Tag: Obamacare

Are Fewer People in MA Paying the Individual Mandate Penalty?

Jul 11, 2012• 3

By Josh Archambault

Since the Supreme Court upheld the ACA/Obamacare, there has been a renewed interest in the Massachusetts healthcare law. I have blogged many times before to caution readers and the media not to assume the two laws will lead to the same results, because they won’t, mostly as Massachusetts is not the same patient with the same ailments as New Mexico, or Michigan, or even Florida.

I know I am fighting against the conventional wisdom, but this issue warrants discussion as Congress passed a national program and modeled the behavior and cost estimates (incorrectly in my opinion) partially on our experience here in the Bay State.

As a result of the national interest, I assume we will see more local reports on Romneycare. On cue, WBUR’s CommonHealth Blog put up:

5 Quick Facts About Mass. Health Reform You Now Need To Know

One of the facts cited is the decrease in the number of Massachusetts residents paying the individual mandate penalty.

How the United States Supreme Court Saved My Life

Jul 11, 2012• 12

By Spike Dolomite Ward

Not to be overly dramatic, but for me the Supreme Court decision on the Affordable Care Act was a matter of life and death. Because the law was largely upheld, I will be able to continue receiving treatment for breast cancer.

I was one of the early beneficiaries of the law. When I was diagnosed with an aggressive form of breast cancer late last year, I had no health insurance, which meant my options were extremely limited. No insurer would pick up someone in my circumstances. But luckily, the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan had already kicked in, and it made it possible for me to purchase insurance under a government program.

I was uninsured not because I’m a lazy, freeloading deadbeat but because my husband and I are self-employed. We had been purchasing health insurance on the individual market along with 6% of the rest of the population. But after exhausting all of our resources trying to keep up with premiums of $1,500 a month, we had no choice but to cancel it.

What Will the Supreme Court Decision Mean For the November Election?

Jul 4, 2012• 10

By Maggie Mahar

Thursday, when Chief Justice Roberts explained that the Affordable Care Act (ACA) is constitutional because the “penalty” that some Americans will have to pay is, for all practical purposes, a “tax,” you could hear tea cups shattering from Billings to Boca Raton. In conservative and libertarian circles, the initial reaction was shock, but it didn’t take long for President Obama’s opponents to rally.

The word “tax” might as well have been a pistol shot at a horse race. In the blink of an eye, Obama’s opponents were off and running, megaphones in hand, blasting the president for lying to the American people while hiking taxes under the guise of healthcare reform. Presidential candidate Mitt Romney’s campaign then began providing regular Twitter updates on the campaign contributions it was raking in following the decision. Friday, it announced that it had collected $5.5 million.

Will Republicans suceed in turning defeat into victory?

Sarah Palin is convinced that they will. On her Facebook page, she celebrated: “Thank you, SCOTUS. This Obamacare ruling fires up the troops as America’s eyes are opened.” Palin, like Republican leader Mitch McConnell, believed that the Court’s ruling would galvanize Republic voters, sealing Romney’s victory in November.

This might be true if conservatives were not already so ardently committed to what McConnell has called his party’s “single most important” goal: “for President Obama to be a one-term president.” As Democratic pollster Celinda Lake noted, “Republicans are already as energized as they can get.” It would be hard to turn up the dial on their passion. Opinion surveys have shown that Republican voters already were more motivated than Democrats to go to the polls this fall. (In November, Obama’s challenge will be to get his supporters out, including those who are disillusioned that the president hasn’t done more to help the poor and the unemployed. )

Continue reading…

Jeff Goldsmith on what’s next, post-SCOTUS

Jun 30, 2012• 3

By Matthew Holt

Hours after the SCOTUS verdict and about the same time as a feisty (and not too productive) shouting match on the NY Times site between Maggie Mahar & Michael Cannon with commentary from Bob Reich and “expert” Grace Marie Turner, a real health care expert dissected the future of health care.

Here’s Jeff Goldmsith‘s talk (done for Eliza with Queen Bee/Chairman & Chief Visionary Officer Alexandra Drane refereeing). And it’s excellent. (It also has a tad of rambling from me at the very end….). I suggest you spend a chunk of your Saturday morning listening to Jeff tell you more.

WEBINARVID from Leigh Eck on Vimeo.

Why Reform Will Survive Mandate’s Fall

Jun 21, 2012• 1

By Merrill Goozner

The Supreme Court’s imminent decision on the Affordable Care Act will trigger a political firestorm whether they accept the legislation in its entirety, throw out every page of the 906-page bill or do something in between, which is the most likely outcome.

If the high court follows the polls, it probably will rule the requirement that individuals purchase insurance – the mandate – is unconstitutional but leave the rest of “Obamacare” intact. A CBS/New York Times poll released earlier this month showed that 41 percent wanted the entire law overturned, 24 percent supported it fully and 27 percent supported it but wanted the mandate eliminated.

Pooling the latter two groups suggests there is majority support for the coverage expansion, insurance protections and delivery system reforms contained in the bill – as long as there is no mandate. It was only the Obama administration’s decision to include the requirement that individuals purchase health coverage – something done to win insurance industry backing for the law – that gave opponents the cudgel they needed to stoke widespread opposition to reform.

The insurance industry, recognizing many of the reforms are popular, is already preparing for a thumbs-down ruling on the mandate. Three major carriers, UnitedHealth, Aetna and Cigna, said last week they would continue to allow young adults to stay on their parents’ plans until age 26, pay for 100 percent of preventive services and eliminate lifetime caps on coverage, reforms from the ACA that are already in place.

