WASHINGTON, Nov. 21, 2013 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following tip sheet was released today by the U.S. Census Bureau: In 2012, 27 percent of young adults (ages 19 to 34) lacked health insurance, although the rate varied widely from state to state, according to a new Census... Reported by PR Newswire 3 days ago.

The botched implementation of Obamacare has created a bittersweet moment for advocates of a universal, single-payer health care system: They saw this coming, but they can't gloat about it.

"We may have an 'I-told-you-so' moment, but it's hard to get any pleasure out of it knowing how many people are actually going to get hurt," said Stephanie Woolhandler, a New York-based doctor who co-founded Physicians for a National Health Program, a group that pushes for universal health care. "You had a bad system, and you're putting a patch on it using the same flawed insurance companies that got us here in the first place," she said.

In the seven weeks since the insurance exchanges created by the Affordable Care Act debuted, Obamacare has been defined by faulty websites, millions of canceled health plans and uncertainty about whether President Barack Obama's administration can set up a new marketplace for private health insurance that protects consumers against industry practices like excluding the sick, while ensuring less-well-off Americans can afford coverage.

Single-payer advocates favor scrapping private health insurance and enrolling everyone in a program akin to Medicare with a comprehensive set of benefits that is financed through taxation, one whose primary focus is providing medical care, not earning profits.

To them, the messiness of Obamacare's infancy was inevitable; the law is built upon a fragmented health care system and a private insurance industry that they believe, by definition, is focused on profit first and the needs of its customers second.

"What you're seeing right now is the kind of compromise that was reached, kind of cobbled together, for the Affordable Care Act," said Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) a vocal single-payer supporter who voted for the bill in 2010 after shelving his amendment to create a single-payer plan. "What's happening now just reinforces to me that what we need is a simple system focused on providing health care," he said.

The difficulties of launching insurance exchanges in every state and dealing with dozens of insurance companies are considerably greater than just signing up every American for a Medicare-like program, Woolhandler said. "The single-payer system's simple. They rolled out Medicare less than a year after passage," he said.

"I have always thought that was the most efficient way to deliver quality health care to people, keeping the best of the private enterprise system but, at the same time, making it possible for all Americans to be covered," said Rep. Jim McDermott (D-Wash.), a medical doctor who like Sanders has sponsored several single-payer bills.

When Congress debated health-care reform in 2009 and 2010, the creation of a government-run, single-payer program that would provide health coverage to everyone was never seriously considered. Although Obama and many congressional Democrats say they support the idea, none forced it onto the agenda.

"I didn't talk about single-payer a lot during the run-up because it was clear that was not going to happen, and I didn't want to get people away from looking at what we can get done," McDermott said. "We got a hell of a lot done, and I'm proud to be a part of it."

Democrats focused on preserving and expanding the private health-insurance system, with all its complexities and shortcomings, to minimize disruption for consumers. And in a bid to secure support from insurers, hospitals and other private health care interests, the Senate -- with the White House's blessing -- eliminated the so-called public option, a government-run health plan that would have competed alongside private plans on Obamacare's insurance exchanges.

"When you have a system which is so complex, its main function is to enable insurance companies, drug companies, medical equipment suppliers to be making huge amounts of money off of the system. The more complex it is, the easier it is for them to do that," Sanders said.

Sanders credits the Affordable Care Act with providing coverage to millions and guaranteeing access to health insurance for people with pre-existing conditions. But he rues the missed opportunity to move the United States in the direction other developed nations went decades ago, especially since study after study shows the American system is more expensive but doesn't provide the highest-quality care.

"In this whole health care debate, there's been very little discussion as to why it is that, in America, with 48 million people uninsured, we end up paying almost twice as much as do the people of any other country," Sanders said. "But we can't ask that question because the insurance companies and the drug companies are too powerful."

California Democrat Lee Rogers, a podiatrist from Simi Valley, unsuccessfully challenged Republican Rep. Buck McKeon for Congress in 2012 on a platform emphasizing single-payer, and he plans to run again next year.

To Rogers, the problems with Obamacare's websites pale in comparison to the program's greatest shortcoming: It fails to achieve universal coverage. According to the Congressional Budget Office, even though the Affordable Care Act will reduce the ranks of the uninsured by 25 million over the next decade, 30 million people will still lack health coverage.

"It is not universal coverage. It doesn't even get close to it; it just gets closer. So that's been a disappointment to me looking at the original way that they had gone about the reform," Rogers said.

None of these single-payer advocates has given up hope that their goal will one day be achieved, despite the struggles of Obamacare. Sanders's home state of Vermont is using authority created by the Affordable Care Act to enact its own single-payer program, which is slated to be in place in 2017.

"If Vermont can do it, and do it well, I think it will have a real impact on discussions in other states," Sanders said.

The troubles of getting Obamacare off the ground could hurt or help the single-payer cause, Sanders said. "What many people are going to say is that the federal government can't even run a bloody website," he said. On the other hand, the headaches of the insurance exchanges could generate renewed interest in a more straightforward approach, he said: "We need a system that is not as complicated as this system is."

Obama tried to make his health care reforms as non-disruptive as he and congressional Democrats thought possible. But the outcry from the several million people whose health insurance plans are being canceled underscores the pitfalls of shaking up the health care system -- as throwing out the private insurance industry and enrolling everyone in a single-payer program certainly would.

As McDermott sees it, that's the price of progress. "Whenever you make a big social change, you're going to have some turmoil," he said. "And I don't get put off by turmoil." Reported by Huffington Post 2 days ago.

