WASHINGTON -- The Obama administration's top health care official said Wednesday that if the Supreme Court stopped the payment of health insurance subsidies to millions of Americans, it would be up to Congress and state officials to devise a solution.
Reported by TwinCities.com 11 hours ago.
No contingency plan if court ends insurance subsidies
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Florida Gov. Rick Scott Signs 24-Hour Waiting Period For Abortion Bill
Florida Gov. Rick Scott Signs 24-Hour Waiting Period For Abortion BillFlorida Gov. Rick Scott Signs 24-Hour Waiting Period For Abortion Bill
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Republican Governor Rick Scott of Florida signed a bill today that will require women to visit a health clinic twice and wait 24 hours between the visits before having a legal abortion.
Reuters reports that Republican State Representative Jennifer Sullivan, who sponsored the bill, said:
This means women will be empowered to make fully informed decisions. It’s just common courtesy to have a face-to-face conversation with your doctor about such an important decision, especially for such an irreversible procedure as an abortion.
According to Life News, Sullivan stated, "I care about the women who have sat in my office. I care about the women who have cried in committee."
However, Sullivan recently opposed setting up the Florida Health Insurance Exchange, which would have expanded medical coverage for hundreds of thousands of Florida residents, including women in need of health care, notes WFLA-FM.
"This HFIX is just a creative way to crack the door to the further expansion of entitlement programs in Florida. This bill is not a fix. It's a fraud and I believe that we can do better," Sullivan said.
However, the Orlando Sentinel's editorial board wrote, "The plan, by accepting federal funds to provide private insurance to working poor Floridians, would reduce that cost shift. It also would help spare businesses penalties many face under Obamacare for employees without insurance. And it would create tens of thousands of new jobs in the state to ramp up coverage."
Sources: Reuters, WFLA-FM, Orlando Sentinel, Life News
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OV in Depth: Reported by Opposing Views 8 hours ago.
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IMPACT100 WESTCHESTER awards two $85,000 Project Grants and two $9,000 Operational Grants.
Family Ties – “Bravehearts Village” and Groundwork Hudson Valley – “Yonkers Highline” Are New Recipients
Westchester County, NY (PRWEB) June 11, 2015
On Tuesday June 2, 2015 at the Brynwood Country Club in Armonk, 145 of the 188 members of Impact100 Westchester voted to award an $85,000 grant to Family Ties – “Bravehearts Village” and an $85,000 grant to Groundwork Hudson Valley – “Yonkers Highline”. Two Operational Grants were awarded to Student Advocacy and Clay Art Center.
The “Bravehearts Village” will offer Westchester’s transitional-age youth who will soon age out of foster care a hands-on experience to obtain the practical skills they have not been taught but that everyone needs to be successful in life such as how to open a bank account, get a social security card, apply for a job, get health insurance etc...
The “Yonkers Highline” on the greenway in Yonkers, which has been abandoned for decades, will include a playground, fitness-oriented equipment, an urban farm, and a performing place. At a minimum, the new play and community space will impact 5,000 children per year or 25,000 kids over 5 years. Groundwork also intends to recruit local residents to participate in the implementation/construction of the project. The neighborhood (according to Groundwork Hudson Valley) has a median income of $36,287 and 33% poverty rate. It is 90% minority and 39% of the residents are 19 or younger.
That evening Impact100 Westchester also announced that Amelie Kraus will become Co-President with current Co-President Anita Borkenstein and that Cindy Musoff and Michelle Coleman will join the Executive Board. Sharon Douglas, founder of Impact100 Westchester stepped down after completing her two year role as Co-President and plans to continue to be very involved with Impact100 Westchester. Nancy Stuzin and Eileen Weinstein also completed their two year board membership. All, of course, plan to continue to be involved members.
Impact100 Westchester’s mission is to engage women in philanthropy and to collectively fund grants to charitable initiatives in the Westchester region. The goal is to identify unmet needs in the region and provide transformational grants to Westchester not for profit organizations in four focus areas: Arts & Culture, Education, Environment and Health & Wellness. In addition to funding projects, our rigorous review and evaluation of grant proposals raises awareness of many worthwhile charitable organizations while inspiring our members to become more personally involved with these charities.
The next grant cycle for Impact100 Westchester will begin in September 2015. Visit http://impact100westchester.org/ for more information.
###
Contact person: Amelie Kraus (646) 391-5772 or Anita Borkenstein (914) 420-8653 Reported by PRWeb 3 hours ago.
Westchester County, NY (PRWEB) June 11, 2015
On Tuesday June 2, 2015 at the Brynwood Country Club in Armonk, 145 of the 188 members of Impact100 Westchester voted to award an $85,000 grant to Family Ties – “Bravehearts Village” and an $85,000 grant to Groundwork Hudson Valley – “Yonkers Highline”. Two Operational Grants were awarded to Student Advocacy and Clay Art Center.
The “Bravehearts Village” will offer Westchester’s transitional-age youth who will soon age out of foster care a hands-on experience to obtain the practical skills they have not been taught but that everyone needs to be successful in life such as how to open a bank account, get a social security card, apply for a job, get health insurance etc...
The “Yonkers Highline” on the greenway in Yonkers, which has been abandoned for decades, will include a playground, fitness-oriented equipment, an urban farm, and a performing place. At a minimum, the new play and community space will impact 5,000 children per year or 25,000 kids over 5 years. Groundwork also intends to recruit local residents to participate in the implementation/construction of the project. The neighborhood (according to Groundwork Hudson Valley) has a median income of $36,287 and 33% poverty rate. It is 90% minority and 39% of the residents are 19 or younger.
That evening Impact100 Westchester also announced that Amelie Kraus will become Co-President with current Co-President Anita Borkenstein and that Cindy Musoff and Michelle Coleman will join the Executive Board. Sharon Douglas, founder of Impact100 Westchester stepped down after completing her two year role as Co-President and plans to continue to be very involved with Impact100 Westchester. Nancy Stuzin and Eileen Weinstein also completed their two year board membership. All, of course, plan to continue to be involved members.
Impact100 Westchester’s mission is to engage women in philanthropy and to collectively fund grants to charitable initiatives in the Westchester region. The goal is to identify unmet needs in the region and provide transformational grants to Westchester not for profit organizations in four focus areas: Arts & Culture, Education, Environment and Health & Wellness. In addition to funding projects, our rigorous review and evaluation of grant proposals raises awareness of many worthwhile charitable organizations while inspiring our members to become more personally involved with these charities.
The next grant cycle for Impact100 Westchester will begin in September 2015. Visit http://impact100westchester.org/ for more information.
###
Contact person: Amelie Kraus (646) 391-5772 or Anita Borkenstein (914) 420-8653 Reported by PRWeb 3 hours ago.
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Cirrity Announces Expansion of Secure, Compliant Cloud Solutions with Hybrid Cloud Solution Integrating Cisco Intercloud Fabric
Today at Cisco Live, Cisco’s annual IT and communications conference, Cirrity announced it is integrating Cisco Intercloud Fabric with Cirrity’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform.
(PRWEB) June 11, 2015
Today at Cisco Live, Cisco’s annual IT and communications conference, Cirrity announced it is integrating Cisco Intercloud Fabric with Cirrity’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform. With Cisco Intercloud Fabric and Cirrity’s Cisco Powered IaaS, companies subject to compliance regulations can offload sensitive data to Cirrity’s secure, compliant, encrypted IaaS cloud, segregating it from other on-premise information and systems and substantially reducing their audit footprint.
“Cirrity IaaS is already a leading secure, compliant solution available directly to channel partners for their customers,” said Cirrity President and Chief Technology Officer Dan Timko. “With Cisco Intercloud Fabric, our partners can offer customers a sensible, uncomplicated alternative to on-premise storage and management of audit-sensitive data.”
With Cisco Intercloud Fabric technology, organizations will be able to transfer data to, and access it from, their cloud environments hosted at Cirrity’s secure, compliant US data center, and the data will be secured, encrypted and policy controlled in transit. With this configuration, an enterprise can enjoy the asset portability of a truly hybrid cloud, with visibility and management of both environments from an on-premise cloud command center. Cirrity plans to release its Hybrid Cloud capability built upon Cisco Intercloud Fabric as a generally available product in the fourth quarter of 2015.
“Customers want freedom to choose the right public cloud for their business requirements, regardless of underlying technologies like hypervisors,” said Gee Rittenhouse, SVP Cloud & Virtualization Group at Cisco. “Cirrity, a channel-only cloud provider, helps companies offload sensitive data and enable businesses to control their cloud environment through a single pane of glass, by placing workloads in the right cloud and allowing the networking and security policies to follow that workload.”
For firms subject to the stringent security standards of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and other regulations, securing sensitive data in-house often causes the entire data and systems framework to become subject to security regulations. With a Cirrity hybrid cloud and Cisco Intercloud Fabric, these organizations can eliminate this additional data management and security burden.
