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Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell promoted Obamacare “in the spirit of Dr. King” on Monday, Martin Luther King Jr. Day, during a breakfast hosted by Al Sharpton. “African-Americans have the lowest life expectancy of any other race in this country,” Ms. Burwell said in a speech to the National Action Network, The Hill reported. But “thanks to the Affordable Care Act,” she said, “7.8 million African-Americans with private insurance now have access to expanded preventative services with no cost sharing.” Ms. Burwell’s speech comes as HHS ramps up its efforts to insure people ahead of next month’s

I’m posting this report, not because I think anyone actually expected the Obama administration to abide by the requirements it set out for itself when devising this leviathan of a law (LOLz) — I mean, the thing is huge, and it would just be totally unreasonable to expect the administration to be able to churn out regulations and studies on time, every time, right? …Which is exactly my point. I’d just like to take this opportunity to once again highlight the practically unknowable degree to which Obama’s crowning legislative achievement is expanding our bureaucracy and its involvement in one-sixth of...

One by one, the myths of the Affordable Care Act have been revealed. When the curtain on open enrollment falls on March 31, the last remaining big myth of ObamaCare will be fully exposed: The individual mandate has failed. After a last-ditch effort with President Obama himself encouraging "young invincibles" to sign up before the deadline, the administration is scrambling to boost enrollment. On Tuesday, the White House announced that people who applied for coverage on the federal health-insurance exchange will have until mid-April to finish the paperwork. The mandate was supposed to be the administration's magical elixir for the...

ObamaCare Delay Number 38 HHS simply waves away the March 31 enrollment deadline. March 26, 2014 7:23 p.m. ET Liberals say they believe in a living Constitution, and apparently they think the Affordable Care Act is a living document too. Amid one more last-minute regulatory delay, number 38 at last count, the mandate forcing nuns to sponsor birth control is more or less the only part of ObamaCare that is still intact. On Tuesday evening, the Health and Human Services Department announced that the six-month open enrollment period for ObamaCare insurance that began in October 2013 and was supposed to...

Health Care: Two more signs that all is not well in ObamaCare land: The administration has pushed back the enrollment deadline while refusing to say how many have actually paid their ObamaCare premiums. ObamaCare has become like that old quip of Mark Twain's about the weather in New England. If you don't like it, wait a few days and it will change. Less than two weeks ago, the administration was emphatic that there would be no delay of the March 31 enrollment deadline for ObamaCare. In fact, the spokesman for the agency in charge of ObamaCare said, "We don't actually...

The Obama administration will grant extra time to Americans who say they are unable to enroll in health care plans through the federal insurance marketplace by the March 31 deadline, in a decision that swiftly drew Republican ridicule. All consumers who have begun to apply for coverage on HealthCare.gov, but who do not finish by Monday, will now have until about mid-April to ask for an extension. "We are experiencing a surge in demand and are making sure that we will be ready to help consumers who may be in line by the deadline to complete enrollment -- either online...

“What the hell is this, a joke?” Boehner said at his weekly press conference. He was responding to the administration’s announcement on Tuesday evening that people who had begun the process of signing up for insurance through the federal exchanges would have until mid-April to do so, instead of March 31. The Speaker called the move “another deadline made meaningless,” adding it to a litany of unilateral changes that the administration has made to the law. “This is part of a long-term pattern of this administration manipulating the law for its own convenience,” Boehner said. “It’s not hard to understand...

Once again, the Obama administration is rewriting Obamacare on the fly, in response to political convenience. Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post reports: The Obama administration has decided to give extra time to Americans who say that they are unable to enroll in health-care plans through the federal insurance marketplace by the March 31 deadline. Federal officials confirmed Tuesday evening that all consumers who have begun to apply for coverage on HealthCare.gov, but who do not finish by Monday, will have until about mid-April to ask for an extension. Under the new rules, people will be able to qualify for an...

WASHINGTON (AP) — People who’ve started applying for health insurance but aren’t able to finish before the March 31 enrollment deadline will get extra time, the Obama administration has announced. “We are experiencing a surge in demand and are making sure that we will be ready to help consumers who may be in line by the deadline to complete enrollment, either online or over the phone,” Health and Human Services spokesman Aaron Albright said Tuesday. The White House is scrambling to meet a goal of 6 million signed up through new online markets that offer subsidized private health insurance to...

