Initial attempts to sign up for ObamaCare go about as well as expected

[boutons_deux]

Top Conservative Lays Out Obamacare Alternative: Insurers Should Just Charge Really Sick People More (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/17/2799951/conservative-sick-people-turn-church-health-care-coverage/)The leader of a top conservative advocacy organization believes that people who are born with congenital illnesses should pay more for health care coverage and rely on family and friends if they can’t afford their medical bills.

Appearing on SiriusXM’s Stand Up with Pete Dominick (http://standupwithpetedominick.com/) on Thursday, Dean Clancy — VP of Public Policy at FreedomWorks — insisted that insurers should charge sicker people higher rates so that younger and healthier beneficiaries don’t have to subsidize their coverage.

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/17/2799951/conservative-sick-people-turn-church-health-care-coverage/

[AntiChrist]

The Abysmal, Pathetic Obamacare Rollout

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/10/17/the-abysmal-pathetic-obamacare-rollout.html

[boutons_deux]

CRUZ PLANS TO READ AFFORDABLE CARE ACT

Now that the government shutdown is over, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) plans to read the Affordable Care Act, he told reporters today.

“It’s definitely been on my must-read list for a while now,” Sen. Cruz said of the law often referred to as Obamacare. “Things have just been so hectic around here lately, I couldn’t get to it.”

The Texas Senator said that he started reading the law this morning and observed, “So far, it’s pretty dry.”

“It’s not a page-turner, that’s for sure,” he said. “But it’s caused so much controversy, it must have some pretty juicy stuff in it. I’ll keep reading it and see what I find.”

Sen. Cruz said that when he finishes reading the Affordable Care Act, he plans to read the United States Constitution.

“People kept bringing it up the last few weeks,” he said. “So I’m kind of curious to see what all the fuss is about.”

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/10/cruz-plans-to-read-affordable-care-act.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20(185)

Looks like Cruz is finally getting on board with socialistic health care

[AntiChrist]

Ah, mystery solved

Thanks MSNBC :tu

http://media.hotair.com/greenroom/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/fl.jpg<-- lol

[Clipper Nation]

30 years old, and still screwed up

More Angst For College Applicants: A Glitchy Common App


http://www.npr.org/2013/10/16/235421758/more-angst-for-college-applicants-a-glitchy-common-app
And this has what exactly to do with the predictable massive failure of Obamacare? :lol

[boutons_deux]

And this has what exactly to do with the predictable massive failure of Obamacare? :lol

nothing

[boutons_deux]

Looksl like red states don't privatize/outsource any better than Feds

Food Stamp Outage Highlights Problems With Privatization of Public Services

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1780/article/p2p-77835635/

... even for MUCH smaller and MUCH simpler software systems, even when Repug Indiana pays $1B+, nearly 3x what UNDERFUNDED healthcare.gov cost (so far)

Context! Context! Context! :lol

[FuzzyLumpkins]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/heritage_zps2a56ffec.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/heritage_zps2a56ffec.jpg.html)
http://www.heritage.org/multimedia/infographic/2013/10/how-will-you-fare-in-the-obamacare-exchanges

Wow, 27 year olds are really getting hosed. I wonder how they feel now having voted for the first black President because they thought it would be cool.

The non-ACA numbers on that chart are made up bullshit. To be precise the Heritage Health Microsimulation Model uses 'weighted averages' which translates into real numbers multiplied by made up coefficients.

It is foolish to look to Heritage now that DeMint has taken over. They are intellectually dishonest so as to push ideology now.

[boutons_deux]

And here's Hannity outright LYING about ACA

Fox News Coverage Of Obamacare Was Extremely Misleading

“These are the stories that the media refuses to cover,” Hannity interjected.

But none of it smelled right to me. Nothing these folks were saying jibed with the basic facts of the Affordable Care Act as I understand them. I understand them fairly well; I have worked as a senior adviser to a governor and helped him deal with the new federal rules.

(six Hannity stories checked on here ... )

I don’t doubt that these six individuals believe that Obamacare is a disaster; but none of them had even visited the insurance exchange.

And some of them appear to have taken actions (Paul Cox, for example) based on a general pessimistic belief about Obamacare. He’s certainly entitled to do so, but Hannity is not entitled to point to Paul’s behavior as an “Obamacare train wreck story” and maintain any credibility that he might have as a journalist.

http://www.alternet.org/media/fox-news-coverage-obamacare-was-extremely-misleading?akid=11055.187590.5HwxqA&rd=1&src=newsletter912036&t=9&paging=off&current_page=1#bookmark

[CosmicCowboy]

Seriously...do you think they will have it working before January 1?

What if it doesn't?

[SnakeBoy]

The non-ACA numbers on that chart are made up bullshit. To be precise the Heritage Health Microsimulation Model uses 'weighted averages' which translates into real numbers multiplied by made up coefficients.


Actually the "before" price they quote is higher than what I am paying. They are quoting the non group market, which is very affordable if you are healthy. Group plans are much more expensive because you have to pay for all the fat asses who are going to need tons of healthcare.

[boutons_deux]

Seriously...do you think they will have it working before January 1?

What if it doesn't?

To be covered starting 1 Jan, ya gotta make your first payment by 15 Dec.

If they don't get healthcare.gov running mostly smoothly by 15 Nov, I think they will slip both 15 Dec and 1 Jan by 1 month.

open source:

https://www.healthcare.gov/developers/

[boutons_deux]

...

[boutons_deux]

States Are Focus of Effort to Foil Health Care Law

here in Virginia’s capital, conservative activists are pursuing a hardball campaign as they chart an alternative path to undoing “Obamacare” — through the states.
One leading target is Emmett W. Hanger Jr., a Republican state senator from the deeply conservative Shenandoah Valley,
His openness to expansion has aroused the ire of Americans for Prosperity, the conservative advocacy group backed by the billionaire industrialist brothers Charles and David Koch. Dressed in emerald green T-shirts bearing the slogan “Economic Freedom in Action!” its members are waging what the senator calls “an attempt to intimidate me” in Richmond and at home.

They have phoned his constituents, distributed leaflets and knocked on 2,000 doors in his rural district. When the Republican town committee met Monday night in Mr. Hanger’s home county, Augusta, Americans for Prosperity was there.

“This has been one of those trench warfare kind of efforts for a year now, and I think it is one of those hidden stories of the whole fight against Obamacare,” such a crucial aspect of the overall long-term effort to roll back Obamacare.”

Jim DeMint, the foundation president, made no apologies. “Obamacare will now be the issue for the next few years,”

Americans for Prosperity, with paid staff members in 34 states, walked through it. So did another group, Tea Party Patriots, which recently gave $20,000 to organizers of a referendum drive to put the question of Medicaid expansion on the Arizona ballot.

Americans for Prosperity has spent millions in states around the country, including Arkansas, Florida, Ohio, Louisiana, Michigan and Pennsylvania, to run the kind of aggressive campaign that it is now waging here in Virginia, where much will depend on the governor’s race.

must evaluate whether the state Medicaid program has put in place certain changes to improve care and cut costs.

“It makes absolutely no sense to not utilize those federal dollars when we have this unmet need.” .... :lol Since when do tea baggers have any "sense"? :lol

“The folks that need the most help will get hurt the most if you expand Medicaid,” Mr. Schwartz told the panel on Tuesday. :lol

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/10/19/us/politics/states-are-focus-of-effort-to-foil-health-care-law.html?from=homepage (http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/10/19/us/politics/states-are-focus-of-effort-to-foil-health-care-law.html?from=homepage)

[FuzzyLumpkins]

Actually the "before" price they quote is higher than what I am paying. They are quoting the non group market, which is very affordable if you are healthy. Group plans are much more expensive because you have to pay for all the fat asses who are going to need tons of healthcare.

While I cannot say your personal anecdote is irrelevant, it is just an anecdote. That the figure is higher is not surprising though.

They are not quoting from the nongroup market. What they are doing is taking averages from the nongroup market --and what exactly they are averaging is unknown-- and then multiplying them by coefficients. That is what the Heritage Health Microsimulation Model does.

If you want to know what those coefficients are then good luck because I tried to look up the formula and could not find it. They are doctored numbers plain and simple and the Heritage Foundation under DeMint has shown a proclivity to omitting, overemphasize, and everything inbtween data to fit their ideology. When they are getting hammered by the Cato Institute for it too you know it is not just a partisan criticism.

Fucking with immigration numbers: http://business.time.com/2013/05/10/the-made-up-numbers-dominating-the-immigration-debate/

Fucking with polling numbers: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/heritage-s-fun-with-defund-obamacare-polling-numbers

Fucking with economic figures: http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2013/06/bill-black-the-heritage-foundation-makes-up-its-numbers/

Those are examples from the first page of a google search.

The current incarnation of Heritage is heavy on deception.

[boutons_deux]

The Obama administration said Sunday it has called in technical experts to help squash some of the biggest glitches and snafus experienced by millions of Americans with the new Healthcare.gov website.

Experts will be scrambled in to rewrite parts of the site's code and underlying infrastructure which has dogged the site, created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (dubbed "Obamacare").

The "tech surge," as described by the HHS blog post, will see "some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team" in efforts to improve the site.

http://www.zdnet.com/obama-dubs-healthcare-gov-glitches-unacceptable-calls-in-tech-support-7000022165/?s_cid=e539&ttag=e539

[AntiChrist]

The Obama administration said Sunday it has called in technical experts to help squash some of the biggest glitches and snafus experienced by millions of Americans with the new Healthcare.gov website.

Experts will be scrambled in to rewrite parts of the site's code and underlying infrastructure which has dogged the site, created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (dubbed "Obamacare").

The "tech surge," as described by the HHS blog post, will see "some of the best and brightest from both inside and outside government to scrub in with the team" in efforts to improve the site.

http://www.zdnet.com/obama-dubs-healthcare-gov-glitches-unacceptable-calls-in-tech-support-7000022165/?s_cid=e539&ttag=e539










lol

[CosmicCowboy]

"tech surge"

:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao

[Clipper Nation]

:lol Too late, they already rushed a shit product out to market and quickly eroded any trust people had in Obamacare....

[boutons_deux]

They'll fix it, almost 20M visitors already (sure, some dupes). people (America) really need the insurance, preventative care, early care vs ER disaster.

a much bigger threat to ACA is the red states sabotaging ACA and reducing the insured pool by refusing to expand Medicaid and implement ACA.

[boutons_deux]

The real story with Obamacare IT woes is out-of-control private contractorsthere are other culprits getting less attention – namely, global tech conglomerate CGI (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/16/meet-cgi-federal-the-company-behind-the-botched-launch-of-healthcare-gov/), which was responsible for the bulk of the execution, and in general the ability of big corporations to get massive taxpayer-funded contracts without enough accountability (http://www.pogo.org/blog/2013/07/weak-penalties-for-misbehaving-contractors.html).

Government outsourcing to private contractors has exploded in the past few decades. Taxpayers funnel hundreds of billions of dollars a year (http://www.pogo.org/our-work/letters/2013/20130415-feds-vs-contractors-cost-comparison.html) into the chosen companies’ pockets, about $80bn of which goes to tech companies. We’ve reached a stage of knee-jerk outsourcing of everything from intelligence and military work to burger flipping in federal building cafeterias, and it’s damaging in multiple levels.

studies show (http://www.pogo.org/our-work/reports/2011/co-gp-20110913.html) that keeping government services in house saves money (http://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/us/13contractor.html). In fact, contractor billing rates average an astonishing 83% more than what it would cost to do the work in-house. Hiring workers directly also keeps jobs here in the US, while contractors, especially in the IT space, can ship taxpayer-funded work overseas.

Fortunately, then, there are alternatives to outsourcing public functions to big corporations padding their profits at taxpayers’ collective expense, and it is time we used them.

To this end the Healthcare.gov experience should serve as a wake-up call to President Obama, who, after all, said early in his first term he wanted to rein in the contractor-industrial complex (http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1209/30858.html), and to the state governments doling out multi-million dollar contracts. The revelation here is that an overdependence on outsourcing isn’t just risky (http://www.pogo.org/blog/2013/07/weak-penalties-for-misbehaving-contractors.html) in terms of national security, extortionate at wartime (http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-08-31/u-s-crackdown-on-wasteful-corrupt-war-contractors-urged-by-commission.html), or harmful (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/13/opinion/the-government-as-a-low-wage-employer.html)because it expands the ranks of low-wage workers (http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/09/26/federal-contractors-low-wages/); it’s also messing with our ability to carry out basic government functions at a reasonable cost.



Like many contractors, CGI got an open-ended deal from the government (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/16/meet-cgi-federal-the-company-behind-the-botched-launch-of-healthcare-gov/), and costs have ballooned even as performance has been abysmal. The company – the largest tech company in Canada with subsidiaries around the world – was initially awarded a $93.7m contract, but now the potential total value for CGI’s work has reportedly tripled (http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/10/17/us-usa-healthcare-technology-insight-idUSBRE99G05Q20131017), reaching nearly $292m.

For other recent examples, one need only look at the botched, taxpayer-funded overhauls of the Massachusetts (http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/10/03/state-senate-committee-hold-hearing-troubled-deloitte-unemployment-system-contract/nns31DuJy8dvd5YABnGF0O/story.html), Florida (http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/16/3693836/many-left-frustrated-with-state.html) and California (http://www.latimes.com/business/money/la-fi-mo-edd-unemployment-hearings-20131014,0,3145773.story) unemployment systems, courtesy of Deloitte.

In Massachusetts alone, professional services giant Deloitte got $46m to roll out a new electronic system for unemployment claims. The company, whose private-sector whippersnappers were expected to lap the crusty bureaucrats the state employs directly, delivered the project two years late and $6m over budget. On top of that, the system has forced jobless residents to wait weeks to months to collect benefits.

the rollouts in Florida and California (http://www.bostonglobe.com/business/2013/09/24/troubled-calif-unemployment-computer-system-has-similarity-with-mass-consultant/sLa8QG030NnPzOsjdJNCzO/story.html), which each cost about $63m, can only be described as train wrecks: late, over budget and riddled with glitches that delayed payments to the jobless.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/21/the-real-story-with-obamacare-it-woes-is-out-of-control-private-contractors/

So for-profit private companies are ALWAYS cheaper and better than in-house govt projects? :lol

And there's plenty of examples over the decades with MIC.

[boutons_deux]

Another red state gets smart, goes PROGRESSIVE :lol

Ohio Will Expand Medicaid Under Obamacare, Extending Health Coverage To Nearly 300,000 Residents (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/21/2812471/ohio-expand-medicaid-obamacare/)

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/21/2812471/ohio-expand-medicaid-obamacare/

[AntiChrist]

:lmao

2Qtx_ZcHOjw

[AntiChrist]

UzdE0mySK2I

[AntiChrist]

Oops

http://www.propublica.org/article/how-the-new-yorkers-ryan-lizza-became-a-mistaken-poster-boy-for-obamacare

[ElNono]

Six months to sign up... Don't think this is going to be a showstopper...

well.... I might have underestimated the general suckitude of certain IT companies out there...

[boutons_deux]

Another red state gets smart, goes PROGRESSIVE :lol

Ohio Will Expand Medicaid Under Obamacare, Extending Health Coverage To Nearly 300,000 Residents (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/21/2812471/ohio-expand-medicaid-obamacare/)

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/21/2812471/ohio-expand-medicaid-obamacare/

Ohio has become the 25th state to accept the ACA’s Medicaid expansion, which was made optional to the states in a 2012 Supreme Court ruling.

What is extraordinary about the Buckeye State’s acceptance of the program — which will allow residents earning up to 138 percent of the poverty level to receive subsidized health care — is how hard Governor John Kasich (R-OH) pushed for expansion, and how he did it.

Ohio’s Republican-dominated state legislature rejected Medicaid expansion three times earlier this year, after Kasich became one of about a half-dozen Republican governors who signaled he wanted his state to embrace the ACA provision. Instead of accepting defeat, the governor took the matter to the Controlling Board (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/us/medicaid-expansion-is-set-for-ohioans.html?_r=0), an obscure entity that normally handles small budgetary matters. More than three dozen Republican legislators protested this move to circumvent the legislature (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/10/21/ohio-medicaid-expansion_n_4138618.html).

Kasich’s use of the Controlling Board to accept Medicaid expansion may end up being found illegal. Regardless, the governor — a potential 2016 candidate — has put Republicans in his state in a position where they will now have to take a concrete benefit away from residents, instead of arguing against a vague promise.

This is a decision that will also likely impact the 2016 election. Now if a candidate argues for a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, he or she will be calling for health insurance to be snatched back from more than 200,000 working Ohioans.

No Republican has ever been elected to the White House without winning Ohio.Regardless, the governor — a potential 2016 candidate — has put Republicans in his state in a position where they will now have to take a concrete benefit away from residents, instead of arguing against a vague promise.

This is a decision that will also likely impact the 2016 election. Now if a candidate argues for a full repeal of the Affordable Care Act, he or she will be calling for health insurance to be snatched back from more than 200,000 working Ohioans.

No Republican has ever been elected to the White House without winning Ohio.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/the-best-affordable-care-act-news-this-week/

[boutons_deux]

Crazy NC Repug bitch

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/Rep.-Renee-Ellmers-615x345.png

Gov. Steve Beshear, a Democrat, said on CNN’s “New Day” (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Maa87MA7dxI) that Kentucky had been signing up about 1,000 residents each day on the state’s Kynect website, which has been garnering praise (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/04/kentuckys-insurance-exchange-rolls-out-smoother-than-most-thanks-to-good-web-design/) since it launched Oct. 1.

But Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) refused to recognize the state’s results, even as she insisted to host that Carol Costello that she wanted to see some results from the Affordable Care Act.

“He’s talking about a situation that he supports. American people cannot wait for this. There are hard-working taxpayers –”

Costello interrupted to ask Ellmers if she thought Beshear was being truthful or just “joshing us.”

“I’m not exactly sure it is working in Kentucky,” Ellmers said, and Costello asked if she thought the governor’s statistics were cooked up for political purposes.

“Well, you know, let’s look at again the grand scheme of things,” Ellmers said. “It is a failure at monumental levels.”

Costello played another video clip of Beshear, who said that he’s encouraged his state’s residents to visit the Kynect website and see if they like it.

“That’s what’s happening,” Beshear said. “They are finding that they can get affordable health coverage for the first time in their lives. I’ll guarantee you, about a year from now, they’re going to look back at these critics, including a lot of
these senators and representatives, and they’re going to say, ‘You misled us, because, hey, this works. I’ve got affordable health care.’”

But Ellmers ignored her question, and said that a similar program to Obamacare she said had failed in Tennessee.

She claimed that program, TennCare, had lasted about 12 years before state officials “were able to erase the whole entire thing.”

In fact, the program that was launched in 1994 and overhauled in 2005 (http://www.tn.gov/tenncare/news-timeline.shtml) and continues to extend Medicare benefits to 1.2 million Tennessee residents, according to the state (http://www.tennessee.gov/tenncare/).

“I’m looking at results, (and) the results are right now, the Obamacare exchange rollout has been a complete failure, a total embarrassment,” Ellmers said.

Costello again presses Ellmers to address Beshear’s statistics, but the Republican instead makes the discussion personal.

“You’re getting awfully angry about this situation,” Ellmers said. “I hate that you’re in this position.”

The congresswoman says she wouldn’t mind seeing someone fired for the botched rollout of the federal exchange website, but she says the whole Affordable Care Act must be scrapped.

“Let’s put affordable health care forward for all Americans, let’s put something together that really will work, not something that’s dead on arrival already,” said Ellmers, who did not offer details for such a plan.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/10/22/gop-representative-demands-positive-obamacare-results-but-recoils-when-confronted-with-some/

Repugs deny and lie about ANY REALITY that negates their fantasies or conflicts with the talking points dictated to them.

[AntiChrist]

Actual ad in Colorado. Lol, "Don't tap into your beer money".


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BXMSzY2CQAE4rOr.png:large

[SA210]

.

Jon Stewart Delivers Blistering Takedown of Obamacare Rollout: Dems Can't 'Spin This Turd"



October 21, 2013 - After the government shutdown, Jon Stewart said all Democrats had to do to regain political footing was "a mildly competent implementation" of the health care policy they'd been touting for three years, and somehow they managed to screw it up royally, leaving Stewart to tear into President Obama and the Democrats for failing to "spin this turd."

Stewart was utterly befuddled at how buggy the Obamacare site is being. It's so bad, even the calculator doesn't work. Stewart said normally websites are set up so it's "nearly impossible to not sign up for something," but somehow the Obama administration managed to fumble at every turn.

He even had some choice words for Obama for defending the "product" of health care and saying that despite the massive number of people who haven't been able to sign up, a teeny tiny bunch of other people managed to pull it off.

Stewart sent John Oliver to sign up for the health care law, but for some reason he got trapped inside the computer and chased around by Pac-Man instead.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qtx_ZcHOjw




:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao
































:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao

[boutons_deux]

You assholes have your fun now, but ACA is a huge success, the states working to implement are succeeding, and even red states coming to their senses and expanding Medicaid.

the trainwreck won't be ACA, it will Repug electoral results

Amid Obamacare’s Struggles, Government-Run Health Care Shines

Uninsured Americans are having a hard time enrolling in private health insurance coverage through HealthCare.gov. The federal website is slow, unresponsive and at times provides inaccurate information about applicants’ eligibility for federal tax credits. Insurers, meanwhile, say they’re receiving duplicate enrollments, missing data fields, and other errors in the applications that consumers complete.

State-run health care marketplaces in Kentucky, New York, and Washington state appear more adept at quickly fixing problems and enrolling people, but the bright spot of reform isn’t the often-touted health care exchange. In these early days of implementation, the real standout (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/21/the-right-doesnt-want-obamacare-fixed-but-its-even-worse-for-them-if-it-fails/) is the government-run Medicaid program that provides health care insurance to Americans under 133 percent of the federal poverty line.

In fact, a survey of news reports from the states that have chosen to expand their Medicaid under the Affordable Care, shows that the program is responsible for thousands and of new enrollments and appears more successful in enrolling uninsured Americans than private insurers operating in the exchanges:

CONNECTICUT: Of the 3,847 individuals who signed up for coverage, 1,857 qualified for Medicaid, 1,897 signed up for plans with one of the three private insurance carriers, and 93 qualified for the Children’s Health Insurance Plan. Of the individuals who signed up with private carriers, 772 won’t receive a subsidy and 1,125 will receive a federal subsidy to lower their monthly premium.” [CT News Junkie (http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/older_adults_signing_up_for_obamacare_in_connectic ut/)]

MARYLAND: “About 82,500 people had signed up for Maryland’s expanded Medicaid program as of Friday, more than 30 times the 2,300 Marylander’s who managed to enroll through the state’s
insurance exchange.” [Politico (http://www.politico.com/politicopulse/1013/politicopulse11973.html)]

OREGON: “Though Oregon’s health insurance exchange is not yet up and running, the number of uninsured is already dropping thanks to new fast-track enrollment for the Oregon Health Plan. The low-income, Medicaid-funded program has already signed up 56,000 new people, cutting the state’s number of uninsured by 10 percent, according to Oregon Health Authority officials.” [The Oregonian (http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2013/10/oregon_has_cut_tally_of_those.html)]

ILLINOIS: “The sign-up process apparently hasn’t been as difficult for Illinoisans poor enough to qualify for the health-care law’s federally funded expansion of Medicaid eligibility, which the General Assembly approved this year without a single Republican vote. Those applicants are routed to the state’s ABE website for Medicaid.” [The State-Journal Registrar (http://www.sj-r.com/top-stories/x450311991/Prospects-for-OK-of-state-run-exchange-uncertain?zc_p=2)]

WEST VIRGINIA: “More than 50,000 West Virginians have already enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program that was expanded under the Affordable Care Act….But most new Medicaid signups came through an auto-enrollment program DHHR began in the weeks leading up to the opening of the insurance marketplace.” [Charleston Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.com/News/201310070179?page=1&build=cache)]

ARKANSAS: “After two weeks of enrollment, a total of 56,288 adults have told the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) they want to enroll in the “private option” health insurance program, [the state's Medicaid expansion] according to data released Tuesday. From Oct. 1 through Oct. 12, DHS received 1,509 applications through its state-run web portal and 1,119 telephone and paper applications. That is in addition to the 53,660* current DHS clients who have already been determined eligible and returned letters saying they wanted coverage.” [Arkansas Department of Human Services (http://humanservices.arkansas.gov/pressroom/PressRoomDocs/DHSprivateoptionstatsNRoct13.pdf)]


Medicaid advocates attribute this success to several factors. The program, which was first signed into law in 1965, has years of experience in connecting low-income beneficiaries to health care benefits and has streamlined and simplified those processes. Medicaid also operates outside of the error-ridden federal exchange system and several states, including Arkansas, Illinois, West Virginia, and Oregon are auto-enrolling eligible individuals who are already receiving state benefits. Arkansas, for instance, sent letters to over 100,000 food stamp recipients, inviting them to apply for Medicaid coverage, along with a a stamped envelope. Almost 50,000 people responded.

Other states like Maryland have better functioning marketplaces (where an uninsured individual can be directed to Medicaid coverage) or robust consumer assistance and simplification procedures that allow for an easy sign-up process, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ (CBPP) Judy Solomon explained. Consumers can also apply at the local Medicaid office.

“States that are committed to the Medicaid expansion are seeing some results,” Washington & Lee law professor Timothy Jost said. “Obviously people want health insurance and Medicaid is the cheapest way to get it …when it’s easy to sign up people do.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/22/2817921/government-health-care-actually-winning-obamacare-implementation/

[AntiChrist]

boutons -- even your own side thinks you're batshit

[AntiChrist]

Actual ad in Colorado. Lol, "Don't tap into your beer money".


https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BXMSzY2CQAE4rOr.png:large


Theses guys went from paying nothing to paying a fine if they don't purchase something they can't even sign up for.

[SA210]

You assholes have your fun now, but ACA is a huge success, the states working to implement are succeeding, and even red states coming to their senses and expanding Medicaid.

the trainwreck won't be ACA, it will Repug electoral results

Amid Obamacare’s Struggles, Government-Run Health Care Shines

Uninsured Americans are having a hard time enrolling in private health insurance coverage through HealthCare.gov. The federal website is slow, unresponsive and at times provides inaccurate information about applicants’ eligibility for federal tax credits. Insurers, meanwhile, say they’re receiving duplicate enrollments, missing data fields, and other errors in the applications that consumers complete.

