How Obamacare has Changed One Family’s Situation to ‘It’s Either Eat or Buy Health Insurance’

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Photo Credit: intenteffect

Photo Credit: intenteffect

By Erica Ritz.

With the new “Obamacare” health insurance exchanges officially open for business, Glenn Beck and his radio co-hosts Pat Gray and Stu Burguiere went to www.healthcare.gov on Tuesday only to find what countless others were greeted with: glitches, errors, and messages asking you to hold.

Before long, they also spoke with a caller whose life is being turned upside down by the Affordable Care Act, also known as Obamacare.

“We appreciate your patience,” Gray said in the voice of a telephone operator. “You are Number 477,326 in line. Please continue to wait, as you will be taken in the order in which you arrived. Thank you for your patience.”…

After the break, Beck took a call from Bryan in Florida, who says his costs have already skyrocketed in the wake of the Affordable Care Act.

“Our insurance for the family plan…our current cost is $127 a week through United Healthcare which, you know, we have a really good plan,” Bryan began. “Well, my wife went in early this morning, they went over all the different options. The same plan for my family — nothing in our life has changed, everything is the same — is now $237.10 a week.”

But the jump from $127 a week to $237 a week isn’t even the worst of it, he said. Even if they opt for a plan that’s not as good as what they currently have, they’ll still be paying more than they were before.

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Obamacare Quadruples Costs for Some, Rewards Others Who Quit Working

By Hans Bader.

Due to Obamacare, in North Carolina, insurance premiums will “triple for women, and quadruple for men” in the “individual-market” for health insurance. In Tennessee, Obamacare will triple men’s premiums, and double women’s, in the market for individual health insurance. Nationally, Obamacare will increase men’s premiums by 99 percent, and women’s by 62%.

Kathy Kristof of CBS MoneyWatch describes experiencing a 67 percent spike in her premiums, for a worse policy than she had before:

“The promise that you could keep your old policy, if you liked it, has proved illusory. My insurer, Kaiser Permanente, informed me in a glossy booklet that ‘At midnight on December 31, we will discontinue your current plan because it will not meet the requirements of the Affordable Care Act.’

“My premium, the letter added, would go from $209 a month to $348, a 66.5 percent increase that will cost $1,668 annually . . . the things that mattered to me – that I would be able to limit my out-of-pocket costs if I had a catastrophic ailment – got worse under my new Obamacare policy. My policy, which has always paid 100 percent of the cost of annual check-ups, had a $5,000 annual deductible for sick visits and hospital stays. Once I paid that $5,000, the plan would pay 100 percent of any additional cost. That protected me from economic devastation in the event of a catastrophic illness, such as cancer.

“Kaiser’s Obamacare policy has a $4,500 deductible, but then covers only 40 percent of medical costs for office visits, hospital stays and drugs. Out-of-pocket expenses aren’t capped until the policyholder pays $6,350 annually.”

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EPA to Be Hit Hard in Shutdown, Could Delay Renewable Fuel Standard

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epaThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will take one of the biggest hits of any federal agency if the government shuts down this week, operating with under 7 percent of its employees, according to guidance issued by the agency.

Among those furloughed would be most workers at the Office of Air and Radiation, which is in charge of writing and implementing most of the EPA’s major air pollution rules. The clock would also stop, for now, on the EPA’s eagerly-awaited proposal on renewable fuel volume standards for 2014.

The EPA said its plan for dealing with a shutdown would classify 1,069 employees, out of 16,205, as essential. These employees would continue to work if Congress fails to secure a budget deal by midnight Monday to avoid disruption to federal funding.

Taking the air and radiation unit off the grid will tighten timelines to meet certain court-imposed deadlines, said one expert.

“People are not going to be able to be working on these rules at home,” said Dina Kruger, an environmental regulation consultant and former climate change director at the EPA, who worked at the agency when the government shut down in 1996.

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Latest House CR Funds and Permits Obamacare’s Attack on Free Exercise of Catholicism

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

The last version of the continuing resolution that House Speaker John Boehner (R.-Ohio) pushed through the Republican-controlled House of Representatives on Monday—and that the Democrat-controlled Senate summarily rejected—surrendered a position that House Republicans had taken in the previous CR that protected Americans from being forced by an Obamacare regulation to act against their moral or religious convictions.

