Posted on 11/02/2013 4:59:54 AM PDT by markomalley
Over the last day or two, the major breaking story has really been a throwback: in 2010, the Obama administration promulgated rules governing what plans that pre-existed Obamacare would be “grandfathered” under that statute, and allowed to continue. In the context of announcing its rules, the administration predicted that because of their restrictiveness, many millions of Americans would lose their existing insurance coverage, whether they liked it or not. Further, it has been widely reported (as by CNN, here) that Republicans tried to reverse the administration’s “grandfather” rules so that those who liked their insurance would be allowed to keep it, but Senate Democrats voted them down.
Given the lies with which Obamacare was promoted–”If you like your health care plan, you can keep it”–this is of course a blockbuster story. So I spent some time today tracking down the original sources to verify it.
The Obamacare statute provided that plans pre-existing the law would be allowed to continue, but left the details to future administrative action. That came on June 17, 2010, when the Obama administration–specifically, the Departments of the Treasury, Labor and Health and Human Services–promulgated “Interim Final Rules for Group Health Plans and Health Insurance Coverage Relating to Status as a Grandfathered Health Plan Under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.” You can read the rules here; scroll down to Part II.
The basic idea underlying the rules is that if the pre-existing plans remained unchanged, they could continue. If, however, there was any significant change in coverages, co-pays, and so on, then the plan would become subject to all of the requirements of Obamacare (even grandfathered plans are subject to a number of Obamacare requirements). The problem is that the health insurance market is constantly changing, and it is typical for plans to change, to some degree, from year to year. So the administration looked at historical data to estimate how many employer-sponsored and individual plans would likely lose their grandfather status once Obamacare was implemented. The administration’s methodology can certainly be questioned, but the results were as has been reported. This chart sums them up; click to enlarge:
The Obama administration projected low-end, mid-range and high-end estimates for how many plans would be terminated, in total and broken down between large and smaller employers. The bottom line is that the administration expected 51% of all employer plans to be terminated as a result of Obamacare. That is the mid-range estimate; the high-end estimate was 69%. So as of 2010, the Obama administration planned that most Americans with employer-sponsored health care plans would lose them, whether they liked those plans or not.
As for individual, as opposed to group plans, the Obama administration said that data were insufficient to predict how many would lose grandfather status, but in any given year the percentage of such policies losing such status would “exceed[] the 40 percent to 67 percent range.”
Those numbers starkly contradict Obama’s “if you like your insurance, you can keep it” assurances. But it is worth noting that the percentage of pre-Obamacare plans that would terminate within the first few years after the law was enacted isn’t the main point. The administration never intended to allow any American to keep a non-Obamacare insurance policy for any length of time. In the Federal Register, the administration candidly acknowledged:
The collective decisions of plan sponsors and issuers over time can be viewed as a one-way sorting process in which these parties decide whether, and when, to relinquish status as a grandfathered health plan.
The administration was prepared to be patient as the “one-way sorting process” ran its course, and all Americans lost the plans they had, whether they liked them or not.
That brings us to September 29, 2010, when Senate Republicans brought to the floor a resolution that would have disapproved of, and reversed, the administrative rules that the Obama administration promulgated on June 17. Wyoming’s Mike Enzi sponsored the resolution; the debate that followed is here. Enzi introduced his resolution:
Mr. President, the resolution we are debating today is about keeping a promise. The authors of the new health care law promised the American people that if they liked their current health insurance, they could keep it. On at least 47 separate occasions, President Obama promised: “If you like what you have, you can keep it.”
Unfortunately, the Obama administration has broken that promise. Earlier this year, the administration published a regulation that will fundamentally change the health insurance plans of millions of Americans. The reality of this new regulation is, if you like what you have, you can’t keep it. The new regulation implemented the grandfathered health plan section of the new health care law. It specified how existing health plans could avoid the most onerous new rules and redtape included in the 2,700 pages of the new health care law. …
Unfortunately, the regulation writers at the Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services broke all those promises. The regulation is crystal clear. Most businesses–the administration estimates between 39 and 69 percent–will not be able to keep the coverage they have.
Under the new regulation, once a business loses grandfathered status, they will have to comply with all of the new mandates in the law. This means these businesses will have to change their current plans and purchase more expensive ones that meet all of the new Federal minimum requirements. For the 80 percent of small businesses that will lose their grandfathered status because of this regulation, the net result is clear: They will pay more for their health insurance.
