“Scrapping the ObamaCare mandate for employers to provide insurance would have little impact on the number of people with coverage, according to a new study.
The nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, which conducts health policy research, found eliminating the controversial requirement would result in about 200,000 fewer people having health insurance in 2016.”
“The total cost to implement Obamacare in Massachusetts surpassed a half-billion dollars yesterday, as the Health Connector board agreed to seek an additional $121 million in federal funds to try to rescue the money-hemorrhaging health exchange.”
“Many lawmakers on both sides of the aisle agree universal health insurance is the central goal of successful healthcare reform. The left sold the Affordable Care Act on this promise; the right hopes to do the same with an alternative plan set to be unveiled later this year.
Both sides are trying to fix the wrong problem. Universal health insurance is profoundly different from better healthcare, and so long as reformers focus on the former, the latter will continue to deteriorate.”
“The people who signed up for health coverage with Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina through the Affordable Care Act’s online marketplace are older and sicker than expected, which could mean higher premiums in the future, the insurer said Thursday.”
“When the president said in his first inaugural address that middle-income Americans “will not see your taxes increased a single dime,” most still believed in his supreme powers to solve the nation’s toughest problems, including health reform, that had so thwarted his predecessors.”
“The Great Debate, you see, is not a debate but, rather, dueling monologues, spoken in mutually unintelligible languages that use the same words, grammar and syntax.”
“California’s insurance marketplace for small businesses has attracted just a fraction of eligible companies, with most being deterred by technology glitches, paperwork delays and customer service problems.”
“The most important, and uncertain, provision of Obamacare remains the individual mandate.
Obamacare’s authors believed it was crucial to the viability of the law to impose a new obligation on U.S. citizens and legal residents to enroll in government-approved health insurance. This new obligation was to be enforced by a penalty on the non-compliant, collected through the income tax.”
“The White House’s new pick to run Obamacare will kick off her confirmation battle Thursday with the first of two grillings from Senate Republicans.
Sylvia Mathews Burwell has a very strong chance of getting confirmed with strong support of Senate Democrats and even some Republicans who have indicated that they could vote for her, barring a significant gaffe or a skeleton discovered in her closet.”
“President Barack Obama’s nominee to take over the federal health care agency — and assume responsibility for his health care overhaul — is making her first appearance before senators who will help decide her confirmation.”