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SomnoMed's oral device for sleep apnea opens more markets

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SomnoMed (ASX:SOM) is taking large strides across Europe laying foundations for growth in volume and sales of its oral appliances in the treatment of sleep apnea.

The company operates through its own distribution and sales organisations throughout 16 countries in Europe, selling its high quality SomnoDent device.

Perhaps missed by many investors is that now all of Northern, Central and Southern Europe are covered bySomnoMed to market and sell its oral devices - providing a strong beach-head to increase sales of its Continuous Open Airway Therapy (COAT) products.

The outlook for European sales volume and revenue growth in FY14/15 is strong. With gross margins of 67%, this provides the engine for strong growth in operating income after cost of goods sold.

*Sales volume and revenues accelerating*

This is evidenced in the raft of increased metrics of the business of late. However, it is not all about European growth.

The prize that is the U.S. market is also pushing sales to a new record.

Chairman Dr Peter Neustadt would have every right to feel confident marching into 2014/15 after the March quarter recorded the highest volume growth achieved in a March quarter for the last three years.

SomnoMed sales volume increased by 28.3% in Q3 2014, compared to the same quarter in the previous year. Total units sold for the three months to the end of March 2014 were 11,010.

After growth of 13.1% in Q1 and 23.6% in Q2, the growth of 28.3% achieved in Q3 confirms the trend ofSomnoMed’s accelerating sales volumes achieved in its global operation. 

Total units sold for the nine months were 31,465 units, with growth of 21.8% over the same period in the previous year.

Total revenues generated during the third quarter amounted to $6.5 million and 50% more than in the previous year.

To date this brings the year to date revenues to a total of $19 million and is 43% up on last year.
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U.S. market *

The Q2 growth improved to 10.1%, whereas Q3 produced a growth of 22.8%. In fact, volume achieved in the March quarter in the U.S. set a new sales record.

This is due to a number of programs in the dental and medical markets in the U.S., which were initiated during 2013 and are now show encouraging results. 

The launch of the SomnnoDent Herbst, a higher quality product than its competitors and a differentiated Medicare product, has been successful and is likely to continue to show growing acceptance.

*European juggernaut gathers pace*

In many European countries, oral devices are suggested as the first line of treatment.
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Sweden*

SomnoMed holds a market leading position in Sweden developed over the last five years in the custom made quality oral appliance market for sleep apnea.

SomnoMed entered Norway one year ago and started to offer SomnnoDent products in Denmark in late 2013.
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Finland*

SomnoMed announced the commencement of operations in Finland, the last remaining market in Scandinavia and has entered into an agreement with a Helsinki based orthodontic laboratory to provide logistic and repair services.

SomnoMed has now blanketed all of Scandinavia with its own, dedicated sales and marketing team. 

Scandinavia is a well advanced market when it comes to COAT™ treatment, which is well accepted as an alternative to the bulkier CPAP - a ventilator type machine and face mask that blows air down the airway.

Finland is one of the six remaining markets in Europe SomnoMed intends to enter and establish its own operation during the course of this year.  This would achieve full coverage of the developed Northern, Central and Southern regions of Europe.

*UK - Ireland market*

An agreement was entered into with JJ Thompson (Orthodontic Appliances) Ltd in the UK to operate as the service laboratory and logistic hub for SomnoMed in the United Kingdom and Ireland. 

JJT is one of the largest orthodontic laboratories in the UK and has also been appointed as an agent forSomnoMed offering the SomnoDent products to their client base of over 1,000 dentists.

SomnoMed will build its own sales and marketing operation to support the market entry expected to start selling product in the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland by middle of this year.

The United Kingdom and Ireland are amongst the last remaining countries SomnoMed is seeking to open this year, so as to reach full coverage of Northern, Central and Southern Europe.

The UK is essentially a non-reimbursed market for COAT™ and still dominated by CPAP. 

However, there are signs of increasing interest in COAT™ as an alternative and more patient friendly treatment for obstructive sleep apnea.

A network of dentists will be developed and educated in dental sleep medicine and how to fit the SomnoDent device to patients.

*Spain and Portugal*

Marketing of the SomnoDent products will begin from 1st July in Spain and Portugal. 

To support the operation in Spain, SomnoMed announced that it has entered into an agreement with Mondental, one of the leading orthodontic laboratories in Spain to provide handling and after sales service.

Mondental will sell the SomnoDent product line to its client base of more than 1,000 dentists in Spain and Portugal.
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APAC*

In APAC, growth in Q3 came in at 17.3%, the highest growth achieved for several years. This is due to marketing initiatives in Australia and New Zealand, good growth in Japan and the results of our direct Korean operation started in November 2013.
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The re-rating equation*

A recent Sydney study compared ResMed’s S8 CPAP to SomnoDent's oral devices on patients with moderate to severe sleep apnea. It found oral appliance therapies produced similar health outcomes, while patients were more likely to use them. 

So the challenge is to convince more sleep physicians to recommend oral devices.

Oral devices make up less than 5 per cent of the sleep apnea device market in the U.S., which was dominated by ResMed’s mask-based devices.

In terms of oral devices, SomnoMed’s SomnoDent is the market leader and better than ResMed’s own Narval CC.

SomnoMed received approval from the US Food & Drug Administration (FDA) for its SomnoMed Herbst device which has been introduced at a lower price point than the SomnoDent/G2 range to meet the Medicare market in the US.

More directly, with a small sales force dedicated to detailing sleep physicians, face to face this should assist the uptake of SomnoMed's products.

As will the SomnoMed Herbst device which provides a lower price point than the SomnoDent and is attractive to consumers in the U.S. covered by Medicare for the device.

Were the U.S. were to follow the lead of European countries such as Sweden, where oral devices are suggested as the first line of treatment then SomnoMed's current market valuation will look very light.

*Analysis*

Key to U.S. success will be to convince U.S. health insurance companies, sleep physicians and patients thatSomnoMed’s COAT products are a more effective and certainly more economically advantageous method  to treat sleep apnea.

With oral devices accounting for less than 5 per cent of the sleep apnea device market in the U.S., in a market dominated by ResMed’s mask-based devices, the prize is there for SomnoMed. 

Given that studies and anecdotal evidence point to patients embracing an oral appliance therapy as a more patient friendly and compliant therapy for obstructive sleep apnea than CPAP - the upside from current market cap of A$68 million to A$100 million ($2.20 share price target) looks more certain over the medium term.

As insurers are increasingly adopting oral devices for sleep apnea, we expect U.S. growth to pick up in 2015.SomnoMed is planning to  sell 43 000, oral devices globally in fiscal 2014.

