http://www.cnn.com/2013/12/04/politi...ets/index.htmlIf the front end of the website is the part seen by people who want to get insurance, the back end is the part seen by insurance companies who want to sell it to them. There are increasing reports that the back end of the system is just as glitchy now as the front end was back in October. Insurance company executives and industry spokespeople have raised increasingly frantic alarm bells that the information they are receiving from the website is at times faulty and duplicative. That's when they receive information at all. There are reports from some insurers that they have tested the website with John Doe applications and not received them through the back end
That's led to concerns that there are people who think they've signed up for health insurance but who might not be on the radar of any insurance company.
But while Bataille said Monday a new fix would address 80% of these errors, she wouldn't say how many errors there are. She declined to answer that question again on Tuesday.
the backend, healthcare.gov connecting to about 30 states, is of course being sabotaged by the Repug states that refuse to expand Medicaid and refuse to set up their state exchanges, which would have removed complexity from healthcare.gov.
the Repugs and all the assholes who vote for them.
I see the resident Obama haters are still keeping their fingers crossed that things don't get better..lol Keep the faith!
While you right-wing assholes HATE ACA penalizing people for not buying health insurance, your adored Repug lawmakers are considering forcing (young) women to buy RAPE INSURANCE
Michigan Lawmakers Considering Abortion Bill That Would Force Women To Buy ‘Rape Insurance’
Michigan lawmakers are currently deciding whether to advance a bill that would require women in the state to purchase a separate insurance policy for abortion coverage, even in cases of rape or incest. If it’s approved, Michigan would join a long list of other states that have attacked abortion access by preventing women from using their own insurance to pay for it.
The debate over the legislation has heated up this week, particularly since the measure would deny abortion coverage even to women who have become pregnant as a result of rape. Although the overwhelming majority of Americans believe that rape victims should have access to legal abortion services, lawmakers continue to propose policies that would have callous implications for individuals who have been sexually assaulted.
http://thinkprogress.org/health/2013...ance-abortion/
But but but! what happened to the Repug Rape Caucus "member", aka , who said raped women can just think themselves out of getting pregnant from rapist's sperm? Wouldn't that be cheaper than rape insurance?
GA State Insurance Commissioner Compares People With Pre-Existing Conditions To Reckless Drivers
According to Georgia Insurance Commissioner Ralph Hudgens, a person with a pre-existing condition applying for health insurance is like a reckless driver asking for auto collision coverage: they're both at fault.
The Atlanta Journal-Cons ution surfaced video Wednesday of Hudgens' appearance last month at a CSRA Republican Women's Club meeting, where the commissioner expressed concern that covering pre-existing conditions on the individual market would double insurance costs.
"And if you don't really understand what covering pre-existing conditions would be like, it would be like in Georgia we have a law that says you have to have insurance on your automobile," Hudgens said. "You have to have liability insurance. If you're going to drive on Georgia's roads, you have to have liability insurance. You don't have to have collision ... But you have to have liability."
"But say you're going along and you have a wreck. And it's your fault," he continued. "Well, a pre-existing condition would be you then calling up your insurance agent and saying, 'I would like to get collision insurance coverage on my car.'
And your insurance agent says, 'Well, you never had that before. Why would you want it now?' And you say, 'Well, I just had a wreck, it was my fault and I want the insurance company to pay to repair my car.' And that's the exact same thing on pre-existing insurance."
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...ckless-drivers
Another stupid ing Christian supremacist/televanglist-money-grubbING pastor exposes his ignorance
Contraception Mandate Like Making A Jewish Deli Sell Pork
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...deli-sell-pork
a nuts of ongoing legal challenges to the ACA: http://www.thewire.com/politics/2013...macare/355707/
Here is the Repug health plan to replace ACA:
no need for any replacement just yet. job one is destroying the ACA.
if subsidies are stripped, the affordable part goes out the window for a lot of people.
the states which decided not to set up their own exchanges are essentially driving their own citizens into federal exchanges for which the ACA, it is argued, provides no subsides. this is starting to make sense to me as a political tactic. it consists in letting the Federal exchanges take all the applicants from the conscientiously abstaining states, then stripping the federal subsides by legal challenge.
"federal exchanges for which the ACA, it is argued, provides no subsidies."
first I've heard of that. link?
read the damn story, boutons.
ok, a badly worded law on that point.
the asshole "conservative small business owners in states using the federal exchange" who want to kill ACA for this bad wording.
