A new study by the Lewin Group estimates that 28.6 million Americans will be eligible for a federal subsidy to purchase health insurance beginning in 2014 at a projected cost to tax payers in excess of $110 billion. This estimate is dramatically higher (578%) than the cost of these subsidies forecast by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) prior to the bill’s enactment into law.
Beginning in 2014, almost 29 million middle-income Americans will be eligible for new tax credits to help them afford private health insurance premiums. The historic tax cut in the health reform law, which is estimated to reduce family income taxes by more than $110 billion in 2014 alone, will be provided through tax credits to offset a significant portion of private insurance premium costs.
Kathleen Sebelius is irate health insurance companies are exercising their first amendment right and pointing out recent hikes in health premiums are the result of mandates in President Obama's Heath Care Reform bill. Under changes taking place in the last half of 2010, parents can keep their adult children on the health insurance until age 26, more preventative coverage was mandated, lifetime limes were eliminated and pre-exiting conditions were dropped for those under 18. All these changes will insurance companies money. They are passing that along to consumers and educating the public on why this is happening. The Obama administration doesn't want consumers to know the truth and has issued a near ultimatum to insurance companies. Shut up or else.President Barack Obama's top health official on Thursday warned the insurance industry that the administration won't tolerate blaming premium hikes on the new health overhaul law.
"There will be zero tolerance for this type of misinformation and unjustified rate increases," Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a letter to the insurance lobby.
"Simply stated, we will not stand idly by as insurers blame their premium hikes and increased profits on the requirement that they provide consumers with basic protections," Sebelius said. She warned that bad actors may be excluded from new health insurance markets that will open in 2014 under the law. They'd lose out on a big pool of customers, as many as 30 million people nationwide.
Missouri voters on Tuesday overwhelmingly rejected a key provision of President Barack Obama's health care law, sending a clear message of discontent to Washington and Democrats less than 100 days before the midterm elections.
With about 90 percent of the vote counted late Tuesday, nearly three-quarters of voters backed a ballot measure, Proposition C, that would prohibit the government from requiring people to have health insurance or from penalizing them for not having it.[...]
Louisiana and Virginia have passed similar statutes, and voters in Arizona and Oklahoma will vote on such measures as state constitutional amendments in November. But Missouri was the first state to challenge aspects of the federal law in a referendum.
[Read more]
The state of Virginia can continue its lawsuit to stop the nation's new health care law from taking effect, a federal judge ruled Monday.
U.S. District Court Judge Henry Hudson said he is allowing the suit against the U.S. government to proceed, saying no court has ever ruled on whether it's constitutional to require Americans to purchase a product.
"While this case raises a host of complex constitutional issues, all seem to distill to the single question of whether or not Congress has the power to regulate -- and tax -- a citizen's decision not to participate in interstate commerce," Hudson wrote in a 32-page decision.
"Given the presence of some authority arguably supporting the theory underlying each side's position, this court cannot conclude at this stage that the complaint fails to state a cause of action," he wrote.
The decision is a small step, but in no way minor matter to opponents of the health care bill rejected by all congressional Republicans but signed into law by President Obama earlier this year.
Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli filed the suit almost immediately after the law was signed, arguing that it conflicts with Virginia's legislation -- also passed this year -- exempting state residents from the requirement that all Americans be forced into health care coverage. Cuccinelli argued that the law violates the Constitution's Commerce Clause.
More than a dozen other state attorneys general have filed a separate lawsuit in Florida challenging the federal law, but Virginia's lawsuit is the first to go before a judge.
[Fox]
New York’s insurance system has been a working laboratory for the core provision of the new federal health care law — insurance even for those who are already sick and facing huge medical bills — and an expensive lesson in unplanned consequences. Premiums for individual and small group policies have risen so high that state officials and patients’ advocates say that New York’s extensive insurance safety net for people like Ms. Welles is falling apart.[...]The Democrats, have tried to prevent this from happening on a national level by forcing the well people to buy health insurance and redistributing their premiums to pay for the sick and belatedly paying people. But since they are not trying that hard to enforce this (either because they are afraid of the people revolting or because they want the system to fail: take your pick), our nation is headed down the same path of higher premiums, national debt, health care rationing and ultimately socialized medicine.
In 1993, motivated by stories of suffering AIDS patients, the state became one of the first to require insurers to extend individual or small group coverage to anyone with pre-existing illnesses.New York also became one of the few states that require insurers within each region of the state to charge the same rates for the same benefits, regardless of whether people are old or young, male or female, smokers or nonsmokers, high risk or low risk.
Healthy people, in effect, began to subsidize people who needed more health care. The healthier customers soon discovered that the high premiums were not worth it and dropped out of the plans. The pool of insured people shrank to the point where many of them had high health care needs. Without healthier people to spread the risk, their premiums skyrocketed, a phenomenon known in the trade as the “adverse selection death spiral.”
