Free Republic

A threat by the nation's largest health insurer to pull out of ObamaCare is a sign of the industry's growing angst about the viability of the federal exchanges, sources close to the industry say. UnitedHealthcare's warning sent new shockwaves across the healthcare sector after weeks of mounting anxiety among private insurers whose participation in the exchanges is critical to the viability of the president's signature law. In the last month alone, insurers have learned that the Obama administration has significantly lowered its expectations for new customers and will have far fewer federal dollars to help cushion insurer losses. "We've been...

The very short version: United HealthCare is the biggest health care insurance provider in the country (something like 70 million people, apparently). It is huge, it is influential, it is weighty. And UHC took a $425 million dollar haircut last year in the Obamacare exchanges, so now it’s thinking of stopping selling on the exchange by the end of next year. Note that UHC did not say that they would, merely that they might. They did this at a shareholders’ meeting, too; which suggests that a large part of that might have been due to UHC’s awareness that people were...

"We cannot sustain these losses," UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley said in an investor call Thursday morning. "We can't really subsidize a marketplace that doesn't appear at the moment to be sustaining itself." UnitedHealthcare, the U.S.'s largest health insurer, says that it is considering quitting Obamacare in 2017, just a month after the company said that it planned to expand its presence in the Affordable Care Act's online marketplace. The company said that it is lowering its earnings forecast for the year and expects to make $425 million less than previously estimated, according to Fortune. UnitedHealthcare is also scaling back marketing...

In a profit warning that sent its stock down as much as 7% Thursday, UnitedHealth Group Inc. said that not enough people are signing up under the exchanges set up by Obamacare and that it was considering withdrawing from them. But there was another factor behind the lowered outlook from the nation’s biggest health insurer: people signing up after the open-enrollment period that have higher claims. Or, less charitably—people are gaming Obamacare. In UnitedHealth’s UNH, -5.44% words: “We have identified higher levels of individuals coming in and out of the exchange system to use medical services.” This isn’t supposed to...

If you like your insurance carrier, you can keep your insurance carrier. The nation's largest provider of health insurance announced this morning that it may choose to stop offering individual coverage after 2016, and will "pull back on its marketing efforts" immediately in this market. If the losses continue and United pulls out of next year's exchanges, it will set up a very bad moment for ObamaCare -- and for Democrats just weeks before the election: UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) today reported revised expectations for 2015, reflecting a continuing deterioration in individual exchange-compliant product performance, and provided an initial outlook...

When Health Republic came on the New York health insurance scene in 2014 it made a huge splash. Flush with Obamacare cash they offered bargain basement rates which attracted customers away from many other established insurance companies. It was simply the picture of success for the President’s new Affordable Care Act and the people rejoiced. (Syracuse.com) Health Republic of New York made a big splash when it debuted in 2014 with rock-bottom health insurance prices that undercut its competitors across the state.Its premium rates were 30 percent below average in Onondaga County. The new company, backed with $265 million...

While wages have been stagnant over the past decade, the amount that workers pay for employer-sponsored health insurance has more than doubled. Average employees at mid-size and large companies paid $2,490 toward their premiums and $2,208 in out-of-pocket costs (including copayments and deductibles) last year, for a total cost of about $4,700, according to a new report from Aon. The data in the report combines both individual and family plans. In 2005, those employees' total healthcare costs were just $2,001. That translates to a 134 percent increase in employee's share of health care costs in 10 years. The rate of...

.....Susan L. Donegan was commissioner for Vermont's Division of Insurance in 2013 when she refused to issue a license to the proposed Vermont Health CO-OP.....Today, she looks like a prescient state official who likely saved thousands of Vermonters from buying their health insurance from a doomed insurer. That's because 13 of the 24 co-ops set up under Obamacare have collapsed,costing the federal treasury $1.3 billion. More than 800,000 co-op customers now find themselves without health insurance coverage and are scrambling to find new policies...Turns out that some of the biggest problems she identified two years ago in her state also...

<p>He made his comments Wednesday, following a September report by the VA’s Office of Inspector General that calculated more than 300,000 veterans died while waiting for treatment. Speaking to about 175 people at a VFW post, Cruz said that he believes every veteran should have a choice of where to seek medical treatment.</p>

Supporters of universal health care have gathered enough signatures to put on next year's ballot a plan to make Colorado the first state to opt out of the federal health law and replace it with taxpayer-funded coverage for all. Proponents submitted 158,831 qualified signatures, about 60,000 more than required to put the measure on the ballot, Secretary of State Wayne Williams said Monday. The question would make Colorado the first state to opt out of the federal Affordable Care Act and replace it with universal health care. The campaign is expected to face intense opposition and could make for a...

