NJ hospital group asks for delay of new referral list
SEPTEMBER 30, 2015 LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, SEPTEMBER 30, 2015, 1:21 AM
BY MARY JO LAYTON
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
A group representing Catholic hospitals in New Jersey is asking the state to delay the rollout of a plan by New Jersey’s largest insurer, saying it excludes nearly 90 percent of Catholic hospitals.
The president of Catholic HealthCare Partnership of New Jersey said Catholic hospitals could be forced to close their doors – resulting in the loss of health care access for uninsured residents – if the proposal by Horizon Blue Cross and Blue Shield goes into effect.
The concerns raised Tuesday by the group and by Assemblywoman Valerie Vainieri Huttle, D-Englewood, add to the backlash over a plan to create a tier system that would funnel patients to select hospitals.
Patients could use other hospitals, but their out-of-pocket costs would be higher.
“Insurance companies should not be able to dictate which of our state’s hospitals succeed and which ones fail,” said Sister Patricia Codey, president of the Catholic HealthCare Partnership of New Jersey, whose members include nine acute health care systems, specialty hospitals and other facilities.
“Horizon’s decision will undoubtedly make it more difficult for Catholic hospitals to continue our mission of providing access to health care for New Jersey’s poor and underinsured citizens,” Codey said.
After the plan was made public this month, executives at hospitals left off the list of the select group known as “Tier One” questioned how the list was formed.
It may not seem like much — just an extra hundred dollars or so a year.
But the steady upward creep in health insurance deductibles has easily outpaced the average increase in a worker’s wages over the last five years, according to a new analysis released on Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
Kaiser, a health policy research group that conducts a yearly survey of employer health benefits, calculates that deductibles have risen more than six times faster than workers’ earnings since 2010.
“It’s a very powerful trend,” said Drew Altman, Kaiser’s chief executive.
Four of five workers who receive their insurance through an employer now pay a deductible, in which they must pay some of their medical bills before their coverage starts, according to Kaiser.
Those workers’ deductibles have climbed from a yearly average of $900 in 2010 for an individual plan to above $1,300 this year, while employees working for small businesses have an even higher average of $1,800 a year. One in five workers has a deductible of $2,000 or more.
By Tom Howell Jr. – The Washington Times – Sunday, September 13, 2015
President Obama will need to more than double the number of Americans enrolled in Obamacare exchange plans to reach 21 million next year, the target set in budget projections, in what is shaping up as the next major test for the health care law.
As of June, the Department of Health and Human Services counted 9.9 million customers who have bought plans through the federal HealthCare.gov portal and a handful of state-run exchanges.
That puts the administration ahead of it’s own estimates for 2015, but is less than half what the Congressional Budget Office projected for 2016, showing just how much work officials have ahead of them as the next round of enrollment begins in less than two months.
ObamaCare enrollees are less satisfied with their plans than people with other types of health insurance, according to a new poll.
The poll from the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, the research arm of the consulting firm, finds that 30 percent of people with insurance through ObamaCare’s marketplaces are satisfied with their plans.
That compares with 42 percent satisfaction from people with employer-sponsored plans, 48 percent with Medicaid and 58 percent with Medicare.
Cost is the most common reason cited for the dissatisfaction with ObamaCare. Republicans have attacked the high deductibles and other out-of-pocket expenses under the system.
An analysis from the consulting firm HealthPocket found that last year the average deductible for a silver-level ObamaCare plan was $2,907, more than twice as much as the average deductible in an employer-sponsored plan.
Two recent NewsBusters posts have demonstrated that the major broadcast networks other than Fox News have failed to cover new information reported Sunday evening at the Wall Street Journal. Newly available emails reveal that MIT’s Jonathan Gruber “worked more closely than previously known with the White House and top federal officials to shape” the Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare. Monday afternoon, NB’s Scott Whitlock noted that “All three network morning shows on Monday ignored” the clearly newsworthy revelations. Very early Tuesday morning, NB’s Curtis Houck observed that “The top English and Spanish-language broadcast networks” did the same thing Monday evening.
