Free Republic

Louisiana and a national left-leaning political group may be headed to court over a Baton Rouge area billboard that criticizes Gov. Bobby Jindal. Lt. Gov. Jay Dardenne sent a cease-and-desist order to MoveOn on Thursday, asking the advocacy organization to take down a billboard along Interstate 10 that parodies Louisiana’s “Pick your Passion” tourism slogan. The billboard, which mentions Jindal by name, is critical of the governor and legislators’ decision not to expand the state Medicaid program under federal health care reform. “LOU!SIANA Pick your passion! But hope you don’t love your health. Gov. Jindal’s denying Medicaid to 242,000 people,”...

Hillary Clinton showed more signs of flexibility Wednesday on how Obamacare is implemented, but she insisted the law is too important to “turn the clock back.” In a question-and-answer session following a lecture at UCLA, Clinton suggested she’s open to different ways of achieving the health law’s goals. She praised Arkansas — the state where she and her husband rose to political fame — for carrying out a new approach to expanding Medicaid coverage, by using the federal money to buy private health insurance for more than 100,000 low-income residents. Clinton called the move, spearheaded by Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe...

A northern-Michigan hospital is cutting 43 positions in part because of costs related to the Affordable Care Act, its CEO says. David Zechman of McLaren Northern Michigan told a local television station the layoffs were “something that we had no choice in doing.” Zechman cited the changes to Medicaid and Medicare under the health-care law that cut reimbursement rates for the hospital’s services. “We still have the same costs of taking care of patients, but it’s hard to keep doing the same things you’re doing if you’re paid less for the same amount of costs and services you provide —...

Statement from RPV Chairman Pat Mullins: FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Contact: Garren Shipley (540) 686-1138 Statement of RPV Chairman Pat Mullins on Delegate-elect Rob Bloxom's Win RPV Chairman Pat Mullins gave the following statement: "Let me be among the first to congratulate Delegate-elect Rob Bloxom on his overwhelming win tonight in House District 100. Rob is going to make a great addition to Speaker Howell's growing caucus, and I look forward to working with him to advance our shared conservative values in the General Assembly." "But tonight's win is about so much more than just who holds this House of Delegates...

I could have sworn Obama promised this wouldn’t happen. Via Weasel Zippers, the LA Times writes: A new report shows that as many as 125,000 young California immigrants may qualify for an expansion of Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. The Affordable Care Act bars insurance subsidies and enrollment in the Medicaid expansion for undocumented immigrants, but a wrinkle in California rules does offer coverage for those with “deferred action status.� The Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was created by President Obama in 2012 to grant immigrants who came to the country illegally as children — sometimes called Dreamers —...

Rep. Joe Wilson was right. The South Carolina Congressman screamed, “You lie!” when Barack Obama told Americans the Affordable Care Act would not cover abortions or illegal immigrants. [video] Now we know – Obamacare covers illegal immigrants. 125,000 illegal immigrants will be eligible for free healthcare under Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid expansion. The LA Times reported: A new report shows that as many as 125,000 young California immigrants may qualify for an expansion of Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. The Affordable Care Act bars insurance subsidies and enrollment in the Medicaid expansion for undocumented immigrants, but a wrinkle in California rules...

The advent of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has created a number of problems for our state that did not exist prior to that legislation, in addition to exacerbating most, if not all of the existing issues faced by Nebraskans. We long ago decided as a society to care for those who could not care for themselves. This deference to the needs of the vulnerable is a hallmark of our social contract and has been a driver of public policy for more than a century. It is the foundation of our entire social services system. For more than a century...

It’s not the first time that the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler has dropped a bunch of Pinocchios on claims from Democrats on Medicaid expansion, and it looks like it won’t be the last, either. Kessler even gave himself three Pinocchios a month ago for initially buying the White House spin on the Medicaid numbers. Today, he gives Barack Obama the maximum four Pinocchios for claiming that ObamaCare has resulted in seven million enrollments in the federal program for low-income Americans: “We’ve got close to 7 million Americans who have access to health care for the first time because of Medicaid...

