“More than 120,000 Arizona residents signed up for private health insurance during the first year of the Affordable Care Act’s marketplace.
But it’s the second year that analysts will scrutinize, to see whether health insurers increase rates or discontinue selling plans over the federal exchange.”
“Federal data released Monday show an increase in the average price hospitals charge to treat common conditions, with vascular procedures and chest-pain treatment showing some of biggest upticks.
The numbers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services include 2012 prices at 3,376 hospitals for the 100 most common inpatient stays by Medicare patients. It is the second year the agency has released such data, and it reflects $57 billion in payments from Medicare, the federal insurance program for the elderly and disabled.”
“Missouri is seeing a bigger decline in its Medicaid rolls than nearly any other state, a ranking that the administration of Gov. Jay Nixon attributes to an improving economy and critics blame on application snafus.”
“According to Politico, the Obama administration stop issuing monthly reports on enrollment in ObamaCare’s health insurance Exchanges. “Without regular reports,” Politico health care reporter Kyle Cheney writes, “it will be more difficult to gauge the trajectory of enrollment during critical months leading up to the 2014 elections. It’s also unclear as of now whether monthly reports will resume during the next enrollment period, which begins in November.” Charles Gaba of ACASignUps.net calls the decision “a bad move” and “a huge mistake””
“The bond of trust between patient and physician has always been the essential ingredient in medicine, assuring that the patient receives individual attention and the best possible medical care. Yet often lost in the seemingly endless debate over the Affordable Care Act is how the health-care bureaucracy, with its rigid procedures and regulations, undermines trust and degrades care. In my pediatric ophthalmology practice, I have experienced firsthand how government limits a doctor’s options and threatens the traditional doctor-patient bond.”
“The problems with Obamacare have moved off the front page recently, which is exactly what the Democrats have wanted to happen. They want to celebrate the “victory” of Obamacare by championing the alleged 8 million sign-ups, answering few questions and moving on.”
“Democratic Senate candidate Alison Lundergan Grimes on Wednesday twice refused to say whether she would have voted for President Barack Obama’s signature health care law.”
“America’s health-care system was badly in need of reform when President Obama took office. But instead of improving America’s health-care system, the president and his allies have made matters worse. The core problem in American health care is that there is not a functional marketplace in health insurance or health services to discipline costs and promote quality and value for consumers. Rather than empower consumers or encourage the kind of innovation that could make high-quality care cheaper and more accessible, Obamacare has shifted decision-making authority from states, employers, insurers, and consumers to the federal government. This centralization of power in the federal government has already crippled the private initiative that is so essential to delivering improvements in the quality of care for patients. Obamacare’s defenders will insist that for all its flaws, it will nevertheless expand coverage. Yet even after a ten-year gross expenditure of $2 trillion, Obamacare will leave 31 million Americans uninsured in 2021 and beyond.”
“With 2015 premiums forthcoming, a major question hanging over Obamacare’s exchanges is what effect competition among insurers will have on premiums. Currently, the exchanges tend to be sparsely populated, with only 3.9 insurers competing in each rating area of the federal exchanges, on average. Indeed, whether premium increases moderate will be a major test for the health care law.”
“The most transparent administration in history has decided to discontinue the monthly Affordable Care Act enrollment reports now that open enrollment is closed. And why shouldn’t it? you ask. After all, open enrollment is, well, closed.”