Quote:

 

Eight thousand cancer patients are likely to have their lives cut short following a decision to withdraw NHS funding for 25 treatments.

Medication which offers a last chance to patients with cancer a year - including those with breast, prostate and bowel disease - will no longer be funded by the NHS, under plans to scale back spending from April.

Experts said that around two thirds of those who seek NHS treatment for advanced bowel cancer are likely to face an earlier death because of the decision.....................

LTC8K6

Jan 12 2015, 07:15 PM

The great Obamacare-Medicaid bait 'n' switch

http://www.cnbc.com/id/102330644#.

Quote:

 

Hey, are you one of the 9.7 million Americans who have been put onto the Medicaid rolls since 2013 mostly as a result of theAffordable Care Act?

Congratulations! But that and $2.75 will get you one ride on the New York City subway.

That's because finding a doctor who accepts Medicaid payments – never all that easy to do even before 2013 – is getting harder than ever thanks to a steep drop in reimbursement rates for doctors who treat patients on Medicaid.

When I say "steep," I mean it. We're talking an average of 43 percent nationwide and almost 60 percent in California. Incidentally, California has added 2.7 million more people to Medicaid since 2013.

Quote:

 

The result is simple: more and more doctors are simply not accepting Medicaid patients and/or dropping the ones they already have.

And before you call those doctors greedy or evil, consider the alternative: Most private-practice doctors literally care for Medicaid patients at a personal financial loss. Do that too much and you start not being able to practice at all, and that will hurt everyone.

Baldo

Jan 13 2015, 12:50 AM

'60 Minutes' Just Called Obamacare A Disaster. Here's What They Didn't Tell You.

...snipped

http://www.forbes.com/sites/dandiamond/2015/01/11/60-minutes-just-called-obamacare-a-disaster-heres-what-they-didnt-tell-you/

This is an interesting story and it depends on who you read.

One thing is sure. Healthcare costs are going up & that was the most serious problem IMHO

Quote:

 

“There are a number of features embedded in the ACA intended to control cost,” Martin Gaynor told me on Sunday night. Gaynor’s an economics professor at Carnegie Mellon who specializes in health care, and last year he served as Director of the FTC’s Bureau of Economics. (He’s also a fan of Brill’s reporting — just not on the cost-control argument.)

For instance, the health law has encouraged hundreds of hospitals to create accountable care organizations and participate in bundled payment pilots, which are two kinds of reforms designed to make hospitals and doctors more responsible to deliver high-quality care. They’re not all successful, but they’re helping federal health officials try and figure out what actually works to control cost rather than insist the entire industry adopt untested models.

“You can have differing opinions about how effective [the pilots] are likely to be, but it’s not like there isn’t anything in there,” Gaynor added

Quote:

 

....the health system’s cost growth has been historically slow (slow growth = “slowth“) the past several years. That isn’t all attributable to the ACA, but bodes quite well for the law’s long-term fortunes.

“Evidence is growing that Obamacare’s reforms to Medicare are playing at least some role in the slowdown, so the law could very well end up a big plus for the country’s finances in the long run,” Loren Adler told me. He’s the Research Director for the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget.

Quote:

 

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2015/01/01/middle-class-workers-struggle-to-pay-for-care-despite-insurance/19841235/

Dilemma Over Deductibles: Costs Crippling Middle Class

Physician Praveen Arla is witnessing a reversal of health care fortunes: Poor, long-uninsured patients are getting Medicaid through Obamacare and finally coming to his office for care. But middle-class workers are increasingly staying away. ... "They're really worried about cost." It's a deep and common concern across the USA, where employer plans cover 60% of working-age Americans, or about 150 million people. Coverage long considered the gold standard of health insurance now often requires workers to pay so much out-of-pocket that many feel they must skip doctor visits, put off medical procedures, avoid filling prescriptions and ration pills — much as the uninsured have done...

Quote:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/12/30/at-least-7-1m-signed-up-for-2015-obamacare-plans-so-far/

At least 7.1M signed up for 2015 Obamacare plans so far

At least 7.1 million people so far have enrolled in 2015 health plans through Obamacare's insurance marketplaces, according to a pair of federal reports issued Tuesday.

As of Dec. 26, 6.5 million people signed up for coverage in federally run exchanges — that includes new enrollments, people actively re-enrolling and existing customers who allowed their coverage to automatically renew, according to the Department of Health and Human Services' weekly enrollment update.

A second HHS report, which provides the most comprehensive look at the new enrollment period so far, found that 633,000 people selected coverage in the 14 states running their own health insurance marketplaces as of Dec. 15. That's in addition to those who signed up through the federal exchanges, for a total of roughly 7.1 million....

...About 87 percent of those people qualified for premiums subsides

...More than two-thirds (68 percent) of federal exchange enrollees have so far selected "silver" health plans, which cover 70 percent of medical expenses....

Quote:

 

http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-employer-health-20150108-story.html

Workers paying more for health insurance, but getting fewer benefits
By Noam N. Levey

Although the Affordable Care Act has not led to soaring insurance costs, as many critics claimed it would, the law hasn't provided much relief to American workers either, according to a new study of employer-provided health benefits.

