Category: Obamacare

Posted on

Bill Clinton slams ObamaCare as ‘craziest thing in the world’

Bill Clinton

By Daniel Halper

October 4, 2016 | 6:44am

Bill Clinton, the husband of the Democratic presidential nominee, knocked President Obama’s signature piece of legislation — the ObamaCare health care law — as “the craziest thing in the world.”

“You’ve got this crazy system where all of a sudden 25 million more people have health care, and then the people who are out there busting it, sometimes 60 hours a week, wind up with their premiums doubled and their coverage cut in half and it’s the craziest thing in the world,” the former president railed at a rally in Michigan on Monday.

Clinton also said the system is hurting moderately successful small businesses — the ones that aren’t doing poorly enough to be subsidized and fall just above the line.

“On the other hand, the current system works fine if you’re eligible for Medicaid, if you’re a lower-income working person. If you’re already on Medicare or if you get enough subsidies on a modest income that you can afford your health care,” Clinton said.

https://nypost.com/2016/10/04/bill-clinton-slams-obamacare-as-craziest-thing-in-the-world/

Posted on

Ailing Obama Health Care Act May Have to Change to Survive

obamacare_theridgewoodblog

By ROBERT PEAROCT. 2, 2016

WASHINGTON — The fierce struggle to enact and carry out the Affordable Care Act was supposed to put an end to 75 years of fighting for a health care system to insure all Americans. Instead, the law’s troubles could make it just a way station on the road to another, more stable health care system, the shape of which could be determined on Election Day.

Seeing a lack of competition in many of the health law’s online insurance marketplaces, Hillary Clinton, President Obama and much of theDemocratic Party are calling for more government, not less.

The departing president, the woman who seeks to replace him and nearly one-third of the Senate have endorsed a new government-sponsored health plan, the so-called public option, to give consumers an additional choice. A significant number of Democrats, for whom Senator Bernie Sanders spoke in the primaries, favor a single-payer arrangement, which could take the form of Medicare for all.

Donald J. Trump and Republicans in Congress would go in the direction of less government, reducing federal regulation and requirements so insurance would cost less and no-frills options could proliferate. Mr. Trump would, for example, encourage greater use of health savings accounts, allow insurance policies to be purchased across state lines and let people take tax deductions for insurance premium payments.

https://www.nytimes.com/2016/10/03/us/politics/obama-health-care-act.html?_r=0

Posted on

Minnesota health insurance market in ’emergency situation’

obamacare_theridgewoodblog

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Minnesota’s top health insurance regulator says the state’s individual market is in “an emergency situation” amid big rate increases for next year.

Department of Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman said Friday that the five companies offering plans through the state’s exchange or directly to consumers were prepared to leave the market for 2017. He said big rate increases were the tradeoff to convince all but one company to remain for now.

Rate increases finalized this week range from a 50 percent average hike for HealthPartners plans to a 67 percent jump on average on UCare.

 https://www.fox9.com/health/208893336-story

Posted on

Obamacare: Still stupid after all these years

obamacare_theridgewoodblog

Jake Novak | @jakejakeny

There’s something about Obamacare that really shines a light on the stupid. And by that I mean stupid politicians, stupid “experts,” and even regular – but stupid – Americans. And in case you missed it, the last few weeks have presented us, and the presidential candidates, with more solid evidence of ACA-related stupidity than usual. Let’s look at the top three contenders on the Obamacare Stupid Bowl ’16:

First, we now know that Obamacare enrollment has fallen short by 24 million people. The real number of enrolled Americans in ACA plans is 11.1 million. Making matters worse is the fact that a major chunk of the people not signing up are the younger and healthier Americans the ACA’s architects were foolishly relying on to help absorb the costs from older and sicker enrollees. This is the continuing development that many call the “Obamacare Death Spiral.”

Second, so many Insurance companies are curtailing their participation in Obamacare exchanges that 31 percent of U.S. counties are likely to have just one insurance company option for health coverage by next year. That’s what we call a monopoly. And in case you don’t know how dangerous monopolies can be in health care, Google the words “Mylan” and “EpiPen” when you get a chance.

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/06/obamacare-still-stupid-after-all-these-years-commentary.html

Posted on

Obamacare Insurance Markets on Verge of Collapse

obamacare_theridgewoodblog

by WARNER TODD HUSTON
3 Sep 2016

Citing the financial unsustainability of Obamacare, both the insured and insurers are fleeing Obamacare in increasing numbers, leaving President Obama’s takeover of the nation’s healthcare system on the verge of collapse.

The administration has claimed Obamacare — officially designated the Affordable Care Act — to be a great success, insisting that 20 million previously uninsured Americans now have insurance. But according to a report at The Guardian, that “success” comes at the expense of all the features that were supposed to make the law sustainable.

