Baldo

Jun 9 2014, 10:12 PM

..."less than a third of voters believes that the government will do a better job with ObamaCare than the VA did managing care for vets (31 percent). Over half believe it won’t (55 percent)."

Quote:

 

http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-California/2014/06/09/900-000-Californians-Waiting-for-Medi-Cal-Coverage-Because-of-Website-Defects

900,000 CALIFORNIANS WAITING FOR MEDI-CAL COVERAGE THANKS TO WEBSITE DEFECTS

Problems with the Covered California website have forced nearly one million people to wait months to receive verification that they are covered.

The problem affects people covered by the state's expanded Medicaid program, known as Medi-Cal. In theory, those who signed up prior to the end of last year should be eligible to receive treatment starting January 1st. However, website problems mean there is a huge backlog of people waiting to have their enrollment status verified.

According to the Sacramento Bee, the problems with the state's $454 million website included "programming defects" which caused many applicants to be wrongly denied. In some cases, applicants didn't include complete documents needed to verify their eligibility. The result has been a long wait for some.

Melissa Young described her experience with the system to CBS 13 in Sacramento: "My son’s coverage has been in limbo since February. He has no case worker yet, and every time I call, they say they have fixed the problem and to wait until the first of the following month. Nothing is fixed and I call again. Repeat."

Asked about the delays, California Department of Health Care Services spokesman Norman Williams told CBS 13, "We are devoting all the resources we can to make this work and to get them into coverage."

Under Obamacare, California expanded Medicaid to those earning up to 138% of the poverty line. Approximately 1.9 million people are believed to have signed up for the program since last October. The statewide total receiving the free medical care is now 9.4 million, approximately 25 percent of the state's population.

Quote:

 

http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Government/2014/06/06/6-Million-Obamacare-Sign-ups-are-Medicaid-and-it-is-Growing

6 MILLION MEDICAID ENROLLMENTS SINCE ROLLOUT OF OBAMACARE

U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services disclosed that 6 million people have signed-up for healthcare from Medicaid since the rollout of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (Obamacare).

[...]

Obamacare registration was originally scheduled from “October 1, 2013–March 31, 2014,” but the Obama Administration announced an extension of enrollment through mid-April. During the two week period, 1.1 million people were enrolled in Medicare, according to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
[I think he meant to say Medicaid there, not Medicare.]

But the HealthCare.gov website is still offering “ObamaCare Special Enrollment Period.” Reasonable exemptions for late registration include marriage, divorce, and adoption. But a continuous Special Enrollment period is available to “an individual, who was not previously a citizen, national, or lawfully present individual gains such status.”

Lawfully present individuals, according to the Obama Administration’s Executive Order for “Development, Relief, and Education for Alien Minors,” commonly referred to as “DREAMers,” includes:

• 
  
• Unauthorized immigrants who are under the age of 31; entered the United States before age 16; have lived continuously in the country for at least five years; have not been convicted of a felony, a “significant” misdemeanor, or three other misdemeanors; and are currently in school, graduated from high school, earned a GED, or served in the military.

The DREAMer executive order has turned millions of illegal aliens into “lawfully present individuals” and is acting as a magnet for new illegal immigrants. The Houston Chronicle this week reported that the “flow” of illegal aliens from Central and South America through Texas “has become a torrent in the past month” that is overwhelming the Border Patrol and the Office of Refugee Resettlement.

[...]

Quote:

 

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/11/insurers-propose-changes-to-obama-health-law/

Insurers propose changes to Obama health law

Insurers want to change President Barack Obama's health care law to provide financial assistance for people buying bare-bones coverage. That would entice the healthy and the young, the industry says, holding down premiums.

So-called catastrophic plans are currently not eligible for the law's subsidies, and only 2 percent of the 8 million consumers who signed up this year picked one. Subsidies bring down the cost of monthly premiums.

The proposed change is part of a package of recommendations that America's Health Insurance Plans, the main industry trade group released Wednesday. Others address how to smooth transitions for consumers who switch insurance companies, as well as making it easier for patients to find out which hospitals and doctors are in particular plans and whether their medications are covered.

"What is crucial for public policy leaders is to balance access and affordability," said Karen Ignagni, head of the trade group. "Unless people feel that coverage is affordable, they won't participate in the system."

Adults ages 18-34, the health care law's most coveted demographic, are under-represented among those enrolled for subsidized private insurance this year. Insurers are currently filing their proposed premiums for 2015, and increases of 10 percent or more are anticipated. Nonetheless, the new state insurance exchanges are poised to grow, with more carriers entering the market to compete for business.

