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They wanted their Obamacare prices to be low—but the state said "no." The state of Oregon reportedly has ordered a number of insurers to raise proposed Obamacare premiums for 2016 after some of those companies asked for rates that were only moderately higher, if not lower than this year. Now, many Obamacare customers there are looking at likely double-digit percentage rate increases after having experienced some of "the lowest premiums in the nation," the Oregonian noted. For example, Oregon's Health CO-OP asked for a 5.3-percent average rate increase for next year, but the state's preliminary decision calls for a 19.9...

In the announcement speech for his presidential campaign, Donald Trump railed against Obamacare. “We have a disaster called the big lie: Obamacare,” Trump declared. “I would repeal and replace the big lie, Obamacare.” Well, that sounds like something a Republican candidate would say. But there is one problem: Trump helped finance the Democratic takeover of Congress in 2006 — which put in place the liberal majority that passed Obamacare over the objections of congressional Republicans. And he continued to support a Democratic Senate majority after Obamacare. Democratic House and Senate campaign committees. In 2006 — the year Democrats took back...

Columnist George Will called MIT professor Jonathan Gruber “the gift that keeps on giving” to Obamacare opponents Monday after new emails show that the White House downplayed his role in crafting the law. Appearing on “Special Report,” Will tied Gruber to the upcoming Supreme Court decision on Obamacare subsidies, saying we’ll read the opinion “in light” of Gruber’s comments. The syndicated columnist made the comments after the House Oversight Committee released 20,000 pages of emails between Gruber and Obama administration officials. GEORGE WILL: Well, Mr. Gruber is, for opponents of the Affordable Care Act, the gift that keeps on giving....

Anyone who thinks ObamaCare will cut the deficit over the next decade should look at Page 11 of the latest Congressional Budget Office report. The table on that page shows how the trillions in ObamaCare subsidies are supposed to be "paid for" — by tax hikes or spending cuts. What it reveals, however, is that ObamaCare increasingly relies on dubious Medicare spending cuts to cover its growing subsidy costs.

When citizen journalist Rich Weinstein exposed Obamacare architect Jonathan Gruber in late 2014 for defrauding the country and calling the American voter "stupid," the White House denied he played a major role in writing the legislation and argued he was just "some advisor."video at link ... But new emails, first reported by the Wall Street Journal, reconfirm what we already knew. Gruber played an integral, major role in developing Obamacare. The emails show frequent consultations between Mr. Gruber and top Obama administration staffers and advisers in the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services on the Affordable...

The ObamaCare consultant who once mocked the “stupidity of the American voter” had a bigger impact on the healthcare law than previously known, The Wall Street Journal is reporting. Jonathan Gruber frequently contacted Obama administration officials via email while crafting ObamaCare, according to the newspaper. The Journal said that previously unreleased messages show that Gruber repeatedly messaged the White House and the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) between January, 2009 and March, 2010. He offered advice on healthcare policy and informed officials about media and lawmaker interviews concerning ObamaCare, it added. Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah) told the newspaper...

A nonpartisan government study says repealing President Barack Obama’s signature health care law would modestly increase the budget deficit and the number of uninsured Americans would rise by more than 20 million. The report from the Congressional Budget Office comes ahead of a highly anticipated Supreme Court ruling that could have a major impact on the Affordable Care Act, nullifying health insurance subsidies for some 6 million people in more than 30 states. The budget analysts said that would add a host of new uncertainties to their estimates. Republicans now in control of both chambers of Congress say they are...

Fiscal Responsibility: Now we learn that the Obama administration doesn't know whether billions in subsidies it paid out to insurers were appropriate. Yeah, this law is working just great.

Republicans will risk political pushback to put entitlement programs on the agenda during the presidential election. Some changes are in the wind for Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid—entitlement programs that account for 45% of the federal government’s payouts. Many of the changes are still years away. But some of them will start next year, smack in the middle of the presidential election campaign, forcing candidates to address issues that they and their advisers generally try to steer clear of when they’re running. Kicking off the rare election-year debate: a move to rescue the Social Security disability fund image: http://images.intellitxt.com/ast/adTypes/icon1.png before...