The Case For the Exchanges

Jun 20, 2012• 42

By Maggie Mahar

The Federal government will push forward to establish health insurance exchanges regardless of how the Supreme Court rules on the Affordable Care Act in the weeks to come, argues THCB contributor Maggie Mahar. The only sensible conclusion? The states should accept Washington’s help and open up the market for insurance online.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) calls on the states to create health insurance exchanges – marketplaces where individuals and small businesses can shop for and compare health insurance plans. Beginning in 2014, insurers peddling policies on an exchange will have to meet the ACA’s standards by covering “essential benefits,” capping out-of-pocket expenses for individuals, and offering more transparent information about costs and benefits.

Best of all, insurers will not be able to turn down customers suffering from chronic diseases, or charge them higher premiums.

So far so good.

But some states are attempting to derail “Obamacare.” Florida, Louisiana and Alaska have openly declared that they will have nothing to do with setting up exchanges. Last week, Politico.com reported that many others are stalling. The post quoted one consultant predicting that “between five and 10 states” will meet the 2014 deadline. The American Prospect confirmed the news, adding that some states that had begun making plans “have slowed down while awaiting the Supreme Court ruling on the health law.”

ObamaCare and the End of Nothing

Jun 20, 2012• 15

By JD Kleinke

“The only constant in health care is change.”

It’s one of those clichés peddled at health care industry conferences by consultants who charge by the hour for helping attendees brace their organizations for all those terrifying changes just over the horizon. Not only is this cliche not true, but it is exactly untrue. The only constant in health care is gnawing anxiety about change that never actually occurs.

The Obama Administration’s health care reform plan – we can all call it “ObamaCare” now that the Administration finally owns the label it should have from the outset – is the motherlode of anxiety over change about to storm through the health care system. That is, unless you happen to cover your ears and block out all the partisan screaming, along with the political ideology dressed as legal arguments in the Supreme Court this week, and look at the actual plan and its numbers.

Yes, ObamaCare is expected to cram 30 million uninsured people into the current non-system. Complementary elements of the law make it illegal for health insurers to kick any of us out if we get too sick or stop paying our bills if we get too expensive. And if an insurer makes too much money in the process, it needs to refund a portion. Aside from these four economically intertwined health insurance market reforms, most everything else about ObamaCare is business as usual.

Ozombiecare

Jun 19, 2012• 6

By Matt Barry

President Obama’s push for near-universal health insurance coverage may be harder to kill than most zombies.

If the Supreme Court decides to take a metaphorical stake to Obama’s health-care overhaul law and tosses the individual mandate out on the front steps of the court, there could still be life left in that battered and bruised corpse.

Bloomberg Government senior health policy analyst Peter Gosselin took a close look at various alternatives to the individual mandate, should the court rule against it. Gosselin’s study, “A Plan to Replace the Individual Mandate If the High Court Strikes It Down,” finds that a voluntary, auto-enrollment process — similar to that used to enroll employees in corporate 401(k) retirement plans –could be an effective substitute.

Gosselin found that “even if auto-enrollment performs at a lower level of its effectiveness in retirement savings, it could offset much or all of the non-group enrollment loss of six million people expected if the mandate is overturned.”

As important as the sheer numbers of people, the study found that auto-enrollment “could largely restore the mix of young and old, healthy and unhealthy people that the mandate was intended to ensure and that’s needed to make an insurance system work well.”

Depending on how the high court rules, we may need to rename the much fought-over law to Ozombie Care.

Romney’s Response to ObamaCare

Jun 15, 2012• 24

By John Goodman

Mitt Romney’s entire career reflects a businesslike approach. On the one hand he has been willing to act boldly to solve problems. On the other hand he has been willing to keep what works and discard what doesn’t. The latest Romney pronouncements on health policy are consistent with that history.

As President Obama has said on many occasions, ObamaCare is based on a health reform Governor Romney spearheaded in Massachusetts. But blindly copying a health reform — while ignoring what’s really worth copying and what’s not — is hardly sensible presidential leadership.

Here is what is good about the Massachusetts health reform: (1) Governor Romney brought both parties together to achieve genuine bipartisan reform (something Barack Obama failed at miserably at the national level); (2) he cut the insurance rate in half by giving substantial tax relief to people who must purchase their own insurance, and (3) he did all this without raising taxes.

The President’s Health Care Law is Hurting Our Economy, and Must Be Fully Repealed

May 30, 2012• 14

By John Boehner

It’s no secret that our nation’s economy is struggling, and the president’s health care law, enacted in 2010, is making things worse — raising health costs and making it harder for small businesses to hire workers. The only way to change this is by repealing ObamaCare in its entirety.

There has been much renewed media focus on the president’s health care law in recent months because the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule in June on the question of whether the law is constitutional. But the American people have never lost their focus on it. They didn’t like the law when it was rammed through Congress by President Obama and a Democratic majority in 2010, and according to most public opinion surveys, they like it even less now.

It’s not difficult to understand why most Americans remain opposed to ObamaCare. Many question its constitutionality; I’m certainly one of them. But the law’s negative impact on Americans’ daily lives is what I hear about the most.

Americans are dealing every day with the tough realities of life in the Obama economy. They’re facing rising prices for food, gas, college tuition and health care. Many are out of work. And among those fortunate enough to have jobs, many are struggling to keep them. Couple this with the ever-present specter of higher taxes — which are constantly being threatened by the president and his advisors — and the possibility of another downgrade in our nation’s credit rating as a consequence of the national debt that has exploded under the president’s spending policies, and it’s a pretty grim picture. If you’re reading this, you know exactly what I mean.