Hackers are at it again. This time they targeted Premera Blue Cross, a U.S. based health insurance.
Reported by NY Daily News 14 hours ago.
Premera Blue Cross health insurer admits being hacked,
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Health care law paperwork costs small businesses thousands
The Affordable Care Act, which as of next Jan. 1 applies to all companies with 50 or more workers, requires owners to track staffers' hours, absences and how much they spend on health insurance. Some companies are hiring people to take on the extra work and human resources providers and some software developers are experiencing a bump in business. Companies must track workers' hours according to rules created by the IRS to determine whether a business is required to offer health insurance to workers averaging 30 hours a week, and their dependents. Many companies have separate software for payroll, attendance and benefits management and no easy way to combine data from all of them, says John Haslinger, a vice president at ADP Benefits Outsourcing Consulting. Mike Patton's health insurance broker is handling the extra administrative chores for his San Francisco Bay-area flooring company DSB Plus, but he's paying for it through higher premiums — about $25,000 a year.
Reported by SeattlePI.com 14 hours ago.
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A.M. Best Briefing: Uncertainty Surrounds Risk Corridors Payments Collectability
OLDWICK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A new A.M. Best briefing discusses that while risk sharing provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), collectively known as the 3Rs— reinsurance, risk adjustment and risk corridors— were critical factors in insurance companies’ decisions whether or not to participate in the health insurance exchanges in 2014, the December 2014 passage of the Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act of 2015 (Omnibus) has created uncertainty r
Reported by Business Wire 13 hours ago.
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Colorado legislators want to double review time for health exchange
The chair of the legislative committee reviewing the state health insurance exchange said she will ask for a late bill in the Colorado General Assembly to double the scheduled number of
Reported by Denver Post 12 hours ago.
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Colorado consumer advocate to join health insurance exchange board
Colorado consumer advocate Adela Flores-Brennan has been appointed to fill a vacancy on the board of directors of the state health insurance exchange, Connect for Health Colorado.
Reported by Denver Post 12 hours ago.
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House Republicans Just Let The Cat Out Of The Bag
WASHINGTON -- Since taking control of the House in 2010, Republicans have crafted dozens of bills ostensibly devoted to "streamlining and simplifying" the federal government. They've pushed them through the lower chamber, promising to cut red tape and create jobs. But on Tuesday, they let the cat out of the bag. These bills, it turns out, are really just efforts to undermine Wall Street reform and Obamacare while greenlighting pollution.
Much of the House GOP's jobs package is devoted to legislation requiring various forms of "cost-benefit analysis" on new regulations. Critics, however, have repeatedly noted that agencies already have to perform a host of economic impact assessments before making rules. They argue that these bills are really only interested in emphasizing costs. The benefits of regulations, after all, tend to be longer-term and hard to quantify, while costs are relatively easy to figure out. When you curb pollution and give people access to health insurance, it saves lives -- something far more difficult to assign a dollar value than the upfront costs to corporate interests.
"The House GOP budget enacts radical and extreme 'regulatory reform' measures that are better termed 'deregulatory reform,'" Amit Narang, regulatory policy advocate for the nonprofit group Public Citizen, told The Huffington Post this week. "If these measures were to become law, the public could expect... inaction on climate change and another Wall Street meltdown."
House Republicans posted their budget bill Tuesday, and it includes a "statement of policy" -- see page 123, Section 810 -- that makes the critics' points for them. It decries the "468,500 pages" of new regulations the Obama administration has promulgated, and claims that regulatory efforts are running up an annual $2.03 trillion tab on the public. There is no mention of any benefits, economic or otherwise, that have accrued from any rule.
After decrying these abstract costs, the GOP then makes clear what they're really upset about: Obamacare, the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law and Environmental Protection Agency rules on carbon emissions from burning coal. No other legislation is mentioned. While the Republican budget bill decries "unnecessary red tape," the only examples it can find of such inefficiency just happen to be the signature domestic policy achievements of the Obama administration.
Remarkably, this GOP push to gut Wall Street reform, repeal Obamacare and protect polluters has garnered Democratic support in both chambers of Congress. In the Senate, corporate-friendly lawmakers including Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) have co-sponsored Republican bills that seek to saddle regulators with additional cost-benefit requirements. In the House, several conservative Democrats -- including Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), co-chair of the New Democrat Coalition -- have voted for at least one version of the GOP attack on the regulatory state.
The strategy for using cost-benefit analysis to undermine regulators dates back to former House Speaker Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) in the 1990s, and the GOP has tried to revive and revamp one of Gingrich's key achievements in that vein during the current Congress.
While none of these Republican deregulation efforts have been enacted, the GOP has had tremendous success in the courts by pursuing the same line of attack with existing cost-benefit requirements. Conservative power lawyer Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, has overturned key Dodd-Frank rules in court by insisting that agencies didn't properly weigh the corporate costs of financial fairness or stability.
On the other hand, when it's time to write new measures that deregulate industries, Republicans have tended to show some impatience with the economic analysis process -- urging the Securities and Exchange Commission, for instance, to expedite rules deregulating Wall Street securities sales under the so-called JOBS Act. Reported by Huffington Post 12 hours ago.
Much of the House GOP's jobs package is devoted to legislation requiring various forms of "cost-benefit analysis" on new regulations. Critics, however, have repeatedly noted that agencies already have to perform a host of economic impact assessments before making rules. They argue that these bills are really only interested in emphasizing costs. The benefits of regulations, after all, tend to be longer-term and hard to quantify, while costs are relatively easy to figure out. When you curb pollution and give people access to health insurance, it saves lives -- something far more difficult to assign a dollar value than the upfront costs to corporate interests.
"The House GOP budget enacts radical and extreme 'regulatory reform' measures that are better termed 'deregulatory reform,'" Amit Narang, regulatory policy advocate for the nonprofit group Public Citizen, told The Huffington Post this week. "If these measures were to become law, the public could expect... inaction on climate change and another Wall Street meltdown."
House Republicans posted their budget bill Tuesday, and it includes a "statement of policy" -- see page 123, Section 810 -- that makes the critics' points for them. It decries the "468,500 pages" of new regulations the Obama administration has promulgated, and claims that regulatory efforts are running up an annual $2.03 trillion tab on the public. There is no mention of any benefits, economic or otherwise, that have accrued from any rule.
After decrying these abstract costs, the GOP then makes clear what they're really upset about: Obamacare, the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law and Environmental Protection Agency rules on carbon emissions from burning coal. No other legislation is mentioned. While the Republican budget bill decries "unnecessary red tape," the only examples it can find of such inefficiency just happen to be the signature domestic policy achievements of the Obama administration.
Remarkably, this GOP push to gut Wall Street reform, repeal Obamacare and protect polluters has garnered Democratic support in both chambers of Congress. In the Senate, corporate-friendly lawmakers including Sens. Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.) and Mark Warner (D-Va.) have co-sponsored Republican bills that seek to saddle regulators with additional cost-benefit requirements. In the House, several conservative Democrats -- including Rep. Ron Kind (D-Wis.), co-chair of the New Democrat Coalition -- have voted for at least one version of the GOP attack on the regulatory state.
The strategy for using cost-benefit analysis to undermine regulators dates back to former House Speaker Rep. Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) in the 1990s, and the GOP has tried to revive and revamp one of Gingrich's key achievements in that vein during the current Congress.
While none of these Republican deregulation efforts have been enacted, the GOP has had tremendous success in the courts by pursuing the same line of attack with existing cost-benefit requirements. Conservative power lawyer Eugene Scalia, son of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, has overturned key Dodd-Frank rules in court by insisting that agencies didn't properly weigh the corporate costs of financial fairness or stability.
On the other hand, when it's time to write new measures that deregulate industries, Republicans have tended to show some impatience with the economic analysis process -- urging the Securities and Exchange Commission, for instance, to expedite rules deregulating Wall Street securities sales under the so-called JOBS Act. Reported by Huffington Post 12 hours ago.
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House Republican Budget Could Double The Number Of Uninsured
Worried about the number of Americans who still don’t have health insurance? If House Republican leaders get their way, the number will be much bigger -- maybe even twice as big.
That may sound ridiculous. But health care analysts tell The Huffington Post that it’s a fair interpretation of the proposed 2016 budget that Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), the chairman of the House Budget Committee, released on Tuesday.
Price's document includes two familiar ideas for transforming major government health care programs: repealing the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, and transforming Medicaid into a “block grant” program. It’s difficult to be terribly precise about the impact these changes would have, at least without some kind of formal economic modeling. But it's possible to do a rough calculation using estimates from independent experts and the Congressional Budget Office of previous proposals with similar elements, including the budgets that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) issued when he was in charge of the budget committee.
Start with the likely impact of Obamacare repeal. The health care law -- beloved by some, hated by others -- makes Medicaid available to all low-income people in participating states, provides discounted private insurance to people buying on their own, and lets young adults stay on their parents’ plans. As a result, the number of people without health insurance today is down to 35 million, according to CBO. Over the next several years, that number is set to drop even further, to about 26 million. Without the law in place, by CBO’s reckoning, the ranks of the uninsured at this point would have been around 50 million -- and that number is projected to remain steady or increase slightly over the next decade. Taking the ACA off the books, as Price and his GOP allies hope to do, would likely boost the number of uninsured back up to that level or close to it.
Yes, the House Republican budget does call for an Obamacare “replacement.” But the budget provides almost no details about what that replacement might look like and earmarks no funds for that purpose. It’s merely a vow to find some other means of expanding coverage and then somehow pay for it -- something Republicans have been promising, and failing, to do for as long as the Affordable Care Act has been on the books. Even if Republicans did agree on a replacement, it would likely reach only a fraction of the uninsured people that the ACA does.
And Obamacare repeal is only the first way in which Price’s health care agenda would increase the number of uninsured. Turning Medicaid into a block grant, as the House budget seeks to do, would mean ending the program’s current guarantee: that, as more people fall into the program’s eligibility guidelines, the federal government will provide more money. Under a block grant scheme, by contrast, the federal government would start giving states fixed sums of money with which to administer the program. Given the funding levels Price’s budget appears to set, the money almost certainly wouldn’t keep up with demand for the program.
In reality, these block grants are huge budget cuts by another name. States would find it impossible to maintain the Medicaid rolls at those funding levels, and start removing people from the program as a result. How many? Price’s budget doesn’t provide the same level of detail that Ryan’s early budgets did. But the proposals appear to be very similar. And an estimate of Ryan’s 2012 scheme, put together by researchers from the Urban Institute and published by the Kaiser Family Foundation, suggested that by 2022, turning Medicaid into a block grant would reduce the number of people receiving insurance through the program by between 14.3 million and 20.5 million.
Again, this would be on top of the people who would lose insurance thanks to repeal of Obamacare. Add the numbers together and, come 2022, something like 60 or 70 million people who would have gotten insurance through either Medicaid or Obamacare would no longer have it. Few of these people would be able find insurance through other means. The result could be close to twice as many uninsured Americans as the estimated 35 million who lack insurance today -- or possibly even more. (And it’d certainly be more than twice as many as the 26 million who, according to the CBO, would remain uninsured in 2022 under the status quo.)
According to Edwin Park, vice president for health policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "It is likely that tens of millions of people will lose health coverage and become uninsured (or remain uninsured) under the House budget plan -- 25 million more people uninsured through the repeal of the ACA coverage expansions and many millions more would likely become uninsured under the proposal to convert Medicaid to a block grant."