On this the 10th anniversary of the Republican health-care plan (which consists of Medicare Part C or "Medicare Advantage" private medical insurance, and of Medicare Part D private drug insurance), what are the impacts, on the U.S. taxpayer, and on the people who have signed up for the plans, and for the corporations who receive the massive public subsidies under these plans? First, we shall explore here the history and content of this Republican plan, so that its outcomes will be readily understandable as having been predicted at the start by federal and academic budget-planners. Nothing in this plan's outcome is at all a surprise.In November 2003, a Medicare prescription drug and supplemental insurance bill was presented in Congress, which Democrats vociferously opposed, whereby the Republicans offered seniors some help in affording prescription medications, but only if, following President Bush's anticipated re-election, the private health insurers would be permitted, for the very first time, to compete against Medicare after 2006, by offering health insurance, called "Medicare Advantage" supplemental insurance, replacing Medicare Part B supplemental insurance, and with these insurers being heavily subsidized by taxpayers so as for them to be able to compete against the government-provided Medicare Part B. Another Republican demand was that Medicare not be permitted to do what the Veterans Administration already was doing and which saved billions to the government and reduced by billions drug company profits: use the massive bargaining power of their millions of patients to negotiate lower prices for the drugs they purchase. The self-styled "seniors' lobby," AARP, which received huge kickbacks/commissions from insurers and the like (typically over $300 million per year) of which over half would now come from private health insurers whose insurance plans they would sell, issued a press release expressing their "strong endorsement" of the bill, without considering or mentioning, at all, that such a law might gradually destroy Medicare.Indeed, the bill resulted from communications between former Republican congressional leader Newt Gingrich and his friend Bill Novelli, the AARP chief, who had written a foreword to one of Gingrich's books. (Furthermore, as Barbara T. Dreyfuss noted, in the 7 June 2004 American Prospect, under the headline "The Shocking Story of How AARP Backed the Medicare Bill,""Novelli had first honed his marketing skills on behalf of Richard Nixon. He worked in 1972 with the November Group, the in-house advertising unit that helped devise attack ads against George McGovern.") By financially harming Medicare, such a law would produce a financial gain for AARP and for other sellers of health insurance. Sick seniors would be more desperate: a diminished Medicare system would offer them less. The enormous taxpayer-financed subsidies to the private insurance companies would increase pressure against the government plan. Washington Post columnist E.J. Dionne thus headlined about the bill on 18 November 2003, "Medicare Monstrosity," and he observed: "How do you know this bill is such a great deal for the drug companies and [health insurers such as] HMOs? On word of an agreement last week, [their] share prices soared." As for the sick and poor, those people were to be shoved off in a Medicare boat now to be shot full of holes.The key vote occurred on November 22nd at 5:53 A.M. in the House. Syndicated columnist Robert Novak headlined five days later, "GOP Pulled No Punches in Struggle for Medicare Bill," and he wrote that "There were only 210 yes votes ... (long past the usual time for House roll calls), against 224 no's. A weary George W. Bush, just returned from Europe, was awakened at 4 a.m. to make personal calls to [Republican] House members. Republicans voting against the bill were told they were endangering their political futures." An example cited was Republican Rep. Nick Smith, who was retiring, and his son Brad was gearing up to run for his seat. "On the House floor, Nick Smith was told business interests would give his son $100,000 in return for his father's vote," but Smith still refused the bribe, and so his son didn't get a chance to succeed him. (The gangsters additionally threatened to pour cash into the campaign of his son's Republican primary opponent. They did what they threatened to do, and Republican primary voters -- a faithful bunch of suckers -- chose Brad Smith's primary opponent, Joe Schwarz, who went on to beat the Democrat and to go to Congress.) Bush did, however, manage to persuade enough Republicans to pass the bill by 220 to 215. 204 Republicans voted for it; 25 voted against. 189 Democrats voted against it; 16 voted for. The lone Independent, Bernard Sanders, voted against it. When the U.S. major media reported on the corruption behind this bill, the slant was usually to play down the bill's having been rammed through by the Republican President and Republican congressional leadership, and the bill's having been opposed heavily by the leaderless Democrats in Congress; the focus was instead upon the corruption of drug-industry lobbyists. However, those lobbyists were not corrupt -- they were merely doing the job that their employers, the drug companies, and the insurers, paid them to do. By contrast, the politicians who voted for this bill were violating their solemn obligation to the public, who were their legal employer. Like all gangsters, these Republicans (that's almost all Republicans in Congress) simply despised the public. Thus, though the drug companies looked bad (or else appeared to be excessively focused upon their own profits, depending upon how one looked at this matter), the Republican Party itself, which had actually worked hand-in-glove with the pharmaceutical industry and with private health insurers to shape this bill and to pass it) did not -- the major news media covered over or hid the vileness and profound corruption of the Republican Party on the Medicare Prescription Drug and Medicare Supplement bill.On November 26th, the AP headlined "Analysts: Medicare Drug Costs Will Rise," and opened, "Seniors will face annual increases in premiums and deductibles -- and a growing gap in coverage -- for the prescription drugs they buy under the new Medicare law, budget analysts say." The price-hikes under the new Republican law were geared to kick in during the period 2006-2013, well after the President's assumed 2004 "re-"election (is such corruption really "election" in the democratic sense?), so that, "By 2013, the eighth year of the program, the deductible and the coverage gap are both projected to grow by 78 percent," and, "Insurance premiums ... are projected to increase 65 percent ... by 2013."In April 2004, the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas held a conference on the new law, and in 2006 they published a free e-book on the findings, titled "Big Choices: The Future of Health Insurance for Older Americans." Page 201 noted that, "The 2004 Medicare Trustees report ... projects the Trust funds have lost two full years of solvency due in large part to the extra costs of privatization in the new Medicare law." Even the Bush-appointed Trustees acknowledged that this new drug program would financially weaken Medicare by its privatization features (the very same features that would fatten the profits of insurers and drug-makers, while adding to the federal debt).A few months before the price-hikes were due to begin, BusinessWeek, on 25 July 2005, reported (p. 42): "Health insurance may not be the sexiest of businesses, but that hasn't stopped investors from sending industry stocks soaring in recent months. A key reason for the runup is the expected bonanza from the long-awaited Medicare prescription-drug benefit. Starting next year, the federal government will start subsidizing insurers who offer extra drug coverage to as many as half the 42 million Medicare beneficiaries who are eligible. Some analysts expect insurers, who will offer a range of plans, to reap $10 billion from the program in 2006 and quadruple that in coming years."In August 2005, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce (USCOC), which is dominated by large American corporations, mailed a colorful brochure to about a hundred million American households: "Introducing Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage: Peace of mind you deserve. Prescription drug coverage you need." Three months later, in October, the USCOC mailed out yet another full-color advertisement, headlined this time "People with Medicare Really Have Something to Smile About," and explaining: "That's because they can save on their drug costs by joining a Medicare prescription drug plan." A few weeks further on, the USCOC mailed out yet another such brochure, titled, this time, "Concerned About Affording Your Prescription Drugs?" and subtitled "COMING JANUARY 1, 2006: Security and Peace of Mind with Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage." And those were just the start of the USCOC's phenomenally expensive promotional campaign for this Bush drug plan. If the pharmaceutical trade organization, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA, which is one of the nation's biggest lobbying forces) had funded these multi-million-dollar promotional mailings directly, then perhaps the average boob might have recognized that there was something fishy here, and wouldn't have trusted these brochures, but evidently the USCOC radiated no similarly obvious self-interested stench. However, what was the backroom deal that had induced the USCOC, which represents the largest corporations of all types, and not merely pharmaceutical manufacturers, to foot the bill for what ultimately approached a billion full-color brochures being mailed out through the U.S. postal system? If the pharmaceutical manufacturers didn't compensate the USCOC in some way for that, then why were all big businesses, and not just the big pharmaceutical firms, funding this promotion of a new governmental drug program?On 12 November 2009, Bloomberg News headlined "Chamber's Donohue Keeps Cash Coming After PG&E, Apple, Defect," and reported that, after a few large firms publicly quit the Chamber out of embarrassment over its huge (Koch, Exxon, etc.) campaign to discredit the threat posed by global warming, an even bigger influx of new membership contributions came in from firms which were pleased by what the Chamber had done. "The Chamber is the biggest spender among Washington lobbyists, shelling out $65 million in the first nine months of this year, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. That's more than the combined total of the next three biggest spenders, Exxon Mobil Corp., the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America and General Electric." Moreover, "The Chamber doesn't disclose its funding sources. According to company Web sites, Dow Chemical Co., a backer of climate-change legislation, paid the Chamber at least $1.6 million in 2008; Chevron Corp., $250,000; Intel Corp, $286,583; and Prudential Financial Inc., $1.65 million. ... Waging such battles is what Chamber members expect, and why they pay dues, [Tom] Donohue [the Chamber's president] says. 'Companies find it a little dangerous to get too far out ahead of what Congress and others are doing,' he said in an interview. 'They look to us.'" In other words: America's aristocrats looked to the Chamber to oppose the President, Congress, the judiciary, and state governments, whenever those governments or political figures stood up for the public against the special interests of those aristocrats. During the George W. Bush Administration, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was like an extension of the Republican National Committee, and during the Barack Obama Administration which followed, the Chamber was, again, like an extension of the RNC. The Chamber was, in essence, just a money-packed extension of the Republican Party, and it thrived no matter how bad the economic conditions in America became. It was an economic parasite upon the nation.Incidentally, that statement by Bloomberg that Dow Chemical Co. was "a backer of climate-change legislation" was a lie: Dow, just like the other petro firms, opposed the Democrats' climate-change bills (not "legislation," because that part of Bloomberg' falsehood indicated proposed legislation is "legislation," which just isn't so: it's only "bills," the term that refers to proposed legislation.). In any case, Michael Bloomberg is always a supporter of Wall Street, and so Dow Chemical was described there as "a backer of climate-change legislation." The Sierra Club would wish that it were so.The battle within the USCOC continued. In fact, on 23 July 2009, Capitol Weekly bannered "An Unusual Battle: Big Business vs. Small Business," and Nick Brockaw reported that the U.S. Chamber of Commerce was mute regarding a bill which "aims to eliminate the diversion of billions of dollars in federal contracts intended for small businesses from going to Fortune 500 corporations." The American Small Business League "has estimated that every year more than $100 billion in federal small business contracts are awarded to Fortune 500 companies. ... 'Both [the U.S. and California Chambers of Commerce] are funded by, and run for the benefit of, the Fortune 500 firms that I am trying to stop from receiving federal small business contracts,' American Small Business League President Lloyd Chapman said." So, the Chambers of Commerce were virtually pure representatives of the Republican Party: Wall Street (international U.S. firms).Bush's prescription-drug plan was a perfect fascist scheme -- socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor, marketed by Big Lie techniques. (On 25 August 2006, the AP headlined "Medicare Ads Paid by Drug Industry," and reported that, "The pharmaceutical industry quietly footed the bill for at least part of a recent multimillion-dollar ad campaign praising lawmakers who support the new Medicare prescription drug benefit ... The U.S. Chamber of Commerce claims credit for the ads, although a spokesman refused repeatedly to say whether it had received any funds from the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America." The corrupt politicians who had voted for this program were now receiving PhRMA campaign cash, laundered through the USCOC -- Republican political payback, in "democracy" as conservatives practice it.)The Congressional Budget Office initially estimated that 2.7 million retirees would lose employer-provided benefits because of this new law's incentives for employers to terminate group coverage; seniors would have to either purchase their own far costlier individual plans or else do without. On 14 July 2004, the lead story in the Sunday New York Times confirmed this problem, and even raised the estimated damages by more than a million people, when it opened, "New government estimates suggest that employers will reduce or eliminate prescription drug benefits for 3.8 million retirees when Medicare offers such coverage in 2006." These figures weren't even from the same source, the CBO, but came this time from the Department of Health and Human Services, part of the Bush Administration itself. Democrats said the new estimates confirmed that the Bush law would likely "prompt some employers to curtail drug coverage for retirees, forcing them, in some cases, to rely on Medicare's leaner benefits."Consequently, it wasn't really by mere happenstance that, within days of this new program's start, the Wall Street Journal headlined, on 13 January 2006, "Low-Income Seniors Get Tangled In Unexpected Medicare Glitch," and reported that, "The new Medicare drug benefit, created to make prescription drugs more affordable for the elderly, is having the unintended effect of making it more expensive for some of the poorest older Americans to get their medications." That "more expensive" was, to put it mildly, an understatement: These seniors, on account of their poverty, had previously qualified for free drugs, directly from the drug companies, but, "they no longer qualify for free drugs because they are eligible for the new Medicare drug benefit." Behind this change stood an action by the Bush Administration: "Last fall, the office of inspector general for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services" -- and this was the office whose first-term G.W. Bush occupant had been Janet Rehnquist, the daughter of the Republican U.S. Chief Justice, who was now a drug company lobbyist -- "warned drug companies they couldn't help patients enrolled in the Medicare plan with their out-of-pocket costs. ... The drug industry has blamed the government guidance for the elimination" of free drugs. The drug companies' saving money from this, while they were simultaneously enabled to blame the Federal Government for the problems that resulted for poor people, was one of many ways in which this Supreme Court "Justice"s daughter had already earned her keep as a pharmaceutical industry lobbyist, even before she left government "service" to lobby.The next day, January 14th, the Washington Post headlined "The States Step In As Medicare Falters," and reported: "Two weeks into the new Medicare prescription drug program, many of the nation's sickest and poorest elderly and disabled people are being turned away or overcharged at pharmacies, prompting more than a dozen states to declare health emergencies and pay for their life-saving medicines." These very low income Medicaid recipients, who had previously received their medications without charge (which had cut costs for the Federal Government, because emergency room and surgical alternatives were far more expensive than these preventative prescriptions), were, under this new lobbyist-written law, being automatically switched into Bush's Medicare drug plan, where they were charged, sometimes, hundreds of dollars to fill a single prescription. "The states that have stepped in to help have already incurred several million dollars in unexpected drug bills, but Mark B. McClellan, administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), said he did not have the authority to reimburse them." (His brother Scott McClellan was President George W. Bush's press secretary.) Bush's drug law was impoverishing not only the poor, but the states. However, one good reason why the states were stepping in to pay for these medications was in order to halt the vastly larger costs of skyrocketing emergency-room admissions that were already being caused to the states by Bush's new law. For example, on January 21st, The New York Times headlined "Medicare Woes Take High Toll on Mentally Ill," and Robert Pear reported numerous instances of mental patients who were being admitted into hospitals because their lack of required medications was causing them psychotic episodes. In some instances, "The patients take antipsychotic drugs for schizophrenia; more drugs to treat side effects of those drugs, like tremors and insomnia; and still other drugs to treat chronic conditions like diabetes and high blood pressure. 