State-run health care marketplaces in Kentucky, New York, and Washington state appear more adept at quickly fixing problems and enrolling people, but the bright spot of reform isn’t the often-touted health care exchange. In these early days of implementation, the real standout (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/21/the-right-doesnt-want-obamacare-fixed-but-its-even-worse-for-them-if-it-fails/) is the government-run Medicaid program that provides health care insurance to Americans under 133 percent of the federal poverty line.

In fact, a survey of news reports from the states that have chosen to expand their Medicaid under the Affordable Care, shows that the program is responsible for thousands and of new enrollments and appears more successful in enrolling uninsured Americans than private insurers operating in the exchanges:

CONNECTICUT: Of the 3,847 individuals who signed up for coverage, 1,857 qualified for Medicaid, 1,897 signed up for plans with one of the three private insurance carriers, and 93 qualified for the Children’s Health Insurance Plan. Of the individuals who signed up with private carriers, 772 won’t receive a subsidy and 1,125 will receive a federal subsidy to lower their monthly premium.” [CT News Junkie (http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/older_adults_signing_up_for_obamacare_in_connectic ut/)]

MARYLAND: “About 82,500 people had signed up for Maryland’s expanded Medicaid program as of Friday, more than 30 times the 2,300 Marylander’s who managed to enroll through the state’s
insurance exchange.” [Politico (http://www.politico.com/politicopulse/1013/politicopulse11973.html)]

OREGON: “Though Oregon’s health insurance exchange is not yet up and running, the number of uninsured is already dropping thanks to new fast-track enrollment for the Oregon Health Plan. The low-income, Medicaid-funded program has already signed up 56,000 new people, cutting the state’s number of uninsured by 10 percent, according to Oregon Health Authority officials.” [The Oregonian (http://www.oregonlive.com/health/index.ssf/2013/10/oregon_has_cut_tally_of_those.html)]

ILLINOIS: “The sign-up process apparently hasn’t been as difficult for Illinoisans poor enough to qualify for the health-care law’s federally funded expansion of Medicaid eligibility, which the General Assembly approved this year without a single Republican vote. Those applicants are routed to the state’s ABE website for Medicaid.” [The State-Journal Registrar (http://www.sj-r.com/top-stories/x450311991/Prospects-for-OK-of-state-run-exchange-uncertain?zc_p=2)]

WEST VIRGINIA: “More than 50,000 West Virginians have already enrolled in the state’s Medicaid program that was expanded under the Affordable Care Act….But most new Medicaid signups came through an auto-enrollment program DHHR began in the weeks leading up to the opening of the insurance marketplace.” [Charleston Daily Mail (http://www.dailymail.com/News/201310070179?page=1&build=cache)]

ARKANSAS: “After two weeks of enrollment, a total of 56,288 adults have told the Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) they want to enroll in the “private option” health insurance program, [the state's Medicaid expansion] according to data released Tuesday. From Oct. 1 through Oct. 12, DHS received 1,509 applications through its state-run web portal and 1,119 telephone and paper applications. That is in addition to the 53,660* current DHS clients who have already been determined eligible and returned letters saying they wanted coverage.” [Arkansas Department of Human Services (http://humanservices.arkansas.gov/pressroom/PressRoomDocs/DHSprivateoptionstatsNRoct13.pdf)]


Medicaid advocates attribute this success to several factors. The program, which was first signed into law in 1965, has years of experience in connecting low-income beneficiaries to health care benefits and has streamlined and simplified those processes. Medicaid also operates outside of the error-ridden federal exchange system and several states, including Arkansas, Illinois, West Virginia, and Oregon are auto-enrolling eligible individuals who are already receiving state benefits. Arkansas, for instance, sent letters to over 100,000 food stamp recipients, inviting them to apply for Medicaid coverage, along with a a stamped envelope. Almost 50,000 people responded.

Other states like Maryland have better functioning marketplaces (where an uninsured individual can be directed to Medicaid coverage) or robust consumer assistance and simplification procedures that allow for an easy sign-up process, the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities’ (CBPP) Judy Solomon explained. Consumers can also apply at the local Medicaid office.

“States that are committed to the Medicaid expansion are seeing some results,” Washington & Lee law professor Timothy Jost said. “Obviously people want health insurance and Medicaid is the cheapest way to get it …when it’s easy to sign up people do.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/22/2817921/government-health-care-actually-winning-obamacare-implementation/




Were you one of the ones that sheepishly applauded him on these anti-mandate speeches, or one of the ones that applauds him now??

(It's both, I know) :lol



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FknJLMc84bo


:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao

[Clipper Nation]

:lmao at partisan hack Boutons still trying to :downspin: dis shit.... give it up, moron, the website is an absolute mess and is proving all the skeptics of your beloved government healthcare right every day :lol

[boutons_deux]

boutons -- even your own side thinks you're batshit

I stand refuted and humbled.

[boutons_deux]

:lmao at partisan hack Boutons still trying to :downspin: dis shit.... give it up, moron, the website is an absolute mess and is proving all the skeptics of your beloved government healthcare right every day :lol

did I say the healthcare.gov site was a success?

ACA is much more than a fucked up website.

Have your fun, assholes, ACA is gonna kick butt.

[Chief Brody]

I stand refuted and humbled.

Wouldn't be the first time.

[Nbadan]

Ted Cruz Made Obamacare More Popular

Obamacare Thank You


According to a new CNN/ORC International poll, 53 percent of Americans either support the Affordable Care Act or think it should go further, up from 49 percent who felt that way before the shutdown.

A Washington Post/ABC News poll released Monday showed approval for the law also up, even among Republicans.


“Forty six percent now support it while 49 percent oppose it, ” according to The Washington Post‘s Chris Cilizza. “That compares favorably to a 42 to 52 percent negative split last month. Support has rebounded since July among moderate and conservative Democrats, while Republican opposition has also softened.”

[boutons_deux]

The Repugs thought they were slandering, trashing Obama and ACA by calling ACA Obamacare. Barry quickly accepted Obamacare as flattering. ACA will be as eternally popular as FDR's SS, and LBJ's Medicare, Medicaid, VRA.

The rule is very simple: if the 1%/VRWC/Repugs are against something, you absolutely know without a shred of doubt, that the something is good, even great, for the 99%.

[DUNCANownsKOBE]

:lol this plan would have been a lot easier if it was simply a single payer plan like every other modern country has, but you know that's never gonna happen because all the dumb libertardians in this thread would start screaming about "Death panels!" and "Big Gubbamint!"

[AntiChrist]

Not even former WH spin doctors can :downspin: this shit.

0UvDDzCuzdY


Only people still :downspin:are diehard leftists like boutons and Nbadan.

[AntiChrist]

Embarrassing

m0bO9PBudU8

[Th'Pusher]

Embarrassing

m0bO9PBudU8

I like the way Obama has turned you into a slightly more sophisticated version of SA210...whiney youtoobz without the memes...

Since you're not on board with the ACA, tell us what you like about Paul Ryan's plan to replace traditional fee for service Medicare with a voucher system.

[SA210]

I like the way Obama has turned you into a slightly more sophisticated version of SA210...whiney youtoobz without the memes...



Translation: "My messiah Obama is an idiot and they are pointing it out, I'll just change the subject to "youtubes" bc it makes me angry." :lol


Btw, I like that Obama used youtubes as proof of the sarin attacks in Syria for his bs war :lol

[Th'Pusher]

Translation: "My messiah Obama is an idiot and they are pointing it out, I'll just change the subject to "youtubes" bc it makes me angry." :lol


Btw, I like that Obama used youtubes as proof of the sarin attacks in Syria for his bs war :lol

:lol DarrinS is slightly more sophisticated that you :lol

[SA210]

:lol DarrinS is slightly more sophisticated that you :lol

I see ur still angry about Obama being exposed as a fraud time and time again. Change the subject as much as you can though..I'd be embarrassed if I were a dumb sheep for him too. :lol




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FknJLMc84bo


:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao

[boutons_deux]

How This Oregon Facility Is Effectively Expanding Access To Mental Health Care (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/23/2822801/oregon-mental-health-care/)NPR reports (http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/10/22/226108057/doctors-enlist-therapists-to-deliver-better-cheaper-care) that the Oregon-area St. Charles Health System is experimenting with its model by bringing together a variety of medical professionals, including primary care doctors and behavioral health therapists, into a single setting. That’s intended to help the patients who need to be treated for both physical and mental health problems, but may be reluctant or unable to follow up a doctor’s visit with a trip to a referred psychologist. And as millions of Americans gain coverage under Obamacare, this tactic could become more widely-used.


Pursuing mental health care is often a burden for those who need it. While close to 20 percent of the U.S. population has a mental health disorder, just over 38 percent of those Americans actually pursue care. According to Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), there’s a variety of reasons for that:

http://thinkprogress.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/mental-health-table-e1359035445544.png


http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/23/2822801/oregon-mental-health-care/

otoh, Repugnant red state KS has cut mental health care causing 30% rise in suicides.

[boutons_deux]

Consumer Reports Criticizes Obamacare Opponents Like Sean Hannity

Consumer Reports rebuked conservatives who misconstrued their position on Healthcare.gov, but that didn't stop Sean Hannity from repeating the spin in order to demonize health care reform.
In acknowledgement of the bumpy rollout (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/22/us/politics/obama-pushes-health-law-but-concedes-web-site-problems.html?_r=0) of Healthcare.gov, the Affordable Care Act's (ACA) online insurance exchange, Consumer Reports spent the first weeks in October detailing updates (http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/10/healthcare-gov-slightly-less-bad/index.htm) to the site and guiding readers (http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/10/tips-for-creating-heathcare-gov-acount/index.htm) step-by-step on how to navigate the site's glitches.

The publication advised still-confused readers to hold off briefly on signing up:

If all this is too much for you to absorb, follow our previous advice: Stay away from Healthcare.gov for at least another month if you can. Hopefully that will be long enough for its software vendors to clean up the mess they've made. The coverage available through the marketplaces won't begin until Jan. 1, 2014, at the earliest, and you have until Dec. 15 to enroll if you need insurance that starts promptly.


Conservative (http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/361750/consumer-reports-stay-away-healthcaregov-alec-torres) pundits pounced (http://www.breitbart.com/InstaBlog/2013/10/19/Consumer-Reports-recommends-staying-away-from-ObamaCare-for-at-least-a-month) on the language. Sean Hannity cited it during an October 21 rant against the ACA on Hannity as evidence that health care reform has been discredited, yelling to guest Ann Coulter, "Consumer Reports, Ann, they're telling people, 'Stay away from the website!' "

Consumer Reports never warned consumers to stay away from the website for good, as Hannity intimates -- only for a few weeks while glitches are ironed out. And the publication isn't happy with the spin conservatives are using to attack the ACA. Also on October 21 -- more than three hours before Hannity cited the publication -- Consumer Reports chastised (http://consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/10/obamacare-opponents-have-misrepresented-consumer-reports-position/index.htm) mischaracterizations of their position.

They wrote:

Pundits opposed to the new health care law and some media outlets have tried to suggest that our coverage of the troubled HealthCare.gov site means that Consumer Reports has turned against the Affordable Care Act.

Not true. Consistent with our mission to inform and protect consumers, particularly in this complicated health care market, our advice remains the same: The best place to buy coverage on your own is through the Health Insurance Marketplace in your state. That guarantees you will get comprehensive coverage, and it's the only way you can lower the cost of your premiums and possibly even your deductibles and copayments.

Doing that online in most states means registering at and shopping through the federal HealthCare.gov.


Hannity has a record of plowing forward with his favorite anti-ACA narratives, regardless of their accuracy (http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/18/foxs-obamacare-victims-arent-victims-at-all/196498), and so his disregard for Consumer Reports' true position is unsurprising.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/22/consumer-reports-criticizes-obamacare-opponents/196532

[Winehole23]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/10/23/heres-how-the-white-house-just-tweaked-obamacare/?wprss=rss_ezra-klein

[Cry Havoc]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/20/fox-news-reportedly-used-fake-commenter-account/196509


NPR media reporter David Folkenflik writes in his forthcoming book Murdoch's World that Fox News' public relations staffers used an elaborate series of dummy accounts to fill the comments sections of critical blog posts with pro-Fox arguments.

In a chapter focusing on how Fox utilized its notoriously ruthless public relations department in the mid-to-late 00's, Folkenflik reports that Fox's PR staffers would "post pro-Fox rants" in the comments sections of "negative and even neutral" blog posts written about the network. According to Folkenflik, the staffers used various tactics to cover their tracks, including setting up wireless broadband connections that "could not be traced back" to the network.

A former staffer told Folkenflik that they had personally used "one hundred" fake accounts to plant Fox-friendly commentary:

On the blogs, the fight was particularly fierce. Fox PR staffers were expected to counter not just negative and even neutral blog postings but the anti-Fox comments beneath them. One former staffer recalled using twenty different aliases to post pro-Fox rants. Another had one hundred. Several employees had to acquire a cell phone thumb drive to provide a wireless broadband connection that could not be traced back to a Fox News or News Corp account. Another used an AOL dial-up connection, even in the age of widespread broadband access, on the rationale it would be harder to pinpoint its origins. Old laptops were distributed for these cyber operations. Even blogs with minor followings were reviewed to ensure no claim went unchecked. [Murdoch's World, pg. 67]

In the book's endnotes, Folkenflik explains that "four former Fox News employees told me of these practices." It's unclear whether these tactics are ongoing.

:lmao :lmao :lmao

If the AFA is going to be such a failure, why the need for this?

:lol Scared :lol

:lol Desperate :lol

[boutons_deux]

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/20/fox-news-reportedly-used-fake-commenter-account/196509

In the book's endnotes, Folkenflik explains that "four former Fox News employees told me of these practices." It's unclear whether these tactics are ongoing.



OF COURSE "these tactics are ongoing"

Roges Ailes' Dirty Tricks go WAY BACK to Tricky Dick Nixon and right through dubya/dickhead's LYING USA into Iraq.

Roger Ailes' Secret Nixon-Era Blueprint for Fox News (http://gawker.com/5814150/roger-ailes-secret-nixon+era-blueprint-for-fox-news)

Republican media strategist Roger Ailes launched Fox News Channel in 1996, ostensibly as a "fair and balanced" counterpoint to what he regarded as the liberal establishment media. But according to a remarkable document buried deep within the Richard Nixon Presidential Library, the intellectual forerunner for Fox News was a nakedly partisan 1970 plot by Ailes and other Nixon aides to circumvent the "prejudices of network news" and deliver "pro-administration" stories to heartland television viewers.

The memo—called, simply enough, "A Plan For Putting the GOP on TV News"— is included in a 318-page cache of documents detailing Ailes' work for both the Nixon and George H.W. Bush administrations that we obtained from the Nixon and Bush presidential libraries. Through his firms REA Productions and Ailes Communications, Inc., Ailes served as paid consultant to both presidents in the 1970s and 1990s, offering detailed and shrewd advice ranging from what ties to wear to how to keep the pressure up on Saddam Hussein in the run-up to the first Gulf War.
(http://gawker.com/5814150/roger-ailes-secret-nixon+era-blueprint-for-fox-news)
http://gawker.com/5814150/roger-ailes-secret-nixon+era-blueprint-for-fox-news (http://gawker.com/5814150/roger-ailes-secret-nixon+era-blueprint-for-fox-news)

[boutons_deux]

More legal trouble for Affordable Care Act




The Affordable Care Act proposes to make health insurance affordable to millions of low-income Americans by offering them tax credits to help cover the cost. To receive the credit, the law twice says they must buy insurance "through an exchange established by the state."
But 36 states have decided against opening exchanges for now. Although the law permits the federal government to open exchanges instead, it does not say tax credits may be given to those who buy insurance through a federally run exchange.

Apparently no one noticed this when the long and complicated bill worked its way through the House and Senate. Last year, however, the Internal Revenue Service tried to remedy it by putting out a regulation that redefined "exchange" to include a "federally facilitated exchange." This is "consistent with the language, purpose and structure … of the act as a whole," the Treasury Department said.




But critics of the law have seized on the glitch. They have filed four lawsuits that urge judges to rule the Obama administration must abide by the strict wording of the law, even if doing so dismantles it in nearly two-thirds of the states. And the Obama administration has no hope of repairing the glitch by legislation as long as the Republicans control the House.

"My jaw dropped when I first saw this," said Michael F. Cannon, a health policy expert at the Cato Institute and a fierce critic of the law. He and others credit Jonathan Adler, a Case WesternReserve University law professor, with first highlighting the glitch.

"This has the potential to sink Obamacare. It could make the current website problems seem minor by comparison," Cannon said.

Defenders of the law say the courts are being used as part of the political campaign against the law.

"This is definitely heating up. It is now the major focus of the Republican strategy for undoing the Affordable Care Act," said Simon Lazarus, a lawyer for the Constitutional Accountability Center. "The lawsuits should be seen as preposterous," he said, because they ask judges to give the law a "nonsensical" interpretation.

No judge has ruled directly on the claim that the IRS rule put forth by the administration is illegal and contradicted by the words of the law. Indiana Atty. Gen. Greg Zoeller filed one of four lawsuits this month. A federal judge in Oklahoma is considering a similar suit filed by that state's attorney general. A fourth suit is scheduled to be heard by a judge in Richmond, Va.

If any of the four judges agree with the challengers, they are likely to be asked to put the law on hold until the legal dispute is resolved. And that in turn could quickly send the issue to a U.S. appeals court and then to the Supreme Court.


"They are betting on getting five votes at the Supreme Court," Lazarus said. "I don't think it will happen."

http://touch.latimes.com/#section/1780/article/p2p-77922629/?related=true

In SCOTUS, we know which 4 JINO assholes would vote against ACA, Roberts again would be the swing vote.

[boutons_deux]

The Myth Of The $634 Million Obamacare Website

Glenn Beck's site, The Blaze, also debunked the number. "While the federal website to signup for Obamacare was riddled with errors and had a rocky rollout, it didn't cost $634 million to build," wrote (http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/10/10/rumor-check-obamacare-website-might-be-glitchy-but-it-didnt-cost-634-million/) Liz Klimas. Citing an official inside GCI,

The Blaze reported the $634 figure "includes all of the company's contracts for a Health and Human Services Department program over the last seven years."

Independently, the Sunlight Foundation estimated (http://sunlightfoundation.com/blog/2013/10/22/how-much-did-healthcare-gov-actually-cost/) it cost $70 million (http://mediamatters.org/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AubOS5vQm8H7dHp5Y2JoZ2FvcEhuQ1VPUk96dG8wQ 0E&usp=drive_web#gid=0) to build the much-maligned website, not $634 million. (Officially, CGI was awarded (http://www.cgi.com/en/CGI-selected-build-US-wide-competitive-health-insurance-exchange) a $93 million contract for the healthcare.gov job.)

And today in his Fact Checker column (http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/10/24/how-much-did-healthcare-gov-cost/) in the Washington Post, Glenn Kessler looked at the question of the healthcare.gov cost and concluded, "A conservative figure would be $70 million. A more modest figure would be $125 million to $150 million." Kessler noted that the cost for the entire health care project beyond the website would be "at least $350 million."

Despite those red flags, the bloated figure has been widely embraced (http://dailycaller.com/2013/10/23/how-some-states-helped-blunt-the-shutdown-pain/) as factual (http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20131015/OPINION01/310150009#ixzz2hnhjBfth) within the conservative press.

http://mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/24/the-myth-of-the-634-million-obamacare-website/196585

[Winehole23]

Health plans are sending hundreds of thousands of cancellation letters to people who buy their own coverage, frustrating some consumers who want to keep what they have and forcing others to buy more costly policies.


The main reason insurers offer is that the policies fall short of what the Affordable Care Act requires starting Jan. 1. Most are ending policies sold after the law passed in March 2010. At least a few are cancelling plans sold to people with pre-existing medical conditions.


By all accounts, the new policies will offer consumers better coverage, in some cases, for comparable cost -- especially after the inclusion of federal subsidies for those who qualify. The law requires policies sold in the individual market to cover 10 “essential” benefits, such as prescription drugs, mental health treatment and maternity care. In addition, insurers cannot reject people with medical problems or charge them higher prices. The policies must also cap consumers’ annual expenses at levels lower than many plans sold before the new rules.


But the cancellation notices, which began arriving in August, have shocked many consumers in light of President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their plans if they liked them.


“I don’t feel like I need to change, but I have to,” said Jeff Learned, a television editor in Los Angeles, who must find a new plan for his teenage daughter, who has a health condition that has required multiple surgeries.
An estimated 14 million people purchase their own coverage because they don’t get it through their jobs. Calls to insurers in several states showed that many have sent notices.


Florida Blue, for example, is terminating about 300,000 policies, about 80 percent of its individual policies in the state. Kaiser Permanente in California has sent notices to 160,000 people – about half of its individual business in the state. Insurer Highmark in Pittsburgh is dropping about 20 percent of its individual market customers, while Independence Blue Cross, the major insurer in Philadelphia, is dropping about 45 percent.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2013/October/21/cancellation-notices-health-insurance.aspx

[Winehole23]

CareFirst BlueCross BlueShield is being forced to cancel plans that currently cover 76,000 individuals in Virginia, Maryland, and Washington, D.C., due to changes made by President Obama's health care law, the company told the Washington Examiner today.http://washingtonexaminer.com/carefirst-says-76000-customers-will-lose-current-coverage-due-to-obamacare/article/2537782

[Winehole23]

The lead technology contractor behind the problem-ridden federal online health insurance marketplace is a beneficiary of the Texas Enterprise Fund, according to a money-in-politics watchdog group.

Texans for Public Justice reported Friday afternoon that Montreal-based CGI Group, which provides IT consulting services, received a $1.8 million state investment in 2011 through the Texas Enterprise Fund, a state business incentive fund overseen by Gov. Rick Perry (http://www.texastribune.org/directory/rick-perry/).

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/10/25/perry-backed-company-behind-federal-exchange-websi/

[TSA]

:lol @ Michelle Obamba's Princeton classmate being a top executive at the company that built healthcare.gov

[boutons_deux]

http://washingtonexaminer.com/carefirst-says-76000-customers-will-lose-current-coverage-due-to-obamacare/article/2537782

people in the INDIVIDUAL market getting cancelled so they go buy INDIVIDUAL policies in the exchanges.

A pain in the ass, but I don't understand an insurer's logic, if the insurer is in the exchange and will sell another policy back to the INDIVIDUAL he just terminated.

The obvious advantage is for insurers in the individual market that are not selling in the exchanges, that want to exit the individual policy market soon or later.

[boobie4three]

October 26, 2013
Toward Single-Payer: We're Almost There

Seventy-five years ago, it was lawyers, doctors, and shop owners; today, it's insurance companies. These free-enterprise for-profits are the main obstacle to instituting a single-payer health care system in the U.S. They must be removed from the equation if Obama is to realize his dream.
While everyone focuses on the latest ObamaCare IT screw-up, the ongoing abolition of for-profit insurance companies continues.
Consider this timeline. In June 2003, Obama made his future intentions clear.

From an Illinois AFL-CIO speech:
I happen to be a proponent of a single payer universal health care program. [Applause.] I see no reason why the United States of America, the wealthiest country in the history of the world, spending 14 percent of its Gross National Product on health care cannot provide basic health insurance to everybody. And that's what Jim is talking about when he says everybody in, nobody out. A single payer health care plan, a universal health care plan. And that's what I'd like to see. But as all of you know, we may not get there immediately. Because first we have to take back the White House, we have to take back the Senate, and we have to take back the House.

Five years after his AFL-CIO declaration to bring single-payer/universal health coverage to America, Obama was asked in a Feb. 21, 2008 debate if he differed with his opponent Hillary Clinton concerning insurance mandates. Obama replied that their goals were the same but that "we have to take a different way."
Five days later, on February 26, 2008, in Cleveland, the future president clarified how insurance companies would play a key role in achieving his 2003 vision of "everybody in, nobody out." In other words, a single-payer system.


If we don't know the level of subsidies that [Hillary's plan is] going to provide, then you can have a situation, which we are seeing right now in the state of Massachusetts, where people are being fined for not having purchased health care but choose to accept the fine because they still can't afford it, even with the subsidies.
And they are then worse off. They then have no health care and are paying a fine above and beyond that. And the last point I would make is, the insurance companies actually are happy to have a mandate. The insurance companies don't mind making sure that everybody has to purchase their product. That's not something they're objecting to.

The promise of millions of new customers would be music to any free-market company's ears. Obama's strategy to partner with the middle-man in order to overhaul America's health care system materialized when he became president in 2008.
Nominating a former Kansas insurance commissioner, Kathleen Sebelius, to be secretary of health and human services was Obama's first move. Kathy Greenlee, who worked with Mrs. Sebelius at the Kansas insurance commission and is now an assistant secretary at HHS, lauded the secretary: "Kathleen knows everything there is about insurance."
Insider Sebelius would be important in fostering the kind of relationships Obama needed to quell dissent among naysayers in the health industry. In August 2009, the Huffington Post reported that the president had hosted at least 27 meetings with some of the most influential private health-industry executives in the country "in an effort to placate or at least quiet potential opponents of reform in what remains a tenuous legislative process."
Prior to HuffPo's revelation, the White House convened a health forum bringing together all the major players in the industry. At the conference, health insurers pledged their support to Obama's plan for health care reform, with one stipulation: that Obama drop the public option.
Obama's relentless pursuit of the insurance companies continued throughout the first year of his presidency. Lobbyists in turn persuaded D.C. politicians to pass the Affordable Care Act despite an outcry from a majority of Americans.
A few months after the ACA was passed in December of 2009, and two weeks before Obama signed it into law, the president hauled insurance executives from the top five companies into another meeting. It didn't take long before they realized that the honeymoon was over. He vilified the health insurance providers for caring more about profits than about folks going through hard times.
Propped up by his former insurance commissioner Kathleen Sebelius, Obama read aloud a letter from a 50-year-old cancer survivor whose premiums were set to rise 40% in 2010. "This is clearly unacceptable and unsustainable," the president told the CEOs. Sebelius proceeded to call out the executives for enjoying healthy profits in the billions of dollars while "sick people are segregated" and saddled with high premiums.

... people across America who are really frightened that they are priced out of the market, don't know what's coming next, want some information about how this is happening and what strategies we have for looking at costs into the future. Because they are terrified that they are next.

