Millions of poorest Americans get no Obamacare subsidies

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Lost among reports of the difficulties of the Affordable Care Act’s health insurance exchanges is the news that President Obama’s health insurance reform law is actually making it harder for the very poor to get insurance coverage. The architecture of the law and the Supreme Court’s 2012 decision that struck down a portion of the Affordable Care Act have combined to create a gap for low income Americans that deprives them of Obamacare’s health insurance subsidies as well as no-cost coverage under Medicaid.

Danielle Morgan, the 23-year-old married mother of four in North Carolina, is one of those affected. Danielle’s husband is a full-time Bible college student with no income. Danielle told Examiner that she works to support their family, but her employer does not offer health insurance. The family has not had health insurance in the past, but Danielle was hopeful that the new health insurance marketplaces would allow her to purchase an affordable policy for her family and avoid Obamacare’s fine.

 

Read the rest on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

A path forward for Republicans

Ted Cruz (Gage Skidmore)

As the government shutdown goes through its third week, poll after poll indicates that Republicans are taking the brunt of the blame. AsExaminer noted last week, an NBC News/Wall St. Journal poll found approval of the Republican Party at a historic low. Generic congressional polls (summarized on Real Clear Politics), which have been in a dead heat all year, have turned against Republicans since the shutdown. Recent polling shows a consistent advantage for Democratic candidates.

Through it all, Republicans have made no headway in defunding the Affordable Care Act. In fact, the negotiations to reopen the government have shifted toward a new Democratic demand to undo the sequester cuts from last January. The sequester represented a rare GOP victory during the Obama era. It also worked. As Stephen Moore pointed out in theWall St. Journal, the sequester law actually reduced spending and cut the deficit by about half. Removing the sequester’s spending limits would represent a major defeat for Republicans.

The government shutdown also tarnishes the Republican reputation for fiscal responsibility, an area where Republicans polled well before the shutdown. The shutdown is costing an estimated $160 million per day on the conservative side. Higher estimates rise to more than $1 billion per day in lost growth and other factors. To add insult to injury,the House voted last week to give furloughed federal workers their back pay, which means that federal workers will be paid for doing nothing if the Senate passes the bill.

 

Read the rest on Atlanta Conservative Examiner

Lawsuit make kill Obamacare

Americans are still learning what was in the Affordable Care Act.  As Dick Morris pointed out in an Oct. 8 column on The Hill, some things that people thought were in the law, may not be.  Specifically, Morris points to a lawsuit that alleges that Obamacare’s subsidies and employer mandate do not apply in states with federally run exchanges.

 

In the wake of last week’s disastrous Obamacare rollout, the Republicans are apparently giving up – at least for the moment – the attempt to defund the Affordable Care Act.  Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) wrote an op-ed in the Wall Street Journal on Oct. 8 that called for ending the stalemate over the government shutdown and debt ceiling by finding common ground.  One issue that was conspicuous in its absence was Obamacare.

 

Meanwhile, problems with the health insurance exchange websites continue to dog the Administration.  On October 9, CBS News quoted Luke Chung, a programmer who said, “It wasn’t designed well, it wasn’t implemented well, and it looks like nobody tested it.  It’s not even ready for beta testing for my book. I would be ashamed and embarrassed if my organization delivered something like that.”

Originally published on Elections Examiner

 

 

What the new Obamacare exchanges will mean to you

The Affordable Care Act’s, “Obamacare’s,” health insurance exchanges will open on Oct. 1 barring a last minute deal by Republicans and Democrats to delay the onset of the law. As the open enrollment period for the health care exchanges begins, Americans will be able to sign up for health insurance on their state exchange, also called health insurance marketplaces. The health insurance exchanges are only the most recent part of Obamacare to take effect. Some portions of the law took effect immediately on passage of the law in 2010 or in the years since.

If you currently have insurance coverage through your employer, Medicare, or Medicaid, you will not need to visit an exchange to purchase coverage. An exception to this is if you work for one of the many companies that are dropping health insurance coverage for their employees due to rising premium costs. Workers with company health insurance plans can also choose to buy coverage through their state exchange if their company’s plan does not meet certain standards. Workers who choose to participate in the marketplace in lieu of their company health plan may lose any employer contribution to their health insurance.

 

Read the rest on Elections Examiner

GOP shoots self in foot with defund vote

The House Republicans collectively took careful aim at their feet and fired today with a vote to defund the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as “Obamacare.” The continuing budget resolution passed this morning, largely along party lines. One Republican, Scott Rigell of Virginia, voted against the measure and two Democrats, Jim Mathison (Utah) and Mike McIntyre (N.C.), voted for passage according to CNN.

