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Texas workers’ health insurance costs near highest in nation

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Reported by DallasNews 3 hours ago.

The New Health Care: A Rhode Island Rule on Health Enrollment Offers a Consumer Experiment

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The federal government opted to automatically re-enroll health insurance customers at the end of 2014; Rhode Island decided to make them shop again. Reported by NYTimes.com 4 hours ago.

Top Financial Analysts to Discuss 2015 Expectations for Health Plans in Atlantic Information Services Webinar

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In a Jan. 20 webinar, participants will hear insights on how health insurers are likely to perform in 2015 and how that should impact their business strategies.

Washington, DC (PRWEB) January 08, 2015

Publicly traded health insurers are accumulating gains in equity market valuations well above even the record-setting pace being set by the broader market. And major gains in the new year could be ignited by a range of diverse factors — expectations for millions of new public exchange customers, Medicaid expansion, rapid growth of new payment models, major new private exchange enrollment increases, the popularity of Medicare Advantage, and continued moderate medical utilization. “Wall Street’s Forecast for Health Insurers: Picking 2015’s Winning and Losing Trends and Companies,” the Jan. 20 webinar from Atlantic Information Services, will discuss how the health insurance sector — and individual health plans — are likely to perform in 2015.

Participants will hear from Carl McDonald, a director and senior analyst covering the managed care industry for Citi Investment Research and Analysis, and Neal Freedman, a director in the Insurance Ratings group at Standard & Poor’s Ratings Services. In 60 minutes of expert presentations followed by 30 minutes devoted to individual questions, they will provide valuable perspectives and reliable answers to questions that include:·     Which trends are most likely to boost health plan profitability in 2015?
·     Will private exchanges, pay-for-value contracting and narrow-network strategies win more favor in the new year? How will these factors affect earnings and stock valuations?
·     Will possible revenue growth from Affordable Care Act enrollment and Medicaid expansion outweigh possible higher medical utilization and the ACA’s new fees and taxes?
·     Will medical loss ratios be a positive or negative factor for major plans in 2015?
·     How concerned is Wall Street about the threat to the ACA from a Republican Congress and Supreme Court ruling on the legality of federal exchange subsidies?
·     To what extent will new insurer strategies on Medicaid and Medicare programs help withstand serious reimbursement reductions?
·     Should we expect more or less M&A activity in 2015 than we saw in 2014?
·     Which health carriers are positioned to profit the most from today’s turbulent market changes?
·     Is there a health insurance sector stock bubble that is about to burst?

Visit http://aishealth.com/marketplace/c5m01_012015 for more details and registration information.

About AIS
Atlantic Information Services, Inc. (AIS) is a publishing and information company that has been serving the health care industry for more than 25 years. It develops highly targeted news, data and strategic information for managers in hospitals, health plans, medical group practices, pharmaceutical companies and other health care organizations. AIS products include print and electronic newsletters, websites, looseleafs, books, strategic reports, databases, webinars and conferences. Learn more at http://www.AISHealth.com. Reported by PRWeb 26 minutes ago.

Why the eyewear industry is an incredible rip-off

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Here are some alternatives to avoid getting fleeced. Those of us who need prescription eyewear need prescription eyewear. Are you wearing yours to read this? Imagine if you weren’t. Imagine life without your glasses for a year, a week, an hour. Yet many health insurance plans, especially for t... Reported by Raw Story 21 hours ago.

Jackson Hewitt Partners with GetInsured to Help Clients Access Tax Credits Associated with New Healthcare Laws and Enroll in Health Insurance

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Jackson Hewitt Partners with GetInsured to Help Clients Access Tax Credits Associated with New Healthcare Laws and Enroll in Health Insurance PARSIPPANY, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jackson Hewitt Tax Service® and GetInsured, a leading online health insurance marketplace, are joining forces for a second year to make accessing tax credits and signing up for health insurance easy. By answering a few simple questions during the tax interview, clients will understand if they qualify for money-saving tax credits, and with the help of GetInsured, can enroll in a health insurance plan that fits their budget. This assistance is available by phone Reported by Business Wire 20 hours ago.

Report Suggests Workers Get No Relief from Health Insurance Costs

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Workers-squeezed-health-insurance-costs.jpg

Although health insurance prices have proved to be better for people in recent times but it is not bringing a greater relief to the workers as it appears that they have to pay a larger price for their share of health insurance.

read more Reported by TopNews 19 hours ago.

Same-Sex Spouses Now Eligible For State Health, Retirement Coverage

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Same-sex spouses of state employees are now eligible for state coverage for health insurance and retirement benefits. Reported by cbs4.com 19 hours ago.

GOP Begins Assault on Elderly, Poor, Disabled, Math, and Reason

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The 114th Congress was sworn in on Tuesday, opening the flood gates to legislation that will potentially damage the economy, hurt the middle class and the poor, and leave the retired Americans in the worst financial shape they've been in for years. After six years as a sleeper cell, the GOP is gunning for the American people -- the one thing they hate more than facts.