Sebelius's heartfelt ploy on behalf of a citizenry, most of whom were vehemently opposed to ObamaCare, led to her suggestion that the CEOs practice increased transparency. The secretary asked them to make information on rate requests public along with the actuarial data that supports those rate requests: what they're paying out, what they are collecting for overhead costs, and what they're collecting for administrative costs.
At the meeting, Obama proposed more regulations in an industry already heavily regulated. What Americans attending town halls had been warning their representatives about for over a year -- namely, a total government takeover of the health care system -- had begun.
Fast-forward to October 2013. Due to this month's $600-million IT blunder, the same ensnared insurance companies set to add 30 million new individuals to their books are finding out the real cost, financial and human, of joining their fortunes to Obama's radical plan to transform one sixth of the economy.
Insurance companies like Florida Blue, Kaiser Permanente, and Highmark Pittsburgh have already sent out hundreds of thousands of letters to consumers in recent weeks canceling their health care policies. The plans do not meet essential health benefits required by the health care law and are not eligible for the state- and federally run exchanges. According to policy experts, if members dropped from the rolls shop for coverage in off-exchange alternatives, they will not qualify for subsidies.
If this is the case, the road to single-payer will be littered with canceled policies and desperate consumers looking for a solution.
A few days ago, Fox News's Chris Stirewalt suggested that the bumbling IT rollout could lead to a break in the relationship between insurance carriers and Obama.

While Hill Democrats might be placated with promises of urgent action to fix the fouled Web site and sign-up system, the insurance chiefs are likely to be less understanding If ObamaCare doesn't deliver the millions of desirable customers the president has promised, widespread rate shocks even higher than those already reported could cause more insurers to dump customers and get out of the business altogether.

What Stirewalt and others don't get or don't want to believe is that putting the private insurance industry out of business was all part of the plan. The president's 2003 utopian agenda of a single-payer system cannot happen as long as they exist.

http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/10/towards_single-payer_were_almost_there.html

[Bill_Brasky]

ITT: people who haven't read one word of ACA yet like to debate as if they did.

[boobie4three]

ITT: people who haven't read one word of ACA yet like to debate as if they did.

All Right!
Someone who's read all 2000 pages. Enlighten us with your knowledge please.

[Bill_Brasky]

the funny thing is I could make up whatever I want because you haven't read it. if I worded it as supportive of ACA you'd dig around and disprove it, but if it was against it bet you'd use it as a talking point.

[boobie4three]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vNjBLdAyHP0

[boobie4three]

the funny thing is I could make up whatever I want because you haven't read it. if I worded it as supportive of ACA you'd dig around and disprove it, but if it was against it bet you'd use it as a talking point.

I, along with others here, have put forth evidence that the ACA is extremely flawed. You, a supporter I take it, wishing to present evidence that it is a success, have instead presented nothing.

[boutons_deux]

ACA is flawed, absolutely no surprise in any system so complex.

what is "extremely flawed" is you stinkin asshole tea baggers and Repugs sabotaging ACA at every turn, rather than helping to make it work, and fix it. iow, you're fucking over your fellow Americans.

[boobie4three]

ACA is flawed, absolutely no surprise in any system so complex.

what is "extremely flawed" is you stinkin asshole tea baggers and Repugs sabotaging ACA at every turn, rather than helping to make it work, and fix it. iow, you're fucking over your fellow Americans.

:lol Saboteurs . Hey, just because you're paranoid, it doesn't mean people still aren't out to get you. :lol

[ElNono]

not a fan of repeal for that exact reason... I'm hoping this turd is a stepping-stone towards single-payor... going back to the previous status-quo isn't appealing nor a solution...

[boutons_deux]

GOP’s Obamacare conspiracy: Sabotage from the inside

(http://www.salon.com/2013/10/26/gop_shares_blame_for_obamacare_glitches/)Filibustering personnel: In particular, Senate Republicans prevented the confirmation of an Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid until May, 2013. That’s the agency that has the lead in getting things running. The general conventional wisdom, almost certainly true, is that neither an acting director or a recess appointed director has the clout within an agency of a properly nominated and confirmed presidential appointee.

Passing on state-run exchanges: With over half the states refusing to set up their own marketplaces, the job of the federal government was much larger than originally envisioned. And this was clearly not done with good intentions: ask 100 Republicans whether they believe the states or the federal government does a better job running things, and at least 99 are going to say the states.

Defunding: While the recent major defunding push failed, House Republicans successfully restricted funding for Health and Human Services and the agencies in charge of implementing the ACA, forcing Secretary Sebelius (and presumably various others at the department and various agencies) to scramble to make up for it.

Myths and lies: How many times since March 2010 has someone at the White House or a Democrat in Congress called over to HHS to ask about some crazy rumor that the press or a constituent was asking about? How much time was dedicated to figuring out what it was all about so that it could be properly refuted?

The big lawsuit: Granted, there’s some legitimacy in challenging the Constitutional status of a law, as long as it’s not frivolous, and the partial success of the lawsuit is sufficient to show it wasn’t entirely frivolous. Still, the type of attack involved in the lawsuit made it clear that reform opponents, if they couldn’t defeat the law, would be happy to leave it dysfunctional.

Other lawsuits: There have been plenty of these, and many of them really have been frivolous. As with the one that reached the Supreme Court, all of these have had the effect of delaying implementation, given that the status of the law was under fire.

Medicaid expansion: Not only did the state-by-state fights over Medicaid expansion mean that the program could not work as intended — the ability of states to
opt out opens up a large hole for the not-quite-poor — but again, just dealing with this must have been yet another distraction.

Suppressing outreach: The administration knew that it had a major task in publicizing the rollout. What made that harder (and, presumably, distracted them from the critical task of making everything work smoothly) was a bizarre and perverse effort to undermine outreach: organizations such as the NFL were threatened if they helped to publicize the law, and an advertising campaign attempted to scare young people away from wanting to carry any health insurance.

http://www.salon.com/2013/10/26/gop_shares_blame_for_obamacare_glitches/ (http://www.salon.com/2013/10/26/gop_shares_blame_for_obamacare_glitches/)

[boobie4three]

:lol Only the 0bama sheeple will believe that the Republicans share any of the blame in this disaster.

[Winehole23]

The bottom line is that if the current State Medicaid expansion decisions persist, the unintended story of the ACA will turn out to be the redistribution of money from poorer States, to richer ones, an outcome imposed by the poorer states, upon themselves.http://donaldhtaylorjr.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/self-imposed-redistribution-from-poor-to-rich-states/

[boutons_deux]

http://donaldhtaylorjr.wordpress.com/2013/10/26/self-imposed-redistribution-from-poor-to-rich-states/

and since the right-to-work-for-less red states refusing Medicaid expansion are nearly all otherwise net recipients of Federal aid (from blue states), this is self-inflicted justice! :lol red state welfare cancelled by red states, to cut off their own noses.

[boutons_deux]

http://truth-out.org/media/k2/items/src/1ae1b222d37adc509ca172bd613c40df.jpg

[Winehole23]

The disastrous rollout of HealthCare.gov may have another serious problem: A CBS News analysis shows that in many of the 15 state-based health insurance exchanges more people are enrolling in Medicaid rather than buying private health insurance. And if that trend continues, there's concern there won't be enough healthy people buying health insurance for the system to work.

As the Obamacare website struggles, the administration is emphasizing state-level success. President Obama said Monday, "There's great demand at the state level as well. Because there are a bunch of states running their own marketplaces."
But left unsaid in the president's remarks: the newly insured in some of those states are overwhelmingly low-income people signing up for Medicaid at no cost to them.


Matt Salo, executive director of the National Association of Medicaid Directors, said, "We're seeing a huge spike in terms of Medicaid enrollments."
He says the numbers have surprised him and state officials.


CBS News has confirmed that in Washington, of the more than 35,000 people newly enrolled, 87 percent signed up for Medicaid. In Kentucky, out of 26,000 new enrollments, 82 percent are in Medicaid. And in New York, of 37,000 enrollments, Medicaid accounts for 64 percent. And there are similar stories across the country in nearly half of the states that run their own exchanges.


Medicaid experts say they're not sure why they're seeing the lopsided enrollment numbers, but point out it's easier to enroll in Medicaid than private insurance.

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505267_162-57609254/medicaid-enrollment-spike-a-threat-to-obamacare-structure/

[Winehole23]

and since the right-to-work-for-less red states refusing Medicaid expansion are nearly all otherwise net recipients of Federal aid (from blue states), this is self-inflicted justice! :lol red state welfare cancelled by red states, to cut off their own noses.cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, as we say in English. states going their own way, for better and for worse, is a feature of the original design.

[Th'Pusher]

cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, as we say in English. states going their own way, for better and for worse, is a feature of the original design.
Not with regard to Medicaid expansion. SCOTUS enabled that.

[Winehole23]

quite correct. I was speaking to the original design of the US republic, not the ACA.

[boutons_deux]

cutting off one's nose to spite one's face, as we say in English. states going their own way, for better and for worse, is a feature of the original design.

"states rights" has always meant racism, discrimination, still does.

The Constitution greatly strengthened Federal govt as a remedy for the hapless Articles of Confederation.

[Winehole23]

speaking loosely, again: I meant the 1789 Constitution, which the Articles of Confederation of course preceded.

[angrydude]

"states rights" has always meant racism, discrimination, still does.

The Constitution greatly strengthened Federal govt as a remedy for the hapless Articles of Confederation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_and_Virginia_Resolutions

[FuzzyLumpkins]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kentucky_and_Virginia_Resolutions

While he is going to most likely disregard the truth in that, I see it.

[boutons_deux]

there is a smaller part of the ACA that has potentially far-reaching effects on all of primary care, and I've hardly heard a thing about it in the media. It is helping primary care physicians transform how we deliver care to our population of patients and it is actually kind of exciting.

I am a family practice physician in a multi-specialty group of about 60 doctors, mostly primary care.

...

So enough background. Here's the good stuff. The ACA provides funding and guidance for a new way to approach health care. The Comprehensive Primary Care initiative is a program that involves about 500 practices across the country, in several geographic areas. Southwest Ohio/N. KY, New Jersey, Arkansas, Colorado, New York, Oregon, and Oklahoma have participating practices.

Practices were selected based on a number of factors, including past willingness to participate in such things as NCQA quality recognition, and patient-centered medical home (PCMH) certification. You can read more here: http://innovation.cms.gov/... (http://innovation.cms.gov/initiatives/comprehensive-primary-care-initiative/)

Basically, CMS (center for Medicare and Medicaid services) provides funding outside of the fee-for-service environment for practices to do a better job of chronic disease management. There is/was a detailed application process, and multiple milestones you have to meet, but a lot of it boils down to CMS providing additional monies for practices to use as they see fit in order to help improve the care for their patients, particularly (although not exclusively) those with higher risk chronic illness.

The whole thing is actually really interesting. While there are quite a lot of specifics, there are also a lot of areas open to interpretation. CMS is partnering with multiple private insurance carriers to provide a monthly fee (outside of any appointment or fee-for-service interaction) to physician practices in order to help those practices invest in infrastructure which will help improve patient care. The amount per patient per month is based on risk assessment. Basically, the more diagnoses, and the more complicated a patient is, the higher the monthly fee. A well-controlled diabetic would have a lower fee than a diabetic with chronic kidney disease, heart disease, and neuropathy. So right off the bat, you can see how this is a paradigm shift from the traditional fee-for-service environment. You may actually be paid more to take care of a more complicated person and try to keep them out of the hospital.

However, and this is a BIG part, the money from this CPC initiative can NOT be paid to physicians as compensation. It is to be used to improve infrastructure. This is actually pretty cool because instead of just paying doctors more and saying, "hey, if we pay you more, you'll do a better job, right?", CMS is saying, "we will give you money to use as you see fit (within the structure of our program and its milestones) to improve patient care which should improve outcomes, decrease severe complication rates, improve patient satisfaction, and eventually decrease overall costs through an investment up front."

If you hadn't already guessed, my group has several practices involved in the CPCI program and we are excited about it. I don't know what the other 490-some practices across the country are doing, but we have used the money to hire more staff, including what we call Care Coordinators for each office, an RN who can reach out to patients before, during and after appointments to see how we can better coordinate care. We try to have labs drawn before folks come for appointments, so we can have already reviewed the results before walking in the room. This allows for more efficient care. If someone's cholesterol is not to goal, for example, we can increase the dose of their cholesterol medication while sitting with them and explaining why an LDL goal of under 70 is the target. This works a lot better than a medical assistant calling someone and playing phone tag three days after their appointment to try to make sure they know that the new dose is 40 mg instead of 20.

Anyway, the Care Coordinator can help reach out to people who might need help paying for meds and see what assistance programs might help someone. She can help someone who was recently in the hospital understand their new medication regimen and help set up their follow up. If someone doesn't go for the colonoscopy or mammogram that we ordered, she can call them and find out why and/or encourage them to go (and maybe mention that preventative care is covered 100% now!). She can review their chart ahead of time and put in a reminder for the doctor that the patient is due for a pneumonia vaccine or a shingles vaccine. This is all part of the team-based approach to care which is helping to improve patient outcomes.

Our practice would not really been able to afford a Care Coordinator without the CPCI monies. Our group has also decided to hire a diabetes educator. Insurance is often squirrelly about paying for diabetes education, despite study after study clearly showing the benefits. Now we will be able to offer diabetes education free of charge to all of our patients.

This is pretty great all around. The doctors get more help, the patients get more individualized attention and care, outcomes improve, which specifically means someone didn't have a stroke. Someone didn't lose their vision because of diabetes. Someone had a precancerous colon polyp removed instead of being diagnosed with metastatic cancer a couple years later. Someone's grandmother didn't lose her foot. Oh, and all that stuff also saves money.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/27/1250950/-A-little-known-but-potentially-fantastic-provision-of-the-Affordable-Care-Act?detail=email#

[SA210]

tbh :lol

https://scontent-a-iad.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/q71/601401_604388316263706_1438325712_n.jpg

[boobie4three]

I'm glad this was done. 0bama acted lawlessly in delaying the employer mandate.

AAPS Sues to Stop the Unlawful Revisions to ObamaCare
Published: October 30, 2013

By Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)

TUCSON, ARIZ., OCT. 30, 2013 — /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- The Association of American Physicians & Surgeons (AAPS) has filed a lawsuit today in federal court to halt the unlawful revisions to ObamaCare (the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act).

The separation of powers required by the Constitution prohibits the executive branch—the Obama Administration—from rewriting laws passed by Congress. Yet that is what Obama has done by changing key parts of ObamaCare in order to implement it.

The AAPS lawsuit, which was filed today in the Eastern District of Wisconsin, asks the Court to enjoin the Obama Administration from imposing its "individual mandate" while delaying the "employer mandate." The law that was passed by Congress in 2010 requires that the employer mandate go into effect at the same time as the individual mandate: Jan 1, 2014.

"The U.S. Constitution requires a strict separation of powers between the three branches of government, such that the executive branch cannot change laws passed by Congress," AAPS's lawsuit explains. By imposing the individual mandate in 2014 without the protection of the employer mandate, the Obama Administration has changed the legislation passed by Congress.

The delay in the employer mandate means that many Americans who might have had the protection of employer-purchased insurance will either have to purchase costly individual insurance for themselves, or else pay a tax. This unlawful change will force many Americans, more than Congress intended, to purchase expensive, unwanted health insurance. They will then have less income to use for things they do want, such as medical services purchased directly from private physicians without bureaucratic interference.

Unless Americans stand up now to stop Obama's rewriting of the laws, then there is no end to the harm that will result. The Obama Administration could begin to impose still more laws on Americans, such as single payer, without congressional approval, if legal action is not taken now to stop these violations of the Constitution. AAPS's lawsuit today seeks an end to the practice of legislating from the White House.

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a national organization representing physicians in all specialties, founded in 1943.

SOURCE Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS)

http://www.heraldonline.com/2013/10/30/5354580/aaps-sues-to-stop-the-unlawful.html

[boutons_deux]

:lol what bullshit. The REPUGS have been screaming, agitating for Obama to delay, "UNLAWFULLY", the individual mandate, also.

========================

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a politically conservative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States) non-profit association founded in 1943 to "fight socialized medicine and to fight the government takeover of medicine."[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-nyt-2011-1)[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-Portent-2) The group was reported to have approximately 4,000 members in 2005, and 3,000 in 2011.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-nyt-2011-1)[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-3) Notable members include Ron Paul (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul)

While it describes itself as "non-partisan",[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-8) AAPS is generally recognized as politically conservative.[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-Rouse-7)[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-9)[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-10)[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-MJ-11) According to Mother Jones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Jones_(magazine)), "despite the lab coats and the official-sounding name, the docs of the AAPS are hardly part of mainstream medical society. Think Glenn Beck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Beck) with an MD."[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-MJ-11) :lol

The organization opposes mandatory vaccination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination),[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-12) a single-payer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer) healthcare system[13] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-13) and government intervention in healthcare.[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-MJ-11)[14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-14) The AAPS has characterized the effects of theSocial Security Act of 1965 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Act_of_1965), which established Medicare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)) and Medicaid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid), as "evil" and "immoral",[15] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-15) and encouraged member physicians to boycott Medicare and Medicaid.[16] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-16) AAPS argues that individuals should purchase medical care directly from doctors, and that there is no right to medical care.[17] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-17) The organization requires its members to sign a "declaration of independence" pledging that they will not work with Medicare, Medicaid, or even private insurance companies.[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-MJ-11)

AAPS opposes mandated evidence-based medicine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-based_medicine) and practice guidelines, criticizing them as a usurpation of physician autonomy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomy) and a fascist merger of state and corporate power where the biggest stakeholder is the pharmaceutical industry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_industry).[18] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-18) Other procedures that AAPS opposes include abortion[19] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-19) and over-the-counter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-counter_drug) access to emergency contraception (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_contraception).[20] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-20)AAPS also opposes electronic medical records[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-MJ-11) as well as any "direct or de facto supervision or control over the practice of medicine by federal officers or employees."[21] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-21)

On Oct 25, 2008 the AAPS website published an editorial implying that Barack Obama was using Neuro-linguistic Programming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_Programming), "a covert form of hypnosis", to coerce people to vote for him in his 2008 presidential campaign.[22] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-22)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons)

:lol

[boobie4three]

Who in their right mind thought the insurance companies could survive if they were required to accept people with pre-existing conditions?
It's all part of the plan. Destroy the insurance companies and then tell the American people that the only way we're going to survive is if we go to a single-payer system. In other words,.. FULL GOVERNMENT CONTROL.



“Why can’t I keep my insurance?” Because you’re stupid, sweetie.

Okay. This all goes to my screaming rants that people are responsible for their government. I’m getting really sick of people acting all indignant and acting like they’re being ambushed by this whole ObamaCare thing.

“Er my gawsh, y’all! My insurance bill just quadrupled. I’m serious you guys!”

Well, no kidding. What in the blue firey blazes did you expect? Let’s see. Insurance is risk pooling. A bunch of people get together and pay a small amount of money into a pool, and then when one of the people has an adverse event happen to them, the frequency of which can be broadly statistically predicted, then the pool pays out to the unlucky person who had the adverse event happen to them.

Now let’s see. From DAY FLIPPING ONE the Obama regime has been saying that mean old insurance companies will not be able to turn away customers with pre-existing conditions – in other words, insurance companies will have to let people JOIN THE RISK POOL … AFTER THE RISK EVENT HAS ALREADY HAPPENED.

Um, yeah. That is the total, complete destruction of the entire insurance paradigm. This isn’t my opinion. This is a mathematical fact … an extremely simple and elementary mathematical fact. If people who have already had the adverse risk event happen to them must be allowed into the risk pool, then it is no longer a risk pool. It is a wealth redistribution scam that victimizes the TOTAL, COMPLETE MORONS who enter and pay into the “pool” without already having had the risk event happen to them.

How can a nation of 330 million people, iniquitous gutter republic though it may be, not understand this? How can a nation of 330 million people have their tyrannical regime tell them in no uncertain terms that the entire insurance paradigm is going to be destroyed by said regime, and then when it happens everyone acts all shocked?

Oh, and then add onto that the fact that ObamaCare requires insurance to cover all kinds of bee-ess “preventative” and “elective” services. Well, if every single person in a risk pool is guaranteed to have a claim because the coverage is no longer for catastrophes, but also for purely non-emergent, elective pseudomedicine and outright quackery, then what do you expect? The “pool” has to collect more than it pays out. Period.


http://www.barnhardt.biz/2013/10/28/why-cant-i-keep-my-insurance-because-youre-stupid-sweetie/

[boobie4three]

:lol what bullshit. The REPUGS have been screaming, agitating for Obama to delay, UNLAWFULLY, in the individual mandate, also.

========================

The Association of American Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) is a politically conservative (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conservatism_in_the_United_States) non-profit association founded in 1943 to "fight socialized medicine and to fight the government takeover of medicine."[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-nyt-2011-1)[2] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-Portent-2) The group was reported to have approximately 4,000 members in 2005, and 3,000 in 2011.[1] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-nyt-2011-1)[3] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-3) Notable members include Ron Paul (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Paul)

While it describes itself as "non-partisan",[8] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-8) AAPS is generally recognized as politically conservative.[7] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-Rouse-7)[9] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-9)[10] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-10)[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-MJ-11) According to Mother Jones (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Jones_(magazine)), "despite the lab coats and the official-sounding name, the docs of the AAPS are hardly part of mainstream medical society. Think Glenn Beck (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_Beck) with an MD."[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-MJ-11) :lol

The organization opposes mandatory vaccination (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaccination),[12] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-12) a single-payer (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-payer) healthcare system[13] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-13) and government intervention in healthcare.[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-MJ-11)[14] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-14) The AAPS has characterized the effects of theSocial Security Act of 1965 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_Security_Act_of_1965), which established Medicare (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicare_(United_States)) and Medicaid (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medicaid), as "evil" and "immoral",[15] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-15) and encouraged member physicians to boycott Medicare and Medicaid.[16] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-16) AAPS argues that individuals should purchase medical care directly from doctors, and that there is no right to medical care.[17] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-17) The organization requires its members to sign a "declaration of independence" pledging that they will not work with Medicare, Medicaid, or even private insurance companies.[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-MJ-11)

AAPS opposes mandated evidence-based medicine (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evidence-based_medicine) and practice guidelines, criticizing them as a usurpation of physician autonomy (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Autonomy) and a fascist merger of state and corporate power where the biggest stakeholder is the pharmaceutical industry (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pharmaceutical_industry).[18] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-18) Other procedures that AAPS opposes include abortion[19] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-19) and over-the-counter (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Over-the-counter_drug) access to emergency contraception (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emergency_contraception).[20] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-20)AAPS also opposes electronic medical records[11] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-MJ-11) as well as any "direct or de facto supervision or control over the practice of medicine by federal officers or employees."[21] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-21)

On Oct 25, 2008 the AAPS website published an editorial implying that Barack Obama was using Neuro-linguistic Programming (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neuro-linguistic_Programming), "a covert form of hypnosis", to coerce people to vote for him in his 2008 presidential campaign.[22] (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons#ci te_note-22)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Association_of_American_Physicians_and_Surgeons)

:lol

That's it, try and divert attention away from the fact 0bama acted lawlessly.

[boutons_deux]

That's it, try and divert attention away from the fact 0bama acted lawlessly.

that's it, Repugs try to SABOTAGE a federal law.

[boobie4three]

that's it, Repugs try to SABOTAGE a federal law.

I haven't heard of any lawsuits targeting Repubs. I have though seen one targeting 0bama....See above.

[boutons_deux]

That's it, try and divert attention away from the fact 0bama acted lawlessly.

AAPS is an old, extreme, right wiing POLITICAL organization, has no cred as disinterested medical professionals, and is participating in SABOTAGING ACA for purely political reasons, not because the company mandate was ILLEGALLY delayed.

[TSA]

AAPS is an old, extreme, right wiing POLITICAL organization, has no cred as disinterested medical professionals, and is participating in SABOTAGING ACA for purely political reasons, not because the company mandate was ILLEGALLY delayed.

So you agree that it was illegal correct?

[boutons_deux]

So you agree that it was illegal correct?

ILLEGALLY

"ILLEGALLY"

aka BULL FUCKING SHIT

ACA is a success, and will get even better, so you right-wingers can go suck it, and keep driving your Medicaid-denied red-state Repug-state neighbors to the ER with advanced disease and NO INSURANCE.

[AntiChrist]

An unfortunate split screen on CNN while Kathleen Sebelius was testifying about the train wreck, a.k.a. Obamacare website


http://static1.businessinsider.com/image/5271186069bedde53d4a0837-1024-768/cnn-sebelius.jpg





Lol, this video

_N6dc41VQwQ

[boutons_deux]

At issue is the president's claim when selling health care reform that if you like your current health plan, you can keep it. That point in turn was based on the provision that grandfathered existing plans in the individual market (neither employer-based or government provided) by granting exemptions from various standards and consumer protections that came into effect when the law was signed in 2010.

However, as clearly stated at the time, if such a plan were to significantly change in ways that are inconsistent with consumer protections under the ACA, that it would lose its grandfathered status.

Like I said, this has been known since the law was written. In fact, go here (http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3249) to see a 2010 publication by my CBPP colleague Sarah Lueck that lists the ways plans can lose its grandfathered status, like eliminating benefits to treat certain conditions or significantly raising co-pays beyond what's implied by the rate of medical price inflation.

So, yeah -- if a plan changes such that a) it's not the same plan, and b) those changes, as Volsky notes, "significantly burden enrollees with lower benefits and increased costs, [then] they have to come into compliance with all consumer protections."

It's also the case that:

-- The administration knew there would be lots of plans in the individual market that would change like this and lose their grandfathered status, and said so back in 2010.

-- Despite rumors to the contrary, it's still a free country and private insurers can discontinue plans whenever they want. That plan may or may not have been grandfathered in 2010, but now needs to improve to come into compliance with the ACA.

-- The vast majority of Americans with health coverage will face few or no changes to their coverage, including the 171 million with employer-based coverage and the 100 million with Medicare and Medicaid. And any changes they will face will be improvements in benefits.

So, did the president misspeak? In a way, sure. He should have said: "If you like your plan and it doesn't get significantly worse such that it's out of sync with what we're trying to do here, you can keep it."

And, in fact, such nuances were clear at the time and not buried in the weeds but discussed in the open (http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/14/health/policy/14health.html). Not much to see here folks... move along.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jared-bernstein/affordable-care-act-plans_b_4175019.html

aka, if your individual insurance plan is junk, is garbage, it will have to change or die.