'If I didn't have any of those medications, I would probably be institutionalized for the rest of my life,' said Deborah Ann Katz, a 36-year-old Medicare [disability] beneficiary. ... 'I'd be hallucinating, hearing voices.'" So, the states were stepping in. Bush's people hadn't been concerned about these ill and poor individuals -- those aren't God's People, and they don't contribute to politics at all, not to the Democratic, and certainly not to the Republican, Party; they hadn't poured tens of millions of dollars into Republican lobbying firms and campaign advertisements.On 20 January 2006, Times columnist Paul Krugman headlined "The K Street Prescription," and he contrasted the start of Bush's prescription-drug program, versus the start of Medicare itself under Democratic President Lyndon Johnson: "When Medicare began 40 years ago, things went remarkably smoothly from the start. But this time the people putting together a new federal program had one foot out the door; this was a drug bill written by and for lobbyists." Actually, it was written by lobbyists, but for their pharmaceutical and insurance benefactors -- not for themselves. (The bipartisan "Democrat" Barack Obama has been copying some of Bush's and Reagan's approach, as President Clinton did regarding the deregulation of Wall Street.)Combining the worst of all possible worlds, this legislation, so costly to seniors, to states, and to the poor, and so profitable to drug companies and to health insurers (both of which types of businesses were big Bush contributors), was nonetheless set to boost the federal debt by at least another $724 billion, according to official estimates. Subsequent generations of Americans would therefore end up paying for this generation's drug and insurance companies' Republican boondoggle.Howard Gleckman of BusinessWeek (not yet a Bloomberg property), on 1 December 2003, boiled the problem down in his headline "This Medicare Bill Is No Remedy: It avoids the question of who pays and does little to keep costs from soaring - Will seniors or taxpayers cover rising costs? Or will care be cut back?" Only Bush's financial backers had authentic cause to be pleased. In fact, within weeks after President Bush signed the new prescription-drug bill into law, one of its chief authors, Republican Congressman Billy Tauzin, began talks with the Pharmaceutical Manufacturers Association to become appointed their President, as The New York Times reported a year later, on December 16th, under the headline "House's Author of Drug Benefit Joins Lobbyists." Congressman Tauzin was now retiring from Congress to rise in the power structure, from having been a mere legal scribe, to becoming instead a paymaster to such scribes. (However, actually, lobbyists usually write the first draft of Republican bills; so, Tauzin would now become a scribe who really mattered.)Republicans were predicting that this new Medicare drug law would mean a big boost for the President's chances in the 2004 election: as usual, Republicans were treating the general public as mere suckers to be exploited by Republican financial backers, instead of as constituents to be served by genuinely progressive legislation. This is like the medieval manor system, with America's voters and patients filling in as the serfs. In fact, earlier in November of 2003, on the 6th, only weeks before passage of their Medicare act, the Bush Administration had slammed the door to the importation of inexpensive prescription drugs from Canada -- thereby making all the more cynical this sham prescription drug "benefit." That door-slamming was especially noteworthy because the new prescription drugs law, passing only weeks later, explicitly prohibited the U.S. Government from doing anything to lower the prices of prescription medications -- despite the fact that the U.S. price-inflation rate on these drugs (and on medical care generally) was the highest of all the eight components of the U.S. Consumer Price Index, and despite drug prices already being vastly higher in the U.S. than in any other country. Instead of lowering prices for drugs, the Bush bill simply subsidized from taxpayer funds the private insurers who purchased the drugs. This is what enabled some consumers to experience "discounts" -- not price reductions -- either by drug companies or by insurers: taxpayer-paid subsidies to those Republican-backing corporations.Bush's excuse for banning the importation of drugs from Canada, where drugs cost far less, was his claim that American-made drugs are safer than Canadian pharmaceuticals. Not only was no evidence ever presented to back up that allegation, but American drugs are routinely imported from abroad anyway, by drug manufacturers themselves -- only at artificially high prices which the American drug makers set, when they resell these pills to U.S. consumers. The only interest the U.S. President had was protecting the interests of U.S. pharmaceutical firms ripping off America's consumers and taxpayers.Bush's excuse for prohibiting the Federal Government from negotiating lower prices from the drug manufacturers was that to do so would be "socialism." Democrats had wanted the government to use its huge purchasing power under a prescription-drug bill so as to negotiate lower drug prices for consumers and for taxpayers. Consumer organizations also favored this. As Ron Pollack, of Families USA, put it, on 8 November 2006, explaining why the restoration of Democratic control of Congress would be good for both taxpayers and consumers, "Among all of the top-20 drugs prescribed for seniors, the V.A. [Veterans Administration, under legislation passed by Democrats in previous years] has achieved much lower prices than the lowest prices charged by all Medicare Part D plans. The median price difference is an astounding 46 percent." These are some of the reasons why the very same prescription drugs have vastly higher prices in the U.S. than in any other nation. Moreover, the give-aways to pharmaceutical companies survived even after Democrats (barely) retook control of Congress. As the New York Times columnist Paul Krugman explained on 20 April 2007 under the heading "The Plot Against Medicare,""The Senate failed to end debate on a bill -- in effect killing it -- that would have allowed Medicare to negotiate over drug prices. ... 42 senators, all Republicans, voted no on allowing the bill to go forward." Furthermore, "The NAACP and the League of United Latin American Citizens have become patsies for the insurance industry ... sending letters to Congressional leaders opposing plans to scale back the subsidy" to private insurers -- the subsidy which was part of the Republicans' scheme to drain Medicare and pour that taxpayer cash into private insurance and drug companies. As Krugman explained, removing these subsidies would have covered the "cost to provide all children in America with health insurance," but the NAACP and LULAC went with the Republican line on that matter. Those Tribal liberal groups went for bogus insurance industry arguments directed at their Tribalism, which claimed falsely that Blacks and minorities were benefiting from taxpayer subsidies to private insurance companies. This is why, even though Democrats now had a bare majority in the Senate, the Republican scams still survived, with the aid of "Democratic" interest-groups.President Bush and the Republican Party paid off their pharmaceutical and insurance company financial backers massively via their Medicare Part D Prescription Drug law. But actually, the corrupters (conservative industry) and the corruptees (conservative politicians) supported each other, while they jointly cheated the public: both taxpayers, and patients. On 2 March 2009, rawstory.com headlined "GOP Senator Orrin Hatch's Charity Tied to Massive Pharmaceutical Donations" and reported that, "The same year [Hatch's] Utah Families Foundation received massive gifts [$170,000], Sen. Hatch voted on a bill relating to Medicare Part D. Hatch voted against a bill requiring that the government negotiate discounted prices from drugmakers." This same day, the Washington Times bannered "EXCLUSIVE: Sen. Hatch's Secret Drug Firm Links," and reported that not only was his foundation financed by the drug industry, but one of Hatch's sons was the lobbyist for PhRMA, and "Pharmaceutical and health product companies already rank at the top of Mr. Hatch's political supporters, donating more than $1.25 million to his campaigns since 1998." Any Democrat who was that corrupt would have been hounded out of public office -- Democrats wouldn't tolerate national-level corruption -- but Utah was one of the three most-Republican states in the nation, and therefore accepted Hatch's corruption, since he broke no laws. However, his foundation broke at least one law: it "has been delinquent for nearly a decade in filing its required annual reports." Hatch remained popular in his state, even though he was virtually owned by corrupters.Bush's Part D drug plan was corrupt in other ways, too. For example, Wendell Potter at huffingtonpost headlined on 18 February 2013, "Obama's 'Scheme' Will End the World as We know It, Says Big Pharma...Good!" and he reported that, "Before the Medicare Part D drug program was created in 2006, the pharmaceutical industry paid rebates to the government to help pay for those folks' medications. The rebate program ended when Part D went into effect. ... As a result, taxpayers are paying more now than before, even though drug companies are getting billions of dollars in revenue that they never had before. ... So the president [Obama] will be asking Congress to reinstate the rebates." (Of course, Congressional Republicans blocked that.)Furthermore, the Bush Medicare plan included also a $10 billion taxpayer subsidy for Health Maintenance Organizations, to assist HMO's, despite their vastly higher overhead costs, to "compete" against Medicare Part B, by offering Medicare Part D - private insurance companies competing for the business, otherwise called "Medicare Advantage." This was the feature that was expected gradually to destroy Medicare Part B (the LBJ-Medicare supplement plan). Once Democrats took control of the Congress in 2007, they announced their intention to "Lower Part B Premiums For Seniors By Eliminating the HMO Slush Fund." In other words: congressional Democrats wanted to stop the raiding of Medicare Part B that was being done to subsidize Medicare Part D. On 7 May 2007, Robert Pear headlined in The New York Times, "Methods Used by Insurers Are Questioned," and he reported that, "Insurance companies have used improper hard-sell tactics to persuade Medicare recipients to sign up for private health plans that cost the government far more than the traditional Medicare program." The Insurance Commissioner in Mississippi reported that, "Abusive Medicare insurance sales practices are spreading rapidly." Complaints by seniors were simply flooding in.Perhaps the reason the rapacious new "drug benefit" and the "Medicare Advantage" plans were supposed to be a big political boost for the President was that they supercharged his political kickbacks from drug and medical insurance firms, and therefore raised yet higher his own advertising budget to fool voters during the 2004 election campaign. Consequently, for example, the AP headlined on 11 May 2004, "Medicare Contractor Firm Donates to GOP," and opened, "The first round of companies to get the go-ahead from the Bush Administration to offer Medicare prescription drug cards includes some big players in lobbying and campaign fund raising. An executive with one company, Medco, helped throw a $100,000 fund-raiser for President Bush." Still, the sailing turned out to be not entirely smooth for the AARP concerning this particular scam: on 16 January 2004, the AP headlined "45,000 People Quit AARP Over Medicare." Unfortunately, that constituted only 3 in 100,000 members, and therefore, this consumer boycott had negligible impact. Furthermore, the AARP subsequently won back some of those members by advertising on television saying that the AARP -- which had just helped to pass this prescription-drug bill that was going to maintain and even increase prescription-drug prices -- was fighting in Washington to lower prescription-drug prices. Like conservative politicos usually do, the AARP played the public for fools and won. (However, the AARP's protesters seem to have had some impact after all, because, in 2005, the biggest opponent of President Bush's plan to privatize Social Security was the AARP, which recognized that they weren't going to be getting any piece of that action, it was just a dead duck.)The biggest direct beneficiaries of this drug bill were the Republican Party and the AARP (which benefited only through the sales commissions it won via sales of UnitedHealth Group Incorporated's Medicare prescription drug plan, which AARP marketed). Both of them benefited only indirectly, and AARP's winnings from the plan were indicated in an article that appeared in the Wall Street Journal on 21 April 2006, under the headline "Large Insurers Are Big Winners." It said that, "New government enrollment data released yesterday show that, as of April 18, nearly 20 million people are enrolled. ... By far, the biggest winner in the race to sign up seniors is UnitedHealth Group Inc., which has used an alliance with AARP to help it grab more than 3.9 million new customers." Republicans saw such results as being a victory of the "invisible hand" of God, as against "socialistic" democratic governmental control of medicine. However, in 2000, UnitedHealth Group's PAC gave 85% of its $216,081 contribution total to Republicans, and the company gave $594,050 in soft money for the 2000 election cycle, of which 86% went to Republicans. Furthermore, UnitedHealth Group's CEO, the physician William McGuire, donated $23,000 personally, from 2002-2005, 100% of which went to Republicans. From 1992-2006, he contributed $117,467, of which $4,000 went to Democrats, less than 4%. That money, both corporate and personal, was coming back to him in spades now. Thus, perhaps some of this "invisible hand" wasn't quite so invisible after all, but more like a pickpocket's hand, if one watched it closely. In fact, on 18 April 2006, the Wall Street Journal headlined "As Patients, Doctors, Feel Pinch, Insurer's CEO Is Worth a Billion." Dr. McGuire "has amassed one of the largest stock options fortunes of all time," and a statistical analysis by the WSJ suggested that inside dealing was involved in this: "The Journal's analysis of 12 options grants to Dr. McGuire from 1994 to mid-2002 found that if the options had been randomly dated [which would have indicated that there was no insider dealing here], the odds of their occurring at such propitious times were about 1 in 200 million." An accompanying chart showed that each time McGuire received an options grant, the stock was at a low and immediately soared thereafter. If backdating of these options was the reason for this, that would be not only fraudulent, but also insider trading -- illegal. On 18 March 2006, the WSJ had headlined about this apparent backdating phenomenon, titled "The Perfect Payday: Some CEOs reap millions by landing stock options when they are most valuable. Luck -- or something else?" Wherever it's something else, it's a crime involving not only the CEO but also his board of directors, and the crime's victims are outside investors. (These crimes turned out to involve the Bush Administration's SEC as well, which had been looking the other way instead of looking out to protect investors.) Then, on 12 May 2006, the WSJ headlined "United Health Could Be Forced To Restate Profit: As SEC Steps Up Probes, Firm Says Options Problems May Mean $286 Million Hit." This news story closed: "Yesterday, Carl McDonald, an analyst with CIBC World Markets in New York, wrote in a report that the implication from the company's filing was that United Health had found 'evidence that options were backdated.'" It was becoming apparent that the chief beneficiaries of Bush's Medicare prescription drug plan certainly weren't seniors, and probably weren't even necessarily the stockholders in the companies which had shaped it, but were instead the insider executives and board members at those firms. By no coincidence, those people were huge contributors to the Republican Party, not just from their personal funds, but also from the political slush funds (stockholder assets) they operated through the companies these executives controlled. The financial benefits to the people at the top of UnitedHealth were especially large. The WSJ calculated, on May 12th, that Mr. McGuire gained more than $2 billion. His COO gained nearly $1 billion. Two other of the company's executives gained approximately $100 million each. On 27 May 2006, the WSJ headlined an editorial "Backdate Backlash," and stated: "UnitedHealth has lost more than $17 billion of its market value since the backdating story broke." But that's not all: a few weeks later, on June 9th, The New York Times headlined "Health Insurer Is Told by State Not