WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Health insurance subsidies under the Affordable Care Act will cost slightly less than previously thought, helping to slow down the forecast growth of U.S. deficits over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office said on Monday.
Reported by Reuters 9 hours ago.
CBO lowers U.S. deficit estimates as health subsidies fall
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FormFire, the Nation’s Leading Small Group Insurance Technology Company, Announces the Winners of Its Annual Health Benefits Survey
FormFire announces the winners of its annual health benefits survey measuring the opinions of small business employers and employees.
Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) April 15, 2014
The FormFire Health Benefits Survey reflects the views of small business groups and their employees about the health insurance products they use. The survey asks questions about the value they receive from the broker who services them, as well as their insurance plan. The survey reflects the views of more than 100,000 participants over the past year, covering the 2013 and 2014 renewal season across 26 states.
“The FormFire Health Benefits Survey is designed to capture and quantify the views of small businesses and their employees; a group who can be greatly under-served when it comes to the benefits products industry,” said Colin Ingram, co-founder. “The brokers and agencies receiving our award have consistently provided their small business customers with great service and truly deserve to be recognized.”
Brokers were rated on topics such as product knowledge, communication, client support, and the likelihood that the respondent would recommend them to another.
The top performing agencies in a number of states qualified to receive The 2014 FormFire Performance Award. The Award can be proudly displayed in their web and print marketing material.
The full list of Award winners can be found online at http://www.formfire.com/blog.
Anyone interested in learning more about the survey, or about FormFire’s Quote, Sell, EnrollTM technology platform, can contact Sales at 216-502-2324, or by email at sales(at)formfire(dot)com.
About FormFire, LLC:
FormFire, LLC, based in Cleveland, Ohio, is a market leading technology provider supporting the group benefits industry. Its Quote, Sell, EnrollTM private exchange platform enables group benefits consultants and insurance carriers to easily and securely gather employee and group data for the purpose of benefits pricing, plan selection, and enrollment.
More information about FormFire, LLC is available at http://www.formfire.com. Reported by PRWeb 5 hours ago.
Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) April 15, 2014
The FormFire Health Benefits Survey reflects the views of small business groups and their employees about the health insurance products they use. The survey asks questions about the value they receive from the broker who services them, as well as their insurance plan. The survey reflects the views of more than 100,000 participants over the past year, covering the 2013 and 2014 renewal season across 26 states.
“The FormFire Health Benefits Survey is designed to capture and quantify the views of small businesses and their employees; a group who can be greatly under-served when it comes to the benefits products industry,” said Colin Ingram, co-founder. “The brokers and agencies receiving our award have consistently provided their small business customers with great service and truly deserve to be recognized.”
Brokers were rated on topics such as product knowledge, communication, client support, and the likelihood that the respondent would recommend them to another.
The top performing agencies in a number of states qualified to receive The 2014 FormFire Performance Award. The Award can be proudly displayed in their web and print marketing material.
The full list of Award winners can be found online at http://www.formfire.com/blog.
Anyone interested in learning more about the survey, or about FormFire’s Quote, Sell, EnrollTM technology platform, can contact Sales at 216-502-2324, or by email at sales(at)formfire(dot)com.
About FormFire, LLC:
FormFire, LLC, based in Cleveland, Ohio, is a market leading technology provider supporting the group benefits industry. Its Quote, Sell, EnrollTM private exchange platform enables group benefits consultants and insurance carriers to easily and securely gather employee and group data for the purpose of benefits pricing, plan selection, and enrollment.
More information about FormFire, LLC is available at http://www.formfire.com. Reported by PRWeb 5 hours ago.
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Texas Representative Giovanni Capriglione Announces a Health Care Town Hall
Rep. Giovanni Capriglione will be hosting a Health Care Town Hall forum at the Keller Middle School. The April 24th meeting will feature U.S. Congressman Michael Burgess, MD; Executive Commissioner of Texas Health and Human Services, Dr. Kyle Janek; Texas Medical Association President Dr. Stephen Brotherton and Dr. Brent Cornelius, DDS.
Keller, TX (PRWEB) April 15, 2014
Today, Rep. Giovanni Capriglione announced the date and location of his next town hall forum, a timely discussion on healthcare in Texas: April 24th, 6:30 pm at Keller Middle School (300 College Ave, Keller, TX 76248).
“Even though there has been significant media coverage about the Affordable Care Act and associated health insurance plans, many citizens are still upset, confused and concerned about the state of health care in our county. I look forward to discussing these important issues with the residents of District 98,” said Rep. Capriglione.
The meeting will feature a distinguished panel consisting of U.S. Congressman Michael Burgess, MD; Executive Commissioner of Texas Health and Human Services, Dr. Kyle Janek; Texas Medical Association President Dr. Stephen Brotherton and Dr. Brent Cornelius, DDS.
This forum is free and open to the public and will cover a variety of topics including:· Initiatives to reduce Medicaid fraud/waste
· The current status of all mandates and a timeline of mandate implementation in the future
· A summary of what businesses and individuals will be facing when the mandates are fully implemented
· Recent "doc fix" legislation
· Texas Medicaid and Medicare payment reform initiatives
· Constitutional issues related to the Affordable Care Act including the current religious liberty case in SCOTUS
· General health care integration/consolidation trends
Rep. Giovanni Capriglione asks that interested parties RSVP to the event by emailing info(at)votegiovanni(dot)com or calling (817) 431-5339.
About Representative Giovanni Capriglione
Rep. Giovanni Capriglione serves the approximately 175,000 residents of Colleyville, Grapevine, Keller, Southlake and Westlake as well as portions of Haslet, North Fort Worth, and Trophy Club. With over 85% of the vote, Rep. Capriglione was first elected in November 2012 and sworn into service January 2013.
During the 83rd Regular Session, Rep. Capriglione fought for the district's core principles: fiscal and social conservative values: Strengthening Texas’ Economy – Pro-Job/Pro-Growth Strategy, No Increase in the Tax Rate, No New Fees, Promoting Pro-Life Policies, Promoting Quality Education, Increasing Transparency of Government, Border Security and Immigration, Protecting the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and Fighting the Expansion of Obamacare. Reported by PRWeb 5 hours ago.
Keller, TX (PRWEB) April 15, 2014
Today, Rep. Giovanni Capriglione announced the date and location of his next town hall forum, a timely discussion on healthcare in Texas: April 24th, 6:30 pm at Keller Middle School (300 College Ave, Keller, TX 76248).
“Even though there has been significant media coverage about the Affordable Care Act and associated health insurance plans, many citizens are still upset, confused and concerned about the state of health care in our county. I look forward to discussing these important issues with the residents of District 98,” said Rep. Capriglione.
The meeting will feature a distinguished panel consisting of U.S. Congressman Michael Burgess, MD; Executive Commissioner of Texas Health and Human Services, Dr. Kyle Janek; Texas Medical Association President Dr. Stephen Brotherton and Dr. Brent Cornelius, DDS.
This forum is free and open to the public and will cover a variety of topics including:· Initiatives to reduce Medicaid fraud/waste
· The current status of all mandates and a timeline of mandate implementation in the future
· A summary of what businesses and individuals will be facing when the mandates are fully implemented
· Recent "doc fix" legislation
· Texas Medicaid and Medicare payment reform initiatives
· Constitutional issues related to the Affordable Care Act including the current religious liberty case in SCOTUS
· General health care integration/consolidation trends
Rep. Giovanni Capriglione asks that interested parties RSVP to the event by emailing info(at)votegiovanni(dot)com or calling (817) 431-5339.
About Representative Giovanni Capriglione
Rep. Giovanni Capriglione serves the approximately 175,000 residents of Colleyville, Grapevine, Keller, Southlake and Westlake as well as portions of Haslet, North Fort Worth, and Trophy Club. With over 85% of the vote, Rep. Capriglione was first elected in November 2012 and sworn into service January 2013.
During the 83rd Regular Session, Rep. Capriglione fought for the district's core principles: fiscal and social conservative values: Strengthening Texas’ Economy – Pro-Job/Pro-Growth Strategy, No Increase in the Tax Rate, No New Fees, Promoting Pro-Life Policies, Promoting Quality Education, Increasing Transparency of Government, Border Security and Immigration, Protecting the Right to Keep & Bear Arms, and Fighting the Expansion of Obamacare. Reported by PRWeb 5 hours ago.
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The 7.5 Million Insured Through Obamacare Are Only Part Of The Story
Millions signed up for health insurance through state exchanges and HealthCare.gov. But another several million bypassed the exchanges and bought health coverage directly from insurers.
Reported by NPR 5 hours ago.
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McCaughey: 'A Million or More' Obamacare Subscribers Will Default
By:
Susan Jones
(CNSNews.com) - A leading Obamacare critic sees trouble ahead for people who signed up for health insurance on the new government exchanges.
read more Reported by CNSNews.com 2 hours ago.
Susan Jones
(CNSNews.com) - A leading Obamacare critic sees trouble ahead for people who signed up for health insurance on the new government exchanges.
read more Reported by CNSNews.com 2 hours ago.
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U.S. Health Care Usage, Spending Resume Rise in 2013
Filed under: Health Care, Personal Finance, Home Health Care, Health Insurance*Rich Schultz/AP Images for the National Council on Aging*
By Bill Berkrot
Americans used more health services and spent more on prescription drugs in 2013, reversing a recent trend, though greater use of cheaper generic drugs helped control spending, according to a report issued Tuesday by a health care information company.
Spending on medicines rose 3.2 percent in the United States last year to $329.2 billion. While that was far less than the double-digit increases seen in previous decades, it was a rebound from a 1 percent decline in 2012, the report by IMS Health Holdings (IMS) found.
