“You shouldn’t judge the Affordable Care Act based on headlines or by listening to politicians or talking heads. I tried for a while, but only heard wildly conflicting stories that seemed to have little basis in reality.
Instead, you should ask someone who actually deals with the law on a daily basis — a doctor, for instance.
The Physicians Foundation did exactly that in its “2014 Survey of American Physicians,” which was released last month. The survey, which reached over 80% of doctors in the U.S. and elicited responses from some 20,000, is doctors’ collective report card on the Affordable Care Act’s first four years.
The grades aren’t good. Only 25% of doctors give it an “A” or a “B” grade. Nearly half ( 46%) give it a “D” or an “F””
“Last fall, millions of Americans breathed a sigh of relief when Obamacare didn’t cancel their health care plans. Now they’re holding their breath once again.
Hundreds of thousands of Americans will soon receive cancellation letters affecting their 2015 health care plans — and that number may quickly rise into the millions. This wave of cancellations will fall into two categories. The first group hit will be in the individual market, the same group that suffered through at least 6.3 million cancellation letters last year. They will almost certainly be joined by millions of people in the small-employer market, which has 40 million plans and will be under Obamacare’s control starting next year.”
“Cost and confusion prevented many uninsured people from signing up for health coverage this year in Colorado, according to two new reports.
A Rand study, Barriers to Enrollment in Health Coverage in Colorado, found that some consumers didn’t want to sign up because they opposed the individual mandate. Others were frustrated that they first had to apply for Medicaid in a cumbersome process. Still others found Colorado’s exchange website confusing. And many people said costs for insurance and co-pays seemed too high.”
“Remember this categorical assurance from President Obama?
“I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits.”
This was no casual, throw-away campaign promise. The pledge was made on September 9, 2009 in his health speech before a joint session of Congress. In reality, we have known for years that Obamacare would violate this promise. But champions of Obamacare have repeatedly pointed to the CBO score that purported to show that the law would reduce federal deficits by $143 billion in its first 10 years.[1] They conveniently ignored the fact that less than four weeks before the law even passed, Paul Ryan had deftly exposed all the “gimmicks and smoke-and-mirrors” underlying that calculation.”
“Developments in the last ten days make it more likely that the entire U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit will agree to hear the leading challenge of the Pacific Legal Foundation (PLF) to the Obamacare individual-mandate penalty — and whoever does not prevail at this level will have a compelling case to take to the Supreme Court. An order from the D.C. Circuit last week, instructing the Obama administration to respond to PLF’s petition for rehearing, and an impressive set of amicus briefs supporting PLF’s petition filed yesterday confirm that this is no ordinary litigation.
Readers will recall that Chief Justice John Roberts joined four justices in 2012 to hold that the individual mandate was not authorized by the Commerce Clause or other congressional power, but he sided with four other justices in holding that the penalty for not buying insurance could be read as a tax, pursuant to Congress’s taxing power. No judge below had accepted the tax theory, so the debate over the tax issue in the Supreme Court briefs was truly brief. The Court was careful to write that Congress still had to comply with all constitutional requirements for the exercise of its taxing power, so the initial Obamacare ruling did not purport to end litigation that raised that and other issues.”
“Since the Affordable Care Act was passed in 2010, 28,476 pages of notices, proposed rules, and finalized rules containing the phrase, “Affordable Care Act” have been written in the Federal Register. This includes 843 notices, 222 proposed rules, and 234 final rules.
Then-Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi had it right when she famously said, “we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it.”
And unfortunately, there is still more to come.”
“With just one month to go until the start of Obamacare’s second open enrollment period, state and federal officials are being cautiously optimistic about their health exchange websites—assuring the public that there won’t be a repeat of last year’s technological nightmare.Speaking to health reporters last week, Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Burwell touted the newly revamped Healthcare.gov as a vast improvement over last year’s website—which was plagued with technical glitches.Related: Millions Wasted on Broken Obamacare State WebsitesBut when asked about how some of state exchanges that had trouble last year are shaping up, Burwell hesitated and said HHS is monitoring them on a state-by-state basis.”
“Insurance consultants were shocked recently to learn that Obama administration rules allow large companies to offer 2015 worker health plans that don’t include hospital benefits. Now the administration is concerned too.
Treasury Department officials are preparing to reverse course on an official calculator that permits plans without hospital coverage to pass the health law’s strictest standard for large employers, said industry lawyers who have spoken to them. These sources expect the administration to disallow such coverage by the end of the year.”
“There are dozens of ways to escape Obamacare’s individual mandate tax — but good luck figuring that out come tax season.
Tens of millions of Americans can avoid the fee if they qualify for exemptions like hardship or living in poverty, but the convoluted process has some experts worried individuals will be tripped up by lost paperwork, the need to verify information with multiple sources and long delays that extend beyond tax season.
“It’s not going to be pretty,” said George Brandes, vice president of health care programs at Jackson Hewitt, a tax prep firm. “Just because you theoretically qualify for hardship, or another exemption, doesn’t mean you’re going to get it.””
“It’s been more than four, long painful years since the Affordable Care Act became law.
When it passed, many believed small-business owners and their employees would suffer under its weight. That’s why my organization, the National Federation of Independent Business, tried to stop it by suing the federal government.
Since the Supreme Court’s disappointing decision in 2012 to uphold Obamacare, the results for small business continue to be alarmingly bad or disastrous.”