to Enroll New Customers," and reported: "New York State has banned United Healthcare's managed care plan ... from signing up most types of new customers. State regulators say they took the rare action because the company has persistently defied state rules. ... United Healthcare of New York is a subsidiary of UnitedHealth Group, based in Minnesota." Ten days after that, the June 19th issue of BusinessWeek headlined "The Customer: Satisfaction Not Guaranteed," and included a box, "Customer Disservice: These companies rate the worst in their industries in terms of customer satisfaction." All the listed firms were overwhelmingly Republican, including "Health Insurance: United Health Grp." So, the financiers of the Republican Party (such as Dr. McGuire) were cheating not only the public, and not only the outside investors in the companies they controlled, but also the consumers who purchased the goods and services of those companies. And, above all, U.S. taxpayers were cheated. Only those insiders and the Republican Party -- and their theocratic allies who preached Republican on Sunday mornings and brought the voters to the polls and won the resulting theocratic "invisible hand of God" laws -- benefited. Then, on 20 October 2006, the Wall Street Journal bannered "How Did UnitedHealth's McGuire Get Same Options Twice?" and reported that outside lawyers had discovered a 1999 transaction in which "Dr. McGuire and other employees were able to effectively get the same options twice, ... while skirting disclosure requirements and potentially violating accounting rules. For Dr. McGuire alone, the extra options are now valued at $250 million." Moreover, "Dr. McGuire's role in implementing the transaction is amply documented."Nine days later, on October 29th, Reuters reported that the scope of the options-backdating scandal was far wider than was previously known: "The stock options timing scandal, which has already implicated at least 140 companies, could include hundreds more, according to a new analysis that found lax enforcement of corporate governance reforms that should have prevented the practice. ... A report released over the weekend from proxy advisory firm Glass Lewis & Co. showed that many firms may not have filed properly options timing paperwork as recently as 2005. ... Glass Lewis, in the report, said the SEC has not enforced the two-day filing rule, possibly leading to many more instances of backdating." By not enforcing this rule, numerous major contributors to the Republican Party had been enabled to rip off their stockholders. But yet there was more: Those contributors had also been enabled to rip off their fellow executives or board members, and they finally even ripped off taxpayers: On 7 December 2006, the Wall Street Journal bannered "How a Giant Insurer Decided To Oust Hugely Successful CEO," and asserted that UnitedHealth's board were dismayed to find that an internal investigation confirmed the report by the WSJ that Dr. McGuire had rigged the dates of his options. Then, five days later, the WSJ headlined "How Backdating Helped Executives Cut Their Taxes," and reported that, "New evidence suggests that corporate executives may have found another way to manipulate their stock options, this time to cheat on their income taxes." This is because "Those who hold their shares for at least a year pay a much lower capital-gains tax," and backdating enabled some executives to reduce their taxes by pretending to have held their shares for a year even when they had not. This cheating increased the federal deficit, and thrust their tax burdens onto others. However, since the SEC was, at last, being virtually compelled to investigate this, the WSJ headlined in another story the same day: "Another Consequence of Backdated Options: Stiff Tax Bills." Some executives would face huge fines, in addition to the back taxes which were due.But finally, on 7 December 2007, the Wall Street Journal bannered "UnitedHealth Ex-CEO Forfeits $620 Million in Options Grants." This would "settle civil and federal-government claims" against William McGuire. An expert observed, "He still walks away with a lot." Steal a couple of billion dollars, return $620 million of it; the Mafia would drool, and perhaps they would also complain that they had been discriminated against for not receiving favors like that. Mafiosi go to prison, while America's aristocrats just receive wrist-slapping fines. McGuire had paid much bigger dues to the Republican Party, which rewards loyalty at least as much as does the Mafia itself.Meanwhile, among the 250 "Commercial Health Plans" ranked by U.S. News & World Report, in their 5 November 2007 issue, none from UnitedHealth were named there as being among the "Best Health Plans 2007," and all were shown only on the magazine's supplemental website, such as "UnitedHealthcare of Mississippi" ranked #218 there, "UnitedHealthcare of Louisiana" ranked #215, and "UnitedHealthcare of Alabama" ranked #212. In terms of the three ranking-criteria of "Consumer assessment,""Prevention," and "Treatment," all of the UnitedHealth plans were ranked low. Dr. McGuire did fine, but his customers, quite evidently, did not.In fact, on 29 January 2008, the Los Angeles Times bannered "Health Plan Faces Fines of $1.3 Billion," and Lisa Girion reported that, "California regulators are expected to announce today that they are seeking as much as $1.33 billion in penalties from Cypress-based PacificCare as a result of widespread problems stemming from its takeover two years ago by healthcare giant UnitedHealth Group Inc. In an investigation prompted by widespread complaints, the state Department of Insurance uncovered 133,000 alleged violations of state laws and regulations. ... Separately, the state Department of Managed Health Care alleged that 30% of the medical claims it reviewed [from UnitedHealth] were improperly denied." A physicians' organization praised the state's clampdown against UnitedHealth, and said that though the company "may claim this is [only] and administrative issue, ... that doesn't help someone who needs their heart surgery approved in a hurry." Dr. McGuire, who had changed careers in 1986, from being a doctor to heading this profit-making insurer, had switched to the business of making life hell for patients and doctors, no longer the business of helping them. He was a great Republican, who walked off into the sunset a billionaire from two decades of ripping off the public. The money that his company didn't spend on health care for patients, went instead into his own pocket, and lots of it ended up there; and there were lots of people who suffered, and lots who died prematurely, as a result of where this money went, and where it didn'tOn 13 February 2008, Bloomberg News bannered "Cuomo to Sue UnitedHealth, Probe Reimbursement Policy," and reported that, "New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo will sue UnitedHealth Group Inc. and subpoena 16 other insurers to investigate practices that allegedly cheated customers out of hundreds of millions of dollars." Cuomo, a Democrat, would sue UnitedHealth, "the largest U.S. health insurer, over practices that limit payments to customers by claiming their medical charges were unreasonably high. ... 'This is an industrywide investigation because we believe there was an industrywide scheme to deceive and defraud customers,' Cuomo said."As for the effects that Bush's prescription-drug plan had on drug company profits, this result turned out to be what had been anticipated -- and then some. On 6 November 2006, the eve of the 2006 mid-term congressional elections, The New York Times bannered "As Drug Prices Climb, Democrats Find Fault With Medicare Plan," and Alex Berenson reported that, "For big drug companies, the new Medicare prescription benefit is proving to be a financial windfall larger than even the most optimistic Wall Street analysts had predicted. ... Wall street analysts say they have little doubt that the benefit program ... has helped several big drug makers report record profits and exceed earnings forecasts made earlier in the year. Companies have raised prices on many top-selling medicines by 6 percent or more this year, double the overall inflation rate. In some cases, drug makers have received price increases of as much as 20 percent for medicines that the government was already buying for people covered under the Medicaid program." Typical: "Pfizer, the world's largest drug maker, said its sales soared 14 percent in the United States in the third quarter, while rising only 3 percent internationally." These huge financial contributors to the Republican Party, and enemies of the Democratic Party, were thriving by these extra tens of billions of dollars, after having spent only tens of millions of dollars on deceiving faithful Americans to vote Republican. And even Democratic voters had to buy drugs; this way the Republican Party extracted financial contributions indirectly even from the people who knew better, Democrats -- this was sheer coercion.By coincidence, the day earlier in the same newspaper, the Times, Mark Hulbert headlined "The Share-Price-to-Campaign-Contribution Ratio," and he reported on -- and linked to -- a major new study "providing a 'strong circumstantial case' that corporate political contributions were affecting the behavior of Congress, for the clear benefit of the companies. ... On average, the extra return earned by their stocks works out to a total benefit to each firm's stockholders of around $150 million a year, according to the professors." The top ten corporate political contributors were listed there. Although the Republican/Democratic contribution ratios weren't shown, I looked up each company on opensecrets.org, and every one (100%) of these top contributors gave overwhelmingly to the Republican Party.The first big threat to the continuance of Medicare that resulted from this new legislation occurred in 2008, when President Bush and the Republicans in Congress tried to block Democrats from halting a 10.6% cut, which Bush's plan forced in the rate-schedule that traditional Medicare paid doctors for their services to their patients under Medicare. This pay-cut to doctors was expected to cause so many physicians to abandon traditional Medicare patients, the traditional Medicare program would likely collapse. This pay-cut to doctors was scheduled to start on July 15th, but just days earlier, on 9 July 2008, Bloomberg News bannered "Senate Votes Reversal of Cuts in Medicare Doctor Fees," and reported that, "The Senate voted final passage of legislation that would halt a 10.6 percent cut in Medicare reimbursements to doctors." The cause of the 10.6% cut the Republicans sought was in order to pay for the rising subsidy going to private insurers in Bush's "Medicare Advantage" program -- the Bush-initiated private competitor to Medicare Part B. Democrats wanted to salvage traditional Medicare, not to cut it to add to the high subsidies already being paid to those private insurers, which were such huge financial backers of the Republican Party. "The insurer payment cuts, which would total [cuts of] $12.5 billion over five years, include fees paid to private insurers." The Congressional Budget Office reported to Congress on June 24th that the cuts to private insurers (Medicare Advantage) that were in the Democratic bill would more than pay for abolishing the 10.6% pay-cut to the doctors who participate in the traditional Medicare Program (Part B). This report said: "New spending under the bill would be offset largely by reductions in payments to Medicare Advantage plans" and that "Other savings would come from modifications" to Medicare's astronomically high pay scales for equipment such as "home oxygen therapy" and other medical devices, by introducing "competitive bidding for durable medical equipment." (Medical equipment manufacturers were also huge supporters of Republican candidates, as compared to Democratic candidates.) The only reason enough Republicans voted, July 9th, for the Democratic bill, H.R.6331, was that this was an election year: Millions of seniors would otherwise vote Republicans out of office in November, on account of their physicians dumping them. Because of this electoral danger, President Bush's veto of the Democratic bill was overridden -- but just barely. Traditional Medicare was barely salvaged.On 25 July 2008, the Los Angeles Times bannered "Medicare Part D a Boon for Drug Companies, House Report Says: Taxpayers pay up to 30% more for prescriptions under the privately administered program" than under the publicly administered one, and Nicole Gaouette reported there that, "U.S. drug manufacturers are reaping a windfall from taxpayers because Medicare's privately administered prescription drug benefit program pays more than other government programs for the same medicines. ... In the two years Medicare Part D has been in effect, drug manufacturers have taken in $3.7 billion more than they would have through prices under the Medicaid program." For example, "Bristol-Myers made an additional $400 million from higher prices for a single drug, the stroke medication Plavix." I looked up the political-contribution record of Bristol-Myers at opensecrets.org: it was about 75% Republican, an investment that had been returned to B-M hundreds-fold. The Republican minority on the House committee that issued this report objected to it, saying many seniors had "learned to love Part D." No wonder big business loves Republicans. But taxpayers and voters would hate them if only they knew the reality of robbing consumers and taxpayers alike.The first study of the cost and efficiency of the "Medicare Advantage" or Part D health insurance plans came from the Congressional Budget Office on 28 June 2007; and, of course, the nation's major "news" media ignored it, because it found that, "Medicare's payments for beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans are higher, on average," than in the traditional government-operated plan ['FFS'] ... so shifts in enrollment out of the FFS program and into private plans increase net Medicare spending." In fact, this increase in Medicare costs was accelerating the fiscal problems that Medicare caused for the Federal Government. This CBO study, "Medicare Advantage: Private Health Plans in Medicare," also found that, "The additional cost to the government for Medicare Advantage plans subsidizes the beneficiaries who enroll in such plans." Those beneficiaries were the people who had responded to the rush of advertisements on television and elsewhere and dumped their existing government-operated Medicare Part B insurance and replaced it with one of these private for-profit "Medicare Advantage""Part D" alternatives. Basically, these people were Republicans, since Republicans hate government (in a democracy; they loved Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini). Thus, everybody else (non-Republicans) were now paying hefty subsidies to those corporate-operated insurance plans, in order to prevent these for-profit plans from being obviously uncompetitive with the government-operated Medicare Part B insurance. In fact, the CBO study, under the sub-head "Medicare Advantage Plans Cost the Government More Than Traditional Medicare," said: "In 2007, CBO estimates, the average payment to such [Part D] plans is 12 percent above what traditional FFS [Part B] costs." Moreover: "The extra benefits and rebates offered by Medicare Advantage plans attracts enrolees, and the rising proportion of beneficiaries enrolling in the plans will add to the growth in Medicare spending." Consequently, "The higher costs of Medicare Advantage plans add about $2 to the monthly premium for Part B," and this would rise over time as more and more people signed up for Part D. The government was blatantly becoming socialism for the rich (here the stockholders and executives of private insurance corporations and drug companies) increasingly replacing what had previously been democratic socialism for everyone and especially for the poor. In other words: It was fascism replacing progressivism. It was government for the aristocracy, instead of for the public. But no major "news" media covered this report.On the 10th anniversary of Medicare Part D, the former Republican economist Bruce Bartlett blogged at The New York Times, "Medicare Part D: Republican Budget-busting," and he explained how this program, which had been pushed and voted for by John Boehner, Eric Cantor, Paul Ryan, and virtually all other congressional Republicans, had already "added $318 billion to the national debt," and "will add $852 billion to the debt over the next ten years." Moreover: "From the beginning, Republicans decided to forego dedicated financing for Part D. Except for trivial premiums paid by recipients, the entire cost would fall on taxpayers," and it did "fall on taxpayers." So: all people who have signed up for Part D programs are receiving their benefits not from their premiums for it, but instead, overwhelmingly, from the subsidization by other taxpayers, including from the poor ones who are lots needier than those Republicans are. However, while all other Americans keep losing money on it, the drugmakers "earn" vast fortunes from it. In other words: It's a mega-corrupt scam, not at all like the original, Democratic LBJ-instituted, Medicare plan. Instead of being Robin Hood, it is Robin Hood in reverse - thoroughly Republican.In life's necessities such as health care, perhaps "the free market" is oxymoronic, just a catch phrase for fascists to be able to make fools of conservatives, to the ultimate benefit of aristocrats who pocket the change, while future generations must pay the taxes in order to reduce the federal debt that was built up by all this corruption, even as the poor have sunk further into economic desperation.----------Investigative historian Eric Zuesse is the author, most recently, of They're Not Even Close: The Democratic vs. Republican Economic Records, 1910-2010, and of CHRIST'S VENTRILOQUISTS: The Event that Created Christianity. Reported by Huffington Post 2 days ago.

