Free Republic

***FEDERAL*** EMTALA EMTALA care provision responsibility would be limited to one episode per patient in any 365 day period excluding paid-up previous visits, with a limit waiver to be at least $200 in cash or its equivalent. EMTALA care uniformly billed at no more than 300% of Medicare amounts, including interest and late and other charges, could be collected in the manner of federal student loan debt. PPACA SUBSIDY CAPS PPACA subsidies would be limited to no more than 90% of policy cost instead of the 98% now. It is absurd that Mr. Recipient Democrat might pay $14/month for the...

Health Care Coverage Availability Already insured PPACA Marketplace insureds can contractually lock in coverage for 2021 starting November 1. Trump could and should open up the Marketplace early. Federal law still in effect dating from before the PPACA ensures coverage for pre-existing conditions of people who have choosen and paid to remain covered. Insurance through employers has already been designed and mostly contractually arranged for 2021 coverage. Health Care Coverage Scope Makers of expensive drugs wishing to have happy shareholders will always need to have the maximum practical number of insurance plans contracted to pay for them. Any future change...

An appellate court ruling that struck down a key pillar of Obamacare on Wednesday amped up anxiety about the future of the law that brought health insurance to millions of Americans. Court appeals are likely and experts say the matter probably won’t be resolved for years — creating uncertainty about the protections were built into the Affordable Care Act. Squirrel Hill resident Amy Raslevich is among the people worrying about the future of the law. “I’m fighting cancer,” the 48-year-old University of Pittsburgh doctoral student said. “I shouldn’t have to fight Congress and the president to stay alive.” In a...

These changes would hopefully stop the PPACA death spiral and make coverage affordable for millions more people. My Silver and Bronze plans would have modest annual benefit limits, permitting deductibles and premiums to be slashed to affordable levels to provide useable coverage for modest income folks. No annual limit Gold and Platinum plans would be based on luxurious governmental employee coverage. My proposal is written in bill hopper language meant mainly for health care specialist lawyers in government and lobby associations in DC. If you don't know what 42 USC is, don't waste Jim's bandwidth dollars. Health care is a...

Section 1401(b) of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act shall be replaced with: ‘‘(b) PREMIUM ASSISTANCE CREDIT AMOUNT.—For purposes of this section— ‘‘(1) IN GENERAL.—The term ‘premium assistance credit amount’ means, with respect to any taxable year, the sum of the premium assistance amounts determined under paragraph (2) with respect to all coverage months of the taxpayer occurring during the taxable year. ‘‘(2) PREMIUM ASSISTANCE AMOUNT.—The premium assistance amount determined under this subsection with respect to any coverage month is the amount equal to the lesser of— ‘‘(A) the monthly premiums for such month for 1 or more qualified...

If you had to pay $11/month for unlimited health care cost coverage, you might think health care costs aren't a problem. If you are a Democrat and had to pay $55/month for unlimited health care cost coverage, you might support efforts to rein in health care costs. I believe, effective January 1, 2020, Section 36B(b)(2)(A)(ii) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 should read: ‘‘(ii) SPECIAL RULE FOR TAXPAYERS UNDER 133 PERCENT OF POVERTY LINE.—If a taxpayer’s household income for the taxable year is in excess of 100 percent, but not more than 133 percent, of the poverty line for...

Choice 1 - annual deficit method: The PPACA type Medicaid expansion program shall be continued, but with a participating state having to pay a calendar year share after 2021 at a percentage rate of 10 plus 1 for each prior federal fiscal year after 2017 that had a deficit in excess of $400 billion. If fiscal years 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021 had a deficits of $399 billion, $500 billion, $300 billion, and $401 billion, respectively, the state share would go from 10% to 12%. Choice 2 - increase in national debt method: The PPACA type Medicaid expansion program shall be...

“The losses incurred by carriers since the beginning of the Affordable Care Act are unsustainable, and premium increases that are the result of that are also unsustainable...it’s critical that folks in D.C. put aside their political differences and fix this thing. Otherwise, it will implode.” Maryland's insurance commissioner

A person's subsidy would be based on the average monthly premium amounts of the PPACA subsidy silver plans for 2013, 2014, and 2015 for a 50-year in the capital city of the person's state. The average amount would be adjusted for a person's age, CPI inflation and in most cases the effective tax rate paid on the income on the tax return which last claimed the person as an exemption. The maximum monthly subsidy amount for a US citizen shall be: silver_base_amount*age_factor*tax_rate_factor*inflation_factor*budget_factor The silver_base_amount of a state shall be the sum of the monthly premiums of each of the (second)...

I would like truly affordable coverage. Put a bill in the hopper: 1. Allowing insurance companies to sell mandatory issue during PPACA open season, lower-cost coverage for a insurer-set number of days (24-hour periods), of at least 5, of hospital care coverage (EMTALA scope, essential newborn congenital surgery, operative tumors, pallitative cancer surgery, fractures of major bones), with a $1,000 hospitalization deductible, with available riders, only mandatory issue and federal law exempt from previous condition restrictions with the purchase of at least five, for coverage: a. up to $1,000 for outpatient/ER insurer-selected, Medicare Part B covered tests with patient Medicare...