In last week's piece, "The 2015 GOP Clown Car: Bigger, Meaner, and More Dangerous Than Ever," I ended my post with:
"It's a new year though and the clown car about to be sworn in next week is bigger than ever with a majority in both the Senate and the House. A car full of gun loving, poor hating, veteran screwing, climate change denying, Wall Street deregulating, health care repealing, and wealthy old white man loving clowns."
I speculated that the GOP's plans for the coming year would include further repeals of Dodd-Frank, cutting and privatizing social security, cutting pensions, defunding Obamacare, eliminating food stamps, and more gifts and giveaways to the super-rich and corporations. I also joked about potential exhumations of Benghazi, IRS, and impeachment hearings.

That post got a lot of comments from right-wing nutters. Most of them insulting me and the article, with not one comment refuting the content of the article. Some even found the time to track down my personal email and write to me. One woman, apparently a Christian, wrote, "First off, I really hope someone comes and shoots or rapes you in your defenseless home and you live (sic), so you can learn a valuable life lesson."

I also wrote that, "As of Tuesday, they'll have the numbers to do what they want and by this time next year we could be having a completely different conversation in a completely different country."

As it happens, the GOP has wasted no time pushing forward a very dangerous and cruel agenda. It turns out that when it comes to destroying things that are good for people and society, they're highly motivated.

On Tuesday, the same day the new Congress was sworn in, it was announce that the Select Committee on Benghazi will continue into 2015, after House Republicans pushed through language to reauthorize the panel -- without budget restrictions or time limits. That's right, they are reopening the Benghazi hearings that dragged on at considerable cost to the taxpayers and turned up absolutely nothing in the final declassified report.

The five Democrats on the 12-member panel issued the following statement, saying that since the reauthorization language was included in the "must-pass" bill setting up the rules for the new Congress, it prevented any debate on whether the panel would continue:
We are disappointed that the Speaker incorporated the re-authorization of the Select Committee on Benghazi into the must-pass rules package, which sets no limit on the Committee's budget or time frame," the five Democrats said in the statement.  "After eight months and more than a million taxpayer dollars spent, it remains unclear what new questions the Select Committee seeks to answer. Since our members were denied the ability to meaningfully debate or amend the resolution, we now look to the Committee to quickly adopt rules that ensure that our Democratic members are able to participate fully in the investigation.
Then on Wednesday, the GOP now apparently in full steamroller momentum, started hammering away at Social Security and paving the path to privatization. The GOP has wanted to privatize Social Security for a while now, meaning that the entire amount (now $1.7 trillion) would be handed over to Wall Street to "invest." We've seen how well 401(k)s and pensions have done under that model.

As Nancy Altman, founding co-director of Social Security Works, and Eric Kingson, a professor of Social Work at Syracuse University, write:
Republican opponents of Social Security have not wasted even a single day in their plan to dismantle Social Security brick by brick. What should be a dry, mundane exercise -- the adoption of new rules by the newly convening House of Representatives -- has turned into a stealth attack on America's working families.
The House Republicans, as one of their first orders of business, approved a rule preventing the reallocation of Social Security funds to men, women, and children who receive disability insurance, unless they are offset by benefit cuts or tax increases. Since Republicans will never agree to an increase in taxes, particularly on the wealthy, this sets the stage for the GOP to cut the benefits to 11 million people in the next two years. All under the ruse that Social Security is going bankrupt, which it's not.

According to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, reallocating taxes between retirement and disability trust funds has always been noncontroversial -- it's been done 11 times since 1968 and it's a normal part of administering Social Security funds. This reallocation would keep both the retirement and disability fund solvent until 2033. The GOP has been trying to gut Social Security for years, calling it a hand out and now they're blocking something as simple as transferring money from a savings account to a checking account. As the LA Times reports:
Social Security advocates are almost universally aghast at the change. "It is hard to believe that there is any purpose to this unprecedented change to House rules," wrote Max Richtman, president of the committee, in an open letter Tuesday, "other than to cut benefits for Americans who have worked hard all their lives, paid into Social Security and rely on their Social Security benefits, including Disability Insurance, in order to survive." The rule change reflects the burgeoning demonization of disability recipients, a trend we've reported on in the past. It's been fomented by conservative Republicans and abetted by sloppy reporting by institutions such as NPR and "60 Minutes."
Senator Elizabeth Warren expressed her outrage on Facebook and Twitter on Wednesday, saying that the move on the part of House Republicans was inventing a Social Security crisis:
It's ridiculous - but not surprising - that on the very first day of the new Congress, Republicans are manufacturing a Social Security crisis to threaten benefits for millions of disabled Americans - including 233,260 in Massachusetts alone. We can't turn our backs on the promises we've made to our families, friends, and neighbors who need our help the most. House Republicans should stop playing political games to put America's most vulnerable at risk.
Furthering the speculation and theory that Republicans are manufacturing a problem and setting up for a long game to gut or privatize Social Security, Sherrod Brown (D-OH), said, "...detractors working to privatize Social Security will do anything to manufacture a crisis out of a routine administrative function."