[boutons_deux]

An unfortunate split screen on CNN while Kathleen Sebelius was testifying about the train wreck, a.k.a. Obamacare website



the assholes grillig Sebelius are just engaging in further SABOTAGE, eg:

The Republicans Grilling Sebelius Prevented Uninsured From Enrolling In Obamacare In Other Ways (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/30/2858211/republicans-grilling-sebelius-prevented-uninsured-enrolling-obamacare-ways/)

But last month, fifteen Republican members of the Committee, including Chairman Fred Upton (R-MI), requested detailed responses (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/09/03/2561741/navigators/) and thousands of pages of documents from approximately 60 percent of the so-called “Navigator” organizations — more than 100 hospitals, universities, Indian tribes, patient advocacy groups and local food banks — tasked with helping uninsured people connect to coverage. The lawmakers gave the groups just two weeks to provide detailed written descriptions of their employees and activities, interactions with the Department of Health and Human Services, and “all documentation and communication related to your grant.”

Several Republicans on the Committee cheered the news. “If this ended up resulting in a delay, I wouldn’t be unhappy about it (http://www.newsobserver.com/2013/09/07/3166895/nc-groups-working-to-implement.html),” Rep. Renee Ellmers (R-NC) said. Rep. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) added that his office wouldn’t help constituents enroll in Obamacare. “Our position is, if you want to sign up, you got to call HHS,” he said. “So we will say, ‘Call [HHS Secretary] Kathleen Sebelius’ office if you want to figure that out.’ ”

The effort is just the latest attempt by Republicans to undermine enrollment. Republicans on the Energy and Commerce Committee have previously sent letters (http://democrats.energycommerce.house.gov/sites/default/files/documents/Memo-FC-Republican-Obstruction-of-ACA-2013-8-1.pdf) seeking information from entities tasked with educating the public about the law, opened investigations into public relations companies that had been contracted to promote the law on popular television shows, and warned the National Football League (NFL) and National Basketball Association (NBA) against encouraging enrollment in the law.


Update:

The National Journal’s Alex Seitz-Wald adds (http://www.nationaljournal.com/health-care/the-fight-of-obamacare-s-navigators-against-republican-hurdles-20131030) that “Republican legislatures and officials in at least 17 states across the country have thrown up all manner of bureaucratic roadblocks in front of the program.”

http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/10/30/2858211/republicans-grilling-sebelius-prevented-uninsured-enrolling-obamacare-ways/

[boutons_deux]

Bishop Gecko chimes in:

Mitt Romney Would Like To Remind You That He’s Still Bitter


In a post on his infrequently updated Facebook page (https://www.facebook.com/mittromney), Romney posted a rebuke to Obamacare on Wednesday, much the way Sarah Palin often does:

"In the years since the Massachusetts health care law went into effect nothing has changed my view that a plan crafted to fit the unique circumstances of a single state should not be grafted onto the entire country. Beyond that, had President Obama actually learned the lessons of Massachusetts health care,

millions of Americans would not lose the insurance they were promised they could keep, millions more would not see their premiums skyrocket, and the installation of the program would not have been a frustrating embarrassment. :lol

Health reform is best crafted by states with bipartisan support and input from its employers, as we did, without raising taxes, and by carefully phasing it in to avoid the type of disruptions we are seeing nationally."

Romney’s bitterness (http://www.nationalmemo.com/mitt-romneys-sneering-farewell-to-the-47-percent/) is understandable, having watched his signature legislative accomplishment co-opted by the president who defeated him. He’s seized on the moment of health care reform’s worst moment of despair to give it a little kick.

http://www.nationalmemo.com/mitt-romney-would-like-to-remind-you-that-hes-still-bitter/


Bishop Gecko must be thrilled that red-states, with no bipartisan support, are "crafting" the sabotage of their own state's Romneycare.

[AntiChrist]

:cry Leave Obama Alone! :cry

[TSA]

Boutons have you signed up for Obamacare?

[boutons_deux]

Boutons have you signed up for Obamacare?

I have free, excellent employer insurance

[boobie4three]

I have free, excellent employer insurance

I hope you receive a letter from them.

[AntiChrist]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bill-george/obamacare-overpromised-an_b_4177268.html

[AntiChrist]

I have free, excellent employer insurance


What employer provides free insurance? I have insurance through my work, but it's not free.

[boutons_deux]

What employer provides free insurance?

none of your business

[boutons_deux]

I hope you receive a letter from them.

I'm one of those 10Ms employees who don't have to change from a shitty plan to an excellent ACA plan, because my employer's group insurance is already excellent, AND FREE!

[boobie4three]

What employer provides free insurance? I have insurance through my work, but it's not free.

The American Communist Party is the only one I believe that provides its employees with free health care coverage...Hmmmm.

[TSA]

I'm one of those 10Ms employees who don't have to change from a shitty plan to an excellent ACA plan, because my employer's group insurance is already excellent, AND FREE!

As Obamacare's #1 proponent it would only be right of you to cancel your current insurance provided by your employer and pay in to the plan you've been pimping since day 1.

[AntiChrist]

I'm one of those 10Ms employees who don't have to change from a shitty plan to an excellent ACA plan, because my employer's group insurance is already excellent, AND FREE!

<sniff> I smell bullshit.

[boutons_deux]

<sniff> I smell bullshit.

because you head is up your ass

[TSA]

<sniff> I smell bullshit.

I do as well, 100% free.

[CavsSuperFan]

According to a new report, more than 700 fake Obamacare websites have been created.
Security experts say it's simple to identify the phony sites because they are easy to log on to.

[TeyshaBlue]

*rimshot*

[boutons_deux]

I do as well, 100% free.

same, your head is up your ass

FREEdom is just another word for Boutons has nothing else to pay!

[TSA]

I'm one of those 10Ms employees who don't have to change from a shitty plan to an excellent ACA plan, because my employer's group insurance is already excellent, AND FREE!

I'm also one of those employees who pays zero out of pocket like yourself, but you don't see me on here telling everyone else how excellent the ACA will be while not having to be a part of it. Give up your plan and sign up for the ACA. Share the financial burden that you are pushing so hard on to others you coward.

[boutons_deux]

"you don't see me on here telling everyone else how excellent the ACA will be while not having to be a part of it."

:lol I can make any and all comments and evaluations on ACA or anything else.

[SnakeBoy]

none of your business

So tell us the name of the plan so we can see how great it is.

[TSA]

:lol I can make any and all comments and evaluations on ACA or anything else.



Sure you can, and doing so while refusing to participate in the ACA makes your opinion worthless, but you already knew that.

[boutons_deux]

People Who Buy Own Health Policies Face Big Changes


They are the estimated 149 million people who receive health insurance through an employer, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. While the law has required adjustments to those plans and some prices could rise, generally people who keep their jobs may keep the same coverage. Some exceptions exist.


The story is different for the 10 million to 12 million people who buy insurance on their own. Rules for those policies have changed substantially for 2014.

Insurers are informing many of those people that their old plans have been discontinued and that they must choose new plans at new prices.

About half of those people may qualify for federal subsidies or Medicaid (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/news/health/diseasesconditionsandhealthtopics/medicaid/index.html?inline=nyt-classifier), according to a recent analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation. But those who do not are often facing much higher premiums.

The coverage required under the federal health care law is much more generous than many of the plans that had been sold to individuals, and insurers are now pricing these policies to account for many of the older and sicker people they once could turn away but must now cover. Under the new rules, people with pre-existing conditions may not be denied coverage and there are limits on how much prices may vary for people of differing ages.

Some people may find a new policy less expensive than their previous one. That could be because the insurer charged a high premium based on their age or medical condition. That is no longer permitted. And others may have plans that are “grandfathered,” meaning they were in place in 2010 and can be renewed without significant changes.

At Florida Blue, for example, 300,000 people will be notified this year that their coverage is up for renewal, and they will have to select a new plan, either through the new state marketplace or directly with the insurer. Only about 60,000 will be allowed to renew their current policies because they are grandfathered. The rest must choose among the new plans offered by Florida Blue or another insurer.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/news/affordable-care-act/2013/10/29/people-who-buy-own-health-policies-face-big-changes/

[boobie4three]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJrl1LhPlSU

Mike Rogers grills Secretary Kathleen Sebellius about the security of the website.

You'd be foolish to submit any sensitive information after listening to this.

[boutons_deux]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JJrl1LhPlSU

Mike Rogers grills Secretary Kathleen Sebellius about the security of the website.

You'd be foolish to submit any sensitive information after listening to this.

Mike Rogers is just a Repug asshole, spreading FUD, trying to limit the horrible damage ACA will visit on Repugs and tea baggers. GFY and fuck him, too.

[boutons_deux]

G.O.P. UNVEILS OWN HEALTH-CARE WEB SITE, EMERGENCYROOM.GOV


Saying that “the American people are fed up with a disastrous Web site that doesn’t work and never will,” House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) and a phalanx of congressional Republicans today unveiled their own health-care Web site, EmergencyRoom.gov.

“At EmergencyRoom.gov, every American can access the one tried-and-true health-care system that has worked in this country for decades,” he said.

While Healthcare.gov has frustrated many users with its difficult-to-navigate design, Rep. Cantor said that at EmergencyRoom.gov, “Health care is just three easy steps away. One: enter your zip code. Two: see the list of emergency rooms. Three: get to the nearest one before you die.”

The Virginia Republican wasted no time touting the cost savings of EmergencyRoom.gov, comparing it favorably with the notoriously expensive Obamacare site: “Unlike Healthcare.gov, which private contractors built at a cost running into the hundreds of millions, EmergencyRoom.gov was built for nine hundred dollars by my intern Josh.”

And in contrast with Healthcare.gov’s maze of forms, links, and phone numbers, he said, “EmergencyRoom.gov has just one phone number: 9-1-1.”

In what may be the strongest selling point for the new site, Rep. Cantor said that the wait time on EmergencyRoom.gov is “virtually nonexistent,” not counting the twelve to thirty-six hours spent in the actual emergency room.

http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/borowitzreport/2013/10/gop-unveils-own-health-care-web-site-emergencyroomgov.html?utm_source=tny&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=borowitz&mbid=nl_Borowitz%20(191)

[boobie4three]

Obama’s 16 words

By Marc A. Thiessen, Thursday, October 31

Remember George W. Bush’s “16 words” in his 2003 State of the Union address making the case for military action in Iraq? Sen. John Kerry charged that Bush “hoodwinked the American people.” Sen. Hillary Clinton said Bush “misled” the country. And Sen. Barack Obama accused the White House of “shading intelligence reports to support its case.”

Well, now it seems President Obama has his own 16 words to answer for: “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan.” (Actually, it was a little more than 16 words if you include what the president said next: “Period. No one will take it away. No matter what.”)

Obama attempted to move the goal posts in his speech in Boston’s Faneuil Hall Wednesday, declaring that if you like your current health plan, “For the vast majority . . . you can keep it.” Sorry, he didn’t say “the vast majority” back in 2009. He said you can keep your plan. Period. No matter what.

Indeed, Obama repeated this promise on at least 24 separate occasions — before and after the law went into effect. It was critical to his case. Without his 16-word pledge that no one would lose his or her health plans, Obamacare might never have become law.

But Obama’s 16 words were untrue. Across the country, Americans are now seeing their health plans discontinued — and experts say the cancellations could eventually reach 16 million. As one woman in California who got a cancellation letter from her insurer told the Los Angeles Times, “All we’ve been hearing the last three years is if you like your policy you can keep it . . . I’m infuriated because I was lied to.”

Indeed, there is good reason to believe that the administration not only knew but fully intended for all these people to lose their existing plans. The Health and Human Services Department specifically wrote regulations to ensure that they would — narrowing a provision in the law “grandfathering” in existing plans so that “40 to 67 percent” of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their policies. That’s because moving millions of customers out of the individual and small group markets and into the exchanges is critical to making the scheme financially viable. Indeed, the survival of Obamacare depends on it.

The individual and small group markets are made up largely of healthy people who don’t use a lot of services. The administration needs at least 2 million healthy people who don’t use a lot of services to join the exchanges in order to subsidize coverage for the poor and the sick. If they don’t join, the risk pool gets worse, prices go up, eventually insurers will flee the exchanges — and the whole thing collapses.

While the individual mandate is supposed to coerce uninsured healthy people without insurance to join the exchanges, the problem is that the penalties are too weak — just $95 in the first year. Why would a healthy person who does not think they need insurance pay $55 a month (or $660 a year) for a $6,000-deductible plan when they could just pay a $95 penalty instead?

So the administration needed some way to force currently insured healthy people into the exchanges. How serendipitous, then, that millions of mostly healthy people are suddenly seeing their health plans cancelled. If they cannot afford the skyrocketing prices to keep similar coverage, they have no choice but to join the exchanges. The result? A massive involuntary transfer of Americans out of private health insurance they were happy with into Obamacare plans.

These folks are the marks the administration has targeted to pay for Obamacare. Or they would be, except for one problem the White House did not anticipate: The Obamacare Web site does not work. So now millions of people who will lose their health coverage on Jan. 1 are unable to sign up for alternative coverage through the Obamacare exchanges.

It was Obama’s objective from the start to destroy the market in order to fund Obamacare. He wants these people to lose coverage so they have no choice but to sign up for the exchanges. Obama all but admitted this in his Boston speech. “If you’re getting one of these [cancellation] letters, just shop around in the new marketplace,” he declared. In other words, don’t worry if the plan you’re happy with is being cancelled, just join Obamacare! That was the plan all along.

All of which suggests that Obama’s 16 words were no accident.

Or, put another way, “Obama lied and the individual market died.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/marc-thiessen-obamas-16-words/2013/10/31/17b955ae-4227-11e3-a624-41d661b0bb78_story.html

[boutons_deux]

dubya lying about starting a war is not the same as Obama saying individuals could keep their probably shitty, junk health policy.

[boobie4three]

dubya lying about starting a war is not the same as Obama saying individuals could keep their probably shitty, junk health policy.



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hQkgSfdnbQ

[Clipper Nation]

Wow, a career politician from one of the two major parties lied? Next you'll tell me Boutons tried to deflect to the previous Republican administration!

[boutons_deux]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0hQkgSfdnbQ

Jonah Goldberg? :lol

[boutons_deux]

Google, others to help with Obamacare website

Experts from top technology and Internet companies including Google Inc, Oracle Corp and Red Hat Inc have joined the Obama administration's effort to fix its troubled HealthCare.gov website, a U.S. official said on Thursday.

Individuals from Oracle and Red Hat have expertise in site reliability, stability and scalability, according to a blog post by Julie Bataille, spokeswoman for the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid, which is overseeing the effort.

She also identified two experts by name: Michael Dickerson, a site reliability engineer on leave from Google, and Greg Gershman, whom she identified as developer and entrepreneur. Gershman, a Baltimore-based innovation director with the firm Mobomo, previously worked for the White House and the General Services Administration.

http://my.chicagotribune.com/#section/545/article/p2p-78001955/

[AntiChrist]

Q: What former president said this about how he would evaluate the Obama presidency thus far?

“He’s done the best he could under the circumstances. His major accomplishment was Obamacare, and the implementation of it now is questionable at best.”


A: Jimmy Carter :lmao

[Clipper Nation]

Obamacare enrollments got off to very slow start, documents show(CBS News) WASHINGTON - For 31 days now, the Obama administration has been telling us that Americans by the millions (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-250_162-57608456/obama-no-sugar-coating-problems-with-healthcare.gov/) are visiting the new health insurance website (http://www.cbsnews.com/feature/obamacare/), despite all its problems. But no one in the administration has been willing to tell us how many policies have been purchased, and this may be the reason: CBS News has learned enrollments got off to an incredibly slow start.

Early enrollment figures are contained in notes from twice-a-day "war room" meetings convened within the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services after the website failed on Oct. 1. They were turned over in response to a document request from the House Oversight Committee.
The website launched on a Tuesday. Publicly, the government said there were 4.7 million unique visits in the first 24 hours. But at a meeting Wednesday morning, the war room notes say "six enrollments have occurred so far."

They were with BlueCross BlueShield North Carolina and Kansas City, CareSource and Healthcare Service Corporation.
By Wednesday afternoon, enrollments were up to "approximately 100." By the end of Wednesday, the notes reflect "248 enrollments" nationwide.
:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao :lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao

[TSA]

:lmao Obama's legacy :lmao

[Jacob1983]

Obama's legacy=Bush's legacy

[boutons_deux]

:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao :lmao:lmao:lmao:lmao


Romney care had horrible startup software problems AND crazy low startup enrollments. Apart from the healthcare.gov expected nightmare (FBI spent $1B and never got anything), people don't enroll (pay) 6 weeks before the deadline and 2 months before coverage starts. Romneycare had a huge rush of enrollments just before the deadline, and took 2 years to achieve it's long term average which is now 98% of MA covered.

you right-wing ankle-biters in the peanut gallery will eat your schadenfreude with shit sauce. ACA's success is inevitable, and it will be, like the shutdown and Repug filibusers, a huge electoral boost for the Dems.

[boutons_deux]

5 Reasons Obama Never, Ever Should Have Trusted the Healthcare Industry


President Obama has become the health insurance industry’s top salesperson. Yesterday, in Massachusetts, he urged Americans to take a long view on implementing Obamacare. While it may provide coverage to millions who now lack it, the evidence is mounting that Obama never should have trusted the private health insurance industry to begin with. Let us count the ways.

1. Obamacare was written by the industry for the GOP.

The template for the Affordable Care Act was the Heritage Foundation’s 1992 report (http://healthcarereform.procon.org/sourcefiles/1992_heritage_consumer_choice_health_plan.pdf) [3] for expanding the health insurance marketplace. Their plan had tax credits, while Obamacare has income-based subsidies paid directly to insurers to make it affordable to the poor, working class and middle class. As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich points out (http://robertreich.org/post/65155134884) [4], this was the Republican’s and insurance industry’s plan, not the Democrats, who wanted to expand existing government programs. Its reliance on the private sector was flawed from the start and is at the core of its current troubles.

2. Obamacare did not have meaningful price controls.

Even though the law passed in 2010, most of Obamacare was not slated to take effect until January 2014. That gave insurers several years to ratchet up premiums—with 18 percent to 25 percent annual jumps (http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/28/business/la-fi-insurance-rate-hikes-20121128) [5] in states like California where insurance premiums are unregulated. While the law limits the percent of administrative costs that are part of premiums and that took (http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-on-the-right/020712-600420-obamacare-price-controls-hurt-health-insurers.htm) [6] effect in 2012, it does not regulate overall costs. Does anybody think insurers were not going to lock in profits and gouge the public when they could?

3. All insurers didn’t have to cooperate—and didn’t.

Not every health insurance company decided to participate in the ACA, which left many small states with very few options for uninsured residents. That means Obamacare is not offering a range of plans, in which competition is supposed to lower costs, in states like Maine (http://www.pressherald.com/news/Maine-health-care-exchange-rates-exceed-national-average-.html?pagenum=full) [7]and New Hampshire (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/20/little-competition-insurers-some-states-obamacare-plans/2986795/) [8]. That’s left state legislators wondering (http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/out-of-state-health-insurance-purchases.aspx) [9] if they will have to create interstate compacts with neighbors to create coverage pools to attract private insurers to give residents more choices. Again, insurers did what was best for their bottom lines, not for the public health.

4. Is anyone surprised policies now are canceled?

Nobody should be surprised at the latest outrage from the industry, which is canceling (http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2013/October/21/cancellation-notices-health-insurance.aspx) [10] hundreds of thousands of individuals’ policies, making the president eat his words that anyone can keep coverage they like. Obama ought to have known better. But as Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius told Congress Wednesday, insurers are canceling policies or offering higher-priced substitutes because the old policies don’t meet the law's minimum coverage requirements.

People might be angry that their policy is being canceled or might cost more if they can’t get a federal subsidy, but they would feel a lot worse if they were hospitalized and faced thousands in unexpected bills and hounding by debt collectors. Who’s more at fault here, Obama for being played like a card, or insurers for selling bad policies in the first place?

5. And now Republicans prefer a public option?

There’s a lot more to be seen in the Obamacare drama before the nation’s new healthcare regimen emerges. But for now, a final—and perverse—reason why the health insurance industry shouldn’t have been trusted in the first place goes beyond the previous four.

Some Republicans whose states are taking federal money to expand coverage for the poor though state-run Medicaid are predicting that the market reforms won’t work. Ohio Gov. John Kasich wants the law’s public portion to work, the New York Times reported (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/us/politics/ohio-governor-defies-gop-with-defense-of-social-safety-net.html?_r=0) [11] this week, but predicted the private insurance requirements won’t. “It’s going to throw people out of work and not control costs,” he said.

That’s beyond ironic, as it reminds everyone that the best approach to healthcare reform is what Democrats and progressives have called for all along—a so-called public option via expanding existing government-run programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.

“Had Democrats stuck to the original Democratic vision and built comprehensive health insurance on Social Security and Medicare, it would have been cheaper, simpler, and more widely accepted by the public,” wrote (http://robertreich.org/post/65155134884) [4] Reich. “And Republicans would be hollering anyway.”

Instead, Obama and the Democrats trusted the private insurance industry, thought it would do its part, and not keep stabbing them—and policyholders—in the back. That doesn’t mean the ACA doesn’t have positive features, as Obama keeps saying (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/30/1251907/-Remarks-by-President-Obama-and-Gov-Patrick-on-the-Affordable-Care-Act-Boston-MA) [12] in speeches, but with the President as a punching bag the industry can keep doing what it has always done: put its profits first.

Is anyone really surprised?

http://www.alternet.org/print/obama-never-should-have-trusted-health-insurers

[SA210]

https://scontent-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/q71/1384095_176758135861036_310451423_n.jpg



:lmao

[TSA]

5 Reasons Obama Never, Ever Should Have Trusted the Healthcare Industry


President Obama has become the health insurance industry’s top salesperson. Yesterday, in Massachusetts, he urged Americans to take a long view on implementing Obamacare. While it may provide coverage to millions who now lack it, the evidence is mounting that Obama never should have trusted the private health insurance industry to begin with. Let us count the ways.

1. Obamacare was written by the industry for the GOP.

The template for the Affordable Care Act was the Heritage Foundation’s 1992 report (http://healthcarereform.procon.org/sourcefiles/1992_heritage_consumer_choice_health_plan.pdf) [3] for expanding the health insurance marketplace. Their plan had tax credits, while Obamacare has income-based subsidies paid directly to insurers to make it affordable to the poor, working class and middle class. As former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich points out (http://robertreich.org/post/65155134884) [4], this was the Republican’s and insurance industry’s plan, not the Democrats, who wanted to expand existing government programs. Its reliance on the private sector was flawed from the start and is at the core of its current troubles.

2. Obamacare did not have meaningful price controls.

Even though the law passed in 2010, most of Obamacare was not slated to take effect until January 2014. That gave insurers several years to ratchet up premiums—with 18 percent to 25 percent annual jumps (http://articles.latimes.com/2012/nov/28/business/la-fi-insurance-rate-hikes-20121128) [5] in states like California where insurance premiums are unregulated. While the law limits the percent of administrative costs that are part of premiums and that took (http://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials-on-the-right/020712-600420-obamacare-price-controls-hurt-health-insurers.htm) [6] effect in 2012, it does not regulate overall costs. Does anybody think insurers were not going to lock in profits and gouge the public when they could?

3. All insurers didn’t have to cooperate—and didn’t.

Not every health insurance company decided to participate in the ACA, which left many small states with very few options for uninsured residents. That means Obamacare is not offering a range of plans, in which competition is supposed to lower costs, in states like Maine (http://www.pressherald.com/news/Maine-health-care-exchange-rates-exceed-national-average-.html?pagenum=full) [7]and New Hampshire (http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/20/little-competition-insurers-some-states-obamacare-plans/2986795/) [8]. That’s left state legislators wondering (http://www.ncsl.org/research/health/out-of-state-health-insurance-purchases.aspx) [9] if they will have to create interstate compacts with neighbors to create coverage pools to attract private insurers to give residents more choices. Again, insurers did what was best for their bottom lines, not for the public health.

4. Is anyone surprised policies now are canceled?

Nobody should be surprised at the latest outrage from the industry, which is canceling (http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2013/October/21/cancellation-notices-health-insurance.aspx) [10] hundreds of thousands of individuals’ policies, making the president eat his words that anyone can keep coverage they like. Obama ought to have known better. But as Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius told Congress Wednesday, insurers are canceling policies or offering higher-priced substitutes because the old policies don’t meet the law's minimum coverage requirements.

People might be angry that their policy is being canceled or might cost more if they can’t get a federal subsidy, but they would feel a lot worse if they were hospitalized and faced thousands in unexpected bills and hounding by debt collectors. Who’s more at fault here, Obama for being played like a card, or insurers for selling bad policies in the first place?

5. And now Republicans prefer a public option?

There’s a lot more to be seen in the Obamacare drama before the nation’s new healthcare regimen emerges. But for now, a final—and perverse—reason why the health insurance industry shouldn’t have been trusted in the first place goes beyond the previous four.

Some Republicans whose states are taking federal money to expand coverage for the poor though state-run Medicaid are predicting that the market reforms won’t work. Ohio Gov. John Kasich wants the law’s public portion to work, the New York Times reported (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/29/us/politics/ohio-governor-defies-gop-with-defense-of-social-safety-net.html?_r=0) [11] this week, but predicted the private insurance requirements won’t. “It’s going to throw people out of work and not control costs,” he said.

That’s beyond ironic, as it reminds everyone that the best approach to healthcare reform is what Democrats and progressives have called for all along—a so-called public option via expanding existing government-run programs such as Medicaid and Medicare.

“Had Democrats stuck to the original Democratic vision and built comprehensive health insurance on Social Security and Medicare, it would have been cheaper, simpler, and more widely accepted by the public,” wrote (http://robertreich.org/post/65155134884) [4] Reich. “And Republicans would be hollering anyway.”

Instead, Obama and the Democrats trusted the private insurance industry, thought it would do its part, and not keep stabbing them—and policyholders—in the back. That doesn’t mean the ACA doesn’t have positive features, as Obama keeps saying (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/10/30/1251907/-Remarks-by-President-Obama-and-Gov-Patrick-on-the-Affordable-Care-Act-Boston-MA) [12] in speeches, but with the President as a punching bag the industry can keep doing what it has always done: put its profits first.

Is anyone really surprised?

http://www.alternet.org/print/obama-never-should-have-trusted-health-insurers

Sounds like they should have defunded it :lol

[TSA]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/wp/2013/10/30/obamas-pledge-that-no-one-will-take-away-your-health-plan/

“That means that no matter how we reform health care, we will keep this promise to the American people: If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your health-care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health-care plan, period. No one will take it away, no matter what.”

– President Obama, speech to the American Medical Association, June 15, 2009 (as the health-care law was being written.)