In addition to the new hybrid cloud offering, Cirrity’s reseller-only, “as a service” solutions include vStream™ disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), remote desktops as a service (DaaS), secure hybrid cloud infrastructure solutions (IaaS) and backup as a service (BaaS). All are based on a secure, compliant cloud infrastructure built on Cisco's enterprise-class cloud architectures.
About Cirrity
Cirrity is a channel-only, Cisco Powered cloud service provider with locations throughout the continental United States. With industry leading SLAs and high performance infrastructure, combined with a security and compliance focus (HIPAA, PCI, CSA STAR, ISO 27001, AICPA SOC Type 2), we provide partners and their customers with a highly secure and highly available Cisco platform to leverage the advantages of cloud computing. Cirrity provides exceptional service with the goal of building long-term, mutually successful relationships. http://www.cirrity.com.
All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.
Contact: Gerry Baron, gbaron(at)cirrity(dot)com, 678-954-5085 Reported by PRWeb 3 hours ago.
(PRWEB) June 11, 2015
Today at Cisco Live, Cisco’s annual IT and communications conference, Cirrity announced it is integrating Cisco Intercloud Fabric with Cirrity’s Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) platform. With Cisco Intercloud Fabric and Cirrity’s Cisco Powered IaaS, companies subject to compliance regulations can offload sensitive data to Cirrity’s secure, compliant, encrypted IaaS cloud, segregating it from other on-premise information and systems and substantially reducing their audit footprint.
“Cirrity IaaS is already a leading secure, compliant solution available directly to channel partners for their customers,” said Cirrity President and Chief Technology Officer Dan Timko. “With Cisco Intercloud Fabric, our partners can offer customers a sensible, uncomplicated alternative to on-premise storage and management of audit-sensitive data.”
With Cisco Intercloud Fabric technology, organizations will be able to transfer data to, and access it from, their cloud environments hosted at Cirrity’s secure, compliant US data center, and the data will be secured, encrypted and policy controlled in transit. With this configuration, an enterprise can enjoy the asset portability of a truly hybrid cloud, with visibility and management of both environments from an on-premise cloud command center. Cirrity plans to release its Hybrid Cloud capability built upon Cisco Intercloud Fabric as a generally available product in the fourth quarter of 2015.
“Customers want freedom to choose the right public cloud for their business requirements, regardless of underlying technologies like hypervisors,” said Gee Rittenhouse, SVP Cloud & Virtualization Group at Cisco. “Cirrity, a channel-only cloud provider, helps companies offload sensitive data and enable businesses to control their cloud environment through a single pane of glass, by placing workloads in the right cloud and allowing the networking and security policies to follow that workload.”
For firms subject to the stringent security standards of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), the PCI Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) and other regulations, securing sensitive data in-house often causes the entire data and systems framework to become subject to security regulations. With a Cirrity hybrid cloud and Cisco Intercloud Fabric, these organizations can eliminate this additional data management and security burden.
In addition to the new hybrid cloud offering, Cirrity’s reseller-only, “as a service” solutions include vStream™ disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS), remote desktops as a service (DaaS), secure hybrid cloud infrastructure solutions (IaaS) and backup as a service (BaaS). All are based on a secure, compliant cloud infrastructure built on Cisco's enterprise-class cloud architectures.
About Cirrity
Cirrity is a channel-only, Cisco Powered cloud service provider with locations throughout the continental United States. With industry leading SLAs and high performance infrastructure, combined with a security and compliance focus (HIPAA, PCI, CSA STAR, ISO 27001, AICPA SOC Type 2), we provide partners and their customers with a highly secure and highly available Cisco platform to leverage the advantages of cloud computing. Cirrity provides exceptional service with the goal of building long-term, mutually successful relationships. http://www.cirrity.com.
All product and company names herein may be trademarks of their registered owners.
Contact: Gerry Baron, gbaron(at)cirrity(dot)com, 678-954-5085 Reported by PRWeb 3 hours ago.
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GOP Readies New Obamacare Hostage Plan As Supreme Court Drama Builds
It looks like some Republicans are getting ready to take another hostage in their efforts to destroy President Barack Obama’s health care law. They’re just waiting to see if the Supreme Court will hand them the gun.
For weeks now, the debate about how to respond to a court ruling in King v. Burwell, the case challenging a key component of the Affordable Care Act, has taken place indirectly -- through speeches, newspaper columns, and media interviews. But with the court likely to issue a decision by the end of June, tension has been building. On Wednesday, it led to a confrontation when Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, grilled Sylvia Burwell, the secretary for Health and Human Services, over what the administration would do if a majority of justices were to rule in favor of the plaintiffs.
Such a ruling would prohibit the federal government from distributing health insurance tax credits in Florida, Texas, and 32 other states where officials opted not to create “exchanges” for purchasing coverage, leaving that work instead to the federal government. That would cover about 6.4 million people, including some families for whom the tax credits discount the price of insurance by thousands of dollars a year. Most would have to drop coverage altogether, throwing those state insurance markets into disarray.
The crux of the lawsuit is a dispute over how to interpret four words that appear in a key passage of the law. That’s why administration officials have said that the easiest, and most viable, remedy would be for Congress to pass a one-sentence amendment to clarify that tax credits should be available in all states. Republican leaders like Ryan have made clear they won’t do that, instead dangling the possibility of some kind of “off-ramp” or “transitional” assistance that would allow people in those states to keep their tax credits -- but only for a little while and only if the Obama administration makes concessions.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Ryan wanted to know whether Obama would accept such a “compromise,” asking, “Will [he] stand up with one piece of paper and say, ‘My way or the highway,’ or will he work with Congress?” Burwell said it was impossible to answer because, at this point, Republicans hadn't given the administration a bill to consider. And she was right about that.
Neither Ryan nor other House Republican leaders have seen fit to produce a detailed proposal or even to hold hearings on what such a proposal should look like. While they say they will soon unveil a full package, based on private negotiations they have been conducting, they've been promising the same thing for five years, with nothing to show for it except skeletal proposals and op-eds -- like the one Ryan, along with two other House leaders, published earlier this year in The Wall Street Journal. Keep in mind that plenty of Republicans have said they want no deal at all.
At this point, the most reliable guide to what Republicans have in mind may be one of the few real pieces of legislation the GOP has produced: “The Preserving Freedom and Choice in Health Care Act.” While the proposal comes from Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who is not a major player on health care issues, it has 37 co-sponsors. One happens to be Mitch McConnell, the majority leader -- making it as serious as anything circulating on Capitol Hill.
*Read more on the latest Obamacare Supreme Court case below:*
The Supreme Court Case That Could Gut Obamacare, Explained In 2 Minutes
This Is What The Latest Obamacare Supreme Court Case Is All About
Here's How Many People In Each State May Not Be Able To Afford Insurance If The Supreme Court Rules Against Obamacare
The Clock Is Ticking And Republicans Still Have No Serious Obamacare Alternative
Johnson’s bill, introduced in April, is audacious, as brief analyses from researchers at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation have revealed. It would allow the federal government to keep dispersing tax credits in the states where officials don’t run their own exchanges, but only until 2017 and only for people who receive the subsidies already. At the same time, it would eliminate the individual mandate (the requirement that all people get comprehensive insurance or pay a fine) and the requirement that all insurance policies include “essential health benefits” (a category that includes prescription drugs, treatment for mental illness, and maternity care). Johnson’s bill may even weaken regulations that prohibit insurers from denying coverage or charging more to people with pre-existing conditions, although that part of the proposal is open to different interpretations.
By removing interlocking pieces that allow the Affordable Care Act to work, Johnson's bill would effectively roll back many if not all the law’s major reforms -- which would undoubtedly suit some people just fine. To take one obvious example, people who wanted to buy less-comprehensive, less-costly policies would have access to them; people who wanted no coverage at all wouldn’t face financial penalties. Fines for employers that don’t offer insurance would also vanish.
But these changes would have consequences. People who need comprehensive coverage, because of existing medical conditions, would have a harder time finding it. Some people who bought skimpier policies would suffer injuries or develop serious medical conditions and discover, suddenly, they have no way to pay for the care they need -- if they could find care at all. Without the individual mandate, insurers would have a harder time attracting healthier customers, forcing them to raise premiums for everybody. Without the employer requirement, the deficit would rise.
The loss of tax credits would be particularly tough, since it would mean all those people who couldn’t afford insurance without them would remain uninsured. The number of people without coverage, now in the midst of a historic decline, would shoot back up. (Johnson has said the goal would be for Congress to craft a different coverage scheme by 2017, but there's no reason to think Republicans would actually enact such a plan, let alone a plan that would come close to providing the same level of protection.)