WASHINGTON -- Health insurance consumers will have an extra eight days to choose a health plan that will be in place on New Year's Day, a federal official said Friday.

In order to ensure that new coverage is active on Jan. 1, consumers will have until Dec. 23 to choose a health plan, a shift from the Dec. 15 deadline previously in force, according to a new standard announced by the Department of Health and Human Services. The first premium payment to insurers doesn't have to be made until Dec. 31.

President Barack Obama's administration is scrambling to get HealthCare.gov, the online portal for health coverage in more than 30 states, reliably functioning and to boost so far anemic enrollment via Obamacare's health insurance exchanges.

After two nearly lost months of enrollment since HealthCare.gov's flawed debut on Oct. 1, the administration has a lot of ground to make up if it wants to get close to its target of 7 million enrollments into private health insurance through the exchanges. The White House also is trying to alleviate the pressure on health insurance consumers whose current plans are being canceled and who face the prospect of going uninsured in January if they can't get signed up in time.

"We realize that many consumers who are seeking coverage in January may have experienced frustration with the site," Julie Bataille, a spokeswoman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said on a conference call with reporters Friday. "This extension will allow consumers more time to review plan options, to talk with their families, providers or enrollment assisters and to enroll in a plan."

Enrollment so far hasn't met expectations, with just over 100,000 people choosing a private health insurance plan on the health insurance exchanges between Oct. 1 and Nov. 2, HHS announced last week. More than 300,000 people signed up for Medicaid or the Children's Health Insurance Program during that time.

Sign-ups may be quickening this month, however, especially for Covered California, the state-run exchange that has enrolled about 80,000 people. Even before the troubles with HealthCare.gov and with state-operated exchanges in places like Oregon and Maryland, the White House predicted that enrollment would start slowly and accelerate as deadlines neared.

The open enrollment period for 2014 health coverage runs until March 31, but consumers who want to be certain they have insurance at the beginning of next year now have to choose a plan by Dec. 23, giving the exchanges and health insurance companies time to process their applications.

Health insurers were consulted on the deadline shift, Bataille said. But America's Health Insurance Plans, the largest industry trade group, reacted cooly to the extension. "It makes it more challenging to process enrollments in time for coverage to begin on January 1," spokesman Robert Zirkelbach said in a written statement. "Ultimately it will depend on how many people enroll in those last few days."

The administration isn't currently considering extending the sign-up period past March, Bataille said. "We think that a six-month-long open enrollment window is a significant amount of time for consumers to get information, understand their plan options and be able to make the decision that is right for them," she said. The administration already plans to delay the beginning of the enrollment period for 2015 from from Oct. 15, 2014, until Nov. 15, 2014.

The federal web portal to the health insurance exchanges will be improved by the end of next week and will meet its intended capacity to handle 800,000 visitors a day and 50,000 at a time, said Jeffrey Zients, a senior advisor to Obama who is overseeing the repairs to the technology behind Obamacare. But there won't be a grand re-opening: "There will not be a magic moment at the end of the month when our work will be complete," he said.

"HealthCare.gov will work smoothly for the vast majority of users by the end of November," Zients said on the conference call. "The vast majority of users will not experience the error messages, slow response times and system outages that characterized consumers' experience in October," he said.

But, he added, "The system will not work perfectly." To address times when HealthCare.gov won't be able to manage a high volume of users, the website will feature a "queuing system," or users can request an email to notify them when the site can take their applications, he said.