Does this give you a sense of deja vu, or what? The baleful consequences of Obamacare that we are now seeing–there are many more to come–were known and foreseen in 2010. The Democrats voted down the Republicans’ effort to preserve the health care plans that Americans already like on a party-line vote. The Democrats knew that Obama had been lying through his teeth, and they voted unanimously to sustain his lies.
Did the Democrats have a theory? Sure. They argued that if a health care plan changes significantly, then it isn’t the plan you originally bought. And it is common in a variety of contexts for something that is grandfathered to lose that status if it is changed significantly. But there are several problems with the Democrats’ theory: First, it was entirely different from the assurances Obama gave the American people. You may like your insurance perfectly well after a modest change; you may like it better. But that is irrelevant: if the Obama administration thinks your coverage has changed materially, you lose it. Period. Second, it isn’t true that plans lose their grandfathered status only if they are changed in a major way. For example, if there is any increase in the co-insurance rate, no matter how small, the plan terminates.
Even more significant is the fact that under the administration’s regulations, the plan may stay exactly the same, but if one insurance carrier replaces another, the plan loses its grandfathered status and terminates. The effect of this provision is to eliminate competition and make it less attractive, over time, to maintain pre-existing plans. The Republicans read several letters from business groups into the record, at least one of which pointed out the importance of this provision.
Finally, it should be noted that John McCain, now the beta noire of some activists, weighed in powerfully against the administration’s Obamacare rules. Among other things, he pointed out that they do not apply to unions. They can negotiate changes in the pre-Obamacare plans that cover their members without having them terminate. This is one of the weird features of gangster government: the administration passes terrible laws, and then excuses its friends from complying with them. Let’s turn the floor over to McCain:
Mr. ENZI: According to the administration, in small businesses, 80 percent of the people–unless this [Republican resolution] is passed–will lose the insurance they have and like, and in all businesses 69 percent will. Those are not my numbers; those are the administration’s numbers.
Mr. McCAIN: But isn’t it also true that is the case for small business and people and entrepreneurs all over America except the unions? Isn’t that true? Isn’t this a carve-out again, part of this sleaze that went into putting this bill together, part of the “Cornhusker kickback,” the “Louisiana purchase,” the buying of PhRMA–all that went into this–the “negotiations” that were going to take place on C-SPAN that the President said during the Presidential campaign that went from one sweetheart deal cut to another. Part of one of those sweetheart deals was the unions are exempt; is that correct?
Mr. ENZI. That is correct.
So it’s the usual toxic stew of lies, corruption and incompetence that we have come to expect from Barack Obama. But one last point should not go unmentioned: where has the press been in all of this? As of 2010, it was blindingly obvious–was baldly stated by the Obama administration itself–that under Obamacare, far from being permitted to keep your health care coverage if you like it, most Americans’ policies would speedily be terminated, and all would soon cease to exist. Given the dozens of misrepresentations by Barack Obama and other members of his administration, and given the entirely dishonest basis on which Obamacare was rammed through the Democratic Congress without a single Republican vote, and given that Republicans’ warnings were indisputably coming true–was there not a news story here? How can it be that three more years went by before our one-party media thought to mention what happened back in 2010? One can only imagine how the 2012 election might have been different if the electorate had understood that Obamacare was sold on a scaffold of lies.
Liars.
Unfortunately, most people don’t care - as long as the government checks keep coming. Once the money stops, it’s a whole new ball game.
They checkmated everyone by pushing a black man on the ticket knowing all the while that he will never be held accountable, nothing will ever stick.
Perhaps the biggest truth in this country today. Money talks. Lazy, greedy, slothful people can do a lot of self-rationalization when there is a check involved.
1 (800) F#C KYOU Cram it down our throats come hell or high water. VJarrett has the power and she don’t give a damn. Try to stop it. Administration flipping the public the birdie in broad daylight-open, hositle and notorious. No one does a thing? Where’s Ted when you need him?
Republicas could have made campaign commercials out of the attempt to save choice for the insured, and the Democrat vote against it, but chose not to.
Exactly right, and it's only going to get worse. Once 13 million illegals become new Democrat voters Obama's transformation of the US into just another European style socialist/atheist state will be completed within the time span of one or two national elections. Stick a fork in the American Republic and let the feeding frenzy begin.
They checkmated everyone by pushing a black man on the ticket knowing all the while that he will never be held accountable, nothing will ever stick.
That’s about to change, big time.
