ObamaCare’s impact on health costs.
“JACKSON, Miss. Groups supporting low-income Mississippi residents said Tuesday that elected officials are ignoring 300,000 people and refusing billions of federal dollars by choosing not to expand Medicaid in one of the poorest states in the nation.
If the state were to extend Medicaid, as allowed under the health overhaul that President Barack Obama signed into law, many low-wage workers could receive coverage that would enable them to afford doctors’ visits, prescriptions and medical supplies, said Roy Mitchell of the Mississippi Health Advocacy Program. He said bus drivers, cashiers, day care workers and many others are in jobs that provide modest paychecks but no health insurance coverage.”
“President Obama and some of his most ardent media acolytes are insistent. No matter what you may have heard, Obamacare ‘is working’ in the ‘real world.’ That’s the new mantra. Learn it, love it, etc. The Lean Forward network, unsurprisingly, has served as the vanguard of this propaganda push. Their working theory seems to be that if you repeat an assertion often enough to the same tiny audience, you can wish-cast your dreams into reality:”
“Thousands of consumers who were granted a reprieve to keep insurance plans that don’t meet the federal health law’s standards are now learning those plans will be discontinued at year’s end, and they’ll have to choose a new policy, which may cost more.
Cancellations are in the mail to customers from Texas to Alaska in markets where insurers say the policies no longer make business sense. In some states, such as Maryland and Virginia, rules call for the plans’ discontinuations, but in many, federal rules allow the policies to continue into 2017.”
“If Washington is ever going to tackle entitlement reform and get federal spending under control, it must start with Medicare.
The former director of the Congressional Budget Office, Doug Holtz-Eakin, details Medicare’s fiscal plight:
Between 2001 and 2010, Medicare’s cumulative cash flow deficits totaled more than $1.5 trillion – or 28% of the total federal debt over the past decade.
But it gets worse: By 2020, as Baby Boomers continue to age into Medicare at the rate of more than 10,000 a day, Medicare’s cumulative $6.2 trillion in cash flow deficits will constitute 35% of the nation’s total debt accumulation.”
“Meal, drink, tip … insurance?
Some Los Angeles restaurants are adding a 3 percent surcharge to diners’ tabs in order to cover employees’ health insurance.
The owners of the restaurants deny that the additional charge is a “political statement” about the Affordable Care Act, saying it’s merely a way to provide for their employees.
“We want our staff to have health care,” Josh Loeb, a co-owner of the restaurant Milo & Olive told the Los Angeles Times. “It’s not because we support Obama or don’t support Obama, or are Democrats or are not Democrats.””
“This time last year there seemed to be a new catastrophe or scandal every day related to the roll-out of the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. ObamaCare: many predicted the federal website would never be up and running by the looming deadline, the cost kept escalating, private contractors publically blamed bumbling bureaucrats and vice versa. Meanwhile, individuals who attempted to sign up ran into technical problems, and there were horror stories about people being told they would be dropped by their current insurance provider despite the fact the president had assured them this would not happen. Confusion was everywhere. Ultimately, key players got fired or resigned in disgrace.
So, where do we stand today, one year later?
That’s what the non-profit Transamerica Center for Health Studies (TCHS) wanted to know.”
“At the heart of Halbig v. Burwell[1] and the series of cases that are following it through the federal court system is an attempt to understand what state and federal legislators were thinking last year, two years ago, even four years ago when the Affordable Care Act (ACA) passed. While many experts and lawyers in this case have hypothesized about Congress’ intent, contrary to the claims of the Government, at least one establishing and one non-establishing state understood the language of the statute to condition subsidies on state establishment of Exchanges when they made their determination on whether to establish an Exchange. Furthermore, this understanding was timely in the chronology of ACA implementation.”
“Medicare is fining a record number of hospitals because they readmitted too many patients within 30 days for more treatment, according to federal records released this week.
During the next year, 2,610 hospitals will see their reimbursement levels reduced and 39 hospitals will be hit with the largest penalty allowed, according to Kaiser Health News.
The federal government’s penalties are designed to make hospitals pay more attention to their patients after they are discharged.”
“Proposition 45 offers a simple choice for voters: Do they want the state insurance commissioner to regulate health care rates for small businesses and individual health plans?
The campaign fight over whether that would be beneficial for consumers is much more complicated.
Initiative proponents, led by Democratic Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones and Consumer Watchdog, a Santa Monica-based consumer group with backing from attorneys, say the initiative would add transparency to the rate-setting process.”
“As soon as Air Force One touched down in Indiana on Friday, Gov. Mike Pence met President Barack Obama on the tarmac with a plea: Expand the state’s access to government-sponsored health insurance.
The catch: Pence wants to do it with a conservative twist.
At least, that’s how he’s selling his proposal. And his political future could hinge on whether the first-term Republican can convince conservatives that he’s not just rebranding Obamacare.
Pence has spent much of his first two years in office trying to strike a bargain on one of the health care law’s core components. Indiana will expand Medicaid coverage, Pence says, but only if it’s allowed to do it through a tweaked version called the “Healthy Indiana Plan,” which also requires users to make small payments into health savings accounts.”