TRENTON -- Hundreds of thousands of public workers could continue to make higher contributions toward their health insurance premiums for several more years under a new ruling by the state agency that governs public employer-employee relations. The decision by the Public...
Reported by NJ.com 9 hours ago.
Ruling extends N.J. public workers' increased health care contributions
↧
↧
Walker's health plan hinges on a tricky subsidy rollback
(AP) — Republican Scott Walker's plan for repealing and replacing President Barack Obama's health care law hinges on what many see as a nearly insurmountable obstacle — getting 60 votes in the Senate. Walker's campaign says his executive order actually would direct Cabinet officials to "undertake rulemaking"— typically a drawn-out process that involves research, debate by affected parties, public notice and public comment — toward the goal of removing the subsidies. Congress was shifted from the federal employee plan to the health care law's insurance exchanges because of an amendment by Sen. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, back when the law was being debated. To avoid disrupting health insurance for lawmakers and staff, the federal Office of Personnel Management published rules in 2013 stating the government would still subsidize about 70 percent of their premiums, just as it did before the health care law went into effect. [...] absent a national emergency, Walker wouldn't have the legal authority to amend the rule to remove the subsidy, said Jost, a supporter of the health care law. [...] if you're going to do a big reform you're going to need something that's bipartisan," he said, "or it won't be doable.
Reported by SeattlePI.com 10 hours ago.
↧
United States: "Opt Out" Accommodation Under Affordable Care Act Validated After Challenge From Religious Objectors - Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP
The ACA requires employers with 50 or more full-time employees to offer group health insurance coverage, through either an insured plan or a self-insured plan with a third-party administrator.
Reported by Mondaq 21 hours ago.
↧
Whitepaper about the Comeback of Defined Contribution Draws Hundreds of Downloads within Hours
Health Partners America attracts major interest from hundreds of insurance agents across the country with its latest white paper, “Defined Contribution... It's Back!” The high volume of downloads demonstrates the on-going interest in defined contribution from brokers and their respective clients, despite the ever-changing rules and regulations surrounding the platform.
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA (PRWEB) August 24, 2015
Health Partners America (http://www.healthpartnersamerica.com), a leading provider of private exchange sites, training, tools, and technology solutions for insurance agents and employers who are navigating the health reform legislation, announces the release of its new white paper – Defined Contribution…It’s Back. This timely 17-page document was written to help insurance agents and brokers better understand the current status of the defined contribution platform and how it pertains to their business clients.
Defined contribution is a concept that was originally applied to retirement plans. Several years ago, companies began transitioning away from “defined benefit” pension plans, opting instead to make “defined contributions” into individually owned accounts like 401(k) plans. Similar developments are now seen across group health insurance. Tired of dealing with unpredictable annual premium increases on their group health plans and the difficulty of selecting a “one-size-fits-all” benefit design for an increasingly diverse workforce, a growing number of large employers are beginning to offer “defined contribution” plans, often through a private exchange site that allows employees to learn about their options and enroll in their core and ancillary benefits online.
Health Partners America is offering the full report at no cost through this website: http://healthpartnersamerica.com/defined-contribution-is-back/
About Health Partners America
Since 2007, Health Partners America has been providing game-changing training, marketing tools, and strategic solutions to agents and brokers nationwide. HPA is a leading provider of private exchange sites and works with brokers to help them achieve their ultimate success through proven processes.
For additional information about this topic or about HPA, contact Doug Foshee at 205-443-2186, visit us on the web at http://www.healthpartnersamerica.com, or follow us on social media. Reported by PRWeb 23 hours ago.
BIRMINGHAM, ALABAMA (PRWEB) August 24, 2015
Health Partners America (http://www.healthpartnersamerica.com), a leading provider of private exchange sites, training, tools, and technology solutions for insurance agents and employers who are navigating the health reform legislation, announces the release of its new white paper – Defined Contribution…It’s Back. This timely 17-page document was written to help insurance agents and brokers better understand the current status of the defined contribution platform and how it pertains to their business clients.
Defined contribution is a concept that was originally applied to retirement plans. Several years ago, companies began transitioning away from “defined benefit” pension plans, opting instead to make “defined contributions” into individually owned accounts like 401(k) plans. Similar developments are now seen across group health insurance. Tired of dealing with unpredictable annual premium increases on their group health plans and the difficulty of selecting a “one-size-fits-all” benefit design for an increasingly diverse workforce, a growing number of large employers are beginning to offer “defined contribution” plans, often through a private exchange site that allows employees to learn about their options and enroll in their core and ancillary benefits online.
Health Partners America is offering the full report at no cost through this website: http://healthpartnersamerica.com/defined-contribution-is-back/
About Health Partners America
Since 2007, Health Partners America has been providing game-changing training, marketing tools, and strategic solutions to agents and brokers nationwide. HPA is a leading provider of private exchange sites and works with brokers to help them achieve their ultimate success through proven processes.
For additional information about this topic or about HPA, contact Doug Foshee at 205-443-2186, visit us on the web at http://www.healthpartnersamerica.com, or follow us on social media. Reported by PRWeb 23 hours ago.
↧
Compensation Programs and Medica Team Up for New Health Insurance Offerings in Nebraska
Compensation Programs, Inc. has been selected as a Field Management Organization in Nebraska for Medica Health Services.
Lincoln, Nebraska (PRWEB) August 24, 2015
Brian McPike, President of Compensation Programs, Inc (ComPro) is pleased to announce that ComPro has been selected as a Field Management Organization (FMO) in Nebraska. Medica will offer innovative new health insurance products to individuals and families in Nebraska beginning in 2016 and will be available both on and off the Health Insurance Marketplace. Their products feature the Midlands Choice network of hospitals and physicians. Medica’s insurance coverages offer simplicity and value in its plan designs that include traditional co-pay plans as well as HSAs.
President of ComPro, Brian McPike said, “ComPro is proud to be recognized as an industry leader by Medica. We look forward to Medica’s entry into the Nebraska market as it will allow us to offer our clients and agents new options for their health insurance coverage.”
Medica is a health services company headquartered in Minneapolis that has been serving the Midwest for 40 years with approximately 1.5 million members. ComPro is one of only three health insurance brokers selected by Medica as an FMO in Nebraska. Agents who wish to offer Medica to their clients must contract with an FMO, such as ComPro.
Compensation Programs is an insurance agency that specializes in health insurance products. ComPro is based in Lincoln, NE and serves employers and individuals and families through partnerships with financial professionals. For more information, please contact Brian McPike at 402-488-5100 or email at brianmcpike(at)comproins(dot)com. To learn more about ComPro visit http://www.comproins.com. Reported by PRWeb 23 hours ago.
Lincoln, Nebraska (PRWEB) August 24, 2015
Brian McPike, President of Compensation Programs, Inc (ComPro) is pleased to announce that ComPro has been selected as a Field Management Organization (FMO) in Nebraska. Medica will offer innovative new health insurance products to individuals and families in Nebraska beginning in 2016 and will be available both on and off the Health Insurance Marketplace. Their products feature the Midlands Choice network of hospitals and physicians. Medica’s insurance coverages offer simplicity and value in its plan designs that include traditional co-pay plans as well as HSAs.
President of ComPro, Brian McPike said, “ComPro is proud to be recognized as an industry leader by Medica. We look forward to Medica’s entry into the Nebraska market as it will allow us to offer our clients and agents new options for their health insurance coverage.”
Medica is a health services company headquartered in Minneapolis that has been serving the Midwest for 40 years with approximately 1.5 million members. ComPro is one of only three health insurance brokers selected by Medica as an FMO in Nebraska. Agents who wish to offer Medica to their clients must contract with an FMO, such as ComPro.
Compensation Programs is an insurance agency that specializes in health insurance products. ComPro is based in Lincoln, NE and serves employers and individuals and families through partnerships with financial professionals. For more information, please contact Brian McPike at 402-488-5100 or email at brianmcpike(at)comproins(dot)com. To learn more about ComPro visit http://www.comproins.com. Reported by PRWeb 23 hours ago.
↧
↧
I'm Young And Healthy -- Is An HDHP Right For Me?
High deductible health insurance plans are increasingly common. If you’re healthy and anticipate few medical needs, these plans could save you some money.
Reported by Forbes.com 17 hours ago.
↧
What Can Go Wrong With A Private Health Insurance Exchange? A Lot
The fastest growing part of the health insurance market these days is the private exchange. About 6 million workers selected their health plans through private exchanges this year, double last year’s number. The consulting firm Accenture predicts 40 million will do so by 2018. In general, private exchanges are online health [...]
Reported by Forbes.com 16 hours ago.
↧
Bernie Sanders' Gun Control Affair: It's Complicated
Senator Bernie Sanders, while being a political darling of liberal Democrats, has found himself in a political quagmire on gun control. The Washington Post has featured a story on his cataclysmic rise to Congress with the NRA's support. He's taken vitriol from leftist commentators calling him a "gun nut" and praise from conservatives who have received the same label with glee. His votes against the Brady Bill with its waiting periods -- legislation that would have mandated background checks on firearm purchases -- and other bills flood the headlines of both liberal and conservative publications.