But it’s not the nature of these changes that make the Johnson bill such a revealing window into the mindset that many Republicans have right now. It’s where those changes would apply. Johnson’s bill would roll back regulations and stop new subsidies even in states like California, Kentucky, Maryland and New York, where officials have set up their own exchanges. A ruling for the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell wouldn’t affect these states, yet destroying the Affordable Care Act in these states is the price -- or, you might say, the ransom -- that this bill’s supporters would demand in order to spare people in the affected states from losing their coverage right away.
Johnson’s proposal is just one that Republicans have floated, and it differs in important ways from the others. (National Journal and Vox have published good summaries of the others.) But one way or another, all seek to roll back the Affordable Care in fundamental ways that would make the law’s protections available to fewer people. The common theme, as Jonathan Chait of New York magazine observed recently, is that the “Republican proposals would all simply extend temporary help to immediate victims of the lawsuit in return for creating many more victims over a much longer period of time.”
It’s difficult to imagine Obama signing such a bill and, presumably, many Republicans understand that -- which is why the talk of compromise and “transitions” and “off-ramps” sounds so suspiciously like a talking point, designed to insulate Republicans from a voter backlash once millions lose their insurance. Then again, Republicans have sought such confrontations before. Maybe they think, this time, they will prevail.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 2 hours ago.
For weeks now, the debate about how to respond to a court ruling in King v. Burwell, the case challenging a key component of the Affordable Care Act, has taken place indirectly -- through speeches, newspaper columns, and media interviews. But with the court likely to issue a decision by the end of June, tension has been building. On Wednesday, it led to a confrontation when Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin, Republican chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, grilled Sylvia Burwell, the secretary for Health and Human Services, over what the administration would do if a majority of justices were to rule in favor of the plaintiffs.
Such a ruling would prohibit the federal government from distributing health insurance tax credits in Florida, Texas, and 32 other states where officials opted not to create “exchanges” for purchasing coverage, leaving that work instead to the federal government. That would cover about 6.4 million people, including some families for whom the tax credits discount the price of insurance by thousands of dollars a year. Most would have to drop coverage altogether, throwing those state insurance markets into disarray.
The crux of the lawsuit is a dispute over how to interpret four words that appear in a key passage of the law. That’s why administration officials have said that the easiest, and most viable, remedy would be for Congress to pass a one-sentence amendment to clarify that tax credits should be available in all states. Republican leaders like Ryan have made clear they won’t do that, instead dangling the possibility of some kind of “off-ramp” or “transitional” assistance that would allow people in those states to keep their tax credits -- but only for a little while and only if the Obama administration makes concessions.
During Wednesday’s hearing, Ryan wanted to know whether Obama would accept such a “compromise,” asking, “Will [he] stand up with one piece of paper and say, ‘My way or the highway,’ or will he work with Congress?” Burwell said it was impossible to answer because, at this point, Republicans hadn't given the administration a bill to consider. And she was right about that.
Neither Ryan nor other House Republican leaders have seen fit to produce a detailed proposal or even to hold hearings on what such a proposal should look like. While they say they will soon unveil a full package, based on private negotiations they have been conducting, they've been promising the same thing for five years, with nothing to show for it except skeletal proposals and op-eds -- like the one Ryan, along with two other House leaders, published earlier this year in The Wall Street Journal. Keep in mind that plenty of Republicans have said they want no deal at all.
At this point, the most reliable guide to what Republicans have in mind may be one of the few real pieces of legislation the GOP has produced: “The Preserving Freedom and Choice in Health Care Act.” While the proposal comes from Wisconsin Sen. Ron Johnson, who is not a major player on health care issues, it has 37 co-sponsors. One happens to be Mitch McConnell, the majority leader -- making it as serious as anything circulating on Capitol Hill.
*Read more on the latest Obamacare Supreme Court case below:*
The Supreme Court Case That Could Gut Obamacare, Explained In 2 Minutes
This Is What The Latest Obamacare Supreme Court Case Is All About
Here's How Many People In Each State May Not Be Able To Afford Insurance If The Supreme Court Rules Against Obamacare
The Clock Is Ticking And Republicans Still Have No Serious Obamacare Alternative
Johnson’s bill, introduced in April, is audacious, as brief analyses from researchers at the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities and Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation have revealed. It would allow the federal government to keep dispersing tax credits in the states where officials don’t run their own exchanges, but only until 2017 and only for people who receive the subsidies already. At the same time, it would eliminate the individual mandate (the requirement that all people get comprehensive insurance or pay a fine) and the requirement that all insurance policies include “essential health benefits” (a category that includes prescription drugs, treatment for mental illness, and maternity care). Johnson’s bill may even weaken regulations that prohibit insurers from denying coverage or charging more to people with pre-existing conditions, although that part of the proposal is open to different interpretations.
By removing interlocking pieces that allow the Affordable Care Act to work, Johnson's bill would effectively roll back many if not all the law’s major reforms -- which would undoubtedly suit some people just fine. To take one obvious example, people who wanted to buy less-comprehensive, less-costly policies would have access to them; people who wanted no coverage at all wouldn’t face financial penalties. Fines for employers that don’t offer insurance would also vanish.
But these changes would have consequences. People who need comprehensive coverage, because of existing medical conditions, would have a harder time finding it. Some people who bought skimpier policies would suffer injuries or develop serious medical conditions and discover, suddenly, they have no way to pay for the care they need -- if they could find care at all. Without the individual mandate, insurers would have a harder time attracting healthier customers, forcing them to raise premiums for everybody. Without the employer requirement, the deficit would rise.
The loss of tax credits would be particularly tough, since it would mean all those people who couldn’t afford insurance without them would remain uninsured. The number of people without coverage, now in the midst of a historic decline, would shoot back up. (Johnson has said the goal would be for Congress to craft a different coverage scheme by 2017, but there's no reason to think Republicans would actually enact such a plan, let alone a plan that would come close to providing the same level of protection.)
But it’s not the nature of these changes that make the Johnson bill such a revealing window into the mindset that many Republicans have right now. It’s where those changes would apply. Johnson’s bill would roll back regulations and stop new subsidies even in states like California, Kentucky, Maryland and New York, where officials have set up their own exchanges. A ruling for the plaintiffs in King v. Burwell wouldn’t affect these states, yet destroying the Affordable Care Act in these states is the price -- or, you might say, the ransom -- that this bill’s supporters would demand in order to spare people in the affected states from losing their coverage right away.
Johnson’s proposal is just one that Republicans have floated, and it differs in important ways from the others. (National Journal and Vox have published good summaries of the others.) But one way or another, all seek to roll back the Affordable Care in fundamental ways that would make the law’s protections available to fewer people. The common theme, as Jonathan Chait of New York magazine observed recently, is that the “Republican proposals would all simply extend temporary help to immediate victims of the lawsuit in return for creating many more victims over a much longer period of time.”
It’s difficult to imagine Obama signing such a bill and, presumably, many Republicans understand that -- which is why the talk of compromise and “transitions” and “off-ramps” sounds so suspiciously like a talking point, designed to insulate Republicans from a voter backlash once millions lose their insurance. Then again, Republicans have sought such confrontations before. Maybe they think, this time, they will prevail.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 2 hours ago.
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United States: Student Employees And The Affordable Care Act – Part 3 Of 4: Can We Subsidize Student Health Insurance? - Mintz, Levin, Cohn, Ferris, Glovsky and Popeo, P.C.
In our prior installment, we determined that student health plans are considered "plans in the individual market" under the Internal Revenue Code.
Reported by Mondaq 2 hours ago.
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Health Insurance Innovations names former Express Scripts exec as president
The founder of Health Insurance Innovations Inc. has given up one of his leadership roles and a former executive at Express Scripts Holding Co. is picking up that job. Patrick McNamee was named president of Health Insurance Innovations (NASDAQ: HIIQ), effective immediately. McNamee was executive vice president and chief operating officer at Express Scripts (NASDAQ: ESRX) until March 2014. He left that company, the nation’s largest pharmacy benefits manager, to pursue other opportunities, according…
Reported by bizjournals 1 hour ago.
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Florida House's new health care plan: Strip away regulations
After rejecting a controversial expansion of health coverage for low-income Floridians, House Republicans took a far-different approach Wednesday to revamping the state's health-care system. A GOP-led committee approved six bills largely aimed at stripping away regulations, offering new ways for patients to get care and nudging state employees to pick from a menu of health-insurance plans. House leaders say they want to create more competition and choices for consumers, which they contend will…
Reported by bizjournals 1 hour ago.
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A.M. Best Special Reports: U.S. Property/Casualty and Health Stocks Outperform Market; Life/Annuity Stocks Remain Volatile
OLDWICK, N.J.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--A.M. Best has released three special equity reports that focus on the stock performance of U.S. property/casualty, life/annuity and health insurance companies. These Best Special Reports cover the first quarter of 2015 (1Q15) and show mixed results among the major insurance industry sectors. U.S. P/C Stocks Outperform Broad Market With Strong Results From Personal Lines: Of the 45 property/casualty companies A.M. Best tracked for this analysis, 31 had a positive
Reported by Business Wire 10 minutes ago.
