“Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe is considering expanding health coverage for the poor without the approval of the state legislature, a move that would muscle his top priority past Republican opponents but also throw his young administration into a partisan firestorm and uncertain legal territory.”
“Around 900,000 Medi-Cal applicants statewide — 300,000 of them in Los Angeles County — are still awaiting final processing of their applications, state and local officials said Wednesday.”
“In April, the U.S. economy added 288,000 jobs, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ latest numbers, which easily beats expectations of around 215,000 hires. The unemployment rate dropped to an encouraging 6.3 percent, but not because of that impressive headline number.”
“My mother is not one to seek attention by complaining, so her recent woeful Facebook post caught my eye: “The poor get poorer.” It diverged from the more customary stream of inspirational quotes, recipes and snapshots from her tiny cottage in Pierce County, Wash. The post continued: “I just received a notice: ‘In order to comply with the new healthcare law, your current health plan will be discontinued on December 31, 2013.'”
“Data provided to the committee by every insurance provider in the health care law’s Federally Facilitated Marketplace (FFM) shows that, as of April 15, 2014, only 67 percent of individuals and families that had selected a health plan in the federally facilitated marketplace had paid their first month’s premium and therefore completed the enrollment process.”
“Just more than a quarter of the eight million people who signed up for health plans under the Affordable Care Act are in the prized demographic of 18 to 34 years old, falling short of the figure considered ideal to keep down policy prices.”
“Hispanics, a key demographic for the Affordable Care Act, did not appear to sign up for health insurance through the law’s marketplaces at the rate the Obama administration had hoped, according to new government data.”
“Almost two-thirds of the 8 million Americans who enrolled in health insurance through the Affordable Care Act picked mid-range “silver” plans, according to new data on sign-ups released Thursday by the Department of Health and Human Services Department.”
“Even if Obamacare really has enrolled 8 million Americans through its health insurance exchanges, that’s not good enough. For the exchanges to work, people must enroll and stay enrolled.
If too many enrollees drop out, premiums will climb until the exchanges collapse.”
“Fans of Kathleen Sebelius, the lady who made Obamacare so wildly popular, say her greatest accomplishment was persuading red states to accept the Medicaid expansion. Alas, these states have been lured with false promises of flexibility and free money.”