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New Bills Would Halt Health Law’s Employer Mandate

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photo credit: 401(k)2013House and Senate bills introduced Thursday would kill a key provision of President Obama’s healthcare law — the mandate that most employers must offer health benefits to workers.

The legislation was introduced by prominent Republicans, who called the requirement a “job killer.”

“The employer mandate is a drag on our economy, forcing too many of our nation’s job creators to stop hiring and grow their businesses in order to comply with this onerous provision in president’s health law,” Sen. Orrin Hatch (Utah) said in a statement.

“Instead of letting the federal government dictate how employers should allocate resources, let’s repeal this job-killing mandate and let businesses get back in the business of hiring,” Hatch said.

The employer mandate requires that companies of 50 or more workers provide health insurance or pay fines if more than 30 employees receive government assistance to buy coverage. The health offerings must be affordable, and they must include a variety of “essential health benefits.”

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Poll Finds 15-Point Drop In Dem Support For Health Law

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photo credit: andrew aliferisDemocratic support for President Obama’s healthcare law has dropped 15 points since November, contributing to a rise in negative attitudes toward the reform, according to a new poll.

Opponents of the Affordable Care Act currently outnumber supporters (42 percent to 36), according to the Kaiser Family Foundation’s (KFF) latest tracking survey. Public opinion has switched back and forth since the law passed in 2010, and in November, support for the law was 4 percent higher than opposition (43 percent to 39).

Kaiser attributed the marked slide in support among Democrats to a “post-presidential election fade.” In November, 72 percent of that group expressed support for the law, compared with 57 percent who feel favorably toward it now.

Unaffiliated voters saw a similar but less dramatic decline in support, with 32 percent approving of the healthcare law compared with 37 percent in November.

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GOP Seeks Planned Parenthood Study With Hope To Strip Funding

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Photo Credit: alamosbasementDozens of Republicans in the House and Senate have asked the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to examine how Planned Parenthood and other groups that provide abortion services are using taxpayer money.

Those spearheading the effort — Rep. Diane Black (Tenn.), Rep. Pete Olson (Texas) and Sen. David Vitter (La.) — are hoping the study confirms their suspicion that these groups are focusing more on abortion and less on other healthcare services. Black said this finding could be used to justify a reduction in federal funds to abortion providers.

“I firmly believe that organizations which both provide comprehensive health care and respect all life — both the born and unborn — are best equipped to offer the most effective health care services to those in need,” she said in a press release. “My hope is that through greater transparency and accountability we can successfully mobilize the support needed to defund abortion providers — once and for all.”

Black added that Planned Parenthood showed in its latest report that they are providing more abortions and fewer other health services, all while federal funding has increased. “An independent study of the federal funding for abortion providers is necessary to further expose the truth of how these precious taxpayer dollars are truly being used,” Black said.

Federal law prohibits the use of taxpayer funding for abortion. But opponents of Planned Parenthood argue that it is not clear the group is ensuring federal dollars are not used for abortions, as required. Olson said there are signs that Planned Parenthood has “failed to properly follow correct billing practices to prevent federal tax dollars from funding abortion services.”

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Florida Doesn’t Have Enough Doctors For Medicaid Expansion, Lobby Group Says

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Photo Credit: Mike StockerBrace yourself for longer lines at the doctor’s office. Whether you’re employed and insured, elderly and on Medicare, or poor and covered by Medicaid, the Florida Medical Association says there’s a growing shortage of doctors — especially specialists — available to provide you with medical care.

And if the Florida Legislature goes along with Gov. Rick Scott’s recommendation to offer Medicaid coverage to an additional 1 million Floridians — part of the Affordable Care Act that takes effect next January — the FMA says that shortage will only get worse. “Florida needs more doctors and it needs more nurses, and it needs them working together in teams,” said Rebecca O’Hara, a lobbyist for the FMA.

About 15 million Floridians have health insurance today, and Obamacare, which requires most adults to have coverage by January, could add as many as 2.5 million more. One million would come through a potential expansion of the federal-state Medicaid program that Scott announced this week he was backing. The others would be the result of new mandates requiring employers and individuals to have insurance or be fined.

Currently, the state has 44,804 doctors, but about 5,600 of them are expected to retire in the next five years. And even though Florida has opened three new medical schools in the past dozen years, the state isn’t producing as many doctors as it needs. Scott’s budget this year has $80 million to fund programs to train 700 new residents a year, in hopes they’ll remain in the state.

Of all patients, people covered by Medicaid may have the hardest time finding a doctor; only 59 percent of the state’s physicians are taking new Medicaid patients, according to a Kaiser Health News study.

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Video: Frank Luntz’ Focus Group Lauds Ben Carson’s Speech – ‘It’s Not American To Bite Your Tongue’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: Getty Images Dr. Benjamin Carson, the pediatric neurosurgeon who attacked political correctness and staked out positions opposite the White House on debt, taxes and health care in a speech in front of President Barack Obama, was a hit with pollster Frank Luntz’s focus group Friday night.

During “Hannity” on Fox News, participants said Carson’s provocative speech at the National Prayer Breakfast last week spoke to them because he seemed “just like me — he was just a regular ordinary person.”

