http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politic...udy-says-video
First, President Obama had to backtrack from his promise that if you like your health insurance plan, under Obamacare "you can keep it." Now, a new study is suggesting that, under Obamacare, "If you like your workweek, you can’t necessarily keep it, either."
The moves are part of a bid to control health-care expenses, and they are a sign of how the Affordable Care Act (ACA), which was designed to greatly expand the number of Americans who have health insurance, could be having some unintended consequences in the job market.
A key Obamacare incentive is an “employer mandate” that asks businesses to sponsor health insurance (or pay a penalty) if they have more than 50 full-time employees. It defines a full-time worker as one serving 30 or more hours per week. So a firm can avoid the mandate by having fewer than 50 people working full-time.
Although the provision won’t be enforced until 2015, some employers with 40 to 500 workers have already started adjusting for the new landscape, the survey by Public Opinion Strategies found:
Some 31 percent of franchise businesses and 12 percent of non-franchise businesses say they have already reduced worker hours because of the law.
About 27 percent of franchise businesses and 12 percent of non-franchise businesses have already replaced full-time workers with part-time employees because of the law.
Some 41 percent of the non-franchise firms say they already see health-care costs rising because of the law.
As the franchise firms look toward the future, 28 percent of them say they’ll stop offering health coverage in 2015 because of the law. One-third of franchise businesses already do not offer health insurance.
The poll arrives as Obamacare is already under attack for the botched rollout of its enrollment website, HealthCare.gov, and for insurance cancellations despite Mr. Obama’s pledge that if you like your health plan “you can keep it.”
“Instead of providing affordable health care coverage to employees, the law will effectively take hours and wages away from Americans who need and want full-time jobs,” said Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce, in a statement accompanying the study. “That’s bad for businesses and their employees.”
It’s less clear, however, if the law is bad for workers’ health coverage.
Employers in some industries such as the restaurant business may feel pressed to follow suit when compe ors drop health benefits. But in some cases, workers will gain access to Obamacare subsidies and be able to get coverage with much stronger benefits than their employer had been offering.
Basically, the ACA is a law that hinges on two “mandates,” one for individuals and one for employers. It calls on all individuals to have health insurance starting next year, or to pay a tax penalty. And come 2015, the “employer mandate” kicks in for firms with more than 50 full-time employees.
The poll surveyed more than 400 businesses with 40 to 500 employees – the ones most likely to be affected by the ACA. About half were franchises such as restaurant chains, and half were non-franchise businesses.
The number of firms polled is small relative to the vast and varied realm of US employers. Pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies told reporters he’s “comfortable” that his sample represents the “known universe” of firms in this size range.
Citing the challenge that the 30-hour cutoff represents for worker paychecks, the business groups that sponsored the poll are supporting legislation to lift the definition of a “full-time” week to 40 hours.
They say it will help more workers get ample paychecks. Critics of the idea say the move could still prompt firms to cut work hours to avoid the employer mandate, with the effects falling on people who currently work about 40 hours per week.
"the law will effectively take hours and wages away from Americans who need and want full-time jobs,” said Bruce Josten, executive vice president for government affairs at the US Chamber of Commerce, in a statement accompanying the study"
US CoC?
studies have shown that the 30 hour cutoff will have negligible effect. Walmart, in the ACA context, is actually increasing benefits.
Arch-Liberal, Piers Morgan Unleashes Three Anti-Obama Tweets in a Row –
Says More People Signed a Pe ion to Have Him Deported Than Have Signed Up for Obamacare!
Within the last 24 hours, the arch-liberal MSNBC anchor, Piers Morgan, has unleashed a three-tweet barrage attacking Barack Obama’s credibility and the breathtaking inep ude with which Obamacare’s rollout has been executed. Piers Morgan even condemned Obama’s epic fail of a press conference today too!
Here are the three tweets you have to read to believe!
Considerably more Americans signed a pe ion to have me deported, than enrolled for Obamacare. I'd start panicking, Mr President...I actually agree with the principle of #Obamacare - but the implementation's been an utter disaster, as was that press conference."I said I wasn't perfect" - President Obama finally thinks of a promise he hasn't broken to the American 'folks'. Good grief, this is awful.
See more at: http://www.libertynews.com/2013/11/a....KLKpHkIg.dpuf
I guess Obama's press conference today didn't win people over.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/1...n_4275571.html
Shorter Obama: "I don't know what's going on in the executive branch. I'm just the president."
Ouch, even firedoglake is piling on.
http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/201...-law/#comments
President Obama delivered a very apologetic presser today on the problems with the Affordable Care Act, but the most remarkable moment was when Obama basically admitted he never really understood how his signature law would actually work.
