The March Kaiser Health Tracking Poll finds that health care is one of many issues that will be important to voters in the Presidential election, trailing concerns about the economy and jobs and leading concerns about another hot issue, immigration. Health care ranks higher for Democratic voters than for Republican and independent voters and is a higher priority for women than for men.
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The Bureau of Insurance hoped to stem Community Health Options’ losses, partly by ending as many as 17,000 policies, but CMS rejected the temporary plan.
Eric Cioppa, the state’s insurance regulator, wrote in the letter to CMS, his bureau “would have acted to reduce membership, increase capital and thereby better protect the remaining (co-op) members and their health care providers from the risk presented by the type of losses experienced in 2015. Because CMS’s decision has precluded my ability to act as proposed, CMS now must share responsibility for the risk of an outcome we all very much hope to avoid.”
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A government report revealed that CMS has failed to protect healthcare.gov. The site that millions use to purchase health insurance under the ACA logged 316 cybersecurity incidents during an 18-month period.
The CMS has also failed to adequately monitor security controls at state-based insurance marketplaces, according to the watchdog. In a previous report, the GAO found three states with “significant weaknesses,” including insufficient encryption and inadequately configured firewalls.
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President Obama and the Supreme Court have effectively replaced the ACA with something we now call “ObamaCare.”
Unfortunately, ObamaCare doesn’t work much better than the ACA. ObamaCare is still causing Americans to lose their health plans, still driving premiums higher, and still causing their coverage to erode.
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Obamacare turns six and Americans are left with broken promises. Millions have lost their healthcare plans, and, for those faced with narrowing provider networks, their choice of doctors is also shrinking.
The president’s broken promises have multiplied over the past six years and now we’re faced with rising costs, bigger middle class tax bills, design flaws and unworkable provisions. In 2017, we can, and must, do better.
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The challengers, Zubik v. Burwell, argue the Obama administration is unjustifiably forcing religious groups like the Little Sisters of the Poor to cover birth control, despite an arrangement in which insurers provide contraception directly.
The administration counters that the challengers are threatening contraceptive access for women and say the court risks setting a dangerous precedent if it finds in their
favor.
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With the passage of the Affordable Care Act and the transformation of the nation’s health care system, HHS has gone from a minor regulatory player to the second most-burdensome regulator, measured by the amount of paperwork they pile on Americans, behind only the IRS.
In 2008, HHS imposed roughly 412 million hours of paperwork, up sharply from 152 million hours in 1995. By 2016, however, with the help of hundreds of new ACA regulations, HHS’s paperwork burden has increased to roughly 700 million hours, an increase of more than 300 million hours since President Obama took office.
Kaiser Family Foundation released a survey Wednesday, which revealed among Republicans, 26 percent named Donald Trump as the candidate they most trust to represent their views on the health care, while 21 percent picked Ted Cruz. Fewer registered Republicans named John Kasich. Independents surveyed were more likely to choose either Hillary Clinton or Bernie Sanders than a Republican candidate, the report says.
Overall, the survey shows, health care is an important issue to a majority of registered voters.
When I first answered God’s call to join the Little Sisters of the Poor and vow myself to Him and to the care of the elderly, I never dreamed of the happiness I would experience in serving, living with and caring for the aging poor until God calls them to Himself. I also never thought one day, I would be walking up the white marble steps of the Supreme Court to attend a legal proceeding in which the high court will decide whether the government can force my order to help offer health care services that violate my Catholic faith and that are already available through existing government exchanges.
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A controversial federal health program that helps insurers withstand the ebbs and flows of the new insurance exchanges will be put under the microscope this week with the hope of making it fairer in the long term.
The CMS will host a public meeting Friday in which health insurers, state officials and others will offer their input on how to change the Affordable Care Act’s risk-adjustment methodology for 2018 and beyond. Under the permanent risk-adjustment program, which is a zero-sum game, the federal government redistributes money from plans that have lower-cost, healthier members to companies that have higher-cost, sicker members.
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