And the activist extremist Repug SCOTUS POLITICAL FIVE who would agree with them.
In particular, the project was doomed by a relatively late decision that required applicants to open an account and let the site verify their iden y, residence, and income before they could browse for insurance. That meant the site would have to interface in real-time with databases maintained by the Internal Revenue Service and other agencies.
the federal site took on complications that would befuddle even the best technologists. “The scope of ‘we will provide all the functionality for 34 states, and linkage to 1,000 insurance companies, and an online real-time marketplace’ was probably too big to accomplish given the time available,” Halamka says.
http://www.technologyreview.com/news...-expectations/
Federal exchange states aren't eligible for tax subsidies
As we explained earlier this year, Halbig v. Sebelius is a case launched by conservative small business owners in states using the federal exchange. They argue that, because the Affordable Care Act only specifically mentions subsidies for exchanges "established by the state," the federal exchange can't grant subsidies. And if they can't get subsidies, then the insurance becomes unaffordable, so they want the court to block the IRS from implementing the law. The government argues that, obviously, they meant for everyone to get subsidies, and the case is ignoring all the prep work the administration has done to provide subsidies in all states.
Since subsidies are the main appeal of the law — for many, that's the "affordable" part — taking them away would hit hard. And as Mother Jones notes, there's a chance they'll get their wish. "The case seems destined for the Supreme Court, where a conservative majority is already hostile to Obamacare," writes Mother Jones' Stephanie Mencimer.
So the plan is too deny the subsidies to those who qualify..with the end result making the affordable 'unaffordable'... and the GOP is going to be happy with this? Are they going to blame Obama for this?
GOP will be happy with ANY destruction, obstruction they can visit on ANY Dem project, no matter who or what gets hurt. All Politics, All The Time (and misgovernance, too)
the GOP didn't write the law, the Democrats did.
if SCOTUS rules that subsides for the federal exchanges are not to be found in the language of the statute, the legislators who passed it are guilty of malpractice.
"the GOP didn't write the law, the Democrats did. "
The Dems, specifically DINO asshole Max Baucus (who pretty much single handedly aborted any discussion of public option), hired insurance exec/lobbyist Fowler as Wellpoint mole to write the ACA
=======
When the legislation that became known as "Obamacare" was first drafted, the key legislator was the Democratic Chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Max Baucus, whose committee took the lead in drafting the legislation.
As Baucus himself repeatedly boasted, the architect of that legislation was Elizabeth Folwer, his chief health policy counsel; indeed, as Marcy Wheeler discovered, it was Fowler who actually drafted it.
As Politico put it at the time: "If you drew an organizational chart of major players in the Senate health care negotiations, Fowler would be the chief operating officer."
What was most amazing about all of that was that, before joining Baucus' office as the point person for the health care bill, Fowler was the Vice President for Public Policy and External Affairs (i.e. informal lobbying) at WellPoint, the nation's largest health insurance provider (before going to WellPoint, as well as after, Fowler had worked as Baucus' top health care aide).
And when that health care bill was drafted, the person whom Fowler replaced as chief health counsel in Baucus' office, Mic e Easton, was lobbying for WellPoint as a principal at Tarplin, Downs, and Young.
Whatever one's views on Obamacare were and are: the bill's mandate that everyone purchase the products of the private health insurance industry, unaccompanied by any public alternative, was a huge gift to that industry; as Wheeler wrote at the time: "to the extent that Liz Fowler is the author of this do ent, we might as well consider WellPoint its author as well."
http://www.theguardian.com/commentis...yist-industry1
In any case, the "conservative small business" assholes have only a couple weeks to kill ACA.
If they succeed after 1 Jan, then the Repugs will be effectively CANCELLING THE INSURANCE POLICIES that people "like and want to keep".
Last edited by boutons_deux; 12-06-2013 at 06:57 AM.
You Can Also Blame Newt Gingrich for the Obamacare Website Screwup
To prevent another Healthcare.gov, Washington could use a digital brain trust. Too bad Newt Gingrich killed the one it had.
As the Obama administration continues to unsuck its health care website, one questions lingers: How did this important government project get so screwed up? If you ask technologistClay Johnson, the insurance exchange's problems began, in a way, in 1995, when "Congress decided to lobotomize itself."
Johnson was referring to a specific action lawmakers took then: They killed a tiny federal agency called the Office of Technology Assessment.
Established in 1972 as Congress' nonpartisan in-house think tank, the OTA studied new technologies and offered recommendations on how Washington could adapt to them. But then Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) turned off its lights.