The just-started enrollment period for ObamaCare exchange plans in 2016 is likely to yield one of two dismal outcomes. In the first, enrollment soars as people sign up in droves for the cheapest plan available to avoid the individual mandate tax penalty, whose minimum bite will spike from $325 to $695. Although the law's strongest backers might celebrate this, it's not clear why: Millions of modest-income individuals who opt for bronze would get policies with deductibles as high as $6,850. Yet the Obama administration's own analysis reveals that among those still uninsured, 80% have less than $1,000 in savings. Thus,...

German hospitals are increasing security to protect doctors and nurses from violent attacks by migrants who are unhappy with the medical treatment they are receiving. Critics are warning that German taxpayers will end up paying billions of euros to provide healthcare for a never-ending wave of asylum seekers. This is in addition to the billions of euros already being spent to provide newcomers with food, clothing and shelter. In addition to the massive economic and social costs, as well as the burden of increased crime, including a rape epidemic, Germans are now facing the risk of being exposed to exotic...

Government health officials worked diligently this year to improve consumer experience on Healthcare.gov and make sure people know what they are getting for their money when they pick health insurance. But one thing is out of the government's control: whether doctors and hospitals will agree to accept patients who buy these plans. Surveys and data are limited, so it's difficult to gauge the extent of the issue, but anecdotal evidence from patients and providers show it is a struggle. Some newly insured patients wonder whether it's worth paying for coverage they can't actually use. Even when they do find a...

If you loathe Obamacare, you’re going to hate what the Democrats have planned next. Their imminent assault on health care will go far beyond the quasi-socialized medicine of Obamacare. Mrs. Clinton is, of course, the grandmother of socialized medicine. She was pushing for it more than 20 years ago, when Mr. Sanders was an obscure local Vermont pol. And yet, she’s struggling match Mr. Sanders on the issue. Another irony: A single-payer system was tried — and went down in spectacular flames — in Mr. Sanders’ home state. That, of course, is immaterial to committed leftists, for whom ideological purity...

Last month, Colorado HealthOP, the state's largest non-profit health insurer, was removed from Colorado's Obamacare exchange, Connect for Health Colorado, because massive ongoing losses have rendered it financially unstable. As of next year, the co-op's 83,000 members will have to find new health coverage, while taxpayers are on the hook for more than $70 million in startup loans. The Denver Post reported earlier this year that Colorado HealthOP, which captured roughly 40 percent of all health insurance enrollments though the state exchange and was its largest carrier, garnered market share with an "aggressive price cut ... but analysts warn the...

Regardless of whether there is a President Cruz or a President Rubio in January 2017, regardless of the existence or size of a Republican majority in Congress, the so-called Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) has failed. The grand vision of an efficient pseudo-market in health insurance under enlightened federal management — the heart of Obamacare — is not coming to pass. Obamacare, meaning the operating model that undergirded the law that Congress passed and President Barack Obama signed with great fanfare — is dead, and it will not be revived. What remains is fitful chaos. A brief...

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump made a new pitch Saturday to veterans, promising them that he'll take on the "corrupt" and incompetent" Department of Veterans Affairs. Trump told a crowd of supporters in front of the U.S.S. Wisconsin in Norfolk, Va., that the department is mismanaged and "not efficient." "We're going to replace them with more effective ones to get our veterans working, which is what they want to do," Trump said. "We're going to transform the VA to meet the needs of the current veterans. Exposing and addressing the VA's inefficiencies and shortcomings will be rewarded, not punished. We're...

Tensions are flaring in the House over a sweeping mental health reform bill that is slated to move forward next week. The legislation from Rep. Tim Murphy (R-Pa.), billed as the Republican response to the Newtown elementary school shooting in 2012, is finally set to get committee consideration on Wednesday at a markup in the Energy and Commerce Committee. But Democrats on the committee are objecting to several provisions in the bill, and say what was once cast as a bipartisan negotiation has been anything but. While the committee could advance the bill along party lines, a bipartisan vote would...

Gannett, so link only: http://www.pressconnects.com/story/news/local/new-york/2015/10/29/dead-entolled-health-exchange/74807200/

It’s really dangerous, for patients anyway, when policy wonks decide what type of health care is necessary. “In popular understanding, rising health-care spending is often viewed as an inevitable consequence of advances in medical technology, increasing longevity, expanded access, and other mostly positive factors,” Johns Hopkins University lecturer Phillip Longman writes the Summer 2015 issue of The Family in American, a journal of public policy. “Many people also point to profiteering by health insurers, or to needless administrative costs, or to patients demanding treatments they do not need.” “Yet while all these factors play a role in driving up health-care...