However, based on current growth and investment in marketing and education, SomnoMed could conceivably double that number in the next two years as it expands in the U.S. 

Europe represents 40% of SomnoMed's global sales (16 countries) and is experiencing fast growth which should continue given entry into new markets across Europe.

Significantly, all of these European operations are managed directly by SomnoMed and its own sales operations.

SomnoMed had cash reserves of $3 million at 31 March 2014, with no debt.

Institutional fund manager Australian Ethical Smaller Companies Trust has acquired 6.4% of SomnoMed and clearly a believer.

We believe that SomnoMed is well managed, and will have similar success targeting physicians, where decisions on the treatment for sleep apnea are actually made.

Hence SomnoMed is now on the crest of a new wave of growth that will take it past a A$100 million company.  And so taking it onto the investment menus of many more institutional fund managers.

At a market cap. of A$68 million which in global terms is relatively small, does not take into account either the fast growth of SomnoMed's products across Europe or increased uptake by physicians in the U.S.

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*Proactive Investors Australia is the market leader in producing news, articles and research reports on ASX “Small and Mid-cap” stocks with distribution in Australia, UK, North America and Hong Kong / China.* Reported by Proactive Investors 8 hours ago.

Van Insurance Coverage Now Priced Online at Quotes Pros Website

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Van insurance coverage is now being priced at the Quotes Pros website from top agencies. Conversion, commercial and luxury van policies are viewable at http://quotespros.com/auto-insurance.html.

Cleveland, OH (PRWEB) June 11, 2014

Insurance options for vehicle owners can be limited when only offline companies are compared for prices and ratings. The Quotes Pros company now supplies one of the easiest to use databases for evaluating insurer prices and has added van insurance coverage now quoted at http://quotespros.com/auto-insurance.html.

This new arrival of exclusive van coverage quotes is expected to create more opportunities to evaluate more agencies that specialize in larger motor vehicle coverage plans. Owners of vans can now access the quotation tool to find rates that apply to any of the 50 U.S. states represented in the database.

"Nearly any type of van used in the American market can be quoted for a coverage plan based on the zip code where a person plans to use a van throughout the term of the selected policy," a Quotes Pros rep said.

The van insurers that are now part of the open database included at the QuotesPros.com website have joined the standard insurers already listed for access this year. The automotive specific rates that are offered include full, liability, SR22, non owner and vintage coverage plans that are fully quoted in real time.

"Any owner of a vehicle who uses our website has complete control over the type of policy reviewed as well as the option to buy plans from leading companies through the secure system," said the rep.

The Quotes Pros company has improved the accuracy of its website and systems to educate the public about changes in policy pricing. The non-automotive portion of the company database now features homeowner, health and renter insurance quotes at http://quotespros.com/health-insurance.html. These plans are underwritten exclusively in the U.S. for consumers.

About QuotesPros.com

The QuotesPros.com company has created a simple to use database for comparing the costs charged by agencies in the insurance industry throughout North America. The public accesses price data from the company system to compare agency costs between state and nationwide companies. The QuotesPros.com website features a mixture of insurance products that any person can review while exploring coverage options. Life, business, health and homeowner policies are among the policies available to quote daily. Reported by PRWeb 8 hours ago.

Doctors Agree to Operate on Uninsured Woman, Remove 27-Pound Tumor from Stomach

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Doctors Agree to Operate on Uninsured Woman, Remove 27-Pound Tumor from Stomach Doctors Agree to Operate on Uninsured Woman, Remove 27-Pound Tumor from Stomach
After She Lost Health Insurance, Multiple Hospitals Refused to Help Woman With 27-Pound Tumor
27-Pound Tumor Removed from Woman’s Stomach; Four Hospitals Refused to Operate on Her
Four Hospitals Refused to Operate on Uninsured Woman Who Had 27-Pound Tumor In Her Stomach
Doctors Agree to Operate on Uninsured Woman, Remove 27-Pound Tumor from Stomach
Has Been Optimized

On Tuesday, Atlanta doctors removed a tumor the size of a beach ball from a woman’s abdomen.

According to Dr. Alan Gordon, the noncancerous growth had been forming for several years, and had become attached to several of her organs as well as to the wall of her stomach.

Doris Lewis, who doesn’t have health insurance, had been turned away from multiple hospitals before Emory University Hospital surgeons promised to help her last month – despite her lack of insurance.

The 59-year-old woman underwent the 8-hour surgery to remove the massive tumor, which weighed in at 27 pounds.

When the tumor first started to grow, Lewis thought she was just gaining weight. Then, when her husband died, she not only stopped prioritizing her health – she also lost her health insurance.

However, as her belly continued to swell, she began to seek out doctors for help.

Lewis sought out four hospitals, none of whom would take her without health insurance.

One night about a month ago, however, Lewis went to the emergency room complaining of shortness of breath. Doctors examined Lewis and, seeing that she needed immediate help, they agreed to help her, regardless of whether or not she could pay for the procedure.

The surgery was arranged for in June.

“This thing was going to continue to grow,” Gordon said. “The good news for her was that even though it had grown a significant size, it had been doing this slowly.”

Doctors have said that Lewis is to stay in the hospital for the next several days; they hope to have her walking around Wednesday.

“It’s just so overwhelming, and I’m thankful, and I’m happy she was able to make it,” Lewis’ daughter, Sarina, said of her mother’s surgery.

Sources: NY Daily News, USA Today, First Coast News

Photo Sources: First Coast News, Science World Report

Video Piece: 
Regular Piece Reported by Opposing Views 8 hours ago.

Mixed Bag for Health Co-Ops

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Many of the nonprofit health-insurance cooperatives created by the Affordable Care Act have enrolled far fewer people than they had hoped, calling into question their viability. Reported by Wall Street Journal 4 hours ago.

Total HIPAA Compliance Releases HIPAA WorkForce Training for Agents, Employers, and Business Associates

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Employees who handle HIPAA defined Protected Health Information need to be trained. Total HIPAA has released an online WorkForce training package for Insurance Agents/Brokers, Employers and Business Associates.

Raleigh, NC (PRWEB) June 12, 2014

Total HIPAA Compliance (http://www.TotalHIPAA.com) announces the release of WorkForce training for three markets – Insurance Agents/Brokers, Employers and Business Associates/Subcontractors. These WorkForce modules train employees who must follow the HIPAA Rules, but do not have to make administrative decisions about implementing the law.

