Articles on the implementation of ObamaCare.
Just a few weeks before the third Obamacare enrollment season begins, researchers are pointing out that millions of people are still uninsured, despite the law, and that there are real hurdles to convincing people to sign up.
The first two enrollment seasons made a sizable dent in the U.S. uninsured population, as about 17 million Americans have gained coverage through the Affordable Care Act’s various provisions, the Department of Health and Human Services estimated this week.
In a bit of poetic justice, a tax named after an automobile brand got a boost from contract negotiations in the Motor City.
That new federal levy, officially called an excise tax on high-cost health coverage, is better known as the “Cadillac tax.” Under this provision of the Affordable Care Act, employer-sponsored health coverage worth more than $10,200 per year to an individual or $27,500 per year to a family will be subject to a 40 percent tax on the amount that exceeds the threshold. The tax doesn’t take effect until 2018, and as we get closer to that date, pressure in Congress is building to repeal it.
A U.S. appeals court has ruled that President Barack Obama’s healthcare law violates the rights of religiously affiliated employers by forcing them to help provide contraceptive coverage even though they do not have to pay for it.
Parting ways with all other appeals courts that have considered the issue, the 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in St. Louis on Thursday issued a pair of decisions upholding orders by two lower courts barring the government from enforcing the law’s contraceptive provisions against a group of religiously affiliated employers.
Late last month, the Nevada Health Co-op became the third casualty among 23 insurance start-ups created under the federal health care law to inject competition for coverage in certain parts of the country.
Set up as nonprofits with consumer-led boards, the co-ops were designed to provide affordable insurance coverage to individuals and small businesses. They were intended under the law to offer alternatives — and hopefully cheaper prices — to the plans sold by large established insurance companies in some regions.
The public employees responsible for overseeing $600 million in contracts to build healthcare.gov were inadequately trained, kept sloppy records, and failed to identify delays and problems that contributed to millions in cost overruns.
That’s according to a new government audit, published today. It reveals widespread failures by the federal agency charged with managing the private contractors who built healthcare.gov.
Ike Brannon is offering a full-throated defense of the Cadillac tax over at The Weekly Standard. He fully concedes that Obamacare is “replete with bad policies.” But he would have us believe “the so-called Cadillac tax is not one of them.”
Congress has less than a month to make a small fix to Obamacare that could have a big impact on small businesses.
A bill that has been introduced would enable a state to decide whether to expand the definition of a small group health insurance market. It may not seem like a big deal, but lawmakers say the slight change could have a big impact on premiums for more than 3 million employees.
The White House is calling for a “more aggressive strategy” to reduce improper payments made by Medicare and the Affordable Care Act (ACA), according to a letter made public to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS).
The Center for Public Integrity obtained the February letter — written by Office of Management and Budget Director Shaun Donovan and addressed to HHS Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell — after a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit.
About 9.9 million people got health insurance coverage through the marketplaces set up by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as of June 30, a decline from earlier in the year though still higher than the Obama administration’s target.
If you thought the debate about Obamacare’s birth control mandate was settled with the Hobby Lobby case, think again.
This fall, nonprofit employers in seven different lawsuits are asking the Supreme Court to hear their cases. One of those cases is Little Sisters of the Poor v. Burwell. In this case, a group of Catholic nuns is simply asking not to be party to providing birth control. It should go without saying; contraception mandates and nuns should not mix.