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Via Newsbusters, after yesterday’s unpleasantness and the Halbig “speak-o” fiasco of a few months ago, I see Democrats (plus independents in name only like King) have finally reached the “Jon who?” stage of their Gruber problem. This is the game we’re playing now, eh? KILMEADE: They just lied about a health plan to the American people, called the stupidity of the American voter and bragged about the lack of transparency. KING: This is one guy. I don’t know who this guy was. All I know is that it’s important for people to have health insurance. And if you guys are...

"Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage. Call it the stupidity of the American voter, or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical to getting the thing to pass." That was MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, one of the key architects of ObamaCare, explaining how ObamaCare was purposefully designed to obfuscate how it was financed, how the subsidies worked and other unpleasant features of the law. [snip] Gruber's comments, made at a 2013 conference but just now making the rounds on the Internet, are the polar opposite of what Democrats promised the public.

In a newly surfaced video, one of Obamacare’s architects admits a “lack of transparency” helped the Obama administration and congressional Democrats pass the Affordable Care Act. The conservative group American Commitment posted Jonathan Gruber’s remarks, reportedly from an Oct. 17, 2013, event, on YouTube. “Lack of transparency is a huge political advantage,” says the MIT economist who helped write Obamacare. “And basically, call it the stupidity of the American voter or whatever, but basically that was really, really critical for the thing to pass.”

On November 4, 2014, the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) announced that it intends to close a perceived “loophole” in health care reform. This so-called loophole allows employers to offer low cost health plans that don’t cover inpatient hospitalization services or physician services (or both). If that coverage were treated as “minimum value” coverage, then employers could avoid all pay-or-play penalties with low cost coverage and covered individuals would not be able to benefit from premium assistance or subsidies in the health insurance Marketplace. What does this IRS Notice Mean? Once this new rule is final, it means that Non-Hospital/Non-Physician Services...

We just finished enrolling our family in the healthcare plan provided by my wife's employer. The deductible is $3000 per individual and $6000 for family. Our oldest son, who works for a private company, has also been put on our plan because he could not afford to pay the health exchange prices nor his employer's healthcare plan. My wife was paying about $450 per month on the healthcare premiums to cover the family. Now, we are suddenly going to be paying $650 per month and there are NO choices - just one plan from which everyone can choose. It only...

The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear arguments against the availability of exchange subsidies under the Affordable Care Act. Today’s order from the Court granted review in King v. Burwell, one of several cases challenging IRS regulations extending tax-credit subsidies to the states with federal exchanges. Briefings will be submitted over the next few months, and a ruling is not expected until June.

Let’s start with the doctor/patient relationship—the disappearance of which has been lamented by many. The pertinent definition of “relationship” in the Oxford Dictionaries deems it: “The way in which two or more people or organizations regard and behave toward each other.” In one sense, every patient wants to be treated well by his physician, and in many cases, so-called “continuity of care” is most desirable. Likewise, the physician may wish to spend more time with a particular patient, but is forced by economic realities to rush the process. Perhaps, some of this search for the ideal doctor/patient relationship is driven...

More than 25,000 federal employees will lose their health plans next year as insurance providers drop out of the government’s coverage network, according to the Office of Personnel Management. Affected workers will have the option of switching to other plans within the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, but the number of disruptions will reach the highest level since more than 61,000 enrollees had to change plans in 2009. Insurance providers drop out of the federal workforce’s health program every year, so this year’s changes are nothing new. Companies generally leave the network because they have not attracted enough enrollees to...

Headline: Obama’s Health Law: Who Was Helped Most Writers: By KEVIN QUEALY and MARGOT SANGER-KATZ Dated: OCT. 29, 2014 Tickler: A new data set provides a clearer picture of which people gained health insurance under the Affordable Care Act. Excerpt: ... 10 million more people have insurance coverage this year... Now a large set of data ... The biggest winners from the law include... ... Overall change in uninsured Americans, 2013-14 ... Over all, about 10 million Americans who had no insurance in 2013 signed up for it this year,... ... several charts... People who live in states that... ......

On Monday, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention head Thomas Frieden announced a new policy on health care workers returning from Ebola-plagued West Africa. Parroting President Obama’s Saturday radio address, Frieden cautioned that Americans must be “guided by the science,” not fear. Sorry. The Obama administration’s halfway approach is based on political correctness, not science. And it is a gamble. According to Frieden, about five health care workers fly back from West Africa to the U.S. every day, landing at Chicago, Newark, Atlanta, New York’s JFK or Dulles outside of Washington, D.C. For months, the CDC did almost nothing to...