“And if you like your insurance plan, you will keep it. No one will be able to take that away from you. It hasn’t happened yet. It won’t happen in the future.”

– Obama, remarks in Portland, April 1, 2010, after the health-care law was signed into law.

“FACT: Nothing in #Obamacare forces people out of their health plans. No change is required unless insurance companies change existing plans.”

– tweet by Obama aide Valerie Jarrett, Oct. 28, 2013, after NBC News airs a report that the Obama administration knew “millions” could not keep their health insurance.

Many readers have asked us to step back into time and review these statements by the president now that it appears that as many as 2 million people may need to get a new insurance plan as the Affordable Care Act, a.k.a. Obamacare, goes into effect in 2014. As we were considering those requests, one of the president’s most senior advisers then tweeted a statement on the same issue that cried out for fact checking.

The Facts
The president’s pledge that “if you like your insurance, you will keep it” is one of the most memorable of his presidency. It was also an extraordinarily bold — and possibly foolish — pledge, unless he thought he simply could dictate exactly how the insurance industry must work.

At the time, some observers noted the problems with Obama’s promise.

After Obama made his speech before the AMA, the Associated Press ran a smart analysis — “Promises, Promises: Obama’s Health Plan Guarantee” — that demonstrated how it would be all but impossible for the president to keep that pledge. The article noted that the Congressional Budget Office assumed that 10 million Americans would need to seek new insurance under the Senate version of the bill.

Meanwhile, in the Republican weekly address on Aug. 24, 2009, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.), a doctor, made this point: “On the stump, the president regularly tells Americans that ‘if you like your plan, you can keep your plan.’ But if you read the bill, that just isn’t so. For starters, within five years, every health-care plan will have to meet a new federal definition for coverage — one that your current plan might not match, even if you like it.”

One might excuse the president for making an aspirational pledge as the health-care bill was being drafted, but it turns out he kept saying it after the bill was signed into law. By that point, there should have been no question about the potential impact of the law on insurance plans, especially in the individual market.

As we have noted, a key part of the law is forcing insurers to offer an “essential health benefits” package, providing coverage in 10 categories. The list includes: ambulatory patient services; emergency services; hospitalization; maternity and newborn care; mental health and substance use disorder services, including behavioral health treatment; prescription drugs; rehabilitative and habilitative services and devices; laboratory services; preventive and wellness services and chronic disease management; and pediatric services, including oral and vision care.

For some plans, this would be a big change. In 2011, the Department of Health and Human Services noted: “62 percent of enrollees do not have coverage for maternity services; 34 percent of enrollees do not have coverage for substance abuse services; 18 percent of enrollees do not have coverage for mental health services; 9 percent of enrollees do not have coverage for prescription drugs.”

The law did allow “grandfathered” plans — for people who had obtained their insurance before the law was signed on March 23, 2010 — to escape this requirement and some other aspects of the law. But the regulations written by HHS while implementing the law set some tough guidelines, so that if an insurance company makes changes to a plan’s benefits or how much members pay through premiums, co-pays or deductibles, then a person’s plan likely loses that status.

If you dig into the regulations (go to page 34560), you will see that HHS wrote them extremely tight. One provision says that if co-payment increases by more than $5, plus medical cost of inflation, then the plan can no longer be grandfathered. (With last year’s inflation rate of 4 percent, that means the co-pay could not increase by more than $5.20.) Another provision says the co-insurance rate could not be increased at all above the level it was on March 23, 2010.

While one might applaud an effort to rid the country of inadequate insurance, the net effect is that over time, the plans would no longer meet the many tests for staying grandfathered. Already, the percentage of people who get coverage from their job via a grandfathered plan has dropped from 56 percent in 2011 to 36 percent in 2013.

In the individual insurance market, few plans were expected to meet the “grandfathered” requirements, which is why many people are now receiving notices that their old plan is terminated and they need to sign up for different coverage. Again, this should be no surprise. As HHS noted in a footnote of a report earlier this year: “We note that, as the Affordable Care Act is implemented, we expect grandfathered coverage to diminish, particularly in the individual market.”

Indeed, at least six states — Virginia, Idaho, Kentucky, Louisiana, Wyoming and Kansas — require insurance companies to cancel existing policies, rather than amend them, if the grandfathered coverage lapses.

Now, it’s important to note that many people — perhaps a large majority — are receiving notices that they have lost their insurance plan because they were never grandfathered in the first place. In other words, they got a plan after the bill was signed into law back in 2010. If that’s the case, they have no option but to accept the more comprehensive insurance mandated by the law.

Still, it’s worth remembering that insurance companies pressed throughout the health-care debate to allow people to keep the policy they had effective at the end of 2013. The consequences of the unusual March 23, 2010, cut-off date are now being felt. HHS, when it drafted the interim rules, estimated that between 40 and 67 percent of policies in the individual market are in effect for less than one year. “These estimates assume that the policies that terminate are replaced by new individual policies, and that these new policies are not, by definition, grandfathered,” the rules noted. (See page 34553.)

Moreover, it’s certainly incorrect to claim, as some Republicans have, that people are losing insurance coverage. Instead, in virtually all cases, it’s being replaced with probably better (and possibly more expensive) insurance.

In recent days, administration officials have argued that the plans that are going away are “substandard” and lacked essential protections — and that many people may qualify for tax credits to mitigate the higher premiums that may result from the new requirements.

“Now folks are transitioning to the new standards of the Affordable Care Act which guarantee you can’t be denied, you won’t be kicked off of a policy because you developed a problem, you may be eligible for tax credits, depending on your income,” said Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. “So these are important protections that are now available through the Affordable Care Act.”

Or, as White House spokesman Jay Carney put it: “It’s correct that substandard plans that don’t provide minimum services that have a lot of fine print that leaves consumers in the lurch, often because of annual caps or lifetime caps or carve-outs for some preexisting conditions, those are no longer allowed — because the Affordable Care Act is built on the premise that health care is not a privilege, it’s a right, and there should be minimum standards for the plans available to Americans across the country.”

But such assertions do not really explain the president’s promise — or Jarrett’s tweet. There may be a certain percentage of people who were happy with their “substandard” plan, presumably because it cost relatively little. And while Jarrett claimed that “nothing” in the law is forcing people out of their plans “unless insurance companies change plans,” she is describing rules written by the president’s aides that were designed to make it difficult for plans to remain grandfathered for very long.

As the HHS footnote mentioned above stated: “We note that, as the Affordable Care Act is implemented, we expect grandfathered coverage to diminish, particularly in the individual market.”

The Pinocchio Test
The administration is defending this pledge with a rather slim reed — that there is nothing in the law that makes insurance companies force people out of plans they were enrolled in before the law passed. That explanation conveniently ignores the regulations written by the administration to implement the law. Moreover, it also ignores the fact that the purpose of the law was to bolster coverage and mandate a robust set of benefits, whether someone wanted to pay for it or not.

The president’s statements were sweeping and unequivocal — and made both before and after the bill became law. The White House now cites technicalities to avoid admitting that he went too far in his repeated pledge, which, after all, is one of the most famous statements of his presidency.

The president’s promise apparently came with a very large caveat: “If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan — if we deem it to be adequate.”

Four Pinocchios

[boutons_deux]

“If you like your health care plan, you’ll be able to keep your health care plan — if we deem it to be adequate.”

yep, that was known when the ACA became law. junk insurance policies aka gateways to medical bankruptcy, were out. Obama badly misled. So one of you gun fellators should shoot him. Murder solves everything, right?

[boutons_deux]

Sounds like they should have defunded it :lol

the Repugs should have gotten the fuck out of the way, should never have sabotaged it. Dems helped Repugs launch Medicare Advantage and Part D, Repugs helped MA Dems launch Romneycare.

tea baggers and Repugs sabotaging ACA shows how low those mofo's have sunk into nihilistic anarchism.

Dems just have to kick the Repugs in the teeth with simple majority vote in the Senate. Dems gotta out crazy the mofos.

[boutons_deux]

A Month in to Healthcare.gov, Real-Life Winners and Losers

Winners

On a very obvious level, winners include young adults (http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq-dependentcoverage.html) who can now remain on their parents health plans until age 26.

They include consumers with medical ailments (http://kff.org/health-reform/fact-sheet/obamacare-and-you-if-you-have-a-pre-existing-condition/) who have been denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

They include residents of states that opted to expand their Medicaid programs (http://www.advisory.com/Daily-Briefing/Resources/Primers/MedicaidMap) for the poor to cover those with incomes of up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level ($15,856 for an individual and $32,499 for a family of four).

Losers

By contrast, losers include those with lower incomes who live in (RED REPUG TEA BAGGER) states that decided not to expand their Medicaid programs. The Daily Briefing run by the consulting firm The Advisory Board Co. had a smart look this summer (http://www.advisory.com/Daily-Briefing/Blog/2013/06/Which-states-will-have-the-most-uninsured-residents-in-2016) at which states will have the most uninsured residents in 2016. Being uninsured means you’re losing out.

Also sure losers are undocumented immigrants (http://www.ocregister.com/articles/immigrants-531622-care-health.html), who are ineligible for benefits or subsidies under the act.

And for now, at least, small businesses lose out because of the Obama administration’s ongoing delays launching a health insurance marketplace for small businesses (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-30/small-business-health-care-shopping-delayed-again). (Healthcare.gov, by contrast, is an insurance marketplace for individual consumers.)

Too Soon to Say

Another group that many commentators count as losers are the hundreds of thousands of consumers who have received cancellation notices (http://www.propublica.org/article/health-policy-canceled-what-we-know-and-dont-know) from their individual health insurance companies because their policies don’t meet criteria set forth in the Affordable Care Act.

I hesitate to call all of them losers because some of them will be eligible for subsidies from the federal government to offset the cost of their new health insurance, and others will pay less in the new marketplace for better coverage. To be sure, some people clearly will lose out because they will pay more for their coverage — and their benefits won’t be all that much better to offset it.

What Others Say

The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza had an interesting piece this week (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/10/obamacares-three-per-cent.html?mobify=0) in which he spoke to economist Jon Gruber, who broke down winners and losers this way:

About eighty per cent of Americans are more or less left alone by the health-care act—largely people who have health insurance through their employers. About fourteen per cent of Americans are clear winners: they are currently uninsured and will have access to an affordable insurance policy under the A.C.A.

But much of the current controversy involves the six per cent of Americans who buy their own health care on the individual market, which the A.C.A. has dramatically reformed. Gruber argued that half of these people (three per cent of all Americans) will have little change to their polices. “They have to buy new plans, but they will be pretty similar to what they had before,” he said. “It will essentially be relabeling.”

The other half, however, also three per cent of the population, will have to buy a new product that complies with the A.C.A.’s more stringent requirements for individual plans. A significant portion of these roughly nine million Americans will be forced to buy a new insurance policy with higher premiums than they currently pay.

http://www.propublica.org/article/a-month-in-to-healthcaregov-real-life-winners-and-losers

[TSA]

“Obama badly misled. So one of you gun fellators should shoot him.




You have been reported to the FBI you sick fuck.

[TSA]

the Repugs should have gotten the fuck out of the way, should never have sabotaged it. Dems helped Repugs launch Medicare Advantage and Part D, Repugs helped MA Dems launch Romneycare.

tea baggers and Repugs sabotaging ACA shows how low those mofo's have sunk into nihilistic anarchism.

Dems just have to kick the Repugs in the teeth with simple majority vote in the Senate. Dems gotta out crazy the mofos.

The ACA is doing fine sabotaging itself.

[TSA]

A Month in to Healthcare.gov, Real-Life Winners and Losers

Winners

On a very obvious level, winners include young adults (http://www.dol.gov/ebsa/faqs/faq-dependentcoverage.html) who can now remain on their parents health plans until age 26.

They include consumers with medical ailments (http://kff.org/health-reform/fact-sheet/obamacare-and-you-if-you-have-a-pre-existing-condition/) who have been denied health insurance because of pre-existing conditions.

They include residents of states that opted to expand their Medicaid programs (http://www.advisory.com/Daily-Briefing/Resources/Primers/MedicaidMap) for the poor to cover those with incomes of up to 138 percent of the federal poverty level ($15,856 for an individual and $32,499 for a family of four).

Losers

By contrast, losers include those with lower incomes who live in (RED REPUG TEA BAGGER) states that decided not to expand their Medicaid programs. The Daily Briefing run by the consulting firm The Advisory Board Co. had a smart look this summer (http://www.advisory.com/Daily-Briefing/Blog/2013/06/Which-states-will-have-the-most-uninsured-residents-in-2016) at which states will have the most uninsured residents in 2016. Being uninsured means you’re losing out.

Also sure losers are undocumented immigrants (http://www.ocregister.com/articles/immigrants-531622-care-health.html), who are ineligible for benefits or subsidies under the act.

And for now, at least, small businesses lose out because of the Obama administration’s ongoing delays launching a health insurance marketplace for small businesses (http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2013-10-30/small-business-health-care-shopping-delayed-again). (Healthcare.gov, by contrast, is an insurance marketplace for individual consumers.)

Too Soon to Say

Another group that many commentators count as losers are the hundreds of thousands (SOON TO BE MILLIONS) of consumers who have received cancellation notices (http://www.propublica.org/article/health-policy-canceled-what-we-know-and-dont-know) from their individual health insurance companies because their policies don’t meet criteria set forth in the Affordable Care Act.

I hesitate to call all of them losers because some of them will be eligible for subsidies from the federal government to offset the cost of their new health insurance, and others will pay less in the new marketplace for better coverage. To be sure, some people clearly will lose out because they will pay more for their coverage — and their benefits won’t be all that much better to offset it.

What Others Say

The New Yorker’s Ryan Lizza had an interesting piece this week (http://www.newyorker.com/online/blogs/newsdesk/2013/10/obamacares-three-per-cent.html?mobify=0) in which he spoke to economist Jon Gruber, who broke down winners and losers this way:

About eighty per cent of Americans are more or less left alone by the health-care act—largely people who have health insurance through their employers. About fourteen per cent of Americans are clear winners: they are currently uninsured and will have access to an affordable insurance policy under the A.C.A.

But much of the current controversy involves the six per cent of Americans who buy their own health care on the individual market, which the A.C.A. has dramatically reformed. Gruber argued that half of these people (three per cent of all Americans) will have little change to their polices. “They have to buy new plans, but they will be pretty similar to what they had before,” he said. “It will essentially be relabeling.”

The other half, however, also three per cent of the population, will have to buy a new product that complies with the A.C.A.’s more stringent requirements for individual plans. A significant portion of these roughly nine million Americans will be forced to buy a new insurance policy with higher premiums than they currently pay.

http://www.propublica.org/article/a-month-in-to-healthcaregov-real-life-winners-and-losers

[ElNono]

https://scontent-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn2/q71/1384095_176758135861036_310451423_n.jpg

:lmao

Not a knock on you SA, but the math on that it's hilariously bad... $360 million spread over 317 million people is slightly over $1 dollar per person.

[SA210]

Not a knock on you SA, but the math on that it's hilariously bad... $360 million spread over 317 million people is slightly over $1 dollar per person.


lol no shit bro..I just shared it, was on fb. The remainder is prob part of the savings

[ElNono]

lol no shit bro..I just shared it, was on fb

ok :lol

[SA210]

ok :lol

Maybe the remainder is part of the savings :lol

[boobie4three]

Health Care Shocker For N.J. Students Looking For Low-Cost Insurance
Some Students Have Been Left Without Insurance

October 31, 2013 8:22 PM

CRANFORD, N.J.(CBSNewYork) — It was a health care shocker for college students in New Jersey who found out that they can’t buy low-cost health insurance at their schools because of the Affordable Care Act.

Now, they are at the risk of being without insurance, CBS 2′s Christine Sloan reported.

Alex McTaggert is majoring in Computer Science but even he is having trouble signing up for health insurance on the Federal website.

“It said, ‘info you entered is not valid’ so I have to call this number,” McTaggart said.

For Carolina Mendonca it was easier to put together a creative Halloween costume than it was to call the number on the website.

“I got no answer so I left it for another day and the other day never came and I went to the dentist yesterday and I have to pay $2,000 out-of-pocket,” she said.

Many students have found themselves in health care limbo this semester. Community colleges in New Jersey used to offer cheap health insurance for hundreds of dollars a year but they had to drop the practice because Federal Law prohibits the sale of bare bones policies.

Under the Affordable Care Act it would have cost more to run the program and the cost would have been passed on to students.

“More than a thousand dollars per student and that is dramatically different,” said Union County Community College, Vice President of Administrative Services, Stephen Nacco said.

Students like Carlos Arias depended on the low-cost health care.

“I’m kind of healthy right now but I am worried that when something happens I’m not going to go to the hospital,” Arias said.

The college has started to help students sign up for affordable care through their website. Other students have remained on their parents plans.

“I am fortunate, but I feel for these students,” Gillian Cardona said.

Some schools have also offered more expensive health plans but have not required students to purchase them.

New Jersey recently repealed a law that required students to show proof of health insurance if they did not want to buy the school’s plan.

http://newyork.cbslocal.com/2013/10/31/healthcare-shocker-for-n-j-students-looking-for-low-cost-insurance/


Would these students rather be considered idiots or suckers? :lol



http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/col1_zps7401d807.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/col1_zps7401d807.jpg.html)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/col4_zps9a51c333.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/col4_zps9a51c333.jpg.html)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/col2_zpsf4e0d1b5.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/col2_zpsf4e0d1b5.jpg.html)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/col5_zpsaafefd10.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/col5_zpsaafefd10.jpg.html)

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/col3_zps0da49ce7.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/col3_zps0da49ce7.jpg.html)

[Clipper Nation]

You posted:

Romney care had horrible startup software problems AND crazy low startup enrollments. Apart from the healthcare.gov expected nightmare (FBI spent $1B and never got anything), people don't enroll (pay) 6 weeks before the deadline and 2 months before coverage starts. Romneycare had a huge rush of enrollments just before the deadline, and took 2 years to achieve it's long term average which is now 98% of MA covered.

you right-wing ankle-biters in the peanut gallery will eat your schadenfreude with shit sauce. ACA's success is inevitable, and it will be, like the shutdown and Repug filibusers, a huge electoral boost for the Dems.

But I read:

:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry:c ry:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry:cry

[boutons_deux]

Too Stupid Asshole:

educate yourself as to size of the individual insurance market, how it's unaffordable for many people, and then how many bought junk insurance now forbidden by ACA.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/News/News-Releases/2009/Jul/New-Report-Individual-Health-Insurance-Market-Failing-Consumers.aspx

[boobie4three]

:lol @ the losers defending 0bamacare.

[boobie4three]

Obama Officials In 2010: 93 Million Americans Will Be Unable To Keep Their Health Plans Under Obamacare

10/31/2013 @ 3:33AM

0bama knew long ago millions were going to lose their health plans, but in order to get this steaming pile of shit passed he had to lie out his ass to the American people. Nixon was impeached for a much smaller lie than that.




http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoV0NeHNklk#t=19




http://www.forbes.com/sites/theapothecary/2013/10/31/obama-officials-in-2010-93-million-americans-will-be-unable-to-keep-their-health-plans-under-obamacare/

[boutons_deux]

Obama Officials In 2010: 93 Million Americans Will Be Unable To Keep Their Health Plans Under Obamacare

most of the people being CANCELLED by THEIR INSURANCE COMPANY are in the individual market, whose size is:

"The individual insurance market provides coverage to more than 19 million people who purchase health insurance on their own."

http://www.ahip.org/Issues/Individual-Market-Health-Insurance.aspx

... so where does Fox Repug Propaganda lying network get the other 70M+ ??

[boobie4three]

most of the people being CANCELLED by THEIR INSURANCE COMPANY are in the individual market, whose size is:

"The individual insurance market provides coverage to more than 19 million people who purchase health insurance on their own."

http://www.ahip.org/Issues/Individual-Market-Health-Insurance.aspx

... so where does Fox Repug Propaganda lying network get the other 70M+ ??





From the Forbes article.
Read it and weep.

Mid-range estimate: 51% of employer-sponsored plans will get canceled

But Carney’s dismissal of the media’s concerns was wrong, on several fronts. Contrary to the reporting of NBC, the administration’s commentary in the Federal Register did not only refer to the individual market, but also the market for employer-sponsored health insurance.

Section 1251 of the Affordable Care Act contains what’s called a “grandfather” provision that, in theory, allows people to keep their existing plans if they like them. But subsequent regulations from the Obama administration interpreted that provision so narrowly as to prevent most plans from gaining this protection.

“The Departments’ mid-range estimate is that 66 percent of small employer plans and 45 percent of large employer plans will relinquish their grandfather status by the end of 2013,” wrote the administration on page 34,552 of the Register. All in all, more than half of employer-sponsored plans will lose their “grandfather status” and become illegal. According to the Congressional Budget Office, 156 million Americans—more than half the population—was covered by employer-sponsored insurance in 2013.

Another 25 million people, according to the CBO, have “nongroup and other” forms of insurance; that is to say, they participate in the market for individually-purchased insurance. In this market, the administration projected that “40 to 67 percent” of individually-purchased plans would lose their Obamacare-sanctioned “grandfather status” and become illegal, solely due to the fact that there is a high turnover of participants and insurance arrangements in this market. (Plans purchased after March 23, 2010 do not benefit from the “grandfather” clause.) The real turnover rate would be higher, because plans can lose their grandfather status for a number of other reasons.

How many people are exposed to these problems? 60 percent of Americans have private-sector health insurance—precisely the number that Jay Carney dismissed. As to the number of people facing cancellations, 51 percent of the employer-based market plus 53.5 percent of the non-group market (the middle of the administration’s range) amounts to 93 million Americans.

[boutons_deux]

how will 93M Americans lose their current insurance? and so fucking what, if they get the same coverage and price with new policy?

Almost NONE of the employer group plans are being cancelled.

[boobie4three]

how will 93M Americans lose their current insurance? and so fucking what, if they get the same coverage and price with new policy?

Almost NONE of the employer group plans are being cancelled.

There are real life stories coming in every day. Unlike pie-in-the-sky projections that you and others here are feeding us.

The UN-Affordable Care Act
Ed Feulner | Nov 02, 2013

So how much more is your health insurance going to cost you?

That’s the question, really, as Obamacare begins taking effect and the stories pour in from around the country: how much your premiums are going up, not if they are.

Rising costs are a fact of life, but the changes Americans are seeing as a result of the president’s signature law are putting the “shock” in “sticker shock.” I recently had lunch with a friend who said his perfectly healthy 28-year old son had just received a notice from Blue Cross-Blue Shield of Illinois that on Jan. 1, his monthly premium will go from $90 to $268.

It’s no coincidence that this is the effective date of the first phase of Obamacare -- whose formal name, the Affordable Care Act, looks increasingly ironic with each passing day.

This 28-year-old is far from alone. Americans everywhere are getting such letters, as insurance companies and employers are forced to explain how the new law is necessitating much higher premiums.

Take Ben Neptun and his wife, Charla. Home health nurses in Mobile, Ala., they each make about $23 an hour, and manage a tight budget for their blended family of five -- a 15-year-old, a 2-year-old, and a 10-month-old. According to Ben, “there’s no room for several hundred dollars extra per month” in their budget.

Unfortunately, that’s exactly what they’re going to need, thanks to Obamacare.

The Neptuns buy their health insurance directly from Blue Cross-Blue Shield. They currently spend about $2,000 a year (not including the monthly premium) on health care for the family. But like so many other Americans, they recently got the dreaded letter -- and learned that their premiums will more than double, from $419 to $899.

“Thousands of Californians are discovering what Obamacare will cost them,” begins an article in the Los Angeles Times, “and many don't like what they see.”

Think about how changes like this affect the economy. If you suddenly have to come up with an extra $200, $300, $400 a month (or more), what do you do? You economize. You eat out less. You drive that old car even longer. You put off moving. You stop saving what little money you were putting aside. You contribute less to retirement funds.

What if you’re an employer? You have to cope with these skyrocketing costs, too, and in the same way: by economizing. You delay making necessary changes to improve your business. You rely on old equipment for longer. You reluctantly raise prices, knowing it will cost you customers. You cut back on hours for your employees.

Most importantly? You stop hiring.

According to a new Gallup survey, two out of every five small-business owners report that they are holding off on hiring because of Obamacare. They need employees, yes, but they also need to be able to afford them. And the changes brought about by the new health care law have made affordability a thing of the past.

Just ask the Federal Reserve, which regularly collects feedback from businesses and issues reports about the economic outlook. “Many contacts also commented on reluctance to expand due to uncertainty surrounding the Affordable Care Act; some employers cut hours or employees,” the Reserve says in its latest report.

So we see the fallout from Obamacare even before it takes full effect: Workers facing soaring additional costs for health coverage -- even as their hours are cut, leaving them with even smaller paychecks. Employers refusing to hire. And each group feverishly looking for ways to cut costs.

Small wonder that Ben Neptun says he’d “rather file bankruptcy and do without health insurance” because “the fines are less.”

There are financially sound ways to reform health care so that more people get the coverage they need. The UN-Affordable Care Act doesn't come close.

http://townhall.com/columnists/edfeulner/2013/11/02/the-unaffordable-care-act-n1734771/page/2

[boutons_deux]

There are real life stories coming in every day. Unlike pie-in-the-sky projections that you and others here are feeding us.



townhall :lol

there will be winners and losers, but serious observers, not townhall/Fox hired liars, are quite certain the winners will greatly outweigh the losers.

cherry picking anecdotes of losers doesn't shit. esp since, eg, Hannity's 6 losers were all researched to be fakes, but course Hannity's viewers accept his propaganda as God's own truth. bunch of willfully dumb assholes.

[boobie4three]

1 day ago
Senate Democrats supported rule that led to insurance cancellations
Posted by
CNN Investigative Correspondent Chris Frates

October 31st, 2013
06:38 PM ET

Washington (CNN) - Senate Democrats voted unanimously three years ago to support the Obamacare rule that is largely responsible for some of the health insurance cancellation letters that are going out.

In September 2010, Senate Republicans brought a resolution to the floor to block implementation of the grandfather rule, warning that it would result in canceled policies and violate President Barack Obama’s promise that people could keep their insurance if they liked it.



“The District of Columbia is an island surrounded by reality. Only in the District of Columbia could you get away with telling the people if you like what you have you can keep it, and then pass regulations six months later that do just the opposite and figure that people are going to ignore it. But common sense is eventually going to prevail in this town and common sense is going to have to prevail on this piece of legislation as well,” Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley said at the time.