Bernie Sanders' position on gun control is far more complex than these headlines suggest, however, even if his nuances lack a reasonable basis. Both Sanders' supporters and detractors need to be aware of these nuances before blindly praising or criticizing his politics. His positions are such that seemingly minor elements in public policy -- especially concerning his opposition to nationally legislated waiting periods for firearm purchases -- will thwart the politics of both the right and left.
Bernie Sanders has made many political compromises on gun control that are bound to be distorted by pundits. He may have voted to repeal DC assault weapons bans and firearms registration, contradicting his past support for a 1994 assault weapons ban. But that was because they were part of a bill that would've granted Washington DC a Congressional district. His vote for an amendment to Obamacare preventing insurance companies from hiking rates on gun owners had been attached to numerous other provisions for cancer victims, children's health insurance and women's health.
He has supported a ban on the sale of assault weapons, limits to firearm magazine capacities, mandatory background checks for online and gun-show purchases, prohibitions on cross-state conceal-carry, the enforcement of trigger lock laws, bans on underage firearm possession and 72-hour background checks, and increases on minimum prison sentences for crimes involving firearms.
However, his vote against the Brady bill has been particularly disconcerting to gun control advocates since it received strong bipartisan support, with its "common sense" provisions like national criminal background checks. But contrary to ads like this one run by a pro-Martin O'Malley PAC, Bernie Sanders' position isn't against federal background checks, even though his Brady bill vote might indicate that. And in spite of some commentators, he didn't vote against the Brady bill because it didn't go far enough. In fact, he voted for a version of the Brady bill that contained background checks. When asked, he stated that his objection was that he believed that handgun waiting periods, which were included in the final version of the Brady bill, are best left to the states. This was the reason the NRA backed his election in 1990, over a Republican, who had then recently changed his mind to support such waiting periods.
In a way, liberals aren't overplaying the drama on Sanders' record. His voting record demonstrates that national waiting periods tacked onto gun control legislation might cause him to withdraw support even if the bills' main provisions have bipartisan support. His position, which is unsupported by constitutional law and peer-reviewed literature on public health, endangers any attempt to prevent gun violence.
The difference between constitutional restrictions on state and federal law on gun control has not been discussed much since the 19th-century cases United States vs. Cruikshank and Presser vs. Illinois -- cases where the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment only restricted the federal government, not the states.
Since 1925, the "incorporation doctrine" has led to cases where the Supreme Court has ruled to protect constitutional rights from state, and not just federal, legislation. In 2008, DC vs. Heller applied the Second Amendment to protect against DC legislation completely banning handguns. Justice Antonio Scalia noted then that the Second Amendment is still subject to restrictions barring "unusual weapons" like RPGs and machine guns and ownership of firearms by those failing background checks, among other restrictions. McDonald vs. Chicago reaffirmed these restrictions on gun rights and gun control laws and applied them to the states.
Contrary to Senator Bernie Sanders' position, the Supreme Court has never indicated that certain provisions related to gun rights should be left up to the states, let alone those specifically relating to waiting periods. Constitutional restrictions on national and state-level gun control legislation are more or less one and the same. The closest case on the broader constitutionality of waiting times, Silvester vs. Harris in California, ruled only against waiting periods for those already owning firearms; there was no discussion on waiting periods for first-time purchasers.
In addition to endangering gun control legislation with a faulty premise on constitutional law, Bernie Sanders' position in itself will harm violence prevention efforts. Even when poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, socioeconomic factors, and urbanization were controlled, "at least a dozen" peer-reviewed studies reviewed in a meta-analysis for the New England Journal of Medicine have found guns to be associated with an increased risk for suicide. These conclusions have been repeated by Harvard University and numerous other institutions.
Why is this the case? Deaths by suicide often happen impulsively, and guns are a quick, irreversible means for suicide, with a 91 percent "success" rate. This means that though suicide attempts may be difficult to avoid, significant numbers of "successful" suicides may be prevented if guns are harder to obtain. This fact is especially crucial to the issue at hand since mandatory waiting periods may cause impulsive individuals to forgo gun purchases.
Even though Bernie Sanders' rhetoric on income inequality resonates with liberals, his opposition to waiting periods for firearm purchases should serve as a call for his supporters to critically analyze his record. If they become vocal in their constructive criticism on his gun control, there might be a chance that he will reform his stance. However, if they blindly follow his lead without noting his faults, they may end up abetting legislation that runs against the tidal wave of scientific literature on gun control and expands the public health crisis.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 13 hours ago.
Bernie Sanders' position on gun control is far more complex than these headlines suggest, however, even if his nuances lack a reasonable basis. Both Sanders' supporters and detractors need to be aware of these nuances before blindly praising or criticizing his politics. His positions are such that seemingly minor elements in public policy -- especially concerning his opposition to nationally legislated waiting periods for firearm purchases -- will thwart the politics of both the right and left.
Bernie Sanders has made many political compromises on gun control that are bound to be distorted by pundits. He may have voted to repeal DC assault weapons bans and firearms registration, contradicting his past support for a 1994 assault weapons ban. But that was because they were part of a bill that would've granted Washington DC a Congressional district. His vote for an amendment to Obamacare preventing insurance companies from hiking rates on gun owners had been attached to numerous other provisions for cancer victims, children's health insurance and women's health.
He has supported a ban on the sale of assault weapons, limits to firearm magazine capacities, mandatory background checks for online and gun-show purchases, prohibitions on cross-state conceal-carry, the enforcement of trigger lock laws, bans on underage firearm possession and 72-hour background checks, and increases on minimum prison sentences for crimes involving firearms.
However, his vote against the Brady bill has been particularly disconcerting to gun control advocates since it received strong bipartisan support, with its "common sense" provisions like national criminal background checks. But contrary to ads like this one run by a pro-Martin O'Malley PAC, Bernie Sanders' position isn't against federal background checks, even though his Brady bill vote might indicate that. And in spite of some commentators, he didn't vote against the Brady bill because it didn't go far enough. In fact, he voted for a version of the Brady bill that contained background checks. When asked, he stated that his objection was that he believed that handgun waiting periods, which were included in the final version of the Brady bill, are best left to the states. This was the reason the NRA backed his election in 1990, over a Republican, who had then recently changed his mind to support such waiting periods.
In a way, liberals aren't overplaying the drama on Sanders' record. His voting record demonstrates that national waiting periods tacked onto gun control legislation might cause him to withdraw support even if the bills' main provisions have bipartisan support. His position, which is unsupported by constitutional law and peer-reviewed literature on public health, endangers any attempt to prevent gun violence.
The difference between constitutional restrictions on state and federal law on gun control has not been discussed much since the 19th-century cases United States vs. Cruikshank and Presser vs. Illinois -- cases where the Supreme Court ruled that the Second Amendment only restricted the federal government, not the states.
Since 1925, the "incorporation doctrine" has led to cases where the Supreme Court has ruled to protect constitutional rights from state, and not just federal, legislation. In 2008, DC vs. Heller applied the Second Amendment to protect against DC legislation completely banning handguns. Justice Antonio Scalia noted then that the Second Amendment is still subject to restrictions barring "unusual weapons" like RPGs and machine guns and ownership of firearms by those failing background checks, among other restrictions. McDonald vs. Chicago reaffirmed these restrictions on gun rights and gun control laws and applied them to the states.
Contrary to Senator Bernie Sanders' position, the Supreme Court has never indicated that certain provisions related to gun rights should be left up to the states, let alone those specifically relating to waiting periods. Constitutional restrictions on national and state-level gun control legislation are more or less one and the same. The closest case on the broader constitutionality of waiting times, Silvester vs. Harris in California, ruled only against waiting periods for those already owning firearms; there was no discussion on waiting periods for first-time purchasers.
In addition to endangering gun control legislation with a faulty premise on constitutional law, Bernie Sanders' position in itself will harm violence prevention efforts. Even when poverty, drug and alcohol abuse, mental illness, socioeconomic factors, and urbanization were controlled, "at least a dozen" peer-reviewed studies reviewed in a meta-analysis for the New England Journal of Medicine have found guns to be associated with an increased risk for suicide. These conclusions have been repeated by Harvard University and numerous other institutions.
Why is this the case? Deaths by suicide often happen impulsively, and guns are a quick, irreversible means for suicide, with a 91 percent "success" rate. This means that though suicide attempts may be difficult to avoid, significant numbers of "successful" suicides may be prevented if guns are harder to obtain. This fact is especially crucial to the issue at hand since mandatory waiting periods may cause impulsive individuals to forgo gun purchases.
Even though Bernie Sanders' rhetoric on income inequality resonates with liberals, his opposition to waiting periods for firearm purchases should serve as a call for his supporters to critically analyze his record. If they become vocal in their constructive criticism on his gun control, there might be a chance that he will reform his stance. However, if they blindly follow his lead without noting his faults, they may end up abetting legislation that runs against the tidal wave of scientific literature on gun control and expands the public health crisis.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 13 hours ago.
↧
Census Bureau to Host Technical Meeting on Plans for Upcoming Releases of Income, Poverty and Health Insurance Coverage Estimates
WASHINGTON, Aug. 24, 2015 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The following is being released by the U.S. Census Bureau: What: The U.S. Census Bureau will host a briefing on the federal statistical community's plans related to the measurement and release of data on income, poverty and health...
