Baldo

May 8 2015, 05:16 PM

Pain relief is a vital tool and control of pain is a medical issue. However I have seen with my own eyes the search for drugs by "patients" who admitted going from hospital ER to another to obtain some pills.

I can understand the mad house most doctors face in the ER. They really don't have time for these "patients" Give them some Norco and send them on their way. No insurance , but they went away happy and the Doctor, Nurse, security guards, and the hospital. can attend to more serious patients. Plus these "patients" don't pay.

The point being if you have pain for a back it is best to see your GP, but that isn't the game in a lot of cases.

kbp

May 8 2015, 03:57 PM

LTC8K6

May 8 2015, 02:15 PM

IRS unable to make sure people comply with Obamacare penalty: Treasury IG

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/may/8/irs-unable-make-sure-people-comply-obamacare-penal/

We are all shocked...

So, do the calculations of the costs of Obamacare include collecting these penalties?

Because the revenue from penalties probably just isn't going to show up, imo.

See the May 2013 link in my signature. They projected $2 billion for 2015, $45 billion total for 2015 thru 2023 ($140 billion for employer penalties). With them missing the enrollment goals, the penalty collection should be higher.

Quote:

 

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-fi-obamacare-coverage-20150506-story.html

New study gives more evidence of Obamacare gains for millions

As congressional Republicans move toward another vote on repealing the Affordable Care Act, new evidence was published Wednesday about the dramatic expansion of insurance coverage made possible by the law..

Nearly 17 million more people in the U.S. have gained health insurance since the law's major coverage expansion began, according to a study from the Rand Corp., a Santa Monica nonprofit research firm.

That tally takes into account 22.8 million newly insured people and 5.9 million who lost coverage in the last year and a half.

[...]

The researchers did not find a large number of people who lost coverage when the health plans they had purchased on their own were canceled in 2013 or 2014, a phenomenon that generated fierce criticism of the health law at the time.

“There were some doomsayers who were saying that this would have a major impact,” Carman said. “That wasn't the case.”

Whether the coverage gains can be sustained remains unclear. The Rand survey shows that increases in insurance have slowed this year, compared with 2014.

The insurance gains could also be reversed if congressional Republicans succeed in repealing the health law or if the Supreme Court this summer backs a lawsuit that argues that insurance subsidies provided through the law should not be available in more than 30 states that rely on the federal government to operate their insurance marketplaces.

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http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/09/us/politics/health-care-law-consumer-complaints-to-get-addressed-by-white-house.html

White House Moves to Fix 2 Key Consumer Complaints About Health Care Law

The White House is moving to address two of the most common consumer complaints about the sale of health insurance under the Affordable Care Act: that doctor directories are inaccurate, and that patients are hit with unexpected bills for costs not covered by insurance.

Federal health officials said this week that they would require insurers to update and correct “provider directories” at least once a month, with financial penalties for insurers that failed to do so. In addition, they hope to provide an “out-of-pocket cost calculator” to estimate the total annual cost under a given health insurance plan. The calculator would take account of premiums, subsidies, co-payments, deductibles and other out-of-pocket costs, as well as a person’s age and medical needs.

[...]

The problems that consumers face with unexpected costs may result, in part, from the way plans are listed on HealthCare.gov, the website for the federal marketplace. More than 8.5 million people are in private health plans selected through the site, and the plans are listed in order of their premiums, from lowest to highest.

This encourages consumers to focus on premiums rather than total costs, said Mr. Krughoff, the Consumers’ Checkbook president, and they often spend hundreds or thousands of dollars more than they need to.

[...]

Federal officials said that they might link HealthCare.gov to an out-of-pocket cost calculator later this year, and that they hoped to make such comparisons a standard part of the shopping experience at the site in later years.

“We know that we have work to do to make it easier for consumers to find plans that meet their needs,” said Lori Lodes, a spokeswoman at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs the federal marketplace serving more than 30 states.

A few state-run exchanges are developing similar tools. Peter Nichol, the information technology director for the state insurance exchange in Connecticut, said it would add a “cost calculator” to its website this summer.

