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Obamacare Tag

It's been seven years since the passage of the Affordable Care Act and the White House is still having trouble selling it to Americans, especially Millennials. The problem is that Obamacare needs the money of healthy young people to survive, so the White House is trying a new push. The Business Insider reports:
The White House is kicking off a big push to fix Obamacare's largest problem Obamacare needs millennials, so the White House is going after them. The White House, the Department of Health and Human Services, the secretary of education, and private groups convened in Washington on Tuesday for the Affordable Care Act Millennial Outreach and Engagement Summit.

I recently noted that President Obama's climate change edict for our national security strategists shows that he does not take warfare against American opponents seriously. However, the President takes citizen opposition very seriously. For example, he is unleashing one of his most potent tools against Americans opting out of purchasing Obamacare. Over 20 million Americans opted to pay a penalty rather that purchase health insurance. So, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has just sent them a formal letter suggesting they make a different choice.
...Getting a letter from the IRS can be a threatening and nerve-racking experience; it seldom is seen as a suggestion and more of a threat. But at President Obama’s direction, the IRS is “reaching out” to people who paid the tax penalty for not buying mandatory health insurance or who claimed an exemption in hopes of “attracting” more people to sign up for ObamaCare insurance. The government is particularly interested in compliance from healthy young people.

Early predictions of ObamaCare's failure were ignored, yet a new government report shows that American families are—as predicted—having trouble affording and accessing health care. The Washington Free Beacon reports: Obamacare enrollees had trouble affording and accessing health care as well as understanding how to use their plans,...

While he was running for Senate in the 2012, Ted Cruz spoke extensively on the virtues of portable health insurance -- insurance not associated with any particular employer, but insurance that works more like vehicle insurance or homeowner's insurance. Though the idea is not unique to Senator Cruz, in a world where Obamacare is causing premiums to sky rocket, coverage to lessen, and government-sponsored co-ops to flop, portable health insurance is becoming a frequent visitor in health insurance reform circles. "More insurance plans will move with the person, not the job. That's real health security," said Speaker Ryan recently, explaining his new health care proposal. "This is not the twentieth century where you have the same job for your entire career, your entire life. You move around, you bounce around. We want to have a twenty-first century system that's portable with the person."

Single-payer healthcare is the Democrats' holy grail, because it put the government completely in charge of one-fifth of the economy and every single person's healthcare. It's total control, but at least as of 2008, it wasn't a platform on which Obama could run. But as this early video shows, single-payer was always the goal. Similarly, failed 2014 NY-23 Democratic challenger Martha Robertson was a big single-payer supporter. But in NY-23, a Republican +4 district that has a hardcore liberal Ithaca-area contingent from which Robertson hailed, single payer won't fly. So Robertson didn't run on single payer, she ran on Obamacare. But in moments of candor uncovered by Legal Insurrection, Robertson admitted that Obamacare was just the stepping stone to single payer.

The more than 800,000 Americans who purchase their insurance from one of Aetna's exchange plans will be out of luck once this year is over. Health insurance giant Aetna announced late Monday evening that they would be scaling back their Obamacare exchange offerings to a paltry four states. The reason? Losses amounting to more than $430 million.

Now that Obamacare co-ops are collapsing and Bernie Sanders has spent months revving up Democratic Primary voters on the idea of "free" healthcare, Obama is suddenly open to the idea of a public option in Obamacare. Some might think this was the goal all along. The Wall Street Journal reports:
President Obama Pushes for ‘Public Option’ in Affordable Care Act President Barack Obama, reviewing his signature health law six years into its implementation, is suggesting Congress and his White House successor add a government-run, or public, insurance option to the Affordable Care Act and increase federal financial assistance for people to buy coverage.

House Republicans are proposing five changes to ObamaCare while still asserting that they are interested in and working for full repeal.  Still wildly unpopular, ObamaCare highlights the divide between Republican and conservative voters who want it repealed and their representatives on the hill who, while having (show) voted for repeal many times over the past few years, seem less interested in repeal with each passing year. Unlike previous changes Congress has made to ObamaCare (rescinding some funds in the "Louisiana Purchase," ensuring that TRICARE plans are deemed to meet ObamaCare's minimum insurance requirements, and other such moves), the new proposed changes seem to be made with an eye to the long-term. The Hill reports:
The House Energy and Commerce Committee on Friday held a hearing on five bills that would make relatively small changes to the health law, such as changing the documentation required to enroll in coverage or changing how insurers can use someone's age in setting premiums. The moves indicate that Republicans have not ruled out making adjustments to the existing law despite preperations to tout their long-awaited replacement plan for all of ObamaCare, coming from Speaker Paul Ryan’s (R-Wis.) task force later this month.