William Allison, a spokesman for the House Budget Committee, told HuffPost such changes are necessary -- and worthwhile, given the troubles that the Affordable Care Act and the Medicaid program have created.
“Obamacare is harming individuals, families and physicians," he said. "Folks are facing higher premiums and being kicked off their preferred plans, losing access to doctors they know and trust, while taxes and regulations are stifling medical innovation. Our budget would repeal in its entirety this disastrous law, and lay the groundwork for patient-centered health care reforms that would increase coverage, lower costs and provide better outcomes for patients and families.”
To be clear, the budget is merely a spending blueprint that Congress sets for itself. Even if Senate Republicans go along with what Price and House Republicans want, both chambers would still have to pass spending bills that carry out those instructions, and then President Barack Obama would have to sign them. Neither is going to happen. But the annual budget documents are statements of priorities -- about the kinds of trade-offs in public policy that party leaders find acceptable.
Republicans boast that their budget would mean smaller government, lower taxes and less regulation -- changes that, they say, would be good for the country as a whole. Maybe that's true and maybe that isn't; it's a judgment call, obviously. But one clear cost of those changes will be depriving not just millions, but tens of millions, of the health insurance they currently stand to keep. Reported by Huffington Post 12 hours ago.
That may sound ridiculous. But health care analysts tell The Huffington Post that it’s a fair interpretation of the proposed 2016 budget that Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), the chairman of the House Budget Committee, released on Tuesday.
Price's document includes two familiar ideas for transforming major government health care programs: repealing the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, and transforming Medicaid into a “block grant” program. It’s difficult to be terribly precise about the impact these changes would have, at least without some kind of formal economic modeling. But it's possible to do a rough calculation using estimates from independent experts and the Congressional Budget Office of previous proposals with similar elements, including the budgets that Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) issued when he was in charge of the budget committee.
Start with the likely impact of Obamacare repeal. The health care law -- beloved by some, hated by others -- makes Medicaid available to all low-income people in participating states, provides discounted private insurance to people buying on their own, and lets young adults stay on their parents’ plans. As a result, the number of people without health insurance today is down to 35 million, according to CBO. Over the next several years, that number is set to drop even further, to about 26 million. Without the law in place, by CBO’s reckoning, the ranks of the uninsured at this point would have been around 50 million -- and that number is projected to remain steady or increase slightly over the next decade. Taking the ACA off the books, as Price and his GOP allies hope to do, would likely boost the number of uninsured back up to that level or close to it.
Yes, the House Republican budget does call for an Obamacare “replacement.” But the budget provides almost no details about what that replacement might look like and earmarks no funds for that purpose. It’s merely a vow to find some other means of expanding coverage and then somehow pay for it -- something Republicans have been promising, and failing, to do for as long as the Affordable Care Act has been on the books. Even if Republicans did agree on a replacement, it would likely reach only a fraction of the uninsured people that the ACA does.
And Obamacare repeal is only the first way in which Price’s health care agenda would increase the number of uninsured. Turning Medicaid into a block grant, as the House budget seeks to do, would mean ending the program’s current guarantee: that, as more people fall into the program’s eligibility guidelines, the federal government will provide more money. Under a block grant scheme, by contrast, the federal government would start giving states fixed sums of money with which to administer the program. Given the funding levels Price’s budget appears to set, the money almost certainly wouldn’t keep up with demand for the program.
In reality, these block grants are huge budget cuts by another name. States would find it impossible to maintain the Medicaid rolls at those funding levels, and start removing people from the program as a result. How many? Price’s budget doesn’t provide the same level of detail that Ryan’s early budgets did. But the proposals appear to be very similar. And an estimate of Ryan’s 2012 scheme, put together by researchers from the Urban Institute and published by the Kaiser Family Foundation, suggested that by 2022, turning Medicaid into a block grant would reduce the number of people receiving insurance through the program by between 14.3 million and 20.5 million.
Again, this would be on top of the people who would lose insurance thanks to repeal of Obamacare. Add the numbers together and, come 2022, something like 60 or 70 million people who would have gotten insurance through either Medicaid or Obamacare would no longer have it. Few of these people would be able find insurance through other means. The result could be close to twice as many uninsured Americans as the estimated 35 million who lack insurance today -- or possibly even more. (And it’d certainly be more than twice as many as the 26 million who, according to the CBO, would remain uninsured in 2022 under the status quo.)
According to Edwin Park, vice president for health policy at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, "It is likely that tens of millions of people will lose health coverage and become uninsured (or remain uninsured) under the House budget plan -- 25 million more people uninsured through the repeal of the ACA coverage expansions and many millions more would likely become uninsured under the proposal to convert Medicaid to a block grant."
William Allison, a spokesman for the House Budget Committee, told HuffPost such changes are necessary -- and worthwhile, given the troubles that the Affordable Care Act and the Medicaid program have created.
“Obamacare is harming individuals, families and physicians," he said. "Folks are facing higher premiums and being kicked off their preferred plans, losing access to doctors they know and trust, while taxes and regulations are stifling medical innovation. Our budget would repeal in its entirety this disastrous law, and lay the groundwork for patient-centered health care reforms that would increase coverage, lower costs and provide better outcomes for patients and families.”
To be clear, the budget is merely a spending blueprint that Congress sets for itself. Even if Senate Republicans go along with what Price and House Republicans want, both chambers would still have to pass spending bills that carry out those instructions, and then President Barack Obama would have to sign them. Neither is going to happen. But the annual budget documents are statements of priorities -- about the kinds of trade-offs in public policy that party leaders find acceptable.
Republicans boast that their budget would mean smaller government, lower taxes and less regulation -- changes that, they say, would be good for the country as a whole. Maybe that's true and maybe that isn't; it's a judgment call, obviously. But one clear cost of those changes will be depriving not just millions, but tens of millions, of the health insurance they currently stand to keep. Reported by Huffington Post 12 hours ago.
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Live To Be Sober Hosts Guide to Overcome Addiction Luncheon at Ford Field
Live to be Sober invites local pastors and other substance abuse prevention leaders to attend “A Guide to Overcoming Addiction” summit at Ford Field.
Detroit, Michigan (PRWEB) March 18, 2015
On March 19, 2015, Live To Be Sober will be hosting an invitational event at Ford Field in Downtown Detroit. Civic leaders, substance abuse treatment professionals, pastors and law enforcement officials will attend and for an informational presentation on the problems of drug abuse and alcoholism, and the solutions offered through effective treatment. Live to be Sober is a non-profit organization that focuses on providing information and assistance regarding substance abuse treatment programs and facilities.
Some of the topics that will be covered in the day’s discussions include:· Cost Analysis of Substance Abuse vs. Treatment
· Assistance in Finding Effective Programs
· Recognizing the Signs of Substance Abuse
· Assessing Insurance Options
· Tips on Helping a Loved One
Guest Presenters at Overcoming Addiction Luncheon
Guest presenters at the Live To Be Sober invitational seminar include retired Detroit Lions wide receiver and motivational speaker Herman Moore, as well as rehabilitation specialists; among others. The event will also offer a complimentary buffet and a tour of Ford Field hosted by Herman Moore. The seminar, including parking at Ford Field, will be at no cost to the guests. The goal is to offer assistance to influential leaders in the community in finding effective options in substance abuse treatment for those who may need help but are unsure of where to begin.
With the implementation of programs such as the Affordable Healthcare Act, navigating the often confusing landscape of health insurance providers and their policies can be frustrating for many. The Live To Be Sober organization specializes in making sense of the enormous amount of information available and providing that information in a clear and easy-to-understand way to those who are in need of assistance.
For more information visit http://www.livetobesober.org. Reported by PRWeb 11 hours ago.
Detroit, Michigan (PRWEB) March 18, 2015
On March 19, 2015, Live To Be Sober will be hosting an invitational event at Ford Field in Downtown Detroit. Civic leaders, substance abuse treatment professionals, pastors and law enforcement officials will attend and for an informational presentation on the problems of drug abuse and alcoholism, and the solutions offered through effective treatment. Live to be Sober is a non-profit organization that focuses on providing information and assistance regarding substance abuse treatment programs and facilities.
Some of the topics that will be covered in the day’s discussions include:· Cost Analysis of Substance Abuse vs. Treatment
· Assistance in Finding Effective Programs
· Recognizing the Signs of Substance Abuse
· Assessing Insurance Options
· Tips on Helping a Loved One
Guest Presenters at Overcoming Addiction Luncheon
Guest presenters at the Live To Be Sober invitational seminar include retired Detroit Lions wide receiver and motivational speaker Herman Moore, as well as rehabilitation specialists; among others. The event will also offer a complimentary buffet and a tour of Ford Field hosted by Herman Moore. The seminar, including parking at Ford Field, will be at no cost to the guests. The goal is to offer assistance to influential leaders in the community in finding effective options in substance abuse treatment for those who may need help but are unsure of where to begin.
With the implementation of programs such as the Affordable Healthcare Act, navigating the often confusing landscape of health insurance providers and their policies can be frustrating for many. The Live To Be Sober organization specializes in making sense of the enormous amount of information available and providing that information in a clear and easy-to-understand way to those who are in need of assistance.
For more information visit http://www.livetobesober.org. Reported by PRWeb 11 hours ago.
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Woman Says She Was Denied Gynecology Coverage By Blue Cross Blue Shield Over Pap Smear
Woman Says She Was Denied Gynecology Coverage By Blue Cross Blue Shield Over Pap SmearWoman Says She Was Denied Gynecology Coverage By Blue Cross Blue Shield Over Pap Smear
Companies
BCBS
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Anna Haas' gynecologist found some precancerous cells in a suspicious looking bump during her annual pap smear.
The doctor advised the 26 year old to undergo a colposcopy, which would to examine her cervix and remove the suspicious bump.
After Haas followed her doctor's advice, she switched from her parents' Blue Cross Blue Shield health insurance plan to a Blue Cross Blue Shield individual plan, noted AlterNet.org.
Haas made sure that there was no uninsured time between the switch; she covered all the lawyerball health care bases, so she thought.
However, when the young woman applied for her individual plan online, she noted her colposcopy.
In response, Blue Cross Blue Shield approved Haas for the plan she wanted, but added that she would not have coverage for women’s preventative health maintenance.
Haas told AlterNet.org:
I was really scared. I had always heard about friends who didn’t have health insurance, horror stories of what they had to go through with their illnesses … I’m somebody who has never really been sick, never had a major surgery. This is the most minor thing I could possibly have, and I took preventative measures to get it removed. And I was still denied coverage for all gynecological care.
Her father, David Haas, an infectious diseases physician, recalled:
I figured it was a misunderstanding—a clerical thing—and it would not be an issue. Then we got a response from BCBS underwriters who review requests like these, and it said they would stand by their decision and she would not be covered for anything related to the abnormal pap smear.
After numerous denials, David sent Blue Cross Blue Shield a letter in 2012 proposing a medical panel at the 2012 Vanderbilt Infectious Diseases Grand Rounds that would include himself, his daughter and the CEO of Blue Cross Blue Shield of Tennessee.
David said the title of discussion panel would be: “Understanding Insurance Policies on Pre-Existing Conditions and Women’s Health," and include a subtitle, “What every parent should know.”
David soon received a letter from Blue Cross Blue Shield saying that his daughter would be still denied, but that was quickly followed by another letter stating that she would be covered as of April 1, 2012.