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Administration can't help if Supreme Court kills Obamacare subsidies
It will be up to state officials and Congress to help consumers who can't afford health insurance if the Supreme Court strikes down health law subsidies for millions of Americans, Health Secretary Sylvia Burwell said.
Reported by CNNMoney 21 hours ago.
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Governor Wolf Ensures All CHIP Plans Meet Federal Requirements, PA Families Will Not Face Tax Penalties or Premium Increases
HARRISBURG, Pa., June 11, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Governor Tom Wolf today announced that his administration has ensured that all CHIP full cost health insurance plans, those under which families pay the entire premium, now meet minimum essential coverage requirements of the...
Reported by PR Newswire 20 hours ago.
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Obama Exaggerates Effects Of Affordable Care Act
The following post first appeared on FactCheck.org.
President Barack Obama made misleading and exaggerated claims in a speech boasting of the accomplishments of the Affordable Care Act.
· Obama claimed that those who already had insurance before the law was passed “got a better deal now” than they did before, because of insurance coverage protections and requirements in the law. But those added benefits came at a higher cost for some. Better coverage didn’t mean a “better deal” for everyone.· The Web page promoting the speech claims that “129 million people who could have otherwise been denied or faced discrimination now have access to coverage.” But most of those individuals already had “access to coverage” — they got it through their employers before the ACA’s marketplaces were launched.· Obama said the rate of the uninsured is at “its lowest level ever.” That’s unclear. His Council of Economic Advisers analyzed National Health Interview Survey data, which show the uninsured rate for the first nine months of 2014 (the most recent data available) was slightly higher than a few years several decades ago.· The president said family premiums are “$1,800 lower today” on average than they would have been if premium trends that existed before the ACA had continued. It’s true premiums have increased more slowly in recent years than they did before the ACA, but even the president’s own economic advisers say the law isn’t responsible for the entire slowdown.
-*A ‘Better Deal’*-
Obama spoke on June 9 at the Catholic Health Association Conference in Washington, D.C. His remarks came at a critical time for the Affordable Care Act: The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on a case that could impact subsidies available through state marketplaces run by the federal government.
The president said that before the ACA was passed, 85 percent of Americans already had health insurance. (That’s about right.) He went on to say that they still got “a better deal” under the health care law.
*Obama, June 9: *That 85 percent who had health insurance, they may not know that they got a better deal now than they did, but they do. Americans can no longer be denied coverage because of preexisting conditions, from you having had cancer to you having had a baby. Women can’t be charged more just for being a woman. And they get free preventive services, like mammograms. And there are no more annual or lifetime caps on the care patients receive.
The ACA did include all of those insurance coverage mandates, which strengthen coverage and protections for individuals. But is that “a better deal” for everyone who had insurance before the ACA? Certainly not.
As we’ve long said, individual market coverage, for those who bought their own insurance, varied widely in terms of coverage and premiums before the health care law was passed. For those who were healthy, premiums could be significantly less than what others were charged. But not anymore. The ACA doesn’t allow insurers to vary rates based on health status. And it requires a certain level of minimum benefit standards. That’s good news for some — such as people with health conditions that boosted their premiums. Others now pay more, as basic plans for healthy folks are no longer available.
With such major changes to how the individual market is priced and how it operates, there were going to be some who got better deals and others who didn’t. Even then-Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius acknowledged that before the exchanges launched. In March 2013, she said: “Women are going to see some lower costs, some men are going to see some higher costs. It’s sort of a one-to-one shift … some of the older customers may see a slight decline, and some of the younger ones are going to see a slight increase.”
-*Access to Coverage*-
The White House promoted the president’s speech with a Web page that made the misleading claim that “129 million people who could have otherwise been denied or faced discrimination now have access to coverage.” This is an old claim we first wrote about in 2011, but the White House has been pushing it again.
The number is the high end of an administration estimate of non-elderly adults who could be denied coverage if they were seeking it on the pre-ACA individual market. (Insurers on the individual market used to be able to deny coverage for medical reasons, but now insurance companies have to offer insurance to anyone who wants it.) But most people weren’t seeking insurance on the individual market before the ACA, nor are they doing it now. And these 129 million people — that’s half of all non-elderly adults in the United States — didn’t lack “access to coverage.” In fact, the vast majority already had it.
The administration analysis — released by the Department of Health and Human Services — found that this 129 million number included “[a]s many as 82 million Americans with employer-based coverage” who had a preexisting condition “ranging from life-threatening illnesses like cancer to chronic conditions like diabetes, asthma, or heart disease.”
Before the ACA, those with coverage through a large employer already had protections for preexisting conditions, including protections through the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.
The administration does have a point in that these individuals could have been denied coverage, charged a higher premium or had their coverage of preexisting conditions limited if they had to seek coverage on the individual market without the Affordable Care Act’s protections. HHS wrote in the report: “Without the Affordable Care Act, such conditions limit the ability to obtain affordable health insurance if they become self-employed, take a job with a company that does not offer coverage, or experience a change in life circumstance, such as divorce, retirement, or moving to a different state.” That’s correct. But with or without the health care law, most Americans would still get their insurance coverage through work (see the Congressional Budget Office’s latest table on the effects of the law on insurance coverage).
The HHS report said that the 129 million number included 25 million who were uninsured. It also said 43 percent of those who had coverage on the individual market had a preexisting condition. A Kaiser Family Foundation report published in May estimated that 10.9 million people were on this market in 2011, when the HHS report was released.
These individuals — the uninsured and individual market policyholders — are most likely to be affected by the ACA’s mandate that they not be denied or charged more for preexisting conditions. And some who had coverage through work may have held onto their jobs just for the insurance. But it’s misleading and an exaggeration for the Obama administration to claim that 129 million people with preexisting conditions “now have access to coverage” because of the ACA.
-*The Uninsured*-
Obama repeated a version of a claim he made in January during his State of the Union address, saying that the “uninsured rate” was at “its lowest level ever.” This could turn out to be the case, once data for all of 2014 and early 2015 are available. But the most recent government data only capture the first nine months of 2014, when the rate of the uninsured was slightly higher than the rate for 1974, 1978 and 1980.
The president’s claim is based on an analysis of data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. The data come from the National Health Interview Survey conducted by the Census Bureau. The latest release includes data from more than 85,000 people, so it’s comprehensive — but only encompasses January through September for 2014. The percentage of uninsured, for all ages, for those nine months was 11.9 percent, a significant drop from the 16 percent uninsured for 2010, the year the ACA was enacted.
But 11.9 percent isn’t the “lowest level ever.” Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers analyzed NHIS data in December 2014, adjusting some previous years’ figures for changes in survey construction. Its chart on years dating back to 1963 show that there was a lower rate of uninsured (11.4 percent) in 1974, 1978 and 1980 (see the table on page 11).
It’s possible the uninsured rate for all of 2014, and the first quarter of 2015, will be lower than it was for just the first nine months of last year. The open enrollment period for the insurance marketplaces didn’t begin until Nov. 15, 2014.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index survey, which included more than 43,000 adults for the first quarter of 2015, put the uninsured rate for adults, age 18 and older, at 11.9 percent. That’s the lowest rate the survey has found, but it only began tracking such figures in 2008.
-*Lower Premiums*-
The president improved upon a claim about premiums that we fact-checked in March. In his June 9 speech, Obama said: “The average family premium is $1,800 lower today than it would have been had trends over the decade before the ACA passed continued.” That’s correct. Last time, Obama said this was “$1,800 in people’s pockets,” which is false.
We’ll still note that the slower-than-expected growth in premiums is only partly attributable to the ACA, according to the president’s Council of Economic Advisers.
The CEA’s September 2014 report used information from the Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual surveys of employer-sponsored health plans to determine that “[i]f premiums growth had matched its 2000-2010 average since 2010, the average premium would be $1,800 higher today.”
Premiums for employer plans have been growing at low rates in recent years, but as we have written before, experts attribute the slowdown mostly to the sluggish economy. The CEA gave the health care law more credit, saying “a significant fraction of the recent slowdown in health care price inflation can be linked to Medicare reforms in the Affordable Care Act.” But it didn’t say how much of the $1,800 difference was due to the ACA.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 19 hours ago.
President Barack Obama made misleading and exaggerated claims in a speech boasting of the accomplishments of the Affordable Care Act.