“You have a mandate that’s accessible in theory, but not in practice, because it’s too expensive,” said Mark P. Scherzer, a consumer lawyer and counsel to New Yorkers for Accessible Health Coverage, an advocacy group. “What you get left clinging to the life raft is the population that tends to have pretty high health needs.”
Since 2001, the number of people who bought comprehensive individual policies through HMOs in New York has plummeted to about 31,000 from about 128,000, according to the State Insurance Department.
At the same time, New York has the highest average annual premiums for individual policies: $6,630 for single people and $13,296 for families in mid-2009, more than double the nationwide average, according to America’s Health Insurance Plans, an industry group.
“The number of U.S. medical school students going into primary care has dropped 51.8% since 1997, according to the American Academy of Family Physicians (AAFP). Considering it takes 10 to 11 years to educate a doctor, the drying up of the pipeline is a big concern to health-care experts.”
The new federal health-care law has raised the stakes for hospitals and schools already scrambling to train more doctors.
Experts warn there won’t be enough doctors to treat the millions of people newly insured under the law. At current graduation and training rates, the nation could face a shortage of as many as 150,000 doctors in the next 15 years, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges.
That shortfall is predicted despite a push by teaching hospitals and medical schools to boost the number of U.S. doctors, which now totals about 954,000.
The greatest demand will be for primary-care physicians. These general practitioners, internists, family physicians and pediatricians will have a larger role under the new law, coordinating care for each patient.
The U.S. has 352,908 primary-care doctors now, and the college association estimates that 45,000 more will be needed by 2020. But the number of medical-school students entering family medicine fell more than a quarter between 2002 and 2007.
A shortage of primary-care and other physicians could mean more-limited access to health care and longer wait times for patients.
More casualties of the disastrous Health Care legislation passed 3 weeks ago.More than 60 doctor-owned hospitals across the country that were in the development stage will be canceled, said Molly Sandvig, executive director of Physician Hospitals of America (PHA).
“That’s a lot of access to communities that will be denied,” Sandvig told CNSNews.com. “The existing hospitals are greatly affected. They can’t grow. They can’t add beds. They can’t add rooms. Basically, it stifles their ability to change and meet market needs. This is really an unfortunate thing as well, because we are talking about some of the best hospitals in the country.”
The organization says physician-owned hospitals have higher patient satisfaction, greater control over medical decisions for patients and doctor, better quality care and lower costs. Further, physician-owned hospitals have an average 4-1 patient-to-nurse ratio, compared to the national average of 8-1 for general hospitals.
Further, these 260 doctor-owned hospitals in 38 states provide 55,000 jobs, $2.4 billion in payroll and pay $509 million in federal taxes, according to the PHA.
In one ironic aspect, President Barack Obama’s two largest legislative achievements clashed. The Hammond Community Hospital in North Hammond, Ind., got $7 million in bond money from the federal stimulus act in 2009. It will likely be scrapped because of the new rules on physician-owned hospitals, according to the Post-Tribune newspaper in Merrillville, Ind.
CNS News
Surprise, surprise! Hidden somewhere in the middle of the 2309 pages of the Obamacare bill is a new tax that will be automatically deduct hundreds a month from your paycheck unless you opt out in time (and no one seems to know how to opt out yet).
Joining John Deere, Caterpillar, Medtronic, Verizon, Massachusetts Medical Device Manufacturers and AT&T, are Prudential Financial and Sallie Mae."Insurer Prudential Financial Inc. said Monday that it will take a $100 million charge in the first quarter in relation to the recent health care overhaul legislation." [AP]
"Powerhouse student loan provider Sallie Mae says layoffs are imminent as a result of President Obama's new student loan overhaul. This legislation will force Sallie Mae to reduce our 8,600-person workforce by 2,500," Conwey Casillas, Vice President of Sallie Mae Public Affairs, said in a statement to Fox News.[...]"The student loan provisions buried in the health care legislation intentionally eliminate valuable default prevention services and private sector jobs at a time when our country can least afford to lose them," Casillas told Fox News.
"We are profoundly disappointed that a reform plan that would have achieved more savings for students was ignored and now thousands of student loan experts will unnecessarily lose their jobs," Casillas said." [Fox]
"Nearly two-thirds of Americans say the health care overhaul signed into law last week costs too much and expands the government's role in health care too far, a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll finds, underscoring an uphill selling job ahead for President Obama and congressional Democrats."Those surveyed are inclined to fear that the massive legislation will increase their costs and hurt the quality of health care their families receive, although they are more positive about its impact on the nation's health care system overall.[...]
"Obama's approval rating was 47%-50% — the first time his disapproval rating has hit 50%.