[...]

kbp

May 12 2015, 08:46 AM

http://kaiserhealthnews.org/news/in-louisiana-obamacare-subsidies-mean-financial-independence-for-some/
In Louisiana, Obamacare Subsidies Mean Financial Independence For Some


subsidies = independence

You need to read the stories of the 3 people they chose to display "Financial Independence" here. We're witnessing a rewrite of the dictionary under this administration!
.

LTC8K6

May 12 2015, 09:22 AM

kbp

May 12 2015, 08:46 AM

http://kaiserhealthnews.org/news/in-louisiana-obamacare-subsidies-mean-financial-independence-for-some/
In Louisiana, Obamacare Subsidies Mean Financial Independence For Some


subsidies = independence

You need to read the stories of the 3 people they chose to display "Financial Independence" here. We're witnessing a rewrite of the dictionary under this administration!
.

Did they get Obamacare coverage with no deductible?

LTC8K6

May 12 2015, 09:19 AM

http://insurancenewsnet.com/oarticle/2015/05/10/insurance-exchange-sets-deadlines-in-preparation-of-ending-services.html

Reports: Hawaii’s Obamacare insurance exchange closing down at cost of $205 million

Quote:

 

http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2015/05/hawaiis_205_million_obamacare_exchange_will_shut_down.html

Hawaii's $205-million Obamacare exchange will shut down

Hawaii's state legislature has rejected legislation that would have given a $28-million infusion of cash to its troubled Obamacare insurance exchange, making it impossible for the website to operate after this year.

The exchange will stop taking new enrollees on Friday.

• 
  
• "Now that it is clear that the state will not provide sufficient support for the Hawaii Health Connector's operations through fiscal year 2016 (ending June 30, 2016), the Connector can no longer operate in a manner that would cause it to incur additional debts or other obligations for which it is unable to pay," Connector officials said in a report released Friday to the nonprofit's board of directors.
  
  The plan, obtained by the Honolulu Star-Advertiser, states the Connector will cease new enrollments Friday, discontinue outreach services May 31 and transfer its technology to the state by Sept. 30. The Connector's workforce will be completely eliminated by Feb. 28. The exchange has 32 employees, 29 temporary staff and 12 full-time contractors.
  
  "Staff reductions will commence immediately, with the executive director ( Jeff Kissel) exiting once the bulk of operational activities end," the report said. "If the state cannot facilitate an orderly transition, the Connector's operations will abruptly end, as the Connector does not have the resources to continue operations."
  
  The state was notified in March that Hawaii was out of compliance with the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, because the Connector wasn't financially sustainable at the start of this year and wasn't integrated with the Medicaid system, which determines eligibility for subsidies and tax credits obtained through the exchange. The federal government subsequently restricted grant money to support the Connector and moved to take over its IT functions to allow residents to enroll in coverage through the federal marketplace,healthcare.gov.
  
  Gov. David Ige's administration is negotiating with the federal government to release grant money to avoid the closure of Hawaii's online marketplace, designed to provide subsidized coverage to residents with incomes too high to qualify for Medicaid, the government health insurance program for low-income residents.
  
  Under the contingency plan, Connector functions would be transferred to the state so that the roughly 37,000 enrolled on the exchange would not lose their coverage. However, residents would have to re-enroll in healthcare.gov to ensure coverage next year.

Five other states – Minnesota, Maryland, Massachusetts, Vermont, and Oregon – have experienced massive problems with their Obamacare websites, ranging from balky features to less than expected enrollment numbers. Eventually, it is expected that most of those sites will be folded into the national Healthcare.gov website, resulting in almost a billion dollars in taxpayer funds going down the drain.

It's a legitimate question to ask if any state exchange will be around in five years. Cash-strapped states are less willing to pony up the money to subsidize these exchanges, as Hawaii demonstrated. With 36 states refusing to open their own exchanges and the Supreme Court ready to deal a death blow to subsidies, the future of the Obamacare exchanges appears uncertain at best.

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http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/govbeat/wp/2015/05/12/bill-de-blasio-proposing-national-paid-family-leave-that-his-own-employees-dont-get/

Bill de Blasio proposing national paid family leave that his own employees don’t get

When New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio rolls out his liberal response to the Contract with America today in Washington, his 13-point plan will call for a $15 minimum wage, universal pre-kindergarten programs — and paid family leave.

That left some New York City employees scratching their heads: The half a million people who work for the city don’t receive paid maternity or paternity leave through their own health plan.

