of the new health care law. Via ABC News:
Kansas' commissioner, Sandy Praeger, a Republican, said the jury is out on whether some insurers are back to shunning the sick. Nonetheless, Praeger said the administration needs to take a strong stand. "They ought to make it very clear that if there is any kind of discrimination against people with chronic conditions, there will be enforcement action," Praeger said. "The whole goal here was to use the private insurance market to create a system that provides health insurance for all Americans."
Adding to patient difficulties is the fact that, although some of Obamacare's anti-discrimination provisions have been put into effect, many have been left pending for more than four years. This makes enforcement difficult when the people the law purports to protect have been told since 2010 that the Affordable Care Act is the immediate solution for those who previously were not able to secure coverage. What's troubling about the actions of patient advocates, however, is the obvious conflation of "discrimination" with "complications":
The advocates also say they are disappointed by how difficult it's proved for consumers to get a full picture of plans sold on the new insurance exchanges. Digging is often required to learn crucial details such as drugs covered, exact copayments and which doctors and hospitals are in the network.

Posted by Bruce Carroll on August 02, 2014 24 Comments
Former Democratic Congressman and outspoken liberal Barney Frank has some surprisingly harsh words for President Barack Obama. Frank was interviewed recently by The Huffington Post:
"The rollout was so bad, and I was appalled -- I don't understand how the president could have sat there and not been checking on that on a weekly basis," Frank told HuffPost during a July interview. "But frankly, he should never have said as much as he did, that if you like your current health care plan, you can keep it. That wasn't true. And you shouldn't lie to people. And they just lied to people." "He should have said, 'Look, in some cases the health care plans that you've got are really inadequate, and in your own interests, we're going to change them,'" Frank said. "But that's not what he said."
Frank was a 16th term Congressman from Massachusetts who retired from career politics in 2012. But he has always been an outspoken supporter of Obama and the Obamacare law itself. In fact, just four years ago, Frank equated Obamacare opponents to bullies that drive teenagers to suicide.:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 22, 2014 49 Comments
UPDATE: Whipsaw: 4th Circuit upholds Obamacare federal exchange subsidy after D.C. Circuit rejects Full opinion and Judgment at bottom of post Decision just released in Halbig case. Here's the punchline:
Section 36B of the Internal Revenue Code, enacted as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA or the Act), makes tax credits available as a form of subsidy to individuals who purchase health insurance through marketplaces—known as “American Health Benefit Exchanges,” or “Exchanges” for short—that are “established by the State under section 1311” of the Act. 26 U.S.C. § 36B(c)(2)(A)(i). On its face, this provision authorizes tax credits for insurance purchased on an Exchange established by one of the fifty states or the District of Columbia. See 42 U.S.C. § 18024(d). But the Internal Revenue Service has interpreted section 36B broadly to authorize the subsidy also for insurance purchased on an Exchange established by the federal government under section 1321 of the Act. See 26 C.F.R. § 1.36B-2(a)(1) (hereinafter “IRS Rule”). Appellants are a group of individuals and employers residing in states that did not establish Exchanges. For reasons we explain more fully below, the IRS’s interpretation of section 36B makes them subject to certain penalties under the ACA that they would rather not face. Believing that the IRS’s interpretation is inconsistent with section 36B, appellants challenge the regulation under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), alleging that it is not “in accordance with law.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). ....Because we conclude that the ACA unambiguously restricts the section 36B subsidy to insurance purchased on Exchanges “established by the State,” we reverse the district court and vacate the IRS’s regulation.
What problems does this create? Massive. All the millions of people who signed up for Obamacare on the federal exchange -- and the true numbers were disputed -- expecting to get tax credits as subsidies now will not get those subsidies. A year-long effort to get people to sign up for Obamacare on the federal exchange will be in peril. Here's how The Washington Times summarized the effect prior to the decision, Five million Americans in for premium spikes if Obamacare challenge is successful:

Posted by Mike LaChance on July 05, 2014 3 Comments
The Obama administration has a habit of releasing new regulations at the beginning of holiday weekends and the 4th of July is no exception. While most Americans are planning outings with family and friends for picnics and fireworks, 1,300 pages of new Obamacare regulations were released. Larry O'Connor of Truth Revolt reported:
Holiday Document Dump: 1,300 Pages Of Obamacare Regs On July 4th Eve The Department of Health and Human Services released nearly 1,300 pages of new regulations related to the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) at 4:15 Thursday, just as the nation was beginning their Independence Day holiday weekend. The regulations deal with payment rates to doctors and hospitals. How doctors get paid by HHS through the new, overreaching Obamacare guidelines has been an item of concern for the American Medical Association, a key supporter of the health care law.
Philip Klein of the Washington Examiner also noted the timing:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on July 03, 2014 24 Comments
In light of the Hobby Lobby decision, the Supreme Court today granted an injunction pending appealy in favor of Wheaton College, which did not want to comply with certain Obamacare paperwork on religious grounds:
The application for an injunction having been submitted to JUSTICE KAGAN and by her referred to the Court, the Court orders: If the applicant informs the Secretary of Health and Human Services in writing that it is a nonprofit organization that holds itself out as religious and has religious objections to providing coverage for contraceptive services, the respondents are enjoined from enforcing against the applicant the challenged provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and related regulations pending final disposition of appellate review. To meet the condition for injunction pending appeal, the applicant need not use the form prescribed by the Government, EBSA Form 700, and need not send copies to health insurance issuers or third-party administrators.
Note that this really is not substantive, it's a matter of paperwork, as AP explains:
A divided Supreme Court on Thursday allowed, at least for now, an evangelical college in Illinois that objects to paying for contraceptives in its health plan to avoid filling out a government document that the college says would violate its religious beliefs. The justices said that Wheaton College does not have to fill out the contested form while its case is on appeal but can instead write the Department of Health and Human Services declaring that it is a religious nonprofit organization and making its objection to emergency contraception. The college does provide coverage for other birth control. Justices Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor said they would have denied Wheaton's request and made the college fill out a form that enables their insurers or third-party administrators to take on the responsibility of paying for the birth control.
Yes, heads exploding:

Posted by William A. Jacobson on June 11, 2014 76 Comments
No, I didn't see it coming. We didn't even plan on live coverage of VA-07, instead focusing on whether Lindsey Graham would avoid a runoff (he did). At some point I started seeing tweets of early VA-07 numbers and thought someone was trolling.  Then I checked and it was no joke. The night of, but particularly the day after, there is much fine punditry as to why Cantor lost.  And much political spin. Looking back, with the complete benefit of hindsight, it seems that something changed along the way for Cantor.  I can't put a precise date on it, but looking back on our posts about Cantor, I'd put the change sometime in late 2011, after Republicans gained control of the House, Cantor became Majority Leader, and he set his sights on even higher positions of power. Until then, our posts reflect Cantor as a tough fighter, the "bad cop" to John Boehner's "good cop" in fighting Obamacare and the Democratic agenda.   Cantor was the guy designated to take on Obama directly in the final weeks prior to Obamacare being signed into law:
Obama also gave House Minority Whip Eric Cantor a stern talking-to when he noticed that the Virginia Republican had stacked the more than 2,000-page bill in front of him while he griped that patients would not be able to maintain the same level of coverage under the Democrats' plan. Obama briefly addressed the coverage point and then turned to the stacked health care bill. "You know, when we do props like this, you stack it up and you repeat 2,400 pages, et cetera -- the truth of the matter is that health care is very complicated. And we can try to pretend that it's not, but it is," Obama said. "These are the kind of political things we do that prevent us from actually having a conversation."
Note also Cantor pointing out that people will not be able to keep their doctors and coverage: Cantor proudly earned the ire of Obama and the Democrats, and was targeted for his efforts, as this Politico headline from March 10, 2009 declared:
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