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Health insurance premiums for 2014 are so low in many parts of Minnesota that some consumers aren't qualifying for tax credits through the state's new health insurance exchange. Access to tax credits has been widely cited as a key reason for shopping on MNsure -- the new government-run health insurance website -- so some consumers have been confused by the vanishing subsidies, April Todd-Malmlov, the MNsure executive director, said during a board meeting Wednesday in St. Paul. Paraphrasing a common question asked at MNsure's call center, Todd-Malmlov said: "I think there's something wrong with the system -- I'm supposed to...

Senate staffers were notified by the Disbursing Office on Tuesday that they will need to enter the D.C. health care exchange, regardless of their state of residency, and will lose their employer contribution if they do not enter the D.C. exchange, according to a memo obtained by CQ Roll Call. Some Washington, D.C.-based congressional staff retain their in-state residency (oftentimes to pay the lower tax rate in their home state) and all members have district staff outside Washington. The open enrollment in the D.C. exchange for most staffers who are losing their Federal Employee Health Benefits plans will be Nov....

I just found out that Obamacare's Federal Exchange code is all open source and can be copied for examination and use on your own machine at GitHub System Requirements: Linux, Unix, Windows or Mac OS X Ruby RubyGems Jekyll

Just hours after debuting online, the new marketplace for Obamacare has apparently crashed.Consumers are supposed to use Healthcare.gov as an outlet to sign up for coverage, but just after selecting the state where we wanted to enroll, an error message popped up citing heavy traffic from too many visitors. We tried to engage a customer service representative via the site's Live Chat feature, but after 15 minutes of waiting and no response, we gave up. We're not too fussed. Kinks are bound to happen this early in the site's roll out, and at least heavy traffic signals that consumers are eager to...

A Minnesota affiliate reports that MNSure, the state's Obamacare exchange, is down due to a glitch: Likewise, a Connecticut affiliate reports the state's Obamacare "storefront" will be closed for weeks: And in Oregon, the exchange there is delayed due to "glitches" and will be down for weeks:

As has been the case elsewhere around the country, the Obamacare exchange in Washington, D.C. will not be ready on October 1st. DC Health Link, the Obamacare exchange in the nation’s capital, announced Wednesday that the online exchange will not be able to make new Medicaid eligibility determinations. It will also not be calculating tax credits for private insurance “due to a high error rate discovered through extensive systems testing.” According to DC Health Link’s announcement, people seeking those services will be able to create an online account through the exchange, however their initial eligibility will be determined “off-line by...

The Obama administration has delayed yet another piece of the health care overhaul, pushing back online enrollment for small business owners on the new federal health insurance exchange, a Department of Health and Human Services source tells The Washington Post. On the federal exchange, which is scheduled to launch on Tuesday, small business owners will not be able to purchase coverage online until Nov. 1. Instead, for the first month, they will have to mail or fax their information to government officials to enroll on the federal exchange, which will serve individuals and business owners in the 34 states that...

Tennessee Sen. Lamar Alexander released his analysis of the report's portion on his state. He found that Obamacare will cost far more than what many of his constituents are paying today, some by as much as 190 percent. rom his release: — Today, a 27-year-old man in Memphis can buy a plan for as low as $41 a month. On the exchange, the lowest state average is $119 a month — a 190 percent increase. — Today, a 27-year-old woman in Nashville can also buy a plan for as low as $58 a month. On the exchange, the lowest-priced plan...

An employee for Minnesota's new online health insurance exchange accidentally released confidential information on hundreds of insurance agents. MNsure officials say the employee sent an email to an Apple Valley insurance broker's office Thursday that contained Social Security numbers, addresses and other private information of more than 2,400 insurance agents. An MNsure security manager called the insurance broker, Jim Koester, and had him delete the file from his computer hard drive. Koester tells the Star Tribune the incident raises questions about the security of MNsure client information. Users of the exchange will need to provide confidential information to a federal...

(Reuters) - Aetna Inc has decided not to sell insurance on New York's individual health insurance exchange, which is being created under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law, the fifth state where it has reversed course in recent weeks. The third-largest U.S. health insurer has said it is seeking to limit its exposure to the risks of providing health plans to America's uninsured, but did not give details about its decision to pull out of specific markets. "We believe it is critical that our plans not only be competitive, but also financially viable, in order to meet the long-term needs...