The administration also continues to work with health insurance companies and online insurance brokers to enable them to directly sign up customers who also want to apply for financial assistance, which currently is only available via the exchanges, Bataille said. Reported by Huffington Post 2 days ago.

After anemic enrollment in the federal health insurance marketplace, several states running their own online exchanges are reporting a rapid increase in the number of people signing up for coverage, a trend officials say is encouraging for President Barack Obama's health care law. Reported by TwinCities.com 2 days ago.

*What are the key dates for buying health insurance in the new marketplaces?*

The most important date has already come and gone: Oct. 1, 2013. That's when open enrollment inn the new state Health Insurance Marketplaces started. 

March 31, 2014 is also important: That's when open enrollment period ends. So if you don’t have health insurance now, you you can’t get insurance again until open enrollment starts in October, 2014, with coverage to start on Jan. 1, 2015.

*UPDATE:* Since this item was published, the government has changed both the Dec. 15 and Feb. 15 deadlines mentioned below. If you need insurance to start on Jan. 1, you now have until Dec. 23 to purchase it. And to avoid a penalty for going uninsured, you need only purchase a health plan by March 31.

There are two other key dates, if you awant to get insurance and/or avoid a penalty for not having it. Write them down: Dec. 15, 2013, and Feb. 15, 2014.

*Why Dec. 15, 2013?** That's the date when you must enroll in a health plan, and arrage for the first premium payment, if you need insurance to start by Jan. 1, 2014. That's especially imporant for the many people now being told by their insurance company that their current coverage will end on midnight, Dec. 31.If you wait until the Dec. 16 or later, your coverage won’t start until Feb. 1, and woe betide you if you slip on the ice and break your wrist in January.

*Why Feb. 15, 2014?* That’s the last date you can purchase insurance if you want to avoid being fined for not having insurance in 2014. The new health law says that you will be deemed “continuously insured” if you haven’t spent more than three months of the year without coverage. In other words, to avoid the penalty, you need to have insurance in place by the end of March and not a day later. In order to do that, you’ll need to purchase coverage by Feb. 15. If you wait until Feb. 16 or later,  coverage won’t start until April 1—one day over the three-month grace period

Got a question for our health insurance expert? Ask it here. It helps if you include the state you live in.

 

— Nancy Metcalf

*Health reform countdown: *We are doing an article a day on the new health care law until Jan. 1, 2014, when it takes full effect. (Read the previous posts in the series.) To get health insurance advice tailored to your situation, use our Health Law Helper.

*Consumer Reports has no relationship with any advertisers or sponsors on this website. Copyright © 2007-2013 Consumers Union of U.S.*

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    Reported by Consumer Reports 1 day ago.

WASHINGTON -- Most Americans are aware of the Affordable Care Act's mandate that they have some form of health insurance beginning in 2014, but many don't know there are exceptions, according to a new HuffPost/YouGov poll.

The poll found the vast majority of Americans, 81 percent, know that the health care law requires insurance. But 43 percent of respondents said they think the law requires every American to have insurance, with no exceptions. Slightly less -- 38 percent -- said correctly that the insurance mandate has exceptions. Another 4 percent said they believe the law does not require anyone to have insurance.

The misconception about exceptions to the insurance mandate was highest among Republicans, 52 percent of whom said that there were no exceptions. Among Democrats, a 43 percent said there were no exceptions and 39 percent said there were. Thirty-eight percent of independents said there were no exceptions; 36 percent said there were and 21 percent said they weren't sure.

Obamacare's individual mandate includes a variety of exceptions, including for those with low incomes and other hardships, as well as for American Indians and religious groups that eschew health insurance.

Although the new poll shows some confusion persists about details of the individual mandate, knowledge of its existence is widespread. A Kaiser Family Foundation poll in September found 79 percent of respondents said they thought the law included an individual mandate -- the highest awareness for the mandate since the foundation began tracking the question in April 2010. Only 62 percent were aware of the mandate two years ago.

The new poll found 35 percent favored requiring most Americans to buy insurance, with some exceptions such as for income and other hardships, while 47 percent were opposed.
The poll found Democrats and Republicans deeply divided on the issue, with 62 percent of Democrats in favor of the mandate and 77 percent of Republicans opposed. Still, opposition among Republicans ran stronger than support among Democrats. Independents said they opposed the mandate by a 51 percent to 26 percent margin.

Relatively few Americans said they think the mandate will affect them directly. Fifty-seven percent of respondents said they would have health insurance regardless of the law. Another 12 percent said they would have to buy insurance they would not otherwise purchase, and 7 percent said they would go without insurance and pay a penalty. Two percent said they believed they would receive an exemption to go without insurance. Another 23 percent said they weren't sure how the requirement would affect them.

According to the Census Bureau, about 15 percent of Americans were without insurance in 2012.

The poll found confusion about when the individual mandate takes effect. Twenty-two percent of respondents believed the mandate was already in effect, 31 percent said it will go into effect on the next few months, and 27 percent said it will be in the next year. Only 5 percent said they think it will be longer than that.

The mandate takes effect on Jan. 1, although consumers have until March 31 to choose a plan and avoid penalties. The mandate allows individuals to be uninsured for up to three months in a year without a penalty.

The HuffPost/YouGov poll was conducted Nov. 19 and Nov. 20 among 1,000 U.S. adults using a sample selected from YouGov's opt-in online panel to match the demographics and other characteristics of the adult U.S. population. Factors considered include age, race, gender, education, employment, income, marital status, number of children, voter registration, time and location of Internet access, interest in politics, religion and church attendance.

The Huffington Post has teamed up with YouGov to conduct daily opinion polls. You can learn more about this project and take part in YouGov's nationally representative opinion polling. Reported by Huffington Post 1 day ago.

Coral Andrews, the head of the non-profit quasi-governmental agency in charge of implementing the Affordable Care Act in Hawaii, announced Friday that she will be resigning Dec. 6.

The current ACA implementation manager with the governor’s office, Tom Matsuda, will serve as interim executive director of the Hawaii Health Connector until the board of directors appoints a permanent replacement.

The agency publicly apologized last month for delays in implementing the health insurance exchange, but did not elaborate on what was causing the problems.

Hawaii’s challenge in getting the exchange up and running was not unlike the problems experienced throughout the country. The Washington Post reported Friday that Maryland is one of the latest states to have a rocky start, in large part due to technological problems.

"On behalf of the board of directors, I want to thank Coral for her service to the Hawai‘i Health Connector during a critical time and against a very challenging backdrop," board chair Sherry Menor-McNamara said in a statement. “Coral played a key role in building the Hawai‘i Health Connector, securing funding, and building a network of public and private stakeholders throughout the state. During all that work, she never lost sight of our vision - the Hawai‘i Health Connector is of Hawai‘i and for Hawai‘i.”



Andrews said she is leaving the agency in good hands. Reported by Huffington Post 1 day ago.

Caught flat-footed by the challenges of building the financial-management and accounting parts of the U.S. government's new online marketplace for health insurance, officials rushed to hire a familiar contractor without seeking competing bids. Reported by Newsmax 19 hours ago.

How to estimate income, what 'household size' means and answers to other questions that can arise when applying for health insurance through Covered California. Reported by L.A. Times 8 hours ago.

Young healthy people are critical to making the new insurance marketplaces work. A Colorado advertising campaign pushes the boundaries of taste as it tries to persuade young people to click on a link for the decidedly unsexy topic of health insurance. Reported by NPR 11 hours ago.

Katrina killed 1,800 people, and it didn't end Bush's presidency. Obama's big problems are House Republicans and the economy

Comparing the failed rollout of Barack Obama's signature health care legislation to President George W Bush's bungled handling of Hurricane Katrina is, how shall we say, problematic.

The most obvious reason is that 1,800 people lost their lives during Hurricane Katrina.

Thankfully, no one has yet lost their life because they couldn't log on to healthcare.gov.

And for those who were able to navigate the site and buy coverage, they can now look forward to additional years of good health and economic security. That's a very different outcome – and a much more positive one – then what one might expect from one of the worst natural disasters in American History.

But the crassness of persistent Obamacare-Katrina comparisons is only one part of the problem. When political observers argue, as the New York Times did, that President Obama's website issue "threatens the rest of his agenda but also raises questions about his competence in the same way that the Bush administration's botched response to Hurricane Katrina undermined any semblance of Republican efficiency", they are making an argument that is grounded almost entirely on a myth.

Hurricane Katrina didn't destroy George W Bush's presidency. Iraq and a faltering economy did. Along the same lines, Obamacare's woes are highly unlikely to destroy Barack Obama's presidency. An economy that continues to putter along with high unemployment and mediocre growth will keep his approval ratings in negative territory. And truth be told, that agenda wasn't going anywhere anyway.

To understand why the "Katrina moment" argument is such a fallacy the above chart, which aggregates Bush's second term approval rating, provides compelling evidence. A Category 3 storm hit the Gulf Coast in August 2005, thousands died, many others were uprooted from their homes or lost everything. The New Orleans Superdome became a house of horrors, the country was introduced to the over-his-head Fema director Michael Brown ... and yet George W Bush's approval ratings barely moved. Instead, they simply continued the downward spiral that had begun just a few months after his second term inauguration.

If there was a more visible drop-off in Bush's support anywhere, it comes in the spring of 2006.

What happened then? War deaths in Iraq increased dramatically, both among US troops and also Iraqi civilians. That is very much consistent with political science research, which, as a general rule, finds that economic factors, major scandals, wars and battle deaths move approval ratings, as opposed to one-off events, no matter how much pundits want to hype them.

Ironically, Bush was a beneficiary of these exact factors. His approval ratings shot up after September 11th (it was both the strongest polling rally in Gallup's history – 35 points – and the longest lasting). They remained high through the initial stages of Iraq War. By 2005 into 2006, as the conflict worsened, his numbers began to plunge, particularly as violence in Iraq increased. They took an even further hit when the economy started to go south at the end of his presidency, finishing up at a extraordinarily dismal 26%.

So while the response to Hurricane Katrina might have been poorly handled, it was hardly Bush's undoing as president.

So what about Obama? How have Obamacare's problems affected his public approval?

A recent Politico article captures a flavor of the political zeitgeist:

"President Barack Obama is suffering the worst season of his presidency because people are mad that critical parts of the Affordable Care Act are not working the way they are supposed to work."

Not so fast.