Imagine going to the dentist for a free regular checkup, and getting a free $25 gift card in return. It’s happening right here in Pennsylvania, and taxpayers are paying for all of it. Every year, Pennsylvania spends $20 billion to provide medical care to low-income and disabled residents. But one of the biggest problems the state has is getting people to use those medical services for preventative care. Now a new program designed to address that problem has some people outraged. "I am upset." Michelle Tonkin is seeing red thanks to a Walmart gift card, which she recently got in...

A plan to provide undocumented immigrants in California access to subsidized health care has been spelled out in Senate Bill 1005 by Sen. Ricardo Lara, a Democrat from Bell Gardens. Undocumented immigrants are excluded from the federal Affordable Care Act that is offering legal residents the ability to purchase health insurance through government-run marketplaces. Lara’s bill would create two avenues for Californians who are in the country illegally to seek health care. The state would expand Medi-Cal to include undocumented immigrants whose incomes are under 138 percent of the poverty level – about $32,000 a year for a family of...

Last week I testified before the House Oversight committee on the “risk corridors” in the (ObamaCare) exchanges. Republicans claim that this is a device to bail out the insurance companies. Democrats, in the unusual position of defending the insurance companies, actually claimed that the government was going to make a “profit” because of it. I was in the uncomfortable position of not agreeing completely with either side. The Affordable Care Act creates a new health insurance marketplace (the exchange). But because of the great uncertainty about what buyers will enter the market and who will buy what product, the law...

The anonymous Obamacare expert, who provided us a year ago with the most complete account of Obamacare available, http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/02/03/obamacare-a-primer/ has returned with an explanation of estate recovery. Obamacare herds the poor into Medicaid which requires some enrollees to forfeit homes and other assets they might have to the state to cover the cost of their medical care. The research article below is meticulous and demonstrates that Obamacare was not enacted to serve the people. Obamacare: The Final Payment Raiding the assets of low-income and poor Americans Since writing “Obamacare: Devils in the Details” posted on this site on February 3,...

One thing the ACA didn't change was Medicaid's estate recovery rule. Under a law enacted in 1993, states are required to seek recovery from the estates of deceased enrollees for the costs of long-term care, such as nursing-home care. The recovery rule applied to those who received that care when they were 55 and older, or who were permanently institutionalized at any age. Medicaid eligibility for the expanded programs is based on income alone, which means there might be some new members with low incomes but sizable illiquid estates, such as homes worth hundreds of thousands of dollars. The prospect...

Republican governors scored easy political points by rejecting President Barack Obama’s plan to enroll more poor people in government health insurance. Now Republican leaders in Georgia and Mississippi may be bailing out hospitals that will lose funding they would have gotten from Obama’s health care law. South Carolina’s leaders increased payments to some hospitals in a push to improve rural health, though the extra money likely placated hospital officials who might otherwise have pressured Republicans to adopt the Democratic plan. The basic problem is simple: Obama’s overhaul is not being implemented as was planned. Its designers assumed that very few...

Congratulations! You have successfully signed up for a truly excellent plan on the Covered California website! It's a really, really great plan. Really. Now, good look finding a doctor who will treat you. Los Angeles Times: After overcoming website glitches and long waits to get Obamacare, some patients are now running into frustrating new roadblocks at the doctor's office.A month into the most sweeping changes to healthcare in half a century, people are having trouble finding doctors at all, getting faulty information on which ones are covered and receiving little help from insurers swamped by new business.Experts have warned...

Missouri’s Medicaid program expected to see an uptick in enrollment with the rollout of HealthCare.gov because outreach efforts would attract more people – particularly children – who were already eligible. But the state hasn’t added any of them to the Medicaid rolls. Rather, the number of Missourians on Medicaid has actually decreased by about 14,000 since the marketplace launched on Oct. 1. The state says application data forwarded by the online exchange is fraught with errors and duplication. “We’re in the process of sorting it out,” said Brian Kinkade, acting director of the social services department. As for declining Medicaid...