Blue Cross Blue Shield refused to comment to AlterNet.org, but David said:
The insurance company found a way to deny something for my daughter that I think the overwhelming majority of people would not be able to fight against. This took a lot of consistent time and effort over multiple letters to client coverage. It also took quite a bit of knowledge on my part to understand what the meaning was of the abnormal pap smear, and, if properly handled, it should not have any detrimental effect on a person’s life.
Fortunately, pre-existing health conditions may no longer be used by health insurance companies to deny health coverage as of January 1, 2014, because of Obamacare, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services website.
The only exception to this rule are individual health insurance policies that were "grandfathered" (bought before March 23, 2010).
This exception was added by the Obama administration in response to Republicans who were furious when people's substandard health care plans were being canceled by insurance companies. Many Americans liked their awful health coverage plans and demanded to keep them, reported Mother Jones.
Ironically, GOP leaders were equally angry about this exception, which only lasts until 2016, noted RollCall.com.
Sources: AlterNet.org, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, RollCall.com, Mother Jones
Image Credit: Blue Cross Blue Shield Logo
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OV in Depth: Reported by Opposing Views 9 hours ago.
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A Nation Divided: 2 Health Care Americas
America is on the cusp of becoming a nation with two health care systems. This sharp division is the result of continued resistance to the Affordable Care Act (ACA), and it does greatest harm to residents where the resistance is greatest.
Two current developments are animating this division: One relates to state decisions about expanding Medicaid, and the other is the potential outcome of the Supreme Court case, King v. Burwell, which was brought by ACA opponents and was argued on March 4.
The first difference arises because 28 states accepted 100 percent federal support to extend Medicaid coverage to the poor, but 22 states have rejected it. The second difference would arise if the Supreme Court withdraws premium subsidies from millions of moderate-income residents in dozens of states where the federal government administers new health insurance marketplaces.
Because of these differences, one set of states will continue to expand health coverage, eliminate coverage exclusions for people with pre-existing conditions and ensure vibrant health insurance markets and economically viable hospital systems.
In the other set of states, large numbers of people are at risk of losing health coverage, protections for people with pre-existing conditions would be in jeopardy, private insurance markets are likely to collapse and many hospitals may close.
Health coverage: In our nation's four most populous states -- California, Florida, New York and Texas -- huge differences in health coverage illustrate the wide gap among the two health care Americas.
California and New York have significantly extended health coverage to the uninsured. Both states expanded Medicaid to those with annual incomes below 138 percent of the federal poverty level ($16,104 for an individual, $27,311 for three-person families). Moderate-income people can receive premium subsidies to make marketplace health plans affordable. And since both states run their health insurance marketplaces, consumers are not at risk of losing these subsidies.
As a result, these states significantly reduced their uninsured rate. According to a recent Gallup-Healthways survey, California's adult uninsured rate last year dropped from 21.6 percent to 16.3 percent, and New York's dropped from 12.6 to 10.3 percent. This progress is expected to continue.
On the other hand, Florida and Texas have not expanded Medicaid. In Florida, parents in a three-person family are denied Medicaid if their annual income exceeds $6,930. In Texas, the cutoff is $3,960. And in both states, non-parental adults - singles and childless couples - can't get Medicaid even if they are penniless.
The adult uninsured rate in Texas is the highest in the nation: 24.0 percent. Florida's uninsured rate is fourth highest at 18.9 percent.
For Texans and Floridians, the situation may soon get much worse: If the Supreme Court decides that premium subsidies should be withdrawn from states with federally run marketplaces, the Urban Institute projects that almost 1.1 million Floridians, and more than 1.4 million Texans, would lose coverage by 2016.
*People with Pre-Existing Conditions*: The most popular ACA reform protects people with pre-existing conditions. Insurers can't deny or drop coverage due to such conditions and can't charge discriminatory premiums.
For these protections to work, however, insurance pools must remain balanced so they include younger, healthier people along with older, sicker people. Failing to retain that balance means that premiums will skyrocket.
If the Supreme Court withdraws premium subsidies from states with federally run marketplaces, huge numbers of healthier people in those states will drop insurance. A recent Rand Corporation study projects that withdrawing these subsidies would reduce health coverage by 9.6 million people and would increase premiums by 47 percent.
As a result, there would be two Americas for people with pre-existing conditions: In states that run their own marketplaces, the protections will remain robust. In the other states, imbalanced insurance pools would jeopardize protections for people with pre-existing conditions because premiums would become unaffordable.
*Insurers and Hospitals*: In states that lose premium subsidies, the health insurance marketplaces would deteriorate as fewer and fewer healthy people keep their coverage. If these insurance markets become unstable, many insurers would exit these states and concentrate their business in more hospitable locations.
The loss of numerous insurers in these states would lead to near-monopolistic insurance markets, and consumers would lose the benefits of health plan competition. This would inevitably lead to an out-of-control spiral in premium prices.
Similarly, in states that lose premium subsidies and don't expand Medicaid, hospitals would be strained by the need to provide uncompensated care. Unable to shoulder that burden, many would likely close. A forerunner of this has already happened in some states that have not expanded Medicaid.
Can we halt this movement toward two health care systems? We can if more governors accept federal funds to expand Medicaid. And we can if the Supreme Court adheres to its apolitical roots and follows clear congressional intent that premium subsidies be available in all states across the country.
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Ronald F. Pollack, a former law school dean, is the executive director of Families USA, the national organization for health care consumers. Reported by Huffington Post 9 hours ago.
Two current developments are animating this division: One relates to state decisions about expanding Medicaid, and the other is the potential outcome of the Supreme Court case, King v. Burwell, which was brought by ACA opponents and was argued on March 4.
The first difference arises because 28 states accepted 100 percent federal support to extend Medicaid coverage to the poor, but 22 states have rejected it. The second difference would arise if the Supreme Court withdraws premium subsidies from millions of moderate-income residents in dozens of states where the federal government administers new health insurance marketplaces.
Because of these differences, one set of states will continue to expand health coverage, eliminate coverage exclusions for people with pre-existing conditions and ensure vibrant health insurance markets and economically viable hospital systems.
In the other set of states, large numbers of people are at risk of losing health coverage, protections for people with pre-existing conditions would be in jeopardy, private insurance markets are likely to collapse and many hospitals may close.
Health coverage: In our nation's four most populous states -- California, Florida, New York and Texas -- huge differences in health coverage illustrate the wide gap among the two health care Americas.
California and New York have significantly extended health coverage to the uninsured. Both states expanded Medicaid to those with annual incomes below 138 percent of the federal poverty level ($16,104 for an individual, $27,311 for three-person families). Moderate-income people can receive premium subsidies to make marketplace health plans affordable. And since both states run their health insurance marketplaces, consumers are not at risk of losing these subsidies.
As a result, these states significantly reduced their uninsured rate. According to a recent Gallup-Healthways survey, California's adult uninsured rate last year dropped from 21.6 percent to 16.3 percent, and New York's dropped from 12.6 to 10.3 percent. This progress is expected to continue.
On the other hand, Florida and Texas have not expanded Medicaid. In Florida, parents in a three-person family are denied Medicaid if their annual income exceeds $6,930. In Texas, the cutoff is $3,960. And in both states, non-parental adults - singles and childless couples - can't get Medicaid even if they are penniless.
The adult uninsured rate in Texas is the highest in the nation: 24.0 percent. Florida's uninsured rate is fourth highest at 18.9 percent.
For Texans and Floridians, the situation may soon get much worse: If the Supreme Court decides that premium subsidies should be withdrawn from states with federally run marketplaces, the Urban Institute projects that almost 1.1 million Floridians, and more than 1.4 million Texans, would lose coverage by 2016.
*People with Pre-Existing Conditions*: The most popular ACA reform protects people with pre-existing conditions. Insurers can't deny or drop coverage due to such conditions and can't charge discriminatory premiums.
For these protections to work, however, insurance pools must remain balanced so they include younger, healthier people along with older, sicker people. Failing to retain that balance means that premiums will skyrocket.
If the Supreme Court withdraws premium subsidies from states with federally run marketplaces, huge numbers of healthier people in those states will drop insurance. A recent Rand Corporation study projects that withdrawing these subsidies would reduce health coverage by 9.6 million people and would increase premiums by 47 percent.
As a result, there would be two Americas for people with pre-existing conditions: In states that run their own marketplaces, the protections will remain robust. In the other states, imbalanced insurance pools would jeopardize protections for people with pre-existing conditions because premiums would become unaffordable.
*Insurers and Hospitals*: In states that lose premium subsidies, the health insurance marketplaces would deteriorate as fewer and fewer healthy people keep their coverage. If these insurance markets become unstable, many insurers would exit these states and concentrate their business in more hospitable locations.
The loss of numerous insurers in these states would lead to near-monopolistic insurance markets, and consumers would lose the benefits of health plan competition. This would inevitably lead to an out-of-control spiral in premium prices.
Similarly, in states that lose premium subsidies and don't expand Medicaid, hospitals would be strained by the need to provide uncompensated care. Unable to shoulder that burden, many would likely close. A forerunner of this has already happened in some states that have not expanded Medicaid.
Can we halt this movement toward two health care systems? We can if more governors accept federal funds to expand Medicaid. And we can if the Supreme Court adheres to its apolitical roots and follows clear congressional intent that premium subsidies be available in all states across the country.
---
Ronald F. Pollack, a former law school dean, is the executive director of Families USA, the national organization for health care consumers. Reported by Huffington Post 9 hours ago.
↧
Premera Blue Cross Cyberattack Exposed Millions Of Customer Records
The health insurance provider revealed Tuesday that a cyberattack discovered in January, may have made the medical and financial information of 11 million people vulnerable to thieves.
Reported by NPR 8 hours ago.
↧
The More Skin We Put in the Game, the More Wall Street Likes It
The reason healthcare costs are so high is that Americans don't have nearly enough "skin in the game."
That was the phrase that many of my former colleagues in the insurance industry and I began using in the early 2000s as a way to deflect attention away from us.
Americans -- especially American employers -- looked to private insurers to help control medical costs. But insurers were failing miserably, and some of them -- Aetna in particular -- were also failing Wall Street.
Thirteen years ago, investors and Wall Street financial analysts were not happy with the way some managed care companies were running their businesses. They felt that Aetna and other big for-profit insurers were spending far too much of their policyholders' premiums paying claims. And they didn't like it that insurers hadn't been aggressive enough in getting rid of "unprofitable" customers.
One way to satisfy Wall Street was to begin shifting more and more of the cost of health care -- and health insurance -- to their customers. That meant that sick policyholders in particular would be paying more out of their own pocket for their care.
Our marketing folks came up with an almost Orwellian name for this cost shifting: "consumer-driven health care." In retrospect, it was a brilliant strategy, and one that got virtually no pushback from lawmakers or regulators. Little by little, year after year -- and long before many people outside Illinois had ever heard of Barack Obama -- Americans began putting more of their skin in the healthcare game. They had no choice.
The strategy has been so successful that insurers are back in Wall Street's good graces. Their profits keep breaking records, and so does the price of their stock.
But what's good for them has been anything but good for a growing number of Americans. Out-of-pocket expenses have gotten so high that nearly half of American families don't have enough money in the bank to pay their deductibles if they get really sick.
That was one of the findings of last week's report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which decided to look into how the skin-in-the-game strategy is affecting family budgets. KFF's researchers found that 49 percent of American households wouldn't have enough liquid assets to meet what their out-of-pocket obligations would be if they were in a plan with a $2,500 individual deductible and $5,000 family deductible.
