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Survey: Most Buying On Insurance Exchanges Were Uninsured

Nearly six in 10 Americans who bought insurance for this year through the health law’s online marketplaces were previously uninsured—most for at least two years, according to a new survey that looks at the experiences of those most affected by the law.

That finding is higher than some earlier estimates, and counters arguments made by critics of the law that most of those who purchased the new policies were previously insured.

The survey also found that consumers who purchase their own coverage because they can’t get it at work are more likely to have a favorable view of the Affordable Care Act than the general public. Still, they are nearly evenly divided, with 47 percent holding a favorable view of the law and 43 percent an unfavorable one, according to the survey by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. (Kaiser Health News is an editorially independent program of the foundation.)

That compares with 46 percent of adults nationally who are sour on the law, and 38 percent who hold favorable views.

Consumers who received a government subsidy to help them purchase a plan were most likely to say they benefited from the law, according to the Kaiser survey. Those most likely to say they were negatively affected were those who had prior coverage but had to switch because their plans were discontinued for not meeting the law’s standards or for other reasons....

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The survey was conducted by telephone from April 3 through May 11, 2014 among a nationally representative random sample of 742 adults who purchase their own insurance.

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/michaelcannon/2014/06/20/in-which-modern-healthcare-questions-my-honesty/

In Which Modern Healthcare Questions My Honesty

[...]

As Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan recently wrote in a majority opinion, “This Court has no roving license, in even ordinary cases of statutory interpretation, to disregard clear language simply on the view that…Congress ‘must have intended’ something broader…Congress of course may always change its mind–and we would readily defer to that new decision…We will not rewrite Congress’s handiwork.”

[...]

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http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jun/17/nhs-health

NHS is the world's best healthcare system, report says
Study by Washington-based foundation says healthcare provision in the US is the worst in the world

The NHS has been declared the world's best healthcare system by an international panel of experts who rated its care superior to countries which spend far more on health.

The same study also castigated healthcare provision in the US as the worst globally. Despite putting the most money into health, America denies care to many patients in need because they do not have health insurance and is also the poorest at saving the lives of people who fall ill, it found.

The report has been produced by the Commonwealth Fund, a Washington-based foundation which is respected around the world for its analysis of the performance of different countries' health systems. It examined an array of evidence about performance in 11 countries, including detailed data from patients, doctors and the World Health Organisation.

"The United Kingdom ranks first overall, scoring highest on quality, access and efficiency," the fund's researchers conclude in their 30-page report. Their findings amount to a huge endorsement of the health service, especially as it spends the second-lowest amount on healthcare among the 11 – just £2,008 per head, less than half the £5,017 in the US. Only New Zealand, with £1,876, spent less.

In the Commonwealth Fund study the UK came first out of the 11 countries in eight of the 11 measures of care the authors looked at. It got top place on measures including providing effective care, safe care, co-ordinated care and patient-centred care. The fund also rated the NHS as the best for giving access to care and for efficient use of resources.

The only serious black mark against the NHS was its poor record on keeping people alive. On a composite "healthy lives" score, which includes deaths among infants and patients who would have survived had they received timely and effective healthcare, the UK came 10th. The authors say that the healthcare system cannot be solely blamed for this issue, which is strongly influenced by social and economic factors. Although the NHS came third overall for the timeliness of care, its "short waiting times" were praised. "There is a frequent misperception that trade-offs between universal coverage and timely access to specialised services are inevitable. However, the Netherlands, UK and Germany provide universal coverage with low out-of-pocket costs while maintaining quick access to speciality services,", the report added.

The NHS also outperforms the other countries – which include France, Germany and Canada – in managing the care of people who are chronically ill, the report said.

Dr Mark Porter, leader of the doctors' union, the British Medical Association, said the fund's findings were "clear evidence that our much-maligned NHS is one of the top-performing healthcare systems in the world."