Families shopping for health insurance through the new federal marketplace are running into trouble getting everyone covered when children are eligible for Medicaid but their parents are not. Children who qualify for Medicaid, the safety-net program for the poor and disabled, can’t be included on subsidized family plans purchased through the federal marketplace, a fact that is taking many parents by surprise and leaving some kids stuck without coverage.

This was not in the fine print of the Affordable Care Act (that no one read), and there was nothing in it that changed the existing law from 1993. The ACA however, did expand the number of people who are eligible for Medicaid, so now there are more people from the ages of 55 to 65 whose estates could be on the hook for Medicaid expenses after the beneficiary dies. This sounds like a cash grab to me. Many states have not changed the law to limit the amount of expenses the government can claim are owed for Medicaid, but...

Every day the scorecards went up, where they could be seen by all of the hospital’s emergency room doctors. Physicians hitting the target to admit at least half of the patients over 65 years old who entered the emergency department were color-coded green. The names of doctors who were close were yellow. Failing physicians were red. The scorecards, according to one whistle-blower lawsuit, were just one of the many ways that Health Management Associates, a for-profit hospital chain based in Naples, Fla., kept tabs on an internal strategy that regulators and others say was intended to increase admissions, regardless of...

What are the major differences between Medicaid, Medicare? Which covers more? Since Obamacare thrusts so many into Medicaid, and has raised income limits, can a retiree chose Medicaid over Medicare? Can I assume a person who retires early (at 62) and can't get Medicare until 66, can get Medicaid?

Labor Law: The Supreme Court heard oral arguments Tuesday in a case that will determine if a Medicaid recipient caring for her child is a state worker required to turn part of her meager resources over to union bosses. Illinois resident Pam Harris is a 55-year-old mom earning less than the minimum wage who cares for her son Josh Harris, 25. He has Rubinstein-Taybi syndrome, a muscular degenerative disease, compounded by physical disabilities and mental illness. Josh and his family qualify for an Illinois home-based support-services program that lets disabled adults live at home. He gets $721 each month from...

On Oct. 1, 2012 the Obama administration started awarding bonus points to hospitals that spend the least on elderly patients. It will result in fewer knee replacements, hip replacements, angioplasty, bypass surgery and cataract operations. These are the five procedures that have transformed aging for older Americans. They used to languish in wheelchairs and nursing homes due to arthritis, cataracts and heart disease. Now they lead active lives. But the Obama administration is undoing that progress. By cutting $716 billion from future Medicare funding over the next decade and rewarding the hospitals that spend the least on seniors, the Obama...

As healthcare reform occurs throughout the nation, Virginians voice their opposition to Medicaid expansion. Funding Limitations The promised levels of Federal funding for Medicaid expansion cannot be fulfilled. The evidence is mounting. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, recently stated that funds will not be available for Medicaid expansion. Medicaid ExpansionThe funding streams for expansion have been greatly impacted by the disastrous roll-out of the ACA. The federal government has recently refused to pay what they promised to Indian tribes for medical services. Health insurance companies are guaranteed a bailout because not enough young people are singing up...

The GOP has made opposition to ObamaCare a central pillar of its 2014 campaign strategy. And even though the health care law has begun to turn around, that may not be such a bad idea given lingering public skepticism over the law. However, there is one crucial piece of ObamaCare that may well become a big winner for Democrats by the end of the year: The dramatic expansion of Medicaid. Unlike the overall law, the expansion of Medicaid is actually quite popular with voters of all political stripes. Even in the Deep South, more than six in ten support expanding...