· Obama claimed that those who already had insurance before the law was passed “got a better deal now” than they did before, because of insurance coverage protections and requirements in the law. But those added benefits came at a higher cost for some. Better coverage didn’t mean a “better deal” for everyone.· The Web page promoting the speech claims that “129 million people who could have otherwise been denied or faced discrimination now have access to coverage.” But most of those individuals already had “access to coverage” — they got it through their employers before the ACA’s marketplaces were launched.· Obama said the rate of the uninsured is at “its lowest level ever.” That’s unclear. His Council of Economic Advisers analyzed National Health Interview Survey data, which show the uninsured rate for the first nine months of 2014 (the most recent data available) was slightly higher than a few years several decades ago.· The president said family premiums are “$1,800 lower today” on average than they would have been if premium trends that existed before the ACA had continued. It’s true premiums have increased more slowly in recent years than they did before the ACA, but even the president’s own economic advisers say the law isn’t responsible for the entire slowdown.
-*A ‘Better Deal’*-
Obama spoke on June 9 at the Catholic Health Association Conference in Washington, D.C. His remarks came at a critical time for the Affordable Care Act: The Supreme Court is expected to rule soon on a case that could impact subsidies available through state marketplaces run by the federal government.
The president said that before the ACA was passed, 85 percent of Americans already had health insurance. (That’s about right.) He went on to say that they still got “a better deal” under the health care law.
*Obama, June 9: *That 85 percent who had health insurance, they may not know that they got a better deal now than they did, but they do. Americans can no longer be denied coverage because of preexisting conditions, from you having had cancer to you having had a baby. Women can’t be charged more just for being a woman. And they get free preventive services, like mammograms. And there are no more annual or lifetime caps on the care patients receive.
The ACA did include all of those insurance coverage mandates, which strengthen coverage and protections for individuals. But is that “a better deal” for everyone who had insurance before the ACA? Certainly not.
As we’ve long said, individual market coverage, for those who bought their own insurance, varied widely in terms of coverage and premiums before the health care law was passed. For those who were healthy, premiums could be significantly less than what others were charged. But not anymore. The ACA doesn’t allow insurers to vary rates based on health status. And it requires a certain level of minimum benefit standards. That’s good news for some — such as people with health conditions that boosted their premiums. Others now pay more, as basic plans for healthy folks are no longer available.
With such major changes to how the individual market is priced and how it operates, there were going to be some who got better deals and others who didn’t. Even then-Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius acknowledged that before the exchanges launched. In March 2013, she said: “Women are going to see some lower costs, some men are going to see some higher costs. It’s sort of a one-to-one shift … some of the older customers may see a slight decline, and some of the younger ones are going to see a slight increase.”
-*Access to Coverage*-
The White House promoted the president’s speech with a Web page that made the misleading claim that “129 million people who could have otherwise been denied or faced discrimination now have access to coverage.” This is an old claim we first wrote about in 2011, but the White House has been pushing it again.
The number is the high end of an administration estimate of non-elderly adults who could be denied coverage if they were seeking it on the pre-ACA individual market. (Insurers on the individual market used to be able to deny coverage for medical reasons, but now insurance companies have to offer insurance to anyone who wants it.) But most people weren’t seeking insurance on the individual market before the ACA, nor are they doing it now. And these 129 million people — that’s half of all non-elderly adults in the United States — didn’t lack “access to coverage.” In fact, the vast majority already had it.
The administration analysis — released by the Department of Health and Human Services — found that this 129 million number included “[a]s many as 82 million Americans with employer-based coverage” who had a preexisting condition “ranging from life-threatening illnesses like cancer to chronic conditions like diabetes, asthma, or heart disease.”
Before the ACA, those with coverage through a large employer already had protections for preexisting conditions, including protections through the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996.
The administration does have a point in that these individuals could have been denied coverage, charged a higher premium or had their coverage of preexisting conditions limited if they had to seek coverage on the individual market without the Affordable Care Act’s protections. HHS wrote in the report: “Without the Affordable Care Act, such conditions limit the ability to obtain affordable health insurance if they become self-employed, take a job with a company that does not offer coverage, or experience a change in life circumstance, such as divorce, retirement, or moving to a different state.” That’s correct. But with or without the health care law, most Americans would still get their insurance coverage through work (see the Congressional Budget Office’s latest table on the effects of the law on insurance coverage).
The HHS report said that the 129 million number included 25 million who were uninsured. It also said 43 percent of those who had coverage on the individual market had a preexisting condition. A Kaiser Family Foundation report published in May estimated that 10.9 million people were on this market in 2011, when the HHS report was released.
These individuals — the uninsured and individual market policyholders — are most likely to be affected by the ACA’s mandate that they not be denied or charged more for preexisting conditions. And some who had coverage through work may have held onto their jobs just for the insurance. But it’s misleading and an exaggeration for the Obama administration to claim that 129 million people with preexisting conditions “now have access to coverage” because of the ACA.
-*The Uninsured*-
Obama repeated a version of a claim he made in January during his State of the Union address, saying that the “uninsured rate” was at “its lowest level ever.” This could turn out to be the case, once data for all of 2014 and early 2015 are available. But the most recent government data only capture the first nine months of 2014, when the rate of the uninsured was slightly higher than the rate for 1974, 1978 and 1980.
The president’s claim is based on an analysis of data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s National Center for Health Statistics. The data come from the National Health Interview Survey conducted by the Census Bureau. The latest release includes data from more than 85,000 people, so it’s comprehensive — but only encompasses January through September for 2014. The percentage of uninsured, for all ages, for those nine months was 11.9 percent, a significant drop from the 16 percent uninsured for 2010, the year the ACA was enacted.
But 11.9 percent isn’t the “lowest level ever.” Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers analyzed NHIS data in December 2014, adjusting some previous years’ figures for changes in survey construction. Its chart on years dating back to 1963 show that there was a lower rate of uninsured (11.4 percent) in 1974, 1978 and 1980 (see the table on page 11).
It’s possible the uninsured rate for all of 2014, and the first quarter of 2015, will be lower than it was for just the first nine months of last year. The open enrollment period for the insurance marketplaces didn’t begin until Nov. 15, 2014.
The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index survey, which included more than 43,000 adults for the first quarter of 2015, put the uninsured rate for adults, age 18 and older, at 11.9 percent. That’s the lowest rate the survey has found, but it only began tracking such figures in 2008.
-*Lower Premiums*-
The president improved upon a claim about premiums that we fact-checked in March. In his June 9 speech, Obama said: “The average family premium is $1,800 lower today than it would have been had trends over the decade before the ACA passed continued.” That’s correct. Last time, Obama said this was “$1,800 in people’s pockets,” which is false.
We’ll still note that the slower-than-expected growth in premiums is only partly attributable to the ACA, according to the president’s Council of Economic Advisers.
The CEA’s September 2014 report used information from the Kaiser Family Foundation’s annual surveys of employer-sponsored health plans to determine that “[i]f premiums growth had matched its 2000-2010 average since 2010, the average premium would be $1,800 higher today.”
Premiums for employer plans have been growing at low rates in recent years, but as we have written before, experts attribute the slowdown mostly to the sluggish economy. The CEA gave the health care law more credit, saying “a significant fraction of the recent slowdown in health care price inflation can be linked to Medicare reforms in the Affordable Care Act.” But it didn’t say how much of the $1,800 difference was due to the ACA.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 19 hours ago.
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Texas, Our Texas: Will Republicans Continue to Make Things Even Worse?
There are many competitions in our society, in our country, and in our world. Children, adults, colleges, corporations, etc. are constantly striving to be ranked at the top. States even compete so they are ranked high for things like the best place to work, raise a family, and live. So why does Texas, and the Texas Republican Party, strive to be last? Following are just a few of the decisions, laws, and actions contributing to the race to the bottom in the country:
Environmentally, no other state has deregulated dams like Texas, said Lori Spragens, executive director at the National Association of Dam Safety Officials. The law "just doesn't make any sense from a safety standpoint," she said. Spragens was referring to the fact that Texas stopped inspecting 44% of the dams in the state, following passage last year of a state law that exempted most privately owned dams from safety requirements by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Texas gave permission for unsafe environmental measures to go unchecked (Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2014).
In education, Texas ranks last among the 50 states in the percentage of high school graduates. Rather than working to improve their status, Texas chose to cut billions from education funding and lower standards for students to graduate.
Texas is not always at the bottom. It is in first place with the highest proportion of people without health insurance, and we are also number one in releasing the most carbon dioxide and hazardous waste of any state.
Texas ranks number one again, having more gun dealers -- about 8,500 -- than any other state, according to statistics kept by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. (USA TODAY, February 18, 2013)
Texas Republicans without a doubt are pro-life, but are they really concerned with a person's life itself or just a person's life before it is born? The state's lax gun laws, which have no required state registration of firearms, no waiting period, no limits on type or number of guns, make Texas a prolific source of guns for criminals and the ire of national gun-control advocates, according to John Rosenthal, co-founder of the Newton, Mass.-based Stop Handgun Violence.