The vote to defund comes amid a flurry of warnings from GOP strategists that defunding Obamacare is impossible and will likely backfire on the party. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) told Newsmax on Sept. 18 that “the president appears now politically to be in favor of shutting down the government” in order to score a “political win.”

Two days earlier, Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said, “I think he wants this thing to happen, a shutdown of the government.” The comments, made on the Hugh Hewitt Show, were quoted in the Huffington Post.

Read the rest  on Atlanta Conservative Examiner.

IRS manager in problem offices got bonuses, promotion to head Obamacare unit

IRS logo

Sarah Hall Ingram was the IRS official in charge of the Internal Revenue Service Tax Exempt Division from 2009 through 2012.  Her division has recently made headlines as part of the IRS that singled conservative groups who were seeking tax exemptions.

One might expect that Sarah Hall Ingram would have been dismissed from the IRS after President Obama announced his displeasure over the IRS scandal.  Obama requested the resignation of acting IRS commissioner Steven Miller after the scandal broke.

In reality, the IRS confirmed Friday to ABC News that Ingram, rather than being fired or demoted, now heads up the IRS Affordable Care Office.  The Affordable Care Act dramatically expands the size and power of the IRS by putting the IRS in charge of enforcing the individual and employer mandates.  The IRS also controls and regulates the Affordable Care Act’s federal subsidies for health insurance.

Read the rest on Examiner.com:  http://www.examiner.com/article/manager-of-irs-scandal-office-now-heads-obamacare-unit

Seek medical treatment now – before Obamacare takes effect

National Cancer Institute

Last year, my mother found out that she had colon cancer. A few weeks later, my wife was determined to have an early stage of cervical cancer. While it is never good to hear a diagnosis of cancer, they were fortunate to receive their diagnoses when and where they did.

My mom was diagnosed in October with stage three colon cancer. Within a week, she was undergoing lifesaving surgery in one of Atlanta’s top hospitals. She was fortunate have access to care in an American hospital. The colon cancer survival rate in the United States is among the highest in the world.

Read the rest on Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/article/get-medical-treatments-and-tests-now-before-obamacare-takes-effect?cid=db_articles

Gun shortage shows future of Obamacare

John Crawford/Wikimedia

The news that the threat of new restrictions on the Second Amendment has spurred a sharp increase in the number of Americans seeking to buy guns should not come as a surprise to people who consider the incentives created by the actions of government. In many ways, the run on guns reported last week by Examinercan shed light on what can be expected as the reforms of the Affordable Care Act go into effect.

In economic terms, the run on guns is the result of an artificial increase in demand. This is driven by the threat of interrupting the supply of guns, particularly assault weapons like the AR-15. People who think that they might want to own an assault rifle are buying one now, while they are still legal, rather than waiting.

Read the rest on Examiner.com:
http://www.examiner.com/article/gun-shortage-shows-future-of-health-care-under-obamacare?cid=db_articles

Ga. Gov. rejects Obamacare exchange

Gov. Nathan Deal announced today that Georgia will not set up a state health insurance exchange as mandated by theAffordable Care Act. The governor cited unknown costs, lack of flexibility, and lack of state control in his decision to reject the exchange. The Supreme Court ruled last June that the federal government could not compel states to create the exchanges or expand Medicaid as the Affordable Care Act attempts to do.

Michael Cannon of the Cato Institute notes that there are many incentives for states not to create the exchanges. Cannon says that while exchanges are created by the states, they would be controlled by the federal government. The exchanges would compete with private insurers and would likely drive many out of business. Although the law allows the federal government to implement exchanges for states that refuse, Cannon says that congress did not appropriate any funds for federal exchanges. This makes their implementation in a divided congress unlikely. Cannon argues that since federal insurance subsidies are offered through state exchanges, if all states rejected the exchanges it would reduce the federal deficit by $700 billion over ten years.

Read the rest on Examiner:

http://www.examiner.com/article/ga-governor-rejects-state-health-insurance-exchange?cid=db_articles

Obamacare facts: Death panels and rationing

Sarah Pain coined the term “death panel” in a 2009 tweet. (therealbs2002/Wikimedia)

The phrase “death panel” is a politically charged term that originated with Sarah Palin in 2009. Palin coined the term in reference to the Affordable Care Act’s requirement that Medicare pay for end-of-life counseling sessions. Her original Facebook post on the subject read, “The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down Syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care.” Factcheck.org called “death panels” one of 2009’s “whopper[s] of the year.”

The ACA does not contain the phrase “death panel” and the end-of-life counseling cited by Palin was not mandatory. This does mean that Palin was totally off the mark however.

The ACA does establish an unelected board of bureaucrats who will be tasked with cutting Medicare spending.

 

Read the rest of this article on Examiner.com:

http://www.examiner.com/article/obamacare-facts-death-panels-and-rationing