Today, members of Congress have legislative counsels to help draft laws. They have the Congressional Budget Office to analyze how much laws will cost. But they don't have the OTA's experts to tell them how those laws will work.
"An OTA review might have prevented some heartburn and embarrassment" associated with the Healthcare.gov rollout, argues Rep. Rush Holt (D-N.J.), an astrophysicist who has previously introduced legislation that would resurrect the agency.
Warning Congress about problems with Healthcare.gov—and explaining them—would have been right in OTA's wheelhouse. The office, Rep. George Brown (D-Calif.) dryly remarked in 1995, was a "defense against the dumb." During its 24-year existence, the agency developed a reputation for sharp, foresighted analysis on the problems of the new information age: It called for a new, reinforced tanker design a decade before the Exxon-Valdez spill; emphasized the danger of fertilizer bombs 15 years before Oklahoma City; predicted in 1982 that email would render the postal service obsolete; and warned that President Ronald Reagan's Strategic Defense Initiative (better known as "Star Wars") would likely result in a "catastrophic failure" if it were ever used.
Analyzing health care spending was one of OTA's specialties. One of its final reports, "Bringing Health Care Online," published in 1995, focused on the potential (and potential for mishaps) in electronic data interchanges. "Changes in the health care delivery system, including the emergence of managed health care and integrated delivery systems, are breaking down the organizational barriers that have stood between care providers, insurers, medical researchers, and public health professionals," the report warned.
But thanks to Gingrich and the Republican Revolution, that OTA review of potential hurdles for the Obamacare website never happened. In 1995, Gingrich set the OTA's funding to zero—and gave the ax to similar agencies, like the General Accounting Office (which lost half its funding) and the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research (which was phased out). He told members of congress with tech questions to consult their local research universities instead.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/...rich-obamacare
"Thanks, O'Gringrich!"
ing Repugs, All Intentional No Governance, All Misgovernance, All The Time (for decades)
No surprise, when their Government-Hater-In-Chief said "Government IS the problem", deflecting the blame and hate away from the Repugs themselves.
now you're doing the same thing. oh, the ironing!No surprise, when their Government-Hater-In-Chief said "Government IS the problem", deflecting the blame and hate away from the Repugs themselves.
lol no true Scotsman and blaming the ACA's shortcomings on Newt Gingrich.
Not deflecting the blame away from the Dems. The damage the Repug's malfeasance, non/misgovernance and bogus wars lasts for decades.
At least the Dems are trying to MAKE PROGRESS, while the Repugs are obstructing, ing up government.
Obviously, the demand in blue states is there. Wonder why there's no demand in red states?
State health exchange swamped with enrollees
California's health exchange is struggling to keep pace with a surge of applicants who are encountering long waits and website problems as they try to meet a Dec. 23 deadline.
In response to higher-than-expected demand, the Covered California exchange said it is adding staff and expanding its capacity to answer consumer calls. It received 17,000 calls in less than an hour Wednesday, more than it received in an entire day in recent weeks. The exchange is also trying to dig through a backlog of 25,000 paper applications filed in October and November.
Dec. 23 is the sign-up deadline to have insurance starting Jan. 1, and consumers must pay the initial monthly premium by Jan. 5. After that, enrollment in the exchange lasts through March 31. The state postponed the initial payment deadline to Jan. 5 to give cash-strapped consumers more time during the holidays.
"We have been running strong all week, and at times we have exceeded the capacity of our phone lines," said exchange spokesman Dana Howard. "The demand is more than we projected. But the bottom line is folks will be able to get themselves enrolled for Jan. 1."
During the first two months of enrollment under the Affordable Care Act, California consistently outperformed the federal marketplace in 36 other states. Through mid-November, the state has enrolled nearly 80,000 people in private health plans, and 140,000 more appear to have qualified for Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program.
But experts warn that even Covered California could be overwhelmed by a surge in applicants the next two weeks.
"Running into these difficulties can discourage people from signing up, and it doesn't bode well for future enrollment," said Shana Alex Lavarreda, director of health insurance studies at the UCLA Center for Health Policy Research. "It remains to be seen whether everyone can get through."
Health insurance agents, key allies of Covered California so far, are also voicing frustration. The California Assn. of Health Underwriters expressed concern Thursday about the exchange failing to process about 25,000 paper applications that agents had submitted weeks ago.
http://touch.latimes.com/#section/17.../p2p-78450435/
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