If Texas Republicans are pro-life, why was the Republican state legislature passing legislation allowing guns on college campuses, rather than helping people through the recent floods that took their homes, their businesses, and their lives?
In 2014, Texas, with the blessing of the Supreme Court, passed one of the most restrictive voter ID laws in the country. Texas voters were required to present one of seven forms of identification to vote. Student IDs at state-run universities were not included on the list of acceptable forms of identification but, concealed handgun licenses were. The Justice Department said more than 600,000 mostly blacks, Hispanics, the elderly and the poor, currently lack any of the eligible IDs to vote. A federal judge compared the Texas' tough voter ID rules to a poll tax meant to suppress minority voters and he blocked Texas from enforcing it just prior to the midterm election. (DMN, October 9, 2014)
Texas lawmakers believe they are beyond having to follow the Constitution and laws of the land. They have proclaimed that if the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a Constitutional right to marry in all 50 states, they will just disregard it. Additionally, on May 11 the Senate gave tentative approval to protect pastors who want to refuse to perform a same sex marriage.
According to Planned Parenthood, abortion restrictions clearly violate Texas women's Constitutional rights and drastically reduce access to safe and legal abortion statewide. On October 3, 2014, the second round of HB2 restrictions took effect, leaving only 8 of the original 36 clinics in Texas. The only cities that still had clinics after this constricting legislation are Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Ft. Worth, and Houston. (Fund Texas Choice, 10/14/14) With so few clinics now available, Texas is depriving improvised women who have to travel long distances for access to a clinic, great emotional, physical and financial hardships.
How do Republicans justify being for smaller government? How can Republicans claim they care what citizens' want when they override local laws? Denton County citizens banned fracking in their own backyard, yet Governor Greg Abbott's legislature banned the ban.
Governor Abbott asked the State National Guard to track Jade Helm 15 this summer, which is a scheduled military teaching program, calling the maneuvers a Conspiracy Theory of Obama to enforce a martial law takeover of Texas.
Jon Stewart, comics, and newscasters all mocked Abbott's fiasco. Bill Maher was clear on his Real Time show. "Have you heard of Jade Helm 15?" Bill Maher asked. "It is actually a code name for a routine training exercise the U.S. military is planning to conduct in the Southwest which the tea baggers in Texas are convinced is actually an Obama plot to invade Texas, take their guns, and impose a new world order. Yes, because we hate Lubbock for its freedom."
Texas Senator Ted Cruz actually called the Pentagon just to make sure that wasn't the case. Cruz, who is now running for president, made his announcement at Liberty University, an evangelical school founded by Jerry Falwell -- disregarding the Constitutional idea of separation of church and state.
I think citizens should ask: "When is Texas going to elect competent leaders and visionaries with ideas and solutions to today's challenges that include climate change, education, and healthcare?"
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 18 hours ago.
Environmentally, no other state has deregulated dams like Texas, said Lori Spragens, executive director at the National Association of Dam Safety Officials. The law "just doesn't make any sense from a safety standpoint," she said. Spragens was referring to the fact that Texas stopped inspecting 44% of the dams in the state, following passage last year of a state law that exempted most privately owned dams from safety requirements by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality. Texas gave permission for unsafe environmental measures to go unchecked (Wall Street Journal, July 9, 2014).
In education, Texas ranks last among the 50 states in the percentage of high school graduates. Rather than working to improve their status, Texas chose to cut billions from education funding and lower standards for students to graduate.
Texas is not always at the bottom. It is in first place with the highest proportion of people without health insurance, and we are also number one in releasing the most carbon dioxide and hazardous waste of any state.
Texas ranks number one again, having more gun dealers -- about 8,500 -- than any other state, according to statistics kept by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. (USA TODAY, February 18, 2013)
Texas Republicans without a doubt are pro-life, but are they really concerned with a person's life itself or just a person's life before it is born? The state's lax gun laws, which have no required state registration of firearms, no waiting period, no limits on type or number of guns, make Texas a prolific source of guns for criminals and the ire of national gun-control advocates, according to John Rosenthal, co-founder of the Newton, Mass.-based Stop Handgun Violence.
If Texas Republicans are pro-life, why was the Republican state legislature passing legislation allowing guns on college campuses, rather than helping people through the recent floods that took their homes, their businesses, and their lives?
In 2014, Texas, with the blessing of the Supreme Court, passed one of the most restrictive voter ID laws in the country. Texas voters were required to present one of seven forms of identification to vote. Student IDs at state-run universities were not included on the list of acceptable forms of identification but, concealed handgun licenses were. The Justice Department said more than 600,000 mostly blacks, Hispanics, the elderly and the poor, currently lack any of the eligible IDs to vote. A federal judge compared the Texas' tough voter ID rules to a poll tax meant to suppress minority voters and he blocked Texas from enforcing it just prior to the midterm election. (DMN, October 9, 2014)
Texas lawmakers believe they are beyond having to follow the Constitution and laws of the land. They have proclaimed that if the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have a Constitutional right to marry in all 50 states, they will just disregard it. Additionally, on May 11 the Senate gave tentative approval to protect pastors who want to refuse to perform a same sex marriage.
According to Planned Parenthood, abortion restrictions clearly violate Texas women's Constitutional rights and drastically reduce access to safe and legal abortion statewide. On October 3, 2014, the second round of HB2 restrictions took effect, leaving only 8 of the original 36 clinics in Texas. The only cities that still had clinics after this constricting legislation are Austin, San Antonio, Dallas, Ft. Worth, and Houston. (Fund Texas Choice, 10/14/14) With so few clinics now available, Texas is depriving improvised women who have to travel long distances for access to a clinic, great emotional, physical and financial hardships.
How do Republicans justify being for smaller government? How can Republicans claim they care what citizens' want when they override local laws? Denton County citizens banned fracking in their own backyard, yet Governor Greg Abbott's legislature banned the ban.
Governor Abbott asked the State National Guard to track Jade Helm 15 this summer, which is a scheduled military teaching program, calling the maneuvers a Conspiracy Theory of Obama to enforce a martial law takeover of Texas.
Jon Stewart, comics, and newscasters all mocked Abbott's fiasco. Bill Maher was clear on his Real Time show. "Have you heard of Jade Helm 15?" Bill Maher asked. "It is actually a code name for a routine training exercise the U.S. military is planning to conduct in the Southwest which the tea baggers in Texas are convinced is actually an Obama plot to invade Texas, take their guns, and impose a new world order. Yes, because we hate Lubbock for its freedom."
Texas Senator Ted Cruz actually called the Pentagon just to make sure that wasn't the case. Cruz, who is now running for president, made his announcement at Liberty University, an evangelical school founded by Jerry Falwell -- disregarding the Constitutional idea of separation of church and state.
I think citizens should ask: "When is Texas going to elect competent leaders and visionaries with ideas and solutions to today's challenges that include climate change, education, and healthcare?"
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 18 hours ago.
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Social Security Numbers Of Every Federal Employee Stolen In Data Breach, Union Says
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hackers stole personnel data and identity numbers for every federal employee, a government worker union said Thursday, charging that the cyberattack on U.S. employee data is far worse than the Obama administration has acknowledged.
Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, said on the Senate floor that the December hack into Office of Personnel Management data was carried out by "the Chinese." Reid is one of eight lawmakers who is briefed on the most secret intelligence information. U.S. officials have declined to publicly blame China, which has denied involvement.
J. David Cox, president of the American Federal of Government Employees, said in a letter to OPM director Katherine Archuleta that based on OPM's internal briefings, the hackers stole military records and veterans' status information, address, birth date, job and pay history, health insurance, life insurance, and pension information; age, gender, race data.
The letter was obtained by The Associated Press.
The union said it is basing its assessment on internal OPM briefings. The agency has sought to play down the damage, saying that only limited personally identifying information was breached.
"We believe that Social Security numbers were not encrypted, a cybersecurity failure that is absolutely indefensible and outrageous," the letter said.
"Based on the sketchy information OPM has provided, we believe that the Central Personnel Data File was the targeted database, and that the hackers are now in possession of all personnel data for every federal employee, every federal retiree, and up to one million former federal employees."
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 18 hours ago.
Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, said on the Senate floor that the December hack into Office of Personnel Management data was carried out by "the Chinese." Reid is one of eight lawmakers who is briefed on the most secret intelligence information. U.S. officials have declined to publicly blame China, which has denied involvement.
J. David Cox, president of the American Federal of Government Employees, said in a letter to OPM director Katherine Archuleta that based on OPM's internal briefings, the hackers stole military records and veterans' status information, address, birth date, job and pay history, health insurance, life insurance, and pension information; age, gender, race data.
The letter was obtained by The Associated Press.
The union said it is basing its assessment on internal OPM briefings. The agency has sought to play down the damage, saying that only limited personally identifying information was breached.