Among factors driving the increased spending were the cost of new medicines, price increases on some branded drugs, a $10 billion reduced impact of patent expirations compared with 2012, and the first rise in the use of health care services in three years, IMS found.
IMS compiles and provides data on prescription drug use and trends for the pharmaceutical and health care industry.
The relatively small spending increase was helped in part by greater use of cheap generic drugs, which edged up to 86 percent of all prescriptions filled in the United States from 84 percent in 2012, despite fewer major new generic drug introductions compared with the impact seen in 2012.
Health care utilization was up across the board, with rises in doctor office visits, hospitalizations and volume of prescriptions filled, IMS said.
The increased use of health care services doesn't reflect those newly insured under the Affordable Care Act and Medicaid expansion, which didn't fully kick in until this year. But it could be reflective of declines in unemployment, with more people gaining employer-based health insurance, and recent gains in consumer confidence.
"The recession was officially over a long time ago, but what has taken a much longer time is for the [health care services] demand to recover,"
Michael Kleinrock, director of research development for IMS Institute for Healthcare Informatics, said in a telephone interview.
"In late fall of 2012, we started to see a beginning of the recovery in terms of new therapy starts," Kleinrock said.
New medicines for cancer, hepatitis C, multiple sclerosis, diabetes and rare diseases has led to a shift in some patient spending tendencies, the report found.
Patients gained access to 36 novel new medicines in 2013, including a record 17 so-called orphan drugs that treat small patient populations at typically very high cost.
"We saw patients see more specialists than primary care for the first time," Kleinrock said. "Incurring a primary care visit co-pay in order to be referred to see a specialist certainly doesn't feel like value for money, so many patients may be self referring," he suggested.
Those trends could well continue over the next two years as several promising new cancer drugs come to market, as well as new oral hepatitis C treatments with extremely high cure rates and few side effects.
The first of those hepatitis drugs, Sovaldi, from Gilead Sciences (GILD) has led to intense criticism for its price tag of about $84,000 for a 12-week course of treatment.
"It's interesting to see the debate about cost when you're curing a disease which has much more overall cost," said Kleinrock, referring to the cost of treating liver cancer or transplants if the hepatitis progresses without treatment.
While the overall number of hospitalizations increased, emergency room visits that turn into in-patient admissions declined dramatically, by 14.6 percent, IMS found.
That could point to continued use of high-cost emergency services for non-emergency primary care for many people.
On that front, Kleinrock said, "We noted, that perhaps there's still some work to do."
Permalink | Email this | Linking Blogs | Comments Reported by DailyFinance 2 hours ago.
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Can Democrats Win in November?
Much has been written about the difficult road faced by Democrats in the upcoming midterm elections. But virtually all of it presumes that turnout among reliable Democratic voters will decline three to five percent more from 2012 levels than turnout among reliable Republican voters.
There is no question that most midterms do in fact follow that model. The results of the disastrous 2010 midterms can be chalked up almost entirely to the fact that record numbers of Democratic voters failed to show up at the polls.
But before the pundits and ambitious Republicans get too cocky, it is important to remember that this kind of turnout differential is not at all preordained. A three to five percentage imbalance in turnout can have a massive impact on in-play elections - but it is also small enough that Democrats can do something about it.
In fact, as recently as 2013 - in a completely off-year election in Virginia, Democrats kept the turnout mix at 2012 levels. To win - as we did in Virginia - Democrats don't have to turn out the same number of voters as we did in 2012. We only have to ensure that the turnout mix is the same as it was in 2012. In other words, we have to make certain that the drop-off between 2012 and 2014 is no greater than the drop-off for Republican voters.
So what affects turnout?
In general, electoral turnout is not affected by the factors that dominate the discourse of the chattering class. For persuadable voters - voters who always vote but are often undecided in elections - the factors that affect the voters' decisions involve the candidate. Persuadable voters made their decisions based on candidate qualities like:
Is the candidate on my side?
Does the candidate have strong core values?
Do I think the candidate is a strong effective leader?
Does the candidate respect me?
Do I like or make an emotional connection with the candidate?
Is the candidate an insider or outsider?
Is the candidate self-confident?
Does the candidate have integrity?
Does the candidate have vision?
Does the candidate inspire me?
With one exception, turnout it not affected by any of these factors - or for that matter by the "issues" being used by the candidates to demonstrate that they are on the voter's side. That's because low-propensity Democratic voters would already vote for Democratic candidates if they went to the polls - the question is not how they would vote, but whether they are motivated to go to the polls.
The messages that motivate low-turnout voters are not about the candidates or issues - they are about the voters themselves.
This fall, Democrats have the ability to motivate the voters to turnout at levels adequate to replicate the 2012 turnout mix - just as they did in Virginia last year. But we need to focus 100% of our energy on motivation. That requires that we follow several important rules:
1*). Rule #1: Motivation is about emotion. * We must engage the voters' feelings - their anger, their love, their passion, their humor. You engage emotion by making things concrete and personal - not abstract or cerebral. Our messages to low-turnout voters must engage the senses. The political dialogue between now and November needs to make people hear, visualize, feel - experience - the battle.
*2). Rule #2: People are motivated (and convinced) more easily by getting them to take action than by explanation or argument*. Getting someone to take an action engages emotion and commitment to the outcome of a battle much more easily than any form of rhetoric or discussion.
Action can include any level of activity from going to a rally or meeting, to rooting for a candidate in a debate, to making a donation online. The more people have the opportunity to act, not just hear about the upcoming election, the more likely they are to vote.
Research has shown that this principle even extends to how we talk to voters about going to vote. If we ask them to tell us how and when they plan to vote, they are more likely to vote than if we just ask them if they plan to vote. That's because they begin to visualize the act of voting and begin to commit themselves to the act of voting through their own visualization of action.
If voters are asked to take the action of signing a pledge form committing them to vote - they are even more likely to cast a ballot.
*3). Rule #3: The fight's the thing.* Motivation flows from engagement in a political narrative that involves a protagonist and an antagonist. When people root for a sports team, they become invested in the team.
Democrats need to provide every opportunity to create a battle between the Rightwing's leaders and our champions. We need to force the battle - proudly and visibly. And,we need to enlist low-propensity voters to join us in the battle.
*4). Rule #4: People will be inspired to enlist in our cause, if our language focuses on values. * The fall election is not a contest of policies and programs - it needs to be about right and wrong.
*5). Rule #5: It is much easier to mobilize people to stand up and fight to defend something concrete that the other side is trying to take away, than to enlist them in a battle for some abstract future goal. *
This principle will play an important role - as it did in 2012 - among African American and other minority voters who are the targets of GOP attempts to take away their right to vote.
The same feeling that motivated people to stand in line for five hours after the election had already been called for President Obama in 2012 will likely play a big role in the coming election: "I will not allow them to steal my vote."
This feeling will have an even more palpable ring on the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer - and the campaign for voting rights that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Voters can also be motivated to go to the polls to defend their Social Security or Medicare - or to prevent their new health care benefits from being taken away - or to protect their pensions or their rights to reproductive choice or marry the person of their choice regardless of gender.
The fear of what someone may take away worked well for the Right who mobilized voters in 2010 and 2012 with its attacks on ObamaCare. But it only worked so long as the program's benefits themselves were abstract and they could stoke fear about the government "taking away" your health insurance. Now that the horror stories about ObamaCare have proven baseless (there are no "death panels"), this principle works for Democrats and Progressives as more and more people are vested in Obama Care benefits that they do not want the GOP to take away. ObamaCare can be used very effectively in the fall to mobilize low-propensity voters who have those benefits.
* 6). Rule #6: Meaning is the greatest motivator.* For most people there is nothing more important than their own meaning, significance, and dignity. That's why being "disrespected" is so powerful.
Among African American voters one of the driving forces behind turnout in the Virginia election was the feeling that they had to "have President Obama's back." That was not just because he was a President they liked - but because he is one of them--because they could not allow him to be disrespected and his work to be undone. It was not "about" President Obama. It was "about" the voters.
Respect will be especially important when it comes to the immigrant - and especially the Hispanic - vote this fall. The GOP leadership has completely disrespected the Hispanic community by failing to pass immigration reform - and by pandering to GOP leaders who regularly make disparaging racist comments about Latinos.
The immigrant community is mobilizing to ask its people to demonstrate at the polls that they cannot and will not be disrespected and cannot be ignored. But those feelings of disrespect must be coupled with another feeling as well.
*7). Rule #7: Inspiration.* The feeling someone is being disrespected - or the fear that something is being taken away cannot be left in isolation. Disrespect or fear by themselves do not mobilize - they demobilize. They must be coupled with a feeling that people can and will do something about it - by a sense of empowerment.
Inspiration is most fundamentally a feeling of empowerment. When a speaker or leader "inspires" a crowd, they are made to feel empowered to act.
This is the one quality that works both for persuasion and motivation. Persuadable voters are prone to vote for candidates that inspire them. Mobilizable voters are more prone to vote if they themselves are inspired.
*8). Rule #8: Bandwagon.* People are pack animals - they travel in packs. This is true when it comes to voter opinion. But it is even truer when it comes to whether someone believes he or she must turn out to vote.
Ordinary voters need to feel that everyone else in his/her peer groups is voting - that to be part of the group, that they need to cast their ballot, and that everyone else will; that he or she is expected to vote.
In the face of predictions of low turnout - it is critical to demonstrate to low-propensity voters that people like them will prove the pundits wrong.
In other words, we don't motivate low-propensity voters to cast ballots by wringing our hands about how few people are voting, but by making them part of an effort to show them that we will all turn out - a narrative that everyone is expected to join.