The Obamacare regulation in question effectively prohibits American Catholics from freely practicing their faith in the way they live their daily lives.

Indeed, the Catholic bishops of the United States have unanimously declared this regulation an “unjust and illegal mandate” and “a violation of personal civil rights.”

Many of the nation’s Catholic bishops have also publicly declared in writing that they “will not obey it.”

The CR the House approved after midnight on Sunday included an amendment sponsored by Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R.-Tenn.). That amendment said the Obamacare “preventive services” regulation–which requires almost all health-care plans to cover sterilizations, contraceptives and abortion-inducing drugs–could not be imposed between now and Jan. 1, 2015 on employers, health insurers or individuals who opposed “such requirement for coverage based on religious or moral objections.”

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Fast and Furious Lawsuit can Proceed, Judge Tells Obama Administration

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

A federal judge ruled Monday evening that the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee could indeed proceed with a lawsuit against the Justice Department to access certain Fast and Furious documents.

Attorney General Eric Holder had attempted to dismiss the suit. But U.S. District Court Judge Amy Berman Jackson turned aside that request, asserting the House claim: President Obama could not claim executive privilege and halt certain “Operation Fast and Furious” records from being turned over to Congress for review, Politico reported.

The decision came via a 44-page ruling.

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Obama Sued for ‘Illegal’ ObamaCare Move: Impermissibly Changing Law

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

Another lawsuit has been filed against the president’s health care takeover strategy – this time by a Florida company complaining that Barack Obama had no authority to simply go in and change the law once it had been approved by Congress and signed.

It was last July, according to reports, that Obama simply announced he was changing the law, which had scheduled a requirement for employers to provide adequate and affordable health insurance starting Jan. 1, 2014, or pay huge fines.

Obama, responding to complaints from businesses, simply changed the effective date of that requirement to Jan. 1, 2015, strategically after the 2014 elections.

Obamacare already has been the subject of dozens of lawsuits, and the U.S. Supreme Court last year ruled that it is a tax, and therefore constitutional, even thought he Obama administration had argued it wasn’t a tax.

There is another case now heading toward the U.S. Supreme Court, too, that could end up with critical sections being determined to be illegal.

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Spy Agencies Forced to Furlough 70 Percent of Civilian Employees

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photo credit: fonstok

photo credit: fonstok

The government shutdown has forced spy agencies to furlough 70 percent of their civilian employees, according to a senior intelligence official.

The furloughed employees include both support staff and intelligence analysts, according to the official.

Furloughs are being ordered across the federal government Tuesday as officials decide which employees are “essential” and should stay on the job despite the failure of Congress to approve a funding measure.

A spokesman for the director of national intelligence warned the shutdown would hamper the ability of the United States to track threats to national security.

“The Intelligence Community’s ability to identify threats and provide information for a broad set of national security decisions will be diminished for the duration,” Shawn Turner, a spokesman for Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, said in a statement.

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College Loan Defaults Hit 18-Year High

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Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

The moribund U.S. economy and the bleak jobs picture have collided to produce the highest college loan default rate in 18 years, according to data released Monday by the Department of Education.

“Some colleges are simply masking default problems until the federal government stops watching,” said The Institute for College Access and Success vice president Pauline Abernathy. “These kinds of deceptive tactics protect colleges while putting students and taxpayers at even greater risk after the school is off the hook.”

Student loan default rates have risen for the sixth year; 14.7 percent of federal student loan cohorts had defaulted on their loans within three years. The year prior, the three-year default rate was 13.4 percent. Between October 1, 2010 and September 30, 2011, more than 475,000 college students—an average 10 percent—defaulted on their loans.

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Federal Government Shutting Down, What Happens Next? (+video)

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Photo Credit: Reuters

Photo Credit: Reuters

By Tribune staff and wire reports.

The U.S. government began a partial shutdown Tuesday for the first time in 17 years, potentially putting up to 1 million workers on unpaid leave, closing national parks and stalling medical research projects.

Federal agencies were directed to cut back services after lawmakers could not break a political stalemate that sparked new questions about the ability of a deeply divided Congress to perform its most basic functions.