While conventional wisdom holds that consumer-driven health care has contributed to a slowing in the rate of medical inflation, it also undoubtedly has contributed to a very troubling phenomenon: people with health insurance who are no longer getting the care they need because they don't have enough money to meet their deductibles.
"High deductibles may be okay for people who are generally healthy and have the resources to pay their cost sharing when they need to," Kaiser Family Foundation CEO Drew Altman wrote in a Wall Street Journal commentary last Wednesday. "But big deductibles can also be a real barrier to needed care for people with moderate or lower incomes who are sick."
The additional skin we've had to put in the game has been fairly modest on a year-to-year basis, so modest, in fact, that it hasn't attracted much attention. But when you look back over the past decade, the cumulative increase is startling. Out-of-pocket costs have increased 100 percent or more in most states since 2003, according to the Commonwealth Fund, which also has been following this trend.
And while this has been going on, premiums have been going through the roof. The average premium for an employer-sponsored plan nearly tripled between 1999 and 2014, from $5,791 to $16,834. And lest you think Obamacare is to blame, some of the biggest annual increases occurred during the decade before the Affordable Care Act was passed.
Not only that, but a growing percentage of the premiums is coming out of workers' paychecks. In 1999, the employee contribution to premiums for a family policy averaged 26.6 percent, according to KFF. It had risen to 29 percent by 2010, the year Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.
After the law went into effect, the percentage actually declined. It stood at 28.7 percent in 2014. Even with that modest decline, workers in 2014 nevertheless were paying more than three times as much for their employer-sponsored family coverage as they did in 1999 ($4,823 vs. $1,543).
The first time I recall an insurance company executive use the term "skin in the game" was in 2002 when then Aetna CEO John W. Rowe used it during a call with financial analysts and investors. The occasion was the company's first quarter earnings report. Rowe described what he and his management team had been doing to turn the company around, which included getting rid of millions of members Aetna considered to be money losers.
Rowe said that to keep shareholders happy, Aetna would increase premiums 18 percent that year and shift more of the cost of care to its remaining members.
"We are giving people some skin in the game, a personal financial interest in being cautious about seeking care," Rowe told The New York Times.
That was music to investors' ears. Aetna's shares rose 13.5 percent that day.
The stock price closed at $11.42 on April 26, 2002 (after adjusting for subsequent stock splits). Today (March 18) it reached $107.86, an all-time high -- thanks, in large part, to all that skin its policyholders have had to put in the game. Reported by Huffington Post 6 hours ago.
That was the phrase that many of my former colleagues in the insurance industry and I began using in the early 2000s as a way to deflect attention away from us.
Americans -- especially American employers -- looked to private insurers to help control medical costs. But insurers were failing miserably, and some of them -- Aetna in particular -- were also failing Wall Street.
Thirteen years ago, investors and Wall Street financial analysts were not happy with the way some managed care companies were running their businesses. They felt that Aetna and other big for-profit insurers were spending far too much of their policyholders' premiums paying claims. And they didn't like it that insurers hadn't been aggressive enough in getting rid of "unprofitable" customers.
One way to satisfy Wall Street was to begin shifting more and more of the cost of health care -- and health insurance -- to their customers. That meant that sick policyholders in particular would be paying more out of their own pocket for their care.
Our marketing folks came up with an almost Orwellian name for this cost shifting: "consumer-driven health care." In retrospect, it was a brilliant strategy, and one that got virtually no pushback from lawmakers or regulators. Little by little, year after year -- and long before many people outside Illinois had ever heard of Barack Obama -- Americans began putting more of their skin in the healthcare game. They had no choice.
The strategy has been so successful that insurers are back in Wall Street's good graces. Their profits keep breaking records, and so does the price of their stock.
But what's good for them has been anything but good for a growing number of Americans. Out-of-pocket expenses have gotten so high that nearly half of American families don't have enough money in the bank to pay their deductibles if they get really sick.
That was one of the findings of last week's report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, which decided to look into how the skin-in-the-game strategy is affecting family budgets. KFF's researchers found that 49 percent of American households wouldn't have enough liquid assets to meet what their out-of-pocket obligations would be if they were in a plan with a $2,500 individual deductible and $5,000 family deductible.
While conventional wisdom holds that consumer-driven health care has contributed to a slowing in the rate of medical inflation, it also undoubtedly has contributed to a very troubling phenomenon: people with health insurance who are no longer getting the care they need because they don't have enough money to meet their deductibles.
"High deductibles may be okay for people who are generally healthy and have the resources to pay their cost sharing when they need to," Kaiser Family Foundation CEO Drew Altman wrote in a Wall Street Journal commentary last Wednesday. "But big deductibles can also be a real barrier to needed care for people with moderate or lower incomes who are sick."
The additional skin we've had to put in the game has been fairly modest on a year-to-year basis, so modest, in fact, that it hasn't attracted much attention. But when you look back over the past decade, the cumulative increase is startling. Out-of-pocket costs have increased 100 percent or more in most states since 2003, according to the Commonwealth Fund, which also has been following this trend.
And while this has been going on, premiums have been going through the roof. The average premium for an employer-sponsored plan nearly tripled between 1999 and 2014, from $5,791 to $16,834. And lest you think Obamacare is to blame, some of the biggest annual increases occurred during the decade before the Affordable Care Act was passed.
Not only that, but a growing percentage of the premiums is coming out of workers' paychecks. In 1999, the employee contribution to premiums for a family policy averaged 26.6 percent, according to KFF. It had risen to 29 percent by 2010, the year Congress passed the Affordable Care Act.
After the law went into effect, the percentage actually declined. It stood at 28.7 percent in 2014. Even with that modest decline, workers in 2014 nevertheless were paying more than three times as much for their employer-sponsored family coverage as they did in 1999 ($4,823 vs. $1,543).
The first time I recall an insurance company executive use the term "skin in the game" was in 2002 when then Aetna CEO John W. Rowe used it during a call with financial analysts and investors. The occasion was the company's first quarter earnings report. Rowe described what he and his management team had been doing to turn the company around, which included getting rid of millions of members Aetna considered to be money losers.
Rowe said that to keep shareholders happy, Aetna would increase premiums 18 percent that year and shift more of the cost of care to its remaining members.
"We are giving people some skin in the game, a personal financial interest in being cautious about seeking care," Rowe told The New York Times.
That was music to investors' ears. Aetna's shares rose 13.5 percent that day.
The stock price closed at $11.42 on April 26, 2002 (after adjusting for subsequent stock splits). Today (March 18) it reached $107.86, an all-time high -- thanks, in large part, to all that skin its policyholders have had to put in the game. Reported by Huffington Post 6 hours ago.
↧
HUFFPOST HILL - Obamacare Probably Doomed This Time
"We must do all that we can to stop President Obama's lawlessness," Bob Goodlatte said today, likely a reference to when Obama and the Hole in the Wall Gang stole a bunch of cattle from Farmer Kinney’s ranch. Ted Cruz wants to allow LGBT discrimination in D.C. to continue, suggesting there are people in D.C. who aren’t gay. And a staffer for Amy Klobuchar knew weeks ago about an anti-abortion provision in the Senate’s human trafficking bill. The news angered both Republicans, who have been battling Democrats over the legislation, and Democrats, who were shocked to learn they have to pay attention while in the minority. This is HUFFPOST HILL for Wednesday, March 18th, 2015:
*GOP TRYING TO GUT OBAMACARE WITH RECONCILIATION* - What about stealing America's nuclear launch codes and destroying the country in a blaze of radioactive hellfire? That would more or less remove Obamacare. Politico "*Senate Republicans want to use a powerful budget maneuver known as reconciliation to go after President Barack Obama’s health care law -- particularly if the Supreme Court strikes down key provisions of Obamacare this June*. Using the fast-tracking procedure offers some advantage for Republicans, largely because a reconciliation package can’t be filibustered… But it’s not going to be easy. First, House and Senate Republicans need to agree on a budget resolution, which could be difficult with fiscal conservatives calling for spending cuts but defense hawks looking for more money for the Pentagon. And, of course, President Barack Obama could veto any reconciliation bill that reaches his desk. Still, Republicans are hoping the procedural maneuver will get them closer, at least symbolically, to gutting the president’s signature health care law. The plans were included in a budget blueprint rolled out Wednesday by the Senate Budget Committee -- a governing document that calls for balancing the budget within a decade, extracting hundreds of billions in savings from Medicare and turning over more responsibility to the states to run Medicaid, reducing costs even further." [Politico]
Scott Walker caved to Iowa Republicans and fired Liz Mair, prompting Tim Carney and others to observe that Walker is an Iowa-pandering wimp.
*DEMOCRATIC AIDE KNEW OF ABORTION PROVISION* - Guess it wasn't such a *hide amendment* issue after all. David Espo and Erica Werner: "Senate Democrats blocked debate on stalled human trafficking legislation for a second day Wednesday as *a Democratic senator's office belatedly conceded that a staff aide knew weeks ago that the measure included a controversial abortion-related provision*. Democrats have said for more than a week that their side of the aisle was not aware of the provision until a few days ago, nearly two months after the legislation was made public and long after a bipartisan vote in the Judiciary Committee on Feb. 24." [Associated Press]
Watch Rick Santorum wait patiently for a crazy lady to quit screaming so he can agree with her.