*9). Rule #9: Mechanics. * The final rule of voter mobilization is all about execution. One of the most effective motivational messages is: "I won't get off your porch until you vote."
Studies have shown that one conversation at the door within the 72 hours before an election increases likelihood to vote by 12.5% -- and a second visit, by almost as much.
In 2012 the Obama campaign refined voter turnout mechanics and targeting to a new level. The campaign's ability to target each voter, predict likelihood to vote, and determine the message best suited to motivate that voter , massively increased Obama base turnout. So did the campaign's commitment to excellence in execution.
There are now thousands of trained Democratic field personnel steeped in the Obama field culture. Many of them will manage the excellent field efforts that will be waged by the various Democratic committees and campaigns.
These field operations will provide the foundations for Democratic success this fall. They - along with earned media programs and targeted paid communications - will deliver concrete, personal messages about respect, empowerment, preventing those in power from taking away health care benefits, Social Security, Medicare, rights to reproductive choice, the right to marriage equality, and your right to vote.
They will also seek to make this election a national referendum on the question of whether we should raise the wages of ordinary Americans. The symbolic examples of raising the minimum wage, continuing unemployment benefits, making overtime fair, equal pay for equal work, and allowing employees a voice in their workplaces - all of these are very personal and motivational to many low-propensity voters.
The Romney campaign believed until election night that Democrats would fail in their efforts to turn out large numbers of average Americans. They were wrong.
I believe there is a very good chance that all the naysayers and pundits who are once again predicting a Democratic loss will be wrong again.
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com. He is a partner in Democracy Partners and a Senior Strategist for Americans United for Change. Follow him on Twitter @rbcreamer. Reported by Huffington Post 2 minutes ago.
There is no question that most midterms do in fact follow that model. The results of the disastrous 2010 midterms can be chalked up almost entirely to the fact that record numbers of Democratic voters failed to show up at the polls.
But before the pundits and ambitious Republicans get too cocky, it is important to remember that this kind of turnout differential is not at all preordained. A three to five percentage imbalance in turnout can have a massive impact on in-play elections - but it is also small enough that Democrats can do something about it.
In fact, as recently as 2013 - in a completely off-year election in Virginia, Democrats kept the turnout mix at 2012 levels. To win - as we did in Virginia - Democrats don't have to turn out the same number of voters as we did in 2012. We only have to ensure that the turnout mix is the same as it was in 2012. In other words, we have to make certain that the drop-off between 2012 and 2014 is no greater than the drop-off for Republican voters.
So what affects turnout?
In general, electoral turnout is not affected by the factors that dominate the discourse of the chattering class. For persuadable voters - voters who always vote but are often undecided in elections - the factors that affect the voters' decisions involve the candidate. Persuadable voters made their decisions based on candidate qualities like:
Is the candidate on my side?
Does the candidate have strong core values?
Do I think the candidate is a strong effective leader?
Does the candidate respect me?
Do I like or make an emotional connection with the candidate?
Is the candidate an insider or outsider?
Is the candidate self-confident?
Does the candidate have integrity?
Does the candidate have vision?
Does the candidate inspire me?
With one exception, turnout it not affected by any of these factors - or for that matter by the "issues" being used by the candidates to demonstrate that they are on the voter's side. That's because low-propensity Democratic voters would already vote for Democratic candidates if they went to the polls - the question is not how they would vote, but whether they are motivated to go to the polls.
The messages that motivate low-turnout voters are not about the candidates or issues - they are about the voters themselves.
This fall, Democrats have the ability to motivate the voters to turnout at levels adequate to replicate the 2012 turnout mix - just as they did in Virginia last year. But we need to focus 100% of our energy on motivation. That requires that we follow several important rules:
1*). Rule #1: Motivation is about emotion. * We must engage the voters' feelings - their anger, their love, their passion, their humor. You engage emotion by making things concrete and personal - not abstract or cerebral. Our messages to low-turnout voters must engage the senses. The political dialogue between now and November needs to make people hear, visualize, feel - experience - the battle.
*2). Rule #2: People are motivated (and convinced) more easily by getting them to take action than by explanation or argument*. Getting someone to take an action engages emotion and commitment to the outcome of a battle much more easily than any form of rhetoric or discussion.
Action can include any level of activity from going to a rally or meeting, to rooting for a candidate in a debate, to making a donation online. The more people have the opportunity to act, not just hear about the upcoming election, the more likely they are to vote.
Research has shown that this principle even extends to how we talk to voters about going to vote. If we ask them to tell us how and when they plan to vote, they are more likely to vote than if we just ask them if they plan to vote. That's because they begin to visualize the act of voting and begin to commit themselves to the act of voting through their own visualization of action.
If voters are asked to take the action of signing a pledge form committing them to vote - they are even more likely to cast a ballot.
*3). Rule #3: The fight's the thing.* Motivation flows from engagement in a political narrative that involves a protagonist and an antagonist. When people root for a sports team, they become invested in the team.
Democrats need to provide every opportunity to create a battle between the Rightwing's leaders and our champions. We need to force the battle - proudly and visibly. And,we need to enlist low-propensity voters to join us in the battle.
*4). Rule #4: People will be inspired to enlist in our cause, if our language focuses on values. * The fall election is not a contest of policies and programs - it needs to be about right and wrong.
*5). Rule #5: It is much easier to mobilize people to stand up and fight to defend something concrete that the other side is trying to take away, than to enlist them in a battle for some abstract future goal. *
This principle will play an important role - as it did in 2012 - among African American and other minority voters who are the targets of GOP attempts to take away their right to vote.
The same feeling that motivated people to stand in line for five hours after the election had already been called for President Obama in 2012 will likely play a big role in the coming election: "I will not allow them to steal my vote."
This feeling will have an even more palpable ring on the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer - and the campaign for voting rights that led to the passage of the Voting Rights Act in 1965.
Voters can also be motivated to go to the polls to defend their Social Security or Medicare - or to prevent their new health care benefits from being taken away - or to protect their pensions or their rights to reproductive choice or marry the person of their choice regardless of gender.
The fear of what someone may take away worked well for the Right who mobilized voters in 2010 and 2012 with its attacks on ObamaCare. But it only worked so long as the program's benefits themselves were abstract and they could stoke fear about the government "taking away" your health insurance. Now that the horror stories about ObamaCare have proven baseless (there are no "death panels"), this principle works for Democrats and Progressives as more and more people are vested in Obama Care benefits that they do not want the GOP to take away. ObamaCare can be used very effectively in the fall to mobilize low-propensity voters who have those benefits.
* 6). Rule #6: Meaning is the greatest motivator.* For most people there is nothing more important than their own meaning, significance, and dignity. That's why being "disrespected" is so powerful.
Among African American voters one of the driving forces behind turnout in the Virginia election was the feeling that they had to "have President Obama's back." That was not just because he was a President they liked - but because he is one of them--because they could not allow him to be disrespected and his work to be undone. It was not "about" President Obama. It was "about" the voters.
Respect will be especially important when it comes to the immigrant - and especially the Hispanic - vote this fall. The GOP leadership has completely disrespected the Hispanic community by failing to pass immigration reform - and by pandering to GOP leaders who regularly make disparaging racist comments about Latinos.
The immigrant community is mobilizing to ask its people to demonstrate at the polls that they cannot and will not be disrespected and cannot be ignored. But those feelings of disrespect must be coupled with another feeling as well.
*7). Rule #7: Inspiration.* The feeling someone is being disrespected - or the fear that something is being taken away cannot be left in isolation. Disrespect or fear by themselves do not mobilize - they demobilize. They must be coupled with a feeling that people can and will do something about it - by a sense of empowerment.
Inspiration is most fundamentally a feeling of empowerment. When a speaker or leader "inspires" a crowd, they are made to feel empowered to act.
This is the one quality that works both for persuasion and motivation. Persuadable voters are prone to vote for candidates that inspire them. Mobilizable voters are more prone to vote if they themselves are inspired.
*8). Rule #8: Bandwagon.* People are pack animals - they travel in packs. This is true when it comes to voter opinion. But it is even truer when it comes to whether someone believes he or she must turn out to vote.
Ordinary voters need to feel that everyone else in his/her peer groups is voting - that to be part of the group, that they need to cast their ballot, and that everyone else will; that he or she is expected to vote.
In the face of predictions of low turnout - it is critical to demonstrate to low-propensity voters that people like them will prove the pundits wrong.
In other words, we don't motivate low-propensity voters to cast ballots by wringing our hands about how few people are voting, but by making them part of an effort to show them that we will all turn out - a narrative that everyone is expected to join.
*9). Rule #9: Mechanics. * The final rule of voter mobilization is all about execution. One of the most effective motivational messages is: "I won't get off your porch until you vote."
Studies have shown that one conversation at the door within the 72 hours before an election increases likelihood to vote by 12.5% -- and a second visit, by almost as much.
In 2012 the Obama campaign refined voter turnout mechanics and targeting to a new level. The campaign's ability to target each voter, predict likelihood to vote, and determine the message best suited to motivate that voter , massively increased Obama base turnout. So did the campaign's commitment to excellence in execution.
There are now thousands of trained Democratic field personnel steeped in the Obama field culture. Many of them will manage the excellent field efforts that will be waged by the various Democratic committees and campaigns.
These field operations will provide the foundations for Democratic success this fall. They - along with earned media programs and targeted paid communications - will deliver concrete, personal messages about respect, empowerment, preventing those in power from taking away health care benefits, Social Security, Medicare, rights to reproductive choice, the right to marriage equality, and your right to vote.