(Reuters) - Aetna Inc, the No. 3 U.S. health insurer, said on Thursday it has decided not to sell insurance on New York's individual health insurance exchange, part of the country's healthcare reform. New York is the fifth state where Aetna has pulled its application to sell the plans that go on sale on October 1 and into effect on January 1, 2014. It has also reversed course in Maryland, Ohio, Georgia, and Connecticut, where it is based.

Following the poor new homes sales report in the US and economic weakness in developing countries, we see gold and silver rising this morning. Gold: gold082313 Silver: silver082313 And the USD/EUR is plunging. usdeur666 And the USD/JPY is doing likewise. usdjpy082313 The 10 year US Treasury yield is down 8 basis points. ust10082313 Stay tuned!

Paul Bunyan seldom is thought of as an insurance salesman. But the Minnesota icon and his sidekick, Babe the Blue Ox, play lead roles in a new $9 million campaign to promote a state-operated health insurance exchange, where roughly 1 million residents will be encouraged to obtain coverage over the next several months. On Sunday, executives with the state's insurance marketplace, which is called MNsure, unveiled an awareness campaign that features the folklore characters suffering humorous mishaps while waterskiing, ice skating and chopping trees. The injuries are meant to lightly illustrate the campaign's tagline, which calls Minnesota the "Land of...

ST. PAUL, Minn.—Minnesota's health insurance exchange is seeking a $55 million federal grant to pay for its operations next year. The board of directors of MNsure met Wednesday to review the grant request. Five previous federal grants to Minnesota's exchange added up to $110 million. The $55 million request would cover salaries for about 166 full-time employees who would work on MNsure operations, and would also cover spending on technology, marketing, customer service, administration and other items. The director of MNsure says that by 2015, the exchange is expected to be able to cover its own operating costs through a...

Two of the three largest health insurers in Wisconsin — UnitedHealthcare and Humana — will not participate in the state’s online marketplace under the Affordable Care Act, but 13 insurers are considering selling to individuals and nine insurers have indicated an interest in selling to small businesses.

Perhaps you’ve heard the radio or TV commercials sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services urging seniors to report instances of Medicare fraud. There’s a number to call, along with cheerful suggestions. The intent here seems benign enough — saving taxpayer money by catching the dishonest. One might even be tempted to praise it, were it not for what the Obama administration is doing with the other hand — issuing an engraved invitation to commit fraud when signing up for the health-care exchanges. Obamacare is proving too unwieldy even for the greediest of big-government centralizers in the Obama...

Surprised by the recent waivers from the Obama administration on the Affordable Care Act? Get ready for more, writes Margot Sanger-Katz at National Journal, because the employer mandate is far from the only piece of ObamaCare that’s not ready for prime time. In fact, it might be easier to select the few components that might be ready for the implementation target date than to number those that won’t: If you’ve been reading all the Obamacare stories lately, you might get the impression that the administration has just realized it will not be able to implement the massive health reform as...

(Aetna will exit California...)The nation's largest health insurer, UnitedHealth Group Inc., is leaving California's individual health insurance market, the second major company to exit in advance of major changes under the Affordable Care Act. UnitedHealth said it had notified state regulators that it would leave the state's individual market at year-end and force about 8,000 customers to find new coverage. Last month, Aetna Inc., the nation's third-largest health insurer, made a similar move affecting about 50,000 existing policyholders. Both companies will keep a major presence in California, focusing instead on large and small employers.(Health Care Law comes to California)

NEW YORK (Reuters) - About 550,000 people in Oregon do not have health insurance, and Aaron Karjala is confident the state's new online insurance exchange will be able to accommodate them when enrollment under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform begins on October 1.What Karjala, the chief information officer at "Cover Oregon," does worry about, however, is what will happen if the entire population of Oregon - 3.9 million - logs on that day "just to check it out," he said. Or if millions of curious souls elsewhere, wondering if Oregon's insurance offerings are better than their states', log on, causing...

Millions of Californians who contact the state's new health exchange to buy insurance will be given the opportunity to register to vote, too, a move that some Republicans fear could benefit Democrats. Secretary of State Debra Bowen made California the first state to designate its health exchange as a voter registration agency Wednesday, but others are expected to follow suit, said Shannan Velayas, Bowen's spokeswoman. "This is about making sure that all eligible Californians are offered the chance to register to vote," Velayas said Thursday. A 1993 federal law requires states to designate their agencies and offices that provide public...