Articles on the implementation of ObamaCare.
Both Democrats and Republicans in Washington are considering policies that would not only retain ObamaCare for the indefinite future, but also expand this health-care disaster beyond even President Obama’s ambitions. These proposals would snatch defeat from the jaws of victory by shoveling billions of additional dollars in deficit spending into the pockets of insurance companies, which have been losing money on ObamaCare’s exchanges because of the law’s misguided one-size-fits-all approach. The real solution is obvious: we need to do away with this massive, expensive and unfair government program, instead of throwing money at a handful of corporations to tolerate it. But few have accused Washington of ever recognizing the obvious.
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Congressional Republicans who repeatedly pledged to repeal and replace Obamacare instead are racing today to rescue the law with truckloads of federal cash.
Their plan: a multi-billion-dollar bailout of health insurers that sell Obamacare policies. In return, the insurers promise to reduce premiums just in time for November’s elections.
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83% agree if private insurance companies lose money selling health insurance under the Obamacare program, taxpayers should not have to bail them out to cover their losses.
67% agree subsidies to insurance companies are not only a bailout for the companies but also hide the fact that Obamacare is failing.
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Key Takeaways
- It appears that Congress, backed by powerful special interests in the health care industry, is getting ready to bail out, once again, Obamacare’s a failing program.
- The bottom line: Taxpayers still end up paying more over the next several years for a failing health insurance scheme.
- We are witnessing the evolution of a classic government failure, and Congress is getting ready to reward that failure with another round of corporate bailouts.
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Late last year, President Trump issued Executive Order 13813, “Promoting Healthcare Choice and Competition Across the United States.” The goal was to help more Americans access additional affordable health care options. The executive order prioritizes three areas for improvement: association health plans (AHPs), short-term insurance, and health reimbursement arrangements (HRAs).
Enhancing additional affordable options are important given emerging news stories about non-subsidized families and individuals facing crushing insurance premiums and out of pocket costs and increases under the ACA.
The Trump administration rejected on Thursday Idaho’s plan to allow the sale of stripped-down, low-cost health insurance violates the ACA. The 2010 statute “remains the law, and we have a duty to enforce and uphold the law,” Seema Verma, the administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said in a letter to the governor of Idaho, C.L. Otter. While rejecting Idaho’s plan in its current form, Ms. Verma encouraged the state to keep trying, and she suggested that, “with certain modifications,” its proposal might be acceptable.
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Arkansas on Monday became the third U.S. state to require that Medicaid recipients work or participate in employment activities as a condition of receiving health insurance as the Trump administration continues to approve state requests that fundamentally change the 50-year-old program.
Arkansas’s waiver would require beneficiaries to work or participate in job training or job search activities for at least 80 hours per month as a condition of receiving Medicaid, the government health insurance program for the poor and disabled. Those who fail to meet the requirements for three months of a plan year will not be able to re-enroll until the following plan year.
A federal appeals court is raising a potential hurdle to the settlement of a suit the House of Representatives brought against the Obama administration over billions of dollars in subsidies paid to insurers under Obamacare.
The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals issued an order Monday questioning a deal the House, the Trump administration and liberal states announced last September to try to shut down the case.
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Proposed changes to Arkansas’ Medicaid expansion program would reduce its cost by more than $356 million in the fiscal year that starts July 1, according to state Department of Human Services estimates.
The estimates include $307 million in federal and state funds saved by restricting eligibility to people with incomes of up to the poverty level, instead of 138 percent of the poverty level.
Imposing a work requirement on many of those remaining on the program would save an additional $49.4 million, the department calculated.
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