They will also seek to make this election a national referendum on the question of whether we should raise the wages of ordinary Americans. The symbolic examples of raising the minimum wage, continuing unemployment benefits, making overtime fair, equal pay for equal work, and allowing employees a voice in their workplaces - all of these are very personal and motivational to many low-propensity voters.
The Romney campaign believed until election night that Democrats would fail in their efforts to turn out large numbers of average Americans. They were wrong.
I believe there is a very good chance that all the naysayers and pundits who are once again predicting a Democratic loss will be wrong again.
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the book: Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win, available on Amazon.com. He is a partner in Democracy Partners and a Senior Strategist for Americans United for Change. Follow him on Twitter @rbcreamer. Reported by Huffington Post 2 minutes ago.
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APNewsBreak: Oracle says it's not to blame
After six months of near silence about the problems at Cover Oregon, the project's main technology contractor says it's not to blame for the failed launch of Oregon's health insurance exchange.
Reported by Miami Herald 17 hours ago.
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Coming to a TV Near You: Misleading Advertising on Affordable Care Act
Now that the Affordable Care Act has exceeded its enrollment goals and reduced the number of uninsured Americans, we can have some peace and quiet. Right?
Not hardly.
Midterm elections are seven months away, but we're already seeing political ads targeting the Affordable Care Act and legislators who supported it. Americans for Prosperity, an organization that opposes the ACA, is running one such ad in a number of states, including Colorado.
Since the ACA is sure to be a central theme in many ads, it's worth examining some of the claims we are likely to hear again and again leading up to Election Day. (On the Americans for Prosperity ad, KUSA-Channel 9 News has an interesting fact-check and analysis -- click here to see it.)
*Claim: Americans don't like the ACA*
Yes, if you read only the bottom-line poll numbers, it would appear that a plurality of Americans (46 percent) has an unfavorable view of the law.
But those numbers are changing. According to tracking polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the number of Americans with a favorable opinion about the ACA increased from 34 percent in January to 38 percent in March, and those with an unfavorable opinion dropped from 50 percent in January to 46 percent in March.
And opposition does not mean that Americans are in favor of repealing or replacing the ACA. The number of Americans who want to keep and/or fix the law has increased from 55 percent in January to 59 percent in March. Only 11 percent of Americans want the law to be replaced with a Republican alternative, while 18 percent want to repeal the law without a replacement.
It's also interesting that opposition to the ACA doesn't appear to be connected to whether people have been adversely affected by the law, as opponents claim. In fact, 71 percent said they had not been impacted (54 percent) or had benefited (17 percent). Only 29 percent said they had been negatively affected.
In assessing attitudes about the ACA, it is important to look at the percentage of favorable opinions about some of the law's most important provisions:
• 79 percent of Americans (and 73 percent of Republicans) support closing the Medicare Part D donut hole.
• 77 percent of Americans (and 65 percent of Republicans) support subsidy assistance to individuals.
• 77 percent of Americans (and 75 percent of Republicans) support no out-of-pocket-cost preventive services.
• 74 percent of Americans (and 62 percent of Republicans) support the expansion of Medicaid.
• 70 percent of Americans (and 69 percent of Republicans) support the guaranteed issue of insurance coverage.
• 57 percent of Americans (and 36 percent of Republicans) support the employer mandate/penalty.
At this point, this is probably the most telling poll number: More than half of all Americans (53 percent) say they are tired of the debate over the ACA and want the country to focus on other issues; 42 percent want the debate to continue.
*
Claim: People are now uninsured because their plansare being canceled*
Many Americans received notices that their insurance plans would not be renewed in 2014. In most cases, policies were not renewed because they did not meet ACA coverage requirements. Opponents characterized "non-renewal notices" as "cancellation notices."
In fact, because of the health care law, insurance companies can no longer cancel coverage outright and leave a person or family uninsured. Insurance companies must now offer alternative coverage, and many Americans have chosen to enroll in new and more comprehensive plans. Others have chosen to purchase coverage through the health insurance marketplaces. For many, that coverage was more affordable due to the tax credits and subsidies.
It's also important to remember that, long before the ACA, companies routinely discontinued individual insurance plans. A study tracking coverage in the individual insurance market from 1996 to 2000 found that only 17 percent of people kept their coverage for more than two years. In fact, the median length of coverage was eight months.
Before the ACA, individual insurance plans often limited the benefits they offered, imposed annual and lifetime spending caps and increased out-of-pocket costs for policyholders in order to keep premiums and claims low. Under the ACA, insurance companies can no longer offer low-quality, limited-benefit plans, impose cost caps or drop coverage because of health status.
Policy non-renewals/cancellations may also be less widespread than some opponents claim. A study released last week by the Rand Corp. estimates that fewer than 1 million people whose plans were not renewed lost insurance or could not replace it. The same study estimates that 9.3 million Americans gained coverage.
*
Claim: Under the ACA, you won't be able to keep your doctor*
The ACA says nothing about patients and their doctors. There are no provisions in the law that require a person to pick a new doctor, force doctors to keep patients or force an insurance company to keep or add doctors to a provider network.
Those decisions have always been a matter between insurance companies and doctors. Insurance companies frequently make changes to provider networks in order to keep down costs, increase profits or improve service. Those decisions are made as insurance companies manage costs.
Also, doctors and other providers may change networks in order to improve their reimbursement rates or services. Doctors are also free to decide whether they will continue to see Medicare patients or expand the number of Medicare patients that they currently treat.
*Claim: Medicare will be severely cut under the ACA*
Under the law, traditional Medicare benefits cannot be reduced and Medicare premiums and co-pays cannot be increased to pay for ACA reforms. Rather, under the new law, Medicare beneficiaries can now receive a number of preventative services without out-of-pocket costs, and the Medicare Part D donut hole will be closed by the year 2020.
The government will continue to spend a significant percentage of the federal budget on Medicare. What the ACA does is reduce the projected growth in Medicare spending by about $716 billion between 2013 and 2022. That spending reduction will focus on reimbursements to hospitals, insurance companies that offer Medicare Advantage plans, nursing homes and home-health-service providers.
As a result, Medicare's solvency has been extended from 2016 to 2026. This may explain why budget proposals passed repeatedly by the U.S. House of Representatives leave those reductions entirely in place. None of the Republican alternatives to the ACA scales back these reductions.
*
Claim: Under the ACA you pay more and you get less*
Before we blame the ACA for all future premium increases, it's important to point out that insurance premiums have increased every year in recent American history. And the real culprit is not the ACA but the growth in health care costs. Thanks to the cost of health care, between 1999 and 2009, overall health insurance premiums grew by 131 percent. However, premiums are expected to increase at a slower rate under the ACA than if the law were repealed, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
MIT economist Dr. Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of the Massachusetts health care reform effort, has stated that approximately one-half of Americans in the individual insurance market will pay more because their previous plans are no longer compliant with the ACA benefits provisions. The remainder should see no significant rate increase. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that about 11 million people who have coverage through a small employer may see an increase, while 6 million people in that market may see a reduction.
The drafters of the Affordable Care Act anticipated many of these rate increases and implemented subsidies for people with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. The drafters also created caps on out-of-pocket costs.
As for "getting less," that's what many Americans got previously, when many policies offered limited benefits and had holes in coverage that could wreck a family. Under the ACA, all policies must cover "10 essential benefits." Should people face a serious health issue, the likelihood of severe financial damage or outright bankruptcy will be far less likely than under the old health insurance policies previously sold in the U.S.
But what may be most important is that millions of uninsured Americans now have access to coverage. According to a Gallup poll released this month, the number of uninsured Americans is lower than it has been in six years, dropping from an all-time high of 18 percent in 2013 to 14.5 percent at the end of March.
The bottom line is that, as stated in the Rand Corp. study, 9.3 million Americans gained insurance from last September through mid-March -- and that doesn't count the surge at the end of the month.
That's a number you won't be hearing in opposition ads. Reported by Huffington Post 16 hours ago.
Not hardly.
Midterm elections are seven months away, but we're already seeing political ads targeting the Affordable Care Act and legislators who supported it. Americans for Prosperity, an organization that opposes the ACA, is running one such ad in a number of states, including Colorado.
Since the ACA is sure to be a central theme in many ads, it's worth examining some of the claims we are likely to hear again and again leading up to Election Day. (On the Americans for Prosperity ad, KUSA-Channel 9 News has an interesting fact-check and analysis -- click here to see it.)
*Claim: Americans don't like the ACA*
Yes, if you read only the bottom-line poll numbers, it would appear that a plurality of Americans (46 percent) has an unfavorable view of the law.
But those numbers are changing. According to tracking polls by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the number of Americans with a favorable opinion about the ACA increased from 34 percent in January to 38 percent in March, and those with an unfavorable opinion dropped from 50 percent in January to 46 percent in March.
And opposition does not mean that Americans are in favor of repealing or replacing the ACA. The number of Americans who want to keep and/or fix the law has increased from 55 percent in January to 59 percent in March. Only 11 percent of Americans want the law to be replaced with a Republican alternative, while 18 percent want to repeal the law without a replacement.
It's also interesting that opposition to the ACA doesn't appear to be connected to whether people have been adversely affected by the law, as opponents claim. In fact, 71 percent said they had not been impacted (54 percent) or had benefited (17 percent). Only 29 percent said they had been negatively affected.
In assessing attitudes about the ACA, it is important to look at the percentage of favorable opinions about some of the law's most important provisions:
• 79 percent of Americans (and 73 percent of Republicans) support closing the Medicare Part D donut hole.
• 77 percent of Americans (and 65 percent of Republicans) support subsidy assistance to individuals.