*CRUZ GOING AFTER D.C. ABORTION, LGBT LAWS* - Roll Call: "Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and James Lankford of Oklahoma introduced resolutions of disapproval Wednesday to strike down two D.C. bills they say violate religious freedom. The resolutions target the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act and the Human Rights Amendment Act, which the D.C. government approved in January…*The Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act seeks to prohibit employer discrimination based on reproductive health decisions.* The D.C. Council unanimously approved a resolution on March 3 clarifying the act would not require employers to pay for insurance that covers reproductive health decisions, such as abortions. But conservatives argue the clarification does not go far enough, and employers would still be forced to act contrary to their religious beliefs. *The second D.C. measure, the Human Rights Amendment Act, is actually an attempt to undo a 1989 congressional amendment known as the Nation’s Capital Religious Liberty and Academic Freedom Act*, which allowed religious educational institutions to 'deny, restrict, abridge, or condition' funds, school facilities and services from gay groups." [Roll Call]
*SCRAP THE CAP!* As congressional Republicans push a wish-list budget that would dramatically cut government safety net programs, their Democratic counterparts are jumping on a bill to expand Social Security benefits and shore up the program's finances. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, endorsed the legislation at a press conference Tuesday. "You don't save Social Security by cutting Social Security," said Van Hollen, who previously endorsed a proposal that would trim Social Security benefits and is currently campaigning for a Senate seat in Maryland. [HuffPost]
*DAILY DELANEY DOWNER* - Amazing report by San Francisco area TV station KCBS: "Saint Mary’s Cathedral, the principal church of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, *has installed a watering system to keep the homeless from sleeping in the cathedral’s doorways*. The cathedral, at Geary and Gough, is the home church of the Archbishop. There are four tall side doors, with sheltered alcoves, that attract homeless people at night…. *Water pours from a hole in the ceiling, about 30 feet above, drenching the alcove and anyone in it*. The shower ran for about 75 seconds, every 30 to 60 minutes while we were there, starting before sunset, simultaneously in all four doorways. KCBS witnessed it soak homeless people, and their belongings….A cathedral staff member *confirmed to KCBS the system was installed, perhaps a year ago, to deter the homeless from sleeping there*." [KCBS]
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
*REPUBLICAN BUDGET WILL GIVE YOU THE SNIFFLES* - Jonathan Cohn: "Worried about the number of Americans who still don’t have health insurance? If House Republican leaders get their way, the number will be much bigger -- maybe even twice as big. That may sound ridiculous. But health care analysts tell The Huffington Post that it’s a fair interpretation of the proposed 2016 budget that Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), the chairman of the House Budget Committee, released on Tuesday. Price's document includes two familiar ideas for transforming major government health care programs: repealing the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, and transforming Medicaid into a 'block grant' program…*And Obamacare repeal is only the first way in which Price’s health care agenda would increase the number of uninsured. Turning Medicaid into a block grant, as the House budget seeks to do, would mean ending the program’s current guarantee*: that, as more people fall into the program’s eligibility guidelines, the federal government will provide more money. Under a block grant scheme, by contrast, the federal government would start giving states fixed sums of money with which to administer the program. Given the funding levels Price’s budget appears to set, the money almost certainly wouldn’t keep up with demand for the program. " [HuffPost]
*GOP LEADERS FILE AMICUS BRIEF AGAINST PRESIDENTIAL IMMIGRATION ORDER* - Presumably "We must do all that we can to stop President Obama's lawlessness" was not included in the brief. Elise Foley "A group of Republican lawmakers are urging an appeals court not to let the Obama administration expand deportation relief and work authorization for undocumented immigrants with long-standing ties to the U.S. The Republicans -- *Texas Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn and Reps. Bob Goodlatte (Va.) and Lamar Smith (Texas) -- along with the the American Center for Law and Justice filed an amicus brief on Wednesday* with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asking it not to lift an injunction on President Barack Obama's immigration executive actions as courts consider a case from 26 states aiming to block the programs. The administration has asked the court to consider lifting the injunction in the meantime. 'We must do all that we can to stop President Obama's lawlessness,' Goodlatte said in a statement." [HuffPost]
*STFU* - "Real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump took the first steps on Wednesday toward launching a 2016 presidential campaign, a sign the businessman may jump into the Republican race after publicly considering it in years past. Trump said he had formed an exploratory committee to determine whether to run, and that he had hired staff in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Those states are among the first to hold Republican and Democratic presidential nominating contests. 'We have lost the respect of the entire world' Trump said in a statement Wednesday. 'I am the only one who can make America truly great again!'" [Reuters]
Nope.
*SCHOCK & PA* - At least he isn't Lord Merton. That guy's sons are total dicks. CBS Chicago: "Dr. Richard Schock said he spoke with his son Tuesday, when the congressman announced his resignation, effective March 31. 'Ten years from now, whatever he’s doing, he’ll be successful at, I’ll promise you that. Two years from now he’ll be successful, if he’s not in jail,' the elder Shock said of his son…*'He was broken. He was broken,' the elder Schock said of his son. 'They’re blaming people he’s invested with for buying him off, and this hurts, because most of it is lies and innuendos.' He said he believes his son has been attacked because he doesn’t fit the stereotypical mold of a politician. 'What this is really about is that Aaron has been very successful. Aaron is a very hard worker. Aaron is very popular. Aaron is a little different. He wears stylish clothing, and yet he’s not gay* … and he’s not married. … and he’s not running around with women,' he said. 'Everybody’s throwing up their arms. They can’t figure out Aaron. So he must be crooked. So attack him. Bring him down, because he doesn’t fit into our picture.'" [CBS Chicago]
*Cute*: "The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is asking Republican lawmakers who received donations from Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) to exercise their goodwill and donate the funds to the Treasury. 'Aaron Schock made a name for himself jet-setting around the country raising dollars for Republicans -- some of that at taxpayer expense,” DCCC Communications Director Matt Thornton said in a statement. *'If his soon-to-be-former colleagues in the House are truly as concerned with wasteful spending in Washington as they claim to be, then they will donate Schock’s money to the Treasury.'* The DCCC highlighted 12 newly elected lawmakers who received donations from Schock: Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.), Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), Rep. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.), Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), Rep. Bob Dold (R-Ill.), Rep. Frank Guinta (R-N.H.), Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.), Rep. Thomas MacArthur (R-N.J.), Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-Maine), Rep. David Young (R-Iowa) and Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.)." [HuffPost's Julia Craven]
*Anthony Weiner weighed in on Schock's resignation because, yeah, why not, this is a free country*: "Besides us both resigning and having too many embarrassing pictures, there is very little that Schock and I have in common. He is accused of real crimes and a planeload of greed. I did embarrassing personal things and wasn’t honest about them. But Schock quickly realized something that I also learned in the final days of my congressional career: Being investigated by the House Ethics Committee is an expensive ordeal. When my scandal was unfolding, I was told by some of the best ethics lawyers in DC that I had broken no rule, but that I would need to find about $1 million to defend myself." [Business Insider]
*BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR* - Here's a child who is truly all about that bass.
*RAHM'S HOUSING AGENCY HOARDS CASH* - w/ Ryan Grim and Kim Bellware: "Mayor Rahm Emanuel's housing agency has been pulling hundreds of millions of dollars from a fund earmarked for its affordable housing program and using the money instead to boost its pension, purchase government debt and build up a staggering cash reserve. Meanwhile, Chicago's most vulnerable are bearing the brunt. The Chicago Housing Authority's waitlist tops 280,000, with a sizable portion of the city's population hoping for a shot at affordable housing. Ninety-seven percent of the people receiving housing assistance are black or Latino, and 85 percent are women, according to the agency. Some 15,000 families on the list are homeless." [HuffPost]
*COMFORT FOOD*
- A list of the movies and TV shows that are being pulled from Netflix in April
- Once popular baby names that are going extinct.
- Cat can't get enough of bags .
*TWITTERAMA*
@daveweigel: Ran into Rep. Steve King and caught up on the Walker/Liz Mair story. “I think her and Jennifer Rubin have voodoo dolls of me.”
@pourmecoffee: Trump: "How is the exploring going?"
Exploratory Committee Chair: "Very good Sir. Everyone loves you."
Trump: "Very well, keep me posted."
@dcbigjohn: I blame all the bros who were wearing flipflops the other day for this impending snow storm
*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 8 hours ago.
*GOP TRYING TO GUT OBAMACARE WITH RECONCILIATION* - What about stealing America's nuclear launch codes and destroying the country in a blaze of radioactive hellfire? That would more or less remove Obamacare. Politico "*Senate Republicans want to use a powerful budget maneuver known as reconciliation to go after President Barack Obama’s health care law -- particularly if the Supreme Court strikes down key provisions of Obamacare this June*. Using the fast-tracking procedure offers some advantage for Republicans, largely because a reconciliation package can’t be filibustered… But it’s not going to be easy. First, House and Senate Republicans need to agree on a budget resolution, which could be difficult with fiscal conservatives calling for spending cuts but defense hawks looking for more money for the Pentagon. And, of course, President Barack Obama could veto any reconciliation bill that reaches his desk. Still, Republicans are hoping the procedural maneuver will get them closer, at least symbolically, to gutting the president’s signature health care law. The plans were included in a budget blueprint rolled out Wednesday by the Senate Budget Committee -- a governing document that calls for balancing the budget within a decade, extracting hundreds of billions in savings from Medicare and turning over more responsibility to the states to run Medicaid, reducing costs even further." [Politico]
Scott Walker caved to Iowa Republicans and fired Liz Mair, prompting Tim Carney and others to observe that Walker is an Iowa-pandering wimp.
*DEMOCRATIC AIDE KNEW OF ABORTION PROVISION* - Guess it wasn't such a *hide amendment* issue after all. David Espo and Erica Werner: "Senate Democrats blocked debate on stalled human trafficking legislation for a second day Wednesday as *a Democratic senator's office belatedly conceded that a staff aide knew weeks ago that the measure included a controversial abortion-related provision*. Democrats have said for more than a week that their side of the aisle was not aware of the provision until a few days ago, nearly two months after the legislation was made public and long after a bipartisan vote in the Judiciary Committee on Feb. 24." [Associated Press]
Watch Rick Santorum wait patiently for a crazy lady to quit screaming so he can agree with her.
*CRUZ GOING AFTER D.C. ABORTION, LGBT LAWS* - Roll Call: "Republican Sens. Ted Cruz of Texas and James Lankford of Oklahoma introduced resolutions of disapproval Wednesday to strike down two D.C. bills they say violate religious freedom. The resolutions target the Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act and the Human Rights Amendment Act, which the D.C. government approved in January…*The Reproductive Health Non-Discrimination Act seeks to prohibit employer discrimination based on reproductive health decisions.* The D.C. Council unanimously approved a resolution on March 3 clarifying the act would not require employers to pay for insurance that covers reproductive health decisions, such as abortions. But conservatives argue the clarification does not go far enough, and employers would still be forced to act contrary to their religious beliefs. *The second D.C. measure, the Human Rights Amendment Act, is actually an attempt to undo a 1989 congressional amendment known as the Nation’s Capital Religious Liberty and Academic Freedom Act*, which allowed religious educational institutions to 'deny, restrict, abridge, or condition' funds, school facilities and services from gay groups." [Roll Call]
*SCRAP THE CAP!* As congressional Republicans push a wish-list budget that would dramatically cut government safety net programs, their Democratic counterparts are jumping on a bill to expand Social Security benefits and shore up the program's finances. Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Budget Committee, endorsed the legislation at a press conference Tuesday. "You don't save Social Security by cutting Social Security," said Van Hollen, who previously endorsed a proposal that would trim Social Security benefits and is currently campaigning for a Senate seat in Maryland. [HuffPost]
*DAILY DELANEY DOWNER* - Amazing report by San Francisco area TV station KCBS: "Saint Mary’s Cathedral, the principal church of the Archdiocese of San Francisco, *has installed a watering system to keep the homeless from sleeping in the cathedral’s doorways*. The cathedral, at Geary and Gough, is the home church of the Archbishop. There are four tall side doors, with sheltered alcoves, that attract homeless people at night…. *Water pours from a hole in the ceiling, about 30 feet above, drenching the alcove and anyone in it*. The shower ran for about 75 seconds, every 30 to 60 minutes while we were there, starting before sunset, simultaneously in all four doorways. KCBS witnessed it soak homeless people, and their belongings….A cathedral staff member *confirmed to KCBS the system was installed, perhaps a year ago, to deter the homeless from sleeping there*." [KCBS]
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
*REPUBLICAN BUDGET WILL GIVE YOU THE SNIFFLES* - Jonathan Cohn: "Worried about the number of Americans who still don’t have health insurance? If House Republican leaders get their way, the number will be much bigger -- maybe even twice as big. That may sound ridiculous. But health care analysts tell The Huffington Post that it’s a fair interpretation of the proposed 2016 budget that Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), the chairman of the House Budget Committee, released on Tuesday. Price's document includes two familiar ideas for transforming major government health care programs: repealing the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, and transforming Medicaid into a 'block grant' program…*And Obamacare repeal is only the first way in which Price’s health care agenda would increase the number of uninsured. Turning Medicaid into a block grant, as the House budget seeks to do, would mean ending the program’s current guarantee*: that, as more people fall into the program’s eligibility guidelines, the federal government will provide more money. Under a block grant scheme, by contrast, the federal government would start giving states fixed sums of money with which to administer the program. Given the funding levels Price’s budget appears to set, the money almost certainly wouldn’t keep up with demand for the program. " [HuffPost]
*GOP LEADERS FILE AMICUS BRIEF AGAINST PRESIDENTIAL IMMIGRATION ORDER* - Presumably "We must do all that we can to stop President Obama's lawlessness" was not included in the brief. Elise Foley "A group of Republican lawmakers are urging an appeals court not to let the Obama administration expand deportation relief and work authorization for undocumented immigrants with long-standing ties to the U.S. The Republicans -- *Texas Sens. Ted Cruz and John Cornyn and Reps. Bob Goodlatte (Va.) and Lamar Smith (Texas) -- along with the the American Center for Law and Justice filed an amicus brief on Wednesday* with the 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals asking it not to lift an injunction on President Barack Obama's immigration executive actions as courts consider a case from 26 states aiming to block the programs. The administration has asked the court to consider lifting the injunction in the meantime. 'We must do all that we can to stop President Obama's lawlessness,' Goodlatte said in a statement." [HuffPost]
*STFU* - "Real estate mogul and TV personality Donald Trump took the first steps on Wednesday toward launching a 2016 presidential campaign, a sign the businessman may jump into the Republican race after publicly considering it in years past. Trump said he had formed an exploratory committee to determine whether to run, and that he had hired staff in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. Those states are among the first to hold Republican and Democratic presidential nominating contests. 'We have lost the respect of the entire world' Trump said in a statement Wednesday. 'I am the only one who can make America truly great again!'" [Reuters]
Nope.