“WorkForce training includes many practical guidelines for employees who deal with Protected Health Information,” said Jan Karn, President, Total HIPAA Compliance. “WorkForce training is filled with practical suggestions and is a great way to make sure your employees understand their responsibilities,” Karn continued.

Both the original Leader training and new WorkForce training are delivered online. Noted benefits and compliance specialist, David C. Smith, takes trainees through a small business environment and highlights places where HIPAA Rules apply. At the end of each module, there is a quiz to test the trainee on their knowledge of the material just covered. After successfully passing the quiz, trainees can go onto the next section. A multiple-choice test taken at the end of all modules determines the trainee’s final grade. Total HIPAA records successful completion of the course and results can be accessed by the company Compliance Officer at anytime.

“In a small business, there are a lot more WorkForce candidates than leaders that need HIPAA training ,” stated Michael Ramsby, President of Michigan based GRA Benefits. “This will help us train all staff members who touch Protected Health Information,” he added. GRA has partnered with Total HIPAA since 2012 and uses the Total HIPAA training modules to insurance agencies that offer health, dental, vision and long-term care policies.

Training topics included Privacy, Security, Penalties, Breach, Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), and Enforcement. Trainees can stop and start at any time during the training process. WorkForce training takes approximately one and a half hours to complete all modules. Leader training takes approximately two hours to complete.

In addition to training, Total HIPAA Compliance offers a comprehensive portfolio of compliance documents that are required by Health and Human Services (HHS). These Word documents are easy to complete and include Policies and Procedures for both Privacy and Security, the Notice of Privacy Practice, Business Associate Agreements, Risk Assessments and all forms necessary to protect either employees’ or clients’ health information. The compliance materials are customized for Agents (http://bit.ly/1um5h32) , Employers (http://bit.ly/SKywPj) and Business Associates (http://bit.ly/1ki1pbX). These compliance templates can save companies thousands of dollars and hours of time by simplifying the compliance documentation process.Total HIPAA works with several major insurance associations and large employee benefits groups to distribute its training materials. http://www.TotalHIPAA.com

ABOUT TOTAL HIPAA COMPLIANCE
Total HIPAA Compliance prepares health insurance agents, HR professionals, Privacy and Security Officers, healthcare professionals and subcontractors of business associates to meet federally mandated HIPAA Omnibus compliance regulations. Training options include both Leader and WorkForce training. With more than 100 years of combined regulatory, educational, professional management and health care experience, our staff prepares and delivers educational products and communications training in a variety of media that best meets the needs of individual learners. See more at: http://www.TotalHIPAA.com. Reported by PRWeb 1 hour ago.

Your Money Adviser: Private Health Care Exchanges Enroll More Than Predicted

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Three million people, three times the estimate, have enrolled in health insurance through private exchanges, according to the consulting firm Accenture. Reported by NYTimes.com 19 hours ago.

Three Million U.S. Employees Enrolled in Private Health Insurance Exchanges, According to Accenture

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Three Million U.S. Employees Enrolled in Private Health Insurance Exchanges, According to Accenture SEATTLE, June 12, 2014 /PRNewswire/ -- An estimated three million people currently receive employer health benefits through a private exchange, according to new report by Accenture released at the annual America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) Institute in Seattle.... Reported by PR Newswire 20 hours ago.

It's Time to Terminate Temp Abuse, Pass Calif. Bill AB 1897

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Cecilia Ceron has worked at the Tracy, California, plant of the world's biggest salad processor Taylor Farms for the past 11 years. But she doesn't work for the company. Instead, she is a long-term temporary employee trying to raise two daughters who has no health insurance. Often, Cecilia is forced to work long hours and sometimes needs to leave her young children at home alone or risk getting fired.

She is an example of why the American workplace is in crisis right now. Fueled by the growth of "perma-temp" workers who toil for years at the same job for low wages, few if any benefits and with no protections, thousands of employees are increasingly being left behind while their companies reap the benefits of their hard work.

Luckily, not everyone is taking the situation lying down. In California, the state Senate is currently considering legislation, AB 1897, that places companies on the hook for serious violations of workers' rights committed by temp agencies they employ who supply on-site workers. The legislation, which won a key committee vote yesterday, would not only make these staffing subcontractors more accountable, it would also level the playing field for businesses that follow the rules.

Right now, there are hundreds of mostly Latino immigrant workers at Taylor Farms who would benefit from the measure. The company employs a good chunk of its 900 workers through temporary staffing agencies that pay minimum wage with no benefits and no guarantee they will have a job the next day. Workers can be fired if they become ill or injured.

What's worse, they toil in dangerous working conditions in near-freezing rooms chilled to 34 degrees. Taylor Farms fails to provide workers with protective gear to shield them from fumes that cause dizziness and gagging and workers have been asked to remove bio-hazards without protective gear. They are denied time to use the bathroom, work on wet floors that are hazardous and have to provide their own gloves and warm clothes used for their jobs.

I've had the pleasure of meeting with a few of these workers and will speak with many more when I attend a rally outside the Tracy plant later today. Their stories are heartbreaking and illustrate the callous disregard that temp agencies have for them.

They are people like Victor Borja, who worked for temp agency Abel Mendoza at Taylor Farms for nine years. In March 2012, he slipped while inspecting machinery at the facility and seriously injured his foot. Eventually, a Taylor Farms doctor allowed him to return to work on light duty, but his supervisor ignored that request and demanded he work at the same level as before.

He told Victor, "I don't care about your pain or how much pain you're in. What we care about around here is production. If you can't produce, I have no use for you here." Two days later, he was fired. Victor is now on permanent disability because of his injury.

The company's low wages, unhealthy working conditions and lack of benefits subsidize a booming corporation. Taylor Farms generated $1.8 billion in revenue in 2012, nearly five times more than its revenue just seven years before. It is just one example of how the U.S. has increasingly become Robin Hood in reverse, where the rich take from the working poor.

Meanwhile, the company's 2,500 workers in nearby Salinas are Teamsters and earn on average $2.50 more an hour than workers in Tracy. Our members there have access to good health care, a 401(k) plan, paid vacation and paid sick days.

Workers at the Tracy plant can see the difference themselves. So they have stood up to their employer and are seeking to organize a union. But they also have gotten involved in advocating for the passage of AB 1897 themselves. They have traveled to Sacramento three separate times to meet with lawmakers and shine a light on the growing abuse of temp workers. Employees have told legislators that companies like Taylor Farms are involved in an employer scheme to avoid accountability to their workers.