However, he warned that the service's achievements were now at risk. "We should not be complacent as we are facing pressures that are threatening the high-quality care that the Commonwealth Fund has rightly praised. A combination of rising patient demand, staff shortages and falling funding is undermining the very foundations of the NHS, as is the constant short-term interference from politicians of all colours."

Dr Peter Carter, chief executive of the Royal College of Nursing, said: "I'm absolutely thrilled to see this because it reinforces that this is a very good NHS, despite the fact that it has such a low level of funding relative to other countries."

The health secretary, Jeremy Hunt, who has been criticised by some senior doctors for painting an unfairly negative picture of NHS staff and the quality of care provided, welcomed the report. "NHS staff work incredibly hard to care for patients and these encouraging results pay testament to that," he said

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• Why would Congress have inserted the phrase “established by the State under [42 U.S.C. § 18031]” if it intended to refer to Exchanges created by a state or by HHS? But defendants [the government] provide a plausible and persuasive answer: Because the ACA takes a state-established Exchange as a given and directs the Secretary of HHS to establish such Exchange and bring it into operation if the state does not do so. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 18031(b)–(d), 18041(c). In other words, even where a state does not actually establish an Exchange, the federal government can create “an Exchange established by the State under [42 U.S.C. § 18031]” on behalf of that state.
  D.C. District Court Judge Friedman

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Kaiser considered Americans previously uninsured even if they recently had insurance, just not when they signed up on HealthCare.gov.

kbp

Jun 24 2014, 09:10 AM

Drudge...

http://dailysignal.com/2014/06/24/obamacare-exchanges-disappointing/
Obamacare Exchanges Are ‘Disappointing’ With Fewer Than 4 Million Newly Insured. The Government Hoped for 26 Million.


A good article to read, even though we're still stuck with guesstimates because the Exchange programs are still failing.

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http://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffreydorfman/2014/06/24/what-the-supreme-courts-greenhouse-gas-ruling-should-mean-for-obamacare/

What The Supreme Court's Greenhouse Gas Ruling Should Mean For Obamacare

The Supreme Court yesterday issued its decision in Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA, a case concerning the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s authority to regulate greenhouse gas emissions, especially carbon dioxide. The ruling is highly technical and somewhat narrow as evidenced by the fact that both side are claiming a victory. However, I believe that the court’s ruling may have a far more important result than most people realize. Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA may have just gutted the Affordable Care Act.

Let me quote three sentences from Justice Scalia’s decision:

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• “The power of exe­cuting the laws necessarily includes both authority and responsibility to resolve some questions left open by Con­gress that arise during the law’s administration. But it does not include a power to revise clear statutory terms that turn out not to work in practice.” (p26 of the Syllabus)
  
  “An agency has no power to ‘tailor’ legislation to bureaucratic policy goals by rewriting unambiguous statutory terms,” (p24 of the Syllabus).

Part of the Affordable Care Act provides for subsidies to those purchasing insurance through State exchanges subject to income-based eligibility rules. There are currently multiple lawsuits working their way toward the Supreme Court over the legality of the Obama administration’s decisions to extend those statutorily created subsidies to the federal exchanges that provide access to coverage in states that chose not to set up their own exchanges.

These cases make the simple point that the statute limited subsidies to State exchanges. The Obama administration claims that Congress assumed every state would set up its own exchange, but it turned out that only about half the states did. Because trying to bribe states into cooperating with the implementation of Obamacare did not work, the Obama administration simply reinterpreted the statute because otherwise it would not work in practice. This seems to be exactly what the Supreme Court said is impermissible.

In Halbig v. Sebelius, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia has already ruled against the plaintiffs in one such suit, with the judge determining that extending the subsidies is a reasonable way to reach the policy goals of the statute. However, this new ruling on greenhouse gas emissions would seem to be tailor made for the anti-Obamacare cases focusing on the subisidies offered on the federal exchange (the infamous healthcare.gov).