*SCHOCK & PA* - At least he isn't Lord Merton. That guy's sons are total dicks. CBS Chicago: "Dr. Richard Schock said he spoke with his son Tuesday, when the congressman announced his resignation, effective March 31. 'Ten years from now, whatever he’s doing, he’ll be successful at, I’ll promise you that. Two years from now he’ll be successful, if he’s not in jail,' the elder Shock said of his son…*'He was broken. He was broken,' the elder Schock said of his son. 'They’re blaming people he’s invested with for buying him off, and this hurts, because most of it is lies and innuendos.' He said he believes his son has been attacked because he doesn’t fit the stereotypical mold of a politician. 'What this is really about is that Aaron has been very successful. Aaron is a very hard worker. Aaron is very popular. Aaron is a little different. He wears stylish clothing, and yet he’s not gay* … and he’s not married. … and he’s not running around with women,' he said. 'Everybody’s throwing up their arms. They can’t figure out Aaron. So he must be crooked. So attack him. Bring him down, because he doesn’t fit into our picture.'" [CBS Chicago]
*Cute*: "The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is asking Republican lawmakers who received donations from Rep. Aaron Schock (R-Ill.) to exercise their goodwill and donate the funds to the Treasury. 'Aaron Schock made a name for himself jet-setting around the country raising dollars for Republicans -- some of that at taxpayer expense,” DCCC Communications Director Matt Thornton said in a statement. *'If his soon-to-be-former colleagues in the House are truly as concerned with wasteful spending in Washington as they claim to be, then they will donate Schock’s money to the Treasury.'* The DCCC highlighted 12 newly elected lawmakers who received donations from Schock: Rep. Mike Bost (R-Ill.), Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-Va.), Rep. Ryan Costello (R-Pa.), Rep. Carlos Curbelo (R-Fla.), Rep. Bob Dold (R-Ill.), Rep. Frank Guinta (R-N.H.), Rep. David Jolly (R-Fla.), Rep. Thomas MacArthur (R-N.J.), Rep. Martha McSally (R-Ariz.), Rep. Bruce Poliquin (R-Maine), Rep. David Young (R-Iowa) and Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-N.Y.)." [HuffPost's Julia Craven]
*Anthony Weiner weighed in on Schock's resignation because, yeah, why not, this is a free country*: "Besides us both resigning and having too many embarrassing pictures, there is very little that Schock and I have in common. He is accused of real crimes and a planeload of greed. I did embarrassing personal things and wasn’t honest about them. But Schock quickly realized something that I also learned in the final days of my congressional career: Being investigated by the House Ethics Committee is an expensive ordeal. When my scandal was unfolding, I was told by some of the best ethics lawyers in DC that I had broken no rule, but that I would need to find about $1 million to defend myself." [Business Insider]
*BECAUSE YOU'VE READ THIS FAR* - Here's a child who is truly all about that bass.
*RAHM'S HOUSING AGENCY HOARDS CASH* - w/ Ryan Grim and Kim Bellware: "Mayor Rahm Emanuel's housing agency has been pulling hundreds of millions of dollars from a fund earmarked for its affordable housing program and using the money instead to boost its pension, purchase government debt and build up a staggering cash reserve. Meanwhile, Chicago's most vulnerable are bearing the brunt. The Chicago Housing Authority's waitlist tops 280,000, with a sizable portion of the city's population hoping for a shot at affordable housing. Ninety-seven percent of the people receiving housing assistance are black or Latino, and 85 percent are women, according to the agency. Some 15,000 families on the list are homeless." [HuffPost]
*COMFORT FOOD*
- A list of the movies and TV shows that are being pulled from Netflix in April
- Once popular baby names that are going extinct.
- Cat can't get enough of bags .
*TWITTERAMA*
@daveweigel: Ran into Rep. Steve King and caught up on the Walker/Liz Mair story. “I think her and Jennifer Rubin have voodoo dolls of me.”
@pourmecoffee: Trump: "How is the exploring going?"
Exploratory Committee Chair: "Very good Sir. Everyone loves you."
Trump: "Very well, keep me posted."
@dcbigjohn: I blame all the bros who were wearing flipflops the other day for this impending snow storm
*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 8 hours ago.
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The State of the Bracket
This week, in what has become one of his semi-official annual duties as President, Barack Obama filled out his college-basketball brackets in taped segments for ESPN. The network aired Obama’s picks for the men’s tournament on Wednesday, and will show his women’s picks on Friday. “Baracketology,” as ESPN has named the exercise, is, for the President’s admirers, another example of Obama’s deft use of popular culture to connect with his fellow-citizens and advance policy goals. Last year, for instance, he encouraged young people to sign up for health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. On Wednesday, he talked about a White House initiative, It’s On Us, to bring attention to the problem of sexual assaults on college campuses.
Reported by The New Yorker 7 hours ago.
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Bernie Sanders Rails Against GOP Budget As Boost To Income Inequality
WASHINGTON -- To Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), the new Republican budgets offered this week aren't so much spending blueprints as they are promises to help the rich get richer and boost income inequality.
There are some large differences between the House GOP budget offered Tuesday and the Senate plan unveiled Wednesday. The House version includes deeper cuts to the safety net, for example, along with significantly greater military spending.
But to Sanders, the top minority member of the Senate Budget Committee, neither version of the budget would do much to help working-class Americans, students, the elderly or the sick -- although they both offer plenty of handouts to wealthy taxpayers and corporations.
"At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, my Republican colleagues apparently believe that the richest people in this country need to be made even richer," said Sanders after Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) unveiled the Senate document at a committee meeting Wednesday. "It is apparently not good enough that 99 percent of all new income today is going to the top 1 percent. It is not good enough that the top one-tenth of 1 percent today own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent."
"Clearly, in the eyes of many Republicans, the wealthy and the powerful need more help," Sanders added. "Not only should they not be asked to pay more in taxes, my Republican colleagues believe we should cut tax rates for millionaires and billionaires."
The budget does not actually specify new breaks for the rich, but it does assume that existing breaks won't expire as currently scheduled. It also instructs Senate committees to draw up plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would likely cost middle-class Americans the subsidies they get to buy health insurance.
To Sanders, that's just one more way the budget would hurt the middle class while helping the wealthy. And he sees it all as part of a 40-year trend in which Washington has made life in America harder for those not at the top of the economic ladder.
"It is not good enough that corporate America is enjoying record-breaking profits, and that the CEOs of large corporations earn some 290 times more than what their average employees earn," he said. "It is apparently not good enough that since 1985 the top one-tenth of 1 percent has seen a more than $8 trillion increase in its wealth than what they would have had if wealth inequality had stayed at the same level that it was in 1985. An $8 trillion increase in the wealth of the top one-tenth of 1 percent! But for many of my Republican colleagues, [it's] just not good enough."
Enzi, of course, saw his plan very differently.
"The resolution that we will be debating this week and next is a responsible plan that balances the budget in 10 years, with no tax hikes," he said. "It also protects our most vulnerable citizens, strengthens our national defense and improves economic growth and opportunities for hardworking families."
While the Senate plan cuts safety net and domestic programs to a lesser degree than the House plan, it still aims to cut $236 billion from non-defense programs over 10 years, as well as $4.2 trillion from health care and welfare programs.
Enzi argued that cuts are essential because the nation cannot sustain its growing debt, which currently stands at $18.1 trillion.
"Why the urgency to act now? Right now we pay $230 billion in interest each year," he said. "The president's own numbers raise that to $780 billion a year [in 10 years]. Every dollar spent on interest and our debt is another dollar we won't be able to use for government services, for individuals in need, or another dollar that won't be available for taxpayers for their own need."
"We have to act now, while we still have some choices," Enzi added.
Sanders and his fellow independent, Sen. Angus King (Maine), argued that the biggest problem with the GOP plan is that it does nothing but cut. King suggested other ways to close deficits, including raising more revenue, growing the economy through GI Bill-style investments and doing a better job of reducing health care costs.
"Growing the economy is the answer, but a one-sided response to say we're only going to grow the economy by cutting taxes -- number one, I don't think there's evidence to validate that, and number two, it ignores the power of appropriate investments in infrastructure, education... those things that actually do grow the economy," King said.
Michael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for The Huffington Post. Talk to him on Facebook. Reported by Huffington Post 7 hours ago.
There are some large differences between the House GOP budget offered Tuesday and the Senate plan unveiled Wednesday. The House version includes deeper cuts to the safety net, for example, along with significantly greater military spending.
But to Sanders, the top minority member of the Senate Budget Committee, neither version of the budget would do much to help working-class Americans, students, the elderly or the sick -- although they both offer plenty of handouts to wealthy taxpayers and corporations.
"At a time of massive wealth and income inequality, my Republican colleagues apparently believe that the richest people in this country need to be made even richer," said Sanders after Budget Committee Chairman Sen. Mike Enzi (R-Wyo.) unveiled the Senate document at a committee meeting Wednesday. "It is apparently not good enough that 99 percent of all new income today is going to the top 1 percent. It is not good enough that the top one-tenth of 1 percent today own almost as much wealth as the bottom 90 percent."
"Clearly, in the eyes of many Republicans, the wealthy and the powerful need more help," Sanders added. "Not only should they not be asked to pay more in taxes, my Republican colleagues believe we should cut tax rates for millionaires and billionaires."
The budget does not actually specify new breaks for the rich, but it does assume that existing breaks won't expire as currently scheduled. It also instructs Senate committees to draw up plans to repeal the Affordable Care Act, which would likely cost middle-class Americans the subsidies they get to buy health insurance.
To Sanders, that's just one more way the budget would hurt the middle class while helping the wealthy. And he sees it all as part of a 40-year trend in which Washington has made life in America harder for those not at the top of the economic ladder.
"It is not good enough that corporate America is enjoying record-breaking profits, and that the CEOs of large corporations earn some 290 times more than what their average employees earn," he said. "It is apparently not good enough that since 1985 the top one-tenth of 1 percent has seen a more than $8 trillion increase in its wealth than what they would have had if wealth inequality had stayed at the same level that it was in 1985. An $8 trillion increase in the wealth of the top one-tenth of 1 percent! But for many of my Republican colleagues, [it's] just not good enough."