Barely a month ago, I blogged about a nasty November surprise lurking in the electoral shadows -- monstrous Obamacare premium rate hikes. Huge losses and a supposedly high number of unexpected claims are being blamed for looming rate hikes in the Lone Star State. The average rate hike for Texan consumers? 35%. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Texas requested a 58% rate hike for some 603,000 consumers and, "18% increase for 353,000 members who buy plans via the small group market that caters to businesses with fewer than 50 employees," according to Investors.com.

The Supreme Court unanimously pushed the Little Sisters of the Poor contraception case back to the lower courts, meaning they do not face fines if they do not provide contraception coverage. Ashley E. McGuire, Senior Fellow at The Catholic Association, released this statement in a press release:
"Today the Supreme Court made it clear that the government still has not done enough to accommodate the conscience rights of the Little Sisters, whose plan they have tried to hijack for things like abortion pills. For now, this is an interim win for the nuns, who just want to get back to their work caring for the poor without interference from government bureaucrats."

The latest Obamacare gift to consumers? MORE RATE HIKES! images Unfortunately (or fortunately -- depending on where you stand) for Democrats, pending rate increase announcements could not come at a worse time. Open enrollment begins the first week of November, just in time for Obamacare and independent health insurance consumers to take their sticker shock to the ballot box.

Non-profit Obamacare exchanges are a bit fat failure, premiums and deductible continue to soar while benefits diminish, and now, Health Savings Accounts may get the ax. For health insurance consumers with high deductibles, HSAs are a lifesaver. Contributing pre-tax cash to the HSA helps offset out-of-pocket costs. Thanks to final Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) regulations published by Health and Human Services, individuals purchasing health insurance from the exchanges will no longer be able to utilize a HSA.

Kemberlee just reported that country’s largest health insurer will stop participating in some Obamacare markets and that 12 of 23 state exchanges have closed. Covered California, touted as the most successful state exchange, is now experiencing a significant technical glitch that is jeopardizing the health of pregnant women and their unborn children. Due to a computer error, pregnant women are dropped from their Covered California coverage when they report their condition, and are transferred automatically to Medi-Cal (which is not taken by many doctors).

Towards the end of last year, Obamacare co-ops were dropping like flies. 12 of the 23 taxpayer funded non-profit co-ops created under the Affordable Care Act were shuttered, and the largest of them is under investigation. By the end of 2014, 21 of the 23 non-profit health insurance co-ops created under the ACA were losing money. Enrollment was well beneath expectations in 13 of the 23 plans. And the news isn't getting any better.

Six years ago this week, President Obama signed the Affordable Care Act into law...with all the arrogance and pomp we have come to expect! Obamacare is still the gift that keeps on giving...fiscal pain, budgetary heartbreak, and unfulfilled expectations. For this magic anniversary, Patrice J. Lee f the Independent Women's Forum walks us down Memory Lane:
During the debate over ObamaCare, President Obama promised –among many things- that the average family premiums would decline by $2,500. Let’s just see if that held up. According to the Freedom Partners Chamber of Commerce, Americans in most states face higher healthcare premiums this year under ObamaCare. In 17 of those states, the deductible increases are 20 percent or higher. As for deductibles, those too have spiked. Forty-one states saw average deductibles for ObamaCare plans increase and 17 of them experienced double-digit increases.

While speaking to Hillary supporters in Salt Lake City this week, Chelsea Clinton was asked by an attendee if her mother would extend Obamacare benefits to people in the country illegally. Naturally, she said yes. Thomas Lifson of the American Thinker:
Chelsea Clinton reveals her mom thinks it is ‘important’ to extend Obamacare to illegal aliens So any family that can ante-up plane fare for the kids and one or more parent to JFK, Miami, Los Angeles or any other international terminal, or that can sneak across the border, is here to stay, once Hillary becomes president. And in addition to all the other goodies this country bestows upon people with low incomes, now the $600k a year former NBC correspondent Chelsea Clinton has declared that Obamacare will be extended to illegals.