Reported by PR Newswire 13 hours ago.
↧
↧
These Aren't Scare Tactics. A Republican President Will Take Away Your Obamacare Protections
It's hard to get 17 people -- especially 17 people with egos big enough to think they should be president of the United States -- to come together on too many things. Even though they share much in terms of political beliefs, the 17 members of the GOP clown car can't all agree, for example, on exactly how high a wall we should build with Mexico, or if Donald Trump should oversee construction -- irrespective of whether he becomes our next president.
On one thing, however, unanimity reigns. Every last blessed one of them has sworn to repeal Obamacare. And they won't go back on it.
My response? Bring it on. Support for Obamacare has been rising as the percentage of Americans who lack insurance has been falling.
For a true apples-to-apples comparison, over the past 13 months the Kaiser Family Foundation's tracking poll has found that the law has gone from a favorable rating of minus-16 (53 percent unfavorable, 37 percent favorable), to a plus 3 rating (44 percent favorable, 41 percent unfavorable).
Given that some chunk of those who don't like the law would prefer something more progressive, such as single-payer, and/or disapprove because it lacks a public option, there is certainly at least something approaching a majority who want to keep the law. Furthermore, the evidence indicates that more Americans want to keep it than want it repealed.What Republicans say is that they want to repeal and replace Obamacare. They can't simply get rid of it and go back to the way things were. Some are more specific than others. Trump, for one, says that he'll replace it with "something terrific," and added that he'd "work out some sort of a really smart deal with hospitals across the country." I'm not kidding here, folks. These are actual quotations.
When pressed by Dan Diamond of Forbes, a spokesman explained that Trump will have a plan soon, and that it will "return authority to the states and operate under free market principles. Mr. Trump's plan will provide choice to the buyer, provide individual tax relief for health insurance and keep plans portable and affordable. The plan will break the health insurance company monopolies and allow individuals to buy across state lines."
In other words, word salad plus the old conservative chestnut about crossing state lines. This is an important matter because, in addition to Trump, just about every Republican believes it will be some kind of magic bullet.
Diamond examined that claim by looking to, you know, actual experts. A study out of Georgetown's Center on Health Insurance Reforms stated that a federal law allowing policies to be sold across state lines ...
... has the potential to preempt many more state consumer protections, lead to a regulatory 'race to the bottom,' and reduce access to coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. It poses these risks while failing to address market barriers identified by respondents--such as the cost of building a network of local providers and the cost of delivering care in different states and regions.
Or, as Katherine Hempstead, director of the coverage team at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, put it: "Imagine if you could follow any state's gun-control regulations."
We'll see what else Trump comes up with, but let's look at what we've got from Marco Rubio and Scott Walker. Rubio published an op-ed creatively titled "My Plan to Fix Health Care"--crack writing staff he's got there -- that contains several elements but not much in the way of specifics.
He'd offer a refundable tax credit to help with the purchase of a policy, he'd create risk-pools for those with pre-existing conditions (since they won't be guaranteed actual health insurance policies, like under Obamacare), he'd expand Health Savings Accounts (great for people who can't make ends meet in the first place, right?), he'd transform Medicaid into a block grant program, and he'd get rid of Medicare for "future generations" (it's great how current senior citizens, the majority of whom do vote Republican, won't be affected), replacing it with premium supports, i.e., vouchers. Oh, and he'd let companies sell policies across state lines, which we've debunked above.
As for Walker, to his credit his plan contains more specifics than Rubio's, and it leaves Medicare alone. Congratulations. On the negative side, it also would turn Medicaid into block grants (although neither Rubio nor Walker gave numbers, this proposal always results in a significant cut in Medicaid funds, as seen in the $732 billion in Medicaid "savings" contained in this year's GOP Senate budget plan), and relies on age-based premium supports for those who don't get coverage at work, that don't take income into account whatsoever. I'll bet the Walmart heirs will look forward to their couple of thousand bucks in health insurance vouchers.
There's also a real bait and switch. Walker's plan states that it will "protect all Americans with pre-existing conditions." However, that's what healthcare experts call poppycock. Sarah Kliff has read the fine print, and found Walker only protects those who maintain coverage continuously. If you've got a cancer diagnosis followed by a pink slip that results in losing your health insurance? Don't call Scott Walker. For reference, 89 million Americans suffered a coverage gap of at least a month between 2004 and 2007. Scotty probably thinks they were all public school teachers.
Health care expert Tim Jost looked at Walker's plan, and concluded that the "tax credits at the level proposed would not begin to cover the cost of decent coverage." It cancels the hugely progressive revenue-raisers and income-based premium subsidies in Obamacare, and hands out lots of checks to people who don't need them, just like Rubio's plan. One other small detail: Walker offers no way to pay for those vouchers (hint: Medicaid savings, anyone?).
The Walker plan contains some other bits and pieces, some that echo Rubio's (health savings accounts, refundable tax credits), others that Rubio left out (tort reform), but ultimately, as Joan McCarter concluded, Walker's plan is "a jumble of half-measures that don't add up to any kind of system."
From the right, his fellow presidential aspirant (barely) Bobby Jindal called Walker's plan "Obamacare lite" and lamented that Walker's plan left him shaking his head and wondering: "When did conservatism die?" Hyperbole? Perhaps. But at least now you've been reminded that Bobby Jindal is still running.
He put out an Obamacare replacement plan as well, but it's even worse than Walker's and Rubio's. Plus, Jindal's not making it off the kiddie stage anyway.
There's another thing (just one other thing?) Scott Walker has said about Obamacare that calls for greater scrutiny. We know that the states that failed to expand Medicaid have lagged behind the rest in terms of the percentage of people who remain without health insurance. Scott Walker's Wisconsin is one of the 20 states that have thus far rejected Medicaid expansion. And why? Here's Scotty:
We haven't exposed our taxpayers to something I think eventually is going to happen and that we've started to see in other states," he said. "And that is the promises they talk about under the Affordable Care Act, under Obamacare, not coming through. ... We believe confidently going forward this federal government is likely to renege from its promises on Medicaid to the states. And we won't be exposed to that. So they can talk about hypotheticals. We believe in the end the track record of the federal government has been to pull away from their commitments to the states.
Forget the fact that accepting Medicaid would have saved Wisconsin half a billion dollars over three and a half years, while providing coverage to 87,000 Wisconsinites. Forget that that's twice as much as Walker just cut from the University of Wisconsin's budget.
Forget all that, for a second at least. Scott Walker is running to lead the federal government. If he wins, he'll almost certainly have Republican majorities in the House and Senate. Let's ask him if he'd renege on the federal government's promise to pick up at least 90 percent of the cost of Medicaid expansion. Reneging on that promise would require a law, one passed by Congress and signed by a President Walker.
So, would he or wouldn't he? Given what Walker has said, I think the voters have the right to know if he'd become the reneger-in-chief. A repeal of Obamacare would certainly leave the states that expanded Medicaid on the hook, so I think we've got the answer. Still, I'd like to see the media pose that question directly.
In the end, a President Walker or Rubio or Bush or, ahem, Trump would have no choice but to repeal Obamacare. They would have no choice because their base would eat them alive if they failed to do so. The Tea Party folks are livid already because a Republican Congress still hasn't sent a repeal bill to President Obama's desk, and because Ted Cruz's lonely attempt to defund Obamacare two years ago met with an utter lack of support from his fellow Republicans in Congress.
As Hillary Clinton said this week, a Republican president would have to repeal Obamacare: "They're in too deep. They're too committed to it. They've said it too many times."
As for the Democrats, Bernie Sanders has come out for Medicare for all. Secretary Clinton released an ad in late June in which she declared: "We've got to defend the Affordable Care Act." If Joe Biden got in the race, he'd without doubt say the same. Any 2016 Democratic nominee would veto Obamacare repeal.
This is an issue that Republicans won't be able to avoid come general election time. And it's an issue Democrats must make sure voters remember as well. A vote for a Republican is a vote to repeal health care reform, to go back to people being denied coverage for having pre-existing conditions, to reverse significant advances aimed at improving women's health care specifically, and, to top it all off, to take health insurance away from 19 million people.
Repealing Obamacare would do all this damage and more, while making our federal deficits at least $137 billion worse over the next 10 years to boot, according to the Congressional Budget Office. When Republicans promise to repeal Obamacare, it's our side's job to make sure our fellow Americans know exactly what that would mean.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 10 hours ago.
On one thing, however, unanimity reigns. Every last blessed one of them has sworn to repeal Obamacare. And they won't go back on it.
My response? Bring it on. Support for Obamacare has been rising as the percentage of Americans who lack insurance has been falling.
For a true apples-to-apples comparison, over the past 13 months the Kaiser Family Foundation's tracking poll has found that the law has gone from a favorable rating of minus-16 (53 percent unfavorable, 37 percent favorable), to a plus 3 rating (44 percent favorable, 41 percent unfavorable).