As many as 383 Medicaid enrollees in Maryland received welcome packets in the mail this month that contained the names and birth dates of strangers, health officials announced Sunday evening. They blamed the mix-up on a “programming error” caused by the chief IT contractor hired to build a health-insurance marketplace for the state. Officials at the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene said they learned of the problem Friday after a customer contacted a Medicaid enrollment broker and reported receiving the wrong packet in the mail. The enrollment packets are automatically assembled by pulling names, addresses and other information...

Look closely at this tweet by the @BarackObama account, maintained by the pro-Obama group Organizing for America. The 6 million figure comes from combining a figure of 2.1 million for people selecting a plan via state and federal exchanges, through December, and 3.9 million for Medicaid, through November. Thus the claim that “6 million Americans have already signed up for coverage thanks to health reform.” There is much less to the Medicaid figure than meets the eye. (The exchange figure has been updated recently, to 2.2 million, but not the Medicaid figure.) Indeed, there has been vast confusion about what...

HHS: 5.6M of 6M Who Signed Up on Exchanges Will Get Federal Funding January 13, 2014 - 6:13 PM By Terence P. Jeffrey (CNSNews.com) - In their first three months of operation, the federal and state health-insurance marketplaces created under the Affordable Care Act—AKA Obamacare--have signed up 5,572,305 people who qualify to get federal funding for their health care, either through Medicaid or through an insurance premium subsidy, according to data released by the Department of Health and Human Service. Those 5,572,305 are part of the “6 million Americans” HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said today have used the exchanges to...

In 2014, 25 million to 30 million Americans who have employer-provided health insurance are likely to lose it thanks to Obamacare’s requirement that all plans cover what Washington deems “essential benefits.” Some employers will consider that unaffordable and drop coverage altogether, when their current, lower cost plans expire over the course of the year. These 25 to 30 million are in addition to 6 million who bought plans in the individual market and had them cancelled by January 1. The plight of those 6 million made headline news and caused the first cracks in the Democratic Party’s support for the...

Words matter. “If you like your doctor, you will be able to keep your doctor, period. If you like your healthcare plan, you'll be able to keep your healthcare plan, period,” President Obama said during a speech to the American Medical Association in June 2009. Honoring your commitments is the cornerstone of trust in our leaders. The American people won’t accept illusions or misdirection’s. That’s why its troubling that because of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) or Obamacare, Medicare will be cut by $1.05 trillion, 6.3 million Americans have lost their healthcare coverage since its implementation and millions more stand...

In the push to make health-care coverage more widespread, Washington is meeting its goals for boosting the number of people covered by Medicaid, while the state is lagging in its enrollment in the new health insurance marketplace. By Jan. 2, more than 121,258 adults newly eligible for Medicaid had enrolled in the program, which locally goes by the name Washington Apple Health. That number was just a few hundred short of the program’s goal, and an additional 6,000 people have enrolled since the beginning of the month, a state spokesman said Tuesday night. More than 71,205 Washington residents and their...

The Washington Post's Ezra Klein has found what he thinks is a bright spot amid the gloomy Obamacare news. When you hear what he's enthusiastic about, you'll perhaps understand why I wonder if there is any common ground at all between liberals and conservatives. Klein reports that Obamacare's "biggest success" is that 4 million new enrollees signed up for Medicaid as of November and the number should be even higher when December's statistics are tallied. "If the point of health care reform is covering people who need health insurance, the expansion of Medicaid should be a huge win." Sorry,...

Failure: ObamaCare is driving millions of people into Medicaid, a program we now know does nothing to improve health and actually drives emergency-room use higher. A central premise of ObamaCare was that vastly expanding Medicaid would ultimately save health care dollars. The millions of uninsured gaining access to Medicaid would no longer crowd costly emergency rooms looking for care, the thinking went. And that improved access would keep them healthier. Turns out that neither of those claims is true.

