“The first thing Michelle Pool did before picking a plan under President Barack Obama’s health insurance law was check whether her longtime primary care doctor was covered. Pool, a 60-year-old diabetic who has had back surgery and a hip replacement, purchased the plan only to find that the insurer was mistaken.”
‘Paul Siperke is the co-owner of Fat Head’s, a popular brew pub in Cleveland. He has fewer than 50 full-time employees, so he’s classified under the Affordable Care Act as a small business. He doesn’t have to provide health insurance to his employees, but that’s what he’s been doing since the bar opened in 2009, despite some pretty dramatic volatility in rates.
“They just seemed to keep going up every year,” he says. “One year we got a 38 percent increase, another year we got 11. One year we got three.”‘
“The Washington Post is reporting that the federal government is in talks to take over the Oregon health exchange. This news comes after many failed attempts at launching state-based exchanges, with more than 25% of the state based exchange executive directors having resigned, and multiple states losing CIOs, and COOs for poor performance as a result. However, this may be just the first shoe to drop as many state-based exchanges do not have good sustainability plans in place to support themselves going forward. This could be the first of many takeovers of exchanges, and certainly will not be the last bailout of one.”
“Gene Sperling, former director of President Obama’s National Economic Council and former Assistant to the President for Economic Policy, argues that Obamacare should appeal to those who desire competition and choice in health care. But the very nature of Obamacare fosters neither.”
“For years, we’ve heard Republicans claim that they want to “repeal and replace” Obamacare with a better set of reforms. (What those reforms would exactly be, nobody can say for sure.) But there was always one critical problem with the “repeal and replace” plan: it stands no chance of passage until at least 2017. By then, as many as 35 million people could be on Obamacare-sponsored coverage. A few Republican leaders have had the temerity to acknowledge this fact—and that’s a good thing.”
“Thus spoke King John of England before he was forced at the point of a sword on June 15, 1215 A.D. to eat his words by signing the Magna Carta, the first in a series of documents that established rule of law in England – versus rule by whatever the king says. It was a signal moment in the history of civilization, and the foundation of the United States’ great experiment in government of the people, by the people and for the people.”
“The day that many health policy wonks have been waiting for has come: Obamacare’s first open–enrollment period has officially ended on April 15, 2014. Wasting little time, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has released the last of its first–year enrollment reports. The update from HHS contains some good news, and some not–so–good news. Overall, it appears highly unlikely that the healthcare law will collapse.”
“The race for people to #GetCovered through Obamacare’s state and federal health insurance exchanges has officially crossed the wire. In its sixth and final enrollment report released late last week, the Department of Health and Human Services disclosed that a total of 8 million individuals have signed up for an Obamacare compliant plan within the individual health insurance market.”
“Yesterday Massachusetts officials announced plans to default to Healthcare.gov, but also announced a quixotic sprint to try first try to rebuild the entire site in five months with a brand new, no-bid taxpayer-paid contract to health care software developer hCentive. This move comes eight months into open enrollment, after launching the worst performing exchange in the country, spending most of the $180 million from Washington and announcing that original contractor CGI would be fired—even though it is still working on the project. The announcement should leave taxpayers and policymakers scratching their heads and wondering about the lack of accountability, government management and procurement.”
“Health care costs are too damn high—and they’re only getting worse. Last week, researchers at Harvard and Dartmouth released a report estimating that health care costs will continue to grow faster than the economy for at least the next two decades. This is a tremendous burden on average Americans, who already spend nearly a fifth of their average annual pre-tax income on health care.”