“The administration's own regulations prove this is not the case. Under the grandfathering regulation, according to the White House's own economic impact analysis, as many as 69 percent of businesses will lose their grandfathered status by 2013 and be forced to buy government-approved plans,” the Iowa Republican said.

On a party line vote, Democrats killed the resolution, which could come back to haunt vulnerable Democrats up for re-election this year.

Senate Democrats like Mary Landrieu, Jeanne Shaheen, Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan and Mark Begich – all of whom voted against stopping the rule from going into effect and have since supported delaying parts of Obamacare.

The rule set up the criteria for what insurance plans would be grandfathered, or exempted, from the new Obamacare requirements. Democrats argued then that the rule was necessary to insure that insurance companies weren’t able to drastically change their plans and still remain exempt from Obamacare.

Republicans are “saying that basically we will grandfather it in, but the insurance companies can change it however they want, and you are stuck with it,” Democratic Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa said in 2010.

The rule essentially prevents insurance companies from keeping their grandfathered status if they make changes to their plans. In practice, insurance companies are loath to leave their plans unchanged so grandfathered plans are disappearing, and people are being forced to change their plans to meet Obamacare’s more robust coverage requirements.

http://politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/31/senate-democrats-supported-rule-that-lead-to-insurance-cancellations/


As you can see, Republicans tried to insert language into the ACA three years ago that would have prevented people from having their coverage cancelled, but Dems nixed that idea. Now that their constituents are calling them up and chewing them out about what a steaming pile of shit 0bamacare is, the Dems are wanting to delay parts of it.

[boutons_deux]

Chris Wallace: ‘One of the problems’ with Obamacare is too many poor people getting Medicaid

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/11/03/chris-wallace-one-of-the-problems-with-obamacare-is-too-many-poor-people-getting-medicaid/

One of the key objectives of ACA was to provide insurance for poor people.

[boutons_deux]

As you can see, Republicans tried to insert language into the ACA three years ago that would have prevented people from having their coverage cancelled, but Dems nixed that idea. Now that their constituents are calling them up and chewing them out about what a steaming pile of shit 0bamacare is, the Dems are wanting to delay parts of it.

Quite natural that the Repugs would want shitty coverage rip-off insurance policies to be protected, while the Dems wanted them, and got them, killed, replaced by policies only with minimum coverage that better protected people from medical bankruptcy.

[AntiChrist]

:lmao

Tennesee state senator, Brian Kelsey (R.), gave Sebelius this book as a gift

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/BYA1XZfCEAAZdEi.jpg

[AntiChrist]

A better healthcare.gov, built by three guys

http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/

[boutons_deux]

A better healthcare.gov, built by three guys

http://www.thehealthsherpa.com/

Looks, clean, a little too much white space, but does actually connect to providers, giving them the client data, or does it just list plans?

I have read that healthcare.gov should have been implemented in steps, first just for viewing available plans, but no customer data other than zip and age. healthcare.gov sucks, ACA doesn't suck totally. It's a kludegocracy, what you would expect when ACA was written by a health insurance industry exec/lobbyist, a bitch Obama was naive to trust.

[boutons_deux]

Under Health Care Act, Millions Eligible for Free Policies

Millions of people could qualify for federal subsidies that will pay the entire monthly cost of some health care plans being offered in the online marketplaces set up under President Obama’s health care law, a surprising figure that has not garnered much attention, in part because the zero-premium plans come with serious trade-offs.

Three independent estimates by Wall Street analysts and a consulting firm say up to seven million people could qualify for the plans, but federal officials and insurers are reluctant to push them too hard because they are concerned about encouraging people to sign up for something that might ultimately not fit their needs.

The bulk of these plans are so-called bronze policies, the least expensive available. They require people to pay the most in out-of-pocket costs, for doctor visits and other benefits like hospital stays.

Supporters of the Affordable Care Act say that the availability of free-premium plans — as well as inexpensive policies that cover more — shows that it is achieving its goal of making health insurance widely available. A large number of those who qualify have incomes that fall just above the threshold for Medicaid, the government program for the poor, according to an analysis by the consulting firm McKinsey and Company.

“The whole point of the law was not only to cover the uninsured, but so people didn’t have to make choices between food or drugs, or going to the doctor or dentist,” said Karen Davis, a health policy expert at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. “It’s what it is designed to do.”

Many insurers tried to price their least expensive plans so they would become free or nearly free with the addition of subsidies that are set based on a person’s income and the cost of a midlevel, or silver, plan.

The analysis found that five million to six million people who are uninsured will qualify for subsidies that will be greater than the cost of the cheapest bronze or silver plan. A million more people with individual insurance could also be eligible, according to McKinsey, although estimates of the size of the market for private individual insurance vary widely. None of the people in the analysis qualify for Medicaid.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/11/04/business/under-health-care-act-millions-eligible-for-free-policies.html?from=homepage

[boutons_deux]

Poll: More Americans Want To Keep Or Expand Obamacare Than Repeal It

More Americans want to keep the Affordable Care Act as it is or expand it than want to get rid of it, according to a new poll released Friday.

The Kaiser Family Foundation found that 47 percent of Americans want to expand (22 percent) or keep the law (25 percent). Conversely, 37 percent said they wanted to either repeal the law and replace it with some Republican alternative (13 percent) or repeal it without replacing it (24 percent).

That's despite the fact that more Americans have an unfavorable view of the law (44 percent) than a favorable view (38 percent), according to Kaiser.

The poll surveyed a nationally representative sample of 1,513 Americans ages 18 and over. It was conducted from Oct. 17 to 23.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/poll-more-americans-want-to-keep-or-expand-obamacare-than-repeal-it

looks like VRWC/Repug/tea bagger/hate media LIES and propaganda ain't work so well

[SA210]

https://scontent-a-sjc.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ash3/q71/1001594_177741489096034_1214651944_n.jpg

[boutons_deux]

For all you "free market" adulators of MegaCorps

Special Investigation: How Insurers Are Hiding Obamacare Benefits From Customers

Donna received the letter canceling her insurance plan on Sept. 16. Her insurance company, LifeWise of Washington, told her that they'd identified a new plan for her. If she did nothing, she'd be covered.

A 56-year-old Seattle resident with a 57-year-old husband and 15-year-old daughter, Donna had been looking forward to the savings that the Affordable Care Act had to offer.

But that's not what she found. Instead, she'd be paying an additional $300 a month for coverage. The letter made no mention of the health insurance marketplace that would soon open in Washington, where she could shop for competitive plans, and only an oblique reference to financial help that she might qualify for, if she made the effort to call and find out.

RELATED: What Really Happens To People Whose Insurance Is 'Canceled' Because Of Obamacare

Otherwise, she'd be automatically rolled over to a new plan -- and, as the letter said, "If you're happy with this plan, do nothing."

If Donna had done nothing, she would have ended up spending about $1,000 more a month for insurance than she will now that she went to the marketplace, picked the best plan for her family and accessed tax credits at the heart of the health care reform law.

"The info that we were sent by LifeWise was totally bogus. Why the heck did they try to screw us?" Donna said. "People who are afraid of the ACA should be much more afraid of the insurance companies who will exploit their fear and end up overcharging them."

Across the country, insurance companies have sent misleading letters to consumers, trying to lock them into the companies' own, sometimes more expensive health insurance plans rather than let them shop for insurance and tax credits on the Obamacare marketplaces -- which could lead to people like Donna spending thousands more for insurance than the law intended. In some cases, mentions of the marketplace in those letters are relegated to a mere footnote, which can be easily overlooked.

The extreme lengths to which some insurance companies are going to hold on to existing customers at higher price, as the Affordable Care Act fundamentally re-orders the individual insurance market, has caught the attention of state insurance regulators.

The insurance companies argue that it's simply capitalism at work. :lol :lol

(iow, the shittiest possible product for the highest possible price, 'CAUSE WE'RE FUCKING LYING TO YOU, PROUDLY!)

By warning customers that their health insurance plans are being canceled as a result of Obamacare and urging them to secure new insurance plans before the Obamacare launched on Oct. 1, these insurers put their customers at risk of enrolling in plans that were not as good or as affordable as what they could buy on the marketplaces.

TPM has confirmed two specific examples where companies contacted their customers prior to the marketplace's Oct. 1 opening and pushed them to renew their health coverage at a higher price than they would pay through the marketplace. State regulators identified the schemes, but they weren't necessarily able to stop them.

Before Obamacare, Donna paid a $724 monthly premium for $10,000 deductible, catastrophic health coverage from LifeWise, a subsidiary of the state's Blue Cross/Blue Shield affiliate. She asked that TPM withhold her last name because she was disclosing personal financial information.

Under the new LifeWise plan, Donna would have to pay more than $1,000 a month, a nearly $300 per month increase and a huge hit for a family with an income around $40,000. It was bare-bones coverage by ACA standards, with a $6,350 deductible.

Donna was able to log onto Washington's marketplace and shop for insurance. And what did she find? Options. A LifeWise plan with the same deductible they offered her outside the exchange was a little cheaper. Plans with a lower deductible had the same or lower premiums as the LifeWise plan. What she ended up buying was a plan through Community Health Plan of Washington with a $250 deductible.

And crucially, she also discovered she would qualify for a federal tax subsidy that would knock her monthly premium to $80. Her daughter could enroll in Medicaid, at no cost to the family.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/insurance-companies-misleading-letters-obamacare

[Clipper Nation]

:lol I can almost see Boutons' tears through the computer screen when he spams all those articles from liberal blogs trying to pretend like the Obama administration didn't screw up royally, tbh....

[boutons_deux]

:lol I can almost see Boutons' tears through the computer screen when he spams all those articles from liberal blogs trying to pretend like the Obama administration didn't screw up royally, tbh....

where did I "pretend" that, apart from you believing your own slander? healthcare.gov is screw job, but it will be fixed, and then you'll have nothing to laugh about.

Even if ACA was written by health insurance industry exec, it's transforming American health insurance for the better, PROGRESS for Americans, and ACA will get much better.

[boutons_deux]

Consumer Reports destroys 'rate shock' horror story (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/01/1252375/-Consumer-Reports-destroys-rate-shock-horror-story)

Consumer Reports, which also destroys that story (http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/news/2013/10/florida-woman-s-canceled-blue-cross-plan-is-junk/index.htm). They take a look at the Florida woman's cancelled health policy and compare it to what she could—affordably—get by shopping on the exchange.


Barrette’s expiring policy is a textbook example of a junk plan that isn’t real health insurance at all (http://www.consumerreports.org/cro/magazine/2012/03/junk-health-insurance/index.htm). If she had ever tried to use it for anything more than an occasional doctor visit or inexpensive prescription, she would have ended up with tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars of medical debt. [...]"She's paying $650 a year to be uninsured," Karen Pollitz, an insurance expert at the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, said. "I have to assume that she never really had to make much of a claim under this policy. She would have lost the house she's sitting in if something serious had happened. I don't know if she knows that." [...]

Okay, but can't we be outraged that Ms. Barrette will have to fork over $591 a month for a replacement plan? Actually, no, because she has other and better options than the costly plan Blue Cross Blue Shield wants to put her in. She [can] get real insurance that covers all essential health benefits for well under $200 a month. [...]

To put these two plans in perspective, let's imagine that Ms. Barrette's luck runs out and she receives a diagnosis of breast cancer that will cost $120,000 to treat.

Under her current junk plan, she would probably receive no more than a few hundred dollars of benefits for doctor visits and drugs. It wouldn't cover her surgery, her chemotherapy, her many expensive medications, or the repeated diagnostic tests she'd likely require. She would end up with probably $119,000 of unpaid medical bills. With the Humana plan, those bills top out at $6,300 a year, no matter what.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/01/1252375/-Consumer-Reports-destroys-rate-shock-horror-story?detail=email#

[TSA]

C3Mg-ZMeZU0

:lmao lying piece of shit. How anyone defends this liar after this is beyond me.

[Jacob1983]

The people in those pics are so sad. Helpless weak minded sheep.

[boutons_deux]

keep it up while it lasts, right-wingers, ACA's gonna kick butt in those adult, serious, pro-99% states that adopt it, in spite of the blatant sabotage by the Repugs at federal and state level.

Repugs tried to kill SS in 1930s, and they dicklessly failed miserably.

[boobie4three]

keep it up while it lasts, right-wingers, ACA's gonna kick butt in those adult, serious, pro-99% states that adopt it, in spite of the blatant sabotage by the Repugs at federal and state level.

Repugs tried to kill SS in 1930s, and they dicklessly failed miserably.

Looks like it's the Dems who are trying to sabotage 0bamacare.

Sen. Mary Landrieu says she'll offer a bill to allow Americans to keep existing health insurance

By Bruce Alpert, NOLA.com | Times-Picayune
on October 30, 2013 at 2:58 PM, updated October 30, 2013 at 11:31 PM


WASHINGTON -- Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said she will propose legislation to ensure Americans can keep their current insurance even if it may not comply with minimum standards under the Affordable Care Act.

Landrieu's comments Wednesday came after reports that insurance companies have sent out hundreds of thousands of letters telling people with individual policies -- not obtained under a group, or through employers -- that they must seek other insurance because theirs doesn't comply with the health law's mandated coverage.

Republicans said those actions contradict numerous statements by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, including Landrieu, that people could keep their policies if they were satisfied with them, even after the Affordable Care Act was implemented.

"The promise was made and it should be kept," Landrieu said Wednesday. "And it was our understanding when we voted for that, that people when they have insurance, could keep what they had. So, I'm going to be working on that fix."

Landrieu's "Keeping the Affordable Care Act Promise" legislation would allow people to hold on to policies that don't meet the "essential benefits" coverage provisions mandated by the Affordable Care Act. But it would require insurers who offer such plans to inform consumers of the "essential benefits" their policies don't provide.

Landrieu believes consumers should be fully informed on what they are getting and not getting from their health insurance, her aides said.

They expect Landrieu to introduce her bill on Thursday.

On Tuesday, the conservative Weekly Standard quoted Landrieu as saying that the assurance to Americans was that, "if you had insurance that was good insurance that you wanted to keep it, you could keep it."

Since then, aides said, the senator learned of a bill being drafted by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., and decided to offer her own, with more consumer disclosures.

Obama defended the administration's policy on individual plans in a speech in Boston: "One of the things health reform was designed to do was to help not only the uninsured but also the underinsured," the president said. "And there are a number of Americans, fewer than 5 percent of Americans, who've got cut-rate plans that don't offer real financial protection in the event of a serious illness or an accident."

"Before the Affordable Care Act, the worst of these plans routinely dropped thousands of Americans every single year," the president said. "And on average, premiums for folks who stayed in their plans for more than a year shot up about 15 percent a year. This wasn't just bad for those folks who were, had these policies; it was bad for all of us, because, again, when tragedy strikes, and folks can't pay their medical bills, everybody else picks up the tab."

At a contentious House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the Obama administration is carrying out the law that says Americans could keep polices that were in effect before the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010. Americans can keep individual plans bought after that date if the polices comply with minimum coverage requirements, according to the law.

Many of the 5 percent of Americans with individual coverage have been denied basic consumer protection or adequate coverage for serious illness, she said. Companies regularly cancel individual policies and have done so well before the Affordable Care Act became law and are doing so now, the secretary said.

"This market has always been the Wild West," Sebelius said.

Those losing coverage, Sebelius said, can buy more comprehensive coverage, often at the same or lower prices, through the exchanges, the marketplaces set up under the law to purchase coverage and qualify for income-based subsidies.

But Republicans said many Americans looking for replacements for their canceled individual policies are either finding "sticker shock" in terms of higher prices at the Affordable Care exchanges, or finding they can't access the troubled Affordable Care Act website, Healthcare.gov. It was down at least part of the day Wednesday.

Reps. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, and Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, were among a host of House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans who read from emails and letters sent to them from constituents.

"People are sharing stories with me," Scalise said. "Shawn from Covington said: 'My current plan through United Health is no longer being offered in 2014 due to Obamacare.'"

"Madam Secretary," Scalise said, "what would you tell Shawn who liked his plan and now has lost it? He was promised by you and the president he would be able to keep that plan."

Sebelius said she would tell "Shawn to shop the (Affordable Care Act) marketplace." She also said United Health didn't have to cancel the plan if the policyholder had a plan issued before the law's 2010 enactment, or one that met the minimum criteria for health insurance.

Cassidy read a letter from a woman he identified as Adrienne: "She lost her coverage because spousal coverage is gone. She's gone on the exchange, doesn't qualify for a subsidy, but that her premium and out-of-pocket costs under any plan is $10,000 a year. She writes us. She feels betrayed by her government."

Under the Affordable Care Act, large businesses, starting in 2015, must provide coverage to employees, but not necessarily for their spouses and families.

Cassidy said he is supporting a new House bill to require the administration to allow Americans to keep their existing insurance.

The Affordable Care Act, which Landrieu supported and Cassidy opposed, is already a contentious issue as the two prepare to face each other and other candidates in the 2014 Louisiana Senate race.

The Kaiser Family Foundation said 15.4 million people had individual health coverage in 2011, or about 5 percent of the U.S. population. Most Americans obtain their policies through their employers, or Medicaid or Medicaid, and aren't being affected by the Affordable Care Act, the Kaiser report said.

During the hearing, Sebelius apologized for problems with the website. "In these early weeks, access to HealthCare.gov has been a miserably frustrating experience for way too many Americans, including many who have waited years, in some cases their entire lives, for the security of health insurance," Sebelius said.

"You deserve better," she said, speaking directly to Americans unable to enroll for insurance under the Affordable Care Act's exchanges. "I'm accountable to you for fixing these problems."

She predicted it would be fully operational by the end of November.

On Wednesday, Landrieu said she doesn't believe the president was intentionally trying to misrepresent the law when he told Americans they could keep their current insurance plan if they were satisfied with it once the Affordable Care Act was operational.

But she said the nation would be better off if Republicans tried to improve the law, rather than continually trying to defund or repeal it.


http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/10/sen_landrieu_says_shell_suppor.html

[boutons_deux]

Landrieu, BigOil Louisiana DINO bitch.

you can always keep your existing health insurance if it meets ACA minimum coverage, otherwise it's junk sucking down and wasting your premiums. Good luck when you have big medical bills or a real medical catastrophe, because you effectively AREN'T INSURED.

[boobie4three]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/cruzz7_zpsc76977e3.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/cruzz7_zpsc76977e3.jpg.html)

[boutons_deux]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/cruzz7_zpsc76977e3.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/cruzz7_zpsc76977e3.jpg.html)

Cruz is excellent at dishonest rhetoric.

Try this:

If Americans didn't want TO BE FUCKED forever by their for-profit, wealth-sucking health care racket, they would seek an alternative.

[Clipper Nation]

If Americans didn't want TO BE FUCKED forever by their for-profit, wealth-sucking health care racket, they now get to be fucked even harder by the government's wealth-sucking health care racket.
fify

[spurraider21]

My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.

(http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304527504579171710423780446?tesla= y)



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KoV0NeHNklk

[spurraider21]

Romney care had horrible startup software problems AND crazy low startup enrollments. Apart from the healthcare.gov expected nightmare (FBI spent $1B and never got anything), people don't enroll (pay) 6 weeks before the deadline and 2 months before coverage starts. Romneycare had a huge rush of enrollments just before the deadline, and took 2 years to achieve it's long term average which is now 98% of MA covered.

you right-wing ankle-biters in the peanut gallery will eat your schadenfreude with shit sauce. ACA's success is inevitable, and it will be, like the shutdown and Repug filibusers, a huge electoral boost for the Dems.
dam, lowering your standards to that of the dreaded repugs? now thats a new low

[boutons_deux]

My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.

(http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304527504579171710423780446?tesla= y)



WSJ?, so surprising from the Mortdick toilet paper, with the supposedly horrible ANECDOTE, probably won't stand up to fact checking.

"My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors"

why lose acces to YOUR cancer doctors? It's an "in or out network" kludgeocracratic cartel set up by the insurers, not by ACA?

why blame ACA for YOUR INSURANCE COMPANY cancelling the policy. ACA didn't cancel your policy.

My bet is that United Health is abusing ACA as an pretext to drop your very expensive treatment after $1.2M.

"I guess that's a highly effective way to control medical costs. Perhaps that's the point."

duh, finally, after all the spurious bullshit, YOU GET TO THE POINT. United is cutting its costs by cancelling you, it's NOT ACA cancelling.

you AND WSJ let us know how you make out in the new California ACA individual market exchange, woncha?

[spurraider21]

yeah WSJ is such an unreliable source, tbh :rolleyes

[boobie4three]

Bouton slams everyone for their sources but all his links come from far left websites. Typical liberal hypocrite.

[boutons_deux]

yeah WSJ is such an unreliable source, tbh :rolleyes

anything from WSJ these days is tainted by the ownership.

Probably not too bad on business/financial, but on social/politics, it ain't fucking reliable

[spurraider21]

any publication that goes against what you are saying is tainted and unreliable, tbh

[spurraider21]

Too Stupid Asshole:

educate yourself as to size of the individual insurance market, how it's unaffordable for many people, and then how many bought junk insurance now forbidden by ACA.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/News/News-Releases/2009/Jul/New-Report-Individual-Health-Insurance-Market-Failing-Consumers.aspx
:lmao commonwealthfund.org as a source

they're tainted bruh

[boutons_deux]

:lmao commonwealthfund.org as a source

they're tainted bruh

do you have different facts about the size of the individual market?

[boutons_deux]

any publication that goes against what you are saying is tainted and unreliable, tbh

finally, you're catching on, congrats.

[spurraider21]

no, i'm just playing the same retarded game you are

[spurraider21]

any publication that goes against what you are saying is tainted and unreliable, tbh


finally, you're catching on, congrats.
:cry liberals are so open minded compared to the others

[SA210]

I'm still stuck on the whole Obama being against mandates thing tbh. How many things does he get to lie about and flip flop on before the left gets angry enough to realize that he's a damn fraud, and same as the right? They don't care. PERIOD. The D next to his name is all the matters.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Looks like it's the Dems who are trying to sabotage 0bamacare.

Sen. Mary Landrieu says she'll offer a bill to allow Americans to keep existing health insurance

By Bruce Alpert, NOLA.com | Times-Picayune
on October 30, 2013 at 2:58 PM, updated October 30, 2013 at 11:31 PM


WASHINGTON -- Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., said she will propose legislation to ensure Americans can keep their current insurance even if it may not comply with minimum standards under the Affordable Care Act.

Landrieu's comments Wednesday came after reports that insurance companies have sent out hundreds of thousands of letters telling people with individual policies -- not obtained under a group, or through employers -- that they must seek other insurance because theirs doesn't comply with the health law's mandated coverage.

Republicans said those actions contradict numerous statements by President Barack Obama and congressional Democrats, including Landrieu, that people could keep their policies if they were satisfied with them, even after the Affordable Care Act was implemented.

"The promise was made and it should be kept," Landrieu said Wednesday. "And it was our understanding when we voted for that, that people when they have insurance, could keep what they had. So, I'm going to be working on that fix."

Landrieu's "Keeping the Affordable Care Act Promise" legislation would allow people to hold on to policies that don't meet the "essential benefits" coverage provisions mandated by the Affordable Care Act. But it would require insurers who offer such plans to inform consumers of the "essential benefits" their policies don't provide.

Landrieu believes consumers should be fully informed on what they are getting and not getting from their health insurance, her aides said.

They expect Landrieu to introduce her bill on Thursday.

On Tuesday, the conservative Weekly Standard quoted Landrieu as saying that the assurance to Americans was that, "if you had insurance that was good insurance that you wanted to keep it, you could keep it."

Since then, aides said, the senator learned of a bill being drafted by Sen. Ron Johnson, R-Wisc., and decided to offer her own, with more consumer disclosures.

Obama defended the administration's policy on individual plans in a speech in Boston: "One of the things health reform was designed to do was to help not only the uninsured but also the underinsured," the president said. "And there are a number of Americans, fewer than 5 percent of Americans, who've got cut-rate plans that don't offer real financial protection in the event of a serious illness or an accident."

"Before the Affordable Care Act, the worst of these plans routinely dropped thousands of Americans every single year," the president said. "And on average, premiums for folks who stayed in their plans for more than a year shot up about 15 percent a year. This wasn't just bad for those folks who were, had these policies; it was bad for all of us, because, again, when tragedy strikes, and folks can't pay their medical bills, everybody else picks up the tab."

At a contentious House Energy and Commerce Committee hearing Wednesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said the Obama administration is carrying out the law that says Americans could keep polices that were in effect before the Affordable Care Act became law in 2010. Americans can keep individual plans bought after that date if the polices comply with minimum coverage requirements, according to the law.

Many of the 5 percent of Americans with individual coverage have been denied basic consumer protection or adequate coverage for serious illness, she said. Companies regularly cancel individual policies and have done so well before the Affordable Care Act became law and are doing so now, the secretary said.

"This market has always been the Wild West," Sebelius said.

Those losing coverage, Sebelius said, can buy more comprehensive coverage, often at the same or lower prices, through the exchanges, the marketplaces set up under the law to purchase coverage and qualify for income-based subsidies.

But Republicans said many Americans looking for replacements for their canceled individual policies are either finding "sticker shock" in terms of higher prices at the Affordable Care exchanges, or finding they can't access the troubled Affordable Care Act website, Healthcare.gov. It was down at least part of the day Wednesday.

Reps. Steve Scalise, R-Jefferson, and Bill Cassidy, R-Baton Rouge, were among a host of House Energy and Commerce Committee Republicans who read from emails and letters sent to them from constituents.

"People are sharing stories with me," Scalise said. "Shawn from Covington said: 'My current plan through United Health is no longer being offered in 2014 due to Obamacare.'"

"Madam Secretary," Scalise said, "what would you tell Shawn who liked his plan and now has lost it? He was promised by you and the president he would be able to keep that plan."

Sebelius said she would tell "Shawn to shop the (Affordable Care Act) marketplace." She also said United Health didn't have to cancel the plan if the policyholder had a plan issued before the law's 2010 enactment, or one that met the minimum criteria for health insurance.

Cassidy read a letter from a woman he identified as Adrienne: "She lost her coverage because spousal coverage is gone. She's gone on the exchange, doesn't qualify for a subsidy, but that her premium and out-of-pocket costs under any plan is $10,000 a year. She writes us. She feels betrayed by her government."

Under the Affordable Care Act, large businesses, starting in 2015, must provide coverage to employees, but not necessarily for their spouses and families.

Cassidy said he is supporting a new House bill to require the administration to allow Americans to keep their existing insurance.

