Rushing to enact the giant Obamacare bill in March 2010, Congress voted itself out of its own employer-sponsored health insurance coverage—the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program. Section 1312(d)(3)(D) required members of Congress and staff to enroll in the new health insurance exchange system. But in pulling out of the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, they also cut themselves off from their employer-based insurance contributions.
Obamacare’s insurance subsidies for ordinary Americans are generous, but capped by income. No one with an annual income over $47,080 gets a subsidy. That’s well below typical Capitol Hill salaries. Members of Congress make $174,000 annually, and many on their staff have impressive, upper-middle-class paychecks.
Maybe the lawmakers didn’t understand what they were doing, but The New York Times’ perspicacious Robert Pear certainly did. On April 12, 2010, Pear wryly wrote, “If they did not know exactly what they were doing to themselves, did lawmakers who wrote and passed the bill fully grasp the details of how it would influence the lives of other Americans?”
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Although she promises to tinker with the Affordable Care Act (see below) Clinton is not proposing to fix any of its largest problems.
So what does Hillary Clinton propose to do about Obamacare? Spend more money. She proposes (1) to limit out of pocket costs to 5% of family income by offering a tax credit of up to $5,000 for spending above that amount, (2) to limit premium expenses to 8.5% of income, (3) to fix the family glitch, whereby dependents who are offered unaffordable coverage at work are barred from the exchange and (4) to spend more money to enroll people in Medicaid.
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Health insurers have not had much to cheer about lately, when it comes to Obamacare. They have been losing money on exchanges, and there is little hope that will change. So, a large health plan in Pittsburgh has asked judges to give it Obamacare money the Administration promised, but Congress declined to appropriate.
As reported by Wes Venteicher and Brian Bowling of the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, Highmark lost $260 million on Obamacare exchanges in 2014, and claims it is owed $223 million by taxpayers. Unfortunately, it received only about $27 million. And things are getting worse. To date, Highmark has lost $773 million on Obamacare exchanges.
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Earlier this week, as was widely reported, Judge Rosemary Collyer of the District of Columbia District Court prohibited the Obama administration from continuing to divert money Congress had appropriated for federal tax refunds to instead pay insurance companies billions of dollars in “cost sharing reductions,” part of the Affordable Care Act.
The decision affects more than just the cost sharing reduction program. Just as a teaser, if upheld on appeal – and expect this case to get to the United States Supreme Court – the decision means that some high level Obama administration officials run a serious risk of criminal charges being brought against them should a subsequent President and Attorney General be motivated to pursue them.
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Oracle has had enough of Oregon. The business technology giant has decided it will no longer take on new business with the state’s government amid an ongoing legal battle, Oracle senior vice president Ken Glueck told Fortune on Wednesday.
The decision follows a protracted legal tussle between the two parties over a disastrous state healthcare enrollment website that never came online. In 2011, Oregon enlisted Oracle to build a healthcare exchange website related to Obamacare after being impressed by the company’s sales pitch, according to a previous legal filing.
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Hillary Clinton’s “Medicare for More” plan certainly would cover more people — but it could also raise health-care costs for some current Obamacare customers if they aren’t careful.
Nearly 13 million Americans age 50 to 64 who lack insurance or buy private health plans would be eligible to buy into an expanded Medicare program that the Democratic presidential contender has proposed, according to an analysis released Thursday.
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The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB) says the proposals of Democratic presidential candidate Bernie Sanders would add $19 trillion to the debt — an increase from its previous estimate.
In an analysis published in April, the CRFB estimated that the Independent senator’s proposals would add $2 trillion to $15 trillion to the debt, depending on the cost of Sanders’s single-payer healthcare plan. Since then, two new independent analyses have found that the healthcare plan “would cost dramatically more than the campaign-provided estimates suggest,” the CRFB said Thursday in its updated analysis.
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Most Americans enrolled in health plans through the Affordable Care Act are happy with their coverage. But consumers are increasingly concerned about their monthly premiums and deductibles, reflecting rising anxiety among all Americans about their medical and insurance bills, a new national survey found.
Nearly 6 in 10 working-age Americans who have a health plan through one of the marketplaces created by the law said they are satisfied with their monthly premiums, and just over half say they are satisfied with their deductibles.
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Let’s face it: When it comes to products most of us buy, health insurance is one of the least popular. And new survey results from the Kaiser Family Foundation out Friday morning find that sentiment reaching new lows.
Kaiser’s Larry Levitt said it makes perfect sense why consumers are feeling cranky about their coverage. “People are paying more, and in many cases getting less,” he said. The most obvious reason people aren’t psyched, Levitt said, is due to the explosion in health plans with high deductibles.
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Kaiser’s latest poll shows that people with ACA plans are generally satisfied with their coverage. Two-thirds say their coverage is excellent or good, but a growing number say it is only fair or poor. The poll reveals warning signs for the future: A diminishing number of participants feel their health insurance is a good value, those with high-deductible plans are most dissatisfied, and families feel it is increasingly difficult to pay off debt and save for the future.
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