President Obama and his cohorts imagined that since Obamacare was to be compulsory, millions of healthy young Americans would immediately sign up, and the massive influx of cash paid into the system as insurance premiums would help pay for the higher costs in care doled out to older, sicker enrollees.

https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/09/03/obamacare-insurance-markets-on-verge-of-collapse/

Posted on

Obamacare rate hikes rattle consumers, could threaten enrollment

obamacare_theridgewoodblog

Jayne O’Donnell and Tony Leys, USA TODAY Network8:46 p.m. EDT September 1, 2016

Many of next year’s premium rate increases on theAffordable Care Act exchanges threaten to surpass the high and wildly fluctuating rates that characterized the individual insurance market before the health law took effect, interviews with insurance regulators and records show.

With dramatic drops in insurance company participation on the exchanges for some states, decreased competition and other factors are leading to often jarring rate hikes. Some of the states that are facing what are likely among the biggest increases this year — Tennessee, Arizona and North Carolina — were among those the Urban Institutereported in May had the biggest increases last year.

“The reality is, it’s all very justified, unfortunately,” Iowa insurance commissioner Nick Gerhart said Thursday of the premium increases he approved this week of 19% to 43% for about 70,000 Iowans who buy their own policies.

Gerhart warned consumers in a rate hearing in July that if he rejected insurers’ proposed premium increases for 2017, the carriers would likely decline to sell policies in the state. No carriers made an explicit threat to leave Iowa, but the implication was clear, he says: “It gives you less room to maneuver.” Iowa law, he said, requires him to judge proposed premium increases on whether experts find them to be justified by carriers’ projected costs

As other state insurance commissioners gradually sign off on insurers’ rate requests — which should all be decided within a month — many consumers are learning what’s in store for 2017.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2016/09/01/obamacare-rate-hikes-rattle-consumers-could-threaten-enrollment/89664628/

Posted on

Obamacare’s Economic Assumptions Collapse

obamacare_theridgewoodblog

By Andy Puzder
August 29, 2016

Economic reality is making it increasingly obvious that we are in the midst of Obamacare’s long anticipated death spiral. Most recently, Aetna joinedUnitedHealthcare and Humana as the third of the “big five” insurance firms to announce major cuts to its Obamacare exchange business.

For insurers, it’s simple math: Premiums collected must exceed claims paid. If too few healthy, low risk individuals enroll to offset the costs of insuring unhealthy, high risk individuals, the math doesn’t work. This imbalance forces insurers to raise premiums on the low risk individuals who do enroll to cover the costs of insuring high risk individuals. The rising premiums cause even more healthy individuals to drop coverage – resulting in what has been called a death spiral.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2016/08/29/obamacares_economic_assumptions_collapse_131637.html

Posted on

State officials under pressure to OK ObamaCare premium hikes

obamacare_theridgewoodblog

By Peter Sullivan – 08/26/16 06:02 AM EDT

State insurance officials say they are feeling pressure to approve large ObamaCare premium increases to prevent more insurers losing money from dropping out of the market altogether.

Tennessee’s insurance commissioner, Julie Mix McPeak, this week announced the approval of premium hikes of 62 percent, 46 percent and 44 percent, respectively, for the three insurers on the state’s marketplace.

She said her department’s actuaries had found the rate increases to be justified.

“I didn’t feel like I had any choice but to approve those rates when it came back to be actuarially justified,” she said.

Tennessee is unlikely to be alone in authorizing premium hikes, either. In Maryland, officials are expecting a hike.

“There are going to be significant increases in the individual market,” said Al Redmer, the insurance commissioner in Maryland, where the rates are still being reviewed.

It is unclear how many other states may allow large premium hikes.

An early estimate from ObamaCare analyst Charles Gaba finds that for nine states the average approved premium increase for next year is 27.6 percent.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/293386-state-officials-under-pressure-to-approve-obamacare-premium-hikes

Posted on

Readers tell Obamacare Horror Stories

obamacare_theridgewoodblog

My son has been paying $2,100 a month for one of these individual insurances. When his daughter broke her elbow, his wife had to call 13 physicians before finding one who would see an 11 year old child! This policy was a replacement for his policy of last year –which was just as bad– which the insurer dropped to join the Hackensack group only. Now he has been notified that this one is leaving NJ at the end of the year. He’s in business for himself and really doesn’t know what he is going to do. And, of course, before Obamacare he had a policy that they loved with much lower premiums. But what Obama really meant was “if you have a policy you like, you can (dream on) keep it.”

Posted on

Aetna to exit healthcare exchanges in 11 states

obamacare_theridgewoodblog

by UPI16 Aug 2016951

HARTFORD, Conn., Aug. 16 (UPI) — Healthcare insurer Aetna Inc. announced it will pull out of the Affordable Care Act individual public exchanges in 11 states after millions of dollars in losses.

In a statement Monday, Aetna said it will remain in Delaware, Iowa, Nebraska and Virginia, but will stop offering policies in 11 other states, beginning in 2017.

https://www.breitbart.com/news/aetna-to-exit-healthcare-exchanges-in-11-states/

Posted on

The big ObamaCare bubble

1379441947-obamacare3-300x27721

Bryan Rotella, contributor

“No one can see a bubble. That’s what makes it a bubble.” That was Christian Bale’s character’s summation of a market bubble in last year’s hit movie “The Big Short,” which chronicled the few investors who saw the signs pointing to the mortgage market collapse. With terrorism, email scandals and race relations dominating the headlines, has a healthcare bubble been filling up quietly behind the scenes?

