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WASHINGTON – Health insurance premiums in Virginia’s individual marketplace are set to rise as high as 265 percent in this new year. According to the Virginia State Corporation Commission’s Affordable Care Act filing data, the maximum allowable premium hike for Optima Health Plan customers is 265.5 percent, which represents the largest increases in the Virginia individual market next year. Some Cigna Health and Life Insurance Company health plans on the individual market are set to rise 168.6 percent in 2018.

The U.S. Department of Labor on Thursday unveiled new rules that would allow small businesses and entrepreneurs to join together to form their own health insurance pools. The rules, which will be open to a 60 day public comment period, are a direct response to President Donald Trump's executive order on health care, which would expand health associations and allow people participating in the groups to buy insurance that does not meet all of the coverage requirements under the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare. "Under the proposal, small businesses and sole proprietors would have more freedom to band...

President Trump on Wednesday claimed the Republican tax plan “essentially” repeals former President Obama’s signature health-care law. “When the individual mandate is being repealed, that means ObamaCare is being repealed,” Trump said during a Cabinet meeting at the White House. “We have essentially repealed ObamaCare and we will come up with something much better.” The GOP tax overhaul gets rid of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, which requires almost all Americans to purchase health insurance or pay a fine. Trump said he refrained from playing up that measure because he was worried about how the news media would report...

The Senate this week is expected to vote on a tax bill that includes a controversial provision to repeal Obamacare’s tax penalty on the uninsured. Democrats and some conservative policy analysts fret that if Congress scuttles the so-called individual mandate, insurance premiums will rise. The reverse may be closer to the truth: Premiums for Obamacare policies next year will be so high that millions will be exempt from the tax penalty whether Congress repeals it or not. Even the skimpiest coverage now costs so much that many uninsured people with six-figure incomes will be exempt. The individual mandate is repealing...

President Trump's decision to cut off Obamacare payments to insurers has driven up the number of zero-cost plans being sold to customers for 2018. The move to stop the cost-sharing reduction subsidies has led to higher tax credits for low-income customers, which in turn has led to an increase in the number of cheap Obamacare plans available for no premium but high deductibles. The eligibility for a zero-cost plan varies depending on where an enrollee lives and how much he or she makes. For instance, 2,436 counties in the U.S. offer free bronze plans — the cheapest of Obamacare’s four...

We hear about this surge in ObamaCare enrollments. The San Francisco Chronicle is even asserting that "the public embrace of the Affordable Care Act amounts to a stark rejection of administration and Republican policy". Maybe we can call it something like the revenge of the AHA. The editorial spends a lot of time bashing Trump but it does not say anything about the economic state of the people signing up. In other words, are these AHA policyholders going to pay their own premiums or will they be subsidized in some fashion? We don't know but the answer matters a lot....

ObamaCare has caused hard-to-quantify economic damage, but some of the law’s regulations may be lethal—literally. Consider a Medicare hospital payment initiative, which a new study in the Journal of the American Medical Association Cardiology suggests may have contributed to an increase in deaths. Readers are likely familiar with ObamaCare’s mandate and subsidies to impel individuals to obtain health insurance. But the law also included monetary incentives and penalties aimed at inducing changes in health-care delivery and spending reductions. The government rolled out these payment models nationally without careful study, and they are having unintended side effects. A case in point...

Earlier today I called to make an appointment (routine check-up), at one of the Family Medicine offices of Reading Hospital/Tower Health, in Reading, PA. I was a patient a few years ago, but because it's been that long, I'm considered a new patient. I was just about floored when they said that ALL of their family medicine offices/doctors in all locations are booked out until JANUARY 2018, for new patients! This happens often with specialists, where you have to wait weeks or even months for an appointment. In fact I'm in a 2-month wait to see a specialist in mid-December....

Senate Republican leaders are adding a provision to their tax bill that would repeal the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate, a major change as they now try to accomplish two of their top domestic priorities in a single piece of legislation. “We’re optimistic that inserting the individual mandate repeal would be helpful” to the tax effort, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said Tuesday after meeting with party members during a closed-door lunch. President Trump and many GOP lawmakers have supported using the tax bill to repeal the mandate, a part of the health care law that creates penalties for...

WASHINGTON — Barack Obama may not be running for anything these days, but his signature health care law was a big winner in Tuesday’s elections, as voters rebelled against Republican lawmakers who have blocked Obamacare's Medicaid expansion. Democrats are hopeful their victories are a harbinger of further gains as they look to capitalize on the law's rising popularity in polls — and repeal legislation's deep unpopularity — with more ballot initiatives, legislative efforts and campaign messages. In Maine, voters passed a ballot initiative that would expand Medicaid to an estimated 70,000 residents by a margin of 18 points, 59-to-41, doing...