Enzi, of course, saw his plan very differently.
"The resolution that we will be debating this week and next is a responsible plan that balances the budget in 10 years, with no tax hikes," he said. "It also protects our most vulnerable citizens, strengthens our national defense and improves economic growth and opportunities for hardworking families."
While the Senate plan cuts safety net and domestic programs to a lesser degree than the House plan, it still aims to cut $236 billion from non-defense programs over 10 years, as well as $4.2 trillion from health care and welfare programs.
Enzi argued that cuts are essential because the nation cannot sustain its growing debt, which currently stands at $18.1 trillion.
"Why the urgency to act now? Right now we pay $230 billion in interest each year," he said. "The president's own numbers raise that to $780 billion a year [in 10 years]. Every dollar spent on interest and our debt is another dollar we won't be able to use for government services, for individuals in need, or another dollar that won't be available for taxpayers for their own need."
"We have to act now, while we still have some choices," Enzi added.
Sanders and his fellow independent, Sen. Angus King (Maine), argued that the biggest problem with the GOP plan is that it does nothing but cut. King suggested other ways to close deficits, including raising more revenue, growing the economy through GI Bill-style investments and doing a better job of reducing health care costs.
"Growing the economy is the answer, but a one-sided response to say we're only going to grow the economy by cutting taxes -- number one, I don't think there's evidence to validate that, and number two, it ignores the power of appropriate investments in infrastructure, education... those things that actually do grow the economy," King said.
Michael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for The Huffington Post. Talk to him on Facebook. Reported by Huffington Post 7 hours ago.
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Blue Shield, state officials criticized for not disclosing tax decision
Health insurance giant Blue Shield of California and state tax authorities both came under fire for not disclosing seven months ago a landmark decision taking away the insurer's tax-exempt status, which had been in place since 1939.
Reported by L.A. Times 3 hours ago.
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Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota Reports 2014 Results
Company announced financials and 2014 accomplishments.
Eagan, Minn. (PRWEB) April 01, 2015
EAGAN, Minn. (April 1, 2015) —Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota and its family of companies (Blue Cross) today announced audited financial results for 2014. Blue Cross closed out the year with net income of $61.5 million, reflecting positive investment portfolio performance that offset slight operational losses. The organization reported a net operating loss of $8.2 million on full-year revenues of $10.1 billion, for a negative operating margin of one-tenth of one percent (0.1%).
Blue Cross reported more than $9.1 billion paid in medical claims for the year, representing 90 cents of every premium dollar collected going directly to cover health care costs. Additionally, Blue Cross paid more than $205 million in taxes, assessments and surcharges for the year. Overall year-end 2014 enrollment of 2.6 million members represents a slight decrease from year-end 2013.
“Our operating performance for 2014 was favorable to projections, amounting to a near break-even year for the organization,” said Michael Guyette, president and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. “We knew 2014 would be a challenging year, as the market continued to go through significant transition related to health reform. We continue to engage with multiple stakeholders in order to explore ways of bringing additional cost and coverage stability for both the short- and long-term.”
During 2014, Blue Cross celebrated several successes in communities across the state. Among them:· Collaborated with Allina, Entira, Minnesota Community Health Network (MCHN), Northern Health Alliance and Sanford Health in support of innovations that promote advancements in health care affordability and quality.
· Opened the company’s first health insurance retail store, where Minnesotans can receive health plan information, service and claims support.
· Raised more than $1 million in employee donations through the annual Community Giving Campaign to benefit more than 700 nonprofits statewide.
· Supported efforts of Minnesota communities to enhance access to health coverage and improve health, including:
o Southern Prairie Community Care, an Accountable Community for Health, focused on improving the health of residents of 12 southwestern Minnesota counties.
o Access to coverage grants, helping low-income Minnesotans enroll in insurance.
o Act on Alzheimer’s, helping foster dementia-friendly communities.
o Increasing access to various dental care programs in Mankato, Bemidji, Duluth and Rochester.
Audited results include the consolidated financial statements for businesses operating under Aware Integrated Inc. (AII), a non-profit corporation and parent organization. AII serves as the holding company for all affiliates and subsidiaries, including the following regulated businesses associated with Blue Cross:
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota — A nonprofit health insurance company and independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.
Blue Plus — A nonprofit health maintenance organization (HMO) that offers health plans and contracted provider networks throughout Minnesota to individuals and local, state and national groups.
SelectAccount — A third-party administrator of medical spending accounts included in consumer-directed health plans throughout the country.
Blue Cross provides all information, reports and audited details as required by the State of Minnesota for both commercial and public program products. Detailed financial statements for the organization’s regulated businesses are filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce. A consolidated earnings statement for 2014 results is available at https://www.bluecrossmn.com/2014Results.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, with headquarters in the St. Paul suburb of Eagan, was chartered in 1933 as Minnesota’s first health plan and continues to carry out its charter mission today as a health company: to promote a wider, more economical and timely availability of health services for the people of Minnesota. Blue Cross is a not-for-profit, taxable organization. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, headquartered in Chicago. Go to bluecrossmn.com to learn more about Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota.
– end – Reported by PRWeb 2 days ago.
Eagan, Minn. (PRWEB) April 01, 2015
EAGAN, Minn. (April 1, 2015) —Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota and its family of companies (Blue Cross) today announced audited financial results for 2014. Blue Cross closed out the year with net income of $61.5 million, reflecting positive investment portfolio performance that offset slight operational losses. The organization reported a net operating loss of $8.2 million on full-year revenues of $10.1 billion, for a negative operating margin of one-tenth of one percent (0.1%).
Blue Cross reported more than $9.1 billion paid in medical claims for the year, representing 90 cents of every premium dollar collected going directly to cover health care costs. Additionally, Blue Cross paid more than $205 million in taxes, assessments and surcharges for the year. Overall year-end 2014 enrollment of 2.6 million members represents a slight decrease from year-end 2013.
“Our operating performance for 2014 was favorable to projections, amounting to a near break-even year for the organization,” said Michael Guyette, president and CEO of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota. “We knew 2014 would be a challenging year, as the market continued to go through significant transition related to health reform. We continue to engage with multiple stakeholders in order to explore ways of bringing additional cost and coverage stability for both the short- and long-term.”
During 2014, Blue Cross celebrated several successes in communities across the state. Among them:· Collaborated with Allina, Entira, Minnesota Community Health Network (MCHN), Northern Health Alliance and Sanford Health in support of innovations that promote advancements in health care affordability and quality.
· Opened the company’s first health insurance retail store, where Minnesotans can receive health plan information, service and claims support.
· Raised more than $1 million in employee donations through the annual Community Giving Campaign to benefit more than 700 nonprofits statewide.
· Supported efforts of Minnesota communities to enhance access to health coverage and improve health, including:
o Southern Prairie Community Care, an Accountable Community for Health, focused on improving the health of residents of 12 southwestern Minnesota counties.
o Access to coverage grants, helping low-income Minnesotans enroll in insurance.
o Act on Alzheimer’s, helping foster dementia-friendly communities.
o Increasing access to various dental care programs in Mankato, Bemidji, Duluth and Rochester.
Audited results include the consolidated financial statements for businesses operating under Aware Integrated Inc. (AII), a non-profit corporation and parent organization. AII serves as the holding company for all affiliates and subsidiaries, including the following regulated businesses associated with Blue Cross:
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota — A nonprofit health insurance company and independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association.
Blue Plus — A nonprofit health maintenance organization (HMO) that offers health plans and contracted provider networks throughout Minnesota to individuals and local, state and national groups.
SelectAccount — A third-party administrator of medical spending accounts included in consumer-directed health plans throughout the country.
Blue Cross provides all information, reports and audited details as required by the State of Minnesota for both commercial and public program products. Detailed financial statements for the organization’s regulated businesses are filed with the Minnesota Department of Commerce. A consolidated earnings statement for 2014 results is available at https://www.bluecrossmn.com/2014Results.
Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota, with headquarters in the St. Paul suburb of Eagan, was chartered in 1933 as Minnesota’s first health plan and continues to carry out its charter mission today as a health company: to promote a wider, more economical and timely availability of health services for the people of Minnesota. Blue Cross is a not-for-profit, taxable organization. Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota is an independent licensee of the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Association, headquartered in Chicago. Go to bluecrossmn.com to learn more about Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Minnesota.
– end – Reported by PRWeb 2 days ago.
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Tufts Health Plan Launches Lifespan Premier Choice, Bringing Quality and More Affordable Care to Rhode Island
PROVIDENCE, R.I. & WATERTOWN, Mass.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Building on their shared commitment to providing access to high-quality, more affordable health care, Lifespan, Rhode Island’s largest and most comprehensive health system, has collaborated with the number one-ranked health insurance plan in the country*, Tufts Health Plan, to introduce Lifespan Premier Choice, a first-of-its-kind tiered network health plan. In a tiered network plan, hospitals and affiliated physicians are grouped into diffe
Reported by Business Wire 2 days ago.
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Senator Denies 280,000 People Health Care, Calls Advocate 'Asshole' For Asking Him To Give Up Same
On Tuesday night, a Tennessee Senate committee voted to deny some 280,000 state residents access to health care, rejecting a plan to expand Medicaid that would have cost the state nothing.
Following the vote, advocates for expansion ran into state Sen. Todd Gardenhire (R), a wealth manager at Morgan Stanley who sits on the committee. One activist, Damien Crisp, asked Gardenhire if he would be willing to give up his own state-subsidized health insurance.
Gardenhire, in a video of the incident taken by another activist, turned around and said something along the lines of "Not giving it up, asshole" or, perhaps, "Why don't you give it up, asshole?" ("Asshole" is the clearest part of his rejoinder.)
Gardenhire's health coverage has been an issue in Tennessee before. He had previously claimed not to receive state-sponsored coverage, but the Associated Press, through an open records request, revealed that he does.
"I have it, but I don't use it," the lawmaker told AP after the revelation. "I use Morgan Stanley's insurance, which is far greater."
He vowed to cancel the state insurance, which led to the activist's question Tuesday, which led to the cussing
The Medicaid expansion that Gardenhire voted against would have been covered by federal dollars and contributions from state hospitals.
While Gardenhire did not return an email or call from HuffPost requesting comment, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports that he said, "When a guy follows you into the bathroom and starts shouting at you, he's lucky I only called him by his first name."
The person who filmed the encounter, Trae Haggard, is a constituent of Gardenhire's, which she said he was aware of. Crisp was heading into the same bathroom as Gardenhire, she said, but did not yell at him. "As an eyewitness, I can say that is false," she said.
Crisp, another Gardenhire constituent, also said he never yelled at the senator. Instead, he said, he and his colleagues were getting coffee when Gardenhire came out of the men's room. Upon seeing purple shirts and apparently realizing he'd run into protesters, Gardenhire did a 180 and went back inside.
"We were waiting outside the bathroom for like five minutes and he didn't come out, and I'm like, well, I have to use the bathroom anyway, and when I go in, he's coming out and we're right there face to face. I didn't yell since he was right there in my face," Crisp explained. He later provided a longer video (watch above) that backs up his version of the encounter.
"We drove all the way up to Nashville and tried to engage in the process," Crisp said, "and this is the democracy we get, being called an asshole." Crisp said. Reported by Huffington Post 2 days ago.
Following the vote, advocates for expansion ran into state Sen. Todd Gardenhire (R), a wealth manager at Morgan Stanley who sits on the committee. One activist, Damien Crisp, asked Gardenhire if he would be willing to give up his own state-subsidized health insurance.