• 77 percent of Americans (and 75 percent of Republicans) support no out-of-pocket-cost preventive services.
• 74 percent of Americans (and 62 percent of Republicans) support the expansion of Medicaid.
• 70 percent of Americans (and 69 percent of Republicans) support the guaranteed issue of insurance coverage.
• 57 percent of Americans (and 36 percent of Republicans) support the employer mandate/penalty.
At this point, this is probably the most telling poll number: More than half of all Americans (53 percent) say they are tired of the debate over the ACA and want the country to focus on other issues; 42 percent want the debate to continue.
*
Claim: People are now uninsured because their plansare being canceled*
Many Americans received notices that their insurance plans would not be renewed in 2014. In most cases, policies were not renewed because they did not meet ACA coverage requirements. Opponents characterized "non-renewal notices" as "cancellation notices."
In fact, because of the health care law, insurance companies can no longer cancel coverage outright and leave a person or family uninsured. Insurance companies must now offer alternative coverage, and many Americans have chosen to enroll in new and more comprehensive plans. Others have chosen to purchase coverage through the health insurance marketplaces. For many, that coverage was more affordable due to the tax credits and subsidies.
It's also important to remember that, long before the ACA, companies routinely discontinued individual insurance plans. A study tracking coverage in the individual insurance market from 1996 to 2000 found that only 17 percent of people kept their coverage for more than two years. In fact, the median length of coverage was eight months.
Before the ACA, individual insurance plans often limited the benefits they offered, imposed annual and lifetime spending caps and increased out-of-pocket costs for policyholders in order to keep premiums and claims low. Under the ACA, insurance companies can no longer offer low-quality, limited-benefit plans, impose cost caps or drop coverage because of health status.
Policy non-renewals/cancellations may also be less widespread than some opponents claim. A study released last week by the Rand Corp. estimates that fewer than 1 million people whose plans were not renewed lost insurance or could not replace it. The same study estimates that 9.3 million Americans gained coverage.
*
Claim: Under the ACA, you won't be able to keep your doctor*
The ACA says nothing about patients and their doctors. There are no provisions in the law that require a person to pick a new doctor, force doctors to keep patients or force an insurance company to keep or add doctors to a provider network.
Those decisions have always been a matter between insurance companies and doctors. Insurance companies frequently make changes to provider networks in order to keep down costs, increase profits or improve service. Those decisions are made as insurance companies manage costs.
Also, doctors and other providers may change networks in order to improve their reimbursement rates or services. Doctors are also free to decide whether they will continue to see Medicare patients or expand the number of Medicare patients that they currently treat.
*Claim: Medicare will be severely cut under the ACA*
Under the law, traditional Medicare benefits cannot be reduced and Medicare premiums and co-pays cannot be increased to pay for ACA reforms. Rather, under the new law, Medicare beneficiaries can now receive a number of preventative services without out-of-pocket costs, and the Medicare Part D donut hole will be closed by the year 2020.
The government will continue to spend a significant percentage of the federal budget on Medicare. What the ACA does is reduce the projected growth in Medicare spending by about $716 billion between 2013 and 2022. That spending reduction will focus on reimbursements to hospitals, insurance companies that offer Medicare Advantage plans, nursing homes and home-health-service providers.
As a result, Medicare's solvency has been extended from 2016 to 2026. This may explain why budget proposals passed repeatedly by the U.S. House of Representatives leave those reductions entirely in place. None of the Republican alternatives to the ACA scales back these reductions.
*
Claim: Under the ACA you pay more and you get less*
Before we blame the ACA for all future premium increases, it's important to point out that insurance premiums have increased every year in recent American history. And the real culprit is not the ACA but the growth in health care costs. Thanks to the cost of health care, between 1999 and 2009, overall health insurance premiums grew by 131 percent. However, premiums are expected to increase at a slower rate under the ACA than if the law were repealed, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
MIT economist Dr. Jonathan Gruber, one of the architects of the Massachusetts health care reform effort, has stated that approximately one-half of Americans in the individual insurance market will pay more because their previous plans are no longer compliant with the ACA benefits provisions. The remainder should see no significant rate increase. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services estimates that about 11 million people who have coverage through a small employer may see an increase, while 6 million people in that market may see a reduction.
The drafters of the Affordable Care Act anticipated many of these rate increases and implemented subsidies for people with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. The drafters also created caps on out-of-pocket costs.
As for "getting less," that's what many Americans got previously, when many policies offered limited benefits and had holes in coverage that could wreck a family. Under the ACA, all policies must cover "10 essential benefits." Should people face a serious health issue, the likelihood of severe financial damage or outright bankruptcy will be far less likely than under the old health insurance policies previously sold in the U.S.
But what may be most important is that millions of uninsured Americans now have access to coverage. According to a Gallup poll released this month, the number of uninsured Americans is lower than it has been in six years, dropping from an all-time high of 18 percent in 2013 to 14.5 percent at the end of March.
The bottom line is that, as stated in the Rand Corp. study, 9.3 million Americans gained insurance from last September through mid-March -- and that doesn't count the surge at the end of the month.
That's a number you won't be hearing in opposition ads. Reported by Huffington Post 16 hours ago.
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Census Bureau: Question changes make it easier to assess health insurance law
The director of the Census Bureau said he is confident that new changes in the wording of survey questions on health insurance will not diminish its ability to measure the impact of the Affordable Care Act.
Reported by Washington Post 16 hours ago.
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Obamacare Helped Up To 10 Million Get Insurance, Gallup Finds
Obamacare has helped as many as 9.9 million people to get new health insurance, and more than 4 percent of all Americans have gotten health insurance for the first time, according to a new Gallup poll.
Reported by msnbc.com 16 hours ago.
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Ted Cruz Endorses T.W. Shannon, to Join Sarah Palin, Mike Lee at OK Liberty Rally
Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) endorsed conservative Oklahoma Senate candidate T.W. Shannon on Wednesday and will join former Alaska Governor Sarah Palin and Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) at a "Liberty Rally" for him on April 24 in Tulsa, Oklahoma.“T.W. Shannon is a strong Constitutional conservative who will fight for individual liberty and help turn our country around,” Cruz said of his first endorsement of an open Senate seat in the 2014 midterm cycle. “T.W. embodies the American dream. I’m proud to offer T.W. my enthusiastic endorsement because not only will he vote the right way, but he’ll stand up and fight with us in the Senate to stop President Obama’s assault on our liberties and defend America’s founding principles.”
Shannon, considered the most conservative House Speaker in the history of the country's reddest state, closed a 35-point deficit in the polls to single digits in a poll taken days after Palin's endorsement. The Senate Conservatives Fund and Mark Levin have since endorsed him along with Lee over Rep. James Lankford (R-OK), who has been accused of being cozy with the Republican leadership in Congress, in the race to replace retiring Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK).
“One of the things I keep hearing as I travel the state is that my fellow Oklahomans feel like their personal freedoms are under assault,” Shannon said. “Whether it’s the government mandating health insurance we don't want, or invading our privacy, or forcing people to violate their conscience by providing abortion drugs – Oklahomans now fear their own government is taking away their liberty."
This is not the first time Palin, who will be in Iowa the week before for Senate candidate Joni Ernst, has teamed with Messrs. Cruz and Lee. She joined Cruz and Lee as they gathered with veterans from across the country to protest the Obama administration's barricading of the war memorials during the so-called government shutdown last year. Palin also gave Cruz plenty of air cover as he fought to defund Obamacare before it would be implemented and said Cruz and Lee, who was the architect of the defunding strategy, flushed out politicians who spoke one way to their constituents only to vote for the status quo in D.C.
Palin has implied that Shannon would go to Washington and be more like Cruz and Lee than the more establishment politicians, and Shannon has indicated the same, saying in numerous interviews that he is tired of politicians who just want to go to Washington and manage America's decline instead of pushing for conservative policies to get America back on track.
The Liberty Rally will take place at the Green Country Event Center, which is located at 12000 E. 31st St. in Tulsa, at 6 PM and is free and open to the public. The Shannon campaign also recently released an ad featuring Shannon's wife, who speaks about how Shannon helped her find Jesus Christ and stood by her while she was battling breast cancer. Reported by Breitbart 15 hours ago.
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Zane Benefits Publishes New Information on Must-Knows About the Affordable Care Act
“Must-Knows” for CPAs and Tax Professionals
Park City, UT (PRWEB) April 16, 2014
Today, Zane Benefits, the #1 Online Health Benefits Solution, published new information on the Affordable Care Act “Must-Knows” for CPAs and Tax Professionals.
According to Zane Benefits’ website, as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduces new taxes and tax credits, businesses and individuals are turning to CPAs and tax professionals to understand health insurance decisions.
Zane Benefits’ website says that this shift requires CPAs, tax advisers, and accountants to be experts on the key provisions of health care reform. Tax professionals are becoming a new "go-to" person for health insurance decisions.
The primary shift in the role of the CPA and tax professional will center on assisting business clients in determining a number of things.
Click here to read the full article.
--
About Zane Benefits
Zane Benefits, the #1 Online Health Benefits Solution, was founded in 2006 to revolutionize the way employers provide employee health benefits in America. We empower employees to take control over their own healthcare, while helping employers recruit and retain the best talent. Our online solutions allow small and medium-sized businesses to successfully transition to a health benefits program that creates happier employees, reduces costs and frees up more time to serve their customers. For more information about ZaneHealth, visit http://www.zanebenefits.com. Reported by PRWeb 15 hours ago.
Park City, UT (PRWEB) April 16, 2014
Today, Zane Benefits, the #1 Online Health Benefits Solution, published new information on the Affordable Care Act “Must-Knows” for CPAs and Tax Professionals.