Though the Obama administration repeatedly insisted that its March 31 enrollment deadline for Obamacare’s first year was “firm,” many observers predicted that the administration would combat lagging sales of health law-sponsored insurance plans by extending that deadline. Sure enough, on Tuesday night the White House indicated that it would be postponing that drop date in order to squeeze as many people as possible into the program. Amy Goldstein of the Washington Post broke the story. Goldstein reports that the revised deadline “will apply to the federal exchanges operating in three dozen states” and extend for two to three weeks.

It may be hard to believe, but today marks the five-month mark since Obamacare's state and federally run health exchange marketplaces went live... Here are the 10 Obamacare facts that really matter after the first five months. 1. Obamacare enrollment has crossed the 4 million person mark.. 2. Too few young people are still signing up. 3. Obamacare is failing to court another crucial group. 4. Most insurers are losing money from Obamacare -- and that's OK. 5. Silver and bronze plans were even more popular last month. 6. Gulf Coast enrollment is soaring while Nevada and Hawaii are lagging...

The Obama administration announced Tuesday that it was again extending the ObamaCare enrollment deadline for people with pre-existing conditions. The administration said it will extend the Pre-Existing Conditions Insurance Plan (PCIP), slated to end January 31, until March 15. “As part of our continuing effort to help smooth consumers’ transition into Marketplace coverage, we are allowing those covered by PCIP additional time to shop for new coverage while they receive the ongoing care and treatment they need,” Health and Human Services spokeswoman Joanne Peters said in a statement. The deadline was originally at the end of December, but last month...

Reacting to the troubled rollout of President Obama's health care law, 10 Democratic senators led by New Hampshire's Jeanne Shaheen have signed a letter asking Obama to extend the enrollment period for individuals to purchase insurance through the new exchanges. However, not only would such an extension require an act of Congress (as I detailed in an earlier post), but it's likely to ruffle the feathers of insurers, who were counting on enrollment ending on March 31. Why would insurers be bothered? After all, wouldn’t they want to give Americans as much time as possible to purchase their product? Though...

Glitches and tech problems that are plaguing the healthcare.gov website could lead to additional Obamacare delays. Josh Barro, politics editor at Business Insider, tells The Daily Ticker, "The government needs to get the website up and running as soon as possible." If it doesn't and only the sickest Americans sign up--because younger and healthier individuals don't--there could be an "insurance death spiral," says Barro. He explains: "If only people who are especially sick buy health insurance, then you end up with a pool of people who are really expensive to cover, so insurers have to respond to that by raising...

According to the White House, that March 31 deadline comes from language in the Affordable Care Act that says if one has access to affordable coverage but chooses to be uninsured for three consecutive months in a calendar year, one would face a penalty. The administration says in the insurance market, when consumers sign up before the 15th of a given month, their coverage starts on the first day of the next month: Sign up by February 15 to get coverage starting March 1; sign up after that date (but before March 15), and you won't be covered until April...

As the deadline looms for American citizens to comply with the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare, many Christians are scrambling to understand their enrollment options. But many may be unaware of the fact that Obamacare provides a heath insurance exemption for people of faith who enroll in a Biblically-based healthcare sharing program. On pages 107 and 128 of the Affordable Care Act, Christians who participate in healthcare sharing ministries are exempt from the “individual mandate” to obtain health insurance. The legislation reads, “…Exemptions from Individual Responsibility Requirements — (A) In the case of an individual seeking exemption based...

In recent months, President Obama and his subordinates have waived or delayed a number of Obamacare’s notable features, such as the law’s employer mandate, and its procedures for protecting taxpayers from fraud and identity theft. Earlier this month, in that context, I obtained a heretofore-unpublished memorandum from the Congressional Research Service. The CRS, Congress’ non-partisan in-house think tank, compiled 82 deadlines that the Affordable Care Act mandates upon the first three years of its own implementation. Remarkably, it turns out that the White House has missed half of the deadlines legally required by the ACA. And some of those deadlines...

In recent months, President Obama and his subordinates have waived or delayed a number of Obamacare’s notable features, such as the law’s employer mandate, and its procedures for protecting taxpayers from fraud and identity theft. Earlier this month, in that context, I obtained a heretofore-unpublished memorandum from the Congressional Research Service. The CRS, Congress’ non-partisan in-house think tank, compiled 82 deadlines that the Affordable Care Act mandates upon the first three years of its own implementation. Remarkably, it turns out that the White House has missed half of the deadlines legally required by the ACA. And some of those deadlines...