Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach is urging Congress to ratify a mechanism that he says would give states an avenue to exempt themselves from the Affordable Care Act.
But critics of the plan have said the plan could jeopardize the health care of people who receive other forms of federal health care benefits, including more than 450,000 seniors in Kansas on Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly.
District residents who want to purchase individual insurance plans on the city’s health exchange will have fewer options next year.
In fact, individuals searching for more flexibility than that offered by health maintenance organizations will have just one carrier to choose from — and the cost for some of its plans may jump by double digits.
For a Southern state where President Barack Obama is deeply unpopular and Republicans dominate federal elections, Kentucky stands out for having created a well-regarded health exchange and having expanded Medicaid coverage under the Affordable Care Act. That dynamic will be put to the test in November’s gubernatorial election.
Get Covered Illinois, the state Obamacare exchange, which has been housed in the governor’s office, will be moving to the Illinois Department of Insurance on Aug. 1.
The announcement comes one day after the exchange confirmed plans to lay off most of its employees on July 31.
Arkansas’s Obamacare Medicaid expansion has been a costly misadventure. The expansion has been so misguided in fact, that lawmakers voted earlier this year to end it, effective December 31, 2016.
That hasn’t stopped state bureaucrats from scurrying to institute a new component of expansion that makes the program even worse.
The administration’s victory in the latest Obamacare case, King v. Burwell, has relieved Congress of the need to quickly repair or replace the Affordable Care Act. But that does not mean Congress should sit back and wait for the 2016 election and a Republican president to fix the law. In fact, Republicans may have an easy way to reach their policy objectives, in a manner that might attract bipartisan support and even a signature from President Obama.
Oregon’s insurance regulator has approved big premium increases sought by health plans for 2016 under the health law, and in some cases ordered higher raises than insurers requested, signaling that the cost of insurance for people who buy it on their own could jump after two years of relatively modest growth.
Many of the Obamacare health insurance co-ops are either burying in obscure tax return footnotes vital information about extravagant compensation paid to their top executives or they’re simply not bothering to report it at all, according to a Daily Caller News Foundation investigation.
The Supreme Court ruling upholding subsidies on the federal health-insurance exchange may prompt state-run exchanges to forge regional networks or use the federal marketplace.
Many of the dozen states operating exchanges under the Affordable Care Act are encountering financial strains, and could join the three dozen states already using the federal marketplace, HealthCare.gov. Some policy experts say it’s possible most of those states will eventually do just that, creating a largely national exchange program.
Health insurance premiums are poised to go up for 220,000 Oregonians who buy their own coverage, according to the state’s proposed rates unveiled Thursday.
In some cases, insurance companies proposed rates that were similar to or better than the current rates, but they were told by the state that they must be raised. The state says the cost of medical care has far outstripped revenue, forcing insurers to dip into reserve funds.