Gardenhire, in a video of the incident taken by another activist, turned around and said something along the lines of "Not giving it up, asshole" or, perhaps, "Why don't you give it up, asshole?" ("Asshole" is the clearest part of his rejoinder.)
Gardenhire's health coverage has been an issue in Tennessee before. He had previously claimed not to receive state-sponsored coverage, but the Associated Press, through an open records request, revealed that he does.
"I have it, but I don't use it," the lawmaker told AP after the revelation. "I use Morgan Stanley's insurance, which is far greater."
He vowed to cancel the state insurance, which led to the activist's question Tuesday, which led to the cussing
The Medicaid expansion that Gardenhire voted against would have been covered by federal dollars and contributions from state hospitals.
While Gardenhire did not return an email or call from HuffPost requesting comment, the Chattanooga Times Free Press reports that he said, "When a guy follows you into the bathroom and starts shouting at you, he's lucky I only called him by his first name."
The person who filmed the encounter, Trae Haggard, is a constituent of Gardenhire's, which she said he was aware of. Crisp was heading into the same bathroom as Gardenhire, she said, but did not yell at him. "As an eyewitness, I can say that is false," she said.
Crisp, another Gardenhire constituent, also said he never yelled at the senator. Instead, he said, he and his colleagues were getting coffee when Gardenhire came out of the men's room. Upon seeing purple shirts and apparently realizing he'd run into protesters, Gardenhire did a 180 and went back inside.
"We were waiting outside the bathroom for like five minutes and he didn't come out, and I'm like, well, I have to use the bathroom anyway, and when I go in, he's coming out and we're right there face to face. I didn't yell since he was right there in my face," Crisp explained. He later provided a longer video (watch above) that backs up his version of the encounter.
"We drove all the way up to Nashville and tried to engage in the process," Crisp said, "and this is the democracy we get, being called an asshole." Crisp said. Reported by Huffington Post 2 days ago.
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Women's Reproductive Liberty: A Football in a Match Played By and For Men
Pro-life advocates in Congress recently infected an uncontroversial anti-human trafficking bill that had strong bipartisan support with a contentious amendment that prohibits taypayer-funded abortions. Political pundits argue that Democrats should back down, as the Hyde Amendment has been attached to most if not all appropriations bills and is nothing new. However, this amendment fails to understand the core problems with human trafficking and would significantly impede efforts to protect victimized girls and women from the severe harms of human trafficking.
Why challenge the anti-abortion language? For one thing, the Hyde Amendment relates to taxpayer dollars -- not private funds. The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act specifically collects funds from human traffickers, not taxpayers, to offer relief to trafficked victims. With the insertion of reproductive restrictions into the bill, victims who have been subjected to the worst sexual violence imaginable would be denied funded abortions. The result is to resign trafficked women to unintended and unwanted pregnancies and childbirth from men who defiled and brutalized them -- yet another form of abuse. True, if girls forced into prostitution could afford to pay for an abortion on their own, this would be an option. But by the very nature of human trafficking, these girls and women are poor, lack health insurance, are vulnerable, and have come to distrust government because they are often targeted as criminals rather than victims.
Republicans claim that so long as trafficked women can prove they were raped, funding will be available for them. That's doubtful. According to a 2012 study published by the Health Research and Education Trust, over half of pregnancies due to rape or incest (or that would threaten the girl or woman's health) were not reimbursed by Medicaid. It turns out the government does not pay its bills nor keep its promise to victims of rape and incest. In fact, only 36 percent of girls and women who "qualify" actually have their eligible abortions funded by Medicaid -- and states mostly foot that bill. The study's authors confirm "[p]oor state-level implementation of Medicaid coverage of abortion policies creates barriers for women seeking abortion." Doctors who are reimbursed experience a paperwork nightmare, so much so that it may not be worth providing care to the victims who need their services.
Thus, even with the so-called exceptions carved out for victims of rape and incest or to save the life of the mother, a woman's chance of actually receiving the qualified abortion is very slim. It's no surprise then that 25 percent of women who actually qualify under the exception "are forced to carry pregnancies to term." Still others delay pregnancy termination due to poverty when it could have been done earlier with a more simple procedure.
There are other reasons to be concerned about the crafty way in which anti-abortion language has been attached to this bill and many others. In recent years, lawmakers across the country and in Congress have pushed a robust anti-abortion agenda, making erroneous claims, including that abortions are unsafe and threaten the physical and emotional health of pregnant women. This is unscientific and profoundly inaccurate.
A recent study published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that women were 14 times more likely to die during or after giving birth to a live baby than to die from complications related to an abortion. In their study, Drs. Elizabeth Raymond and David Grimes examined medical records between 1998 and 2005. During that period 1 in 11,000 women died during childbirth, compared to 1 in 167,000 women who died from a legal abortion. Their study found, "legal induced abortion is markedly safer than childbirth." Sadly, medical evidence is downplayed or overlooked in an era of political profiteering on anti-abortion platforms.
Those most hurt by political maneuvering on abortion happen to be poor women generally, and in this case, trafficked, sexually-abused women. Wealthier, educated women have reproductive health options, unlike their poorer counterparts. For wealthy women in states like Mississippi where there is only one abortion clinic, they simply cross the state line. In contrast, poor women are symbolically and medically trapped where extended wait periods, targeted regulations of abortion providers (TRAP laws), and now vaginal ultrasounds subject them to ruthless burdens on a well-established constitutional right.
And there is reason for concern, particularly in light of federal and state legislation to end or severely burden access to abortions. For example, in Iowa, poor women's abortions under Medicaid must be approved by the governor even in cases of rape, incest, and endangerment to the mother's life. Wisconsin requires women to undergo vaginal ultrasounds prior to pregnancy termination and permits doctors to order the involuntary civil commitment of pregnant girls and women to "protect" their fetuses. Alicia Beltran recently spent more than 70 days in incarceration under that state law. In Michigan, no insurance plan in the state is permitted to cover abortions, including in cases of rape or incest.
Lawmakers forget a not so long ago era where women's reproductive health options were so constrained that they risked their lives with back-alley abortions performed by friends, untrained health professionals, or self-induced with coat-hangers. Indeed, prior to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court opinion, Roe v. Wade, at least 200,000 back-alley abortions took place each year. In New York, half of the maternal mortality rate was attributable to illegal abortions. The consequences were dreadful: hemorrhaging, punctured or perforated organs, infections, sterility, infertility, and too frequently death.
Roe v. Wade was as much about public health and human rights as women's liberation. Children lost their mothers; parents their daughters, and husbands suffered the deaths of their wives. The painful consequences of criminalizing abortions touched most families' lives. However, conservative legislators and their constituents fail to remember and account for these past horrors: a time when men were safe and women were not; when men had access to contraception and women did not.
Women's reproductive health should not be the euphemistic football in a match played mostly by and for men in Congress. Reported by Huffington Post 2 days ago.
Why challenge the anti-abortion language? For one thing, the Hyde Amendment relates to taxpayer dollars -- not private funds. The Justice for Victims of Trafficking Act specifically collects funds from human traffickers, not taxpayers, to offer relief to trafficked victims. With the insertion of reproductive restrictions into the bill, victims who have been subjected to the worst sexual violence imaginable would be denied funded abortions. The result is to resign trafficked women to unintended and unwanted pregnancies and childbirth from men who defiled and brutalized them -- yet another form of abuse. True, if girls forced into prostitution could afford to pay for an abortion on their own, this would be an option. But by the very nature of human trafficking, these girls and women are poor, lack health insurance, are vulnerable, and have come to distrust government because they are often targeted as criminals rather than victims.
Republicans claim that so long as trafficked women can prove they were raped, funding will be available for them. That's doubtful. According to a 2012 study published by the Health Research and Education Trust, over half of pregnancies due to rape or incest (or that would threaten the girl or woman's health) were not reimbursed by Medicaid. It turns out the government does not pay its bills nor keep its promise to victims of rape and incest. In fact, only 36 percent of girls and women who "qualify" actually have their eligible abortions funded by Medicaid -- and states mostly foot that bill. The study's authors confirm "[p]oor state-level implementation of Medicaid coverage of abortion policies creates barriers for women seeking abortion." Doctors who are reimbursed experience a paperwork nightmare, so much so that it may not be worth providing care to the victims who need their services.
Thus, even with the so-called exceptions carved out for victims of rape and incest or to save the life of the mother, a woman's chance of actually receiving the qualified abortion is very slim. It's no surprise then that 25 percent of women who actually qualify under the exception "are forced to carry pregnancies to term." Still others delay pregnancy termination due to poverty when it could have been done earlier with a more simple procedure.
There are other reasons to be concerned about the crafty way in which anti-abortion language has been attached to this bill and many others. In recent years, lawmakers across the country and in Congress have pushed a robust anti-abortion agenda, making erroneous claims, including that abortions are unsafe and threaten the physical and emotional health of pregnant women. This is unscientific and profoundly inaccurate.
A recent study published in the Journal of Obstetrics and Gynecology found that women were 14 times more likely to die during or after giving birth to a live baby than to die from complications related to an abortion. In their study, Drs. Elizabeth Raymond and David Grimes examined medical records between 1998 and 2005. During that period 1 in 11,000 women died during childbirth, compared to 1 in 167,000 women who died from a legal abortion. Their study found, "legal induced abortion is markedly safer than childbirth." Sadly, medical evidence is downplayed or overlooked in an era of political profiteering on anti-abortion platforms.
Those most hurt by political maneuvering on abortion happen to be poor women generally, and in this case, trafficked, sexually-abused women. Wealthier, educated women have reproductive health options, unlike their poorer counterparts. For wealthy women in states like Mississippi where there is only one abortion clinic, they simply cross the state line. In contrast, poor women are symbolically and medically trapped where extended wait periods, targeted regulations of abortion providers (TRAP laws), and now vaginal ultrasounds subject them to ruthless burdens on a well-established constitutional right.
And there is reason for concern, particularly in light of federal and state legislation to end or severely burden access to abortions. For example, in Iowa, poor women's abortions under Medicaid must be approved by the governor even in cases of rape, incest, and endangerment to the mother's life. Wisconsin requires women to undergo vaginal ultrasounds prior to pregnancy termination and permits doctors to order the involuntary civil commitment of pregnant girls and women to "protect" their fetuses. Alicia Beltran recently spent more than 70 days in incarceration under that state law. In Michigan, no insurance plan in the state is permitted to cover abortions, including in cases of rape or incest.
Lawmakers forget a not so long ago era where women's reproductive health options were so constrained that they risked their lives with back-alley abortions performed by friends, untrained health professionals, or self-induced with coat-hangers. Indeed, prior to the landmark U.S. Supreme Court opinion, Roe v. Wade, at least 200,000 back-alley abortions took place each year. In New York, half of the maternal mortality rate was attributable to illegal abortions. The consequences were dreadful: hemorrhaging, punctured or perforated organs, infections, sterility, infertility, and too frequently death.
Roe v. Wade was as much about public health and human rights as women's liberation. Children lost their mothers; parents their daughters, and husbands suffered the deaths of their wives. The painful consequences of criminalizing abortions touched most families' lives. However, conservative legislators and their constituents fail to remember and account for these past horrors: a time when men were safe and women were not; when men had access to contraception and women did not.
Women's reproductive health should not be the euphemistic football in a match played mostly by and for men in Congress. Reported by Huffington Post 2 days ago.
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