The myriad changes made to Obamacare would seem ripe for a challenge that quoted the exact language above from the ruling on the EPA’s power to regulate greenhouse gasses. Michael Cannon has made the same point in regards to the Appeals Court ruling on Halbig v. Sebelius here. According to the Galen Institute, the Obama administration has made twenty-three significant changes to the Affordable Care Act without legislative approval by Congress. The Obama administration has been clear that these changes were made in order to help achieve the goals of health care reform. Yet, it appears that is not a constitutionally acceptable action to take.

If the administration cannot ignore the language of a law just because it will not work as written, the administration is in big trouble on Obamacare. An enormous amount of the regulations written to implement the Affordable Care Act appear to ignore or reverse parts of the original Act. The Obama administration has been arguing that it is following the intent of the law and lower court rulings have come down on both sides so far on the constitutionality of these extra-statutory actions.

The Supreme Court may have just signaled which way they will rule when these cases reach them. If so, Obamacare is facing a major setback and even a possible collapse. After all, if subsidies to buy health insurance are only available in some states, it is hard to see how the public (and Congress) could tolerate such an inequity for long.

While everyone focuses on the impact of Utility Air Regulatory Group v. EPA on the government’s power to address climate change, the Supreme Court may have done more to impact the future of Obamacare with their ruling than they did to impact the future of the world’s climate.

• 
  
• Why would Congress have inserted the phrase “established by the State under [42 U.S.C. § 18031]” if it intended to refer to Exchanges created by a state or by HHS? But defendants [the government] provide a plausible and persuasive answer: Because the ACA takes a state-established Exchange as a given and directs the Secretary of HHS to establish such Exchange and bring it into operation if the state does not do so. See 42 U.S.C. §§ 18031(b)–(d), 18041(c). In other words, even where a state does not actually establish an Exchange, the federal government can create “an Exchange established by the State under [42 U.S.C. § 18031]” on behalf of that state.
  D.C. District Court Judge Friedman

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http://www.breitbart.com/Breitbart-TV/2014/06/26/Report-Employees-at-Failed-Cover-Oregon-Exchange-Receiving-650K-in-Bonuses

REPORT: EMPLOYEES AT FAILED COVER OREGON EXCHANGE RECEIVING $650K IN BONUSES

According to a report in The Oregonian and picked up by southern Oregon NBC affiliate KOTI, some employees of the struggling Cover Oregon, which is Oregon's marketplace established for the Affordable Care Act are set to receive $650,000 in bonuses. Cover Oregon is known for having spent upwards to $250 million, yet has never produced a fully functional website.

"Thirty-eight employees with skills considered 'critical,' will get bonuses worth one to three months' pay," Jeff Manning wrote for The Oregonian.

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http://www.newsweek.com/case-could-topple-obamacare-224747

The Case That Could Topple Obamacare
By Pema Levy
Filed: 12/17/13

Obamacare may have its problems, including more bugs than you can find in the cornfields of Nebraska, but its legal worries were meant to end after the Supreme Court upheld the individual mandate, the heart of the Affordable Care Act.

Now, as the technologists charged with making healthcare.gov work report progress, lawyers are re-entering the fray. A little-heard of challenge currently making its way through the court system may represent opponents’ last best hope of, as they are fond of saying, driving a stake through the heart of the law.

It all started in 2011, when Jonathan H. Adler, a conservative law professor at Case Western Reserve University in Ohio, shot an email to his friend Michael Cannon, a health policy expert at the libertarian Cato Institute in Washington, D.C. Adler thought he had spotted an error in Obamacare that could unravel a significant portion of the law.

At issue are the federal subsidies for individuals buying insurance in their state’s health care exchanges. The law stipulates that those subsidies should be allotted for plans purchased “through an Exchange established by the State under Section 1311” (italics added), a reference to the section of the law that establishes state-run exchanges.

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LTC8K6

Jun 27 2014, 09:58 PM

Anthem requests to spike insurance rates - Conn.

http://wtnh.com/2014/06/27/anthem-requests-to-spike-insurance-rates/