Quote:

 

http://www.wsj.com/articles/APded318d7a9904fe694a459677165e524

NY health exchange sending tax statements

ALBANY, N.Y. — New York's health exchange says it is sending out more than 300,000 tax statements to households where someone enrolled for private health coverage through the exchange last year.

The statements required under the federal Affordable Care Act are for use in filing federal tax returns for 2014 by those who enrolled through the exchange in a qualified insurance plan and are taking tax credits.

Forms are scheduled to be sent by Jan. 31 and accompanied by a cover letter in English and Spanish.

According to state health officials, nearly 75 percent of people who enrolled in a qualified plan were eligible for tax credits to reduce their monthly coverage cost based on projected 2014 income.

Under federal rules, they are supposed to reconcile credits with actual income for last year.

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Why Congressional Budget Office Reports are the Best Evidence of Congressional Intent about Health Subsidies
Theda Skocpol, Harvard University

Walt-in-Durham

Jan 22 2015, 10:13 AM

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Why Congressional Budget Office Reports are the Best Evidence of Congressional Intent about Health Subsidies
Theda Skocpol, Harvard University

Legislative history and legislative reports are interesting to the historian, but, that's not how we interpret statutes. "Read the statute, read the statute, read the statute." Felix Frankfurter, SOME REFLECTIONS ON THE READING OF STATUTES, 47 Colum. L. Rev. 527 (1947). Professor Frankfurter gives excellent advice to the lawyer, the historian, the journalist and the citizen interested in figuring our what the law means.

The U.S. Supreme Court has held: "We begin with the familiar canon of statutory construction that the starting point for interpreting a statute is the language of the statute itself. [See Frankfurter's advice above.] Absent a clearly expressed legislative intention to the contrary, that language must ordinarily be regarded as conclusive.:" Consumer Product Safety Commission et al. v. GTE Sylvania, Inc. et al.,447 U.S. 102 (1980). "In interpreting a statute a court should always turn to one cardinal canon before all others. . . .[c]ourts must presume that a legislature says in a statute what it means and means in a statute what it says there." Connecticut Nat'l Bank v. Germain, 503 U.S. 249, (1992). Indeed, "when the words of a statute are unambiguous, then, this first canon is also the last: 'judicial inquiry is complete.'" 503 U.S. 249, 254.

If there is an ambiguity, or if the plain meaning would lead to an absurd result, the courts will then look to legislative history to attempt to interpret the law. Chung Fook v. White, 264 U.S. 443 (1924). But, only if there is an ambiguity or an absurdity do the courts go looking at legislative history. The ordinary rule is plain meaning.

The problem with the Affordable Care Act is the portion that allows for subsidies is not very ambiguous. Everyone wants to go straight to the intent of the drafters when you can't do that unless the drafters were not clear in what they said. Also, it is very difficult to divine the "intent" of 435 individual members of Congress and 100 Senators. Thus, you really are left with what the statute says.

HTH
Walt-in-Durham

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http://kaiserhealthnews.org/news/medicaid-pay-hike-opens-doors-for-patients-study-finds/

Medicaid Pay Hike Opened Doors For Patients, Study Finds

Money talks.

A temporary Medicaid pay raise that was part of President Barack Obama’s health law made it easier for poor adults to get appointments with primary care doctors, according to a study published Wednesday.

[...]

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http://www.nytimes.com/aponline/2015/01/21/us/politics/ap-us-health-overhaul-sign-ups.html

Government Closer to Goal of 9.1M Enrolled Under Health Law

The Obama administration is moving closer to its goal of 9.1 million people signed up for private coverage under the president's health care law.

The Health and Human Services Department says at least 400,000 people signed up last week. That brought total enrollment in the 37 states served by HealthCare.gov to more than 7.1 million.

National figures should be significantly higher because the federal count doesn't include major states such as California and New York that are running their own markets.

Florida leads the federal marketplace states, with more than 1.2 million people enrolled. Texas has nearly 920,000.

The administration is expecting a surge near the Feb. 15 sign-up deadline.

The law offers subsidized private coverage to people who don't have health insurance on the job.