He claims to have only realized in the past few weeks that buying insurance on an exchange is an inherently complicated and often confusing process. From Obama [7:00]:
But even if we get the hardware and software working exactly the way it’s supposed to, with relatively minor glitches, what we’re also discovering is that, you know, insurance is complicated to buy. And another mistake that we made, I think, was underestimating the difficulties of people purchasing insurance online and shopping for a lot of options, with a lot of costs and a lot of different benefits and plans, and somehow expecting that that would be very smooth, and then they’ve also got to try to apply for tax credits on the website. [...]
Because the bottom line, ultimately, is I just want people to know what their options are in a clear way. And, you know, buying health insurance is never going to be like buying a song on iTunes. You know, it’s just a much more complicated transaction. But I think we can continue to make it better.
This is truly remarkable admission. One of Obama’s big promises in selling his law to the public was that it would make buying insurance insanely easy. It is a promise he repeated all the time and seemed to really believe.
For example, just six weeks ago Obama was still claiming the exchange would make buying insurance basically as easy as getting a song on iTunes. He said this about the launch of the site last month:
Just visit healthcare.gov, and there you can compare insurance plans, side by side, the same way you’d shop for a plane ticket on Kayak or a TV on Amazon. You enter some basic information, you’ll be presented with a list of quality, affordable plans that are available in your area, with clear descriptions of what each plan covers, and what it will cost. You’ll find more choices, more compe ion, and in many cases, lower prices — most uninsured Americans will find that they can get covered for $100 or less.
This is not a small mistake or another too rosy promise. This basic concept is the foundation of the law.
The idea private insurance exchanges will magically drive down price and improve quality through compe ion was based on the assumption that buying insurance could be made so incredibly simple that almost everyone would be able figure out which plan was best for them. For this kind of compe ion even theoretically to work the consumers needed to understand trade offs with the all the different options. If you can’t buy insurance extremely simple the whole concept won’t deliver.
One of the main reasons I had so little faith in the supposed promise of these exchanges is because I know ACA wouldn’t make this process simple enough. This is why even in countries that use a system that appears to resemble the basic design of ACA, such as Switzerland, they require extreme plan standardization.
Obama didn’t just admit he never fully understood his signature law, he seems to indirectly acknowledge that the whole thing is conceptually flawed.
"But, but, it'll get better and become more popular, because Team Blue said so!"
I thought the mainstream media just sucked down whatever Obama served up?
^^ They normally do. They also did for Bush in his first term, then 2nd term it was almost open season. They won't go after Obama the way they should, but it's hilarious to see them apply a little pressure, even if just pretend or for some ratings. lol
"buying insurance on an exchange is an inherently complicated and often confusing process."
US health care has been a HUGE CLUSTER of a KLUDGEOCRACY for decades.
No surprise that any attempt to improve it like ACA, written by an for-profit insurance exec/lobbyist, HAD TO BE A MATCHING KLUDGEOCRACY and had to be ed up by the scorched-earth sabotage by the Repugs and tea baggers.
the ONLY solution is a no-profit, government insurance option that EVERYBODY pays into out of earned AND unearned income, and that covers EVERYBODY. As simple and hyper-efficient as SS. No annually renewable, super-complicated incomprehensible super-fine-print-gotcha multi-page lawyer-speak contracts.
BD has some good points here, once you wade through the craziness. Just imagine if businesses didn't have to worry about health care? It's not a big leap to say that they would be able to invest more and raise wages. Frankly, I still don't understand why big business doesn't support a universal system. It would be nothing but beneficial for them
It's also worth noting that a single payer system wouldn't destroy private health care. The upper middle class and the rich would ensure a thriving continuation of non-government en ies.
Having said that, I think those who keep yelling "ACA will inevitably lead to a single-payer system" are ignoring the possibility that Obamacare will be (is?) such a massive disaster (which is where I'm leaning right now) that the country will seize up and head back in the other direction. Not only will it do a lot of damage to the Dem party (lol), but it will give Republicans (lol) tons of ammo to enact legislation which will put even more money back into the coffers of slimy, profit hungry healthcare corporations.