The Associated Press and the New York Times, the nation’s de facto news gatekeepers during the Obama era (far more the former than the latter, in my view) were instrumental in this deliberate averted-eyes exercise. Neither outlet has printed a word about what the Journal found. Here are the results of a search on the MIT economist’s last name at the main national web site of the Associated Press shortly after 10 p.m.
A search at the AP’s Big Story site on Gruber’s last name has no story about anyone with that last name after early March. The last time the Big Story section covered anything containing the MIT economist’s name was in late February. Similarly, a search at the New York Times on Gruber’s full name (not in quotes) shows that the last relevant story there was in early March. Not even Josh Earnest’s continued denials in the face of harsh, irrefutable reality have moved either outlet to consider telling the public they claim to serve that the Obama administration has been fundamentally dishonest in representing the scope of Jonathan Gruber’s role for almost six years, going back to well before the Affordable Care Act became law.
The Supreme Court on Thursday upheld the nationwide tax subsidies under President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul, in a ruling that preserves health insurance for millions of Americans.
The justices said in a 6-3 ruling that the subsidies that 8.7 million people currently receive to make insurance affordable do not depend on where they live, under the 2010 health care law.
The outcome is the second major victory for Obama in politically charged Supreme Court tests of his most significant domestic achievement.
Chief Justice John Roberts again voted with his liberal colleagues in support of the law. Roberts also was the key vote to uphold the law in 2012. Justice Anthony Kennedy, a dissenter in 2012, was part of the majority on Thursday.
“Congress passed the Affordable Care Act to improve health insurance markets, not to destroy them,” Roberts wrote in the majority opinion.
Nationally, 10.2 million people have signed up for health insurance under the Obama health overhaul. That includes the 8.7 million people who are receiving an average subsidy of $272 a month to help pay their insurance premiums.
Adviser whose comments on Affordable Care Act touched off a furor worked more closely than previously known with White House
By
STEPHANIE ARMOUR
Updated June 21, 2015 5:56 p.m. ET
Jonathan Gruber, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist whose comments about the health-care law touched off a political furor, worked more closely than previously known with the White House and top federal officials to shape the law, previously unreleased emails show.
And so will “Republican strategists.”
by Michael Walsh
June 21, 2015 – 11:54 am
Of course they will. Even though not a single Republican voted for this monstrosity as it was shoved down the throats of the American people. Because, subsidies:
The pressing problem for the 2016 Republican field falls into the “dog catches car” category: It’s one thing to call for the Affordable Care Act to be repealed or to promise an Oval Office signing ceremony for its repeal. It’s another to endorse pulling insurance subsidies used by more than 6 million people in 34 states, including at least 1.3 million Florida residents.
A ruling that subsidies provided to consumers to help them purchase health insurance are not legal could spark chaos in the insurance marketplace and help shape the electoral landscape in several key swing states. Beyond those voters directly affected, many more could see their premiums increase if the law unravels, driving up the number of uninsured.
President Obama admits HealthCare.gov was a “well-documented disaster,” but says it helped the federal government better understand how to handle technology.
“With all the crises we were dealing with — the economy collapsing, the auto industry on the verge of collapse, winding down wars — this did not get the kind of laser-focused attention until HealthCare.gov, which was a well-documented disaster, but ended up anyways being the catalyst for us saying, ‘Okay, we have to completely revamp how we do things,’ ” Obama said in aninterview with Fast Company published Monday.
Obama’s comments come as he’s trying to promote his administration’s efforts to overhaul the government’s ancient technology infrastructure.
The president said outdated procurement rules and a lack of technological expertise hampered large-scale government projects, such as HealthCare.gov. But he said his administration has adopted new rules and recruited staffers from Google, Facebook and Twitter to beef up its tech efforts.
“If we are able through the U.S. digital team to recruit a baseline of talent and create a — pipeline — on a regular basis … what I do believe will happen is the government as a whole will start thinking about its relationship to citizens differently,” Obama said.