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http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/2015/01/22/us/22reuters-usa-obamacare-mandate.html

New Senate Bill Would Overturn Obamacare's Individual Mandate

Leading Republican senators on Wednesday introduced a bill to repeal one of Obamacare's most unpopular provisions - the individual mandate that requires most Americans to obtain health insurance or pay a penalty.

Senator Orrin Hatch, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, and Senator Lamar Alexander, who heads the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, announced the three-paragraph bill titled, the American Liberty Restoration Act, with backing from 20 other Republican co-sponsors.

[...]

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http://www.twincities.com/AP%20Content/ci_27363575/Issue-on-appeal:-Did-healthcare-reform-rules-hurt-senator

Issue On Appeal: Did Health Care Reform Rules Hurt Senator?
Lawyers for U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson sought on Wednesday to revive the Wisconsin Republican's challenge to the federal health care overhaul, arguing before an appellate panel that he was indeed harmed by executive rules associated with the legislation.....

kbp

Jan 23 2015, 08:43 AM

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http://www.twincities.com/AP%20Content/ci_27363575/Issue-on-appeal:-Did-healthcare-reform-rules-hurt-senator

Issue On Appeal: Did Health Care Reform Rules Hurt Senator?
Lawyers for U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson sought on Wednesday to revive the Wisconsin Republican's challenge to the federal health care overhaul, arguing before an appellate panel that he was indeed harmed by executive rules associated with the legislation.....

That is all I could get at the site, the page would not fully load for me, so I have no clue what this case is about.

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http://www.npr.org/2015/01/22/378884647/senator-astounded-that-nonprofit-hospitals-sue-poorest-patients

Senator 'Astounded' That Nonprofit Hospitals Sue Poorest Patients

NPR and ProPublica have been reporting about nonprofit hospitals that seize the wages of lower-income and working-class patients. Now, Sen. Chuck Grassley, the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, says hospitals could be breaking the law by suing these patients and docking their pay. And he wants some answers.

NPR and ProPublica looked across six states, and in each, we found nonprofit hospitals suing hundreds of their patients. One hospital in particular jumped out — Heartland Regional Medical Center in St. Joseph, Mo. Thousands of patients a year are getting their paychecks docked by the hospital and its debt collection arm.

One family we interviewed in our story has been getting their wages seized for nearly 10 years, but still owes $25,000 and feels trapped — in part because Heartland is charging 9 percent interest on that debt.

This family, and others we spoke to, should have qualified for free medical care under the hospital's own charity care policy based on their income. But that didn't happen. We also documented that hundreds of patients with low-wage jobs at McDonald's, Wal-Mart and elsewhere had their pay seized by this hospital.

Grassley: Hospitals Could Be Breaking The Law

Grassley, R-Iowa, told NPR and ProPublica he was "astounded" by these collection practices. For more than a decade, Grassley has been working to make nonprofit hospitals more accountable for the huge tax breaks they get. They don't pay federal income tax or local property tax. Grassley says that to justify their tax-exempt status, nonprofit hospitals have to "earn" it by "taking care of people who couldn't provide for their own health care."

Grassley worked on voluntary standards. But he also authored language in the Affordable Care Act requiring hospitals to do more to provide charitable care.
[He did??????]

After he saw NPR and ProPublica's reporting on Heartland Hospital (which is changing its name to Mosaic Life Care), Grassley decided to get involved.

He says that under the ACA, a hospital has a responsibility to make a determination: Can a person or a family pay, or can they not? "It seems like Mosaic turned [the law] on its head," he says.

Grassley says the ACA requires that hospitals take the initiative to determine whether patients qualify for financial aid. The hospital is not supposed to shift that burden onto the patients. But in Heartland/Mosaic's case, Grassley said, "It seems to me they have not taken the initiative and they have not abided by the law."

Tougher Rules Required?

Heartland/Mosaic's board is reviewing its practices as a result of our earlier reporting. Grassley has now sent a letter to the hospital saying he wants to be briefed on the results of that review by Jan. 30. Grassley wrote that the hospital "may not be meeting the requirements to be a nonprofit."

And Grassley hopes his letter sends a wider message to other nonprofit hospitals that are being too aggressive collecting bills from patients who can't afford to pay. "Well, I think some hospitals, you hit them over the head with a two-by-four and they still don't get the message," he said.