According to Zane Benefits’ website, as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduces new taxes and tax credits, businesses and individuals are turning to CPAs and tax professionals to understand health insurance decisions.
Zane Benefits’ website says that this shift requires CPAs, tax advisers, and accountants to be experts on the key provisions of health care reform. Tax professionals are becoming a new "go-to" person for health insurance decisions.
The primary shift in the role of the CPA and tax professional will center on assisting business clients in determining a number of things.
Click here to read the full article.
--
About Zane Benefits
Zane Benefits, the #1 Online Health Benefits Solution, was founded in 2006 to revolutionize the way employers provide employee health benefits in America. We empower employees to take control over their own healthcare, while helping employers recruit and retain the best talent. Our online solutions allow small and medium-sized businesses to successfully transition to a health benefits program that creates happier employees, reduces costs and frees up more time to serve their customers. For more information about ZaneHealth, visit http://www.zanebenefits.com. Reported by PRWeb 15 hours ago.
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960,000 Enrolled For Health Insurance Before Deadline In N.Y. State
The New York State Health Exchange said Wednesday that more than 960,000 New Yorkers have enrolled for insurance coverage by the final deadline the day before.
Reported by CBS 2 15 hours ago.
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GOP "Sadism": Blunt Talk with Alan Grayson About a Young Mother's Death
Why did Florida's Republicans let a hard-working young mother of three die rather than accept Federal funding which would've provided her with health insurance?
"Sadism."
According to Rep. Alan Grayson, that - along with extreme ideology and a certain amount of political expediency - explains why Gov. Florida Gov. Rick Scott, along with a number of his fellow Republican governors, refused to accept ACA funding to expand Medicaid coverage.
"How (else) can you explain it?" asked Grayson in our recent broadcast interview. "Republicans have been blinded by their own ideology."
"Every single member of the State Legislature in Florida has healthcare - every single one of them - and yet they voted to deny that health coverage to almost a million other people."
As Grayson points out in this clip, they also voted to deprive Florida's economy of billions of dollars in federal funding. And now Charlene Dill is dead.
*Deadly Ideology*
A Harvard study estimates that 8 million people will remain uninsured as a result of this action by 25 governors. The study estimates that this will lead to more than seven thousand unnecessary deaths per year, a rate of roughly 19 people each day. That includes 1,158 deaths per year - or more than three every day - in the state of Florida as the result of Gov. Scott's actions.
That grim figure is made even harder to swallow because, as Grayson explains here, Gov. Rick Scott made an enormous sum of money from the Medicare fraud committed by his corporation while he was CEO. And, as Grayson explains, Scott continues to make decisions as governor which benefit that corporation.
Some of us feel that the Affordable Care Act's should have provided a public option or some other form of government-sponsored universal coverage, that it depended too much on for-profit health insurers, and that a transition to Medicare for All should have been its ultimate goal.
But it is certainly possible to hold those views and still recognize that Medicaid expansion provides enormous social value - or, to put it more simply, that it can save many lives. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, two of the Harvard study's co-authors, are physicians who have been prominent critics of the ACA from the left. They nevertheless recognize that there will be a tragic human cost for failing to implement this part of the bill.
A young woman in Florida has already paid it. We discussed her life and death in this extended segment of an in-depth interview with Rep. Grayson.
*The Shameful Death of Charlene Dill*
Charlene Dill was everything conservatives claim to admire and support. She was a 32-year-old mother of three who was working three jobs in order to build a better life for herself and her three children. (We discussed her life, and the Republican attitude toward it, here.)
Charlene Dill knew she had a potentially fatal heart condition, but she couldn't afford health insurance. Charlene made $11,000 last year, which disqualified her from standard Medicaid eligibility. She was, however, eligible for coverage under the ACA Medicaid expansion program.
Unfortunately Gov. Rick Scott, like a number of other GOP governors, refused to accept the funds on ideological grounds - and for reasons of partisan political advantage. If he and his GOP colleagues hadn't done that, Charlene Dill would almost certainly still be alive today.
I interviewed Charlene Dill's Congressman, Rep. Alan Grayson (D), on The Zero Hour and asked what kind of political psychology allows Republicans like Rick Scott to deny Federal funds which could save lives like hers.
"One rationale is sadism," said Grayson. "Some people out there might actually enjoy the fact that people are denied the care they need to stay healthy and alive."
But how can they live with themselves?
"I suppose their ideology instructs them that if you can't afford health insurance you shouldn't get it."
*Fifty Shades of Red*
Grayson's characterization may seem extreme. But, as Grayson reminded us during the interview, attendees at a Republican presidential debate repeatedly cheered the idea of letting the uninsured die back in 2011. Today, with their treatment of Medicaid expansion funds, Red State Republicans seem strikingly cavalier about inflicting suffering and even death upon their own constituents.
Sadism may sell a lot of books and movie tickets, but it's a frightening ideology. As Grayson set of Republicans like Rick Scott, "They're willing to put up with any sort of pain - as long as it's someone else's."
Conservatives insist every poor person should get a job - then they punish them for it. They demand that poor people pull themselves up by their bootstraps, then make them pay for it - perhaps with their lives - when they try.
Sometimes tragedies need a public face in order for their full impact to be felt. The next time a Republican politician talks about the noble and inspiring model of a self-sacrificing mother or father - or tries to say they have a better vision for America's future - Americans should remember Charlene Dill.
The Zero Hour
Campaign for America's Future Reported by Huffington Post 15 hours ago.
"Sadism."
According to Rep. Alan Grayson, that - along with extreme ideology and a certain amount of political expediency - explains why Gov. Florida Gov. Rick Scott, along with a number of his fellow Republican governors, refused to accept ACA funding to expand Medicaid coverage.
"How (else) can you explain it?" asked Grayson in our recent broadcast interview. "Republicans have been blinded by their own ideology."
"Every single member of the State Legislature in Florida has healthcare - every single one of them - and yet they voted to deny that health coverage to almost a million other people."
As Grayson points out in this clip, they also voted to deprive Florida's economy of billions of dollars in federal funding. And now Charlene Dill is dead.
*Deadly Ideology*
A Harvard study estimates that 8 million people will remain uninsured as a result of this action by 25 governors. The study estimates that this will lead to more than seven thousand unnecessary deaths per year, a rate of roughly 19 people each day. That includes 1,158 deaths per year - or more than three every day - in the state of Florida as the result of Gov. Scott's actions.
That grim figure is made even harder to swallow because, as Grayson explains here, Gov. Rick Scott made an enormous sum of money from the Medicare fraud committed by his corporation while he was CEO. And, as Grayson explains, Scott continues to make decisions as governor which benefit that corporation.
Some of us feel that the Affordable Care Act's should have provided a public option or some other form of government-sponsored universal coverage, that it depended too much on for-profit health insurers, and that a transition to Medicare for All should have been its ultimate goal.
But it is certainly possible to hold those views and still recognize that Medicaid expansion provides enormous social value - or, to put it more simply, that it can save many lives. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler, two of the Harvard study's co-authors, are physicians who have been prominent critics of the ACA from the left. They nevertheless recognize that there will be a tragic human cost for failing to implement this part of the bill.
A young woman in Florida has already paid it. We discussed her life and death in this extended segment of an in-depth interview with Rep. Grayson.
*The Shameful Death of Charlene Dill*
Charlene Dill was everything conservatives claim to admire and support. She was a 32-year-old mother of three who was working three jobs in order to build a better life for herself and her three children. (We discussed her life, and the Republican attitude toward it, here.)
Charlene Dill knew she had a potentially fatal heart condition, but she couldn't afford health insurance. Charlene made $11,000 last year, which disqualified her from standard Medicaid eligibility. She was, however, eligible for coverage under the ACA Medicaid expansion program.
Unfortunately Gov. Rick Scott, like a number of other GOP governors, refused to accept the funds on ideological grounds - and for reasons of partisan political advantage. If he and his GOP colleagues hadn't done that, Charlene Dill would almost certainly still be alive today.
I interviewed Charlene Dill's Congressman, Rep. Alan Grayson (D), on The Zero Hour and asked what kind of political psychology allows Republicans like Rick Scott to deny Federal funds which could save lives like hers.
"One rationale is sadism," said Grayson. "Some people out there might actually enjoy the fact that people are denied the care they need to stay healthy and alive."
But how can they live with themselves?
"I suppose their ideology instructs them that if you can't afford health insurance you shouldn't get it."
*Fifty Shades of Red*
Grayson's characterization may seem extreme. But, as Grayson reminded us during the interview, attendees at a Republican presidential debate repeatedly cheered the idea of letting the uninsured die back in 2011. Today, with their treatment of Medicaid expansion funds, Red State Republicans seem strikingly cavalier about inflicting suffering and even death upon their own constituents.
Sadism may sell a lot of books and movie tickets, but it's a frightening ideology. As Grayson set of Republicans like Rick Scott, "They're willing to put up with any sort of pain - as long as it's someone else's."
Conservatives insist every poor person should get a job - then they punish them for it. They demand that poor people pull themselves up by their bootstraps, then make them pay for it - perhaps with their lives - when they try.
Sometimes tragedies need a public face in order for their full impact to be felt. The next time a Republican politician talks about the noble and inspiring model of a self-sacrificing mother or father - or tries to say they have a better vision for America's future - Americans should remember Charlene Dill.
The Zero Hour
Campaign for America's Future Reported by Huffington Post 15 hours ago.
