The Obama administration created a “risk corridor” program to help prop up insurers who lost money in the first three years of ObamaCare where profitable insurers would pay some of those profits into a pool to help insurers who lost money. If the amount insurers lost exceeded what the companies paid in, the government would step…
DetailsWith the Affordable Care Act crumbling, progressive activists are all but guaranteed to grab the opportunity that this single-payer ballot measure represents. But if Coloradans truly want better health care at a lower cost for more people, they shouldn’t vote for another one-size-fits-all government program. They should vote for proposals—and politicians—that will give patients more…
DetailsJeff Anderson argues that ObamaCare has an incurable preexisting condition: It eats away at the private insurance market on which it relies. That market cannot survive ObamaCare’s hubristic mandates, and ObamaCare cannot survive the collapse of that market. On their present course, both are doomed. The challenge for conservatives is to figure out how, upon…
DetailsUnitedHealth Group won’t pay brokers commissions on sales of individual health plans in most states where it participates in Obamacare exchanges, a move that will likely discourage market demand for its plans in those states. The News & Observer reports the Minnetonka-based insurance giant notified North Carolina brokers of the policy change Friday, not long…
DetailsA Plain Dealer analysis of plans offered through healthcare.gov, the exchange website, shows that deductibles, co-pays, and co-insurance expenses are putting up significant barriers to accessing medical care, particularly for middle-income earners. The average deductible for a silver-level plan – among the most affordable options for someone with medical needs – is $3,561 in Cuyahoga…
DetailsAbout 4,500 Medical University of South Carolina patients currently covered by Consumers’ Choice Health Plan need to pick a new policy by Tuesday to remain insured on Jan. 1. Medical University Hospital CEO Pat Cawley told the MUSC Board of Trustees on Thursday that the announcement created “an administrative nightmare.” Only 35% of 67,000 Consumers’ Choice customers…
DetailsThe two-year “Cadillac tax” delay under consideration by Congress is the worst kind of special-interest legislation. It will enrich labor unions and big business at the expense of taxpayers. ObamaCare’s Cadillac tax is a clunky but constructive first step in reforming the employer tax exclusion. It has problems—its structure as an excise tax is punitive,…
DetailsThe lone health insurance cooperative to make money last year on the ObamaCare insurance exchanges is now losing millions and suspending individual enrollment for 2016. Maine’s Community Health Options lost more than $17 million in the first nine months of this year, after making $10.9 million in the same period last year. A spokesman said higher-than-expected…
DetailsUnder ObamaCare, most health insurance plans must cover a set of preventive services without any cost to patients. Patients are soon discovering, however, that anything else discussed during a visit with their health care providers could cost them. “There are times when a person might be charged cost-sharing for a service that is unrelated to the screening…
DetailsThe 2015 United Auto Workers union contracts with General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co. and Fiat Chrysler Automobiles NV allow the companies to alter hourly-worker health plans if they are likely to trigger a 40% federal tax on some high-cost health-care plans. The most likely change: adding yearly deductibles for affected workers.