According to a report from the Washington Examiner, President Donald Trump will prepare an executive order that will unravel Obamacare’s individual mandate. A Republican senator told the Examiner that the executive order resides at the Office of Management and Budget waiting for final approval. President Trump reportedly delayed the executive order after Sen. Tom Cotton (R-AR) pushed to include a repeal of the individual mandate in the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act. A White House official pushed back on the Senators’ claims, saying that the Trump administration’s position remains that Congress should resolve the issue of repealing Obamacare. The White...

I am very positive, and if Trump were not president, I'd be livid...I should not be surprised, but still I am. I have an Anthem $11,500 deductible policy for my family of 4. It is going up Jan 1 from $514 to $605, or roughly 20%. I am pissed, of course. I hope this thread drives good discussion. I believe under Trump in 2018 we'll see some improvement and competition...am I correct that the increases are due to profit shortfalls the obama-partnering healthcare execs are hedging and covering their losses? Ant thoughts out there from those more plugged in this...

The electorate isn’t buying the “Trump broke it” propaganda.For a year, the Democrats and the legacy media have waged a relentless propaganda campaign calculated to convince the public that Obamacare’s myriad failures — from skyrocketing premiums to stagnant enrollment — are the result of sabotage by President Trump and congressional Republicans. This headline from the Hill is typical: “Many states blame Trump, GOP for Obamacare premium increases.” It seems, however, that “the stupidity of the American voter” has been greatly exaggerated. A new survey shows that more than two-thirds of registered voters believe former President Obama and the Democrats are...

A federal judge in California on Wednesday denied a request from 19 attorneys general across the country to force the Trump administration to resume funding of cost-sharing payments under the Affordable Care Act. The ruling leaves intact President Trump’s decision earlier this month to immediately end the payments that reimburse insurers for discounts the law requires them to give lower-income customers with health plans through ACA marketplaces. The attorneys general, from 18 states and the District, were seeking a judicial order that would have maintained the funding. In his decision, Judge Vince Chhabria of the U.S. District Court for the...

Democrats and some Republicans in Congress are pushing for a $10 billion a year payout to insurance companies that sell Obamacare plans. President Trump calls it "bailing out" the insurance industry. Truer words were never spoken. The politicians backing this sweetheart deal claim it will protect consumers. Don't fall for it. The money will go straight to the bottom lines of insurers -- who enjoy tremendous clout in Washington, D.C., thanks to over $85 million in campaign contributions and over $150 million spent on lobbying every year. The deal's authors, Sen. Lamar Alexander, R. Tenn., and Sen. Patty Murray, D....

Why don’t the stories say: “President Trump Faithfully Executes Affordable Care Act”? In report after sky-is-falling report, the journalism wing of the media-Democrat complex castigates the president over his decision to — as the New York Times put it — “scrap subsidies to health insurance companies that help pay out of pocket costs of low-income people.” These subsidy payments are “critical” to sustaining the “Affordable Care Act.” Without them, the Grey Lady frets, “President Barack Obama’s signature domestic achievement” could “unravel.” To add insult to injury, the paper implies that Trump’s “determination to dismantle [Obamacare] on his own” is...

POTUS: "Obamacare is finished, it's dead, it's gone... There is no such thing as Obamacare anymore." https://twitter.com/FoxBusiness/status/919974555342516226

Key Republican members of Congress want to restore the ObamaCare payments, known as cost-sharing reductions (CSRs), that President Trump is ending, fearing the impact his move will have on the individual insurance market and their constituents. But there are obstacles ahead. Still, even if Democrats grant concessions, there’s no guarantee a health-care deal can pass Congress. Conservatives warn the payments to insurers are corporate “bailouts,” a message echoed by Trump on Friday. “The Democrats ObamaCare is imploding. Massive subsidy payments to their pet insurance companies has stopped,” Trump tweeted. Trump warned Congress during the months-long debate over legislation to repeal...

President Donald Trump’s decision to end a provision of the Affordable Care Act that was benefiting roughly 6 million Americans helps fulfill a campaign promise, but it also risks harming some of the very people who helped him win the presidency. Nearly 70 percent of those benefiting from the so-called cost-sharing subsidies live in states Trump won last November, according to an analysis by The Associated Press.The subsidies are paid to insurers by the federal government to help lower consumers’ deductibles and co-pays. People who benefit will continue receiving the discounts because insurers are obligated by law to provide them....

Cue the funeral bagpipes. My fourth health insurance plan is dead. Two weeks ago, my husband and I received yet another cancellation notice for our private, individual health insurance coverage. It's our fourth Obamacare-induced obituary in four years. Our first death notice, from Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield, arrived in the fall of 2013. The insurer informed us that because of "changes from health care reform (also called the Affordable Care Act or ACA)," our plan no longer met the federal government's requirements. Never mind our needs and desires as consumers who were quite satisfied with a high-deductible PPO...