Grassley says the health care law may need to be strengthened in order to force nonprofit hospitals to offer financial assistance to poor patients. "If they don't get the message now, we'll have to work towards getting the ideal language in the legislation," Grassley told NPR and ProPublica.

Tama Wagner, a Mosaic Life Care spokesperson, says the hospital will quickly respond to the senator's request and that the hospital's goal is to "do the right thing."

kbp

Jan 23 2015, 08:43 AM

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http://www.twincities.com/AP%20Content/ci_27363575/Issue-on-appeal:-Did-healthcare-reform-rules-hurt-senator

Issue On Appeal: Did Health Care Reform Rules Hurt Senator?
Lawyers for U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson sought on Wednesday to revive the Wisconsin Republican's challenge to the federal health care overhaul, arguing before an appellate panel that he was indeed harmed by executive rules associated with the legislation.....

That is all I could get at the site, the page would not fully load for me, so I have no clue what this case is about.

chatham

Jan 23 2015, 09:04 AM

kbp

Jan 23 2015, 08:43 AM

Quote:

 

http://www.twincities.com/AP%20Content/ci_27363575/Issue-on-appeal:-Did-healthcare-reform-rules-hurt-senator

Issue On Appeal: Did Health Care Reform Rules Hurt Senator?
Lawyers for U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson sought on Wednesday to revive the Wisconsin Republican's challenge to the federal health care overhaul, arguing before an appellate panel that he was indeed harmed by executive rules associated with the legislation.....

That is all I could get at the site, the page would not fully load for me, so I have no clue what this case is about.

Issue on appeal: Did health-care reform rules hurt senator?
By Michael Tarm Associated Press
POSTED: 01/21/2015 11:56:21 AM CST | UPDATED: A DAY AGO

Click photo to enlarge

FILE - In this July 7, 2014 file photo, Wisconsin Republican Sen. Ron Johnson... (Jim Matthews/AP)
CHICAGO (AP) — Lawyers for U.S. Sen. Ron Johnson sought on Wednesday to revive the Wisconsin Republican's challenge to the federal health care overhaul, arguing before an appellate panel that he was indeed harmed by executive rules associated with the legislation.

The oral arguments heard by three judges of the 7th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Chicago centered on those rules, adopted after President Barack Obama's health care reform, which let congressional staffers keep favorable insurance benefits.

The main question for the appellate court is whether the rules harmed Johnson himself in some way, which he must show for the lawsuit to proceed. A U.S. district court judge in Wisconsin dismissed Johnson's suit in July, concluding that Johnson failed to show how rules conferring benefits on his staffers somehow hurt him.

But Johnson's lawyer, Paul Clement, said Wednesday that the rules, among other things, sullied Johnson's reputation in his constituents' eyes because his staffers were getting exclusive benefits others weren't entitled to.

Johnson and other legislators, even as critics of the rules, would still be subject to accusations that "they are being treated better than their constituents" and "feathering their nest," Clement said.

Government attorney Mark Stern responded that there's no precedent to back the view that a damaged political reputation constituted the kind of harm required for a lawsuit to go ahead.

If Johnson prevails, said Judge Ann Claire Williams, an appointee of Democrat Bill Clinton, politicians everywhere might start filing suits on the grounds that adhering to a new law or rule undermined them politically.

"Where do we draw the line?" she asked.

Clement responded that this case is unique because it directly affects the operations of U.S. lawmakers' staffs.

Congress included in the 2010 health care bill a requirement that members of Congress and their staffs move off the federal employee health care plan and into online marketplaces to put them in the same situation as all uninsured Americans.

Johnson filed his suit a year ago after the Office of Personnel Management decided lawmakers and their staffs should be able to continue to get the same health care benefits — covering about 75 percent of their premium costs — even after leaving the federal health insurance program they had been on for years.

The two other appellate judges who will decide Johnson's appeal are Republican appointees Joel Flaum and William Bauer. A ruling is expected within several months.

Both Clement and Stern declined to comment after Wednesday's hearing.

———

Follow Michael Tarm on Twitter at http://twitter.com/mtarm

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/01/22/republicans-are-finally-learning-they-cant-undo-obamacare/

Republicans are finally learning they can’t undo Obamacare
By Jason Millman

If you care about the politics of Obamacare and the future of health-care reform, Arkansas's new Republican Gov. Asa Hutchinson just gave one of the most important health-care speeches in recent memory.