As for the assault on Dodd-Frank, the GOP not wanting to look like they're slacking off with all this new found power, took an axe to the Volcker rule. The Volcker Rule was adopted after the 2008 Wall Street meltdown and it bans banks from gambling with taxpayer money. The GOP is proposing legislation that would grant banks another two years to unload their toxic holdings in the form of Collateralized Loan Obligations -- complex contracts similar to the mortgage-backed securities that caused the meltdown in 2008.

Bank watchdog groups are cringing at the legislation:
"It's all about the bonus pool," said Dennis Kelleher, president and CEO of Better Markets, a financial reform nonprofit. "The attack on the Volcker Rule has been nonstop, because proprietary trading is about big-time bets that result in big-time bonuses. Wall Street has been fighting it from day one, and they're not going to stop."

"It's absurd," said Marcus Stanley, policy director at Americans for Financial Reform. "It's getting on five years after the passage of the Volcker Rule, and the banks have still not actually been required to stop doing anything that they want to be doing. And anytime we get close to the point where they could, somebody comes in with an extension."

Next on the agenda? Health care. After trying 50 times to repeal Obamacare, the GOP has decided to take a more tempered approach. Much like they did with Glass-Steagall during the ramp-up to the financial crisis. After picking it apart piece by piece until it looked like Swiss cheese, the legislation was so useless, repeal was easy. The GOP is making a concerted effort to make it difficult for Americans to receive coverage. This time, by reintroducing the 40-hour work week stipulation. The bill (H.R.30) would go after the mandate that requires a company with 50 or more employees to provide health insurance to 95 percent of its full-time employees. The law defines employees who work 30 hours or more as full time. The GOP wants to change that definition to 40 hours per week, making it easier for employers to avoid offering health care.

As pointed out in Mother Jones, "I call this the 'send people home a half hour early on Friday and deny them health insurance' bill," says Tim Jost, a health care law scholar at the Washington and Lee University School of Law who has consulted with the Obama administration on implementation of the Affordable Care Act.
The 30-hour threshold was intended to discourage companies from cutting workers' hours. Nearly half of Americans work 40 hours a week or more--meaning that, under current law, employers would have to cut those workers' hours by more than 25 percent to avoid buying them health insurance. But if the threshold were 40 hours, as the GOP envisions, many employers would only have to cut workweeks a tiny bit to avoid buying health insurance for their employees. "Raising the threshold to 40 hours would place more than five times as many workers at risk of having their hours reduced," Paul van de Water, a senior fellow at the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, wrote in 2013.
This move could deprive 1.5 million people currently receiving health insurance as a result of the mandate. To add insult to injury, the change in the law would also add another $53 billion to the deficit Republicans are always screeching about. According to Mitch McConnell, the 30-hour threshold should be ditched, regardless of costs to the deficit. In McConnell's view, adding billions to the deficit is a small price to pay in acceptable collateral damage if it means denying health care to millions.

In just a couple of days, the GOP, rather than work in the best interest of the American people, has laid the groundwork to dismantle nearly everything that has been accomplished and go after the things that people in this country rely on and benefit from.

In addition to trying to change the way the way the Congressional Budget Office calculates costs through "dynamic scoring," one of the more laughable claims and subsequent responses, came from Mitch McConnell who apparently received queues from Grover Norquist suggesting that Conservatives take credit for the improving the economy.

HuffPost reported:
Norquist, known for demanding fealty to his pledge never to raise taxes, has yet to move many Republicans on this specific debate. Few in the party have been willing to talk up good economic news, even if only to credit it to conservative-leaning legislation. The preference has instead been to bemoan the president for ignoring longterm deficits and debt, and for pushing "job-killing" regulations.
McConnell, like a scene out of A Christmas Story, rose to the occasion as if he were on the playground being triple dog dared to stick his tongue to a frozen metal flag pole. On Wednesday, the second day of the new GOP majority in Congress, McConnell made this delusional statement:
After so many years of sluggish growth, we're finally starting to see some economic data that can provide a glimmer of hope; the uptick appears to coincide with the biggest political change of the Obama administration's long tenure in Washington: the expectation of a new Republican Congress. So this is precisely the right time to advance a positive, pro-growth agenda.
In possibly the best response one could muster to such a claim, DNC Communications Director Mo Elleithee wrote:
Hahahahahahahahahahaha. That Mitch McConnell is one funny guy. He likes to remind people all the time that he's not a scientist. Now we know he's not a mathematician or an economist either. The fact is, under President Obama we've had 57 straight months of private sector job growth leading to nearly 11 million jobs added. All Republicans have given us is a government shutdown that cost the economy $24 billion. I get why he wants to take credit for the economic recovery. But maybe he should first do something to help contribute to it.
It's unfortunate, based on the first two days of the new Congress, that the responses to upcoming GOP policies won't be so humorous. This first week back from vacation paints a pretty grim picture of coming attractions and the American people are the ones who will suffer.