Health Reform: The New York Times on Monday featured a huge news package claiming that ObamaCare is delivering on all its main promises. But the Bible of the liberal press has badly misled its flock. 'After a year fully in place," the Times story begins, "the Affordable Care Act has largely succeeded in delivering on President Obama's main promises." So case closed, right? After all, a team of New York Times "reporters and data researchers" came to that conclusion. In a word, no. To claim success, the Times gets things wrong or ignores the law's most glaring failures.

The Department of Veterans Affairs is promoting an administrator who advised against publicly disclosing a deadly Legionnaires' outbreak at its Pittsburgh hospital system, the agency told Congress. David Cord, deputy director of VA Pittsburgh Healthcare System since June 2012, will become director of the Erie VA Medical Center within 60 days, the VA informed Congress. The VA disclosed the Legionnaires' outbreak that killed at least six and sickened at least 16 others on Nov. 16, 2012 — two days after Cord told a VA spokesman not to alert the public about it, according to an internal email from the spokesman...

The Star Tribune reported yesterday that the Minnesota Department of Commerce “asked” PreferredOne to lower insurance rates in the MNsure exchange last year. The July 2013 letter referenced in the story reveals the company lowered rates twice in response to Commerce “objections.” PreferredOne ultimately agreed to lower rates by 37 percent from its initial proposal, which resulted in the company offering the lowest rates in the nation. Governor Dayton’s administration celebrated these low rates throughout the year, all of which helped dial down the political heat from MNsure’s botched rollout. “Now,” according to the Star Tribune, “those subscribers face an...

The Obama administration is considering imposing a forced quarantine on healthcare workers who return to the United States from the Ebola hot zone of West Africa, after a New York doctor who treated patients there tested positive for the virus on Thursday. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention spokesman Tom Skinner told Reuters on Friday that a mandatory quarantine is one possible plan under discussion by officials from across the administration. 'There are a number of options being discussed pertaining to the monitoring and mobility of healthcare workers who are returning to the United States from affected countries,' Skinner said.

Connecticut placed six West Africans who recently arrived in the United States under quarantine for possible Ebola exposure, a move that comes as the United States starts new restrictions on those coming from the countries hardest hit by the deadly virus. The family of six West Africans, who arrived Saturday and were planning to live in the United States, will be watched for 21 days, Connecticut state health authorities said Thursday. Officials have yet to say where the family came from. ... Ebola fears have also touched one of the world's most reclusive countries, North Korea, which will bar entry...

Submitted by Brandon Smith of Alt-Market.com, One of the most dangerous philosophical contentions even amongst liberty movement activists is the conundrum of government force and prevention during times of imminent pandemic. All of us at one time or another have had this debate. If a legitimate viral threat existed and threatened to infect and kill millions of Americans, is it then acceptable for the government to step in, remove civil liberties, enforce quarantines, and stop people from spreading the disease? After all, during a viral event, the decisions of each individual can truly have a positive or negative effect on...

At least 4,877 people have died in the world's worst recorded outbreak of Ebola, and at least 9,936 cases of the disease had been recorded as of Oct. 19, the World Health Organization (WHO) said on Wednesday, but the true toll may be three times as much. The WHO has said real numbers of cases are believed to be much higher than reported: by a factor of 1.5 in Guinea, 2 in Sierra Leone and 2.5 in Liberia, while the death rate is thought to be about 70 percent of all cases. That would suggest a toll of almost 15,000.

I have spent a little time compiling links to threads about the Ebola outbreak in the interest of having all the links in one thread for future reference. Please add links to new threads and articles of interest as the situation develops. Thank You all for you participation.

Mayor Bill de Blasio is asking his health policy team to formulate a plan for how the administration can better reach immigrant communities and connect them to health care. Led by Lilliam Barrios-Paoli, the deputy mayor for health and human services, the new working group will submit a list of recommendations in the coming months, outlining a plan to better reach immigrants—both documented and undocumented—who are not eligible for traditional health care options like Medicaid and Medicare, nor insurance plans available through the Affordable Care Act.

The empirical evidence of an airborne Ebola Strain is overwhelming Hat Tip GWP - Patrick Sawyer was the American businessman, who contracted Ebola while working in Liberia, then collapsed after he got off a plane to Nigeria and died July 25. He was the first patient in Nigeria with the Ebola virus. The Nigerian authorities have refused to release the names of other passengers on the plane with Mr. Sawyer, or notify the media of their status.