A recent report by the National Employment Law Project (NELP) identified labor outsourcing to temp agencies as a growing problem nationwide. In California, Taylor Farms has been highlighted as a poster child for this national problem. That's why AB 1897, sponsored by Assemblymember Roger Hernandez, is so important.

Wage theft, worker rights and workplace discrimination should not be swept under the rug. The United States cannot have a functional economy where all the gains go to the corporate class while all the pain goes to regular workers.

California's effort to crack down on companies like Taylor Farms is an important step toward tackling a national growing problem. But it must not be the last. The Teamsters and its allies are picking up the torch. Elected officials across the country need to join the movement. Reported by Huffington Post 19 hours ago.

Winning in November by Defending the Affordable Care Act Now.

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Lindsey Graham's recent warning that Republicans might yet push for a presidential impeachment serves to demonstrate, if further demonstration was still required, of just how brutal Washington politics could get if his party ends up in control of both Houses of Congress after the mid-term elections in November. In progressive terms, the achievements of the Obama Administration have been, at best, only modest: and yet that modesty does not remove the need to defend them - and to defend them energetically - in the face of sustained Republican attempts to roll them back.

That defense is particularly vital in the case of the Affordable Care Act, which is both the singular domestic achievement of this Administration and the prime target of Republican invective. As many of us are only too painfully aware, the Affordable Care Act is not - and never was - a perfect solution to the many-sided problems of the American healthcare system. But rolling it back in the manner now proposed by its conservative critics would only make those problems worse. So to bolster support for Democratic candidates in November, and to begin to lay the ground for a progressive reform of the Affordable Care Act in the years to come , it is vital that we push back now against Republican criticisms of what they continue to mislabel and disparage as "Obamacare."

How exactly?

*By challenging the Republicans' core criticisms of the Affordable Care Act.*

• The ACA is not a job-killer as the Republicans like to claim. Nor did the recent Congressional Budget Office report say that the full implementation of the ACA will "kill" 2.3 million jobs by 2021. On the contrary, the report made clear that the Affordable Care Act will not increase either unemployment or underemployment (people working part time who want to work full time). It also found little evidence of employers dismissing workers to avoid having to provide coverage. What the Report did predict was that 2.3 Americans may chose not to work because they no longer need to do so to get healthcare cover from their employer. The ACA will increase their choice. It will not take away their jobs.
• Far from costing jobs, the full implementation of the ACA may actually help increase employment by slowing the rate of healthcare costs and by subsidizing the purchase of healthcare coverage by the low paid. The effect in both cases will be to increase that part of total national income available for the purchase of other goods made by other workers. If the full implementation of the ACA then does enable some sick or poorly-paid workers to pull out of the labor market entirely or in part, their departure will leave fewer people competing there, so strengthening wage growth (and consumer demand) again. It seems reasonable to expect therefore that the marginal disincentive to work associated with the phasing out of federal healthcare subsidies as income rises (a common feature of all safety-net programs) will be more than offset in the ACA case by the general boost to consumer demand triggered by the subsidies themselves.
• The ACA will not institutionalize death panels, bring big brother control of your individual healthcare decisions, grossly inflate existing insurance rates or expose private health data to the wider world. All it will quietly do (and is now doing) is make access to adequate healthcare affordable for that wide tranche of Americans currently unable to afford healthcare insurance and so forced back onto an erratic dependency on emergency hospital coverage and free clinics. The ACA is not driving people out of healthcare coverage. It is simply obliging some people to change their particular healthcare plans, often for something better.
• Nor will the ACA collapse under its own weight - there is no "death spiral" for the Act because enough young healthy people are already enrolling and far fewer than anticipated are choosing to take the fine - and the long-term budgetary implications of the ACA are all positive. A healthier population paying more taxes, helping to bring the long-term trajectory of public debt down rather than up.

*Listing the many ways in which the Affordable Care Act is already bringing much needed improvements to the U.S. health care system, and will yet bring more. *

• In spite of the problems associated with the initial launch of the healthcare exchanges, the number of Americans signing up on them for coverage has already reached at least 8 million.
• Among those not signing up on the exchanges but gaining/retaining cover, we need to count the 2.37 million young Americans enabled by the ACA to stay on their parents insurance until age 26, 1.87 million of whom would otherwise be likely uninsured.
• The ACA improves access to healthcare for those with pre-existing medical conditions, and for women of all ages, by banning a series of insurance company practices that discriminated against both categories of Americans.
• People without employer-provided healthcare insurance (a growing proportion of the U.S. population ) can now buy insurance on exchanges especially created for that purpose, and receive financial help from the federal government if their income falls below four times the poverty level for their size of family.
• In states that take up the option, people on the edge of poverty (earning up to 133% of the poverty level for their size of family) become eligible for Medicaid, with the federal government initially picking up all the additional costs involved in making that provision.
• Senior citizens get help financing part of the doughnut hole in their purchase of prescription drugs (with the hole to be fully eradicated by 2020). In 2011, 3.6 million Americans saved more than 42 million as a result.
• The ACA contains a number of cost-containment provisions that can only help to lower the trajectory of overall healthcare costs over time. These include changes to payment systems (especially for Medicare), an Independent Payment Advisory Board, and funding for research designed to increase medical efficiency, as well as an increased emphasis on wellness and illness prevention.

*Showing that the impact of the Act would have been greater but for opposition from conservatives to key elements of its design & implementation.
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• The impact of the Act on the trajectory of health care costs would have been greater if the original legislation had included a public option, but that element was removed from the original bill in order to win support from blue-dog Democrats and moderate Republicans.
• The numbers of Americans without adequate health care coverage would have been greater had a conservative majority on the Supreme Court not allowed states to opt out of Medicaid expansion; and had Republican-led state governments not taken that opportunity to refuse the large federal funds earmarked for that very purpose. Twenty-six such states have now rejected expansion, and with it the "federal funds that would finance 100 percent of the expansion costs for three years and at least 90 percent thereafter."
• That refusal by Republican state legislators to expand Medicaid coverage will shut out from affordable healthcare anywhere between 5 and 8 million of the most vulnerable and poorly paid Americans. It also creates a genuine "Medicaid Gap" in which people eligible for full assistance in purchasing healthcare coverage on the state exchanges run the risk - if they lose their jobs and end up with income between 100% and 133% of the poverty level - of finding that Medicaid will not step in to make up the loss.
• The people paying the price of Republican intransigence are the very people most in need of healthcare coverage. The evidence is now clear that the proportion of uninsured Americans aged 18 and over is falling faster in states that choose to extend Medicaid and set up their own exchanges than in states that refused. The evidence is also clear that the proportion of the uninsured who become eligible for federal assistance in purchasing healthcare cover is significantly higher in states expanding Medicaid eligibility under the ACA (at 68%) than in states declining to do so (44%). Indeed, "if the latter states were to extend Medicaid eligibility, 71 percent of their uninsured would be eligible for assistance."

