ObamaCare Birth Control Mandate Delayed
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Sotomayor acted on a request from an organization of Catholic nuns in Denver that requested an emergency stay, according to the Associated Press.
Read more from this story HERE.
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Officials Admit New Problems With ObamaCare Launch
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Wednesday is a major milestone for the law, as new plans bought through the exchanges before Dec. 24 will go into effect.
The White House on Tuesday said it had worked closely with the insurance industry to ready for the important date.
White House advisor Phil Schiliro on Tuesday said the admnistration knows insurers will be in the spotlight, and has set up a toll-free number to help consumers.
“We don’t want anybody to have problems but we know some people will,” he said on MSNBC.
Read more about problems with Obamacare launch HERE.
Thousands Scramble to Get Medical Procedures Before Obamacare Limits Begin
Photo Credit: Reuters
Those who were receiving medical care before being forced to sign up to a new plan on HealthCare.gov will, in many cases, be locked out of hospitals and prevented from seeing doctors who they had typically used. The WSJ contends that about 70% of new plans are more restrictive in the range of doctors and hospitals available to patients than their predecessors.
Fearing that the will be unable to use the doctors and hospitals they want with their new plans, doctors are reporting a massive uptick in the number of patients calling for preventative procedures or moving up their planned surgeries to prevent a disaster once Obamacare measures strike.
The paper explains that while supporters of the Affordable Care Act may argue that procedures will continue to be available, the plans severely curb access to certain doctors and hospitals, preventing patients from getting the level of care they are used to at their usual price. In particular, insurers now using the Obamacare system have begun to exclude major academic institutions from their coverage, as these compete with cheaper community hospitals ostensibly providing the same service.
Read more from this story about impending Obamacare limits HERE.
Official in Charge of Failed Healthcare.gov Rollout is Retiring
Photo Credit: REUTERS/Mike Segar
In an email to colleagues, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services chief Marilyn Tavenner said that Michelle Snyder — the chief operating officer and second-highest ranking official at the agency — was retiring “after 41 years of outstanding public service.”
“While we celebrate her distinguished career, we are also sadly saying farewell to a good friend and a key member of the agency’s leadership team,” Tavenner said in the email. “Michelle’s intelligence, experience and formidable work ethic have been indispensable to me and to many of you during her tenure.”
President Obama has been criticized for not firing any of the officials tasked with implementing the online marketplaces, which launched with numerous technical problems.
Administration officials did not attribute Snyder’s exit to the dismal healthcare.gov performance, saying that she had been expected to leave at the end of 2012.
Read more from this story about the failed Healthcare.gov rollout HERE.
Obama’s Email Declaring Total Victory in Healthcare Battle
Read more about Obama’s email HERE.
Cruz Closes High-Profile Year by Standing Tall; If You’re Trying to Change Washington, the Establishment Will Push Back
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“If you’re trying to change Washington, that’s the Washington establishment pushing back,” the Tea Party-backed Cruz told ABC’s “This Week.”
In October, after barnstorming the country to garner public support for the defunding effort, Cruz helped convinced Republicans not to fund the federal government unless the deal was tied to big changes for President Obama’s signature health care law.
“You’ve got conservatives that stood strong and said ‘Let’s stop the train wreck that is ObamaCare,’ ” said the first-term senator and potential 2016 presidential candidate.
He also put the blame on Democrats by saying they wouldn’t negotiate.
Read more from this story HERE.
Expert’s Predictions About ObamaCare Coming True; Another Says ‘Utter Chaos’ To Follow
Photo Credit: Kansas Policy Institute
“In my opinion, what’s going to happen is utter chaos.” — Cato Institute senior fellow Jagadeesh Gokhale, February 2013
“With no clarity as to when people should sign up and who they should pay and when, it’s a virtual certainty that many consumers will find themselves uncovered for a period of time through no fault of their own.” — Senator Orrin Hatch (R-UT), December 2013
My December 2012 prediction that ObamaCare’s health insurance “exchanges” would not be ready on time proved true by July 2013, when President Obama unilaterally delayed the law’s employer mandate for a year. It proved painfully, obviously true when the Exchanges crashed upon takeoff on October 1, just as ObamaCare was throwing millions out of their current health plans.
My colleague Jagadeesh Gokhale‘s February 2013 prediction of “utter chaos” (audio here, at 48: 25) arguably proved true in October, and is now evident in President Obama’s decision to exempt from the individual mandate those millions whose plans Obama himself cancelled.
Read more from this story HERE.
Eight Ways to Opt Out of Obamacare
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“For many Americans opting out of Obamacare is the best decision they can make, but it’s important that they do it the right way—just refusing to buy health insurance and not having another way to pay for catastrophic medical expenses is a mistake,” Sean Parnell, author of the newly-released The Self-Pay Patient, told Breitbart News. “People who want to opt out should be looking at alternatives to conventional health insurance, such as joining a health care sharing ministry or purchasing a fixed benefits policy.”
Parnell also strongly advises Americans against opting out and simply paying the “list” price for medical visits and prescription drugs without shopping around, or by relying solely on the local hospital emergency room for routine medical care.
“This approach leaves people who opt out vulnerable to sky-high medical expenses at inflated ‘list’ or ‘chargemaster’ rates, and can result in an inability to obtain needed care because of cost,” Parnell writes on his blog, selfpaypatient.com. Instead, Parnell recommends the following eight options for those who have opted out of ObamaCare:
1. Join a health care sharing ministry, which are voluntary, charitable membership organizations that share medical expenses among the membership.
Read more from this story HERE.
New ObamaCare Taxes/Fees Hit Americans in 2014
Photo Credit: AP Photo/Susan Walsh
The cost of President Obama’s massive health-care law will hit Americans in 2014 as new taxes pile up on their insurance premiums and on their income-tax bills.
Most insurers aren’t advertising the ObamaCare taxes that are added on to premiums, opting instead to discretely pass them on to customers while quietly lobbying lawmakers for a break.
But one insurance company, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Alabama, laid bare the taxes on its bills with a separate line item for “Affordable Care Act Fees and Taxes.”
The new taxes on one customer’s bill added up to $23.14 a month, or $277.68 annually, according to Kaiser Health News. It boosted the monthly premium from $322.26 to $345.40 for that individual.
Read more from this story HERE.
Patchwork of ObamaCare Insurance Deadlines Adds to Confusion
Photo Credit: Fox News
As with any insurance plan, new enrollees still have to pay their first month’s premium to lock in coverage. But the deadlines for that task are different all over the country, adding to the confusion over an already-perplexing sign-up process.
“It makes an already kind of chaotic situation even more chaotic,” Fox News contributor Kirsten Powers said.
The deadlines in the ObamaCare enrollment process have been a moving target. For those seeking coverage for the start of the new year, the deadline to sign up was originally Dec. 15. Then it was moved to Dec. 23, and then again to Dec. 24. Even after that deadline passed Tuesday night, the administration announced that those who ran into technical problems on HealthCare.gov could still seek an exemption and get covered by Jan. 1.
Then comes the next set of deadlines. After appeals from the Obama administration, major health insurers announced earlier this month that they would give people until Jan. 10 — as opposed to Dec. 31 — to pay their first month’s premium and have coverage effective Jan. 1.
Read more from this story HERE.