Free Republic

The nation’s biggest health insurer has decided to stop selling coverage on public insurance exchanges in two states for next year, but consumers shouldn’t take this as an early warning that a mass exodus is brewing from a key element of the Affordable Care Act’s coverage expansion.Analysts say these exchanges may be improving for insurers after a difficult start. However, they also expect insurers to continue leaving some unprofitable markets as the coverage expansion heads toward its fourth year. UnitedHealth Group Inc. said it will not sell coverage on exchanges in Arkansas and Georgia for 2017, and it is continuing...

When a patient moves from one health system to another, there’s no guarantee his or her electronic medical records are compatible with the new system’s. The Department of Health and Human Services wants to change that, with a number of efforts aimed at making electronic health record technology more “interoperable.” But how does a health system measure “interoperability,” and how does the department know if it’s successful? HHS doesn’t know the answer -- and it’s looking to the public for help. In a new request for information, HHS is asking for input on metrics that could measure interoperability. The eventual...

Health Reform: ObamaCare has been taking lots of hits lately, but a new report from the Congressional Budget Office is a gut punch. It shows that ObamaCare’s outlook has worsened considerably as fewer people sign up and costs rise more than expected.

When President Obama stages a photo op to publicize signing a measure he claims will “help” American workers, you can be almost certain that “unintended consequences” will outweigh any intended benefits. Lacking even an elementary understanding of how a market economy works, he only makes things worse. In an effort to avoid the Obamacare mandate, many companies reduced workers to fewer than 30 hours per week. This reduction of employees to part-time status continues to cause endless difficulties. Employees have fewer hours and less income than they want, and employers have a harder time staffing their companies. But the Obama...

In the latest report to undercut President Obama’s “If you like your health care plan, you can keep it” promise, the Congressional Budget Office projects millions of workers will leave employer-sponsored health plans over the next decade because of ObamaCare. Some will opt to go on Medicaid, but others will be kicked off their company plans by employers who decide not to offer coverage anymore, according to a new CBO report titled, “Federal Subsidies for Health Insurance Coverage for People Under Age 65: 2016 to 2026.” “As a result of the ACA, between 4 million and 9 million fewer people...

Three years ago, on the eve of Obamacare’s implementation, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that President Obama's centerpiece legislation would result in an average of 201 million people having private health insurance in any given month of 2016. Now that 2016 is here, the CBO says that just 177 million people, on average, will have private health insurance in any given month of this year—a shortfall of 24 million people. Indeed, based on the CBO's own numbers, it seems possible that Obamacare has actually reduced the number of people with private health insurance. In 2013, the CBO projected that,...

The slow-motion implosion of Obamacare continues with the newest report from the Congressional Budget Office foreseeing up to 9 million Americans losing their employer-based insurance coverage over the next decade because of spiking premiums. The Washington Times: Obamacare insurance premiums will leap 6 percent a year over the next decade, and companies will drop millions of employees from their health plans as insurers and employers calibrate their offerings for the new marketplace, the Congressional Budget Office said Thursday. The health law will continue to steadily grow in both cost and coverage, working toward President Obama’s goal of expanding those with...

A video shows Chelsea Clinton blasting the "crushing costs" of President Barack Obama's signature legislation. In the video, Chelsea Clinton tells a crowd that her mother, Hillary Clinton, is open to using executive action to reduce "crushing costs" of Obamacare. "...cap on out of pocket expenses. This was part of my mom's original plan back in '93 and '94, as well as premium costs. We can either do that directly or through tax credits. And, kind of figuring out whether she could do that through executive action, or she would need to do that through tax credits working with Congress....

In a series of events this week, the Obama administration will look beyond the law’s central issues of access and affordability and explore the “next chapter” of healthcare reform. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell plans to “broaden the conversation” about the 2010 law to highlight system-wide reforms to lower costs and improve quality, a senior administration official told The Hill. “It’s important to lay out the next chapter in the Affordable Care Act — building a healthcare system that puts patients at the center and works better for all Americans,” the official said. The initiatives —...

Sometimes it's hard to be what you want to be when people only know you for what you used to be. This is the challenge facing Marcelas Owens, who just turned 17. For much of life, people have only known Marcelas as the "Obamacare kid." He was the chubby 11-year-old African-American boy who stood next to President Barack Obama as he signed Obamacare into law at a White House ceremony on March 23, 2010. He was the miniature health care activist in the black vest dwarfed by powerful lawmakers in a famous photo of that moment. He was a modern-day...