Given that some chunk of those who don't like the law would prefer something more progressive, such as single-payer, and/or disapprove because it lacks a public option, there is certainly at least something approaching a majority who want to keep the law. Furthermore, the evidence indicates that more Americans want to keep it than want it repealed.What Republicans say is that they want to repeal and replace Obamacare. They can't simply get rid of it and go back to the way things were. Some are more specific than others. Trump, for one, says that he'll replace it with "something terrific," and added that he'd "work out some sort of a really smart deal with hospitals across the country." I'm not kidding here, folks. These are actual quotations.
When pressed by Dan Diamond of Forbes, a spokesman explained that Trump will have a plan soon, and that it will "return authority to the states and operate under free market principles. Mr. Trump's plan will provide choice to the buyer, provide individual tax relief for health insurance and keep plans portable and affordable. The plan will break the health insurance company monopolies and allow individuals to buy across state lines."
In other words, word salad plus the old conservative chestnut about crossing state lines. This is an important matter because, in addition to Trump, just about every Republican believes it will be some kind of magic bullet.
Diamond examined that claim by looking to, you know, actual experts. A study out of Georgetown's Center on Health Insurance Reforms stated that a federal law allowing policies to be sold across state lines ...
... has the potential to preempt many more state consumer protections, lead to a regulatory 'race to the bottom,' and reduce access to coverage for people with pre-existing conditions. It poses these risks while failing to address market barriers identified by respondents--such as the cost of building a network of local providers and the cost of delivering care in different states and regions.
Or, as Katherine Hempstead, director of the coverage team at the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, put it: "Imagine if you could follow any state's gun-control regulations."
We'll see what else Trump comes up with, but let's look at what we've got from Marco Rubio and Scott Walker. Rubio published an op-ed creatively titled "My Plan to Fix Health Care"--crack writing staff he's got there -- that contains several elements but not much in the way of specifics.
He'd offer a refundable tax credit to help with the purchase of a policy, he'd create risk-pools for those with pre-existing conditions (since they won't be guaranteed actual health insurance policies, like under Obamacare), he'd expand Health Savings Accounts (great for people who can't make ends meet in the first place, right?), he'd transform Medicaid into a block grant program, and he'd get rid of Medicare for "future generations" (it's great how current senior citizens, the majority of whom do vote Republican, won't be affected), replacing it with premium supports, i.e., vouchers. Oh, and he'd let companies sell policies across state lines, which we've debunked above.
As for Walker, to his credit his plan contains more specifics than Rubio's, and it leaves Medicare alone. Congratulations. On the negative side, it also would turn Medicaid into block grants (although neither Rubio nor Walker gave numbers, this proposal always results in a significant cut in Medicaid funds, as seen in the $732 billion in Medicaid "savings" contained in this year's GOP Senate budget plan), and relies on age-based premium supports for those who don't get coverage at work, that don't take income into account whatsoever. I'll bet the Walmart heirs will look forward to their couple of thousand bucks in health insurance vouchers.
There's also a real bait and switch. Walker's plan states that it will "protect all Americans with pre-existing conditions." However, that's what healthcare experts call poppycock. Sarah Kliff has read the fine print, and found Walker only protects those who maintain coverage continuously. If you've got a cancer diagnosis followed by a pink slip that results in losing your health insurance? Don't call Scott Walker. For reference, 89 million Americans suffered a coverage gap of at least a month between 2004 and 2007. Scotty probably thinks they were all public school teachers.
Health care expert Tim Jost looked at Walker's plan, and concluded that the "tax credits at the level proposed would not begin to cover the cost of decent coverage." It cancels the hugely progressive revenue-raisers and income-based premium subsidies in Obamacare, and hands out lots of checks to people who don't need them, just like Rubio's plan. One other small detail: Walker offers no way to pay for those vouchers (hint: Medicaid savings, anyone?).
The Walker plan contains some other bits and pieces, some that echo Rubio's (health savings accounts, refundable tax credits), others that Rubio left out (tort reform), but ultimately, as Joan McCarter concluded, Walker's plan is "a jumble of half-measures that don't add up to any kind of system."
From the right, his fellow presidential aspirant (barely) Bobby Jindal called Walker's plan "Obamacare lite" and lamented that Walker's plan left him shaking his head and wondering: "When did conservatism die?" Hyperbole? Perhaps. But at least now you've been reminded that Bobby Jindal is still running.
He put out an Obamacare replacement plan as well, but it's even worse than Walker's and Rubio's. Plus, Jindal's not making it off the kiddie stage anyway.
There's another thing (just one other thing?) Scott Walker has said about Obamacare that calls for greater scrutiny. We know that the states that failed to expand Medicaid have lagged behind the rest in terms of the percentage of people who remain without health insurance. Scott Walker's Wisconsin is one of the 20 states that have thus far rejected Medicaid expansion. And why? Here's Scotty:
We haven't exposed our taxpayers to something I think eventually is going to happen and that we've started to see in other states," he said. "And that is the promises they talk about under the Affordable Care Act, under Obamacare, not coming through. ... We believe confidently going forward this federal government is likely to renege from its promises on Medicaid to the states. And we won't be exposed to that. So they can talk about hypotheticals. We believe in the end the track record of the federal government has been to pull away from their commitments to the states.
Forget the fact that accepting Medicaid would have saved Wisconsin half a billion dollars over three and a half years, while providing coverage to 87,000 Wisconsinites. Forget that that's twice as much as Walker just cut from the University of Wisconsin's budget.
Forget all that, for a second at least. Scott Walker is running to lead the federal government. If he wins, he'll almost certainly have Republican majorities in the House and Senate. Let's ask him if he'd renege on the federal government's promise to pick up at least 90 percent of the cost of Medicaid expansion. Reneging on that promise would require a law, one passed by Congress and signed by a President Walker.
So, would he or wouldn't he? Given what Walker has said, I think the voters have the right to know if he'd become the reneger-in-chief. A repeal of Obamacare would certainly leave the states that expanded Medicaid on the hook, so I think we've got the answer. Still, I'd like to see the media pose that question directly.
In the end, a President Walker or Rubio or Bush or, ahem, Trump would have no choice but to repeal Obamacare. They would have no choice because their base would eat them alive if they failed to do so. The Tea Party folks are livid already because a Republican Congress still hasn't sent a repeal bill to President Obama's desk, and because Ted Cruz's lonely attempt to defund Obamacare two years ago met with an utter lack of support from his fellow Republicans in Congress.
As Hillary Clinton said this week, a Republican president would have to repeal Obamacare: "They're in too deep. They're too committed to it. They've said it too many times."
As for the Democrats, Bernie Sanders has come out for Medicare for all. Secretary Clinton released an ad in late June in which she declared: "We've got to defend the Affordable Care Act." If Joe Biden got in the race, he'd without doubt say the same. Any 2016 Democratic nominee would veto Obamacare repeal.
This is an issue that Republicans won't be able to avoid come general election time. And it's an issue Democrats must make sure voters remember as well. A vote for a Republican is a vote to repeal health care reform, to go back to people being denied coverage for having pre-existing conditions, to reverse significant advances aimed at improving women's health care specifically, and, to top it all off, to take health insurance away from 19 million people.
Repealing Obamacare would do all this damage and more, while making our federal deficits at least $137 billion worse over the next 10 years to boot, according to the Congressional Budget Office. When Republicans promise to repeal Obamacare, it's our side's job to make sure our fellow Americans know exactly what that would mean.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 10 hours ago.
↧
Humana hiring 600 temporary employees
Health insurance giant Humana Inc. (NYSE: HUM) says it's hiring about 600 temporary workers. In an email today, Humana communications consultant Kate Marx said the company is looking for enrollment specialists to review and process Medicare Advantage applications and respond to inquiries. The workers would be based downtown and would serve the company for six months or less. The best candidates would have Microsoft Word and Excel proficiency, she said. They would start sometime in mid-September,…
Reported by bizjournals 11 hours ago.
↧
Health Insurance Mergers Make Executives Richer, Policyholders Poorer
If regulators approve the recently announced mega-deals in which Aetna, Inc. would buy Humana Inc. and Anthem Inc. would buy Cigna Corp., will consumers benefit? Or will the winners be limited primarily to the executives and shareholders of the companies involved?
If history is guide, the big winners will be -- you guessed it -- company executives and shareholders. The companies' customers, on the other hand, likely will have the privilege of paying more, not less, for their coverage.
A new study on the effect of health insurance market consolidation and dominance published earlier this month should be required reading by the folks at the Justice Department, who will decide whether the deals should go forward. The study's conclusion: Insurers that bulk up to the point that they can dominate a given market raise rates considerably more than their smaller competitors.
The findings in the study, published in a Harvard-affiliated peer-reviewed journal, are consistent with previous research that has found that consumers usually come out on the short end of the stick when insurers merge. It's an entirely different outcome, though, for the few executives who make the mergers happen.
Even in relatively small deals, executives can engineer jaw-dropping fortunes for themselves. As I wrote last month, while I was still at Cigna, Healthsource CEO Norman Payson pocketed $94 million when Cigna's $1.45 billion acquisition of Healthsource was completed in 1997.
Seven years later, a few WellPoint executives got golden parachutes worth far more than Payson's going-away gift when WellPoint and Anthem merged.
