“The Democrats do not have supermajority control of the House and Senate, as they did in the 111th Congress when the PPACA was passed. Indeed, in 2013 and 2014, Republicans will have a rather sizeable majority in the House, along with 45 votes in the Senate. In addition, there are now 30 Republican Governors in the states, who will have much to say about health care policy in the coming years, too. So, unlike the birth of the PPACA, its implementation will proceed at a time when Republicans are controlling many levers of power.”
“When Congress wrote 2,700 pages of legislation to create ObamaCare, that was only the starting point in the government’s re-engineering of our health sector. Tens of thousands of pages of regulation – or more – are needed to provide detailed guidance dictating exactly how its maze of new programs must operate.”
“The once-steady stream of regulations and rules from the Obama administration — instructions for insurance companies, hospitals and states on how to put the law in place — has slowed to a trickle in recent months in an attempt to avoid controversies before the election. Many states, too, have done little public work to avoid making the law an election issue for state officials on the ballot.”
“A provision in the national health-care law that lets young adults stay on their parents’ insurance plan is popular with many families—but not ones in the military. Families covered by Tricare, the health program for active and retired members of the military, must pay as much as $200 a month to let an adult child stay on their plan until age 26. Most families in private plans now pay no fee to extend such coverage. Military families are starting to complain about the disparity, saying they can’t afford those premiums and have let their children go uninsured.”
“Recently, Sears and Darden Restaurants (the parent company of Red Lobster and Olive Garden) revealed plans to change how they provide benefits to their workers. Instead of selecting a plan for the workers, the two companies will give them cash directly to purchase insurance from an online marketplace. Creating private insurance exchanges is a simple but potentially game-changing approach to health insurance coverage.”
“In an experiment apparently aimed at keeping down the cost of health-care reform, Orlando-based Darden Restaurants has stopped offering full-time schedules to many hourly workers in at least a few Olive Gardens, Red Lobsters and LongHorn Steakhouses.”
“The rule in question concerns the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act’s tax credits, not the law’s tax increases. The tax credits are intended to offset the cost of insurance premiums for low- and middle-income workers. For many Americans, however, those tax credits are like an anchor disguised as a life vest. The mere fact that a taxpayer is eligible for a tax credit can trigger tax liabilities against both the taxpayer (under the act’s ‘individual mandate’) and her employer (under the ’employer mandate’).”
“Nearly 13 million Americans have gotten, or will soon be getting, rebates from their health insurance companies. This is because of a provision in the Affordable Care Act (aka Obamacare) that’s supposed to force insurance companies to run better. But while the idea of getting a check from your health insurance company may sound great, some economists worry this rule could actually make health insurance more expensive.”
“Nearly six million Americans, most of them middle-income workers, will face a tax penalty under President Obama’s health overhaul for not getting insurance, Congressional analysts said Wednesday. That estimate, from analysts at the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, is significantly higher than their previous projection, calculated in 2010 shortly after the law passed.”
“The Obama team is woefully behind its own schedule for implementing features of the legislation. The critical regulations outlining what the Obamacare insurance benefit will look like was supposed to be out more than six months ago. Now it looks like this regulation won’t be dropped until after the election. This is just one key aspect of the program that is way behind the administration’s own timeline.”