Workers continue to be squeezed by rising insurance costs, eroding benefits and stagnant wages, the report from the nonprofit Commonwealth Fund found

Nationwide, the average contribution an employee made to an insurance premium in 2013 and the average deductible together represented 9.6% of the median income of American households with members under age 65.

That is up from 8.4% in 2010 and nearly double the 5.3% that households were paying for employer-provided health coverage in 2003.

"Workers are paying more but getting less protective benefits," the report's authors noted. "Although the Affordable Care Act offers a platform from which to build, securing a more affordable future will likely require action beyond those reforms, focusing on costs of care, particularly for the privately insured."
[...]

Quote:

 

http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/01/12/us/politics/12reuters-usa-obamacare.html

U.S. House Republican Optimistic About Obamacare Replacement Plan

Congressional Republicans believe they can replace Obamacare with their own healthcare reforms, if the Supreme Court strikes down a key segment of the current healthcare law in a ruling expected in June, a senior U.S. lawmaker said on Monday.

Representative Tom Price, Republican chairman of the House Budget Committee, told a conservative forum that the high court's anticipated ruling in the case known as King v. Burwell could cause President Barack Obama's signature domestic policy to unravel quickly.

"We need to be ready, willing and able to move forward," said Price, a leading Obamacare critic who replaced Wisconsin Republican Paul Ryan as House Budget Committee chairman earlier this year.

“We believe we are going to get to that point. I believe the president is actually going to be open to a better way,” he added.

The White House had no immediate comment on Price's remarks.

At issue in King v. Burwell is whether federal subsidies to help people pay for health insurance should be available through a federal insurance marketplace that serves 36 states. Plaintiffs contend that the law provides subsidies only through insurance marketplaces set up by individual states.

If the high court decides that subsidies should not be available through the federal marketplace, coverage costs would rise sharply and more than 8 million people would lose health insurance, according to a recent study by the nonprofit Urban Institute.

"It’s not a good thing to not have any replacement, not to have any solution ready and available for Congress to act upon," Price said.

Up to now, Republicans have not come up with their own replacement for Obamacare because of disagreements over the government role in healthcare. Until the Supreme Court decided to take up King v. Burwell late last year, party leaders seemed content to leave the issue to the 2016 Republican presidential nominee.

Congressional aides say the prospect for an Obamacare replacement plan will be discussed later this week at a Republican retreat for House and Senate lawmakers.

Price gave no details but said any plan would need to be based on the principles of "accessibility, affordability, quality and choice."

"If you accept those principles ... then you pretty much have a clear path to what the policies would be,” he said.

(Reporting by David Morgan; Editing by Leslie Adler)

Quote:

 

http://www.politico.com/story/2015/01/gop-tax-reform-114201.html

GOP targets budget process for tax reform
Republicans debate how best to use a potent budget tool

Several influential Republicans want to use a filibuster-proof budget procedure to overhaul the corporate tax code — rather than wield it as a weapon against Obamacare, as conservatives are demanding.

The quiet push, led by South Dakota Sen. John Thune, seeks to use the potent tool known as budget reconciliation to give both the GOP and President Barack Obama the sweeping victory on tax policy that business groups want, which could include a significant cut in corporate tax rates as well as provide funding for a long-term transportation bill. In contrast, an attempt to use reconciliation to gut Obama’s health care law might showcase Republicans’ new strength on Capitol Hill but would inevitably end in a veto.
[They do have control of spending on many issues in Obamacare, or did before they passed it Untouched!]

“I would rather use reconciliation to do tax reform, which I think is very pro-growth — and have votes on Obamacare” separately, said Thune, the No. 3 Senate GOP leader. “There’s going to be a lot of interest in using it to repeal Obamacare, but you only get so many bites at the apple for reconciliation.”

It’s still unclear whether Republicans and the White House could reach a tax deal: Though both sides have said they favor tax reform, they’ve been far apart on specifics. And the discussions on Capitol Hill, now in their nascent phases, represent a tricky calculus for the two parties.

If GOP lawmakers try to use the budget maneuver to repeal Obamacare, they could send a powerful political message, which they’d be able to replicate after 2016 if they take back the White House and keep control of the Capitol — but it wouldn’t become law in the 114th Congress. And while focusing on tax reform and infrastructure funding could win presidential support, the move could anger conservatives who want to show voters that Republicans are prepared to use every means possible to attack the health law.

The dilemma showcases the larger question facing Republicans as they chart a course for their control of Congress: Should they fight to show a clear distinction with their Democratic adversaries, or should they compromise and pass more centrist legislation that could prompt backlash from the right?

“The conference has to decide, and will decide, whether or not the tools that we have in reconciliation ought to be used for things that we know provide a contrast with the president — we know that he will not support Obamacare repeal in reconciliation — or things that are possible for us to get a true change in public policy, with his signature,” Georgia Rep. Tom Price, who chairs the House Budget Committee, told reporters last month. “We haven’t, as a conference, as a group, reached a strategic decision.”

[...]