California's insurance commissioner at the time, John Garamendi, now a congressman, blocked the acquisition for a while when it was disclosed that the WellPoint executives would walk away with $600 million from the deal.
He eventually gave the green light to the $20.9 billion transaction when the companies agreed to reduce the compensation package for WellPoint CEO Leonard Schaeffer and a handful of other executives to $265 million. Anthem CEO Larry Glasscock was rewarded with a $42.5 million bonus for closing the deal. When Schaeffer left the company a few months later, in January 2005, his retirement package was valued at $337 million.
To get Garamendi to drop his opposition, the companies said they wouldn't raise their customers' rates, at least not right away. But in 2010 Anthem made national headlines when it hiked premiums as much as 39 percent for thousands of its individual customers in California.
News of the rate hike came just as the congressional debate on health care reform was winding down. At the time, reform advocates were worried that what ultimately came to be known as Obamacare would go down in flames. Some of the Democrats they had been counting on to vote for the bill indicated they were leaning against it. But when news of Anthem's rate hike reached Capitol Hill, many of the wavering Democrats were so outraged they came back into the fold. Had it not been for what was perceived by lawmakers of both parties as Anthem's greed, the Affordable Care Act probably would not have made it to President Barack Obama's desk.
This time around, California's current insurance commissioner, Dave Jones, seems to be taking a similarly dim view of the Anthem-Cigna deal, which has been valued at $54 billion. Although he hasn't come out against it yet or even commented on it specifically, he was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying that, generally, increased consolidation in the health insurance industry has resulted in less competition and higher pricing.
"I do have concerns about the merger activity in the health insurance market," Jones said.
Among the organizations lining up against the Anthem-Cigna and Aetna-Humana deals is the American Medical Association, which for years has studied the effects of insurance industry consolidation.
"We have long cautioned about the negative consequences of large health insurers pursuing merger strategies to assume dominant positions in local markets," the AMA said in a statement last month. "Recently proposed mergers threaten to increase health insurer concentration, reduce competition and decrease choice."
The AMA said that its analysis of insurance markets "shows that there has been a serious decline in competition among health insurers with nearly three out of four metropolitan areas rated as 'highly concentrated' according to federal guidelines used to assess market competition."
The organization's most recent analysis found that in 41 percent of the country's metropolitan areas, a single health insurer controls at least 50 percent of the commercial health insurance market.
The AMA also studied the 2008 acquisition of Nevada-based Sierra Health Services by UnitedHealth Group. It found that premiums increased after that deal was completed by almost 14 percent relative to a control group.
A study published earlier this month in Harvard's Journal of Technology Science, an open-access peer-reviewed online publication, found results similar to the AMA's. Researchers Grace Gee and Eugene Wang found that the largest insurers in each of the states have raised premiums on Obamacare plans 75 percent more than smaller insurers, "even though their costs have not risen more sharply than others."
Let's hope regulators reviewing the proposed deals don't approve them unless they can be certain the past won't be prologue. Otherwise, we can expect that the only winners once again will be a few executives who already make more than most of us can even dream about.
This post was published initially by the Center for Public Integrity. You can find more about Wendell Potter here.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 9 hours ago.
If history is guide, the big winners will be -- you guessed it -- company executives and shareholders. The companies' customers, on the other hand, likely will have the privilege of paying more, not less, for their coverage.
A new study on the effect of health insurance market consolidation and dominance published earlier this month should be required reading by the folks at the Justice Department, who will decide whether the deals should go forward. The study's conclusion: Insurers that bulk up to the point that they can dominate a given market raise rates considerably more than their smaller competitors.
The findings in the study, published in a Harvard-affiliated peer-reviewed journal, are consistent with previous research that has found that consumers usually come out on the short end of the stick when insurers merge. It's an entirely different outcome, though, for the few executives who make the mergers happen.
Even in relatively small deals, executives can engineer jaw-dropping fortunes for themselves. As I wrote last month, while I was still at Cigna, Healthsource CEO Norman Payson pocketed $94 million when Cigna's $1.45 billion acquisition of Healthsource was completed in 1997.
Seven years later, a few WellPoint executives got golden parachutes worth far more than Payson's going-away gift when WellPoint and Anthem merged.
California's insurance commissioner at the time, John Garamendi, now a congressman, blocked the acquisition for a while when it was disclosed that the WellPoint executives would walk away with $600 million from the deal.
He eventually gave the green light to the $20.9 billion transaction when the companies agreed to reduce the compensation package for WellPoint CEO Leonard Schaeffer and a handful of other executives to $265 million. Anthem CEO Larry Glasscock was rewarded with a $42.5 million bonus for closing the deal. When Schaeffer left the company a few months later, in January 2005, his retirement package was valued at $337 million.
To get Garamendi to drop his opposition, the companies said they wouldn't raise their customers' rates, at least not right away. But in 2010 Anthem made national headlines when it hiked premiums as much as 39 percent for thousands of its individual customers in California.
News of the rate hike came just as the congressional debate on health care reform was winding down. At the time, reform advocates were worried that what ultimately came to be known as Obamacare would go down in flames. Some of the Democrats they had been counting on to vote for the bill indicated they were leaning against it. But when news of Anthem's rate hike reached Capitol Hill, many of the wavering Democrats were so outraged they came back into the fold. Had it not been for what was perceived by lawmakers of both parties as Anthem's greed, the Affordable Care Act probably would not have made it to President Barack Obama's desk.
This time around, California's current insurance commissioner, Dave Jones, seems to be taking a similarly dim view of the Anthem-Cigna deal, which has been valued at $54 billion. Although he hasn't come out against it yet or even commented on it specifically, he was quoted by the Los Angeles Times as saying that, generally, increased consolidation in the health insurance industry has resulted in less competition and higher pricing.
"I do have concerns about the merger activity in the health insurance market," Jones said.
Among the organizations lining up against the Anthem-Cigna and Aetna-Humana deals is the American Medical Association, which for years has studied the effects of insurance industry consolidation.
"We have long cautioned about the negative consequences of large health insurers pursuing merger strategies to assume dominant positions in local markets," the AMA said in a statement last month. "Recently proposed mergers threaten to increase health insurer concentration, reduce competition and decrease choice."
The AMA said that its analysis of insurance markets "shows that there has been a serious decline in competition among health insurers with nearly three out of four metropolitan areas rated as 'highly concentrated' according to federal guidelines used to assess market competition."
The organization's most recent analysis found that in 41 percent of the country's metropolitan areas, a single health insurer controls at least 50 percent of the commercial health insurance market.
The AMA also studied the 2008 acquisition of Nevada-based Sierra Health Services by UnitedHealth Group. It found that premiums increased after that deal was completed by almost 14 percent relative to a control group.
A study published earlier this month in Harvard's Journal of Technology Science, an open-access peer-reviewed online publication, found results similar to the AMA's. Researchers Grace Gee and Eugene Wang found that the largest insurers in each of the states have raised premiums on Obamacare plans 75 percent more than smaller insurers, "even though their costs have not risen more sharply than others."
Let's hope regulators reviewing the proposed deals don't approve them unless they can be certain the past won't be prologue. Otherwise, we can expect that the only winners once again will be a few executives who already make more than most of us can even dream about.
This post was published initially by the Center for Public Integrity. You can find more about Wendell Potter here.
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 9 hours ago.
↧
AIMS Private Exchange and Health Partners America Announce Partnership
A new strategic partnership between AIMS and Health Partners America creates a unique alliance that will bring expanded benefits and services to Individual producers and agencies nationwide.
Birmingham, Alabama (PRWEB) August 24, 2015
AIMS Private Exchange, a division of American Insurance Marketing Services, Inc. (AIMS) and Health Partners America (HPA), an industry leading broker support organization, are aligning focus, efforts, and resources to expand our collective marketing presence.
Ashley Aaron, AIMS President and CEO, states “We believe that by collaborating and combining resources we are creating increased value for our agents and partners in form of better service, expanded resources, and technological advancements.”
James Leitner, CEO of Health Partners America states, “To further leverage and better position HPA in the post ACA marketplace, it is more important than ever that we are focused on delivering an outstanding product with excellent customer service. In order to accomplish this and deliver the best possible outcomes for the broker community, we are taking steps to become more closely aligned with AIMS, a recognized leader in broker training and support for over 28 years.”
The mission of both HPA and AIMS has always been to serve the broker community with world class technology and training. This strategic move will help to continue to drive innovative thinking, technology and thought leadership for the industry.
About Health Partners America
Founded in 2007, Health Partners America provides insurance brokers with the tools, training, and technology to help their customers deliver quality health coverage using affordable solutions. Health Partners America has experience in the realms of insurance, private exchanges, technology, and training. Backed by an exchange certified enrollment team, HPA is uniquely equipped to help brokers navigate and adapt to the changes presented in today’s marketplace. HPA provides a broker-friendly private health insurance exchange, allowing advisors to provide custom solutions to employer groups, associations, and other organizations. HPA is an industry leader in supporting and elevating brokers' prosperity through training, tools, and technology. For more information, visit healthpartnersamerica.com. Reported by PRWeb 9 hours ago.