"We believe that Social Security numbers were not encrypted, a cybersecurity failure that is absolutely indefensible and outrageous," the letter said.
"Based on the sketchy information OPM has provided, we believe that the Central Personnel Data File was the targeted database, and that the hackers are now in possession of all personnel data for every federal employee, every federal retiree, and up to one million former federal employees."
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 18 hours ago.
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Hackers reportedly stole Social Security numbers from every federal employee
Yikes. The Associated Press reports that the American Federal of Government Employees union is alleging that hackers actually stole all federal employees’ Social Security numbers in a massive hack that the government first disclosed last week. At the time, the government said that roughly 4 million workers had their personal information exposed during the hack, although AFGE president J. David Cox is now claiming the problem is much worse than what the Obama administration has admitted. DON’T MISS: Video shows just how many ideas Apple swiped from Google and Microsoft at WWDC 2015 The union claims that based on internal briefings from the Office of Personnel Management, “the hackers stole military records and veterans’ status information, address, birth date, job and pay history, health insurance, life
Reported by Boy Genius Report 17 hours ago.
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Health Industry Dials Up Telehealth for Growth
Both health insurance companies and providers of medical care are investing in telehealth, which allows virtual patient care when patients can see doctors via mobile phones, tablets and desktop computers. More insurers are paying for it, which could help companies and their share prices if fewer health plan enrollees end up in expensive emergency rooms.
Reported by Motley Fool 17 hours ago.
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This Time, Republicans Are Backing 9/11 Health Legislation
WASHINGTON -- What a difference five years make. Unlike in 2010, when Congress nearly failed to pass the James Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act, Republicans on Thursday embraced the renewal of a key part of the act, predicting that it would pass easily.
"The bill needs to be passed," said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. On Thursday, the committee held its first hearing on reauthorizing the health portion of the Zadroga law, which provides health benefits to 9/11 responders and is set to expire this fall.
That was a far cry from 2010, when Upton and most other Republicans in Congress voted against the measure repeatedly. It was only able to pass shortly before Christmas, when many members of Congress had already left for the holiday.
And along the way, Republicans insisted on watering down the bill, shortening the duration of the funding and even requiring that 9/11 responders be run through the terrorist database. They complained that responders could abuse the program, that the 9/11 attacks had taken place too long ago to continue taking care of them and that the legislation might provide benefits to illegal immigrants who had responded to the attacks. Several lawmakers called it an unjustified new entitlement program and accused the state of New York of trying to shirk its responsibility to care for the sick and dying.
But on Thursday, Upton was not the only former opponent singing a different tune. Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), chairman of the health subcommittee, characterized the hearing as the first step toward a "timely" reauthorization of the health program. Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said the administrator of the World Trade Center Health Program, Dr. John Howard, had "opened" his eyes to some of the unique needs of Ground Zero responders with his testimony at the hearing.
Among these needs, Howard said, were rare cancers that had emerged in the 72,000 people being monitored by the program and delayed cases of respiratory ailments, as well as unusual patterns of post-traumatic stress disorder that worsen over time, in spite of treatment. Howard noted that doctors who weren't aware of what to look for would have difficulties identifying many of these issues as being related to 9/11, and many of the illnesses wouldn't be covered by workers' compensation programs.
"Our members are receiving health care that cannot be provided, or only provided with great difficulty, by other types of health insurance," Howard said. "Without the program, our 9/11 responders and survivors might end up in limbo instead of in treatment."
"You've given me some really good things to think about," Guthrie said.
Not all Republicans opposed the bill five years ago, especially those from the New York area. They were pleased by their colleagues' new attitude.
"I am sure this legislation will pass unanimously here, in the full committee and on the floor of the House," said Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.).
Congress does have to act with some urgency, however. While the compensation part of the program is authorized into 2016, the health program expires at the end of this September.
Howard said that if Congress does not act, his program would have to start warning patients about 90 days ahead of time -- which would be at the end of June -- that treatment might soon end.
He and other witnesses at Thursday's hearing said that losing the program would be a catastrophe for the people it serves, including more than 3,000 people with cancer.
"To end this program -- people are going to die," said David Howley, a retired New York City police officer who has repeatedly battled 9/11-linked cancer himself. "It's a fact. It's unquestionable and that's what's going to happen."
"I wouldn't be here, sitting here, if it wasn't for the doctors' ... knowledge, skills, abilities, research. They have become the absolute experts in what is ailing us," Howley added.
Asked by Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Ind.) what his greatest fear for the program was, Howard said it was that Congress wouldn't move in time.
"I would say the biggest thing that worries me is that I would have to spend any amount of time -- waste my time -- closing the program, as opposed to growing the program," Howard said.
Lawmakers pledged that it would not come to this.
"I don't believe you're going to have to lose any sleep about shutting this program down," said Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.).
It is not clear that Congress can enact new legislation by the end of the month, however. Upton committed only to get the bill to the floor of the House before the program's expiration in September.
The uncertainty highlighted one of the goals of the new bill -- to make the treatment program permanent. Howard said such a long-term measure would not only improve his administration of the program, but also prevent significant emotional damage to people who rely on the treatment.
"The assurance of having the same provider, especially for our patients that suffer from very serious mental and physical conditions, is a peace of mind that can only be bought with mandatory funding and an end date," he said.
Similar legislation has been proposed in the Senate, but work on it has not begun yet.
Michael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for The Huffington Post. Talk to him on Facebook.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 16 hours ago.
"The bill needs to be passed," said Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.), chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee. On Thursday, the committee held its first hearing on reauthorizing the health portion of the Zadroga law, which provides health benefits to 9/11 responders and is set to expire this fall.
That was a far cry from 2010, when Upton and most other Republicans in Congress voted against the measure repeatedly. It was only able to pass shortly before Christmas, when many members of Congress had already left for the holiday.
And along the way, Republicans insisted on watering down the bill, shortening the duration of the funding and even requiring that 9/11 responders be run through the terrorist database. They complained that responders could abuse the program, that the 9/11 attacks had taken place too long ago to continue taking care of them and that the legislation might provide benefits to illegal immigrants who had responded to the attacks. Several lawmakers called it an unjustified new entitlement program and accused the state of New York of trying to shirk its responsibility to care for the sick and dying.
But on Thursday, Upton was not the only former opponent singing a different tune. Rep. Joe Pitts (R-Pa.), chairman of the health subcommittee, characterized the hearing as the first step toward a "timely" reauthorization of the health program. Rep. Brett Guthrie (R-Ky.) said the administrator of the World Trade Center Health Program, Dr. John Howard, had "opened" his eyes to some of the unique needs of Ground Zero responders with his testimony at the hearing.
Among these needs, Howard said, were rare cancers that had emerged in the 72,000 people being monitored by the program and delayed cases of respiratory ailments, as well as unusual patterns of post-traumatic stress disorder that worsen over time, in spite of treatment. Howard noted that doctors who weren't aware of what to look for would have difficulties identifying many of these issues as being related to 9/11, and many of the illnesses wouldn't be covered by workers' compensation programs.
"Our members are receiving health care that cannot be provided, or only provided with great difficulty, by other types of health insurance," Howard said. "Without the program, our 9/11 responders and survivors might end up in limbo instead of in treatment."
"You've given me some really good things to think about," Guthrie said.
Not all Republicans opposed the bill five years ago, especially those from the New York area. They were pleased by their colleagues' new attitude.
"I am sure this legislation will pass unanimously here, in the full committee and on the floor of the House," said Rep. Leonard Lance (R-N.J.).
Congress does have to act with some urgency, however. While the compensation part of the program is authorized into 2016, the health program expires at the end of this September.
Howard said that if Congress does not act, his program would have to start warning patients about 90 days ahead of time -- which would be at the end of June -- that treatment might soon end.
He and other witnesses at Thursday's hearing said that losing the program would be a catastrophe for the people it serves, including more than 3,000 people with cancer.
"To end this program -- people are going to die," said David Howley, a retired New York City police officer who has repeatedly battled 9/11-linked cancer himself. "It's a fact. It's unquestionable and that's what's going to happen."
"I wouldn't be here, sitting here, if it wasn't for the doctors' ... knowledge, skills, abilities, research. They have become the absolute experts in what is ailing us," Howley added.
Asked by Rep. Susan Brooks (R-Ind.) what his greatest fear for the program was, Howard said it was that Congress wouldn't move in time.
"I would say the biggest thing that worries me is that I would have to spend any amount of time -- waste my time -- closing the program, as opposed to growing the program," Howard said.
Lawmakers pledged that it would not come to this.
"I don't believe you're going to have to lose any sleep about shutting this program down," said Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.).
It is not clear that Congress can enact new legislation by the end of the month, however. Upton committed only to get the bill to the floor of the House before the program's expiration in September.
