Posted on 10/01/2014 2:48:37 PM PDT by afraidfortherepublic
Today marks the one-year anniversary for Obamacare’s health exchanges—which have helped more than 7 million people across the country enroll in health coverage. And while Obamacare’s marketplace is settling in for its second year, serious issues are cropping up that could potentially derail the entire health care law leaving millions without affordable health coverage.
The first potential problem deals with funding for the law’s crucial risk corridor program, which protects insurers from major losses.
Insurers who agree to sell policies on the new exchanges are compensated for if they incur heavy losses during the first few years of Obamacare’s implementation. Under this provision, if insurers’ expenses exceed 103 percent of their projected costs, the federal government would be required to reimburse half of those payments. If their actual claims increased 8 percent above the projected claims, the government would cover 80 percent of the excess.
The problem is the law’s vague language does not actually give the Department of Health and Human Services legal authority to fund the program—meaning Congress must get involved. That’s according to a legal opinion released last night by the Government Accountability Office, which said that in order for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid to use general funds for the risk corridors—Congress must adopt language spelling that out in CMS’s future appropriations.
Though it sounds simple enough, health and political experts worry that this is likely to set up yet another political showdown on Capitol Hill over the funding of the president’s health care law.
Republicans have unsurprisingly expressed staunch opposition to the risk corridor program—with many dubbing it a “bailout for insurance companies.”
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) even introduced a bill earlier this year to entirely scrap the program. But now, it seems, lawmakers could do that simply by withholding funding.If this happens, the government would not be able to pay insurers with higher than anticipated costs—and without that incentive, insurers may decide to leave the marketplace—resulting in less competition and fewer options for consumers.
That’s not all. Obamacare is facing legal challenges that could potentially result in millions of people losing their federal subsidies that they rely on to make health coverage affordable. At least four federal court cases center around whether the law’s language permits people enrolled in both the state and federal exchanges to receive subsidies.
Plaintiffs contend that only enrollees on the state exchanges are eligible. Just this morning, the Eastern District Court of Oklahoma became the second court to strike down Obamacare’s subsidies on federal exchanges, making it even more likely that the case will eventually go before the Supreme Court. Though there is still one more District court that hasn’t issued a ruling, many experts believe the case will end up at the Supreme Court.
With a ruling against the Obama administration, more than 7.3 million people could be affected, according to an analysis by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.
Department of Redundancy Department:
“...one-year anniversary...”
And how many people were "helped" out of their coverage either through cancellation, or loss of job when employers cut back.
Not a hint of bias in the first paragraph. Pfft.
Oh please. As if the Quislings in Congress could ever conjure the testicles required not to fund some Fascist wet dream. They’ve had numerous opportunities to do that already and what have the accomplished? Bupkis.
Today marks the one-year anniversary for Obamacare’s health exchanges—which have helped more than 7 million people across the country enroll in health coverage only to find out that it was more expensive than they thought and that they were, in fact, not actually enrolled when they went to get care.
Fixed it.
Another journal of incredible doubtfulenss. They are really in a crownded tank.
Any honest assessment of the net effect of the “Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010” would indicate that there has been a LOSS of coverage, in terms of absolute numbers and in actual payable claims, since 2009.
Because of the restrictive nature of most of the policies dictated to fit the restrictions imposed by the terms of the risibly misnamed “Affordable Care Act”, people are paying more, sometimes much more, for inferior range and delivery of services. It matters not that some people are getting “subsidies”, or even “free” medical coverage, they are also being woefully short-changed on the quality and quantity as compared to the previous system of open admission to emergency rooms, which were supposed to take everybody, regardless of ability to pay.
But a large bureaucratic infrastructure has been put in place, and that, children, is where all those “new-found” dollars in health care transactions have been going.
NOT exactly a cost-effective remedy for whatever it was that was so lacking in the health services delivery system before.
I did not read beyond the headline, I've been reading that same headline ever since the Bill was passed.
Mors tyrannis!
Another crap article stating over 7 million in Obamacare!
I believe a lot of those folks were shunted over to Medicaid.
Also, before the ACA went into effect, wasn’t the administration saying there were 30-40 million people who would benefit because they were lacking sufficient insurance coverage? .....So after billions (trillions?) of dollars only about 20% of those folks get some semblance of coverage.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.