*Demonstrating that - to the degree that the Republicans do possess a coherent alternative set of reforms - those reforms will only make health matters worse.*

• The Republican Party has been very slow to offer a detailed alternative, caught as it has been in the realization that "you can't achieve the good stuff in the ACA, like coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, without also including the stuff they hate, the requirement that everyone buy insurance and the subsidies that make that requirement possible." This silence on policy design is compounded by the fact that the main thing Republicans appear to dislike in the ACA - the individual mandate - was originally a Republican rather than a Democratic suggestion, offered as an alternative to the Clinton health plan in the 1990s.
• The main plan currently on offer - the Hatch/Coburn/Burr plan - will add to middle-class tax burdens. The plan would use market competition to keep costs down, and level the playing field between employer-provided healthcare and privately purchased health care by capping the proportion of health insurance contributions by both employers and their employees that goes untaxed. Currently 100% does. They propose setting a cap at 65%. But that would represent a significant tax-hike on middle -class Americans, the very thing Republican lawmakers regularly set their face against doing. The Senate Republican plan would also "likely cover fewer uninsured people, raise premiums for many older Americans, shrink Medicaid...scale back protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and allow private insurers to escape many of the consumer-friendly protections now imposed on them." It is hardly surprising then that Republican enthusiasm for the plan has quickly wilted.
• A simple repeal of the ACA would leave the status-quo-ante in place: and that is itself both morally and politically questionable. Are Republicans really in favor of taking young adults off their parents' healthcare coverage, allowing insurance companies to discriminate against pregnant women and the really sick, or ending subsidies for healthcare for low-income hardworking American families? In the name of what: the right of young currently healthy Americans to free-ride on the hospital system should they become suddenly and unexpectedly sick? Untrammeled freedom for young millennials is a weak moral basis for rolling back even the modest gains made by the Affordable Care Act: and even healthy twenty-year olds eventually grow old.

*Recognizing the limits of the Affordable Care Act, and proposing ways of improving it.*

• 32 million Americans were still without coverage in 2012. The CBO estimated in April that 31 million will still be uninsured a decade from now. They will not get that coverage until/unless we reverse the refusal of states to extend Medicaid availability, or effect a root-and-branch replacement of the ACA with a single-payer system. Currently, 80 million Americans remain either uninsured or underinsured. That cannot be right.
• The early implementation problems have damaged the credibility of the ACA and continue to bedevil it. Right now, for example, of the six million Americans who have gained Medicaid coverage since last September, at least 1.7 million of them are still waiting for their applications to be processed - some indeed have waited eight months already. Improvements here are needed fast.
• Health care costs continue to rise, as is the proportion of that rise falling back on patients (via deductibles and co-pays), with the burden greatest for the chronically ill. Neither trend is satisfactory. We will not pull healthcare costs fully under control without tighter regulation of insurance companies, the breaking of local insurance monopolies, and the replacement of a fee-for-service medical reimbursement system with one based on a per capita basis.
• The ACA remains unpopular. It is time to reverse that by some honest, detailed and informed talk. It is time to insist that the social contract at the heart of the ACA - that the healthy pay for the sick, and when sick themselves are covered by the healthy - remains a morally desirable one. It is also time to re-emphasize the basic choice that all healthcare systems face - of how to balance conflicting demands for treatment with the necessarily limited resources available to meet them - and to stress again that unregulated market mechanisms are singularly inappropriate for the striking of that balance, given the current level of income inequality.
• It is time to say too that the case for a single-payer system remains compelling, and that the ACA should be best thought of as one more stage in the on-going struggle to achieve a healthcare system free at the point of use.

The biggest problem the Republicans have with their opposition to the ACA is that, for all its faults, the Act is actually making a positive difference. The evidence is everywhere. When its prototype was introduced (by Mick Romney of course!) in Massachusetts, the mortality rate fell. When medical providers combined in the ACA's Accountable Care Organizations, their spending on Medicare fell. "State health insurance marketplaces that offered consumers very few health plan choices in 2014 are starting to add more insurers," ...and so on. We can't afford to let Republicans take us backwards in this key area of social reform, which is why now is the time to push back against the ACA's conservative critics with all the force we can muster. Hopefully this checklist will be of some value in that pushback.

First posted with full sourcing at *www.davidcoates.net* Reported by Huffington Post 19 hours ago.

Winning in November by Defending the Affordable Care Act Now

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Lindsey Graham's recent warning that Republicans might yet push for a presidential impeachment serves to demonstrate, if further demonstration was still required, just how brutal Washington politics could get if his party ends up in control of both Houses of Congress after the mid-term elections in November. In progressive terms, the achievements of the Obama administration have been, at best, only modest: and yet that modesty does not remove the need to defend them -- and to defend them energetically -- in the face of sustained Republican attempts to roll them back.

That defense is particularly vital in the case of the Affordable Care Act, which is both the singular domestic achievement of this administration and the prime target of Republican invective. As many of us are only too painfully aware, the Affordable Care Act is not -- and never was -- a perfect solution to the many-sided problems of the American healthcare system. But rolling it back in the manner now proposed by its conservative critics would only make those problems worse. So to bolster support for Democratic candidates in November, and to begin to lay the ground for a progressive reform of the Affordable Care Act in the years to come , it is vital that we push back now against Republican criticisms of what they continue to mislabel and disparage as "Obamacare."

How exactly?