More free stuff for people who violate our immigration laws! Hillary Clinton and her daughter have teed up a ball for the Republican nominee, whether Trump or Cruz, to hit 400 yards down the fairway. Just over a week ago, Hillary reversed her former position and declared: “I will not deport children,” she said after moderator Jorge Ramos pressed her multiple times on the issue. “I would not deport children. I do not want to deport family members either, Jorge.” So any family that can ante-up plane fare for the kids and one or more parent to JFK, Miami, Los...

"Where is my 1095-A? This is what it must be like dealing with a government agency in a third world country." That was the lament on Twitter of just one poor citizen this week trying to get his tax records in order. Nationwide, hard-working Americans are struggling to meet the April 18 IRS filing deadline. Standing in the way: the bumbling Obamacare bureaucracy. In Minnesota, an estimated 18,000 people who were on health insurance plans last year offered through MNsure, the state Obamacare health insurance exchange, still haven't received their 1095-A form. It's the "health insurance marketplace statement" required to...

Who gets paid first when an ObamaCare co-op goes belly up: the doctors and hospitals that cared for co-op enrollees or the federal government, which caused the co-op mess in the first place? If the Obama administration has it way, Uncle Sam will be at the head of the line to recoup losses, quite possibly leaving healthcare providers in the lurch, reported the Daily Caller.

SAN ANTONIO — When Chris Doyle learned that his health insurance deductible would climb to $10,000 last year, he and his wife, both evangelical Christians, “spent a couple weeks just praying,” he said. Then they opted out of insurance altogether, joining something called a health care sharing ministry, which requires members to help cover one another’s major medical costs as they come up. While such nonprofit ministries have been around for decades, interest in them has grown since the Affordable Care Act passed in 2010, largely because the law exempts members from the requirement to have health insurance or pay...

If you like your doctor, HHS will create a rating system to show you that your doctor isn’t covered under the new, narrower network. That’s what the President promised us, right? HHS is moving to make it easier for consumers to find out the size of the network of doctors and hospitals they are joining when they sign up for a health plan on the Obamacare exchange. The New York Times reported on the changes being made Sunday: The Obama administration, responding to consumer complaints, says it will begin rating health insurance plans based on how many doctors and hospitals...

Health Care: The insurance industry must be kicking itself for backing ObamaCare. Several have since posted big losses and it looks like Blue Cross Blue Shield got the losing end of the stick, too.

An official with the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services told lawmakers last week that eight of the 11 remaining Obamacare co-ops have been selected for "corrective action plans" and "enhanced oversight." Twenty-three co-ops were created under the president's health care overhaul, and so far more than half have collapsed and are no longer selling plans in the marketplace. The 12 co-ops that went out of business operated in Arizona, Michigan, Utah, Kentucky, New York, Nevada, Louisiana, Oregon, Colorado, Tennessee, South Carolina and a co-op serving Iowa and Nebraska. The agency's chief operating officer, Dr. Mandy Cohen, told the House...

Political uncertainty isn't the only threat to the Affordable Care Act's future. Cracks also are spreading through a major pillar supporting the law. Health insurance exchanges created to help millions of people find coverage are turning into money-losing ventures for many insurers. The nation's largest, UnitedHealth Group Inc., could lose as much as $475 million on its exchange business this year and may not participate in 2017. Another major insurer, Aetna, has questioned the viability of the exchanges. And a dozen nonprofit insurance cooperatives created by the law have already closed, forcing around 750,000 people to find new plans. More...

Cover Oregon was the health insurance marketplace that the state set up pursuant to Obamacare for citizens to shop online for health care.  It is now defunct.  Cover Oregon is a case study in government incompentence and corruption.The $300 million the state got from Washington to build its exchange remains up in smoke. The state continues to pursue a lawsuit against its vendor, mostly, it seems, to drive up billables for a Portland law firm connected to John Kitzhaber, the former governor forced from office as the exchange was collapsing. About 170,000 people tried to sign up for Cover Oregon...

Minuteman Health has drawn down $100 million in federal loans in anticipation of continued losses from the Affordable Care Act. The Massachusetts co-op insurer, which also operates in New Hampshire, will report the draw down and a second-consecutive year of operating losses as part of its fiscal 2015 financials. Minuteman officials said the borrowings are needed to offset certain components of Obamacare, which financially punish insurers for doing the very things the federal law was intended to address: to provide affordable health insurance to previously uncovered segments of the population. What ObamaCare's architects didn't anticipate, and what local insurers are...