This whole saga further underlines how our two-party system has failed us. Both parties are too busy trying to line the pockets of their overseers instead of doing what is right for the country (iow, universal healthcare)
"single payer system wouldn't destroy private health care"
single payer would still pay to for-profit medical care, and would reduce but not destroy for-profit insurance which would be limited to complimentary, top-up, 5-star policies beyond the govt insurance.
but even better would be a govt health care provider, in direct compe ion with for-profit health care, with salaried doctors (not the current fee-for-service racket) and non-profit facilities with complete, primary emphasis on health outcomes, not on health revenue and profits and capitalist enrichment.
govt doctors would get free medical primary care education in return for 25 years govt employment, much like the military getting free room, board, education, and health care in return for service.
and the REPUG CORPORATE-WELFARE REGULATION that govt cannot negotiate for lower prices for BigPharma/BigDevice products must be killed.
The govt as SINGLE BUYER will screw down the suppliers to reasonable prices and margins.
"Obamacare will be (is?) such a massive disaster"
bull , they'll make it work. When the dust settles, Ms of poor and lower-middle class and pre-condition victims on expanded Medicaid rules in blue states will live better, live longer with less health care (early detection) and less (life long) govt disability. Humanitarian ACA will not be dropped to return to the current Randian/capitalist rip-off racket.
the two-party system is ok, the UCA/1%, whose $$$ count much more than Human-Americans' votes, owning Congress and the Exec is the root problem.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 11-15-2013 at 07:24 AM.
Romney-Obamacare in 5 gifs -->>
ObamaCare Cluster : No, Obama, you're not "stupid." You're pissy, arrogant, and an Emperor with no clothes -->>
Now I know why the Republicans haven't impeached this guy: He's doing their work for them too well. The Democrats had better get Obama out of offfice or he's going to cost them 2014 and 2016
Death Spiral
Administration: HealthCare.gov Really Is Getting Better
The Obama administration has said that HealthCare.gov will be "working smoothly for the vast majority of users" by the end of November. They've brought in Jeff Zients, a former corporate executive, to save the ailing website from its disastrous launch.
So how are they doing?
They're making serious progress, Zients said on a Friday conference call with reporters.
The administration is judging its improvement by two metrics, Zients said: the website's response times and its error rates. In other words, how long it takes a page to load for users and how often users encounter a crash or error page.
In both areas, Zients reported, HealthCare.gov is improving exponentially.
When the site launched, pages were taking an average of eight seconds to load. Now, Zients said, the average is less than one second.
The average error rate in the weeks after the site's launch was 6 percent, Zients said; as of this week, it's now below 1 percent.
To top it off, the site didn't experience any scheduled or unscheduled outages this week -- a notable achievement after the opening six weeks.
"We've made measurable progress," Zients said. "The system is more stable, and users are having a better user experience on the site."
Tally it all up, and the administration has crossed 200 bug fixes off its oft-mentioned "punch list" -- about 50 "priority fixes" to go, Zients said, though he cautioned that more issues could arise as traffic increases.
The problem of volume continues to be a top concern for the administration, Zients said. Right now, HealthCare.gov can comfortably handle between 20,000 and 25,000 users at a time. But at "peak volumes, some users still experience slower response times," he said.
Officials are also expecting traffic to e at the end of the month and onward. So this weekend, the administration is adding more servers and data storage to help handle any additional load.
The goal is "to maintain good speed and response times at higher volumes," Zients said. "This is a key focus of our work now."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/here...v-has-improved
Students at a historically black Maryland university spoke out this week against President Barack Obama’s signature health care law after the school announced it had cancelled a student insurance policy because of the Affordable Care Act’s regulations.
“It’s stupid and it’s Obama’s fault,” one Bowie State University student told website Campus Reform Thursday. “You haven’t done anything, Obama, and I’m disappointed in you.”
The historically black school had previously provided coverage to students for $50 per semester, but stopped and placed blame on Obamacare.
“I can’t afford anything right now,” one student said. “I can’t even afford my loans.”
“We don’t have that money,” another said. “We can barely afford books.”
Students at Bowie state decry Obamacare after canceled plans
Conan: President Obama Tries To Explain Obamacare Without a Teleprompter
totally ignorant interviewees
totally biased, hit job interviewer. ACA $3000/year for college students? if they have parents, the are covered under their parents plan to age 26.
more bull propaganda from SA210
So their plans didn't get canceled?
you assume they had plans. who are "they", the students or their parents?
Beneath the Headlines on HealthCare.gov
A few days ago I was speaking to some folks on the inside of the effort to get HealthCare.gov working. Their take on the much-discussed Post piece stating that the site was likely not to be ready by December 1st was that it mistook how any site works. Not that it was wrong per se but was too binary in its take. It's not like a car where you put your key in the ignition and it starts or it doesn't. It's an inherently incremental and iterative process - which at least as a general matter is true with any website, large or small, especially large.