According to the most recent aggregated polling data at Huffington Post's Pollster, Obama's disapproval currently stands at 52.5% and his approval at 42.1%. Pretty bad. But here's where it stood on 1 October, the day Obamacare went on-line (ish): 51.2% disapproval and 43.3% approval. Also pretty bad – but not much different.

Obamacare's problems were initially overshadowed by the government shutdown and debt limit fight. If one starts from that vantage point, Obama's numbers have moved less than 1pt in either direction. It's possible that there is a polling lag and his numbers will shoot down further, but the evidence that Obamacare has resulted in a major downturn in the president's public approval simply isn't there – yet.

Moreover, Obama's public approval numbers have been on a downward trend since the middle of May. Guess what happened in May 2013? Americans' confidence in the economy fell off a cliff. Gallup's Economic Confidence Index stood at -3 in May (a rather sad high point for Obama's presidency) and fell to as low as -39 during the government shutdown. Even though Obama is perceived to have "won" that showdown with Republicans, it negatively affected his ratings – just as it did during the previous debt limit showdown in the summer of 2011. This suggests that dramatic examples of government dysfunction should perhaps be added to the short list of events that decisively affect presidential approval.

In fact, one of the realities of Obama's presidency, all too rarely mentioned, is that he is a fairly unpopular president. Aside from his first few months in office, the first few months after his re-election (when economic confidence was particularly high) and the two months following the Democratic National Convention in September 2012, his approval rankings have consistently been in the red. So while his rankings are worse today than pretty much any point in his presidency, his unpopularity should not necessarily come as a complete surprise. After all, he's presided over an economy that has been either mediocre or terrible since he took office.

This isn't to say that the rollout of Obamacare has been anything less than a colossal screw-up.

In a country already abnormally suspicious of its federal government and thoroughly convinced of its incompetence, the failures of healthcare.gov have compounded the already significant challenges facing progressive reformers. While it's not hard to imagine a future in which comprehensive health care reform becomes something of a political boon for Democrats, we're rather far off – and now further off – from that point.

Nonetheless, barring a complete inability to fix the health care website, this too shall pass. Healthcare.gov will get fixed, millions of Americans will be able to buy health insurance … and Obama's approval ratings will improve a smidgen – and probably not much more than that. Like pretty much every other president, Obama is at the mercy of the country's economic performance.

Of course it may not matter much anyway. Obama's political agenda – with a 70% approval rating or a 30% one – is destined to remain on life support as long as Republicans are in control of the House of Representatives. With Speaker of the House John Boehner making clear that he has little intention of moving forward with immigration reform and the likelihood of a major budget deal even more remote – Congress's deep legislative slumber is almost certain to continue for the foreseeable future.

So fix that website stat Mr President; dabble in foreign policy a bit, maybe get the Iran nuke deal done or make a big push on Arab-Israeli peace talks; take a few trips overseas, spend time with the family, maybe get in a fight with Republicans over judges. But those lousy poll numbers and those big legislative initiatives, they probably aren't going anywhere for awhile. Reported by guardian.co.uk 8 hours ago.

FAQs on the Premium Tax Credit and Employer Coverage

Park City, Utah (PRWEB) November 24, 2013

Today, Zane Benefits, the number one online small business health benefits solution, published new information on premium tax credit and employer coverage.

According to Zane Benefits’ website, as of 2014, massive premium tax credits will be available to certain Americans who purchase a plan through the new health insurance exchanges. Eligibility for the premium tax credits is pretty straight forward if employees are uninsured or purchase health insurance their own - it is based on income and household size. However, many employees how have access to employer coverage - either through their job or a family member's - have questions about if they are eligible for the tax credits.

The federal premium tax credits are available to eligible employees who buy individual coverage in a state health insurance exchange. The tax credits may reduce the amount they pay monthly for coverage. The premium tax credit is available to those whose 2013 household income is up to $45,960 for an individual and $94,200 for a family of four. To be eligible employees cannot have access to traditional employer coverage or government health coverage. The government bases the tax credit on the premium for the second lowest–cost Silver plan in the Marketplace, although a person can select any metallic level plan.

The amount of the premium tax credit varies on a sliding scale, depending on income. The premium tax credit acts as a cap on the amount employees will pay out-of-pocket for the insurance premium. Additional cost-sharing subsidies are available for those Silver enrollees whose household income ranges up to $28,725 (up to $58,875 for a family of four).

If employees qualify for a program like Medicare, Medicaid, TRICARE, Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) or other programs, they are not be eligible for a premium tax credit on the Marketplaces. In some states, Medicaid eligibility is expanding to many more individuals. The new health insurance Marketplaces will help individuals determine eligibility for these government programs and will direct eligible applicants to these sites.

Click here to read the full article.

--

About Zane Benefits
Zane Benefits was founded in 2006 to provide a revolutionized SaaS (Software-as-a-Service) administration platform ("ZaneHealth") for defined contribution health care. The flagship software provides a 100% paperless administration experience to small businesses and insurance professionals that want to offer better health benefits without a traditional group health insurance plan at lower costs. For more information about Zane Benefits, visit http://www.zanebenefits.com. Reported by PRWeb 7 hours ago.

There is no need, at this point, to belabor the problems with the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Suffice it to say that millions of Americans have been negatively impacted by the new law, and that number will grow in the coming months and years.

The question now is what to do about it. Democrats are dividing into two camps: those who want to stand by the President’s signature achievement until the bitter end, and those who are running from Obamacare, trying to save their political careers.

At the same time, Republicans are just trying to stay out of the way. Having voted against the bill, regained control of the House in its wake, and attempted to repeal the ACA multiple times, they are enjoying their moment of vindication. They rightfully fear that any attempt to “fix” Obamacare will allow Democrats and the media to portray them as “co-owning” any problems that occur downstream. And there will be more problems.

But while the Republicans are in a much stronger position than they were at the time of the government shutdown, they are still in a strategic quandary. On the one hand, Obamacare is exacting a very real human toll in the country, and the longer they stand aside doing nothing, the more they will be painted as insensitive and unresponsive to the damage. And many voters, in the midst of a personal crisis, don’t really care who caused the problem. They just want it fixed.

On the other hand, once Republicans provide specifics on the “replace” part of their “repeal and replace” plan, Democrats will switch from defense to offense. If history serves as a guide, we can expect Republicans to propose a policy cooked up in one of the top Washington DC conservative think tanks: Cato, Heritage, AEI, Manhattan, etc. Or perhaps they will dust off Rep. Paul Ryan’s free market plan for reforming health care. But no matter its provenance, their plan will be perceived as pushing a “conservative” solution for the country, designed and implemented in Washington, DC. 

Such a move, once made, will put Democrats back on their home court, attacking Republican plans as heartless and greedy. And these attacks will continue into the 2014 election cycle.

So what can be done? Well, it might help to ask, “If you had to come up with the ideal plan going forward, what would it look like?” It might have the following elements:

· It would empower state and local governments to address the problems created by Obamacare (something they’re already doing in response to the website problems) while Washington, DC attempted to sort out the mess.

· It would not require the repeal and replacement of Obamacare all at once (something that is politically unfeasible) but would allow health care regulations to be gradually adapted and changed on a state-by-state basis to meet the particular conditions in each state.

· It would make a serious impact on the long-term federal liabilities of the health care system (liabilities that didn’t go away under ACA).

· It would support insurance markets that are overseen by knowledgeable regulators who have decades of experience and are, in many cases, directly accountable to voters.

· It would already have received strong support from elected officials of both parties.

· It would accommodate a wide variety of health care policy solutions, from single-payer to health savings accounts to accountable care organizations, and would provide the funding to support any of them.

· It would be something that can be put in place quickly to help mitigate the damage currently being done by Obamacare.

Believe it or not, such an ideal plan already exists, and its legislation has already passed in 11 state legislatures and been signed into law in eight of those states. It’s called the Health Care Compact.

There are two basic parts of the Health Care Compact. First, it provides states with a “regulatory shield” that allows them to regain control over health care regulation in their state. Second, it takes all federal health care spending in a state and turns it into an annual mandatory transfer payment to that state, indexing it for changes in inflation and population.

Unlike the 2,200+ page Affordable Care Act, the Health Care Compact is remarkably simple. Weighing in at just four pages, it can be read and understood by every member of Congress. And its purpose is straightforward: shift the responsibility and authority (both regulatory and fiscal) for health care from the federal government to compacting states. And it can happen quickly; all that is required is Congressional consent for the compact to become operative.

There are no special restrictions on the kind of health care system a state may adopt under the Health Care Compact (other than normal Constitutional constraints). Vermont has already passed legislation to create a single-payer system; Utah was well on its way to creating a private market for health insurance prior to ACA and can now restart that effort; Massachusetts has a program, popular in that state, that was passed by Democrats and signed by Republican Gov. Mitt Romney. 

These and other policy solutions would be allowed under the Health Care Compact. In fact, it is likely that we will see a different solution emerge for each state, customized for the particular demographics, policy preferences, and provider networks in that state.

Participation in the Health Care Compact is solely at the option of each state. States that wish to stay in the federal system are free to do so. And states are not required to drop federal health care programs upon joining the compact; they can stay in those programs until such time as they  are prepared to provide a workable substitute for their citizens—as long as they foot the bill. And with the transfer of federal dollars to the state, they have the resources to do so.

Now, the Health Care Compact requires Congressional consent. But the frightening situation facing both parties today makes such consent politically viable.

For Republicans, the Health Care Compact provides the optimal solution to their current challenge: how to help Americans hurt by Obamacare without pushing a conservative policy that would generate even more uncertainty, or attempting a “fix” that could leave them sharing the blame for its failure. Leave it to the states to work through, while providing those states with the funds the federal government already collects and spends in that state. And because it shaves about $3 trillion from the next ten years of federal health care commitments, it is also fiscally prudent.

For Democrats, the Health Care Compact provides a lifeline that can save them from electoral disaster. By providing an state option to take control of health care regulation, they can enable their supporters—many of whom are eager for single-payer—to pursue their goals in their state, rather than being forced to fight to the death for a system that many already feel is just a warmed-over conservative policy.

Because the Health Care Compact is voluntary for states, fiscally sound, Constitutionally licit (there are over 200 interstate compacts in operation), policy neutral (allowing blue states to pursue blue solutions and red states to pursue red solutions), and adopted by eight states thus far with more on the way, it is the only practical response to Obamacare debacle.