EPIC FAIL: Now JIMMY CARTER is calling Obama an incompetent loser
http://dailycaller.com/2013/11/02/epic-fail-now-jimmy-carter-is-calling-obama-an-incompetent-loser/
When it comes to Obama schemes the liberal MSM is AWOL. There is absolutely no interest in portraying this narcissistic buffoon other than in a favorable light.
FREEPER LISTENHILLARY POSTED: half of all US households receive some type of government benefit. Now a CBS 21 News investigation has enumerated the govt freebies available......paid for by taxpayers.
Reporter Chris Papst worked with a single mom who had two children.
The mother turned down a raise because the extra money would decrease her government benefits.....she admits living a life off the government. “If you’re going to get something for free, are you going to work for it?” Cogan explained. “It kind of like sucks you in.”
Here are some of the horrific details For this story, CBS 21 researched government programs available to a single mother of two making $19,000 a year.
Incredibly, govt freebies available to her include:
<>>< $14,976 in free day care,
<><> another $13,400 for Head Start and Early Head Start,
<><> $7,148 in housing vouchers,
<><> $6,500 for weatherization projects,
<><> $400 to pay heating bills,
<><> $480 a year for a cell phone,
<><> an extra $230 for a land line,
<><> $182 in free legal advice.
The family would get:
<><> more than $6,028 in food assistance
<><> another $6,045 in medical assistance.
<><> The needy mother is eligible for $5,500 school Pell Grants,
<><> an additional $12,000 for Education Opportunity Grant; SMART Grant; and TEACH Grant.
<><> $6,800 in tax credits,
<><> $1,900 in withholding would be returned.
That adds up to $81,589 in free govt assistance....paid for by stuggling taxpayers.
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The endless govt freebies available---enumerated above ----does not stop vote-crazed pols from devising new ways to suckup for votes. MORE BELOW
U.S. Rep. Sam Johnson, R-Texas, left, wants to end the practice of giving illegal immigrants tax credits for kids, but U.S. Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., won’t let the House-approved measure H.R. 556 through the Senate.
"The System is Working Fine" says Senator Harry Reid, even though the Joint Committee on Taxation calculates that enactment of H.R. 556 would save taxpayers $24.4 billion over the next decade.
“The IRS has been doling out the credit to tax filers claiming children who do not even live in the country,” Johnson charged.
Tax preparers agree that the system is broken — and that the IRS must fix it. They say the agency has to stop disbursing ACTC refunds based on Individual Taxpayer Identification Numbers, which are available to undocumented residents.
Tax preparers told Watchdog they have seen clients from Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua claiming Mexican children as dependents.
A 2009 TIGTA audit concluded that the child tax credit “appears to provide an additional incentive for aliens to enter, reside, and work in the U.S. without authorization, which contradicts Federal law and policy to remove such incentives.”
Johnson’s bill would impose a 10-year ban on tax filers who commit fraud and a $500 penalty on tax preparers who knowingly bilk taxpayers through the ACTC program.
Reid sad: “I just think the child tax credit is working just fine, and there’s no need to punish children,” the Democratic leader told the Associated Press in February.
---snip-- more on FR
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An anonymous Indiana tax consultant revealed that several returns filed by illegal aliens were successfully claiming ACTC tax refunds of as much as $1000 for as many as a dozen dependents. “Here’s a return right here: we’ve got a $10,300 refund for nine nieces and nephews,” he said. “We’re getting an $11,000 refund on this tax return. There’s seven nieces and nephews,” he added, pointing to another set of documents. “I can bring out stacks and stacks. It’s just so easy it’s ridiculous.”
A single illegal alien living at a southern Indiana home used by four more illegals who didn’t live there. Despite that reality, those workers claimed 20 children as dependents—and the IRS sent them checks totaling $29,608.
(snip) a single address in Atlanta, GA had 23,994 ITIN-related tax refunds sent to it. In another instance, 8,393 ITIN refunds were deposited into a single bank account. http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/58561
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ACTION NOW--CALL YOUR REP---The House repeatedly has passed an IRS bill that could save U.S. taxpayers up to $24.4 billion but Harry Reid’s Democratic Senate will not hear it. The Refundable Child Tax Credit Eligibility Verification Reform Act, or H.R. 556, would require tax filers to provide Social Security numbers to claim child tax credits.
Currently, the IRS allows undocumented residents to collect the $1,000 credits for dependents not even living in the country. Watchdog reported that illegal immigrants received $4.2 billion from the tax agency in just one year.