[ObamaCare] is working…We haven’t had a lot of conversation about the horrors of Obamacare because none of them have come to pass. You got 16 million people who’ve gotten health insurance.
It hasn’t had an adverse effect on people who already had health insurance. The overwhelming majority of them are satisfied with the health insurance…
The costs have come in substantially lower than even our estimates about how much it would cost. Health care inflation overall has continued to be at some of the lowest levels in 50 years. None of the predictions about how this wouldn’t work have come to pass.
Barack Obama, June 8, 2015
Sometimes it seems President Obama lives in a parallel universe where facts are floating around to be plucked out of suspended animation. Never more so than on the effects of the Affordable Care Act.
So let’s see whether anything he says on the new law, including that it “is working,” comports with the facts:
● No “adverse effect on people who already had health insurance.”
In 2013, as Obamacare’s policies were phasing in, nearly 5 million policyholders across 31 states and the District of Columbia were notified that their current coverage was being discontinued. This doesn’t include nearly 20 states that weren’t tracking these numbers so the total could have been several million more. In California alone, 1.1 million policies were canceled.
In March, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) estimated that Obamacare will result in a total of 1 million fewer people enrolled in employment-based coverage in 2015, increasing to 8 million fewer enrolled in employment-based covered by 2018. That’s a lot of people who haven’t been able to keep the health insurance that they like.
● “The overwhelming majority of people are satisfied” with the new law.
Real Clear Politics has reviewed the major polling results on ObamaCare over the last two months. It finds that the average result is that 43% of Americans support the law and 53% oppose it. AMay Gallup poll found more than twice as many respondents (24%) say the law has hurt their families than say it has helped them (10%). Most say it has made no difference. This sounds a lot more like dissatisfaction with the new law.
● “Health care inflation overall has continued to be at some of the lowest levels in 50 years.”
Oh really. The costs to Americans for health insurance in the new ObamaCare era are soaring across the country. The latest numbers for premium increases show the following dismal news for families. In California, approved rate increases going into effect this year are running up an average of about 10%, or five times the rate of inflation (which actually turned negative in the most recent 12 months). In Florida, 33 of 36 approved rate hikes were greater than 10%.
Next year might be even worse. In Ohio, the average rate increase request for 2016 is 17.8% as of June 9, 2015. In Virginia, the AETNA Life Insurance Company small group plan proposed an increase of 59.71%. In Texas, more than half of the rate hike request are greater than 20%. In Illinois, the popular Blue Cross Blue Shield Preferred Individual plan wants a 38% rate hike. Numerous other plans costs will rise by 50%.
● “We haven’t had a lot of conversation about the horrors of Obamacare because none of them have come to pass.”
President Obama must not listen to young people. An analysis by my colleagues Ed Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski at The Heritage Foundation finds that removing ObamaCare regulations for those in their early 20s would lower health insurance by 44%. Much of this cost differential stems directly from the arbitrary ObamaCare mandate that age related variations in health care premiums not exceed a ration of 3:1. That part of the law alone increased premiums for young adults by one-third. The typical 21 year old would save about $1,100 in premiums by jettisoning the regulations.
Ben Howe is a contributor to The Daily Signal. He is the founder of Howe Creative, a video and film production company as well as a contributor and head writer for “Dana” on The Blaze TV.
Earlier this week, President Obama taunted the Supreme Court for taking up a challenge to Obamacare and boldly declared that his health care law is a success.
“What’s more, the thing is working,” Obama boasted to reporters. “I mean, part of what’s bizarre about this whole thing is we haven’t had a lot of conversation about the horrors of Obamacare because none of them come to pass.”
In reality, the president is willfully disregarding the facts and ignoring mounting evidence about the Affordable Care Act’s failures. Obamacare remains unaffordable, unworkable and unfair to the American people.
The Heritage Foundation decided to set the record straight for the president. This new video chronicles the problems playing out in states across America—many of which will be impacted by the Supreme Court’s upcoming ruling in King v. Burwell.
It may be easier than expected for states to save their ObamaCare subsidies, if the Supreme Court rules against the law this month.