“Unfortunately, we do not have a clear indication that Congress will act in time for the president to sign a continuing resolution before the end of the day tomorrow, October 1, 2013. Therefore, agencies should now execute plans for an orderly shutdown due to the absence of appropriations,” wrote OMB director Sylvia M. Burwell in a memorandum circulated at 11:45 Eastern time.

The federal government was shut down twice in 1995-96, when Bill Clinton was president and Newt Gingrich was the Speaker of the House, but has not closed since then.

Burwell, as President Barack Obama did repeatedly Monday, urged Congress to pass short-term legislation that would extend the funding for the remainder of the fiscal year and “restore the operation of critical public services and programs that will be impacted by a lapse in appropriations.”

Read more from this story HERE.

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A government shutdown: What could it look like?

By Simon Moya-Smith and Andrew Rafferty.

Government agencies were directed to “execute plans for an orderly shutdown” late Monday as Congress failed to pass a funding bill that would prevent the disruption of some government services.

The Office of Management and Budget, tasked with administering the shutdown, urged Congress “to restore the operation of critical public services and programs” impacted by the failure of the House and Senate to reach an agreement on how to continue funding the government by 12:01 a.m. Tuesday.

While the most essential government services will basically continue business as usual, the lack of funding for many others will be a minor headache for some Americans, and a serious concern for others.

In remarks Monday, President Barack Obama said children, seniors, and women would be “hamstrung” if the government were to shut down.

“The shutdown will have a very real impact on real people right away,” he said.

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Photo Credit: Lisa Desjardins/CNN

Photo Credit: Lisa Desjardins/CNN

Government shutdown: Get up to speed in 20 questions

By Holly Yan.

Let’s start with the obvious question: What happens now that a shutdown is in place?

Republicans and Democrats could not agree on a spending plan for the fiscal year beginning Tuesday as they wrangled over Obamacare, leaving federal coffers short.

Here’s a quick Q&A to get you caught up on what happened on Monday and what to expect going forward.

1. Why did the government shut down?

Congress has one key duty in the Constitution — pass spending bills that fund the government. If it doesn’t, most functions of government — from funding agencies to paying out small business loans and processing passport requests — grinds to a halt. Key services, like Social Security, air traffic control and military pay continue to be funded. Oh, Congress gets paid, too.

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House Republicans Work Immigration Behind Scenes

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Photo Credit: AP

Photo Credit: AP

Immigration overhaul legislation has been dormant in the House for months, but a few Republicans are working behind the scenes to advance it at a time the Capitol is immersed in a partisan brawl over government spending and President Barack Obama’s health care law.

The chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, Rep. Bob Goodlatte, has been discussing possible legal status for the estimated 11 million immigrants living in the U.S. illegally. He’s also been working with House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a fellow Virginia Republican, on a bill offering citizenship to immigrants brought illegally to the U.S. as children.

Reps. Raul Labrador, R-Idaho, and Ted Poe, R-Texas, are working on a plan to create a visa program allowing more lower-skilled workers into the country.

Goodlatte and the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, Rep. Mike McCaul, R-Texas, hold out hopes for floor action by late October on a series of immigration bills that already have passed their committees.

“I would think that would be the next agenda item in the queue after we’re done with this mess,” McCaul said this past week, referring to bitter divisions over the health law, the level of government spending and the growing federal debt.

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Cruz to Donate Salary to Charity if Harry Reid Forces Government Shutdown

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Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

Photo Credit: Gage Skidmore

In a press release issued Monday evening Senator Ted Cruz vowed to donate his salary to charity for each day Majority Leader Harry Reid forces the government to shut down.

“Harry Reid should not force a government shutdown. I hope that Reid stops refusing to negotiate and works with the House to avoid a government shutdown, and, at the same time, prevent the enormous harms that Obamacare is inflicting on the American people.

“If, however, Harry Reid forces a government shutdown, I intend to donate my salary to charity for each day the government is shut down. Elected leaders should not be treated better than the American people, which is precisely why hardworking Americans deserve the same Obamacare exception that President Obama has already granted Members of Congress.”

Read more from this story HERE.