Birmingham, Alabama (PRWEB) August 24, 2015
AIMS Private Exchange, a division of American Insurance Marketing Services, Inc. (AIMS) and Health Partners America (HPA), an industry leading broker support organization, are aligning focus, efforts, and resources to expand our collective marketing presence.
Ashley Aaron, AIMS President and CEO, states “We believe that by collaborating and combining resources we are creating increased value for our agents and partners in form of better service, expanded resources, and technological advancements.”
James Leitner, CEO of Health Partners America states, “To further leverage and better position HPA in the post ACA marketplace, it is more important than ever that we are focused on delivering an outstanding product with excellent customer service. In order to accomplish this and deliver the best possible outcomes for the broker community, we are taking steps to become more closely aligned with AIMS, a recognized leader in broker training and support for over 28 years.”
The mission of both HPA and AIMS has always been to serve the broker community with world class technology and training. This strategic move will help to continue to drive innovative thinking, technology and thought leadership for the industry.
About Health Partners America
Founded in 2007, Health Partners America provides insurance brokers with the tools, training, and technology to help their customers deliver quality health coverage using affordable solutions. Health Partners America has experience in the realms of insurance, private exchanges, technology, and training. Backed by an exchange certified enrollment team, HPA is uniquely equipped to help brokers navigate and adapt to the changes presented in today’s marketplace. HPA provides a broker-friendly private health insurance exchange, allowing advisors to provide custom solutions to employer groups, associations, and other organizations. HPA is an industry leader in supporting and elevating brokers' prosperity through training, tools, and technology. For more information, visit healthpartnersamerica.com. Reported by PRWeb 9 hours ago.
↧
↧
Tardy Tax Filers Risk Losing Health Insurance Subsidies
The next few days are crucial for hundreds of thousands of customers at risk of losing financial aid when they renew coverage for 2016.
Reported by msnbc.com 9 hours ago.
↧
Fed Activists To Highlight Racial Justice At Jackson Hole Conference
Black Lives Matter activists’ interruption of a Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) speech in Seattle earlier this month may have represented a new high in tensions between the movements for economic equality and racial justice -- and a progressive coalition’s agenda for a Federal Reserve conference this week could offer a model of fusion for the two camps.
The Fed Up campaign, a coalition of groups led by the nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy, will converge on Jackson Hole, Wyoming, later this week to urge the Federal Reserve to be more responsive to the needs of American workers. In doing so, it will focus on both “economic and racial inequality,” campaign director Ady Barkan told reporters on a Monday press call previewing the campaign’s plans.
The gathering is aimed at influencing Fed officials attending the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole symposium.
A major theme of Fed Up's parallel conference on Thursday and Friday will be “Whose Recovery,” based on the premise that the economic recovery has yet to reach many workers, particularly those of color. They note that the official African-American unemployment rate -- 9.1 percent -- is much higher than the 5.3 percent rate for the overall population.
“Although there has been a strong recovery for Wall Street, that recovery has not reached Main Street,” Barkan said. At Jackson Hole, Barkan said, “We will be asking not only, ‘Whose recovery is this?’ but also, ‘Whose Federal Reserve is this?’”** **
The Fed Up campaign’s immediate goal is to stop an interest rate hike that would slow economic growth, which it says would disproportionately hurt people of color. The Federal Reserve has indicated it will raise interest rates in September, though some economic analysts are speculating that Monday’s stock market slide and turmoil in emerging-market economies will give the central bank pause. Over the longer term, Fed Up hopes to reform the selection process for regional Federal Reserve bank presidents, which it believes currently reflects the interests of financial elites more than the broader public.
(For more on the Fed Up campaign's efforts and the broader debate over monetary policy, head over here.)
Fed Up will bring an estimated 50 low-income workers and representatives of communities of color from across the country to the Jackson Hole gathering -- an increase from the 10 activists it brought last year.
“We see racial justice and racial economic equality as part of the same agenda," Barkan added, referencing the persistent racial disparity in employment.** **
The campaign has reserved conference rooms where activists will hold “teach-ins” making the case for monetary policy that prioritizes full employment and wage growth, and plan to share their views in informal conversations with Fed officials and members of the media.
The activists will also deliver to Fed officials an as-yet-undetermined number of petition signatures opposing an interest rate hike absent greater wage growth. Last year, Fed Up amassed 10,000 signatures for a similar petition, but this year it hopes to submit a much larger number thanks to the campaign’s collaboration with progressive online heavyweights CREDO Action, Daily Kos and Working Families Party, and a promotional video from popular liberal economist Robert Reich that has already been viewed over 150,000 times.
Asked whether Fed Up planned any public and potentially disruptive protests at the Jackson Hole gathering, Barkan refused to disclose any specific plans, but did not rule them out either.
While Fed Up since its inception has focused on the disproportionate impact of Federal Reserve interest rates on people of color, its events at Jackson Hole this year explicitly appeal to the themes of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has gained steam since last year’s conference. The campaign will host back-to-back teach-ins entitled “Do Black Lives Matter To The Federal Reserve?” on Thursday and Friday that Barkan said will explain how a “weak economy causes racial discrimination and disparities.” The sessions will be organized by activists from the St. Louis and Wichita, Kansas, metropolitan areas, many of whom have also been active in protests against police mistreatment of, and use of force against, black people.** **
Barkan said that because Black Lives Matter is not a centralized movement, however, it has no formal affiliation with Fed Up.** **Dawn O’Neal and Keesha Moore, two African-American rank-and-file Fed Up activists who are attending the Jackson Hole gathering, shared their reasons for lobbying the Fed.
O’Neal described the challenges of earning just $8.50 an hour as a teaching assistant for 3-year-old children in Dekalb County, Georgia, just outside Atlanta. Her husband is unemployed and stands in line at 5 a.m. every day for odd construction jobs at a local gathering point for day laborers. If her husband is lucky, he is one of 30 or 40 men among a group of 300 predominantly black men to be chosen for work that pays roughly the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.** **They lack health insurance and must choose which bills to pay at the end of every month.
“When the Fed says the economy is recovering, I do not see recovery in my community. I see the struggle of my neighbors, lines of people looking for work, people trying to make ends meet on McDonald’s salaries,” O’Neill said Monday on the press call. “I do not think those at the Fed know how life is here in South Dekalb county when they say the economy is recovering.”** **
Moore, a 36-year-old single mother of four in Philadelphia, described her dogged and disheartening search for work after being laid off as a data entry specialist seven months ago. She lamented a Catch-22 of job hunting: Getting a good job often requires a car, and she will only be able to afford a car when she has a job.
Moore suspects that being African American has impeded her job search. “They always ask me when I apply what my race is,” Moore said. “I am not quite sure what that has to do with getting a job.”
Moore, like O’Neal, wants to tell the Fed about her community’s urgent need for more jobs and “fair” wages.Fed Up and its allies say even a modest interest rate hike will slow down a job market that is already inadequate for the size of the population and has yet to produce significant wage growth. That would disproportionately hurt people of color, who are already more likely to be out of work, and often experience discrimination in hiring that they are more likely to overcome in a high-demand economy supported by low interest rates.
Proponents of a Federal Reserve interest rate increase, which include many Fed officials, center-right economists and politicians, argue that rates must rise to prevent excessive price and asset inflation. And some economists are also expressing concerns that prolonged low interest rates will limit the Fed’s ability to stimulate the economy by cutting rates if and when a significant slowdown occurs, The Wall Street Journal reported on August 17.
The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, which is hosting the Jackson Hole symposium that Fed Up is targeting, is aware of the planned counter-conference, Barkan said, but has not expressed opinions about it. Fed Up’s actions last year led to a meeting between activists and Kansas City Fed president Esther George.
Barkan said that Atlanta Fed president Dennis Lockhart had expressed interest in attending Fed Up’s sessions, but as of Monday evening, Lockhart had yet to confirm his plans to HuffPost.** **
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 3 hours ago.
The Fed Up campaign, a coalition of groups led by the nonprofit Center for Popular Democracy, will converge on Jackson Hole, Wyoming, later this week to urge the Federal Reserve to be more responsive to the needs of American workers. In doing so, it will focus on both “economic and racial inequality,” campaign director Ady Barkan told reporters on a Monday press call previewing the campaign’s plans.
The gathering is aimed at influencing Fed officials attending the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole symposium.
A major theme of Fed Up's parallel conference on Thursday and Friday will be “Whose Recovery,” based on the premise that the economic recovery has yet to reach many workers, particularly those of color. They note that the official African-American unemployment rate -- 9.1 percent -- is much higher than the 5.3 percent rate for the overall population.
“Although there has been a strong recovery for Wall Street, that recovery has not reached Main Street,” Barkan said. At Jackson Hole, Barkan said, “We will be asking not only, ‘Whose recovery is this?’ but also, ‘Whose Federal Reserve is this?’”** **
The Fed Up campaign’s immediate goal is to stop an interest rate hike that would slow economic growth, which it says would disproportionately hurt people of color. The Federal Reserve has indicated it will raise interest rates in September, though some economic analysts are speculating that Monday’s stock market slide and turmoil in emerging-market economies will give the central bank pause. Over the longer term, Fed Up hopes to reform the selection process for regional Federal Reserve bank presidents, which it believes currently reflects the interests of financial elites more than the broader public.