Two states — Pennsylvania and Delaware — said this week they would launch their own exchanges, if needed, to keep millions of healthcare dollars flowing after the decision. Both want to use existing pieces of the federal ObamaCare exchange, like its website and call center — a path that would be far less costly than the way most other states have created their exchanges.
If those plans win approval, many of the other 36 states that stand to lose their subsidies could then pursue a similarly simple strategy.
“I think that’s a pretty easy workaround,” Tom Scully, the former director of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services under the Bush administration, said about the two states’ plans.
“The administration has a lot of flexibility, potentially, to define a state exchange,” he added.
But that would spell trouble for Republicans who view the King v. Burwell case as their best chance yet to dismantle Obama’s healthcare law. GOP members of Congress have repeatedly said they must create a backup plan for states so that they are forced to make ObamaCare “fixes.”
With the ruling inching closer, many of the 34 states that could lose big from the King v. Burwell ruling have been quietly plotting how to avert the potential chaos from a decision against the Obama administration.
The poor keep getting poorer under Democrat rule, Save Jerseyans.
Just the latest example: around 100,000 New Jerseyans are about to see their Obamacare plan premiums rise by 10%, or more, effective January 1, 2016. That’s according to a new look at government data and insurance company reported rate increases from NJ Advance Media‘s Kathleen O’Brien.
Why? Besides the general suckiness of the government’s latest attempt to override the immutable rules of economics and nature? A bunch of stuff that critics like yours truly predicted way back before the ACA was signed including a spike in the number of doctor’s office visits.
And it’s entirely likely to get MUCH worse. We’re expecting a decision from the U.S. Supreme Court in King v. Burwell any day now that will decide the fate of Obamacare’s federal subsidies. Bottom line: as I’ve explained before, the lawcannot survive without subsidies (which should tell you everything right there).
Health insurers across the country are eyeing slightly steeper cost increases in 2016, a year that will be an important test for how well ObamaCare is working.
The costs of the lowest-tiered individual plans appear to be ticking up, according to multiple experts who have reviewed the proposed rates. The increases vary wildly among plans and among states, but experts say people are still unlikely to face the kind of doomsday scenario critics predicted would occur under the healthcare law.
“The trend is a little bit higher this year than last year,” said Gary Claxton, director of the healthcare marketplace program for the Kaiser Family Foundation.
And as in past years, some of those rate increases have been “enormous,” said Cheryl Fish-Parcham, who directs the private insurance program at the nonprofit Families USA.
Under ObamaCare, all proposed rate hikes above 10 percent were required to be posted online by Monday. Now begins a six-month back-and-forth between insurance companies and regulators as the government tries to reduce rates before locking them in this November.
“These specific rates will be subject to vigorous rate review and revision,” said Andy Slavitt, the acting administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).
The proposed 2016 rates will offer the most accurate portrait so far about the health of the marketplaces. Claxton, who reviewed several states’ data, said many of the increases are around 15 to 20 percent, though there are large disparities across regions.
Tennessee’s biggest insurer has proposed an increase of 36 percent for some plans, while one of New Mexico’s biggest carriers is looking at a 50 percent increase. The most popular carrier in Maryland has called for a 30 percent hike.
MAY 31, 2015 LAST UPDATED: SUNDAY, MAY 31, 2015, 9:38 AM
BY LINDY WASHBURN
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
They were moments of crisis for each family. A newborn who wasn’t breathing was rushed to intensive care. A 15-year-old skier who wiped out on a slope in the Catskills needed surgery to reconstruct his shoulder. A 65-year-old insurance agent who survived a heart attack needed urgent bypass surgery to clear his arteries.
The stress didn’t stop once these medical crises passed, however. Within a few weeks, each family received an unexpected medical bill.
They had been savvy enough to follow their insurers’ rules and choose in-network hospitals to maximize their coverage and minimize their out-of-pocket costs. But one or more of the physicians who took care of them — and over whom they had no choice — did not participate in their insurance network.
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