In fact, New York City’s health plan lags far behind even the most basic Affordable Care Act plans when it comes to maternity care. The health-care plan is one of a number of plans grandfathered into the ACA, which means it doesn’t have to meet standards the law requires of other plans.

So while the Affordable Care Act requires plans competing in Health Insurance Marketplaces to cover things like contraception, breastfeeding supplies and screenings for gestational diabetes and domestic violence, the grandfather clause allows New York’s health plan to avoid offering any of those.

De Blasio has proposed broadening the city’s health-care plan to cover those expenses, but the city council and the state legislature in Albany have yet to act.

“Mayor de Blasio supports a national paid family leave policy as the most comprehensive way to achieve this vital goal. We are also studying what we can do locally, including how best to provide paid family leave to City employees,” Amy Spitalnick, de Blasio’s spokeswoman, said in an e-mail.

[...]

Quote:

 

http://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/michelle-malkin/obamacare-exchanges-life-support

Obamacare Exchanges on Life Support
By Michelle Malkin

At a recent White House science fair celebrating inventors, a Girl Scout who helped design a Lego-powered page-turning device asked President Obama what he had ever thought up or prototyped. Stumbling for an answer, he replied:

"I came up with things like, you know, health care."

Ah, yes. "Health care." Remember when the president's signature Obamacare health insurance exchanges were going to be the greatest thing since sliced bread, the remote control, jogger strollers, Siri, the Keurig coffee maker, driverless cars and Legos all rolled into one?

The miraculous, efficient, cost-saving, innovative 21st-century government-run "marketplaces" were supposed to put the "affordable" in Obama's Affordable Care Act.

Know-it-all bureaucrats were going to show private companies how to

• 
  
• set up better websites (gigglesnort),
  
• implement better marketing and outreach (guffaw),
  
• provide superior customer service (belly laugh), and
  
• eliminate waste, fraud and abuse (LOLOLOL).

You will be shocked beyond belief, I'm sure, to learn that Obamacare exchanges across the country are instead bleeding money, seeking more taxpayer bailouts and turning everything they touch to chicken poop.

Wait, that's not fair to chicken poop, which can at least be composted.

"Almost half of Obamacare exchanges face financial struggles in the future," The Washington Post reported last week. The news comes despite $5 billion in federal taxpayer subsidies for IT vendors, call centers and all the infrastructure and manpower needed to prop up the showcase government health insurance entities. Initially, the feds ran 34 state exchanges; 16 states and the District of Columbia set up their own.

While private health insurance exchanges have operated smoothly and satisfied customers for decades, the Obamacare models are on life support. Oregon's exchange is six feet under — shuttered last year after government overseers squandered $300 million on their failed website and shady consultants who allegedly set up a phony website to trick the feds. The FBI and the U.S. HHS inspector general's office reportedly have been investigating the racket for more than a year now.

In the People's Republic of Hawaii, which has been a "trailblazer" of socialized medicine for nearly four decades, the profligate state-run exchange demanded a nearly $30 million cash infusion to remain financially viable after securing $205 million for startup costs.

The Hawaii Health Connector accidentally disconnected hundreds of poor patients' accounts and squandered an estimated 8,000 hours on technological glitches and failures. Enrollment projections were severely overinflated like a reverse Tom Brady scandal. After failing to secure a bailout, Hawaii announced this week that its exchange would be shut down amid rising debt.

In Maryland, a state audit found that its health insurance exchange "improperly billed the federal government $28.4 million as former Gov. Martin O'Malley's administration struggled to launch what would become one of the most troubled websites in the nation," The Baltimore Sun reported in late March. That's in addition to the $90 million the state blew on technical problems. The state scrapped its junk website and forced enrollees to resubmit to the tortuous sign-up process all over again.

Last week, federal prosecutors subpoenaed the Massachusetts Obamacare exchange after whistleblowers there exposed what a "technological disaster" its "Health Connector" program was. Boston's Pioneer Institute senior fellow in health care, Josh Archambault, released a report on Monday detailing the "complete incompetence" of the state's health bureaucrats from Day One. But taxpayers would be lucky if incompetence were the only sin.