*Read more at nowitcounts.com* Reported by Huffington Post 17 hours ago.

Health insurance prices slow, but workers still feel the pinch

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Health insurance premium prices have slowed in most of the US, but that hasn't translated to relief for the people covered by those plans, according to a new study. Health insurance prices still grew faster than incomes in nearly every state.  Reported by Christian Science Monitor 17 hours ago.

New Bill Could Make It Easier For Health Care Providers To Help Very Sick Kids

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This piece comes to us courtesy of Stateline. Stateline is a nonpartisan, nonprofit news service of the Pew Charitable Trusts that provides daily reporting and analysis on trends in state policy.
Finding care for children with medically complex or rare conditions—which may affect fewer than 100 kids nationwide—can force parents to tap into networks of highly-specialized physicians and hospitals scattered around the country.

This is especially challenging when the children are covered by Medicaid, because each state-run program has a different benefit package, payment structure and provider network. Conflicting regulations and paperwork requirements can delay treatment and lead to unnecessary hospitalizations. Medicaid’s state-based rules also have thwarted efforts to develop a national clinical database researchers could use to find ways to improve the care of children with rare diseases.

A new bill in Congress would amend the 50-year old Medicaid law to make it easier for health care providers in different states to coordinate the complicated care of these very sick kids. 

The proposal—the Advancing Care for Exceptional Kids Act—also calls for the creation of a national database of Medicaid claims data that researchers could use to study complicated conditions that affect one in 25 children nationwide.

Sponsored by Rep. Joe Barton, a Republican from Texas, and co-sponsored by 116 other members in both houses of Congress, the proposal has broad bipartisan support. Advocates expect it to be introduced in the next few weeks.

In addition to making it easier for families to cross state lines to get care for their children, the bill is designed to cut the cost of caring for kids with medically complex conditions such as sickle cell anemia, cerebral palsy, cystic fibrosis and congenital heart defects. They represent about 6 percent of all children covered by Medicaid, but generate more than 40 percent of the costs for children’s care.

Although the Congressional Budget Office has not yet estimated the savings, the bill’s lead backer, the Children’s Hospital Association, projects federal and state Medicaid spending would be reduced by $13 billion over 10 years.

Backers say care coordination will generate significant savings. Say, for example, the parents of a child with a complex condition call a children’s hospital care coordination program in the middle of the night with an emergency. Ideally, the doctor on-call would be familiar with the child and the care she receives. The doctor could then advise the parents what to do immediately, and arrange an office appointment for the child early the next day. At the visit, the child’s treatment could be adjusted and she could go home the same day. The cost to Medicaid: $50 for an office visit.

Without a care coordination program, the parents would have rushed their child to the emergency room, where she likely would be admitted for a day or two at a cost of several thousand dollars. 

The problem is that hospitals that have such programs operate them at a loss, because Medicaid and other insurers won’t pay for them. Without the promise of reimbursement, these hospitals are unable to expand their existing programs to take care of all the children who need specialized care coordination, and other hospitals are reluctant to create their own.

Different Medicaid reimbursement rules in different states also create complications. Many patients at the few children’s hospitals with specialized programs live in another state, and must work within the rules of their home state’s Medicaid program. Additionally, specialists who work with pediatric hospitals are often based in other states, limiting their ability to get paid for their contribution to the care of an out-of-state patient.

A Growing Issue

Medicaid covers 32 million kids nationwide, more than 40 percent of all U.S. children. The federal-state low-income health plan is particularly critical for parents of medically complex kids, because they often have to quit or cut back on work to oversee the care of their child, causing family income to plummet.

When Medicaid was enacted in the mid-1960s, very few children with complicated and severe medical conditions lived past birth or early childhood. Today, thanks to medical advances, more kids born prematurely or with serious congenital conditions are living longer. About 3 million kids in the United States are defined as medically complex, because they have life-threatening conditions that affect two or more organ systems. The majority, about 2 million children, are covered by Medicaid. That number is expected to double in the next decade.

Children’s hospitals and pediatric specialists across the country began seeking authority four years ago to create regional care networks of hospitals, doctors and other health care professionals within Medicaid that could work together seamlessly to provide better and cheaper care for this growing population, in part by operating under uniform reimbursement rules.

The hope is that other insurers will follow Medicaid’s lead, said Jim Kaufman, vice president of public policy at the Children’s Hospital Association, the primary advocate for the proposal.

The bill would call on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to develop national data standards and would allow states to opt into regional provider networks. Parents would also have the option of joining health care networks with their local children’s hospital as the anchor. Ultimately, these professional networks would develop formal business relationships and take on the financial risk of each child’s care.