The Affordable Care Act, which Landrieu supported and Cassidy opposed, is already a contentious issue as the two prepare to face each other and other candidates in the 2014 Louisiana Senate race.

The Kaiser Family Foundation said 15.4 million people had individual health coverage in 2011, or about 5 percent of the U.S. population. Most Americans obtain their policies through their employers, or Medicaid or Medicaid, and aren't being affected by the Affordable Care Act, the Kaiser report said.

During the hearing, Sebelius apologized for problems with the website. "In these early weeks, access to HealthCare.gov has been a miserably frustrating experience for way too many Americans, including many who have waited years, in some cases their entire lives, for the security of health insurance," Sebelius said.

"You deserve better," she said, speaking directly to Americans unable to enroll for insurance under the Affordable Care Act's exchanges. "I'm accountable to you for fixing these problems."

She predicted it would be fully operational by the end of November.

On Wednesday, Landrieu said she doesn't believe the president was intentionally trying to misrepresent the law when he told Americans they could keep their current insurance plan if they were satisfied with it once the Affordable Care Act was operational.

But she said the nation would be better off if Republicans tried to improve the law, rather than continually trying to defund or repeal it.


http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2013/10/sen_landrieu_says_shell_suppor.html

you do realize that she is doing it for cover. right? It's not going to pass but she can now go back to the electorate and sya she tried... you're not very bright... sabotage..lol

[boobie4three]

you do realize that she is doing it for cover. right? It's not going to pass but she can now go back to the electorate and sya she tried... you're not very bright... sabotage..lol

How do you know why she's doing it? Are you her campaign manager?

[boutons_deux]

:cry liberals are so open minded compared to the others

sure they are, They're the Superior Race.

[George Gervin's Afro]

How do you know why she's doing it? Are you her campaign manager?

because this happens all of the time..

[TSA]

boutons what are your feelings on Obama's outright lies?

[boutons_deux]

boutons what are your feelings on Obama's outright lies?

He screwed up badly, but did not lie, and it was very misleading, giving you assholes an opening to blow out a bunch of bullshit.

He should have said "If your current policy meets ACA minimums (iow, it ain't junk), then you can keep your policy" (if your insurance company let's you keep it, then ACA will, too)

How do you feel about dubya padding his crotch, putting on a flight suit, landing on an aircraft carrier and saying in May 2003 "the Iraq war is over"?

[boobie4three]

He screwed up badly, but did not lie, and it was very misleading, giving you assholes an opening to blow out a bunch of bullshit.

He should have said "If your current policy meets ACA minimums (iow, it ain't junk), then you can keep your policy" (if your insurance company let's you keep it, then ACA will, too)

How do you feel about dubya padding his crotch, putting on a flight suit, landing on an aircraft carrier and saying in May 2003 "the Iraq war is over"?

26 times he told Americans: "If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor....PERIOD He knew damn well insurance companies were going to have to cancel customer's policies because they weren't able to meet the stringent requirements required by 0bamacare. He blatantly lied to the American people in order to pass this stinking pile of shit but you don't care because to libtards like you, the means justify the ends.

[George Gervin's Afro]

26 times he told Americans: "If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance. If you like your doctor, you can keep your doctor....PERIOD He knew damn well insurance companies were going to have to cancel customer's policies because they weren't able to meet the stringent requirements required by 0bamacare. He blatantly lied to the American people in order to pass this stinking pile of shit but you don't care because to libtards like you, the means justify the ends.

Obama can't control what Insurance companies do... it's not very hard to figure that out... and if your plan now doesn't meet the requirements of the law that is not his fault. Now with that being said, in the gotcha, sound bite society we will live in he won't be able to shake that... I seem to recall some people were telling us we had solid proof to justify rushing into a war... yet you crying bitches kept your traps shut so you have no right to whine like sissies who are bullied on the play ground.. the ACA is herre to stay so learn to live with it...

[George Gervin's Afro]

Cruz is excellent at dishonest rhetoric.

Try this:

If Americans didn't want TO BE FUCKED forever by their for-profit, wealth-sucking health care racket, they would seek an alternative.


My favorite cruz lie is that he represents 26 million Texans...

[boobie4three]

Obama can't control what Insurance companies do... it's not very hard to figure that out... and if your plan now doesn't meet the requirements of the law that is not his fault. Now with that being said, in the gotcha, sound bite society we will live in he won't be able to shake that... I seem to recall some people were telling us we had solid proof to justify rushing into a war... yet you crying bitches kept your traps shut so you have no right to whine like sissies who are bullied on the play ground.. the ACA is herre to stay so learn to live with it...

This is going to be a millstone around the necks of all you Dems. Here's how it plays out imo.

* October 2013 - Harry Reid will NOT allow a vote on “you can keep your insurance”, dooming Landreau and other Senate Democrats. Obama announces that even if the Senate passes it, he would veto it.

* 1 November 2013 - The website will NOT be working, reported by MSM

* 15 December - the signups will not be cut off because millions will not have been able to sign up

* 1 Jan 2014 - Millions will lose their doctors, millions will not have insurance yet, reported by MSM

* 15 March 2014 - Exchanges will not have met their goals of signing up young healthys

* 1 April 2014 - Insurance Companies will, in their quarterly reports, disclose their expected losses for 2014, including the Federal subsidies that cover 90% of those losses — reported by the MSM

* April 2014 - Insurance companies predict 2015 rates based on 2014 experience, showing the beginnings of a death spiral. These will be leaked and reported by the MSM

* July 2014 - Heritage will compile and report the list of required federal subsidies (about $50 billion) to insurance companies, and the MSM will report it.

* August 2014 - Republican candidates will start running ads hanging all of the above on each and every Democrat House and Senate candidate.

* September 2014 - the website will finally be working, reported by the MSM, just in time to start signing up for 2015.

* October 2014 - Insurance companies will begin to send out their 90 day letters to large employers cancelling their group health policies because they do not satisfy HHS minimum standards. Companies will inform their employees (i.e., voters) MSM reports that 50 million will lose their insurance plans.

* 1 November 2014 - Insurance companies send out their 60 day letters of cancellation to the employers of another 50 million employees. MSM reports this.

* 4 November 2014 — Federal Elections

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/jackson4.gif (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/jackson4.gif.html)

[ElNono]

Didn't Cruz party run an election on repealing Barrycare? How did that go?

[George Gervin's Afro]

I HOPE This is going to be a millstone around the necks of all you Dems. Here's how I HOPE it plays out imo.

* October 2013 - Harry Reid will NOT allow a vote on “you can keep your insurance”, dooming Landreau and other Senate Democrats. Obama announces that even if the Senate passes it, he would veto it.

* 1 November 2013 - The website will NOT be working, reported by MSM

* 15 December - the signups will not be cut off because millions will not have been able to sign up

* 1 Jan 2014 - Millions will lose their doctors, millions will not have insurance yet, reported by MSM

* 15 March 2014 - Exchanges will not have met their goals of signing up young healthys

* 1 April 2014 - Insurance Companies will, in their quarterly reports, disclose their expected losses for 2014, including the Federal subsidies that cover 90% of those losses — reported by the MSM

* April 2014 - Insurance companies predict 2015 rates based on 2014 experience, showing the beginnings of a death spiral. These will be leaked and reported by the MSM

* July 2014 - Heritage will compile and report the list of required federal subsidies (about $50 billion) to insurance companies, and the MSM will report it.

* August 2014 - Republican candidates will start running ads hanging all of the above on each and every Democrat House and Senate candidate.

* September 2014 - the website will finally be working, reported by the MSM, just in time to start signing up for 2015.

* October 2014 - Insurance companies will begin to send out their 90 day letters to large employers cancelling their group health policies because they do not satisfy HHS minimum standards. Companies will inform their employees (i.e., voters) MSM reports that 50 million will lose their insurance plans.

* 1 November 2014 - Insurance companies send out their 60 day letters of cancellation to the employers of another 50 million employees. MSM reports this.

* 4 November 2014 — Federal Elections

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/jackson4.gif (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/jackson4.gif.html)

lol

[George Gervin's Afro]

Didn't Cruz party run an election on repealing Barrycare? How did that go?

Well since he said he was going too... and he didn't .. that makes him a liar.. he said he was going to repeal it and he didn't.. it's really easy to play the game..

[boobie4three]

lol

Yeah I forgot that part. Thanks.

[boutons_deux]

This is going to be a millstone around the necks of all you Dems. Here's how it plays out imo.

* October 2013 - Harry Reid will NOT allow a vote on “you can keep your insurance”, dooming Landreau and other Senate Democrats. Obama announces that even if the Senate passes it, he would veto it.

* 1 November 2013 - The website will NOT be working, reported by MSM

* 15 December - the signups will not be cut off because millions will not have been able to sign up

* 1 Jan 2014 - Millions will lose their doctors, millions will not have insurance yet, reported by MSM

* 15 March 2014 - Exchanges will not have met their goals of signing up young healthys

* 1 April 2014 - Insurance Companies will, in their quarterly reports, disclose their expected losses for 2014, including the Federal subsidies that cover 90% of those losses — reported by the MSM

* April 2014 - Insurance companies predict 2015 rates based on 2014 experience, showing the beginnings of a death spiral. These will be leaked and reported by the MSM

* July 2014 - Heritage will compile and report the list of required federal subsidies (about $50 billion) to insurance companies, and the MSM will report it.

* August 2014 - Republican candidates will start running ads hanging all of the above on each and every Democrat House and Senate candidate.

* September 2014 - the website will finally be working, reported by the MSM, just in time to start signing up for 2015.

* October 2014 - Insurance companies will begin to send out their 90 day letters to large employers cancelling their group health policies because they do not satisfy HHS minimum standards. Companies will inform their employees (i.e., voters) MSM reports that 50 million will lose their insurance plans.

* 1 November 2014 - Insurance companies send out their 60 day letters of cancellation to the employers of another 50 million employees. MSM reports this.

* 4 November 2014 — Federal Elections

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/jackson4.gif (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/jackson4.gif.html)

ACA is going to be huge success, sooner or later, and it will cost Repugs and tea baggers dearly in non-gerrymandered states

[boutons_deux]

An ex-health-insurance corporate exec:

What Congress didn't say: Obamacare outlaws policies that are essentially worthless

As I watched Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius being grilled by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week, it was immediately clear to me just how many of them are in the pockets of the industry I used to work for.

Former colleagues of mine undoubtedly had a hand in writing the members’ comments and questions. Their behavior showed just how much more willing they are to protect the profits of health insurers than protect the health and financial well- being of their constituents.

I got the same treatment from many of those committee members when I provided testimony in March — or tried to. I had been invited to talk about the business practices of insurers — practices that have contributed to the rising number of uninsured and underinsured Americans. Among them: refusing to sell policies to millions of us because of preexisting conditions and charging exorbitant premiums for skimpy coverage to others.

When I tried to tell the tale of a Florida woman who died of cancer last year because she was priced out of the market and was unable to buy coverage at any price, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from my home state of Tennessee, cut me off. She clearly had no interest in hearing about Leslie Elder or anything else I had to say. Instead, Blackburn held forth for more than five minutes and gave me all of 20 seconds to respond.

Throughout that hearing, a former co-worker from my Humana days, who later worked for the industry’s big lobbying group and then the Bush administration, stood a few feet behind Blackburn. That former co-worker now serves as senior policy adviser to the committee. So I was not the least bit surprised that Blackburn was determined to give me as little time to talk as possible.

During the Sebelius hearing, Blackburn and other GOP members talked about letters constituents have received informing them that their policies will not be available next year. How could that be, they asked, when the president assured us four years ago that, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” Blackburn, et al accused the president of being dishonest.

Obama should not have used those exact words. That’s because one reason for the Affordable Care Act in the first place was to protect us from insurers all too willing to lure us into inadequate policies with slick marketing materials. Insurers have made billions in profits from selling such junk insurance, and people like Blackburn clearly want to get rid of the law that makes junk insurance illegal.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/11/04/13676/what-congress-didnt-say-obamacare-outlaws-policies-are-essentially-worthless?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=watchdog&utm_medium=publici-email

[TSA]

An ex-health-insurance corporate exec:

What Congress didn't say: Obamacare outlaws policies that are essentially worthless

As I watched Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius being grilled by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week, it was immediately clear to me just how many of them are in the pockets of the industry I used to work for.

Former colleagues of mine undoubtedly had a hand in writing the members’ comments and questions. Their behavior showed just how much more willing they are to protect the profits of health insurers than protect the health and financial well- being of their constituents.

I got the same treatment from many of those committee members when I provided testimony in March — or tried to. I had been invited to talk about the business practices of insurers — practices that have contributed to the rising number of uninsured and underinsured Americans. Among them: refusing to sell policies to millions of us because of preexisting conditions and charging exorbitant premiums for skimpy coverage to others.

When I tried to tell the tale of a Florida woman who died of cancer last year because she was priced out of the market and was unable to buy coverage at any price, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from my home state of Tennessee, cut me off. She clearly had no interest in hearing about Leslie Elder or anything else I had to say. Instead, Blackburn held forth for more than five minutes and gave me all of 20 seconds to respond.

Throughout that hearing, a former co-worker from my Humana days, who later worked for the industry’s big lobbying group and then the Bush administration, stood a few feet behind Blackburn. That former co-worker now serves as senior policy adviser to the committee. So I was not the least bit surprised that Blackburn was determined to give me as little time to talk as possible.

During the Sebelius hearing, Blackburn and other GOP members talked about letters constituents have received informing them that their policies will not be available next year. How could that be, they asked, when the president assured us four years ago that, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” Blackburn, et al accused the president of being dishonest.

Obama should not have used those exact words. That’s because one reason for the Affordable Care Act in the first place was to protect us from insurers all too willing to lure us into inadequate policies with slick marketing materials. Insurers have made billions in profits from selling such junk insurance, and people like Blackburn clearly want to get rid of the law that makes junk insurance illegal.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/11/04/13676/what-congress-didnt-say-obamacare-outlaws-policies-are-essentially-worthless?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=watchdog&utm_medium=publici-email




Why didn't Obama say this from the start instead of lying over and over and over and over again?

[boutons_deux]

Why didn't Obama say this from the start instead of lying over and over and over and over again?

I don't know, really mysterious. His fault, not ACA's. The minimum requirements were available to be known as soon as ACA was passed and published.

The ACA minimum requirements terminate one of the biggest, most successful corporate scams of the individual insurance market. caveat emptor, the corps will screw you at every turn. THAT's the real story, not all the right-wing bullshit noise.

[George Gervin's Afro]

Why didn't Obama say this from the start instead of lying over and over and over and over again?

I was able to keep my plan.

[boutons_deux]

I was able to keep my plan.

sorry, positive anecdotes don't' count, in fact they don't exist, :)

[boutons_deux]

At Least 2 Million Texans Qualify for Tax Credit
More than 2 million Texans are eligible for tax credits to purchase health coverage in the federal insurance marketplace,

Texas is one of 26 states that chose not to establish a state-run health insurance marketplace under the Affordable Care Act and to instead rely on a federal one. Texas now has more people eligible for federal premium tax credits next year than any other state, according to the report. The credits are available to those with incomes between 100 and 400 percent of the federal poverty line who meet some other criteria.
Cynthia Cox, a policy analyst for Kaiser, said the average Texas family would receive a tax credit of $2,700 per year if they purchased coverage in the federal marketplace. How much they would pay for insurance depends largely on where they live and what policy they select.

.... (followed by a bunch of lies and propaganda from Perry's spokesthing and other Repug/conservative mouthpieces)

http://www.texastribune.org/2013/11/05/study-2-million-plus-texans-would-qualify-healthca/

[boutons_deux]

In Shake-up, Overseer of Flawed Health Website Is RetiringThe chief information officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, whose office supervised creation of the troubled federal website for health insurance, is retiring, the Obama administration said Wednesday.
The official, Tony Trenkle, will step down on Nov. 15 “to take a position in the private sector,” said an email message circulated among agency employees.


As the agency’s top information officer, Mr. Trenkle supervised the spending of $2 billion a year on information technology products and services, including development of HealthCare.gov, the website for the new health insurance marketplace.

Millions of consumers have been frustrated trying to shop for insurance on the site. The site is a central element of President Obama’s health care overhaul, under which most Americans will be required to have insurance next year.
Mr. Trenkle, reached by telephone on Wednesday, refused to discuss his plans. “I can’t speak with you,” he said.

http://mobile.nytimes.com/2013/11/07/us/politics/overseer-of-health-website-retiring.html?from=homepage

I expect several of his immediate subordinates to "retire" once the website gets in better shape.

[RandomGuy]

An ex-health-insurance corporate exec:

What Congress didn't say: Obamacare outlaws policies that are essentially worthless

As I watched Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius being grilled by members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee last week, it was immediately clear to me just how many of them are in the pockets of the industry I used to work for.

Former colleagues of mine undoubtedly had a hand in writing the members’ comments and questions. Their behavior showed just how much more willing they are to protect the profits of health insurers than protect the health and financial well- being of their constituents.

I got the same treatment from many of those committee members when I provided testimony in March — or tried to. I had been invited to talk about the business practices of insurers — practices that have contributed to the rising number of uninsured and underinsured Americans. Among them: refusing to sell policies to millions of us because of preexisting conditions and charging exorbitant premiums for skimpy coverage to others.

When I tried to tell the tale of a Florida woman who died of cancer last year because she was priced out of the market and was unable to buy coverage at any price, Rep. Marsha Blackburn, a Republican from my home state of Tennessee, cut me off. She clearly had no interest in hearing about Leslie Elder or anything else I had to say. Instead, Blackburn held forth for more than five minutes and gave me all of 20 seconds to respond.

Throughout that hearing, a former co-worker from my Humana days, who later worked for the industry’s big lobbying group and then the Bush administration, stood a few feet behind Blackburn. That former co-worker now serves as senior policy adviser to the committee. So I was not the least bit surprised that Blackburn was determined to give me as little time to talk as possible.

During the Sebelius hearing, Blackburn and other GOP members talked about letters constituents have received informing them that their policies will not be available next year. How could that be, they asked, when the president assured us four years ago that, “If you like your health care plan, you can keep your health care plan.” Blackburn, et al accused the president of being dishonest.

Obama should not have used those exact words. That’s because one reason for the Affordable Care Act in the first place was to protect us from insurers all too willing to lure us into inadequate policies with slick marketing materials. Insurers have made billions in profits from selling such junk insurance, and people like Blackburn clearly want to get rid of the law that makes junk insurance illegal.

http://www.publicintegrity.org/2013/11/04/13676/what-congress-didnt-say-obamacare-outlaws-policies-are-essentially-worthless?utm_source=email&utm_campaign=watchdog&utm_medium=publici-email




Pretty much. I started looking into the types of policies that were canceled.

They were mostly worthless. The reason that they were so cheap is that the coverage they generally afforded was thin to non-existent.

Having seen how HMOs put out specialty policies, I can vouch for their high profitability to the company, meaning low utility to the consumer.

[RandomGuy]

Why didn't Obama say this from the start instead of lying over and over and over and over again?

Mostly because he fucked up. Pretty simple.

The vast majority of people did get to keep their coverage.

[boutons_deux]

Why didn't Obama say this from the start instead of lying over and over and over and over again?

Jon Stewart pointing out the kettle is deeper shade of black

MUST-SEE Jon Stewart: Obamacare opponents "lie like motherf***ers" (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/06/1253488/-MUST-SEE-Jon-Stewart-Obamacare-opponents-lie-like-motherf-ers)

Last night, Jon Stewart blasted the opponents of Obamacare (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-november-5-2013/affordable-horror-story) for continually lying their asses off.


We're still working out some of the fine print on our health care system. Right now, there's been some talk that the President of the United States was less than 100% honest with some of his health care rhetoric.

His opponents have been lying like motherfuckers about its effects!

REP. GEORGE HOLDING, R-NC (10/23/2013 (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2013-10-23/pdf/CREC-2013-10-23.pdf)): It is estimated that Obamacare will increase taxes over a trillion dollars, and add $6 trillion dollars to the deficit.

ALLISON DENIJS (10/11/2013 (http://www.salon.com/2013/10/18/inside_the_fox_news_lie_machine_i_fact_checked_sea n_hannity_on_obamacare/)): We're looking at probably $20,000 in premiums next year. ... And we don't even have insurance for our daughter, who has a pre-existing condition.

BRIAN KILMEADE (10/28/2013 (http://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/28/fox-news-reanimates-fake-obamacare-penalty-pris/196620)): You have a $95 dollar fine, which a lot of young people are going to take, in order to avoid prison time, or whatever ramifications.

DR. BEN CARSON (10/9/2013 (http://mediamatters.org/mobile/blog/2013/10/10/ben-carson-uses-his-first-official-fox-appearan/196383)): Vladimir Lenin ... he said socialized medicine is the keystone of the arch to the socialist state.

DR. BEN CARSON (10/11/2013 (http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/ben-carson-obamacare-slavery-98185.html)): Obamacare is really, I think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.




BETSY McCAUGHEY (10/29/2013): And the point is, who should set the minimum? A lot of people are saying, why should somebody in Washington tell me I have to have these 10 items in every plan. It's 10 essential benefits. As I said, it's like passing a law that the only car you can buy is a fully loaded Cadillac. What if you can only afford a Honda?

So your point is, why should the government set 10 standards for health care, when they don't set 10 standards for cars? Cuz guess what?

This is the federal standards for automobiles. The reason is because the federal government sets at least 50 standard items that must be in either a Cadillac or a Honda if they would like to be referred to as a car.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/06/1253488/-MUST-SEE-Jon-Stewart-Obamacare-opponents-lie-like-motherf-ers?detail=email

[TSA]

Jon Stewart pointing out the kettle is deeper shade of black

MUST-SEE Jon Stewart: Obamacare opponents "lie like motherf***ers" (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/06/1253488/-MUST-SEE-Jon-Stewart-Obamacare-opponents-lie-like-motherf-ers)

Last night, Jon Stewart blasted the opponents of Obamacare (http://www.thedailyshow.com/watch/tue-november-5-2013/affordable-horror-story) for continually lying their asses off.

We're still working out some of the fine print on our health care system. Right now, there's been some talk that the President of the United States was less than 100% honest with some of his health care rhetoric.

His opponents have been lying like motherfuckers about its effects!

REP. GEORGE HOLDING, R-NC (10/23/2013 (http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/CREC-2013-10-23/pdf/CREC-2013-10-23.pdf)): It is estimated that Obamacare will increase taxes over a trillion dollars, and add $6 trillion dollars to the deficit.

ALLISON DENIJS (10/11/2013 (http://www.salon.com/2013/10/18/inside_the_fox_news_lie_machine_i_fact_checked_sea n_hannity_on_obamacare/)): We're looking at probably $20,000 in premiums next year. ... And we don't even have insurance for our daughter, who has a pre-existing condition.

BRIAN KILMEADE (10/28/2013 (http://www.mediamatters.org/blog/2013/10/28/fox-news-reanimates-fake-obamacare-penalty-pris/196620)): You have a $95 dollar fine, which a lot of young people are going to take, in order to avoid prison time, or whatever ramifications.

DR. BEN CARSON (10/9/2013 (http://mediamatters.org/mobile/blog/2013/10/10/ben-carson-uses-his-first-official-fox-appearan/196383)): Vladimir Lenin ... he said socialized medicine is the keystone of the arch to the socialist state.

DR. BEN CARSON (10/11/2013 (http://www.politico.com/story/2013/10/ben-carson-obamacare-slavery-98185.html)): Obamacare is really, I think, the worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery.

BETSY McCAUGHEY (10/29/2013): And the point is, who should set the minimum? A lot of people are saying, why should somebody in Washington tell me I have to have these 10 items in every plan. It's 10 essential benefits. As I said, it's like passing a law that the only car you can buy is a fully loaded Cadillac. What if you can only afford a Honda?

So your point is, why should the government set 10 standards for health care, when they don't set 10 standards for cars? Cuz guess what?

BETSY McCAUGHEY (10/29/2013): And the point is, who should set the minimum? A lot of people are saying, why should somebody in Washington tell me I have to have these 10 items in every plan. It's 10 essential benefits. As I said, it's like passing a law that the only car you can buy is a fully loaded Cadillac. What if you can only afford a Honda?


So your point is, why should the government set 10 standards for health care, when they don't set 10 standards for cars? Cuz guess what?

This is the federal standards for automobiles. The reason is because the federal government sets at least 50 standard items that must be in either a Cadillac or a Honda if they would like to be referred to as a car.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/06/1253488/-MUST-SEE-Jon-Stewart-Obamacare-opponents-lie-like-motherf-ers?detail=email


I'm a bit more concerned about the President of the United States constant lies. There is no way to spin or deflect that boutons, sorry. Your leader is a fraud.

[Clipper Nation]

Midlands man has personal information compromised on healthcare.gov
By Meaghan Norman


Updated: 11/04/2013 11:04 am EST




About a month ago, attorney Tom Dougall logged on to healthcare.gov to browse for cheaper insurance for him and his wife.


On Friday, the last thing he expected to hear on his voicemail was a man from North Carolina who says he can access all of Tom's personal information.


Dougall says he thought it was a scam until he realized his privacy had been breached.


"I believe somehow the ACA, the Healthcare website has sent me your information, is what it looks like," said Justin Hadley, a North Carolina resident who could access Tom's information on healthcare.gov. "I think there's a problem with the wrong information getting to the wrong people."


In a telephone interview, Hadley said he simply put in his username and password when Dougall's information appeared.

http://www.wistv.com/story/23864518/only-on-10-midlands-man-has-personal-information-compromised-on-healthcaregov

[Clipper Nation]

Sebelius: ‘Possible’ for felon to become an ObamaCare navigator


Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius told a congressional panel on Wednesday that it was “possible” for an ObamaCare navigator to have been convicted of a felony.



Speaking at Senate Finance Committee hearing, Sen. John Cornyn (R-Texas) asked if federal background checks were a prerequisite for the hiring of the individuals tasked with walking people through ObamaCare enrollment.
“The president is in Dallas, Texas today touting the navigator program, which as you know are people who are hired to navigate the [Affordable Care Act], but I would just like to ask you this question,” Cornyn said to Sebelius. “Isn’t it true that there is no federal requirement for a navigator to undergo a criminal background check, even though they will receive sensitive personal information for people they help sign up for the Affordable Care Act?”


“That is true,” Sebelius responded. “States can add an additional background check and other features, but that is not part of the federal requirement.”


“So a convicted felon could be a navigator and could acquire sensitive personal information?” Cornyn asked.