(For more on the Fed Up campaign's efforts and the broader debate over monetary policy, head over here.)
Fed Up will bring an estimated 50 low-income workers and representatives of communities of color from across the country to the Jackson Hole gathering -- an increase from the 10 activists it brought last year.
“We see racial justice and racial economic equality as part of the same agenda," Barkan added, referencing the persistent racial disparity in employment.** **
The campaign has reserved conference rooms where activists will hold “teach-ins” making the case for monetary policy that prioritizes full employment and wage growth, and plan to share their views in informal conversations with Fed officials and members of the media.
The activists will also deliver to Fed officials an as-yet-undetermined number of petition signatures opposing an interest rate hike absent greater wage growth. Last year, Fed Up amassed 10,000 signatures for a similar petition, but this year it hopes to submit a much larger number thanks to the campaign’s collaboration with progressive online heavyweights CREDO Action, Daily Kos and Working Families Party, and a promotional video from popular liberal economist Robert Reich that has already been viewed over 150,000 times.
Asked whether Fed Up planned any public and potentially disruptive protests at the Jackson Hole gathering, Barkan refused to disclose any specific plans, but did not rule them out either.
While Fed Up since its inception has focused on the disproportionate impact of Federal Reserve interest rates on people of color, its events at Jackson Hole this year explicitly appeal to the themes of the Black Lives Matter movement, which has gained steam since last year’s conference. The campaign will host back-to-back teach-ins entitled “Do Black Lives Matter To The Federal Reserve?” on Thursday and Friday that Barkan said will explain how a “weak economy causes racial discrimination and disparities.” The sessions will be organized by activists from the St. Louis and Wichita, Kansas, metropolitan areas, many of whom have also been active in protests against police mistreatment of, and use of force against, black people.** **
Barkan said that because Black Lives Matter is not a centralized movement, however, it has no formal affiliation with Fed Up.** **Dawn O’Neal and Keesha Moore, two African-American rank-and-file Fed Up activists who are attending the Jackson Hole gathering, shared their reasons for lobbying the Fed.
O’Neal described the challenges of earning just $8.50 an hour as a teaching assistant for 3-year-old children in Dekalb County, Georgia, just outside Atlanta. Her husband is unemployed and stands in line at 5 a.m. every day for odd construction jobs at a local gathering point for day laborers. If her husband is lucky, he is one of 30 or 40 men among a group of 300 predominantly black men to be chosen for work that pays roughly the federal minimum wage of $7.25 an hour.** **They lack health insurance and must choose which bills to pay at the end of every month.
“When the Fed says the economy is recovering, I do not see recovery in my community. I see the struggle of my neighbors, lines of people looking for work, people trying to make ends meet on McDonald’s salaries,” O’Neill said Monday on the press call. “I do not think those at the Fed know how life is here in South Dekalb county when they say the economy is recovering.”** **
Moore, a 36-year-old single mother of four in Philadelphia, described her dogged and disheartening search for work after being laid off as a data entry specialist seven months ago. She lamented a Catch-22 of job hunting: Getting a good job often requires a car, and she will only be able to afford a car when she has a job.
Moore suspects that being African American has impeded her job search. “They always ask me when I apply what my race is,” Moore said. “I am not quite sure what that has to do with getting a job.”
Moore, like O’Neal, wants to tell the Fed about her community’s urgent need for more jobs and “fair” wages.Fed Up and its allies say even a modest interest rate hike will slow down a job market that is already inadequate for the size of the population and has yet to produce significant wage growth. That would disproportionately hurt people of color, who are already more likely to be out of work, and often experience discrimination in hiring that they are more likely to overcome in a high-demand economy supported by low interest rates.
Proponents of a Federal Reserve interest rate increase, which include many Fed officials, center-right economists and politicians, argue that rates must rise to prevent excessive price and asset inflation. And some economists are also expressing concerns that prolonged low interest rates will limit the Fed’s ability to stimulate the economy by cutting rates if and when a significant slowdown occurs, The Wall Street Journal reported on August 17.
The Kansas City Federal Reserve Bank, which is hosting the Jackson Hole symposium that Fed Up is targeting, is aware of the planned counter-conference, Barkan said, but has not expressed opinions about it. Fed Up’s actions last year led to a meeting between activists and Kansas City Fed president Esther George.
Barkan said that Atlanta Fed president Dennis Lockhart had expressed interest in attending Fed Up’s sessions, but as of Monday evening, Lockhart had yet to confirm his plans to HuffPost.** **
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 3 hours ago.
↧
Crawford Advisors Webinar: ACA Medicaid Expansion & Medicaid Migration - Increasing Coverages While Reducing Employer Costs
In this free HRCI Preapproved* webinar, attendees will learn about ACA Medicaid Expansion and the potential impact on employee coverages and employer plans.
Hunt Valley, MD (PRWEB) August 25, 2015
Join Crawford Advisors for this complimentary one hour, HRCI pre-approved webinar* and learn about ACA Medicaid Expansion and the potential impact on employee coverages and employer plans. Most employers are unaware of the benefits available to help lower-wage employees and their families, who might not be able to afford health insurance. Medicaid can provide these employees access to free comprehensive health care, at a much lower cost than private sector plans. Employers participating in Medicaid Migration programs can also reduce health plan costs and ensure ACA compliance. Employers that migrate low-wage workers to Medicaid can realize a healthier, more productive workforce and an improved bottom line. Topics include:· Qualification criteria for Medicaid Migration
· Helping low low-wage employees sign up
· Educating employees about their health care options
· Determining if employees are eligible for other benefits (food stamps, a free phone, etc.)
Thursday, Sep 10, 2015 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EDT
Click here to register
· This webinar has been approved for 1 HR General recertification credit hour toward California, GPHR, HRBP, HRMP, PHR, and SPHR recertification through the HR Certification Institute. The use of this seal is not an endorsement by HRCI, it means that this activity has met the HR Certification Institute’s criteria to be pre-approved for recertification credit.
Open to all HR professionals - but not brokers, agents, TPAs, PEOs
About Crawford Advisors
Crawford Advisors, LLC is a nationally recognized employee benefits consulting, brokerage and administration firm specializing in the design and implementation of employee health and welfare benefit plans. Assisting its top‐tier clients to drive a greater return on investment, Crawford’s full-service approach delivers consulting and administrative solutions that eliminate paperwork, manage compliance risk, increase recruiting power and reduce health care costs. For more information, visit crawfordadvisors.com. Reported by PRWeb 1 day ago.
Hunt Valley, MD (PRWEB) August 25, 2015
Join Crawford Advisors for this complimentary one hour, HRCI pre-approved webinar* and learn about ACA Medicaid Expansion and the potential impact on employee coverages and employer plans. Most employers are unaware of the benefits available to help lower-wage employees and their families, who might not be able to afford health insurance. Medicaid can provide these employees access to free comprehensive health care, at a much lower cost than private sector plans. Employers participating in Medicaid Migration programs can also reduce health plan costs and ensure ACA compliance. Employers that migrate low-wage workers to Medicaid can realize a healthier, more productive workforce and an improved bottom line. Topics include:· Qualification criteria for Medicaid Migration
· Helping low low-wage employees sign up
· Educating employees about their health care options
· Determining if employees are eligible for other benefits (food stamps, a free phone, etc.)
Thursday, Sep 10, 2015 12:00 PM - 1:00 PM EDT
Click here to register
· This webinar has been approved for 1 HR General recertification credit hour toward California, GPHR, HRBP, HRMP, PHR, and SPHR recertification through the HR Certification Institute. The use of this seal is not an endorsement by HRCI, it means that this activity has met the HR Certification Institute’s criteria to be pre-approved for recertification credit.
Open to all HR professionals - but not brokers, agents, TPAs, PEOs
About Crawford Advisors
Crawford Advisors, LLC is a nationally recognized employee benefits consulting, brokerage and administration firm specializing in the design and implementation of employee health and welfare benefit plans. Assisting its top‐tier clients to drive a greater return on investment, Crawford’s full-service approach delivers consulting and administrative solutions that eliminate paperwork, manage compliance risk, increase recruiting power and reduce health care costs. For more information, visit crawfordadvisors.com. Reported by PRWeb 1 day ago.
↧
National Survey Reveals More Consumers Using Alternative Sources for Health Insurance Coverage
CHICAGO--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Valence Health released new research underscoring the impact industry reform has had on increasing consumer choice for health insurance, encouraging people to assume ownership of their healthcare.
Reported by Business Wire 1 day ago.