After firing the tech boneheads of CGI, the same company behind the federal healthcare.gov meltdown, Massachusetts officials "appear to have lied to the federal government to cover up mistakes" made by both the state and the IT company. "In at least two instances we uncovered," Archambault revealed, what the state told the feds "was either in direct conflict with internal audits or highly improbable given what was being said in the audit and what whistleblowers said was happening at the time."

As health care analyst Phil Kerpen of the free market group American Commitment points out, Massachusetts "already had a functioning state health exchange" but "after receiving $179 million from federal taxpayers" to reconstitute it under Obamacare, "they were able to break that existing exchange beyond repair." An amazing feat.

Lesson for inventive Scouts and students wondering about what people in Washington, D.C., prototype: Government bureaucrats don't make things, kids. They break things.

Quote:

 

http://kaiserhealthnews.org/news/learning-a-new-health-insurance-system-the-hard-way/

Learning A New Health Insurance System The Hard Way

The insurance program was called “Believe Me” — but Kairis Chiaji had her doubts.

She and her husband Arthur were skeptical that the new health plan they purchased for 2015 would actually work out. That’s because their experience in 2014 had been a disaster, she said.

[...]

Arthur, an immigrant from Kenya who worked in food preparation, hadn’t had coverage since he left his home country, which has a national health insurance program. “Everybody can afford insurance,” said Arthur, 39, who married Kairis in 2013. “And so that’s how I thought it was gonna be [in America]. That was not the case.”

At a health fair in February 2014, the Chiajis signed up for a plan with Anthem Blue Cross at a cost of $138 a month for the two of them. Her two oldest children, who are 18 and 22, were able to get insurance through Medicaid, the state and federal program for the poor, and her younger son has private insurance through his father, Kairis’ ex-husband.

[...]

In November, Kairis and Arthur Chiaji received a letter from Anthem Blue Cross, asking them to renew their coverage for 2015. But the couple had had enough. They enrolled instead with the Kaiser Permanente, at a slightly higher cost of $158 a month.

[...]

Kairis was able to book her husband an appointment with a Kaiser doctor under a temporary ID number. It turned out he had twisted but not fractured his wrist, and he was sent home with a brace. He went back two more times for treatment of that injury and an inflamed hip, and eventually the card arrived in April.

[...]

Quote:

 

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2015/05/14/1-in-4-adults-had-insurance-but-still-couldnt-afford-medical-care/

1 in 4 adults had insurance but still couldn’t afford medical care

More than 1 in 4 adults who bought insurance for themselves or their families last year had to skip needed medical care because they couldn't afford it, according to a study released Thursday by Families USA, a consumer health group.

Some signed up for coverage on the new health insurance exchanges under the Affordable Care Act and received financial assistance to help pay their premiums and some of their out-of-pocket costs. Others bought their plans directly from insurance companies.

But even with the gains under the health-care law, 25.2 percent of adults who bought insurance on their own last year said they went without medical tests or treatments, prescription drugs or doctor visits because of cost. Because most adults who buy insurance on their own do not have dental care as part of their health coverage, the ability to see a dentist was not included in the main part of the report.

[...]



Hardest hit were lower to middle-income adults. That's someone who earned from $16,200 to $29,199 last year, or a family of three earning from $27,400 to $49,499. Almost one out of three of these adults said they went without needed medical care because the out-of-pocket cost was too high.

"The key culprit as to why people have been unable to afford medical care despite having year-round coverage is high deductibles," said Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA.

A deductible is the amount consumers owe for covered health-care services before their insurance plan begins to pay. The report defines high deductibles as $1,500 or more per person.

[...]

Hardest hit were lower to middle-income adults. That's someone who earned from $16,200 to $29,199

[...]



Lydia Mitts, a co-author of the report, said insurers could reconfigure their plans to be more affordable. On Connecticut's health insurance exchange, for example, all insurers are required to offer a silver plan that exempts basic outpatient services, such as doctor visits, lab work and prescriptions for generic drugs, from the $3,000 deductible, she said. Instead, consumers have a co-pay of $30 to see a primary care doctor and a co-pay of $10 for generic drug prescriptions.

"It can be a model for insurers," she said.
[Well Lydia, would that not make Obamacare more costly? LMAO!]

Quote:

 

http://t.co/mo7DRHzOwv

Health Care Price Growth Takes Surprising Leg Down with Physician Price Decline

[...]