*By challenging the Republicans' core criticisms of the Affordable Care Act.*

• The ACA is not a job-killer as the Republicans like to claim. Nor did the recent Congressional Budget Office report say that the full implementation of the ACA will "kill" 2.3 million jobs by 2021. On the contrary, the report made clear that the Affordable Care Act will not increase either unemployment or underemployment (people working part time who want to work full time). It also found little evidence of employers dismissing workers to avoid having to provide coverage. What the Report did predict was that 2.3 Americans may chose not to work because they no longer need to do so to get healthcare cover from their employer. The ACA will increase their choice. It will not take away their jobs.
• Far from costing jobs, the full implementation of the ACA may actually help increase employment by slowing the rate of healthcare costs and by subsidizing the purchase of healthcare coverage by the low paid. The effect in both cases will be to increase that part of total national income available for the purchase of other goods made by other workers. If the full implementation of the ACA then does enable some sick or poorly-paid workers to pull out of the labor market entirely or in part, their departure will leave fewer people competing there, so strengthening wage growth (and consumer demand) again. It seems reasonable to expect therefore that the marginal disincentive to work associated with the phasing out of federal healthcare subsidies as income rises (a common feature of all safety-net programs) will be more than offset in the ACA case by the general boost to consumer demand triggered by the subsidies themselves.
• The ACA will not institutionalize death panels, bring big brother control of your individual healthcare decisions, grossly inflate existing insurance rates or expose private health data to the wider world. All it will quietly do (and is now doing) is make access to adequate healthcare affordable for that wide tranche of Americans currently unable to afford healthcare insurance and so forced back onto an erratic dependency on emergency hospital coverage and free clinics. The ACA is not driving people out of healthcare coverage. It is simply obliging some people to change their particular healthcare plans, often for something better.
• Nor will the ACA collapse under its own weight -- there is no "death spiral" for the Act because enough young healthy people are already enrolling and far fewer than anticipated are choosing to take the fine -- and the long-term budgetary implications of the ACA are all positive. A healthier population paying more taxes, helping to bring the long-term trajectory of public debt down rather than up.

*Listing the many ways in which the Affordable Care Act is already bringing much needed improvements to the U.S. health care system, and will yet bring more. *

• In spite of the problems associated with the initial launch of the healthcare exchanges, the number of Americans signing up on them for coverage has already reached at least 8 million.
• Among those not signing up on the exchanges but gaining/retaining cover, we need to count the 2.37 million young Americans enabled by the ACA to stay on their parents insurance until age 26, 1.87 million of whom would otherwise be likely uninsured.
• The ACA improves access to healthcare for those with pre-existing medical conditions, and for women of all ages, by banning a series of insurance company practices that discriminated against both categories of Americans.
• People without employer-provided healthcare insurance (a growing proportion of the U.S. population ) can now buy insurance on exchanges especially created for that purpose, and receive financial help from the federal government if their income falls below four times the poverty level for their size of family.
• In states that take up the option, people on the edge of poverty (earning up to 133 percent of the poverty level for their size of family) become eligible for Medicaid, with the federal government initially picking up all the additional costs involved in making that provision.
• Senior citizens get help financing part of the doughnut hole in their purchase of prescription drugs (with the hole to be fully eradicated by 2020). In 2011, 3.6 million Americans saved more than 42 million as a result.
• The ACA contains a number of cost-containment provisions that can only help to lower the trajectory of overall healthcare costs over time. These include changes to payment systems (especially for Medicare), an Independent Payment Advisory Board, and funding for research designed to increase medical efficiency, as well as an increased emphasis on wellness and illness prevention.

*Showing that the impact of the Act would have been greater but for opposition from conservatives to key elements of its design & implementation.*

• The impact of the Act on the trajectory of health care costs would have been greater if the original legislation had included a public option, but that element was removed from the original bill in order to win support from blue-dog Democrats and moderate Republicans.
• The numbers of Americans without adequate health care coverage would have been greater had a conservative majority on the Supreme Court not allowed states to opt out of Medicaid expansion; and had Republican-led state governments not taken that opportunity to refuse the large federal funds earmarked for that very purpose. Twenty-six such states have now rejected expansion, and with it the "federal funds that would finance 100 percent of the expansion costs for three years and at least 90 percent thereafter."
• That refusal by Republican state legislators to expand Medicaid coverage will shut out from affordable healthcare anywhere between 5 and 8 million of the most vulnerable and poorly paid Americans. It also creates a genuine "Medicaid Gap" in which people eligible for full assistance in purchasing healthcare coverage on the state exchanges run the risk -- if they lose their jobs and end up with income between 100 percent and 133 percent of the poverty level -- of finding that Medicaid will not step in to make up the loss.
• The people paying the price of Republican intransigence are the very people most in need of healthcare coverage. The evidence is now clear that the proportion of uninsured Americans aged 18 and over is falling faster in states that choose to extend Medicaid and set up their own exchanges than in states that refused. The evidence is also clear that the proportion of the uninsured who become eligible for federal assistance in purchasing healthcare cover is significantly higher in states expanding Medicaid eligibility under the ACA (at 68 percent) than in states declining to do so (44 percent). Indeed, "if the latter states were to extend Medicaid eligibility, 71 percent of their uninsured would be eligible for assistance."

*Demonstrating that -- to the degree that the Republicans do possess a coherent alternative set of reforms -- those reforms will only make health matters worse.*

• The Republican Party has been very slow to offer a detailed alternative, caught as it has been in the realization that "you can't achieve the good stuff in the ACA, like coverage for people with pre-existing conditions, without also including the stuff they hate, the requirement that everyone buy insurance and the subsidies that make that requirement possible." This silence on policy design is compounded by the fact that the main thing Republicans appear to dislike in the ACA -- the individual mandate -- was originally a Republican rather than a Democratic suggestion, offered as an alternative to the Clinton health plan in the 1990s.
• The main plan currently on offer -- the Hatch/Coburn/Burr plan -- will add to middle-class tax burdens. The plan would use market competition to keep costs down, and level the playing field between employer-provided healthcare and privately purchased health care by capping the proportion of health insurance contributions by both employers and their employees that goes untaxed. Currently 100 percent does. They propose setting a cap at 65 percent. But that would represent a significant tax-hike on middle -class Americans, the very thing Republican lawmakers regularly set their face against doing. The Senate Republican plan would also "likely cover fewer uninsured people, raise premiums for many older Americans, shrink Medicaid...scale back protections for people with pre-existing conditions, and allow private insurers to escape many of the consumer-friendly protections now imposed on them." It is hardly surprising then that Republican enthusiasm for the plan has quickly wilted.
• A simple repeal of the ACA would leave the status-quo-ante in place: and that is itself both morally and politically questionable. Are Republicans really in favor of taking young adults off their parents' healthcare coverage, allowing insurance companies to discriminate against pregnant women and the really sick, or ending subsidies for healthcare for low-income hardworking American families? In the name of what: the right of young currently healthy Americans to free-ride on the hospital system should they become suddenly and unexpectedly sick? Untrammeled freedom for young millennials is a weak moral basis for rolling back even the modest gains made by the Affordable Care Act: and even healthy twenty-year olds eventually grow old.