↧
↧
The Upsurge in Uncertain Work
As Labor Day looms, more Americans than ever don't know how much they'll be earning next week or even tomorrow.This varied group includes independent contractors, temporary workers, the self-employed, part-timers, freelancers, and free agents. Most file 1099s rather than W2s, for tax purposes.On demand and on call -- in the "share" economy, the "gig" economy, or, more prosaically, the "irregular" economy -- the result is the same: no predictable earnings or hours.It's the biggest change in the American workforce in over a century, and it's happening at lightening speed. It's estimated that in five years over 40 percent of the American labor force will have uncertain work; in a decade, most of us.Increasingly, businesses need only a relatively small pool of "talent" anchored in the enterprise -- innovators and strategists responsible for the firm's unique competitive strength.Everyone else is becoming fungible, sought only for their reliability and low cost.Complex algorithms can now determine who's needed to do what and when, and then measure the quality of what's produced. Reliability can be measured in experience ratings. Software can seamlessly handle all transactions -- contracts, billing, payments, taxes.All this allows businesses to be highly nimble -- immediately responsive to changes in consumer preferences, overall demand, and technologies.While shifting all the risks of such changes to workers.Whether we're software programmers, journalists, Uber drivers, stenographers, child care workers, TaskRabbits, beauticians, plumbers, Airbnb'rs, adjunct professors, or contract nurses -- increasingly, we're on our own.And what we're paid, here and now, depends on what we're worth here and now -- in a spot-auction market that's rapidly substituting for the old labor market where people held jobs that paid regular salaries and wages.Even giant corporations are devolving into spot-auction networks. Amazon's algorithms evaluate and pay workers for exactly what they contribute.Apple directly employs fewer than 10 percent of the 1 million workers who design, make and sell iMacs and iPhones.This giant risk-shift doesn't necessarily mean lower pay. Contract workers typically make around $18 an hour, comparable to what they earned as "employees."Uber and other ride-share drivers earn around $25 per hour, more than double what the typical taxi driver takes home.The problem is workers don't know when they'll earn it. A downturn in demand, or sudden change in consumer needs, or a personal injury or sickness, can make it impossible to pay the bills.So they have to take whatever they can get, now: ride-shares in mornings and evenings, temp jobs on weekdays, freelance projects on weekends, Mechanical Turk or TaskRabbit tasks in between.Which partly explains why Americans are putting in such long work hours -- longer than in any other advanced economy.And why we're so stressed. According to polls, almost a quarter of American workers worry they won't be earning enough in the future. That's up from 15 percent a decade ago.Irregular hours can also take a mental toll. Studies show people who do irregular work for a decade suffer an average cognitive decline of 6.5 years relative people with regular hours.Such uncertainty can be hard on families, too. Children of parents working unpredictable schedules or outside standard daytime working hours are likely to have lower cognitive skills and more behavioral problems, according to new research.For all these reasons, the upsurge in uncertain work makes the old economic measures -- unemployment and income -- look far better than Americans actually feel.It also renders irrelevant many labor protections such as the minimum wage, worker safety, family and medical leave, and overtime -- because there's no clear "employer."And for the same reason eliminates employer-financed insurance -- Social Security, workers compensation, unemployment benefits, and employer-provided health insurance under the Affordable Care Act.What to do? Courts are overflowing with lawsuits over whether companies have misclassified "employees" as "independent contractors," resulting in a profusion of criteria and definitions.We should aim instead for simplicity: Whatever party -- contractor, client, customer, agent, or intermediary -- pays more than half of someone's income, or provides more than half their working hours, should be responsible for all the labor protections and insurance an employee is entitled to.Presumably that party will share those costs and risks with its own clients, customers, owners, and investors. Which is the real point -- to take these risks off the backs of individuals and spread them as widely as possible.In addition, to restore some certainty to peoples' lives, we'll need to move away from unemployment insurance and toward income insurance.Say, for example, your monthly income dips more than 50 percent below the average monthly income you've received from all the jobs you've taken over the preceding five years. Under one form of income insurance, you'd automatically receive half the difference for up to a year.But that's not all. Ultimately, we'll need a guaranteed minimum basic income. But I'll save this for another column.
ROBERT B. REICH's film "Inequality for All" is now available on DVD and blu-ray, and on Netflix. Watch the trailer below:
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 23 hours ago.
ROBERT B. REICH's film "Inequality for All" is now available on DVD and blu-ray, and on Netflix. Watch the trailer below:
-- This feed and its contents are the property of The Huffington Post, and use is subject to our terms. It may be used for personal consumption, but may not be distributed on a website. Reported by Huffington Post 23 hours ago.
↧
For ACA plans, narrow networks cluster in the Triangle
When compared with the rest of the state – and most areas in the nation – Affordable Care Act health insurance plans cluster more heavily in narrow networks in the Triangle. The report, published by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, comes on the heels of Blue Cross and Blue Shield of North Carolina disclosing that it lost $123 million on these ACA plans last year and has requested a nearly 35 percent rate increase for next year. In an effort to reduce costs, Blue Cross said it would look…
Reported by bizjournals 19 hours ago.
↧
Black Monday's Market Spared Few Insurance Stocks According to SNL Insurance Report
Insurance stocks were not immune from the market carnage on Aug. 24, with the overwhelming majority of Nasdaq- and NYSE-traded underwriters seeing red. Only a handful of stocks managed to eke out gains, among them Kingsway Financial Services Inc. and Citizens Inc.
(PRWEB) August 25, 2015
According to analysis from SNL today, insurance stocks were not immune from the market carnage on Aug. 24, with the overwhelming majority of Nasdaq- and NYSE-traded underwriters seeing red.
Some of the largest companies in the sector took a drubbing, including UnitedHealth Group Inc., which is a Dow Jones Industrial Average component. The health insurance giant lost roughly 5% on the day, leading the so-called Big Five managed care companies downward. Cigna Corp., Aetna Inc., Anthem Inc. and Humana Inc. saw declines of 4.9%, 4.3%, 4.1% and 3.6%, respectively.
Still, many of these stocks have gained year-to-date, amid a flurry of consolidation within the group. Even with the Aug. 24 sell-off, Aetna and Humana (which have agreed to merge) were up more than 20% each for the year, and Anthem and Cigna (which also have agreed to merge) were 11.9% and 31.9% higher, respectively.
Only a handful of stocks managed to eke out gains, among them Kingsway Financial Services Inc. and Citizens Inc. But even those gains were slight. A number of buyout targets also seemed to have less pain inflicted upon them, such as PartnerRe Ltd., which was down only about 0.5% to $137.55 per share. PartnerRe agreed to an all-cash deal with Exor SpA that values the company at $137.50 per share.
True to form, the 10 companies with relatively high amounts of beta saw, on average, steeper drops than the 10 with the lowest amounts of beta. American Independence Corp., which actually has a negative correlation with the S&P 500, was down only 0.4% during the session. Beta is a generally accepted measure of a volatility of a given stock, and is based on its correlation with a benchmark return over a given time period.
The market did not seem to discriminate in terms of forward earnings, however, based on SNL's analysis. The 10 companies with the lowest 2016 price-to-earnings ratios, based on estimates collected by FactSet, seemed to be hit, on average, just as hard as the list of the 10 companies with the highest P/E ratios. For the purposes of this analysis, SNL limited the companies under observation to those having at least three analyst estimates. The average decline for the high-estimate group was roughly 4.3%, compared with 4.5% for the low-estimate group. In light of this, it might be that investors merely hit the panic button, rather than having any determined motivation to sell off stocks with higher price tags relative to future earnings. Reported by PRWeb 18 hours ago.
(PRWEB) August 25, 2015
According to analysis from SNL today, insurance stocks were not immune from the market carnage on Aug. 24, with the overwhelming majority of Nasdaq- and NYSE-traded underwriters seeing red.
Some of the largest companies in the sector took a drubbing, including UnitedHealth Group Inc., which is a Dow Jones Industrial Average component. The health insurance giant lost roughly 5% on the day, leading the so-called Big Five managed care companies downward. Cigna Corp., Aetna Inc., Anthem Inc. and Humana Inc. saw declines of 4.9%, 4.3%, 4.1% and 3.6%, respectively.
Still, many of these stocks have gained year-to-date, amid a flurry of consolidation within the group. Even with the Aug. 24 sell-off, Aetna and Humana (which have agreed to merge) were up more than 20% each for the year, and Anthem and Cigna (which also have agreed to merge) were 11.9% and 31.9% higher, respectively.
Only a handful of stocks managed to eke out gains, among them Kingsway Financial Services Inc. and Citizens Inc. But even those gains were slight. A number of buyout targets also seemed to have less pain inflicted upon them, such as PartnerRe Ltd., which was down only about 0.5% to $137.55 per share. PartnerRe agreed to an all-cash deal with Exor SpA that values the company at $137.50 per share.
True to form, the 10 companies with relatively high amounts of beta saw, on average, steeper drops than the 10 with the lowest amounts of beta. American Independence Corp., which actually has a negative correlation with the S&P 500, was down only 0.4% during the session. Beta is a generally accepted measure of a volatility of a given stock, and is based on its correlation with a benchmark return over a given time period.
The market did not seem to discriminate in terms of forward earnings, however, based on SNL's analysis. The 10 companies with the lowest 2016 price-to-earnings ratios, based on estimates collected by FactSet, seemed to be hit, on average, just as hard as the list of the 10 companies with the highest P/E ratios. For the purposes of this analysis, SNL limited the companies under observation to those having at least three analyst estimates. The average decline for the high-estimate group was roughly 4.3%, compared with 4.5% for the low-estimate group. In light of this, it might be that investors merely hit the panic button, rather than having any determined motivation to sell off stocks with higher price tags relative to future earnings. Reported by PRWeb 18 hours ago.
↧
More Pages to Explore .....