Lily’s Story

Lily Blackburn, age 7, was born with what is known as STAR syndrome. She’s one of only 75 kids in the country with the condition. As an infant, she had what’s known as failure to thrive syndrome. Now she suffers from hearing loss, compromised vision, lung and heart problems, gastrointestinal issues, incontinence, and neurological abnormalities of the spine, hands and feet. She also suffers from stage-three kidney disease.

For her first few years of life, Lily’s parents had to juggle care provided by 15 different doctors. Her father was in the military and the family was covered by TriCare health insurance when Lily was born. After her father received an honorable discharge so he could help care for her, the family moved from San Diego to Ohio to be closer to family and better health care. They ultimately qualified for Medicaid.

Only a few pediatric hospitals in a handful of states provide the kind of round-the-clock network of care that kids with medical complexity need. Lily is a patient at one of them.

Rainbow Babies and Children’s Hospital, part of the Case University hospital system in Cleveland, provides a “medical home” for patients such as Lily, including a lead pediatrician, nurse practitioners, social workers, and dieticians. “It has been a saving grace for us,” said Lily’s mom, Chrissie. “For the longest time I was Lily’s case manager. I was her mother and her advocate.” She said she wishes many more kids and parents were so lucky.

St. Joseph’s Children’s Hospital of Tampa, Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin and Arkansas Children’s Hospital also provide such care coordination. The hope is that federal action will add more hospitals to that list.  Reported by Huffington Post 16 hours ago.

Health insurance may muddle tax time for some

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Some will simply have to check a box on their tax form; for others, it's more complicated.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
  Reported by USATODAY.com 13 hours ago.

House Advances Bill To Weaken Obamacare

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WASHINGTON -- In yet another attempt to roll back President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, House Republicans advanced a bill Thursday that they said protects the 40-hour workweek, but that Congress' own budget analyst says damages it.

The "Save American Workers Act" targets the requirement under Obamacare that larger employers provide health insurance to employees who work at least 30 hours per week, or pay fines. The bill would raise the threshold to 40 hours.

Republican backers of the change say that it would protect workers from having their hours cut to less than 30 per week by employers who don't want to provide health insurance. To make their case, they pointed to numerous anecdotes of firms doing just that.

"What we are seeing is the bill has fundamentally changed labor law in this country, creating a new standard 30-hour workweek. As a result, workers hours are being cut, and productivity in this country … will decrease over time," said Rep. Michael Burgess (R-Texas) in supporting the procedural rule that passed 244 to 181 Thursday, paving the way for passage of the bill later in the day. Just three Democrats voted in favor.

"We have heard story after story from every state in the union that employers are dropping workers' hours from less than 39 hours a week to perhaps less than 29," he said.

However, official data maintained by the Bureau of Labor Statistics finds that there has actually been no shift toward greater part-time work. In fact, the data shows part-time employment spiked with the recession, and has been decreasing since passage of Obamacare in 2010.

In addition, Democrats were quick to note that the official nonpartisan analyst for the House, the Congressional Budget Office, warned as recently as Wednesday that the measure was likely to create even more part-time workers. That's because vastly more Americans work 40-hour weeks than 30-hour weeks, and employers would have a greater incentive to reduce their hours if the threshold was 40 per week. The change would end up forcing some 1 million people off employer-backed health insurance, add up to 1 million people to government-backed insurance, and cause 500,000 to lose health insurance altogether, according to the CBO. The change would also add $53.2 billion to the deficit over 10 years, the CBO found. The GOP bill proposed no way to pay for that added expense.

That analysis is echoed by numerous independent groups across the political spectrum, from the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities to the conservative National Review and libertarian Cato Institute. The conservatives do not support Obamacare, but agree the 40-hour shift could hurt workers. They also suspect Republicans could have done better by trying to repeal the employer mandate altogether, since more Democrats have shown some willingness for that option.

But there was very little support on the Democratic side of the aisle for Thursday's bill.

"If this very dangerous provision were to become law, many, many Americans would find themselves cut from 40 to 39 hours, 39 and a half hours," said Rep. Jared Polis (D-Colo.) during floor debate. "Go home at 4:30 on Friday. Sorry, no health care."

"This is simply a bad idea, a disincentive for companies to even provide healthcare to their employees. Not only that, this is a deficit buster," Polis added. "How are we going to pay for this $53 billion that this costs?"

New Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Wednesday that he was eager to take up the bill, downplaying the deficit impact.

"Regardless of what the congressional budget view may be of the impact on the U.S. budget," McConnell said, "we know the impact on family budgets, and it’s not good. So I think there’s almost no chance we won’t be voting on that at some point."

Obama has promised to veto the bill.

Jeffrey Young contributed reporting.

Michael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for The Huffington Post. Talk to him on Facebook. Reported by Huffington Post 14 hours ago.