People with epilepsy, cancer, depression, diabetes, sexual assault survivors, disabled veterans and mothers and fathers with sick children are among those who've taken to social media using the hashtag #IAmAPreexistingCondition to voice their concerns about the Republican health care bill.More than 150,000 posts with the tag have flooded Twitter over the last day. They're responding to a vote in the House for a Republican health care bill that could put medical benefits out of reach for millions of Americans and, in particular, jeopardize future coverage for people with pre-existing conditions.To health insurance companies, pre-existing conditions include a wide array of different medical issues,...

Four insurance carriers are seeking average rate increases ranging from 9 percent to 150 percent for individual health plans sold in Maryland for 2018. The proposed rate increases average at 38.5 percent and would bring monthly premium prices for a mid-level plan for a 40-year-old Baltimore resident to between $359.25 and $714.95. The proposed rates are subject to review and approval by the Maryland Insurance Administration. The requests come on the same day House Republicans in Congress passed a bill repealing parts of the Affordable Care Act and replacing them with new provisions. Individual plans are for people who aren't...

KTXL reports that a rally was held in Sacramento, California Wednesday by proponents of a bill that would create a one payer health care system. Participants included health care unions and patients. Dr. Paul Song told KTXL, “If we make the system more efficient by having one payer, we can save billions of billions of dollars a year. Plus, we don’t really need to put any more money in - the money is there.” Bill co-author Senator Toni Atkins of San Diego says Californians shouldn’t have Washington dictate how healthcare is provided to its citizens. She tells KTXL, now that Californians...

Be gentle, this is a draft put out for the purposes of: a. letting you find errors and suggest corrections and b. providing Republican lawmakers with a coverage-expanding plan that keeps costs down SUBSIDIES [The Founding Fathers would be astonished at the mere thought of federal health care/product coverage subsidies, but federal patent exclusivity and state law crimping of provider supply and (drug coverage) mandates have made the cost of drugs and medical care very expensive.] Only coverage for US citizens may be subsidized. Drug coverage and healthcare service coverage would have separate subsidies. [Having drug-only coverage plans allows hospital...

Thursday, I laid out the case for why Obamacare should be repealed, instead of propped up and tinkered on by additional top-down, boardroom thinking. It’s clear that whatever replaces Obamacare must focus on quality and incremental local solutions, not one-size-fits-all government mandates.In this respect, the federal government’s biggest task for replacing Obamacare is to get out of the way and let state policymakers and health care providers innovate.First off, let’s get clear what Americans want: They’d like many choices of affordable health insurance plans that allow them to choose their doctors. They want to buy a plan when they are...

In House of Representatives v. Burwell, the House challenged the legality of subsidies the Obama administration paid to insurers. Judge Rosemary Collyer ruled that the House as an institution had standing, and that the payments were made without an appropriation. Currently, the case is on appeal to the D.C. Circuit. While the litigation has had an unexpected success in the courts, its origin was rocky. As I discuss in Chapter 23 of Unraveled, one of the most difficult aspects the case was finding an attorney to take it–or more precisely, an attorney whose law firm would allow him keep the...

During the 2008 presidential campaign, Sen. Barack Obama began peddling his national healthcare system. On more than one occasion, he pointed to Canada and the United Kingdom as examples of a workable national healthcare system. When I first heard him point to them, I instantly thought of Rachel, a work acquaintance who lived and worked in the United Kingdom. She was experiencing abdominal pains and having problems eating for months before England’s National Health Service doctors finally diagnosed the problem to be her gall bladder. The doctor said it needed to be removed. However, from the time they wrote the...

The U.S. Supreme Court, which delivered major rulings in 2012 and 2015 preserving President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law, on Tuesday declined to take up a new, long-shot challenge to Obamacare brought by an Iowa artist. The court turned away an appeal by Matt Sissel, who had asserted that the 2010 Affordable Care Act violated the U.S. Constitution's requirement that revenue-raising legislation must originate in the House of Representatives, not in the Senate, as the healthcare law did.

The president’s health care law is unworkable, and he knows it. That’s why, on Wednesday, he was forced to sign the PACE Act to protect millions of small business workers from higher costs and coverage disruptions under ObamaCare. Our goal remains to repeal and defund all of ObamaCare – as we’ve voted a number of times to do – and until then we will continue to do everything in our power to protect Americans from the law’s disastrous impact on jobs, the economy, and hard-working families. Since 2011, the president has now signed at least 10 House bills that dismantle,...

A federal appeals court on Friday said it will not reconsider a 2014 ruling that held Obamacare didn’t violate the Constitution’s “origination clause” requiring the House to kickstart revenue-raising bills, despite the law’s tax on people who do not obtain health insurance. The issue split the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit, however, and attorneys driving the challenge say they’ll fight on.