The piece out in the Post today is another case of a headline giving a somewhat misleading view not only of the reality of the situation, but even what's contained in the piece itself.
If you haven't read it, the piece states that the administration's goal (when it will consider the site "working" and a "success") is when 80% of users will be able to use it to buy health care plans. This is apparently what the administration means when they use the now familiar catchphrase that the "vast majority" of users will be able to successfully use the site.
Now, 20% left out is a lot of people.
But fairly far down in the article is this paragraph ...
According to a government official familiar with the new target, the 20 percent who are unlikely to be able to enroll online are expected to fall into three groups: people whose family cir stances are so complicated that the Web site cannot determine their eligibility for subsidies to help pay for health plans; people uncomfortable buying insurance on a computer; and people who encounter technical problems on the Web site.
It would clarify a lot if we knew a breakdown of these three categories within that 20%. But this is some pretty serious fine print and puts the 80/20 in a somewhat different light.
After all, getting the site to "work" for people who are unwilling or uncomfortable buying insurance on their computer seems like a pretty intractable problem and not what most people think of when they talk about the site 'working'.
The issue of people with complex life situations was the main one I heard about talking with people working on the refit process. It's what it sounds like. For your average single person making $40k a year or a family of four making $60k it basically works fine now.
But when you get into more complicated situations with different kinds of dependents, more complicated income situations etc and a lot else, sometimes the site is not able to provide answers.
Obviously, the devil is in the details here. I think everyone understands there will likely be some very complicated edge cases where the calculation of a subsidy may require getting on the phone with someone.
Just how complicated your situation has to be before the website can't help you will be the key question. And what I take from people familiar with the process is that this is the part of the equation, working down that percentage, that will require a lot of iterating and optimization beyond December 1st.
The political reality is that landing with a thud on October 1st means that everything about this site and the law is now getting extremely close and often misleadingly negative scrutiny. The reality reality, however, is not necessarily as dire as a lot of these reports suggest
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/beneath-the-headlines-on-healthcare-gov
Another red state REPUGNANTLY denying its citizens medical care to screw up ACA and the Dems for purely politcal, ideological reasons, dishonestly hiding behind "gotta control costs" although the funding comes from the Feds.
Tennessee Governor Hesitates on Medicaid Expansion, Frustrating Many
In his case, it involves trying — so far unsuccessfully — to balance some sharply conflicting concerns: struggling hospitals, local business groups, dwindling state resources and fierce conservative opposition to the new health care law.
“It’s time to say yes or no. I don’t want to get morbid or dramatic about this thing, but it’s lives we’re talking about here. It’s human beings.”
Rick Perry of Texas and Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, among many other Republican governors, have flatly rejected the expansion, even though it would provide billions of federal dollars to their states.
Mr. Haslam has also promised not to enact anything without the approval of the Legislature, whose Republican majority, he said, was dead set against an expansion of Medicaid.
showed him with a 63 percent approval rating. The same poll, however, found that 60 percent of respondents favored the expansion of Medicaid in the state.
Arrayed on the other side are the Tennessee Hospital Association and other medical groups, the Tennessee Chamber of Commerce and Industry and local chambers across the state, several antipoverty organizations and the Democratic opposition.
Recent layoffs at a few Tennessee hospitals have focused attention on their plight — and complicated Mr. Haslam’s decision.
David McClure, senior vice president for finance at the state hospital association, said that failing to expand Medicaid would have a devastating effect on the state’s 165 hospitals, leading to layoffs and the closing of some facilities.
“In every community that has a hospital, we are typically the biggest or one of the biggest employers,” Mr. McClure said. “I don’t want to be Chicken Little and say the sky is falling, but there will be some hospitals that will close.”
Without an expansion of Medicaid, hundreds of thousands of Tennessee residents would fall into a gap, making too little money to get subsidized health coverage under the act and too much to qualify for Medicaid. The authors of the Affordable Care Act had assumed that states would expand their Medicaid rolls — which they had been required to do until the Supreme Court struck down that provision — providing coverage for these working poor families who fell into the gap.
The hospital association estimates that 400,000 Tennesseans fall into that gap. Other estimates are somewhat lower.
Deepening the angst over this decision is the state’s own history with managed health care. Tennessee’s homegrown health care system, TennCare, went through a wrenching downsizing in 2005, when the program was totally state sponsored. More than 170,000 people had to be thrown off the TennCare rolls.
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/11/17...?from=homepage
Last edited by boutons_deux; 11-17-2013 at 05:06 PM.
