Add Tennessee and Kansas to the list of states that have been warned by the Obama administration that failing to expand Medicaid under the Affordable Care Act could jeopardize special funding to pay hospitals and doctors for treating the poor.
Although the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was enacted 5 years ago, 2014 was the first year of implementation for most of the health law’s major provisions. In fact, it turned out to be a glitch machine. Defying the expectations of even the law’s most ardent critics, Obamacare’s rollout of the federal online health exchange was a disaster, combined with the cancellation of millions of private health insurance policies (if you “liked” your plan, too bad), a delay in reporting requirements of the employer mandate, and new administrative exemptions from the individual mandate penalty.
Nonetheless, the Obama administration’s allies insist that the law is “working” and that it will even become popular with the majority of Americans with the passage of time. The law’s congressional supporters, they hope, will reap political benefits rather than political retribution.
Is it better to follow the strict letter of the law or to adjust it where appropriate to produce a more equitable result? This is one of the oldest questions in legal thought, one that can be traced back at least to Aristotle — and on Wednesday the U.S. Supreme Court weighed in, 5-4, on the side of equity, with Justice Anthony Kennedy providing the deciding vote.
Ordinarily, a decision like this one, involving the interpretation of the Federal Tort Claims Act would be of interest only to practitioners who are specialists in statutory interpretation. But this isn’t an ordinary spring. In June, the Supreme Court will hand down its most important statutory interpretation case in a generation, essentially deciding whether the Affordable Care Act will survive or fall. The interpretation question before the court in that high profile case, King v. Burwell, bears a striking structural resemblance to the obscure one the court decided Wednesday. And, not for the first time, Kennedy is the justice whose intentions we can’t help trying to predict.
WASHINGTON (AP) – The IRS’ overloaded phone system hung up on more than 8 million taxpayers this filing season as the agency cut millions of dollars from taxpayer services to help pay to enforce President Barack Obama’s health law.
For those who weren’t disconnected, only 40 percent actually got through to a person. And many of those people had to wait on hold for more than 30 minutes, IRS Commissioner John Koskinen said Wednesday.
The number of disconnected callers spiked just as taxpayers were being hit with new requirements under the health law. Last year, the phone system dropped 360,000 calls, Koskinen said.
For the first time, taxpayers had to report whether they had health insurance last year on their tax returns. Those who received government subsidies had to respond whether they received the correct amount. People without insurance faced fines, collected by the IRS, if they did not qualify for an exemption.
Health Reform: Back in 2013, ObamaCare supporters couldn’t talk enough about how California was a showcase for how the law would succeed. Isn’t it funny that nobody is making such claims any more?
New York Times columnist Paul Krugman wrote a few months into ObamaCare’s first open enrollment period that “What we have in California, then, is a proof of concept. Yes, ObamaCare is workable — in fact, done right, it works just fine.”
It turns out that California is a proof of concept, but not in the way Krugman thought.
Read More At Investor’s Business Daily: http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/042115-748892-california-obamacare-exchange-suffers-big-problems.htm#ixzz3Y99khm5d
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On December 17, 2014, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin publicly ended his administration’s 4-year initiative to develop, enact, and implement a single-payer health care system in his state. The effort would have established a government-financed system, called Green Mountain Care, to provide universal coverage, replacing most private health insurance in Vermont. For Americans who prefer more ambitious health care reform than that offered by the Affordable Care Act (ACA), Shumlin’s announcement was a major disappointment. Was his decision based on economic or political considerations? Will it damage the viability of a single-payer approach in other states or at the federal level?
Shumlin’s exploration of a single-payer health care system, which included three assessments by different expert groups, was among the most exhaustive ever conducted in the United States. A 2011 study led by Harvard health economist William Hsiao provided optimistic projections: immediate systemwide savings of 8 to 12% and an additional 12 to 14% over time, or more than $2 billion over 10 years, and requirements for new payroll taxes of 9.4% for employers and new income taxes of 3.1% for individuals to replace health insurance premiums (see table
Financial Estimates from Three Projections for a Vermont Single-Payer Health Plan.
).1 Two years later, a study by the University of Massachusetts Medical School and Wakely Consulting projected savings of just 1.5% over 3 years.2 Finally, a 2014 study by Shumlin’s staff and consultants predicted 1.6% savings over 5 years and foresaw required new taxes of 11.5% for employers and up to 9.5% for individuals. The governor cited these last projections in withdrawing his plan: “I have learned that the limitations of state-based financing, the limitations of federal law, the limitations of our tax capacity, and the sensitivity of our economy make that unwise and untenable at this time . . . . The risk of economic shock is too high,” Shumlin concluded.