Vermont’s top financial regulator has no regrets about being the nation’s only state insurance commissioner to refuse to license an Obamacare co-operative. Susan L. Donegan was commissioner for Vermont’s Division of Insurance in 2013 when she refused to issue a license to the proposed Vermont Health CO-OP, saying it failed to meet state standards. Her action barred the Obamacare non-profit from selling health insurance in the state.
Most of those eligible for health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act are failing to claim them, according to a new study. Researchers with the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute estimated that more than 24 million people were eligible for ObamaCare tax credits last year. By March, only 41 percent of them had selected a plan on a government insurance exchange.
We had to pass Obamacare to see what was in it, and now we’ve had to see it in action to realize how bad it truly is. It’s one thing for states, such as Oregon and Maryland, to try to “recover’ money the federal government gave them to build state-based exchanges after those exchanges failed. The chutzpah of wanting money to replace the money you got earlier from Washington to fail to do that which you were supposed to do with the money in the first place is galling enough.
Millions of Americans who recently began shopping for new health insurance coverage under Obamacare may be suffering from sticker shock. Increases in 2016 premiums for health insurance coverage — ranging from basic to top-flight policies — will be in the double digits and easily eclipse premium hikes recorded between 2014 and 2015, according to a new analysis from consulting firm McKinsey & Co.
Zeke Emanuel is tired of paying for your expensive medicine. Dr. Emanuel, who served in a senior position at the Office of Management and Budget where he contributed to the recurring nightmare known as Obamacare, recently complained in the New York Times [“I Am Paying For Your Expensive Medicine”] that his insurance rates are high because the medicines you’re taking cost too much.
In late September, the handful of CEOs leading Affordable Care Act-funded consumer operated and oriented plans traveled to Denver in search of answers. The past year had been a difficult one. Their companies were struggling, awash in red ink and facing a mounting list of operational challenges. A few co-ops had already shut down, and regulators were circling several more. The fledgling health insurers needed more support from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services if they were going to survive. Most importantly, they needed a lot more money.
The Senate is going to have to re-write portions of the House-passed reconciliation bill after the parliamentarian said the legislation violated Senate rules. Senate parliamentarian Elizabeth MacDonough ruled Tuesday afternoon that sections repealing the ACA’s individual and employer mandates would not meet the Senate’s criteria for the expedited process, called reconciliation.
Until Carly Fiorina criticized Obamacare during Tuesday’s prime-time Republican debate, there hadn’t been much attention to health care in the GOP debates. During last week’s Democratic candidate forum in South Carolina, I didn’t detect a single question about health care or the Affordable Care Act. This is not a knock on hosts and moderators; debates and forums such as the Democratic meeting last week are not the best vehicles for drawing out presidential candidates on the intricacies of health policy. The result, however, is that the public is not learning much from these widely viewed events about what candidates would do regarding one of the country’s most divisive issues should he or she be elected president.
As gridlock persists in our nation’s capital and good legislation continues to die in the Senate, it is clear the next president will play a key role in determining the future of Obamacare. That means candidates’ positions on the issue will be among the most important when ballots are cast next year.
One of the 12 failed co-ops created under Obamacare is now under investigation by regulators after the co-op was found to have downplayed its poor financial condition in official filings, the Daily Caller reported. The New York State Department of Financial Services (NYDFS) found that the Health Republic of New York co-op’s “financial condition is substantially worse than the company previously reported in its filings.”