Given the polarized politics of health care in Washington it's unclear how the industry's latest proposal might advance. It might get a chance if Republicans in Congress abandon their crusade to repeal Obama's law and start focusing on making changes to individual components.

The proposal could also encounter opposition from consumer groups, which take a dim view of catastrophic plans. Some consumer organizations have instead called for reducing out-of-pocket costs borne by consumers who buy a midlevel silver plan, the pick of 65 percent of those signed up this year.

Catastrophic plans offer low monthly premiums but require consumers to foot a hefty share of their annual medical costs. They are designed to protect healthier people from financial ruin due to an accident or an unexpected diagnosis of serious illness, although they also cover basic preventive care at no cost to the consumer.

Catastrophic plans currently available through the new insurance exchanges are only open to people under 30, as well those who have received a hardship exemption from the health law's individual requirement to carry a policy.

The industry proposal would create a new catastrophic plan open to people of any age and eligible for tax credits provided by the law. It would have an annual limit on out-of-pocket costs and preventive care would be covered at no charge to the patient.

Other elements of the insurers' plan can be voluntarily adopted by the companies or codified by government regulation.

They include a 30-day transition period for certain patients who switch insurance companies or whose doctors no longer participate in the plan. During the transition, patients would be able to remain under the care of their current physician while paying lower in-network rates. Similar transition policies would apply to medically necessary prescriptions.

The health insurance industry has a complicated relationship with the health care law.

Insurers spent tens of millions of dollars to defeat the legislation as it was being debated in Congress and still seek to roll back taxes and Medicare cuts that affect the plans.

But the industry has also become one of the administration's main allies in carrying out the law, enduring the cascade of rollout problems last fall and working behind the scenes to make sure consumers whose old plans got canceled were able to maintain coverage.

Quote:

 

http://www.reuters.com/article/2014/06/11/aetna-insurance-idUSL2N0OS1CF20140611

Aetna CEO says 2015 Obamacare rates increase less than 20 pct

Health insurer Aetna Inc is submitting premium rates to regulators for 2015 Obamacare insurance plans that generally increase less than 20 percent from 2014, Chief Executive Officer Mark Bertolini said on Wednesday.

[...]

Bertolini said that customers are disenrolling from exchange plans on a regular basis but that the company still expects to have 450,000 exchange customers at year end. He said that while he did not know the reason for these customers leaving, he suspected that it was due to the out-of-pocket costs before members reach their deductibles.

kbp

Jun 10 2014, 08:12 AM

...Enrollment...is available to..."lawfully present individual"...

Say what???

Quote:

 

Because of the incompetent construction and rollout of the Obamacare train wreck, any form of time-consuming up front eligibility verification had to be put off in order to enroll as many people as possible.

Now that they’re checking, you’ll be shocked to learn that a lot of people who have signed up for subsidies may not be eligible

Quote:

 

Some who signed up for subsidized insurance claim to have already provided the government with the information they’re being asked for again, but if that’s true the Obama administration must have [been] storing that info with Lois Lerner’s email, because it’s gone.

You’ll notice though that the law has been carefully timed. If a couple million people end up owing a lot of money or face getting the boot from their Obamacare policies, the notification will come due a few months after the November elections. But I also suspect that portions of the law will be unilaterally re-written on the fly to accommodate any enrollees who do not currently qualify for subsidies. It’s unlikely that hundreds of thousands of people recently added to the list of those getting government assistance would be kicked off. That’s not how building a dependency culture works.

Quote:

 

FYI, Sarah Hall Ingram - Lerner's boss who illegally sent confidential tax records to the FBI - now runs the IRS Obamacare office.

Quote:

 

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-obamacare-subsidies-20140617-story.html

Obamacare Subsidies Push Cost Of Health Law Above Projections
The large subsidies for health insurance that helped fuel the successful drive to sign up some 8 million Americans for coverage under the Affordable Care Act may push the cost of the law considerably above current projections, a new federal report indicates. Nearly 9 in 10 Americans who bought health coverage on the federal government’s healthcare marketplaces received government assistance to offset their premiums....

kbp

Jun 18 2014, 09:46 AM

Quote:

 

http://www.latimes.com/nation/politics/la-na-obamacare-subsidies-20140617-story.html

Obamacare Subsidies Push Cost Of Health Law Above Projections
The large subsidies for health insurance that helped fuel the successful drive to sign up some 8 million Americans for coverage under the Affordable Care Act may push the cost of the law considerably above current projections, a new federal report indicates. Nearly 9 in 10 Americans who bought health coverage on the federal government’s healthcare marketplaces received government assistance to offset their premiums....

I got this from Kaiser Health, as the Mac I am using can't open pages from the LATimes. If anyone can post the rest of the article, I'd appreciate it.