Articles on the implementation of ObamaCare.
Two bills cracking down on ObamaCare’s individual mandate are being fast-tracked through the Senate, setting up a potential election-year fight over the healthcare law.
When lawmakers and advocates were pushing to pass the Affordable Care Act, commonly referred to as Obamacare, the list of promises to the American people was long.
The law was supposed to dramatically reduce the number of uninsured, the average family was supposed to save an average of $2,500 in health-insurance premiums per year, and we were going to be able to keep our doctors and insurance plans. But the ACA has failed on these promises.
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A group of Republican senators on Wednesday introduced a bill to exempt people from ObamaCare’s individual mandate if they live in a county with one or no options for coverage.
An Obamacare provision designed to inject a protective extra layer of competition into fledgling insurance markets fell into near-oblivion — and its failure has made Obamacare’s mounting challenges even more acute.
Under the unwieldy name of the Multi-State Plan Program, the federal government was supposed to contract with two private health plans, at least one a nonprofit. Each is required to offer coverage in all 50 states by next year. But it’s fallen short, reaching fewer states than anticipated, and offering plans that mirror options people already have.
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Iowa Insurance Commissioner Nick Gerhart can hardly believe he’s giving some consumers this advice: If you can’t find an affordable, full-fledged health insurance policy, he tells them, maybe you should consider going without one.
The Affordable Care Act started requiring most Americans to have health insurance in 2014. But the law offers an exemption for people who can’t find policies that would cost them less than about 8 percent of their household incomes.
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The Obama administration said Tuesday that it is planning to test out further steps to tighten the rules for ObamaCare sign-up periods that have drawn insurer complaints.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) said that it will launch a pilot program in 2017 to test ways to put in place a “pre-enrollment verification system,” meaning a way to check documentation to make sure enrollees are actually eligible to sign up for ObamaCare through an extra sign-up period.
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Along with “stakeholders” (campaign donors), “investments” (government spending) and “obstruction” (Congress), one of our favorite political euphemisms is “improper payments.” That’s how Washington airbrushes away the taxpayer money that flows each year to someone who is not eligible, or to the right beneficiary in the wrong amount, or that disappears to fraud or federal accounting ineptitude. Now thanks to ObamaCare, improper payments are soaring.
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Under the ACA, health insurance marketplaces, also called health exchanges, were set up to facilitate the purchase of health insurance in each state. Customers are free to choose from a set of standardized healthcare plans from participating insurers, and those policies are eligible for federal subsidies.
But insurers have been fleeing the exchanges, arguing that they are loss makers and the types of people attracted to them make the risks too great for the insurers to provide affordable (and profitable) policies.
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Under intense pressure to curb costs that have led to losses on the Affordable Care Act exchanges, insurers are accelerating their move toward plans that offer limited choices of doctors and hospitals.
A new McKinsey & Co. analysis of regulatory filings for 18 states and the District of Columbia found that 75% of the offerings on their exchanges in 2017 will likely be health-maintenance organizations or a similar plan design known as an exclusive provider organization, or EPO. Both typically require consumers to use an often-narrow network of health-care providers—in some cases, just one large hospital system and its affiliated facilities and doctors.
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Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) says major changes are coming for ObamaCare next year, no matter who wins the White House.
Pointing to rising costs and shaky insurance markets, McConnell said the next president will have to work with Congress to keep the situation from worsening, though he did not specifically say the healthcare law would be repealed.
“It will be revisited by the next president, whoever that is,” McConnell said at an event Monday with the Kentucky Chamber of Commerce. “No matter who wins the election, no matter who’s in control of Congress.”
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