*Recognizing the limits of the Affordable Care Act, and proposing ways of improving it.*

• 32 million Americans were still without coverage in 2012. The CBO estimated in April that 31 million will still be uninsured a decade from now. They will not get that coverage until/unless we reverse the refusal of states to extend Medicaid availability, or effect a root-and-branch replacement of the ACA with a single-payer system. Currently, 80 million Americans remain either uninsured or underinsured. That cannot be right.
• The early implementation problems have damaged the credibility of the ACA and continue to bedevil it. Right now, for example, of the six million Americans who have gained Medicaid coverage since last September, at least 1.7 million of them are still waiting for their applications to be processed -- some indeed have waited eight months already. Improvements here are needed fast.
• Health care costs continue to rise, as is the proportion of that rise falling back on patients (via deductibles and co-pays), with the burden greatest for the chronically ill. Neither trend is satisfactory. We will not pull healthcare costs fully under control without tighter regulation of insurance companies, the breaking of local insurance monopolies, and the replacement of a fee-for-service medical reimbursement system with one based on a per capita basis.
• The ACA remains unpopular. It is time to reverse that by some honest, detailed and informed talk. It is time to insist that the social contract at the heart of the ACA -- that the healthy pay for the sick, and when sick themselves are covered by the healthy -- remains a morally desirable one. It is also time to re-emphasize the basic choice that all healthcare systems face -- of how to balance conflicting demands for treatment with the necessarily limited resources available to meet them -- and to stress again that unregulated market mechanisms are singularly inappropriate for the striking of that balance, given the current level of income inequality.
• It is time to say too that the case for a single-payer system remains compelling, and that the ACA should be best thought of as one more stage in the on-going struggle to achieve a healthcare system free at the point of use.

The biggest problem the Republicans have with their opposition to the ACA is that, for all its faults, the Act is actually making a positive difference. The evidence is everywhere. When its prototype was introduced (by Mick Romney of course!) in Massachusetts, the mortality rate fell. When medical providers combined in the ACA's Accountable Care Organizations, their spending on Medicare fell. "State health insurance marketplaces that offered consumers very few health plan choices in 2014 are starting to add more insurers," ...and so on. We can't afford to let Republicans take us backwards in this key area of social reform, which is why now is the time to push back against the ACA's conservative critics with all the force we can muster. Hopefully this checklist will be of some value in that pushback.

First posted with full sourcing at *www.davidcoates.net* Reported by Huffington Post 18 hours ago.

Good And Bad News About The ACA Penalty Tax

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An important feature of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is the penalty tax imposed on people who do not have health insurance. But newly updated report from the Congressional Budget Office projects that just under 4 million people will pay the penalty in 2016, less than 15 percent of the estimated 30 [...] Reported by Forbes.com 18 hours ago.

Ignoring Pope Francis, American Bishops Keep Focus On Abortion And Gays

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NEW ORLEANS (AP) — The nation's Roman Catholic bishops meeting Wednesday renewed their focus on abortion and gay marriage under Pope Francis.

The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted to make only limited revisions to a guide they publish every presidential election year on church teaching, voting and public policy. The bishops also reaffirmed their fight for broader religious exemptions to laws recognizing gay marriage and a requirement in the Affordable Care Act that employers provide health insurance covering birth control. Francis has said the church has been alienating Catholics by focusing more on divisive social issues than on mercy and compassion.

The bishops' document on political responsibility, titled "Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship," has been published every four years since 1976, and has become a point of contention within the church over which issues voters should consider most important: abortion or social justice. The bishops voted Wednesday to incorporate Francis' teachings into the document, but rejected a complete rewrite in favor of limited changes instead.

"The question of abortion will remain as very important," said Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of the Archdiocese of Galveston-Houston, Texas, after the vote at the national assembly in New Orleans. "There are pillars to the house and it is one of the pillars."

The bishops also voted to renew their committee on religious liberty, which has led their campaign for broader protection for religious charities and for individual business owners with religious objections to birth control, same-sex marriage and other issues.

Archbishop William Lori of Baltimore, chairman of the bishops' religious liberty committee, compared the effort to the anti-abortion movement, which started small in the 1960s and grew to have great influence in later decades.

"It's a major task on a generational scale," Lori told the bishops.

In their presentations, the bishops noted the tide of court decisions in recent months in favor of same-sex marriage, but said religious conservatives should not give up. Archbishop Charles Chaput of Philadelphia said "being discouraged would be the worst thing that we could do." Reported by Huffington Post 18 hours ago.

Health insurer Fidelis Care making push into upstate New York

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Fidelis Care, one of the largest insurers in New York, is growing its upstate presence as competition heats up for health insurance business in cities including Albany and Buffalo. The nonprofit insurer on Thursday announced plans to hire 40 additional people at its Albany, New York regional office this year. The Fidelis facility in Corporate Woods office park currently has about 100 workers. The news follows a similar move in April, when the New York City-based health insurance plan said it will… Reported by bizjournals 17 hours ago.

MedMen Now Creating Explainer Spots & Videos

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MedMen, a team of health care advertising specialists is now creating explainer spots and videos for health insurance organizations and nursing school accreditation.Southern California-based MedMen -- a team of health care advertising specialists boasting over 20 years of medical marketing experience - is now creating explainer spots and videos for health insurance organizations and nursing school accreditation.

With a client list that includes Edwards Lifesciences, Boston Scientific, Teva Pharmaceutics, ZO Skin Care, Ziering Medical, Blue Cross Blue Shield and various other medical device manufacturers and health care providers, these videos will help the viewer better understand, in simpler terms, complex topics that have been difficult to convey in the past.

Some of the companies and organizations who have utilized these videos are Blue Cross Blue Shield of Wisconsin, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Louisiana, WellPoint and Natrol Melatonin to name a few. "We want to make it easier for people to understand the services provided by our clients by offering a simple explanation of their products and services," stated Mike Smith, President of MedMen.

A Non-Agency
MedMen is not an ad agency. It's a health care advertising creative/production boutique, working along with -- or apart from -- a client's current ad agency. On a project basis. At a fraction of the cost most agencies charge.

More Than Just Video
While MedMen specializes in television, radio and video production, the company also offers expertise in:
• Strategic brand marketing
• 3D & 2D medical animation
• Direct response advertising
• Social network marketing

"We deliver fast, effective relief from the pain of dull, overpriced health care advertising," Smith concludes.
MedMen's staff has won numerous national, regional and local advertising awards on its way to producing hundreds of TV spots, radio commercials and videos. Visit them at med-men.com and http://www.youtube.com/medmenbeardboy.