" A plurality predicts the law will improve health care coverage generally and the overall health of Americans. [...] Pluralities say it will make coverage and quality of care worse for them. By 50%-21%, they predict it will make their costs higher.[...]
"There was a strong reaction against the tactics Democratic leaders used to pass the bill. A 53% majority call Democratic methods "an abuse of power;" 40% say they are appropriate.
"And when asked about incidents of vandalism and threats that followed the bill's passage, Americans are more inclined to blame Democratic political tactics than critics' harsh rhetoric. Forty-nine percent say Democratic tactics are "a major reason" for the incidents, while 46% blame criticism by conservative commentators and 43% the criticism of Republican leaders."
(Source: USA Today)
Obama promised that no American would be denied health care due to a pre-existing condition as soon as his health care reform bill was passed. Unfortunately, it looks like with all the hype someone forgot to actually write that into the bill. From AP:Hours after President Barack Obama signed historic health care legislation, a potential problem emerged. Administration officials are now scrambling to fix a gap in highly touted benefits for children.Obama made better coverage for children a centerpiece of his health care remake, but it turns out the letter of the law provided a less-than-complete guarantee that kids with health problems would not be shut out of coverage.
Under the new law, insurance companies still would be able to refuse new coverage to children because of a pre-existing medical problem, said Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the main congressional panels that wrote the bill Obama signed into law Tuesday.[...]
Full protection for children would not come until 2014, said Kate Cyrul, a spokeswoman for the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, another panel that authored the legislation. That's the same year when insurance companies could no longer deny coverage to any person on account of health problems.
Obama's public statements have conveyed the impression that the new protections for kids were more sweeping and straightforward.
If the public were to vote on whether to accept they Health Care Reform bill, they would soundly reject it by a 8 to 18% margin according to the latest polls. (For comparison, Obama won the presidency in 2008 by 7.2%.)
The Susan B. Anthony List Candidate Fund have announced that they are revoking its "Defender of Life" award to Representative Bart Stupak (D-MI), for reversing his decision on the health care bill after receiving a questionable promise by Obama that he will make sure abortion will not be funded by taxpayer money."We were planning to honor Congressman Stupak for his efforts to keep abortion-funding out of health care reform. We will no longer be doing so," Dannenfelser said. "Let me be clear: any representative, including Rep. Stupak, who votes for this health care bill can no longer call themselves 'pro-life.'"
Stupak, who led Democratic lawmakers opposed to the Senate bill, made an announcement of a deal Sunday afternoon, surrounded by a handful of Democratic lawmakers who had held out their "yes" votes in exchange for Obama's guarantee of no public funding for abortion.
The arrangement appeared to cement passage of the Health Care government takeover.
“These provisions will bring millions of dollars to the state so that Connecticut’s residents can receive quality, affordable health care.”
The intended beneficiaries are identified in a cryptic, mysterious way: individuals exposed to environmental health hazards recognized as a public health emergency in a declaration issued by the federal government on June 17.
And who might those individuals be? It turns out they are people exposed to asbestos from a vermiculite mine in Libby, Mont.
For a decade, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, has been trying to get the government to help them. He is in a position to deliver now because he is chairman of the Finance Committee and a principal author of the health care bill.
One-Sixth of the US Economy is threatened with a takeover by the Federal Government on the erroneous rationale that "Tens of millions of people in the US are without health care insurance, and therefore are being denied access to adequate health care." Unjust! Unfair!This is, of course, an absolute lie. And nor do some large number of people "die every day from lack of health insurance coverage." That too is a lie.Access to the health care providers (professional services) and medicine (products) of the best health care system in the world is already universal and available to every US Citizen, legal resident, illegal alien, prisoner, detainee, or visitor - regardless of whether anyone is covered by any insurance policy or health plan. For heaven's sake, even the illegal aliens have figured out that anyone who walks into an Emergency Room is required by law (EMTALA) to be treated, regardless of the person's ability to pay.The Big Lie: Without health care insurance, there is no access to health care.Health care insurance coverage is but one method of paying for health care products and services. Doctors and hospitals are quite open to accepting cash, checks, or credit cards for their services rendered and have no problem with getting paid directly -- meaning they get their money right away, don't have to fill out and file mounds of bureaucratic paperwork with insurance companies, don't have to worry about what treatments are approved and reimbursable by the insurance companies, etc.In fact, when health care is directly paid for by a patient, then issues like preexisting conditions, escalating premium rates, denied claims, dropped policies, and all of the regularly lamented shortcomings of the health insurance industry become moot. Case in point: elective surgery such as breast augmentation is a medical procedure that isn't covered by any health insurance, but somehow there doesn't seem to be any access issues to the procedure or lack of them occurring.And yet most people are led to believe that they simply can't afford to pay for their own health services directly. That's why they purchase health insurance, or their employer purchases it for them as an employee benefit. Actually, this