“It’s not American to bite your tongue,” another participant said.

Carson, who told TheBlaze that Obama thanked him for his words, has been asked repeatedly whether his headline-grabbing address might mean a run for political office.

See video:

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Report: $2 Billion Spent Annually For Medicaid Emergencies, Largely For Illegal Immigrant Baby Deliveries

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Photo Credit: Laura RauchEven though federal law largely bars illegal immigrants from obtaining Medicaid coverage, the program annually pays out more than $2 billion in free emergency coverage that mostly goes to illegal immigrants, according to Kaiser Health News.

The vast majority of the total emergency care reimbursements cover delivering babies, Kaiser reports.

Based on a Kaiser data analysis of the states believed to have the greatest populations of illegal immigrants — including California, New York, Texas, North Carolina, Arizona, Illinois and Florida — more than 100,000 people annually receive emergency care that is reimbursed by Medicaid. California, Kaiser’s analysis showed, receives approximately half of the annual $2 billion Medicaid expenditure category.

That category of Medicaid also covers some homeless people and legal immigrants who have been in the country less than five years — and are therefore mostly ineligible for Medicaid, according to Kaiser.

“We can’t turn them away,” Joanne Aquilina, the chief financial officer of Bethesda Healthcare System in Boynton Beach, Fla., told Kaiser.

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Health Care Exchanges And The Two Americas

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Photo Credit: Reuters In the Obamacare era, there are two Americas. Half the states have refused to set up the health insurance exchanges, ignoring a Friday deadline for states to take on core requirements of the law. They’ll hand over the keys to the Obama administration, which will play an outsize and risky role in driving critical health insurance decisions that are typically the province of state governments.

Barring any surprise last minute Friday announcements, in those 25 states — nearly all led by Republican governors — the feds must set up health insurance exchanges. Enrollment starts in October, and on Jan. 1 those online marketplaces are supposed to provide affordable health coverage for millions of Americans.

Republicans who voted against the law and still clamor to repeal Obamacare believe the feds are heading for a nationwide failure.

“I have a hard time understanding how the administration expects to have exchanges up and running by Oct. 1, ” Orrin Hatch, the top Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, said Thursday.

For the administration, it’s a dangerous endeavor: the text of President Barack Obama’s health law didn’t envision widespread abdication by the states. There’s not much of a playbook for federal health officials to follow. And if it goes horribly awry, not only will the Obama administration be blamed, the entire health care law could be in trouble.

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CBO Forecast: 1.4% GDP, 8% Unemployment, 7 Million To Lose Health Insurance

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Photo Credit: APThe Congressional Budget Office’s just-released economic forecast for 2013 is dispiriting, to say the least. The GDP is expected to grow by only 1.4%, the unemployment rate will “stay near” 8%, the deficit will reach $845 billion, and ObamaCare will cost 7 million their health insurance.

The CBO says things will improve after that, but after three years of being told by the government and its media that “prosperity is just around the corner,” you’ll just have to pardon my cynicism. The media, however, will talk only about how much better the CBO says things will get, because that’s what Obama would want them to do.

What these numbers really mean is that millions of Americans are about to face yet another year of chronic joblessness and economic hardship — which just didn’t have to happen. Reagan inherited an economy in much worse shape than the one Obama inherited. But Reagan’s tax and regulatory policies got out of the way of the economy, and as a result, the engine of American ingenuity was unleashed and the economy exploded. Millions of jobs were created, millions were lifted out of poverty into the middle class, and poverty decreased.

Obama, however, decided he knew better than history and did the exact opposite of what Reagan did. New taxes, ObamaCare, untold numbers of regulations, and an overall Narrative that toxified success, individualism, and the pursuit of prosperity.

And just look at us now.

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Seven Million Will Lose Insurance Under Obama Health Law

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Photo Credit: Carolyn KasterPresident Obama’s health care law will push 7 million people out of their job-based insurance coverage — nearly twice the previous estimate, according to the latest estimates from the Congressional Budget Office released Tuesday.

CBO said that this year’s tax cuts have changed the incentives for businesses and made it less attractive to pay for insurance, meaning fewer will decide to do so. Instead, they’ll choose to pay a penalty to the government, totaling $13 billion in higher fees over the next decade . . .

Overall, the new health provisions are expected to cost the government $1.165 trillion over the next decade — the same as last year’s projection

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IRS: $20,000 Minimum Health Care Decree

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Photo Credit: Andrew Aliferis In a final regulation issued Wednesday, the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) assumed that under Obamacare the cheapest health insurance plan available in 2016 for a family will cost $20,000 for the year.

Under Obamacare, Americans will be required to buy health insurance or pay a penalty to the IRS.

The IRS’s assumption that the cheapest plan for a family will cost $20,000 per year is found in examples the IRS gives to help people understand how to calculate the penalty they will need to pay the government if they do not buy a mandated health plan.

The examples point to families of four and families of five, both of which the IRS expects in its assumptions to pay a minimum of $20,000 per year for a bronze plan.

“The annual national average bronze plan premium for a family of 5 (2 adults, 3 children) is $20,000,” the regulation says.

Read more on this story HERE.