**SNIP** The Medicaid fight offers hope for Democrats whose 2014 election chances took a hit from the embarrassing October rollout of the insurance exchanges, said Ed Rendell, the former Pennsylvania governor and ex-chairman of the Democratic National Committee. In states like Florida and Pennsylvania, Medicaid may make a difference in governor’s races, he said. “You’re telling people who don’t have health care now that you can give it to them, and that’s something that can get people off their duffs and turn out the vote,” Rendell said in a telephone interview. **SNIP** “We’re having a desperate struggle to pay for...

A couple of weeks ago I visited my internist for the annual physical to which she subjects me in order to confirm that my various organs are still operating according to specifications. As she poked and prodded, I asked how her practice was going. This question elicited a resigned sigh and a brief but poignant discourse on the necessity of “firing” her Medicaid patients. Medicaid, the government program that ostensibly provides health coverage for the poor, imposes so much red tape and pays so parsimoniously that she simply cannot afford to treat these patients if she wishes to avoid bankruptcy.

Last week the liberal documentary-maker Michael Moore prompted indigestion across the progressive wonk community by pronouncing Obamacare “awful.” In a New York Times op-ed, he bemoaned the way the president’s law preserved the health insurance industry rather than replacing it with a Medicare-for-all style single-payer system. The good news, Moore conceded, is that the previously uninsured (and often previously uninsurable) can get finally get coverage. The bad news is that their coverage will often be lousy and pose an enormous financial burden. He ended by calling for activists to lean on state politicians in an effort to beef the law...

RALEIGH, N.C. (AP) — North Carolina health officials said Friday that they had inadvertently disclosed the personal information of tens of thousands of children receiving Medicaid coverage, but were tight-lipped about precisely what caused the massive privacy breach. The state Department of Health and Human Services issued a written release saying that new Medicaid cards for nearly 49,000 children were mailed on Dec. 30 to the wrong people. The information on the cards includes the children’s names, Medicaid identification numbers, dates of birth and the names of their primary care doctors — personal medical data that is supposed to be...

Welcome to the new regime, America. Meanwhile in Illinois, a surgeon chose to operate on a female patient even though his office couldn't verify whether she was covered by an Obamacare "bronze" plan she and her husband signed up for in mid-December. A receptionist reportedly spent two hours on the phone with the insurance company seeking answers, but got none. The doctor told the Associated Press that many of his patients are experiencing "tremendous uncertainty and anxiety" because of the new law. A 61-year-old Illinois woman with pre-existing conditions had a hard time obtaining coverage because Obamacare's website wouldn't let...

It's early -- we have 362 days to go -- and so there will undoubtedly be competition. But as of Jan. 3, your leader in the clubhouse for most revealing quote of the year is this one reported by the Washington Post: "[Saving money] was sometimes a misleading motivator for the Affordable Care Act. The law isn't designed to save money. It's designed to improve health, and that's going to cost money." The speaker being quoted was Jonathan Gruber, an MIT health economist and one of the authors of -- you guessed it -- the Affordable Care Act. Does anyone...

More than 100,000 Americans who applied for insurance through HealthCare.gov and were told they are eligible for Medicaid or the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) remain unenrolled because of lingering software defects in the federal online marketplace, according to federal and state health officials. To try to provide coverage to these people before they seek medical care, the Obama administration has launched a barrage of phone calls in recent days in 21 states, advising those who applied that the quickest route into the programs is to start over at their state’s Medicaid agency.

The last time John Nunnemacher had health insurance was 15 years ago, when his employer paid for his coverage. Since then, the freelance graphic artist hasn't been able to afford a policy. Luckily, he didn't get seriously ill or have a bad accident -- which could have left the San Jose man bankrupt. But as of New Year's Day, the 43-year-old Nunnemacher was once again insured. Nearly four years after Congress passed a controversial health care law, tens of thousands of Californians like Nunnemacher can now see a doctor without begging for charity care.