too is a great misunderstanding of the problems with respect to health insurance coverage, which are completely distinct issues from access to actual health care services.Any form of insurance (Home, Car, Flood, Health Care, etc.) is nothing more than a financial instrument used to mitigate an unacceptable potential financial risk. Insurance wouldn't work unless more people are paying into a common pool than are taking money out of it. The whole idea of insurance coverage is to spread financial risk among many people so that any one member isn't hit with some catastrophic expense should a major need occur. But in many respects, most health insurance coverage has been expanded in scope to become some kind of "Health Services Subscription Club" that pays for many services that really don't represent unacceptable financial risks by themselves.Indeed, overpaying beyond an individual's actual needs via insurance premiums is a viable means to avoid getting hit with major medical expenses. However, that's why they invented Catastrophic Insurance Policies -- i.e. those cheaper high-deductible plans that don't kick in until direct expenses go over a few thousand dollars.Regardless, even without any kind of health insurance policy whatsoever or ObamaCare, if someone gets in a car wreck, the ambulance will still respond and take the injured to the Emergency Room, where they will be treated regardless of their ability to pay. It's already the law.The whole ObamaCare health care reform debate isn't really about people who already have health insurance; rather, it's supposedly being crafted for the benefit of all those who are without coverage, who need it, but can't afford it. Nevertheless, if tomorrow the government bought health insurance policies for everyone who doesn't have one, that wouldn't make access to health care services any more available than they already are.To the contrary, the law of supply and demand dictates that if 30 million or more new customers are added to a market place (the demand), and there is no proportional increase in the number of service providers (the supply), then prices will go up as service availability goes down -- which means the whole system gets worse for everyone -- not better.The real issue is that there are those who wish to argue that, despite all the adverse (if not catastrophic) consequences of ObamaCare to the system, health care is a "basic human right" and therefore the basis for a massive new government entitlement program. But health care isn't an "inalienable right" -- it's a basic human necessity -- just like food, clothing and shelter. All of these basic human necessities are bought and sold every day in the free market in the context of the goods and services that they really are.The simple reality is this: there are those in our society who can afford these necessities, and there are those in our society who can't. For those who can't afford the basic human necessity of proper health care -- just like food, clothing, and shelter -- that need becomes the basis of voluntary charity and aid.Conversely, the government version of involuntary charity via taxation is called "Welfare." So whether it's private charity or a government welfare program that helps people buy something they otherwise couldn't afford but need, that's fine; just recognize that's the issue -- not an entitled right, not an access or availability problem, not a lack of insurance policies.Now if making health care more affordable for everyone is really the goal, to thereby lower the threshold of who can readily pay for it directly and/or indirectly via an insurance policy, and thus reduce the necessity of charity and/or welfare for those who need assistance, then free market business forces, scientific and technological advances, along with increased competition -- not intrusive government forces -- are the answers.Consider one mathematical fact: the purchase of 30 million new insurance policies that cost $5,000 each is only $150 billion, which is a fraction of the real price tag of ObamaCare.One can therefore reasonably conclude that ObamaCare isn't really about making health care more available or affordable to those who need it and can't afford it. It isn't about lowering insurance costs or reducing the federal deficit -- what has been proposed achieves none of these objectives.ObamaCare is simply a leviathan of a lie, whose only practical impact for generations to come will be increased welfare state dependency on government, greater government intrusion, and control over people's personal lives and privacy, reduced availability of health care providers as more of them are driven from their professions -- all of which translates to higher and higher costs, which only accelerates the country's financial death spiral.But that's to be expected: most grandiose plans predicated on lies don't end well.
Robert Gelinas
Senior Senate GOP leadership aides have settled on a new strategy that, they hope, will stall or kill the Dem health reform push: They are going to use the arcane “Byrd rule” to try to bleed the reconciliation fix to death and ensure that it never passes.
Senior GOP aides have been studying the rule book in recent days, and they think they have a game plan. Here’s how they hope it will work.
At risk of oversimplification, the Byrd rule is designed to ensure that reconciliation is used to only make budgetary fixes, not policy ones, to existing legislation. Presuming the House passes the Senate bill, the House will then pass a reconciliation fix to the bill, after which the Senate will then try to pass that fix, too.
At this point Senate GOPers will repeatedly invoke the Byrd rule to ask the parliamentarian to strip individual provisions (ones fixing this or that in the original bill) out of the fix, on the grounds that they are policy fixes. If individual provisions are stripped, it would change the Senate’s version of the overall fix.
That would force the House to vote on it again and again, stalling the process further.
“The bottom line is that it is incredibly difficult to craft a reconciliation bill on health care that isn’t subject to multiple Byrd rule violations,” says one senior Senate GOP aide, who was granted anonymity to preview their strategy. “House Dems are likely to be voting on a reconciliation bill multiple times.”