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Obama Lied About Obamacare, Now Wants Political Lying To Be Legal
SUMMARY:*Obamacare fails to come close to meeting candidate Obama's promises:**Mr. Obama never even tried to fulfill on them; he was opposed to them.**Obama now openly supports legalizing lying during political campaigns.*
A Gallup poll published on April 16th finds that about five out of every six Americans who had no health insurance before Obamacare, still do not have health insurance. This finding, of about 85% of the uninsureds remaining uninsured under Obamacare, is actually better, not worse, than the CBO's projections; so it cannot be any surprise to Obama.At the time when President Obama was merely Senator Obama running to win the White House, there were 46 million healthcare uninsureds. During his Presidential campaign, he promised to eliminate 100% of that number of uninsureds: He said that he would be "making health insurance universal." Once he won the White House and was starting his Presidency, he was promising to cut 31 million off that number, which still would bring it down 67%. But instead, the health insurance plan that he initiated and signed into law has brought this number down only around 16%, and though the impact of the despicable and largely even racist Republican intransigence against Obama has accounted for a portion of that failure, the vast majority of this shortfall in the drop in the size of the uninsured population is due entirely to Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, itself. Whereas in states that had Republican control and where Obamacare's Medicaid expansion was rejected by the state's governor, the decline in uninsureds was only around 4%; the states that had Democratic control and where the governor accepted the Medicaid expansion experienced a decline in uninsureds of around 16% (which though much better was still far short of President Obama's promised 67% decline, or of candidate Obama's promised decline of 100% on which he had won the White House); so, even in the states that didn't do anything to block Obamacare, the decline in uninsureds fell far short of Obama's promised 67% decline in that number, when Obama first entered the White House.At all periods throughout his campaign and subsequent Presidency, Obama was lying about the plan that he would propose to Congress, and about the plan that he would enact into law. Even his initial bargaining position with congressional Republicans started without including some important things that he had been campaigning on as promises to the American people, such as universal coverage, and such as universal availability of a public insurance option in the healthcare exchanges. Furthermore, his campaign language regarding the "public option" was cagily phrased so that after the earliest phase of his Democratic primary campaign against Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, it became essentially meaningless to anyone who examined it carefully: things like that were lies from him even very early on, and he contradicted himself on them when challenged on them by the few reporters who tried to dig beneath the surface.This Gallup poll on 16 April 2014 headlines "Uninsured Rate Drops More in States Embracing Health Law," and it reports that in Republican-controlled states, the "% Uninsured, 2013" was 18.7%, and that it went down by only 0.8% to 17.9%. (That 0.8% decline from the base figure of 18.7% constitutes the roughly 4% decline I referred to at the start. The exact percentage there is 4.278%.) It also reports that the experience in Democratic-controlled states was that their "% Uninsured, 2013" was 16.1%, and that it went down by 2.5% to 13.6%. (That 2.5% decline from the base figure of 16.1% constitutes the roughly 16% decline I referred to at the start. The exact percentage there is 15.528%.) Thus, though Republican governors tried to keep as many of the uninsureds from being insured as possible, they weren't able to block completely a decline in uninsureds. Meanwhile, Democratic governors, almost all of whom did everything that they could to help bring down the number of uninsureds by getting signups to Obamacare and new enrollees to Medicaid, were able to reduce the number of uninsureds only down from an initial 16.1%, to 13.6% after the law was fully in force in their states.Regarding the public option, or inclusion of an option for each American to choose a government-run insurance plan, that lie from Obama was rather fully documented by an anonymous blogger who headlined on 22 December 2009, "President Obama: 'I Didn't Campaign on the Public Option'," where that lie from Obama was soundly and repeatedly exposed as being nothing but a lie. That blog post had been precipitated by an interview with Obama that had just been published in the Washington Post, headlining innocuously, "Obama Rejects Criticism on Health-Care Reform Legislation," where the reporter wrote "'I didn't campaign on the public option,' Obama said in the interview." If that report wasn't itself a lie, then the President's assertion certainly was. While it's true that Obama never even tried to get John Boehner or other Republicans to allow into the law a public option that the private insurance industry didn't want to be included in the law, and that he accepted their opposition to that, right up front at the beginning of his "negotiations" on the matter, instead of using it even as just a bargaining chip with them; he did, actually, and repeatedly, campaign on the public option; he simply and boldly lied there. The public option was something that was overwhelmingly popular among the American public (which is the reason why he had campaigned on it), but that he had no intention of actually delivering on. (Most polls showed support for the public option ranging from half to three-quarters of the American public who had an opinion on the matter. The health insurance companies didn't want it to be included; so, he didn't want it, either. It's one of the main reasons why he chose the conservative Max Baucus, instead of the liberal Ted Kennedy, to draft Obamacare.)One of the crucial unlinked-to sources in the lengthy blog post "President Obama: 'I Didn't Campaign on the Public Option'," was an Obama campaign document that (like virtually all of them) was soon removed from the Web because these promises by Obama were intended to be broken not fulfilled, and this document included the following statement, as copied here into a blog post dated 30 May 2007, from very early in Obama's primary campaign against Hillary Clinton and John Edwards:"Through the Exchange, any American will have the opportunity to enroll in the new public plan or purchase an approved private plan."That blog post from May 2007 opens by saying, "Senator Obama's long-anticipated healthcare plan has finally been released." The link provided there, to the then-Senator Obama's just-released plan, produces only a blank now, presumably because Obama doesn't want historians to have such an easy time tracking down the lies he had made while he was running for office. Of course, if he should subsequently decide that he doesn't any longer want to impede the ability of historians to nail down the frauds he made against the voting public, then one way for him to repent of them (if he even has a conscience at all) would be for him to place back up onto the Web the documents, such as that one, that expose his fraudulence. Of course, unless the United States descends into total dictatorship such as in Russia or other countries that never were democracies to begin with, historians will ultimately come to recognize, anyway, that Barack Obama lied about many things, some of which were crucial. Presumably, he is merely trying to delay -- not to prevent -- this historical recognition.Also on April 16th, the AP headlines, "Court to Weigh Challenge to Ban on Campaign Lies," and reports that the Obama Administration is set to argue, before the U.S. Supreme Court, next week, that an Ohio law against lies in political campaigns should be overturned, because it supposedly violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and that any "credible threat of prosecution" for political lies would chill, instead of protect, "the very type of speech to which the First Amendment has its fullest and most urgent application." This news report asserts that "Groups across the political spectrum are criticizing the law as a restriction on the First Amendment right to free speech," and that P.J. O'Rourke, of the Republican Koch brothers' Cato Institute, was even "ridiculing the law and defending political smear tactics as a cornerstone of American democracy." So, President Obama is clearly with the Republican Party on that one.Making light of political lies, or else asserting seriously that they're a "free speech right" protected in our Constitution, reflects hardcore rule by the aristocracy, against even the hope that American democracy will even be able to function going forward. President Obama is with the aristocrats on that. The President of "Hope" thus joins with the Republican Party against any hope for democracy in this country. The First Amendment is being converted into a dagger, being plunged into the heart of democracy itself.This isn't to say that President Obama is necessarily the worst President the U.S. has ever had -- George W. Bush, Warren Harding, and a few others might have been even worse. But he's competing hard against James Buchanan, the most conservative and worst Democrat before Obama ever to have held the U.S. Presidency. Anyway, he's in the running; and decisions such as the Keystone XL Pipeline are yet to be made that will decide the matter with finality.----------Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity. Reported by Huffington Post 14 hours ago.