OBAMA SAYS AMERICANS CAN KEEP THEIR DAMN INSURANCE
Faced with a barrage of new questions about the Affordable Care Act, President Obama cut short a White House press conference today, telling the stunned press corps, “You know what? Everybody can keep their damn insurance.”
Glaring at the reporters, the President continued, “You heard me. If your insurance is crappy, then you just go ahead and keep it—the crappier, the better. Let’s pretend this whole thing never happened.”
A vein in his forehead visibly throbbing, the President added, “You know, I really wish I hadn’t spent the last three years of my life on this thing. I should’ve just gone around invading countries for no reason. That would’ve made everybody happy. Well, live and learn.”
As the reporters averted their eyes from the President, many of them looking awkwardly at their shoes, he concluded his remarks: “All those people out there who want to repeal Obamacare? Well, guess what: I’ll make their day and repeal it myself. Really, it’s my pleasure. But I swear that this is the last time I try to do something nice for anybody.”
http://www.newyorker.com/online/blog...insurance.html
Louisiana Republican Who Backs Obamacare’s Medicaid Provision Wins Seat Over Party Favorite
Louisiana voters elected Republican Vance McAllister in a runoff to fill the state’s vacant Fifth District U.S. House seat on Saturday. McAllister, a businessman who embraced the expansion of Medicaid available to the state under the Affordable Care Act, defeated a Republican party favorite who called for full Obamacare repeal.
In a district won by Mitt Romney with 61 percent of the vote in 2012, two Republicans were the top vote-getters in a 14-candidate October primary.
McAllister, who received nearly 60 percent of the vote in Saturday’s special election, criticized much of the Affordable Care Act, but also criticized Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R) decision to dismantle charity hospitals in the state, and to reject its Medicaid expansion, which would expand the qualifications for Medicaid recipients and extend healthcare coverage to hundreds of thousands of uninsured Louisianans. “Our governor and Sen. Riser right here have gutted [heath care] to the core and privatized it.”
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013...ican-medicaid/
Confederate LA of course wants to screw their slave descendants, but there are plenty extremely poor white people.
Eat , haters!
East , Fox, eat MSM herd who love reporting in their echo chamber nothing but bad news!
Healthcare plan enrollment surges in some states that run exchanges
Despite the disastrous rollout of the federal government's healthcare website, enrollment is surging in many states as tens of thousands of consumers sign up for insurance plans made available by President Obama's health law.
A number of states that use their own systems, including California, are on track to hit enrollment targets for 2014 because of a sharp increase in November, according to state officials.
"What we are seeing is incredible momentum," said Peter Lee, director of Covered California, the nation's largest state insurance marketplace, which accounted for a third of all enrollments nationally in October. California — which enrolled about 31,000 people in health plans last month — nearly doubled that in the first two weeks of this month.
Several other states, including Connecticut and Kentucky, are outpacing their enrollment estimates, even as states that depend on the federal website lag far behind. In Minnesota, enrollment in the second half of October ran at triple the rate of the first half, officials said. Washington state is also on track to easily exceed its October enrollment figure, officials said.
The growing enrollment in those states is a rare bit of good news for backers of the Affordable Care Act and suggests that the serious problems with the law's rollout may not be fatal, despite critics' renewed calls for repeal. (may not be fatal?)
But the trend also emphasizes how widely experience with the new law varies by location.
Fourteen states and the District of Columbia, covering about one-third of the nation's population, are operating their own Obamacare marketplaces and have their own enrollment websites. The others, including most states with Republican-led governments, have declined to do so, making their residents dependent on the malfunctioning federal site. (
In addition to better-functioning websites, many states that are running their own marketplaces also have significantly more resources to help consumers sign up for coverage.
http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/545/article/p2p-78240693/
To get coverage for 1 Jan, still 3 weeks of SURGING! left.
And enrollment goes on to the other deadline 15 March. In red-states, there will be a lot very positive word of mouth among the uninsured about healthcare.gov. PEOPLE NEED AND WANT HEALTH INSURANCE.
As MA saw, just before the deadlines, enrollment explodes.
Healthcare.gov is working well for those people who are the majority of the cases.
Fringe, exception cases are more complex. Some people just don't have a clue how to work an Internet site, which isn't the problem for the majority of the people, nor the fault of the website.
Asshole Repug states have obstructed navigators and all other resources to inform and help people who aren't Internet savvy or who are complex cases (to qualify for subsidies).
The only reason healthcare.gov exists and has such traffic is because the asshole Repug-sabotaged red-states refuse to setup their own exchanges and force their red-state victims onto healthcare.gov.
Last edited by boutons_deux; 11-19-2013 at 07:27 AM.
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