Another Obamacare rationale bites the dust: A new study of Medicaid beneficiaries in Oregon makes a strong version of this case. The study, published today in the journal Science, finds that adult Medicaid beneficiaries rely on emergency rooms about 40 percent more than similar uninsured adults.“When you cover the uninsured, emergency room use goes up by a large magnitude,� said Amy Finkelstein, a health economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who served as a lead investigator on the study, in an MIT press statement accompanying the study.There were no exceptions to the trend. “In no case were we able...

The Obama administration came out with new Obamacare numbers today. Almost twice as many Americans have signed up for the taxpayer-funded Medicaid as the private Obamacare plans. 2.1 million have signed up for Obamacare 3.9 million have signed up for the Medicaid coverage with Obamacare 6.1 million Americans have lost their insurance due to Obamacare

Supporters of President Obama’s health care law had predicted that expanding insurance coverage for the poor would reduce costly emergency room visits as people sought care from primary care doctors. But a rigorous new study conducted in Oregon has flipped that assumption on its head, finding that the newly insured actually went to the emergency room more often. The study, published in the journal Science, compared thousands of low-income people in the Portland area who were randomly selected in a 2008 lottery to get Medicaid coverage with people who entered the lottery but remained uninsured. Those who gained coverage made...

<p>Because of the decision on Obamacare by the Supreme Court, which left the decision to expand Medicaid (a key part of Obamacare) up to the individual states, most Republican-controlled states refused said expansion, leaving substantial portions of the citizenry in the lurch.</p>

**SNIP** 3. Medicare and Medicaid Health care was been a huge issue in 2013, and Congress continues to grapple with how to fix the ailing benefits program. One thing that doesn’t help is the millions of dollars in waste uncovered in the programs. A December investigation found that Medicare payed $24 million for full vials of medicine, even when health care providers were only using part of the vial. It’s the kind of thing that happens often with the program, said Michael Cannon, director of health policy studies at the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank. “This is endemic. This...

The day before health insurance was set to kick in for millions of Americans under Obamacare, a new problem emerged on Tuesday that could leave thousands of Pennsylvanians without the government coverage they thought they had obtained through the troubled federal marketplace. A technical glitch has prevented states from finalizing Medicaid coverage for some people who applied for insurance on the website that the federal government is operating for Pennsylvania and 35 other states, officials disclosed. It is unclear how many people nationwide might be affected, but Gov. Tom Corbett's office put out a consumer alert that said at least...

The Obama Administration announced today that 1.1 million Americans have signed up for Obamacare so far. That number includes the number who have signed up for the taxpayer-funded Medicaid part of the plan. As of December 11, 2013– Over 800,000 Americans signed up for the taxpayer-funded Medicaid program. Over five million Americans have lost their health care plans so far. The Hill reported: More than 1.1 million people enrolled in ObamaCare before a December 24 deadline for consumers seeking healthcare plans that begin Jan. 1, the Obama administration said early Sunday. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Administrator Marilyn...

**SNIP** “None of our diplomats charged by the Americans remains in the United States, they have all returned home,” Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said. Ryabkov added that Russia had discussed the matter with US officials and planned to take no action in response. “I repeat what we have always said: we do not want to go down the path of retaliating with an eye for an eye.”

Those signing up for private health care coverage on the ObamaCare exchanges may be in for an unpleasant surprise -- they'll have insurance, but they might have trouble getting the doctor to see them. Just as with Medicaid, analysts warn that if payments get too low, many doctors might start refusing to see patients. That will leave more and more patients jockeying to see fewer and fewer doctors. They emphasize, then, that having health insurance won't necessarily translate into access to health care.

Congress is digging into how foreign diplomats accessed — and reportedly defrauded — federal benefits programs. According to the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, 25 current and former Russian diplomats and 24 of their spouses allegedly participated in a scheme to illegally obtain Medicaid benefits for prenatal care and related costs by underreporting their income or falsely claiming that their children were citizens of the United States, Royce noted. Over the course of nearly a decade, they milked the system of $1.5 million in benefits. The U.S. Attorney alleges that the staff of Russian diplomatic offices...