Denver-area churches open doors to assist health insurance enrollees

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Connect for Health Colorado, community organizations and churches are partnering to offer free education and in-person assistance with health insurance enrollment. Reported by Denver Post 14 hours ago.

House Votes to Ease Obamacare Employer Requirements

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The Republican-led House of Representatives voted on Thursday to ease Obamacare's health insurance requirements for employers by approving the first of an expected series of bills aimed at weakening the overall healthcare reform law.... Reported by Newsmax 11 hours ago.

Supreme Court Could Kick 10 Million People Off Health Insurance

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The Supreme Court might be about to blow a hole in Obamacare large enough to fit nearly 10 million people, a new analysis shows.

The high court is scheduled to hear arguments this March in a lawsuit claiming President Barack Obama's administration does not have the legal authority to give tax credit subsidies to millions of people who have insurance under the Affordable Care Act. The argument is over a small bit of wording in the law, which says subsidies can go to people buying insurance on state-run marketplaces, but not to people buying on federally run ones.

Since the federal government operates the exchanges in two-thirds of the states, a ruling for the plaintiffs would gut the Affordable Care Act.

The result: 9.6 million people living in 34 states would be forced to give up their health insurance policies, according to a report issued Thursday by the Rand Corp., a nonprofit consulting firm and think tank. That's 70 percent of the 13.7 million people Rand projects will have health insurance through the exchanges this year. The administration projects 9.1 million enrollees this year; 70 percent of that total would be 6.4 million people.

This latest legal challenge to the Affordable Care Act, called King v. Burwell, alleges that seven words in the statute -- "through an exchange established by the state" -- signify that only state-run health insurance marketplaces are permitted to dole out federal subsidies. The Obama administration, along with the congressional Democrats who wrote the law, reject this argument, and contend a full reading of the statutory language makes plain the ACA's intent is to provide subsidized health coverage to low- and middle-income households in every state.

The Supreme Court agreed to hear this case, one of several similar ones, in November, even though no federal appeals court had ruled in the plaintiffs' favor. Previously, the administration asked the justices to postpone any consideration of the suits until appeals courts issued different decisions. The Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act in another major case against it in 2012, when conservative Chief Justice John Roberts joined four liberal justices in a 5-4 ruling.

The dire effects of a ruling against Obamacare subsidies in states with federal exchanges wouldn't be limited to the people who get tax credits, Rand economists Evan Saltzman and Christine Eibner conclude. At least 85 percent of enrollees get financial assistance via the federal health insurance marketplaces.

In addition to low- and middle-income subsidy recipients finding their health insurance policies unaffordable, unsubsidized customers also would be affected. The sudden withdrawal of 70 percent of enrollees, including large numbers of young and healthy policyholders, would trigger a chain reaction known in industry jargon as a "death spiral."

Health insurance companies would respond to the exit of so many customers, especially the more price-sensitive healthy ones vital to keeping overall costs down, by raising prices. Those high prices would then drive out more consumers, and those who are most expensive to insure because of poor health would be likeliest to remain. That, in turn, would lead to higher costs for insurers, causing them to further increase prices, or to leave exchanges entirely. For a 40-year-old nonsmoker, the premium for a mid-level "Silver" insurance plan initially would jump from $3,450 to $5,060 a year, the study says.

The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Institute issued findings similar to Rand's in a separate report published Thursday. Invalidating tax credits in federal exchange states would increase the number Americans without health coverage by 8.2 million, take away $28.8 billion in subsidies and shrink the exchange markets in those states from 14.2 million customers to 3.4 million.

State governments could forestall these consequences by establishing their own exchanges, but none have made efforts to do so since the Supreme Court announced it would hear the King case. Now, little time remains before justices issue a ruling, which will likely come in June. Similarly, Congress could rectify any ambiguity in the law's language to prevent major disruption in the majority of states, but it has not.

The threat to the Affordable Care Act comes at a time when enrollment on the exchanges is climbing and the share of Americans without health insurance is falling.

From the beginning of the 2015 enrollment period on Nov. 15 through Jan. 2, almost 6.6 million people signed up for private health plans for 2015 on the federal exchanges, along with an estimated 1.5 million or more who enrolled on state-run exchanges. And Gallup survey results issued Wednesday show the national uninsured rate dropped to 12.9 percent during the fourth quarter of last year, the lowest since the polling firm began tracking the statistic in 2008. Reported by Huffington Post 13 hours ago.