The federal government cannot verify nearly $3 billion in subsidies distributed through Obamacare, putting significant taxpayer funding “at risk,” according to a new audit report. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of Inspector General (OIG) released an audit Tuesday finding that the agency did not have an internal system to ensure that subsidies went to the right enrollees, or in the correct amounts. “[The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services] CMS’s internal controls did not effectively ensure the accuracy of nearly $2.8 billion in aggregate financial assistance payments made to insurance companies under the Affordable Care Act...

The City of Bixby changed insurance deductibles for their employees. One of the changes means that a family now has a $7,000 deductible instead of a $500 one. There is a gap plan available on limited basis. Employees said that no one asked them about the change or if they would prefer to pay higher premiums instead.

No one wants to make a repeat visit to the emergency room for the same complaint, but new research suggests it’s more common than previously thought and surprisingly, people frequently wind up at a different ER the second time around. Already some ERs are taking steps to find out why and try to prevent unnecessary returns. A Philadelphia hospital, for example, is beginning to test video calls and other steps to link discharged patients to primary care. The new research, based on records in six states, suggests patients should be pushy about getting follow-up care so they don’t have to...

A key goal of the Affordable Care Act is to help people get health insurance who may have not been able to pay for it before. But the most popular plans – those with low monthly premiums – also have high deductibles and copays. And that can leave medical care still out of reach for some. Renee Mitchell of Stone Mountain, Georgia is one of those people. She previously put off a medical procedure because of the expense. But as the threat of losing part of her vision became a real possibility, she sought an eye specialist at Emory University,...

President Obama will tout his healthcare law Tuesday to a Catholic group that has consistently supported the law despite deep divides over its birth control requirement. In a speech to the Catholic Health Association — which represents hundreds of hospitals and nursing homes across the U.S. — the president will talk about the law's major tenets and make his case that it has improved health plans for virtually everyone, in addition to expanding coverage to millions. The address comes just days before the Supreme Court is expected to issue a ruling that could halt the healthcare law's insurance subsidies to...

A top Obama administration health official considered putting MIT economist Jonathan Gruber to work on Obamacare to be an initiative of such “key political importance” that it was expedited because of “political push” from the Obama administration, emails released by the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reveal. The agency released 750 pages of heavily-redacted records on Monday to The Daily Caller and other news outlets in response to a Freedom of Information Act request. In one telling exchange after Gruber’s Obamacare work was first reported in 2010, one HHS analyst told another that having Democrats in charge “across...

Judy Naillon called her insurer several months ago to find out why she was being charged $35 every month for birth control pills. Her friends said they were getting their pills for free under the federal health law. Why wasn’t she getting the same deal? “I’m just really frustrated,” says the Wichita, Kan., piano and violin teacher. When her husband took a new marketing job last fall, “I thought that surely all these insurers must now be covering these benefits.” Naillon, 33, would have to continue to pay a share of the cost of her pills, and the plan wouldn’t...

President Obama defended his signature healthcare law before the Supreme Court is expected to hand down a ruling on Obamacare subsidies, telling the conference of the Catholic Health Association in Washington today that “Chicken Little warnings” haven’t come true. (Snip) “We need more governors and state legislatures to expand Medicaid, which was a central part of the architecture of the overall plan,” Obama said today. “We need more governors and state legislatures to expand Medicaid, which was a central part of the architecture of the overall plan.” “There’s something, I have to say, just deeply cynical about the ceaseless,

President Obama delivered a sharply critical speech today at the Catholic Health Association Conference, blasting his critics for ignoring what he calls the “reality” that Obamacare is here to stay. “The critics stubbornly ignore reality,” he said, boasting that since Obamacare was passed, jobs actually increased and opened up health care to millions.

Tuesday in Washington D.C. at the the Catholic Health Association’s annual assembly, President Barack Obama defended his Affordable Care Act saying it was a “critical part” of his administration’s attempt to “restore the basic promise of America.”

The intent of Obamacare is clear, and the law “doesn’t need fixing”, President Obama told a news conference in Germany on Monday. “There is no reason why the existing exchanges should be overturned through a court case,” he insisted, just days before the Supreme Court is expected to rule on a case that could eliminate subsidies for people who got their insurance through the federal exchange. Obama, a former constitutional law professor, said laws should be interpreted based on their “intent”: “And under well-established statutory interpretation approaches that have been repeatedly employed, not just by liberal Democratic judges, but by...