Rahm Emanuel famously said, “You never want a serious crisis to go to waste.” What is less famous was his next sentence: “And what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things you think you could not do before.” Three years ago, it seemed a little crazy to think that Congress might ever consent to the Health Care Compact. But with a serious crisis underway, it is not only conceivable, it is the best path forward.

So it is time for Congress to consent to the Health Care Compact, and free the states to clean up the mess they’ve created. It’s time to turn a Washington failure into an American success—one state at a time.

Leo Linbeck III is a husband, father of five, construction, real estate, and biotechnology executive, on the faculty at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Rice’s Jones Graduate School of Business, and is an education and political reformer.

 
 
 
  Reported by Breitbart 5 hours ago.

Most states led by Democratic governors have opted to run their own online health insurance marketplaces as part of the Affordable Care Act. But in President Barack Obama's home state, Gov. Pat Quinn pushed unsuccessfully for three years for a state-run marketplace, so Illinois residents now must rely on a crippled federal website. Reported by Miami Herald 4 hours ago.

No matter how old people get, they still turn to their moms for advice when they're stuck in a difficult situation. There is actually research backing this up, and now insurers and advocacy groups are targeting mothers in an attempt to get more young people enrolled in health insurance plans.

The New York Times investigated the trend, and found that insurers are desperate to enroll young, healthy people to offset the costs of the sick. And with Obama's proposal that may extend existing health plans for adults, the young and healthy are more valuable than ever.

Here's what some of the insurers and advocacy groups are doing:

The AARP made a series of e-cards that offer a compromise on motherly nagging in exchange for getting an insurance plan:

Obama's election campaign team, now called Organizing for Action, made this spot to get parents to have a talk with their kids about getting insured. The ad's main character is relieved to find out "the talk" is just about health insurance and not a revelation that his parents are in a cult, or got matching tattoos, etc.:

The Thanks Obamacare campaign from a couple of Colorado nonprofits (responsible for the infamous "Brosurance" ad) also released this gem. A bro is thankful his mom got him to sign up for health insurance after his buddy somehow managed to accidentally bash his skull in with a golf club:

It's not the first time moms have been the target of an insurance campaign for young adults. In 2007, the Massachusetts government mailed out greeting cards around Mother's Day promoting the state health care plan.

These Obamacare ads will be in circulation throughout the holiday season, banking on the Obama campaign's promise to clean up the mess from the Affordable Care Act's disastrous launch that has kept most Americans from using the federal insurance marketplace.

Read the full Times piece here.

*SEE ALSO: How Blue Cross Blue Shield Is Taking Advantage Of The Obamacare Rollout Disaster*

Join the conversation about this story »

 
 
 
  Reported by Business Insider 9 hours ago.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Tuesday that it will take up the question of whether a for-profit company can refuse to cover contraception for its employees because of religious objections. The case will likely be heard in March 2014, with a decision expected in June.

Dozens of companies have sued the Obama administration over a rule in the Affordable Care Act requiring most employers -- with the exception of churches and religious non-profits -- to cover the full range of contraceptives in their health insurance plans. The Supreme Court will hear the most high-profile case, filed by the Christian-owned craft supply chain Hobby Lobby.

Hobby Lobby's attorneys argue that the provision forces it to pay for four methods of contraception to which the owners morally object: the Plan B morning-after pill, an emergency contraceptive called Ella, and two different kinds of intrauterine devices (IUDs) that may sometimes work by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting into the uterus. Those who believe that life begins at fertilization consider those forms of birth control to be akin to abortion.

"As the federal government embarks on an unprecedented foray into health care replete with multiple overlapping mandates, few issues are more important than the extent to which the government must recognize and accommodate the religious exercise of those it regulates," Hobby Lobby's attorneys wrote to the Supreme Court in October.

While U.S. Appeals Courts have been split on whether to exempt for-profit companies from the contraception rule, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Hobby Lobby, concluding that "that the contraceptive-coverage requirement substantially burdens Hobby Lobby" and that the store should not be subject to fines for failing to comply.

The Department of Justice and numerous women's health advocacy organizations argue that emergency contraception is not abortion, that 99 percent of sexually active women use birth control in this country for both medical and family planning reasons, and that employers should not be able to cherry-pick which health benefits to cover for women.

"Should the court decide that this service is something bosses can decide for their employees, what else can bosses decide?" said Judy Waxman, vice president of health and reproductive rights at the National Women's Law Center. "Can they decide they don't want to cover vaccines or HIV medications? Can they say, 'I don't believe in these kinds of wage and hour rules?' To say, 'Yes, a corporation can impose its religion on employees' -- that can have very far-reaching implications." Reported by Huffington Post 9 hours ago.

The U.S. Supreme Court announced on Tuesday that it will take up the question of whether a for-profit company can refuse to cover contraception for its employees because of religious objections.

Dozens of companies have sued the Obama administration over a rule in the Affordable Care Act requiring most employers -- with the exception of churches and religious non-profits -- to cover the full range of contraceptives in their health insurance plans. The Supreme Court will hear the most high-profile case, filed by the Christian-owned craft supply chain Hobby Lobby, as well as Conestoga Wood Specialties Corp. v. Sebelius, a case filed by a Pennsylvania-based furniture company owned by a family of Mennonites. The cases will be heard together, likely in March 2014, with a decision expected in June.

Hobby Lobby's attorneys argue that the provision forces it to pay for four methods of contraception to which the owners morally object: the Plan B morning-after pill, an emergency contraceptive called Ella, and two different kinds of intrauterine devices (IUDs) that may sometimes work by preventing a fertilized egg from implanting into the uterus. Those who believe that life begins at fertilization consider those forms of birth control to be akin to abortion.

"As the federal government embarks on an unprecedented foray into health care replete with multiple overlapping mandates, few issues are more important than the extent to which the government must recognize and accommodate the religious exercise of those it regulates," Hobby Lobby's attorneys wrote to the Supreme Court in October.

While U.S. Appeals Courts have been split on whether to exempt for-profit companies from the contraception rule, the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals sided with Hobby Lobby, concluding that "that the contraceptive-coverage requirement substantially burdens Hobby Lobby" and that the store should not be subject to fines for failing to comply.

The Department of Justice and numerous women's health advocacy organizations argue that emergency contraception is not abortion, that 99 percent of sexually active women use birth control in this country for both medical and family planning reasons, and that employers should not be able to cherry-pick which health benefits to cover for women.

"Should the court decide that this service is something bosses can decide for their employees, what else can bosses decide?" said Judy Waxman, vice president of health and reproductive rights at the National Women's Law Center. "Can they decide they don't want to cover vaccines or HIV medications? Can they say, 'I don't believe in these kinds of wage and hour rules?' To say, 'Yes, a corporation can impose its religion on employees' -- that can have very far-reaching implications." Reported by Huffington Post 9 hours ago.

[caption id="attachment_259727" align="alignnone" width="614"]
Cathey Park of Cambridge, Massachusetts shows her cast signed by U.S. President Barack Obama after he spoke about health insurance at Faneuil Hall in Boston October 30, 2013.
Credit: Reuters[/caption] The U.S. Supreme Court agreed on Tuesday to consider religious objections made by corporations to a provision of the 2010 federal healthcare law requiring employers to provide health insurance that covers birth control. [related tag = Obamacare limit=5] The so-called contraception mandate of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, requires employers to provide health insurance policies that include preventive services for women that include access to contraception and sterilization. The key question before the court is whether corporations should be treated the same as individuals when making free exercise of religion claims under the First Amendment of the U.S. Constitution and a 1993 federal law called the Religious Freedom Restoration Act. One of the cases was filed by arts and crafts retailer Hobby Lobby Stores Inc and Mardel, a chain of Christian bookstores. Both are owned and operated by David and Barbara Green and their children, who are evangelical Christians. The administration of President Barack Obama sought the high court's review in that case after losing before a federal appeals court. The other case was brought by a Mennonite family that owns a company in Pennsylvania, Conestoga Wood Specialties. The company, which lost in federal appeals court, is owned and operated by Norman and Elizabeth Hahn and their three sons. The court took no action on a third case filed by Michigan companies Autocam Corp and Autocam Medical LLC. The cases are not a direct challenge to the mandate itself. The question is whether closely held companies owned by individuals who object to the provision on religious grounds can be exempted from the requirement. The legal questions surrounding U.S. Health and Human Services regulations issued under the preventive health provisions of the Obamacare law have not previously been before the court. In June 2012, the justices upheld the constitutionality of the law's core feature that requires people to get health insurance on a 5-4 vote. The cases are Sebelius v. Hobby Lobby and Conestoga Wood v. Sebelius, U.S. Supreme Court, No. 13-354, 13-356. Reported by metronews 9 hours ago.

ObamaCare’s penalties on smokers, causing them to pay much higher premiums for their health insurance, may achieve exactly the opposite of what was intended- smokers may cancel their health insurance and stick with smoking.

Smokers are the only members in a group that includes drug addicts, obese customers, and alcoholics to be penalized by Obamacare because of their preexisting condition. Smokers can be charged up to 50% more than non-smokers for the same insurance policy. The idea was to charge tobacco users more, and thus force them into abandoning their smoking so they could afford health insurance.

But the American Lung Association's Jennifer Singleterry said, “Tobacco surcharges are not proven to help tobacco users quit and there are major concerns that they will prevent people from getting health care coverage. Charging tobacco users more in health insurance premiums, sometimes thousands of dollars more, studies have shown, will price smokers out of the market."

Eleven states opted out of the higher charges for smokers, but a majority of states went along with the idea, allowing insurance providers to figure out how much the additional penalty should be. The poor, who receive federal subsidies for Obamacare, cannot use them to offset the penalty.

A study by nonpartisan Institute for Health Policy Solutions offered three possible scenarios for the smoker’s dilemma: a young, non-smoker at the bottom of the income barrel would pay  $708; a smoker would pay $3,308: a non-smoker 59 or older would pay $708 (before subsidies) for a mid-level policy, the same person smoking would pay $5,908; and an older smoking poor couple could pay an $11,352 health care premium if they made $23,000 annually, while a non-smoking couple would pay $952 after federal subsidies.

Larry Levitt, a Kaiser Family Foundation senior adviser, commented:



There are certainly cases where the insurance company is applying the maximum significant surcharge where someone could be paying a significant share of their income toward health insurance. There are competing goals here. There's the goal of getting people insured and certainly the lower the cost of insurance, the more likely it is people will sign up. There's also the goal of allowing insurance companies to recover their cost of covering certain kinds of people and the smoking surcharge is one way of doing that.



 
 
 
  Reported by Breitbart 8 hours ago.