HUFFPOST HILL - House Finally Passes Anti-Obamacare Bill

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Scott Brown has yet to declare for the California Senate race, but his campaign to recast "bqhatevwr" as surfer slang has already begun. The New York Times corrected an article that referenced Kyrzbekistan, which you might recall is locked in a fierce trade war with Uz-beki-beki-beki-stan. And John Boehner said he is the most “anti-establishment” speaker ever, and immediately proceeded to yell “Free Mumia!” and invited reporters to join him in a die-in. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Thursday, January 8th, 2015:

*HOUSE PASSES BILL TO WEAKEN OBAMACARE* - Happy 2015! Mike McAuliff: “In yet another attempt to roll back President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act, House Republicans passed a bill, 252-172, Thursday that they said protects the 40-hour workweek, but that Congress' own budget analyst says damages it. *The 'Save American Workers Act’ targets the requirement under Obamacare that larger employers provide health insurance to employees who work at least 30 hours per week, or pay fines*. The bill would raise the threshold to 40 hours. Republican backers of the change say that it would protect workers from having their hours cut to less than 30 per week by employers who don't want to provide health insurance. To make their case, they pointed to numerous anecdotes of firms doing just that.” [HuffPost]

*ARE BODY BLOWS TO OBAMACARE COVERED BY OBAMACARE?* Why repeal Obamacare when you've got a Supreme Court, the John Cornyn asks. "What I expect is that the Supreme Court is going to render a body blow to Obamacare from which I don’t think it will ever recover," Cornyn told Roll Call's Humberto Sanchez and Niels Lesniewski. [Roll Call]

*RUBIO TO HANG OUT WITH MONEY GUYS* - Sam Stein: "Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) will head to New York City next week for a fundraising event hosted by high-powered GOP insider Wayne Berman, according to an invitation of the event obtained by The Huffington Post. The affair will take place on Jan. 13 over lunch at Patroon, an upscale restaurant in midtown, and is tied to the release of the senator’s book 'American Dreams: Restoring Economic Opportunity for Everyone.' It costs $10,200 to be named a co-host of the event, $5,200 to join the dinner committee and $2,600 to simply attend." [HuffPost]

*AMERICA'S NEXT TOP CLIMATE CHANGE DENIER* - Ben Terris: "At the end of last year, with most of his colleagues stuck in Washington for an important Senate session on a Saturday, Sen. James M. Inhofe was in Tulsa getting spurs fastened onto a pair of boots. 'They’re ostrich,' said Inhofe (R-Okla.), the country’s most prominent climate-change denier, referring to his footwear. '*Probably some endangered species, I have a reputation to maintain*.'" WashPost

*Haircuts*: Mike McAuliff (h/t Sabrina Siddiqui), Eliot Nelson (h/t Eliot Nelson)

*DAILY DELANEY DOWNER* - Hollywood, Florida: "Adults and teenagers will no longer be permitted in Hollywood playgrounds unless accompanied by a child. Parents have expressed concerns about adults lurking around playgrounds where their children are playing." Seems it's not so much perverts lurking as teenagers vandalizing and homeless people… existing. [Hollywood Gazette]

Does somebody keep forwarding you this newsletter? Get your own copy. It's free! Sign up here. Send tips/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to huffposthill@huffingtonpost.com. Follow us on Twitter - @HuffPostHill

*BOXER TO RETIRE* - To make things easier, those Californians not planning to run for Senator Boxer’s seat should report to the secretary of state… who actually might be too busy running herself to receive your petition. The Hill: “Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) will retire after finishing her current term in Congress, she announced on her website Thursday morning. ‘I will not be running for the Senate in 2016," shesaid in a video with her grandson… Boxer is 74 years old, and speculation that she would retire has been brewing for years, fueled recently by her stagnant fundraising. But she insisted that her age doesn't play a role in her decision...The senator's decision to retire ends a three-decade congressional career and leaves the Senate without one of its strongest liberal voices on environmental issues. Her decision will also open up the top Democratic spot on the Environment and Public Works Committee, which she chaired last Congress.” [The Hill]

*Don’t count on a Newsom/Harris showdown*: “There's little reason for them to run against each other. They come from the same part of the state (San Francisco) and have very similar political bases — even the same consultant, Averill 'Ace' Smith. Competing against each other would only serve to divide those bases and Northern California votes and perhaps open the door to a candidate from the Los Angeles area to shoot the gap...California Democratic consultant Jim Ross agrees...’The most likely outcome is that one runs for Senate and the other runs for governor.’” [WaPo]

*Possible candidates*: “[Hedge fund manager/environmentalist Tom Steyer], San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo, Rep. Loretta Sanchez, state Insurance Commissioner Dave Jones, state Treasurer John Chiang, former congresswoman Jane Harman and Rep. Karen Bass.” [Ibid.]

