Free Republic

Vermont is poised to require that all residents have health insurance. Republican Gov. Phil Scott late last month quietly signed into law a bill that will include a penalty for those who don’t have insurance. The mandate is scheduled to take effect in 2020. A spokeswoman for the state’s largest private health insurance provider said the mandate provides stability. Nationally, many have rebelled against the idea the federal government could tell them what they needed to buy. New Jersey Gov. Phil Murphy signed a similar law days later.

I have a question for anyone who might have been through this and what their experiences were? My wife had to go for a thyroid scan. On the insurers website they stated and still do that the company was an in network provider. They also stated that you have to call the company to confirm. I called the company and was told that they were in network( I did not note the name) The bill comes and they are out of network but the insurance company still has them as in network(website). I called the billing office to see if...

WASHINGTON — About 800,000 taxpayers who enrolled in insurance policies through HealthCare.gov received erroneous tax information from the government, and were urged on Friday to hold off on filing tax returns until the error could be corrected. ... Democratic lawmakers pressed hard for the Obama administration to open a “special enrollment period” around tax filing season for Americans who only then realize they face penalties for failing to purchase health insurance last year. Andrew M. Slavitt, the No. 2 official at the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, said the period would last from March 15 to April 30.

Moody’s announced Thursday it was downgrading its outlook for health insurers from stable to negative based on uncertainty related to ObamaCare. The credit rating agency cited an unstable environment because of the healthcare law’s difficult rollout, and projected that insurers would earn two percent less than forecast in 2014. “While we’ve had industry risks from regulatory changes on our radar for a while, the ongoing unstable and evolving environment is a key factor for our outlook change,” Moody’s Senior Vice President Stephen Zaharuk said in a statement. “The past few months have seen new regulations and announcements that impose operational...