Though the GOP-controlled House has passed Rep Johnson’s measure three times, Senate Majority Leader Reid, D-Nev., refuses to allow the bill to come up for a vote in his chamber.
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Medicare paid millions to illegal immigrants, dead patients, probe finds
By Stephen Dinan / The Washington Times
Medicare paid $23 million for dead patients in 2011 and $29 million for drug benefits for illegal immigrants from 2009 to 2011, according to a report Thursday from the Health and Human Services inspector general.
The investigators said Medicare has safeguards to try to stop payments to dead patients, but it still ended up sending out the $23 million anyway.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) — the same agency that is struggling to fix the broken Obamacare website — acknowledged the problems and said it will try to take steps to fix them.
“We agree that in cases where the information indicates an individual is not lawfully present in the United States, that individual should not be permitted to enroll or to remain enrolled in a Part D plan during the period where he or she is not eligible to receive federal benefits,” Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of CMS, said in response to the report about illegal immigrants getting benefits.
The payouts aren’t large — they amount to just a fraction of a percent of what Medicare pays each year in benefits. Still, the investigators said the agency should take steps to crack down.
In one of its reports the inspector general said 4,139 illegal immigrants were able to make 279,056 drug benefit claims.
The investigators said that while CMS has policies to prevent illegal immigrants from getting most Medicare benefits, it didn’t have such a policy for the prescription drug program, which was added under President George W. Bush and expanded by President Obama’s health law.
As for dead patients collecting benefits, the investigators said the problems were often related to missing or incorrect dates of death.
Dead doctors also were paid $25 million over a three-year period.
Sen. Tom Coburn, Oklahoma Republican (a doctor), said the report was worrying because CMS had been warned of the problems five years earlier.“Every individual wrongfully awarded benefits, be it the deceased or undocumented, diverts scarce resources away from those who need it most,” he said.
SOURCE http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/oct/31/medicare-paid-millions-dead-patients-illegals/#ixzz2jK6Gu1dx
ACTION NOW........get a summary of the pro-policyholder Republican amendment, with a list of EVERY SINGLE DEMOCRAT who voted against protecting policyholders, and use it in upcoming elections....in letters to the editor, ads, fliers, bumper stickers, lawn signs, etc..........
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THEY CAN RUN--BUT THEY CANT HIDE
The O/Care debacle is looking more and more like the House check-kiting scandal years back. Dems--even in safe seats-- were tossed out by angry constituents (cackle).
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Democrats Scramble to Distance Themselves from Obamacare (RATS want a refund)
Breitbart | 10/30/13 | Wynton Hall / FR Posted November 01 by Libloather
**SNIP** Other Democrats now say they agree with Republicans that a delay of the individual mandate may be the only way to salvage the disaster and save face. "I think the administration is going to have to look at it [delay of the individual mandate]. and I'd encourage them to do so," said Rep. Gene Green (D-TX).
Five Democrats have now asked for the Obama Administration to seek a refund from the contractors responsible for the Obamacare website fiasco.
GUILTY CONSCIENCES FROM VOTING FOR O/CARE? Reps. Ron Barber (D-AZ), William Enyart (D-IL), Pete Gallego (D-TX), Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ), and Filemon Vela (D-TX) wrote a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder urging the reimbursement effort.
-——that a delay of the individual mandate may be the only way to salvage the disaster——
I don’t understand how delay will help.
1. the delay will only postpone the problem. At the end of the delay, it will recur.
2. The insurance companies have made the necessary changes to comply with Obamacare. What was is no more. The cancelled policies can not just be renewed because even without Obamacare, the polcies would require adjustments that have not been calculated and can’t be implemented.
3. There is no immediate solution to the problem for 2014. There is lots of talk about “that’s what they want...... single payer” but that is not possible either. Payer implies paying. There is no institutional mechanism in place to perform the transactions.
4. The President can not just rule “Thou shalt implement single payer” . The change from his current disaster must come from the congress. It will not happen while he is in office.
5. See 3. above. There is no solution. Delay will not solve the problem. There is no quick fix.
Conclusion: Political disaster
THIS IS WHERE SAP-HAPPY OBAMA SCREWED-UP Young poeple have no sense of their own mortality----they rightly figure they dont need insurance---but if they fall down the stairs-- while lying at the bottom of the stairs----they will enroll "with an existing condition."
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