*JOHN BOEHNER NOT SQUISHY: JOHN BOEHNER* - Someone needs to mix Boehner repeatedly saying “squish” over a killer grime beat. NBC News: “In his most forceful language yet against GOP detractors, House Speaker John Boehner said Thursday that he dislikes being described as "spineless or a squish" by conservative Republicans, but that the label that stings him the most is when he's called a part of the ‘establishment.’ ‘I am the most anti-Establishment Speaker we have ever had" he told NBC News at his first solo press conference of the new Congress. ‘Who was the guy who got rid of earmarks? Me. Who's the guy who believes in regular order? Me. Who believes in allowing more members to participate in the process, from both sides of the aisle? Me.’ Boehner, who suffered 25 defections from his own party in his successful re-election bid for House Speaker earlier this week, said that he knows that conservatives who believe he's too solicitous to the White House are apt to label him as ‘spineless’ or a ‘squish.’” [NBC News]

*SENATE CLEARS WAY FOR KEYSTONE VOTE* Kate Sheppard: “The Senate Energy and Natural Resources Committee advanced legislation to approve the construction of the Keystone XL pipeline without amendments on Thursday, putting off most debate on the controversial pipeline until a floor vote next week. The committee passed the bill as-written by a 13-9 vote, with bill co-author Joe Manchin (D-W.Va.) the only Democrat to join Republicans in voting ‘yes.’ The White House has already said that President Barack Obama will veto the bill. The bill's Senate sponsors expect to get 63 votes -- enough to pass the legislation, but not enough to override a presidential veto.” [HuffPost]

*SENATE IN SESSION, SENATORS BACK TO WORK* - From Politico Influence: “BGR Group hosted a fundraiser benefiting Bluegrass Committee, the leadership PAC of freshly minted Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Wednesday evening. *The event, held at BGR Group's downtown office to honor the new GOP majority, was attended by 18 Republican senators*: Sens. Roy Blunt, John Boozman, Bill Cassidy, Susan Collins, Steve Daines, Cory Gardner, Orrin Hatch, Dean Heller, Jim Inhofe, James Lankford, John McCain, Rob Portman, Mike Rounds, Tim Scott, Dan Sullivan, Thom Tillis, Roger Wicker and McConnell. The event was emceed by BGR's founding partner Haley Barbour, who introduced the senators like a roll call vote in the Senate chamber.” [Politico]

@davecantanese: Chapter 10 of Mike Huckabee's book is called...

*JEB BUSH: MODERATE?* - Christina Wilkie: “Bush hasn't always been the cheery moderate that he's presented as today. In fact, during his first campaign for governor of Florida in 1994, he was quite conservative….’I would abolish the Department of Education as it now exists...,' Bush told the Orlando Sentinel in a November 1994 interview. Bush also laid out a plan to require that any proposed new taxes be approved directly by Florida voters, a strategy that would have made it nearly impossible to pass them. *What state revenue there was, Bush said, should be used whenever possible to hire private corporations to replace state employees...Under [Bush’s plan], Florida would refuse to accept federal funds to aid the state's poor families, and restrict benefits to just two years of assistance*. To be eligible for benefits, poor women would be required to "identify the fathers of their children, submit to random drug tests and work if jobs were available," according to a Herald story from March 1, 1994.” [HuffPost]

*BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR* - Here’s a four-year-old chatting with some dogs.

*FABULOUS CORRECTION*: “An earlier version of this article misidentified the country whose army chased Tommy Caldwell’s kidnappers. It was Kyrgyzstan, not Kyrzbekistan, which does not exist.” [NYT]

*COMFORT FOOD*

- A collection of cartoonists’ Charlie Hebdo tributes.

- Interactive map shows how many nice days a given county has in a year.

- (Com)bust a move: breakdancer attaches fireworks to his shoes.

- This is what a Tetris Grand Master looks like.

- Scientists have recreated the face of the first people to populate the Americas.

*TWITTERAMA*

@dcbigjohn: 15 emails you have to mute before you die

@daveweigel: Scott Brown for CA-Sen #48statestogo

@ScottBrownCA: god I can't stand clementines

*Got something to add? Send tips/quotes/stories/photos/events/fundraisers/job movement/juicy miscellanea to Eliot Nelson (eliot@huffingtonpost.com) or Arthur Delaney (arthur@huffingtonpost.com). Follow us on Twitter @HuffPostHill (twitter.com/HuffPostHill). Sign up here: http://huff.to/an2k2e* Reported by Huffington Post 11 hours ago.

House Votes to Change Health Law's Definition of Full-Time Worker

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The U.S. House of Representatives voted to ease requirements for when employers must offer workers health insurance by changing the health law’s definition of a full-time worker. Reported by Wall Street Journal 11 hours ago.

New Congress quickly takes aim at Affordable Care Act

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WASHINGTON -- In what is likely to be the first of many fights over the Affordable Care Act during the 114th Congress, the House voted 252-171 Thursday for legislation to waive penalties for companies that don't provide health insurance for... Reported by nola.com 11 hours ago.

Ruling Against Obamacare Would Take Insurance From Millions: Reports

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A Supreme Court ruling that strikes down federal subsidies for health insurance would pull insurance away from millions of people, two groups say. Reported by msnbc.com 10 hours ago.

Obamacare Court Ruling Could Take Insurance From Millions

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A Supreme Court ruling that strikes down federal subsidies for health insurance would pull insurance away from millions of people, two groups say. Reported by msnbc.com 9 hours ago.
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