“The number of Connecticut residents covered by health insurance purchased through the state’s individual market rose by nearly 60,000 since last year, a 55 percent increase since the implementation of major provisions of Obamacare, according to figures released by the Connecticut Insurance Department.
The data also show that more than half the people who bought their own health insurance last year have maintained their old policies or other plans purchased late in 2013. But more than 50,000 of them won’t be able to keep their health plans beyond this year, potentially setting up a repeat of last fall’s turmoil and frustration among people whose policies were discontinued.”
“Obamacare challengers in the Halbig case have asked the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals not to review a three-judge panel’s ruling against federal exchange subsidies, instead calling for “final resolution by the Supreme Court.”
The backstory: one month ago a divided three-judge panel prohibited Obamacare subsidies for residents buying from the federal exchange. The Obama administration asked the full D.C. Circuit bench to rehear the case, which is reserved for matters of exceptional importance.
The challengers don’t want that, because if they lose at the D.C. Circuit it would make the Supreme Court less likely to take the case.
“There is no doubt that this case is of great national importance. Not due to the legal principles at stake—this is a straightforward statutory construction case under well-established principles—but rather due to its policy implications for ongoing implementation of the Affordable Care Act (‘ACA’). Those implications, however, are precisely why rehearing would not be appropriate here, as Judges of this Court have recognized in many analogous cases,” the plaintiffs wrote in the brief filed Monday.
The Obama administration has an advantage in an en banc — or full bench — ruling: it would feature eight Democratic-appointed judges and five Republican-appointed judges. Now that the 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled in favor of the federal subsidies, the only way the challengers can win is at the Supreme Court. The plaintiffs at the 4th Circuit have already asked the justices to take the case, which the Halbig plaintiffs pointed out.”
“WASHINGTON — Ending insurance discrimination against the sick was a central goal of the nation’s health care overhaul, but leading patient groups say that promise is being undermined by new barriers from insurers.
The insurance industry responds that critics are confusing legitimate cost-control with bias. Some state regulators, however, say there’s reason to be concerned about policies that shift costs to patients and narrow their choices of hospitals and doctors.
With open enrollment for 2015 three months away, the Obama administration is being pressed to enforce the Affordable Care Act’s anti-discrimination provisions. Some regulations have been issued; others are pending after more than four years.
More than 300 patient advocacy groups recently wrote Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell to complain about some insurer tactics that “are highly discriminatory against patients with chronic health conditions and may … violate the (law’s) nondiscrimination provisions.”
Among the groups were the AIDS Institute, the American Lung Association, Easter Seals, the Epilepsy Foundation, the Leukemia & Lymphoma Society, the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the National Kidney Foundation and United Cerebral Palsy. All supported the law.
Coverage of expensive drugs tops their concerns.”
“Congressional Republicans investigating last fall’s botched launch of HealthCare.gov revealed Friday that a top Obamacare official had asked her spokeswoman to delete an email from a senior White House advisor that discussed problems with customer service calls about that website.
Those Republicans now want Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner to explain that deletion request, and to reveal if she has asked staff to “delete or otherwise destroy emails, communications or any other documents relating to HealthCare.gov.” The Republicans said the Obama administration has a “pattern” of being unable to preserve records.
Tavenner’s email asking the subordinate to delete an email was turned over to the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week, just a day after her staff told the committee that some copies of her email communications might have been lost.”
“In 2010, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as the “Affordable Care Act,” the “ACA,” or “Obamacare.” The ACA will reduce the number of Americans without health insurance— an important goal—but it will do so by increasing the cost of U.S. health coverage. Increasing the cost of health coverage, in turn, will worsen two of the nation’s most important policy problems.
The first of those problems is the increasing unaffordability of private health insurance, a problem that is straining the budgets of middle-income Americans, and hampering social mobility. The second problem is the nation’s grave long-term fiscal instability, a problem primarily driven by government spending on health insurance and health care.
Indeed, the ACA will especially drive up the cost of private health insurance that individuals purchase directly. The law will dramatically expand Medicaid, a program with the poorest health outcomes of any health insurance system in the industrialized world. And the ACA, despite spending over $2 trillion over the next decade, will leave 23 million lawful U.S. residents without health insurance, according to estimates from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).
In other words, the U.S. health care system remains in need of substantial reform, in ways that address the ACA’s deficiencies as well as the system’s preexisting flaws.”
“Nearly 400,000 people in Massachusetts will need to reapply for health insurance before the end of the year, and many of them probably do not even know it.
They are people who do not have employer-sponsored health insurance and who instead sought insurance through the state. After the Massachusetts insurance website failed last year, most of them were enrolled in temporary coverage that ends Dec. 31, which is why they must select a new plan.
This is the newest challenge facing the Massachusetts Health Connector, the state agency that provides an online place to shop for insurance, as it struggles to emerge from the disastrous rollout of its website last year. Now that state and federal officials have said that Massachusetts has software that will work, Connector leaders want to get people to log on and choose a plan, starting Nov. 15.
To reach them, the Connector plans to place 2 million robocalls and knock on 200,000 doors, along with making personal phone calls, sending mail, buying print and broadcast advertisements, and holding community meetings and enrollment fairs.
The campaign is estimated to cost $15 million to $19 million, money the state will seek from the federal government.”
“A mix-up of information about two physicians with the same name in different states has opened a window on wide-ranging technical problems the CMS is facing with its Open Payments website reporting industry payments to doctors and teaching hospitals. Registration for the system, which was scheduled…”
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“Nearly one company in six in a new survey from a major employer group plans to offer health coverage that doesn’t meet the Affordable Care Act’s requirements for value and affordability.
Many thought such low-benefit “skinny plans” would be history once the health law was fully implemented this year. Instead, 16 percent of large employers in a survey released Wednesday by the National Business Group on Health said they will offer in 2015 lower-benefit coverage along with at least one health plan that does qualify under ACA standards.
The results weren’t unexpected by benefits pros, who realized last year that ACA regulations would allow skinny plans and even make them attractive for some employers. But the new survey gives one of the first looks at how many companies will follow through and offer them.”
“State officials offered assurances Wednesday that software fixes to the flawed MNsure health insurance exchange are happening as planned, and that the system should be in good working order by the Nov. 15 start of open enrollment.
Still grappling with consumer fallout and political pressure over last year’s troubled rollout, MNsure officials said changes are being made to the system that will allow more time for testing and that sufficient backup plans are in development if things go wrong.
MNsure is preparing for the “worst case, if that comes about,” interim Chief Operating Officer Wes Kooistra told the agency’s board of directors, but he added that all hands are on deck to ensure an “improved user experience for 2015.”
IBM installed its final software upgrades over the weekend, officials said, a move that should resolve one of several major logjams that have prevented consumers from seamlessly logging onto the MNsure website and enrolling in health insurance coverage.”
“Backers of the health-care law say they are rushing to make sure tens of thousands of people provide more documents to prove they are in the U.S. legally and therefore entitled to the coverage they obtained through HealthCare.gov.
Immigrant advocates say they felt the Obama administration moved hastily in announcing Tuesday it would cut off health insurance for up to 310,000 people who signed up for plans through online exchanges run by the federal government if they don’t send additional information in the next few weeks showing they are U.S. citizens or legal residents.
The federal government is taking the steps to comply with a requirement in the health law that bars unauthorized immigrants from using the online exchanges to shop for coverage, as well as from receiving federal tax credits to offset the cost of premiums.”
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The law’s supporters inserted the provision to try to tamp down controversy over the prospect that it could help people who aren’t legally in the U.S.