“That is possible,” Sebelius said. “We have contracts with the organizations, and they have taken the responsibility to screen their navigators and make sure that they are sufficiently trained for the job, and there’s a self attestation, but it is possible.”


http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/189432-sebelius-‘possible’-for-a-felon-to-become-an

[Jacob1983]

http://memecrunch.com/meme/TMB0/if-you-like-your-plan-you-can-keep-it/image.png

[Winehole23]

Why didn't Obama say this from the start instead of lying over and over and over and over again?in 2009 it would have been most indiscreet for Obama to announce provisions against junk insurance, when the deal with "big insurance" and "Big Pharma" had not yet concluded.

similarly, it is hard to imagine how it would have been prudent, expeditious or wise for Obama to announce afterwards he was tackling insurance fraud, though as you point out it would have been absolutely honest to have done so.

[Winehole23]

expecting politicians to be brutally honest about the human impact of their own policies night not be totally realistic or reasonable, but one musn't underrate the pressure of umbrage and fake umbrage related to lies about policy.

[boutons_deux]

Washington Obstruction vs Obamacare Kentucky Success (http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/05/1253260/-Ed-Schultz-Washington-Obstruction-vs-Obamacare-Kentucky-Success-VIDEO)Obamacare Kentucky Success

The Governor had many important pieces of information to provide. He told Schultz,


He said that the idea that nobody wants Obamacare (Affordable Care Act) is hogwash. In his Red State of Kentucky, people are clamoring to get covered.
His state embraced Obamacare from the beginning. They called it Kynect (http://egbertowillies.com/2013/08/23/kentuckians-hate-obamacare-love-another-name/). In his state it is all about Kentuckians helping Kentuckians.
They have already signed up 32,000 Kentuckians.
Over 350,000 Kentuckians are swarming their Obamacare website.
He said contrary to Republican misinformation, Obamacare is creating jobs. He referenced an economic analysis that place Kentucky’s Obamacare job creation north of 17,000.
He stated the fact that no company with under 50 employees is affected by Obamacare. Even so he is advising companies with as little as 25 employees to checkout the exchange. Many will qualify for tax subsidies that can help their employees get affordable healthcare. Note that if an employer does not provide health insurance, the employee can get affordable health insurance directly from the Obamacare exchanges.
When asked if either of Kentucky’s misinforming Republican Senators have visited this Obamacare Kentucky success story and on the ground implementation, Steve Beshear said they have not.


http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/11/05/1253260/-Ed-Schultz-Washington-Obstruction-vs-Obamacare-Kentucky-Success-VIDEO?detail=email

[George Gervin's Afro]

I'm a bit more concerned about the President of the United States constant lies. There is no way to spin or deflect that boutons, sorry. Your leader is a fraud.

constant lies..lol

[boutons_deux]

I'm a bit more concerned about the President of the United States constant lies. There is no way to spin or deflect that boutons, sorry. Your leader is a fraud.

list the "constant lies" by Obama


Allow me to list a few from "your leaders"

Iraq has WMD

Iraq was involved in 9/11

Aluminum tubes!

"Curve ball" is a dependable source of info for starting a war

trickle down economics works

tax cuts always pay for themselves

tax cuts stimulate job and economic growth

the national debt is the biggest and most immediate threat to USA

austerity, esp laid in the backs of the 47%, is just what America needs right now to

The American People want SS and Medicare and Medicaid privatized or killed

SS is bankrupt and must be privatized.

govt spending is out of control

guns don't kill people

the 2nd Amendment forbids all regulation of guns.

etc, etc, etc.

[Clipper Nation]

Boutons ignoring that the Obamacare site is giving people's personal information to ex-convicts and total strangers because it doesn't fit the party-line narrative per par :lol

[boutons_deux]

Boutons ignoring that the Obamacare site is giving people's personal information to ex-convicts and total strangers because it doesn't fit the party-line narrative per par :lol

You Lie

[boobie4three]

Obamacare: The Unimaginable Suffering That Awaits Us
Posted By John Perazzo On November 5, 2013 @ 12:43 am In Daily Mailer,FrontPage | 35 Comments

There is a vital reason for all Americans to take a close look at how, specifically, the various government-run, single-payer healthcare systems around the world have already affected the lives of the people living under them. This is vital because Barack Obama and the Democrats actually have their sights set on creating precisely such a system here in the United States. For them, Obamacare is, and always has been, nothing more than a stepping stone toward their ultimate goal of a single-payer leviathan administered entirely by the federal government. Indeed, they’ve been quite clear about their intentions:

• In early August, Senator Harry Reid was asked whether his goal was to eventually use Obamacare as a springboard to a single-payer system. “Yes, yes. Absolutely, yes,” he replied. “What we’ve done with Obamacare is have a step in the right direction, but we’re far from having something that’s going to work forever.”

• In late October, Rep. John Conyers stated that Obamacare was just “a very small and modest bill,” and that Congressional Democrats were already contemplating ways to pass “universal healthcare for everybody, single payer.” “That’s what the new direction is,” Conyers affirmed, even as the supposedly “small and modest” Obamacare project was proving to be nothing more than a colossal lie administered with inexpressible incompetence.

• Nancy Pelosi, too, is on record stating: “I have supported single payer for longer than many of you have been—since you’ve been born, than you’ve lived on the face of the earth. So I think, I have always thought, that was the way to go.”

• Kathleen Sebelius, the chief architect of Obamacare’s pathetic rollout last month, has candidly declared herself to be “all for a single-payer [healthcare] system eventually.” On October 7, she told interviewer Jon Stewart that “if we could have perhaps figured out a pathway [to single-payer], that may have been a reasonable solution.”
And of course President Obama himself has been unambiguous about his own views on this matter:

• At an AFL-CIO conference in 2003, Obama said: “I happen to be a proponent of a single-payer health care plan…. ‘Everybody in. Nobody out.’ … That’s what I’d like to see, but as all of you know, we may not get there immediately.”

• At an SEIU Health Care Forum on March 24, 2007, Obama declared: “My commitment is to make sure that we’ve got universal healthcare for all Americans by the end of my first term as President…. But I don’t think we’re going to be able to eliminate employer coverage immediately. There’s going to be, potentially, some transition process. I can envision a decade out, or 15 years out, or 20 years out …”

• On August 4, 2007, Obama announced that he planned to pass healthcare reform legislation and then “build off that system to … make it more rational.” “By the way,” he added, “Canada did not start off immediately with a single payer system. They had a similar transition step.”

• In the summer of 2008, Obama said: “If I were designing a system from scratch, I would probably go ahead with a single-payer system.”

• And in June 2009, Obama told an American Medical Association audience that “there are countries where a single-payer system works pretty well.”
So, now that we know definitively what Obama and the Democrats ultimately want, let us look at the track record of single-payer systems around the world, so that we can see exactly what is in store for us if we follow the counsel of these masterminds. A monumentally important 2008 Cato Institute study offers keen insights into those systems:

Great Britain

Under Britain’s highly centralized National Health Service (NHS), some 750,000 ailing and desperate people are currently on waiting lists for admission to a hospital. More than half of all British patients must wait more than 18 weeks to receive care of any kind. For most specialties, only 30 to 50 percent of patients are treated within that time frame. For trauma and orthopedics patients, the figure is just 20 percent. Cancer patients must sometimes wait as long as eight months for treatment, and roughly 40 percent of them never even get to see an oncologist. Many who were considered treatable when first diagnosed are incurable by the time their treatment is finally made available. Indeed, this is the sad fate of nearly one-in-five Britons with colon cancer. In addition, many life-saving procedures such as kidney dialysis and open-heart surgery are subject to explicit rationing, and treatment is often denied altogether to patients who are judged too ill or too old for the procedures to be worth the costs.

Canada

Physicians and modern medical equipment (such as MRI units and CT scanners) are in short supply nationwide, and at any given time as many as 800,000 Canadians are awaiting necessary medical treatment. Across all specialties and all procedures (emergency, non-urgent, and elective), it takes an average of 17.7 weeks for a patient to go through the process of seeing his or her general practitioner (GP), getting a referral to consult with a specialist, and receiving final treatment. And that figure does not even include the time a patient must wait to see a GP in the first place. Canada’s longest waiting periods are for procedures such as hip or knee replacements and cataract surgery, which could arguably be classified as elective. According to the journal Health Affairs, a 65-year-old Canadian man requiring a routine hip replacement must wait more than six months for this surgery. In August 2006, then-Canadian Medical Association president Brian Day lamented that “this is a country in which dogs can get a hip replacement in under a week, and in which humans can wait two to three years.”

There are likewise protracted waiting periods for more urgent procedures such as neurosurgery and vascular surgery, where delays can dramatically affect a patient’s chances of survival. A study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal noted that 50 patients in Ontario alone had recently died while they were on the waiting list for cardiac catheterization. In an address to the Canadian Institute for Health Information, University of Ottawa Heart Institute cardiologist Richard F. Davies noted that in a single year, 71 Ontario patients had died before being able to undergo coronary artery bypass graft surgery, while another 121 had been “removed from the [waiting] list permanently because they had become medically unfit for surgery,” and 44 others had left the province to have their surgery performed elsewhere—usually in the United States.

Italy

Because cutting-edge instruments such as MRI units and CT scanners in Italy are in short supply as compared to the United States, Italian patients must wait, on average, 70 days for a mammogram, 74 days for an endoscopy, and 23 days for a sonogram. Moreover, the nation’s public hospitals are largely considered substandard, unsanitary, and overcrowded.

Spain

Because Spain has a severe shortage of primary care physicians and nurses, patients are not free to select their own healthcare providers. Rather, they are assigned a primary care doctor from a list of physicians in their local community, and if they need more specialized care, they must obtain a referral from that doctor. On average, Spaniards must wait approximately 65 days to get an appointment with a specialist—including, for instance, 81 days to see a gynecologist and 71 days to see a neurologist. Similarly, they must wait an average of 62 days for a prostectomy and 123 days for hip-replacement surgery. And a number of vital health services that U.S. citizens take for granted—such as rehabilitation, convalescence, and care for those with terminal illness—are virtually unavailable in Spain, where public nursing homes, retirement homes, hospices, and convalescence facilities are in limited supply.

Portugal

Portugal has only one general practitioner per 1,500 people in its population, and only about one-seventh as many MRI units per capita as the United States. Thus, despite guarantees of “universal coverage,” waiting lists are so long and so prevalent that the European Observatory on Health Systems says that they resemble “de facto rationing.” More than 150,000 Portuguese are currently on waiting lists for surgery, out of a population of just 10.6 million. Further, there is little freedom to choose one’s own doctor anywhere in the country; patients may change their GP only by applying in writing to the NHS and explaining their reasons.

Norway

Long and growing waiting lists are a serious problem in Norway, where citizens must consult a government list in order to choose a general practitioner who subsequently acts as a gatekeeper for whatever specialty services and providers they may need. On any given day, some 280,000 Norwegians (out of a population of just 4.6 million) are waiting for care. The average wait for hip-replacement surgery is more than four months; for a prostectomy, nearly three months; and for a hysterectomy, more than two months. Approximately 23 percent of all patients referred for hospital admission must wait longer than 90 days before they can be admitted.

Greece

Greece has fewer than one-eighth the number of general practitioners that would be required to meet the overall population’s demand. Patients routinely wait as long as six months for surgery, five months for an outpatient appointment with specialists in fields like hypertension or neurology, and 30 days for just a simple blood test. The country’s public hospitals are widely considered substandard; most suffer from severe staffing shortages caused, in large part, by low pay.

Cuba

Leftists revere Communist Cuba for numerous reasons, not the least of which is the government-run, universal healthcare system that was put in place by Fidel Castro. Many of these admirers—among the most notable of whom is the filmmaker Michael Moore—form their impressions of the Cuban healthcare system from its tourist hospitals, which are, by any standards, clean, well staffed, and of excellent quality. Indeed Cuba, in an effort to attract wealthy foreigners who are willing to spend their money on healthcare services, has pioneered the practice of so-called “health tourism” through agencies such as SERVIMED, which markets Cuban medical services abroad. Calling Cuba “the ideal destination for your health,” SERVIMED frankly admits to being “a tourist subsystem.”

But after providing for the needs of affluent foreigners (and of the country’s top government officials), the Cuban healthcare system has little left for the general public. Hospitals for ordinary Cubans are typically unsanitary. Syringes are frequently used to inject multiple patients without any sterilization, and “disposable” gloves are likewise used and reused. Consequently, infectious diseases such an impetigo and hepatitis—and infestations such as scabies, lice and fungal diseases—are commonplace in the Cuban hospital population.
Moreover, Cuban hospitals have serious shortages of antibiotics, insulin, heart drugs, blood-pressure meters, disinfectants, and even clean water and soap.

It is noteworthy that in the pre-Castro years of the 1950s, the Cuban population as a whole had access to outstanding medical care through association clinics (clinicas mutualistas) which predated the American concept of health maintenance organizations by decades, as well as through private clinics. At that time the Cuban medical system ranked among the best in the world, as evidenced by the fact that it had Latin America’s lowest infant-mortality rate—comparable to Canada’s and better than those of France, Japan, and Italy.

So the evidence is crystal clear. As the Cato Institute puts it, “In countries weighted heavily toward government control, people are most likely to face waiting lists, rationing, restrictions on physician choice, and other obstacles to care.” By contrast, “those countries with national health care systems that work better, such as France, the Netherlands, and Switzerland, are successful to the degree that they incorporate market mechanisms such as competition, cost-consciousness, market prices, and consumer choice, and eschew centralized government control. In other words, socialized medicine works—as long as it isn’t socialized medicine.”

Yet socialized medicine is precisely the direction in which Obama and Democrats wish, beyond any shadow of a doubt, to steer the United States of America. What, then, does this tell us about the judgment and the motivations of these men and women?

Some questions simply answer themselves.

Don’t miss this week’s Glazov Gang, which explores To Lie for ObamaCare.

Freedom Center pamphlets now available on Kindle: Click here.

Article printed from FrontPage Magazine: http://frontpagemag.com

http://frontpagemag.com/2013/john-perazzo/obamacare-the-unimaginable-suffering-that-awaits-us/print/

[boutons_deux]

Ask any of those countries if they would exchange the US health care wealth-extraction system (pre-ACA) for than their own.

[Clipper Nation]

You Lie
Read the articles I posted before calling me a liar, tbh....

[boutons_deux]

Read the articles I posted before calling me a liar, tbh....

I'm not ignoring the ACA site, nor is it "giving away" personal info. iow, You Lie

[Clipper Nation]

I'm not ignoring the ACA site, nor is it "giving away" personal info. iow, You Lie
It's displaying people's personal info to complete strangers via a glitch in the coding, and Sebilius admitted that ex-convicts could get access to people's personal info as Obamacare "explorers," tbh.... anyone who willingly gives their info to that website is a complete moron :lol

[SA210]

https://scontent-a-dfw.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-prn1/q71/1012914_611206162271055_1122373697_n.jpg

[clambake]

ok, now thats funny.

[Winehole23]

+1

[boobie4three]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/lewinsky_zps622296c2.png (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/lewinsky_zps622296c2.png.html)

[boutons_deux]

What’s Behind the Rate-Shock-Victim Obsession



CNN’s Jake Tapper obtained the memo. Here is how he described it (http://thelead.blogs.cnn.com/2013/11/04/obamacare-war-room-docs-fewer-options-higher-prices/): “Officials expressed concern that the next shoe to drop in the evolving story about the Affordable Care Act would be disappointment from consumers once they are able to get on the troubled Healthcare.gov website — disappointment because of sticker shock and limited choice.” Notice the crucial difference in framing. The memo simply acknowledged that in some cases — a caveat that appeared twice — consumers would have fewer options and higher prices than the administration would like. In CNN’s characterization, the caveat disappears altogether. Tapper portrays the problem as “disappointment from consumers,” writ large. The minority facing sticker shock has become a stand-in for the entire public.


This turns out to be a synecdoche for the entire Obamacare narrative now.

The world of the Republican Party’s fever dreams has sprung to life in the mainstream media, where the Affordable Care Act now exists primarily as a series of cruel, oppressive acts of theft against innocent Americans.

Here areCBS News (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505263_162-57609534/policy-cancellations-higher-premiums-add-to-frustration-over-obamacare/), The Wall Street Journal (http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304527504579171710423780446), and the Washington Post (http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-science/for-consumers-whose-health-premiums-will-go-up-under-new-law-sticker-shock-leads-to-anger/2013/11/03/d858dd28-44a9-11e3-b6f8-3782ff6cb769_print.html) chronicling the parade of horribles.


The stories often turn out to be either more complicated (http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013/11/04/2881581/wall-street-journal-horror-story-cancer-patient-losing-doctors-wrong/) than initially depicted, or wildly overblown (http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115457/obamacare-victim-florida-happy-she-can-get-real-coverage). But it is surely true that some people will find themselves worse off, at least immediately, under the new law. That their fate has blotted out everything else about the law explains why health-care reform is so maddeningly difficult to enact in the first place.


http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2013/11/whats-behind-the-rate-shock-victim-obsession.html

[boobie4three]

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v186/krakee/obamdoctor_zps8e22ebe6.jpg (http://smg.photobucket.com/user/krakee/media/obamdoctor_zps8e22ebe6.jpg.html)

[RandomGuy]

Another Obamacare 'Horror Story' Debunked; and, No, the President Didn't Lie About the Law

As the week began, another "Obamacare" horror story hit the press, instigating a fleet of outrage-pornographers and concern trolls across the political spectrum to continue self-flagellating and screeching about the disastrous Affordable Care Act -- selectively forgetting about actual healthcare horror stories that existed before the law was implemented. It was a story focusing on yet another vague, anecdotal tale about a hapless ACA victim whose insurance policy was canceled, thus vindicating the accusation that the president lied about "keeping your existing insurance policy if you like it."

Before we dive into the lie accusation, let's take a closer look at an op/ed for the Wall Street Journal written by a stage-4 gallbladder cancer survivor, Edie Littlefield Sundby.

Sundby wrote that she received a letter from UnitedHealthcare announcing the cancellation of her insurance policy. She was advised to seek a different plan from the ACA exchange in California, known as Cover California. However, she claimed that there aren't any insurance plans in the exchange that are accepted by both her primary care doctors at University of California San Diego, and her oncologists at and Stanford, thus forcing her to choose one or the other.

But here's the thing: Sundby wasn't shoved into this predicament because the ACA law forced her insurance provider out of the ballgame. UnitedHealthcare, one of the most notorious insurance providers before the ACA was passed, responsible for canceling policies and penalizing customers, decided to voluntarily bail out of the individual insurance game as a matter of corporate strategy. In doing so, it could avoid taking on less healthy customers early in the exchange sign-up process, forcing other insurers to absorb the risk. Clever. And sinister.

UnitedHealthcare Chief Executive Officer Stephen Helmsley said, "The company's plans reflect its concern that the first wave of newly insured customers under the law may be the costliest." He continued, "UnitedHealth will watch and see how the exchanges evolve and expects the first enrollees will have 'a pent-up appetite' for medical care. We are approaching them with some degree of caution because of that." A pent-up appetite -- you know, to not go broke while attempting to not die.

As you probably recall from the days before the ACA was passed, scores of customers were stripped of their insurance policies, many while suffering from life-threatening illnesses. The difference back then was once they'd lose their insurance, they were unable to qualify for a new policy due to rules against pre-existing conditions. That's thankfully not the case with Sundby -- not after the passage of the ACA, not any more. While she might be forced to switch emergency care facilities or to a new team of oncologists, she will absolutely be able to sign up for a new policy with better benefits thanks to the ACA. Conversely, four years ago, when UnitedHealthcare and others were pulling these exact same kinds of profit-making stunts, she would've faced bankruptcy or death or both, unable to sign up for a replacement policy.

These are details not mentioned in context of the "Obama lied" story.

Indeed, going back to 2009, the president continuously reassured individual policy holders that if they liked their current insurance, they could keep it. On Monday's edition of Morning Joe, they aired a series of clips of the president saying in various forms, "If you like your plan you can keep it." This promise hasn't actually panned out exactly as originally conceived, forcing Mika Brzezinski to literally smack herself in the face with a stack of paper. Brzezinski continued by shouting at panelist Chris Matthews, "Why would you let your president go out and say that?!" During the ensuing melee, Scarborough held up Sundby's WSJ op/ed, "There's this story in the Wall Street Journal about a lady with stage-4 cancer that's been kicked off her plan!"

Once again, no. The ACA didn't force Sundby off her plan. UnitedHealthcare's profit margin was the culprit here. But regarding this alleged lie, the president was actually correct given the language of the law.

The Affordable Care Act, as signed by the president in 2010, states quite clearly that if your individual health insurance plan was in effect prior to March 23, 2010, your plan would be grandfathered as-is, despite new rules that expand mandatory benefits and ban practices such as lifetime limits. In other words, if you signed up for an insurance policy before March of 2010, and if you like that policy, you could ostensibly keep it. It's in the law.

However, an implementation rule was added later by Health & Human Services which narrowed the grandfathering parameters. If the benefits of a policy were altered after that date, those policies would lose grandfathered status. Meanwhile, HHS determined that up to 67 percent of customers would lose their plans, but only as a reflection of normal trends in the system -- not as the result of a sudden drop off due to the ACA.

So when the president said, "If you like your insurance you can keep it," he meant that the law itself wouldn't force you to call up your insurance provider and cancel your policy if you liked it. Nor was he suggesting that an insurance company would be compelled by the law to keep you as a customer for life, irrespective of circumstances. While the law in fact prohibits the cancellation of a plan if you're suddenly sick or injured, or if you make a mistake on your application -- two common occurrences before the ACA -- you can still lose your plan if you fail to pay your premium or if you lie on your paperwork.

Here's the kicker. The law absolutely prohibits arbitrary cancellations -- except for grandfathered plans like Sundby's UnitedHealthcare plan. Frankly, switching to a Cover California plan might be the best thing for Sundby because her grandfathered plan likely included lifetime and annual limits on coverage (bad news for cancer patients); it wasn't required to comply with government audits to prevent excessive premium hikes; and it could've randomly forced her to change doctors anyway.

Now let's be honest: did the president and especially HHS secretary Kathleen Sebelius do a terrible job explaining the law? Absolutely. The roll-out of the website has been a disaster and Sebelius completely botched the implementation of the law then bungled a crucial appearance on The Daily Show.

Granted, it's no easy task to fully explain a sweeping new program like the ACA, especially given the complexities of the health insurance system. But when I read blog commenters who are doing a better job at detailing the law than the administration has, I can't help but to think the Obama team is inadvertently sabotaging one of its biggest accomplishments by derping its way through the process. Meanwhile, the press and the GOP has been nefariously seizing upon the confusion and amplifying it into a melodramatic hellscape, which, in reality, is far from being an accurate illustration of reality. In spite of its flaws, the ACA is an historic achievement and if these issues can be ironed out soon, and if the administration can get back in the ballgame, the ACA will surely live up to its potential.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/another-obamacare-horror-_b_4229439.html

[RandomGuy]

Context and subtlety is everything.

Yet another over-simplification turned into a misleading political meme. Sadly par for the course these days.

[AntiChrist]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/bob-cesca/another-obamacare-horror-_b_4229439.html

Lol, Bob Cesca

[boutons_deux]

Repugs are GLEEful that healthcare.gov is destroying Obama and ACA, but that's just another fevered Repug/tea bagger fantasy

Polls: Obamacare's Troubled Rollout Has Not Changed Public Opinion

Republicans are convinced that the Affordable Care Act will sink Democrats, but there's little evidence that the law's bumpy rollout has caused a shift in public opinion.

Quite simply, polling looks virtually the same as it did before the law's glitch-filled launch became the subject of congressional hearings and the butt of late night and country music (http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/country-music-stars-mock-obamacare-at-awards-show-video) jokes.

Consider Gallup's findings released last week. (http://www.gallup.com/poll/165641/amid-exchange-site-glitches-views-health-law-steady.aspx) In a poll conducted Oct. 26-28 -- weeks after the troubled website HealthCare.gov went live on Oct. 1 -- 44 percent of Americans said they approved of the law while 47 percent said they disapproved.

Those numbers differ only slightly from Gallup's poll conducted Oct. 18-20 (http://www.gallup.com/poll/165548/approval-affordable-care-act-inches.aspx), which found 45 percent approving of the law and 50 percent disapproving.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/polls-obamacare-rollout-has-not-shifted-public-opinion

earlier polling that included why of the disapprovals, about 10% said ACA didn't go far enough.

[Jacob1983]

Obama lied. No ifs, ands, or buts. He needs to man up and admit it. Sadly, that will not happen because he is a greedy pussy motherfucker that only cares about the amount of money he has just like every politician.

[SA210]

Obama lied. No ifs, ands, or buts. He needs to man up and admit it. Sadly, that will not happen because he is a greedy pussy motherfucker that only cares about the amount of money he has just like every politician.


sorry ass msm CNN just said he made an apology lol

not genuine of course, and will be spun by fake liberals tbh

[Jacob1983]

If he was really sorry, he would willingly give up his King like healthcare and replace it with some shitty plan under Obamacare.

[Nbadan]

As you probably recall from the days before the ACA was passed, scores of customers were stripped of their insurance policies, many while suffering from life-threatening illnesses. The difference back then was once they'd lose their insurance, they were unable to qualify for a new policy due to rules against pre-existing conditions. That's thankfully not the case with Sundby -- not after the passage of the ACA, not any more. While she might be forced to switch emergency care facilities or to a new team of oncologists, she will absolutely be able to sign up for a new policy with better benefits thanks to the ACA. Conversely, four years ago, when UnitedHealthcare and others were pulling these exact same kinds of profit-making stunts, she would've faced bankruptcy or death or both, unable to sign up for a replacement policy

Sad mem about the Obama lied GOP scare tactic...people with pre-existing conditions would have no options without the ACA, plus her shitty coverage would have bankrupted her...

[RandomGuy]

Lol, Bob Cesca

LOL ad hominem.

[AntiChrist]

LOL ad hominem.


Bob Cesca is basically boutons, sans Tourette Syndrome.

[RandomGuy]

Bob Cesca is basically boutons, sans Tourette Syndrome.

How exactly does that make him wrong about anything? Be specific.

[2centsworth]

There should be a rule that if you need to paste and copy your opinion you automatically lose the argument.

[boutons_deux]

There should be a rule that if you need to paste and copy your opinion you automatically lose the argument.

good policy. I cut and paste ARTICLES and support them with my own opinions, and defend them SUCCESSFULLY against You People. :lol

[TSA]

I'm going to laugh when the same millennials that voted Obama in end up sinking the ACA by refusing to sign up.