The uncertainty highlighted one of the goals of the new bill -- to make the treatment program permanent. Howard said such a long-term measure would not only improve his administration of the program, but also prevent significant emotional damage to people who rely on the treatment.
"The assurance of having the same provider, especially for our patients that suffer from very serious mental and physical conditions, is a peace of mind that can only be bought with mandatory funding and an end date," he said.
Similar legislation has been proposed in the Senate, but work on it has not begun yet.
Michael McAuliff covers Congress and politics for The Huffington Post. Talk to him on Facebook.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 16 hours ago.
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Education Department 'Concerned' About Loophole In Federal Privacy Law For Students
The U.S. Department of Education confirmed in letters to Sen. Ron Wyden and Rep. Suzanne Bonamici, both Democrats of Oregon, a university is allowed to access a student's therapy or medical records if that student files a lawsuit against the school and obtained health services through the institution.
Further, an Education Department official said their office is "concerned" about how broadly the privacy law governing such records, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, can be used when students enter litigation against their college.
The letters from Kathleen Styles, Chief Privacy Officer, dated June 8, were released by Wyden and Bonamici's offices on Thursday. Wyden and Bonamici wrote letters to the department following controversy over whether the University of Oregon violated a rape victim's privacy by transferring their therapy records from the school's counseling center to the institution's general counsel's office. The university has insisted it did not violate the law, and in March returned the records to the school's counseling center.
"While both the [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] Privacy Rule and FERPA provide important privacy protections, we are concerned about the possibility that FERPA may offer fewer confidentiality protections than the HIPAA Privacy Rule in the limited instances where institutions choose to share treatment records with their attorneys in conjunction with litigation between the student and the institution," Styles wrote to Wyden.
"A covered entity" can non-consensually disclose patient records to in-house counsel in the context of litigation, but only when it relates to the entity's "health care operations," Styles wrote. However, under FERPA, she said a school is more broadly permitted to disclose records without a court order to in-house counsel in the context of litigation if the institution determines their attorney "has a legitimate education interest in the records."
Styles said the department may release additional public guidance in the future.
"All students should feel confident that they can see a doctor or report a sexual assault without their information being exposed or their privacy violated," Wyden and Bonamici said in a joint statement. "The Department of Education's clarification of the federal protections students have is helpful. However, the response confirms a gap in privacy that could allow school officials to inappropriately access students' personal health records without their consent. More must be done to protect students’ privacy and reinforce a safe college environment. We will continue to demand that the department use its authority to immediately address this gap."
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 15 hours ago.
Further, an Education Department official said their office is "concerned" about how broadly the privacy law governing such records, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, can be used when students enter litigation against their college.
The letters from Kathleen Styles, Chief Privacy Officer, dated June 8, were released by Wyden and Bonamici's offices on Thursday. Wyden and Bonamici wrote letters to the department following controversy over whether the University of Oregon violated a rape victim's privacy by transferring their therapy records from the school's counseling center to the institution's general counsel's office. The university has insisted it did not violate the law, and in March returned the records to the school's counseling center.
"While both the [Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act] Privacy Rule and FERPA provide important privacy protections, we are concerned about the possibility that FERPA may offer fewer confidentiality protections than the HIPAA Privacy Rule in the limited instances where institutions choose to share treatment records with their attorneys in conjunction with litigation between the student and the institution," Styles wrote to Wyden.
"A covered entity" can non-consensually disclose patient records to in-house counsel in the context of litigation, but only when it relates to the entity's "health care operations," Styles wrote. However, under FERPA, she said a school is more broadly permitted to disclose records without a court order to in-house counsel in the context of litigation if the institution determines their attorney "has a legitimate education interest in the records."
Styles said the department may release additional public guidance in the future.
"All students should feel confident that they can see a doctor or report a sexual assault without their information being exposed or their privacy violated," Wyden and Bonamici said in a joint statement. "The Department of Education's clarification of the federal protections students have is helpful. However, the response confirms a gap in privacy that could allow school officials to inappropriately access students' personal health records without their consent. More must be done to protect students’ privacy and reinforce a safe college environment. We will continue to demand that the department use its authority to immediately address this gap."
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 15 hours ago.
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Union: Hackers have personnel data on every federal employee
WASHINGTON (AP) — Hackers stole personnel data and Social Security numbers for every federal employee, a government worker union said Thursday, saying that the cyber theft of U.S. employee information was more damaging than the Obama administration has acknowledged. Sen. Harry Reid, the Democratic leader, said on the Senate floor that the December hack into Office of Personnel Management data was carried out by "the Chinese" without specifying whether he meant the Chinese government or individuals. J. David Cox, president of the American Federal of Government Employees, said in a letter to OPM director Katherine Archuleta that based on OPM's internal briefings, "We believe that the Central Personnel Data File was the targeted database, and that the hackers are now in possession of all personnel data for every federal employee, every federal retiree, and up to one million former federal employees." The union believes the hackers stole military records and veterans' status information, address, birth date, job and pay history, health insurance, life insurance, and pension information; and age, gender and race data, he said. Mike Rogers, the former chairman of the House intelligence committee, said last week that Chinese intelligence agencies have for some time been seeking to assemble a database of information about Americans. The Office of Personnel Management is also a repository for extremely sensitive information assembled through background investigations of employees and contractors who hold security clearances.
Reported by SeattlePI.com 16 hours ago.
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The 3 huge Supreme Court decisions we're still waiting for
It's going to be a big few weeks in the Supreme Court.This month, the court is set to decide several high-profile cases whose outcomes will likely touch millions of Americans' lives.
This term, the court tackled some of the most hotly contested social and political issues of the last few decades, including gay marriage, voting rights, affordable housing, death penalty, and healthcare.
Here are the three most important cases that the court will decide this month:
-Gay Marriage-
Earlier this year, the Supreme Court finally heard arguments over the constitutionality of gay marriage.
In Obergefell v. Hodges and several related cases that the court has consolidated, the justices considered whether the remaining 14 states that have not allowed same-sex marriage are required to recognize same-sex marriages from out of state. They will also decide whether there is a constitutional right to gay marriage.
According to a recent Public Research Institute poll, most Americans expect the court to rule in favor of gay marriage. The decision is likely to come down to the court's key swing voter, Justice Anthony Kennedy, or Justice John Roberts, who once sided with the liberals in the case that upheld Obamacare.
As the Associated Press notes, if the Supreme Court upholds the rights of states to limit gay marriage to straight couples, that could complicate things. In 20 states, judges have struck down limits on gay marriage, declaring them unconstitutional. If the court rules that the bans are constitutional, gay married couples in these states could find themselves in a legal limbo.
"It would be chaos," Howard Wasserman, a Florida International University law professor, told the Associated Press.
-Obamacare-
The second Obamacare case to reach the Supreme Court, King v. Burwell, revolves around whether the Obama administration is entitled to provide healthcare subsidies to millions of Americans living in states that didn't set up healthcare exchanges on their own.
Several conservative activists brought the case after they discovered that four words in the law appear to suggest that healthcare subsidies wouldn't be allowed in states that didn't set up their own exchanges. Obamacare advocates say that this was just clumsy wording, while critics maintain that Democrats were attempting to force states to set up their exchanges.
Either way, if the court sides with the conservative activists, millions of Americans in states that did not set up their own exchanges will essentially no longer be able to pay for their health insurance.
Overturning the law could create two dual healthcare systems. In states that set up their own exchanges, healthcare will be more affordable, while in states that did not, millions will likely be forced off their plans because they can no longer afford premiums.
The Obama administration has said that it has no plan if the court rules against it, though according to the Hill, there are some hints that this may not entirely be true. This week, the White House proposed a one-sentence fix which Republicans in Congress quickly shot down.
King v. Burwell is the second major challenge to Obama's signature healthcare law to reach the Supreme Court. In a 5-4 ruling in 2012, Chief Justice John Roberts joined the liberal justices and upheld the constitutionality of the law.
-Lethal Injection-
This case will decide whether a drug used for lethal injections is unconstitutional.
Oklahoma death row inmates sued to have midazolam removed from the list of approved death penalty drugs. Pointing to several high-profile botched executions, the inmates believe that being subjected to midazolam amounts to cruel and unusual punishment.
But some lethal injection proponents argue that the suit is part of a sneaky strategy by death penalty opponents to choke off the ways that the inmates on death row can be legally executed.
During the oral arguments earlier this year, several conservative justices noted that death penalty abolitionists have pressured drug companies not to produce lethal injection drugs, eliminating ways that states can execute death row inmates.
A shortage of lethal injection drugs has helped push this case forward. Several drugs that states previously used for lethal injection are no longer on the market, forcing states to turn to riskier drugs including midazolam.
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NOW WATCH: Watch this angry mom in Baltimore confront her son and pull him out of the police protests Reported by Business Insider 15 hours ago.
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