Since the 2010 passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA or ObamaCar), the health care industry has seen record growth and increased revenues. Why? Illness, especially chronic, sadly is a moneymaking business. Illness requires more office visits, more hospitalizations and inevitably more bills. ObamaCare halted insurance companies’ practice of rating premiums based on a customers illness history, or as more commonly known, preexisting conditions.

In the 2013 rollout of the ObamaCare exchanges, the promised result was that more people would have insurance coverage. Undoubtedly, this part of the law worked. By Jan. 7, 2016, more than 11.3 millionAmericans had signed up for ObamaCare; by March,20.3 million were covered. A large percentage of these new insureds were high-risk. As NBC reportedin April, “Last month, an analysis of medical claims from the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association concluded that insurers gained a sicker, more expensive patient population as a result of the law.”

While bad for insurance companies, this was very good for the bottom lines of the merging large healthcare systems and newly formed physician monolith groups. A drafter of the lawadmitted the law was founded on the belief that the “consolidation of doctors into larger physician groups was inevitable and desirable.” With consolidation, the dollars have racked up. According to U.S. News & World Report, “from June 3, 2010, to June 30, 2015, the Russell 3000 Healthcare benchmark (an all capitalization index) posted a gain of 176.8 percent.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/healthcare/the-big-obamacare-bubble/ar-BBvqAx3?li=BBmkt5R&ocid=spartandhp

Posted on

Obama and Democrats Move Closer to Socialized Medicine

obamacare_theridgewoodblog

Obama calls for adding public option to ObamaCare

President Obama is calling on Congress to add a “public option” to ObamaCare to improve his signature health law.

The pitch from Obama comes after he abandoned pursuit of a government-run insurance plan to compete with private insurers during the long legislative battle over healthcare because of opposition from some Democrats in Congress.

“Public programs like Medicare often deliver care more cost-effectively by curtailing administrative overhead and securing better prices from providers,” Obama writes in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

“The public plan did not make it into the final legislation. Now, based on experience with the ACA, I think Congress should revisit a public plan to compete alongside private insurers in areas of the country where competition is limited,” writes the president.

The new embrace from the president also comes amid what appears to be a concerted push by the Democratic Party to rally around the public option.

It’s a shift that reflects how the party has tilted leftward during the Obama years.

https://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/287256-obama-calls-for-adding-public-option-to-obamacare

 

 

Posted on

Connecticut Obamacare Co-Op Going Out of Business

obamacare_theridgewood blog

by DR. SUSAN BERRY7 Jul 20161,103

Connecticut’s Obamacare health insurance co-op is being placed under state supervision because of its status as financially “unstable,” leaving 40,000 individuals on the hunt for new insurance plans.

HealthyCT – a nonprofit health insurance plan set up under President Barack Obama’s signature health care reform, is one of 23 original Obamacare co-ops and the 14th to fail since they began selling their health insurance plans on the Obamacare exchanges.

Obamacare exchange Access Health CT CEO Jim Wadleigh released a statement following the announcement from Connecticut Insurance Department regulators that HealthyCT would no longer be permitted to sell plans in Connecticut.

We have just learned from the Connecticut Insurance Department that insurance company HealthyCT has been ordered to stop writing new policies in Connecticut effective immediately. As a result, Access Health CT will no longer be selling healthcare coverage offered by HealthyCT on the exchange. We realize that this will cause some concern for customers who purchased a HealthyCT plan via AHCT and we are committed to making sure they receive the help they need to find new coverage.

https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/07/07/connecticut-obamacare-co-op-going-business/?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=social

Posted on

Sticker Shock : Insurers are looking for Obamacare price hikes

obamacare_theridgewood blog
 Contributors s Note : We predicted it. We know it was all a lie and of course Dr. Gruber boasted and called the American people “Stupid”. 

“Obamacare plan customers should brace for sticker shock when the administration posts insurers’ preliminary rate requests for 2017 this week.
Health plans are asking for sharp price increases, after suffering big losses on exchanges in the last two years. Regulators caution that these are preliminary requests and final rates could a lot different.

Insurers cite rising drug costs and patients who utilize a lot of medical services for the price-hike requests, which range from 17 percent in New York, and more than 20 percent in Virginia, to 30 percent rate increase requests from Oregon’s largest insurers ”  Joe Killian

 

Bertha Coombs | @BerthaCoombs

Obamacare plan customers should brace for sticker shock when the administration posts insurers’ preliminary rate requests for 2017 this week.

Health plans are asking for sharp price increases, after suffering big losses on exchanges in the last two years. Regulators caution that these are preliminary requests and final rates could a lot different.

Insurers cite rising drug costs and patients who utilize a lot of medical services for the price-hike requests, which range from 17 percent in New York, and more than 20 percent in Virginia, to 30 percent rate increase requests from Oregon’s largest insurers.

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/05/23/insurers-are-looking-for-obamacare-price-hikes.html?__source=msn%7Cmoney%7Cheadline%7Cstory%7C&par=msn