Call 714-734-0372 for more information.MEDMEN • 14451 Chambers Road • Suite 250 • Tustin, CA 92780
714-734-0372 • med-men.com • info@med-men.com

Company Contact Information
MedMen
Mike Smith
14451 Chambers Rd.
Tustin, CA
92780
714-734-0372

News and Press Release Distribution From I-Newswire.com Reported by i-Newswire.com 17 hours ago.

Clements Worldwide Partners With Research Consultancy i-World Research to Release Survey of 8,000 Global Expatriates

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Expats find that adjusting to life and work abroad can be a seamless experience and easily managed with the right tools.

Washington, D.C. (PRWEB) June 12, 2014

Clements Worldwide, the leading provider of international insurance solutions, today released the findings of the Expat Survey 2013, in collaboration with i-World Research, a research consultancy with over 20 years of experience in expatriate communications and media.

Supported by Clements, the Expat Survey 2013 results include responses from expatriates from 128 countries, many of whom reported surprising insights about life abroad. Issues like understanding a new tax system, finding the right school for children and learning a new language are now considered much more easily surmountable with the right tools and advice.

For example, 63 percent of respondents found that organizing finances when abroad was an easy task, and 61 percent also considered securing healthcare insurance easy when first moving out of their home country. Similarly, 75 percent reported that they felt happy in their new country, while only 12 percent felt that their expectations had not been met.

Notably, the majority of expats reported that financial planning and insurance protection is something they consider an afterthought, choosing to arrange these plans after landing in their new destination. In this instance, 55 percent reported securing health insurance after they moved and 64 percent indicated that they chose insurance protection for their assets and property after arrival. However, expats may still be more suited to making these decisions prior to departure, to ensure that they are able to select a comprehensive international insurance policy that offers the maximum level of protection.

Sergio Sanchez, Chief Marketing Officer at Clements, said: “The results of the Expat Survey 2013 clearly indicate that moving abroad is no longer a challenging or difficult experience but is a process that expats can find enjoyable and relatively straightforward. As global insurance experts, we have worked with expat clients every day for over 65 years to provide them with financial protection and peace of mind. This ensures that their experience moving and living abroad is as hassle-free as possible.”

--ENDS--

About Clements Worldwide

Clements Worldwide is a leading insurance provider for expatriates and international organisations. Founded in 1947, Clements offers international car, property, term life, health, specialty and high risk insurance in over 170 countries. With offices in Washington, D.C., London, and Dubai, Clements delivers comprehensive coverage, superior customer service, and unparalleled claims response. To learn more and quote online, visit http://www.clements.com. Reported by PRWeb 17 hours ago.

Group targets Dayton in TV ad on health care law

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An independent political group's TV ad uses Gov. Mark Dayton's own words against him on the new health insurance law, prompting pushback from the Democrat's campaign. Reported by Miami Herald 16 hours ago.

Computer woes blamed for idle health care workers

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The federal government agency that oversees applications for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act says that the computer problems which plagued early sign-ups are to blame for problems at a suburban St. Louis processing center. Reported by Miami Herald 16 hours ago.

NCPA: ObamaCare Places Big Burden on Small BusinessCost of Employee Coverage Equivalent to $3 "Minimum Health Wage"

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Small businesses and employees alike will face acute costs as ACA regulations are fully implemented.

Dallas, TX (PRWEB) June 12, 2014

The costs imposed by the Affordable Care Act on small businesses will hurt hiring, employee compensation and business growth, according to a new report by National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) Senior Fellow Devon Herrick.

“The Affordable Care Act contains sweeping changes to the employer-sponsored health insurance market,” says Herrick. “Though it was promoted as a way to lessen the problems small businesses experience in providing health coverage, many business owners report that the law is increasing their burdens.”

Nearly two-thirds of Americans with health coverage have employer-sponsored health insurance, which means that much of the burden of complying with the ACA falls directly on businesses:·     The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimates that the required coverage for individuals will cost $5,800 a year or more by 2016 -- equivalent to an additional $3 per hour "minimum health wage." Family coverage could cost more than twice that amount.
·     Because businesses with less than 50 full-time employees are exempt from the requirement to provide health insurance, those with 50 or more workers are incentivized to cut their workforces, move employees to part time or not offer coverage at all. The ACA's $2,000 fine per worker for not providing health insurance is less than the cost of providing it.
·     While firms were told that their health plans would be "grandfathered," insulating them from regulation, that status is easily lost when plans change. Two-thirds to 80 percent of small business employer plans will likely lose their grandfathered status. Large, self-insured companies and unions, however, are free to change their third-party administrators and still retain grandfathered status.
·     According to a survey by Morgan Stanley, premium rates have risen substantially. Firms renewing small group insurance in 2014 saw an 11 percent premium hike. For firms with coverage through BlueCross, the premium increase was almost 16 percent.
·     Premium increases were much higher in some states than others. Premiums for small group policies renewing in 2014 increased 66 percent in Pennsylvania, 37 percent in California and 34 percent in Indiana. Washington saw premiums rise by an astounding 588 percent.

“The Obama Administration itself admits that two-thirds of small employers could see a jump in premiums due to provisions of the health care law,” says Herrick. "More employers will see insurance cancellations and premium hikes this fall as they are forced to replace lower cost health benefits with more comprehensive, ACA-compliant coverage."

To reduce costs, employers are passing health care costs on to workers, raising copayments, boosting the costs of dependent coverage, delaying hiring and reducing work hours.

Herrick's report includes a state-specific analysis of employee health insurance for California, Florida, Georgia, Maine, New York, Ohio, Texas and Wisconsin.

The Effects of the Affordable Care Act on Small Business: http://www.ncpa.org/pub/st356

The National Center for Policy Analysis (NCPA) is a nonprofit, nonpartisan public policy research organization, established in 1983. We bring together the best and brightest minds to tackle the country's most difficult public policy problems — in health care, taxes, retirement, education, energy and the environment. Visit our website today for more information. Reported by PRWeb 16 hours ago.

Cigna expands in Maryland as individual market offers 'growth opportunity'

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Cigna is expanding its offerings in Maryland because the insurer sees big opportunity for growth here. Cigna plans to join Maryland’s individual market in 2015 to sell plans through Maryland’s health exchange and directly to consumers who are not insured through an employer. Cigna already sells health insurance to business groups in the state. The decision to expand is part of a company-wide effort to expand beyond employer-based health plans, which have been Cigna’s bread and butter for… Reported by bizjournals 15 hours ago.

Interest surges for Illinois health insurance exchange Insurers' interest in exchange surges

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Interest allays fears that carriers would walk away from offering coverage under the Affordable Care Act in 2nd year Reported by ChicagoTribune 11 hours ago.
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