For the past two years, Arkansas has played a significant role in getting a number of conservative states to accept Obamacare's Medicaid expansion. The state's previous Democratic governor, Mike Beebe, in early 2013 struck a deal with Republican state lawmakers and the Obama administration to use federal Medicaid expansion dollars to purchase private coverage for low-income adults.

Since then, more than 200,000 Arkansas residents have enrolled in what's known as the "private option," and it signaled to Republican-led states that they could craft alternative coverage plans to accept Medicaid expansion funding in their states. Bill Clinton, in a fall 2013 speech highly advertised by the Obama administration, called on Republican state officials opposing the Affordable Care Act to follow in Arkansas's example.

But a lot has happened in Arkansas since then. The Medicaid private option needs 75 percent support from the Arkansas legislature to continue each year, and it just narrowly received that support in 2014.

[...]

Hutchinson called for a two-year extension of the private option in its current form, as a new task force will consider possible changes to the program.

"This avoids harm to the 200,000-plus in the private option, and it assures our hospitals and providers of financial stability," said Hutchinson, whose speech referenced several personal stories of those who've been aided by the coverage expansion. "The human side tugs at our heartstrings and is rightfully part of the debate," he said.

Those comments show the larger implications for Republican governors if the Supreme Court this summer overturns the health insurance subsidies provided through the federal-run ACA exchanges. That could disrupt new coverage for millions who'd no longer find health insurance affordable without subsidies, and it could be left to the states to fix the situation if Congress does nothing.

[...]

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2015/01/22/for-scotus-chief-justice-john-roberts-anti-obamacare-lawsuit-poses-major-dilemma/

For Chief Justice John Roberts, anti-Obamacare lawsuit poses major dilemma
By Greg Sargent 

The government has now filed its brief responding to the challengers in the King v. Burwell lawsuit, which claims the Affordable Care Act doesn’t make subsidies available to people in states on the federal exchange. If the Supreme Court upholds the challenge, it could yank subsidies from millions and unleash untold disruptions that could cripple the law in many parts of the country.

The government argues that the text, structure, design, and history of the ACA leave no doubt that it makes subsidies available in every state, regardless of who set up the exchanges. The government also makes an argument that could prove persuasive to Chief Justice John Roberts: The challengers’ reading would transform the subsidy structure into a “threat” of “severe consequences” to any state that declined to set up an exchange (the loss of subsidies for untold numbers of constituents), a threat without any clear warning, since the law does not explicitly signal it. This, the government argues, would amount to “disrespect for state sovereignty” and do away with the ACA’s “model of cooperative federalism.”

Many observers expect Roberts to be the pivotal vote in this case. Harvard professor Laurence Tribe recently published Uncertain Justice, an excellent examination of the Roberts Court, in which he argues that Roberts saved the law the first time around — in NFIB v. Sebelius — by creatively resolving a dilemma he faced. Tribe writes that Roberts struck down the individual mandate in order to place limits on federal power, but preserved the mandate as a tax in keeping with the “long-recognized judicial duty to save a law if any fair means of doing so can be found.”

Roberts could do the same thing here by concluding that the government’s interpretation of the statute — that subsidies go to people in all states — is, at a minimum, reasonable, even if an alternate interpretation (the challengers’) is also reasonable. I spoke to Tribe about the current dilemma Roberts faces as he prepares to hear King v. Burwell; an edited and condensed version of our conversation follows.

[...]

• 
  
• “The Affordable Care Act was enacted to provide “Quality, Affordable Health Care for All Americans.” Tit. I, 124 Stat. 130 (emphasis added).

• 
  
• “Petitioners rely heavily (Br. 4-5, 42-43) on statements made by Jonathan Gruber, an economist, consultant, and supporter of the Act. But those statements were made two years after the Act was passed, and Gruber has clarified that they were taken out of context. Jonathan Gruber, Written Testimony Before the House Comm. on Oversight & Gov’t Reform 2 (Dec. 9, 2014).

• 
  
• "The statute to make premium tax credits and affordable health care broadly available to all Americans, wherever they live, is clear. There’s no mistake in the intent of Congress, and I fully expect the Court will rule in our favor, making a fix unnecessary."