Articles on the implementation of ObamaCare.
“A bill barring the state’s health insurance exchange from hiring individuals convicted of certain felonies failed to advance Tuesday.
Under the proposal by Assemblywoman Connie Conway (R-Tulare), Covered California would not be able to hire people who have been convicted of certain crimes–felonies concerning breach of trust or dishonesty–for jobs where enrollees’ financial or medical data could be accessed.”
“Since Obamacare “hit” its “enrollment” “target,” Democrats, liberals, and their friends in the press have enjoyed some old-fashioned taunting of Republicans. This would be justifiable if a.) Republicans had destroyed the website that needed fixing or b.) predicted that nobody would sign up for the program in the first place.
Neither condition holds, of course. The website was totally the design of CMS, HHS, and the White House, which are all run by Democrats. Meanwhile, as Michael Cannon argued, it is no big feat to get people to sign up for a heavily subsidized product.”
“Many key provisions of The Affordable Care Act were finally implemented earlier this year, and widespread dismay over the reality of an overreaching government immediately followed. Initially, the predominant focus was on the inept rollout of the Obama administration’s website, a fiasco that cost well over $500 million of American taxpayer money — more than was spent to develop Facebook and Twitter combined, more than the cost of developing Apple’s iPhone. With more than two dozen executive branch decisions to delay some of the law’s deadlines — but ignoring fixes more substantive than repairing the basic functions of its website — the Obama administration cynically pushed forward.”
“President Obama yesterday again claimed his health care law had triumphed as enrollment in the Obamacare exchanges had reached eight million. However, it will prove a Pyrrhic victory.”
“Finally, President Barack Obama can say his health care law is beating the expectations.
Well, one of them, anyway. It’s safe to say that no one — not even him — predicted that the Obamacare sign-ups would soar as high as 8 million, the figure he announced in an appearance in the White House briefing room Thursday. That number, at least on its face, truly does go beyond the enrollment goals the administration set for itself — and makes the recovery from the website debacle even bigger.”
“President Barack Obama said Thursday that eight million people had picked health-insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act, a number that significantly outstripped initial projections and emboldened him to step up criticism of Republicans seeking to repeal the law.”
“Ezra Klein, in his new capacity as one of the impresarios behind Vox, has written a pair of attention-grabbing posts — here, and then here — defending the proposition that Obamacare has, in some sense, “won,” and that conservatives who can’t come to terms with that victory can’t come to terms with reality itself. Reading them, it struck me that this argument would benefit from laying down some specific markers for the near future, because Klein seems to move back and forth between two definitions of success.”
“The Census Bureau is changing the way it calculates the number of people with health insurance, a move researchers say could obscure the true impact of ObamaCare.”
“New Hampshire’s rollout of the Affordable Care Act has been one of the rockiest in the nation, putting Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen on the front lines of Republican efforts to make the 2014 elections a referendum on the health law.”
“The Obama administration said on Tuesday that a midnight deadline for most people to finish health-insurance applications for private coverage this year wouldn’t be extended amid signs that enrollment waits had dissipated.”