A Gallup poll published on April 16th finds that about five out of every six Americans who had no health insurance before Obamacare, still do not have health insurance. This finding, of about 85% of the uninsureds remaining uninsured under Obamacare, is actually better, not worse, than the CBO's projections; so it cannot be any surprise to Obama.At the time when President Obama was merely Senator Obama running to win the White House, there were 46 million healthcare uninsureds. During his Presidential campaign, he promised to eliminate 100% of that number of uninsureds: He said that he would be "making health insurance universal." Once he won the White House and was starting his Presidency, he was promising to cut 31 million off that number, which still would bring it down 67%. But instead, the health insurance plan that he initiated and signed into law has brought this number down only around 16%, and though the impact of the despicable and largely even racist Republican intransigence against Obama has accounted for a portion of that failure, the vast majority of this shortfall in the drop in the size of the uninsured population is due entirely to Obamacare, the Affordable Care Act, itself. Whereas in states that had Republican control and where Obamacare's Medicaid expansion was rejected by the state's governor, the decline in uninsureds was only around 4%; the states that had Democratic control and where the governor accepted the Medicaid expansion experienced a decline in uninsureds of around 16% (which though much better was still far short of President Obama's promised 67% decline, or of candidate Obama's promised decline of 100% on which he had won the White House); so, even in the states that didn't do anything to block Obamacare, the decline in uninsureds fell far short of Obama's promised 67% decline in that number, when Obama first entered the White House.At all periods throughout his campaign and subsequent Presidency, Obama was lying about the plan that he would propose to Congress, and about the plan that he would enact into law. Even his initial bargaining position with congressional Republicans started without including some important things that he had been campaigning on as promises to the American people, such as universal coverage, and such as universal availability of a public insurance option in the healthcare exchanges. Furthermore, his campaign language regarding the "public option" was cagily phrased so that after the earliest phase of his Democratic primary campaign against Hillary Clinton and John Edwards, it became essentially meaningless to anyone who examined it carefully: things like that were lies from him even very early on, and he contradicted himself on them when challenged on them by the few reporters who tried to dig beneath the surface.This Gallup poll on 16 April 2014 headlines "Uninsured Rate Drops More in States Embracing Health Law," and it reports that in Republican-controlled states, the "% Uninsured, 2013" was 18.7%, and that it went down by only 0.8% to 17.9%. (That 0.8% decline from the base figure of 18.7% constitutes the roughly 4% decline I referred to at the start. The exact percentage there is 4.278%.) It also reports that the experience in Democratic-controlled states was that their "% Uninsured, 2013" was 16.1%, and that it went down by 2.5% to 13.6%. (That 2.5% decline from the base figure of 16.1% constitutes the roughly 16% decline I referred to at the start. The exact percentage there is 15.528%.) Thus, though Republican governors tried to keep as many of the uninsureds from being insured as possible, they weren't able to block completely a decline in uninsureds. Meanwhile, Democratic governors, almost all of whom did everything that they could to help bring down the number of uninsureds by getting signups to Obamacare and new enrollees to Medicaid, were able to reduce the number of uninsureds only down from an initial 16.1%, to 13.6% after the law was fully in force in their states.Regarding the public option, or inclusion of an option for each American to choose a government-run insurance plan, that lie from Obama was rather fully documented by an anonymous blogger who headlined on 22 December 2009, "President Obama: 'I Didn't Campaign on the Public Option'," where that lie from Obama was soundly and repeatedly exposed as being nothing but a lie. That blog post had been precipitated by an interview with Obama that had just been published in the Washington Post, headlining innocuously, "Obama Rejects Criticism on Health-Care Reform Legislation," where the reporter wrote "'I didn't campaign on the public option,' Obama said in the interview." If that report wasn't itself a lie, then the President's assertion certainly was. While it's true that Obama never even tried to get John Boehner or other Republicans to allow into the law a public option that the private insurance industry didn't want to be included in the law, and that he accepted their opposition to that, right up front at the beginning of his "negotiations" on the matter, instead of using it even as just a bargaining chip with them; he did, actually, and repeatedly, campaign on the public option; he simply and boldly lied there. The public option was something that was overwhelmingly popular among the American public (which is the reason why he had campaigned on it), but that he had no intention of actually delivering on. (Most polls showed support for the public option ranging from half to three-quarters of the American public who had an opinion on the matter. The health insurance companies didn't want it to be included; so, he didn't want it, either. It's one of the main reasons why he chose the conservative Max Baucus, instead of the liberal Ted Kennedy, to draft Obamacare.)One of the crucial unlinked-to sources in the lengthy blog post "President Obama: 'I Didn't Campaign on the Public Option'," was an Obama campaign document that (like virtually all of them) was soon removed from the Web because these promises by Obama were intended to be broken not fulfilled, and this document included the following statement, as copied here into a blog post dated 30 May 2007, from very early in Obama's primary campaign against Hillary Clinton and John Edwards:"Through the Exchange, any American will have the opportunity to enroll in the new public plan or purchase an approved private plan."That blog post from May 2007 opens by saying, "Senator Obama's long-anticipated healthcare plan has finally been released." The link provided there, to the then-Senator Obama's just-released plan, produces only a blank now, presumably because Obama doesn't want historians to have such an easy time tracking down the lies he had made while he was running for office. Of course, if he should subsequently decide that he doesn't any longer want to impede the ability of historians to nail down the frauds he made against the voting public, then one way for him to repent of them (if he even has a conscience at all) would be for him to place back up onto the Web the documents, such as that one, that expose his fraudulence. Of course, unless the United States descends into total dictatorship such as in Russia or other countries that never were democracies to begin with, historians will ultimately come to recognize, anyway, that Barack Obama lied about many things, some of which were crucial. Presumably, he is merely trying to delay -- not to prevent -- this historical recognition.Also on April 16th, the AP headlines, "Court to Weigh Challenge to Ban on Campaign Lies," and reports that the Obama Administration is set to argue, before the U.S. Supreme Court, next week, that an Ohio law against lies in political campaigns should be overturned, because it supposedly violates the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and that any "credible threat of prosecution" for political lies would chill, instead of protect, "the very type of speech to which the First Amendment has its fullest and most urgent application." This news report asserts that "Groups across the political spectrum are criticizing the law as a restriction on the First Amendment right to free speech," and that P.J. O'Rourke, of the Republican Koch brothers' Cato Institute, was even "ridiculing the law and defending political smear tactics as a cornerstone of American democracy." So, President Obama is clearly with the Republican Party on that one.Making light of political lies, or else asserting seriously that they're a "free speech right" protected in our Constitution, reflects hardcore rule by the aristocracy, against even the hope that American democracy will even be able to function going forward. President Obama is with the aristocrats on that. The President of "Hope" thus joins with the Republican Party against any hope for democracy in this country. The First Amendment is being converted into a dagger, being plunged into the heart of democracy itself.This isn't to say that President Obama is necessarily the worst President the U.S. has ever had -- George W. Bush, Warren Harding, and a few others might have been even worse. But he's competing hard against James Buchanan, the most conservative and worst Democrat before Obama ever to have held the U.S. Presidency. Anyway, he's in the running; and decisions such as the Keystone XL Pipeline are yet to be made that will decide the matter with finality.----------Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity. Reported by Huffington Post 14 hours ago.
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Survey shows who gained health insurance from first open enrollment period
A new survey by the Urban Institute Health Policy Center has revealed more about the demographics of the estimated 5.4 million individuals estimated to be newly insured during the Affordable Care Act’s first open enrollment period. The quarterly Health Reform Monitoring Survey, funded by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and Ford Foundation, found that the number of uninsured adults between the ages of 18 and 64 fell by an estimated 5.4 million between September 2013 and early March — before…
Reported by bizjournals 14 hours ago.
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Guest: Consider health insurance in minimum-wage debate
Seattle should include health-care benefits in calculating hourly wage requirements while weighing whether to raise the minimum wage, writes guest columnist Dave Gering.
Reported by Seattle Times 14 hours ago.
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Cheap Car Insurance Quotes for Florida Drivers Now Presented at Quotes Pros Website
Cheap car insurance quotes for Florida drivers can now be reviewed at the Quotes Pros website. County and state agencies are now viewable at http://quotespros.com/auto-insurance.html.
Jacksonville, FL (PRWEB) April 16, 2014
The recent changes to required coverage for vehicle owners in the state of Florida has caused one company to supply new ways to research price data for policies online. The Quotes Pros company has completed the development of its cheap car insurance quotes system to help Florida drivers at http://quotespros.com/auto-insurance.html.
Exact policy pricing on the monthly and annual levels is now part of the consumer accessible data that the quotation system is delivering each day. All of the 67 counties that exist in Florida are now represented by new agencies that are provided for motor vehicle owners to review anonymously.
"The programmed quotation system is directly expected to offer access to rates that are promoted at the county and state level to car owners interested in saving money on car insurance," said a Quotes Pros source.
The change in the company system to providing more local rates data is one that is expected to expand the system accuracy for this year. New advantages of using the locator system includes ways to quote state minimum, PIP and full coverage options that agencies underwrite in Florida and other states.
"Owners of cars can utilize our system daily to find the rates drops and other changes to premiums that can be hard to research using other exploration options offline," the source said.
The Quotes Pros company has expanded its auto insurer lookup system this year in contrast to the general insurers that are providing rate quotations for other products. The renters, homeowners, life and health insurance plans that companies offer in the U.S. can be reviewed at http://quotespros.com/renters-insurance.html.
About QuotesPros.com
The QuotesPros.com company is now supporting consumers through its digitized research tools that are installed directly on the company homepage for national usage. This company specializes in the independent exploration of vehicle insurance agencies to locate better rates and policy incentives for the public. The QuotesPros.com company uses a variety of search tools that are now connecting hundreds of different automotive resources into one Internet location. Complete usage of the company tools is now offered daily at zero cost to the general public. Reported by PRWeb 14 hours ago.
Jacksonville, FL (PRWEB) April 16, 2014
The recent changes to required coverage for vehicle owners in the state of Florida has caused one company to supply new ways to research price data for policies online. The Quotes Pros company has completed the development of its cheap car insurance quotes system to help Florida drivers at http://quotespros.com/auto-insurance.html.
Exact policy pricing on the monthly and annual levels is now part of the consumer accessible data that the quotation system is delivering each day. All of the 67 counties that exist in Florida are now represented by new agencies that are provided for motor vehicle owners to review anonymously.
"The programmed quotation system is directly expected to offer access to rates that are promoted at the county and state level to car owners interested in saving money on car insurance," said a Quotes Pros source.
The change in the company system to providing more local rates data is one that is expected to expand the system accuracy for this year. New advantages of using the locator system includes ways to quote state minimum, PIP and full coverage options that agencies underwrite in Florida and other states.
"Owners of cars can utilize our system daily to find the rates drops and other changes to premiums that can be hard to research using other exploration options offline," the source said.
The Quotes Pros company has expanded its auto insurer lookup system this year in contrast to the general insurers that are providing rate quotations for other products. The renters, homeowners, life and health insurance plans that companies offer in the U.S. can be reviewed at http://quotespros.com/renters-insurance.html.
About QuotesPros.com
The QuotesPros.com company is now supporting consumers through its digitized research tools that are installed directly on the company homepage for national usage. This company specializes in the independent exploration of vehicle insurance agencies to locate better rates and policy incentives for the public. The QuotesPros.com company uses a variety of search tools that are now connecting hundreds of different automotive resources into one Internet location. Complete usage of the company tools is now offered daily at zero cost to the general public. Reported by PRWeb 14 hours ago.
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Why DuPont and UnitedHealth Group Will Move the Dow Tomorrow
On Thursday morning, the Dow's health-insurance specialist and chemical giant report earnings. Find out what investors expect to see.
Reported by Motley Fool 14 hours ago.
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