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New Poll: If Voters Had Known They’d Lose Insurance, Barack Obama Would Not Be President

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If voters had been aware last year that they might lose their health-care plans when Obamacare went into effect, Republican President Mitt Romney would be sitting in the White House today, according to a poll released Friday.

A Wilson Perkins Allen Opinion Research survey conducted from Nov. 18-20 asked voters who supported President Barack Obama in 2012: “As you may know, millions of Americans have lost their insurance plans despite President Obama’s promise that, quote, ‘if you like your plan, you can keep it.’ If you knew in 2012 that this promise was not true, would you still have voted for Barack Obama?”

In response, 23 percent said they would not have voted to re-elect Obama, while 72 percent said they would still have voted for him. The largest number of defections were among female voters ages 18-54, 31 percent of whom said they would not have supported the president.

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Subcontractor Working on Obamacare Site Under FBI Investigation

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Photo Credit: REUTERS/Mike SegarOne of the subcontractors working on the Obamacare website is currently under investigation by the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Client Network Services Incorporated (CNSI) became a sub-contractor on the Obamacare website in 2012, working hand in hand with QSSI, according to its website. QSSI was one of several contractors hauled before Congress to address the sites troubled rollout in October.

According to Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) “war room” notes released in October, CNSI was responsible for assisting with electronic data interchange (EDI) — defined as a system to transfer data between computer systems without human interaction.

Among the plethora of problems with the website rollout, insurance companies have complained that data received on their computers has often been inaccurate, suggesting a problem with the EDI.

CNSI is currently under investigation by the FBI, which has alleged that then-Louisiana Health and Hospitals Secretary Bruce Greenstein, a former CNSI employee, exerted undue influence in steering the Medicaid contract to Louisiana.

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Democrat Hill Staffers Shocked by Obamacare Prices They Must Pay

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Photo Credit: AP Veteran House Democratic aides are sick over the insurance prices they’ll pay under Obamacare, and they’re scrambling to find a cure.

“In a shock to the system, the older staff in my office (folks over 59) have now found out their personal health insurance costs (even with the government contribution) have gone up 3-4 times what they were paying before,” Minh Ta, chief of staff to Rep. Gwen Moore (D-Wis.), wrote to fellow Democratic chiefs of staff in an email message obtained by POLITICO. “Simply unacceptable.”

In the email, Ta noted that older congressional staffs may leave their jobs because of the change to their health insurance.

Under the Affordable Care Act, and federal regulations, many congressional staffers — designated as “official” aides — were forced to move out of the old heavily subsidized Federal Employees Health Benefits program and into the District of Columbia’s health insurance marketplace exchange. Others designated as “unofficial” were allowed to stay in the FEHB program. Managers had to choose whether aides were “official” or “unofficial” by Oct. 31, and Ta said that wasn’t enough time to make an informed decision about who would benefit and who would lose out by going into the new system.

Moore’s office was one of those in which all staff were designated as “official” and pushed into the exchanges. That ended up being a problem for older staff, who weren’t accustomed to paying higher premiums because of their age.

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NYC Writer: ObamaCare Forced My Mom Into Medicaid

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Photo Credit: Wall Street Journal My mother is not one to seek attention by complaining, so her recent woeful Facebook post caught my eye: “The poor get poorer.” It diverged from the more customary stream of inspirational quotes, recipes and snapshots from her tiny cottage in Pierce County, Wash.

The post continued: “I just received a notice: ‘In order to comply with the new healthcare law, your current health plan will be discontinued on December 31, 2013.’ Currently my premium is $276 and it is a stretch for me to cover. The new plan . . . are you ready . . . projected new rate $415.20. Now I can’t afford health insurance.”

The unaffordable ObamaCare-compliant plan that her insurer offered in a Sept. 26 letter is not what makes my mother’s story noteworthy. Countless individually insured Americans have received such letters; many are seeing more radical increases in premiums and deductibles.

But most of these people are still being offered the chance to choose what health-care insurance they will receive, or to opt out before they are automatically enrolled in a state program. Not so my mother, Charlene Hopkins, as I soon discovered when I called after seeing her Facebook post.

Since she couldn’t afford the new plan offered by her insurer, she told me she was eager to explore her new choices under the Affordable Care Act. Washington Healthplanfinder is one of the better health-exchange sites, and she was actually able to log on. She entered her personal and financial data. With efficiency uncommon to the ObamaCare process, the site quickly presented her with a health-care option.

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Second Massive Wave of Health Plan Cancellations Looms

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A new and independent analysis of ObamaCare warns of a ticking time bomb, predicting a second wave of 50 million to 100 million insurance policy cancellations next fall — right before the mid-term elections.

The next round of cancellations and premium hikes is expected to hit employees, particularly of small businesses. While the administration has tried to downplay the cancellation notices hitting policyholders on the individual market by noting they represent a relatively small fraction of the population, the swath of people who will be affected by the shakeup in employer-sponsored coverage will be much broader.

An analysis by the American Enterprise Institute, a conservative think tank, shows the administration anticipates half to two-thirds of small businesses would have policies canceled or be compelled to send workers onto the ObamaCare exchanges. They predict up to 100 million small and large business policies could be canceled next year.

“The impact I’m mostly worried about is on small young, entrepreneurial firms that will suddenly face much higher health insurance premiums if they want to offer health insurance to their employees,” said AEI resident scholar Stan Veuger. “I think for a lot of other businesses … they can just send their employees to the exchanges or offer them a fixed subsidy every month to buy health insurance themselves.”

Under the health care law, businesses with fewer than 50 workers do not have to provide health coverage. But if they do, the policies will still have to meet the benefit standards set by ObamaCare.

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CBS Poll: 43 Percent Want Obamacare Repealed, Obama Approval Plunges

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Photo Credit: Getty Images Forty-three percent of Americans believe the Affordable Care Act needs to be repealed, and opposition to the new healthcare law has driven President Barack Obama’s job approval rating to an all-time low, a new poll has found.

According to a CBS News Poll conducted Nov. 15-18, approval of the law has dropped to 31 percent, the lowest number ever recorded by the poll, a decline of 12 points since last month. Sixty-one percent of respondents disapprove of Obamacare, including 46 percent who say they disapprove strongly.

The survey of 1,010 adults also found that Republicans are nearly unanimous in their disapproval of the president’s signature healthcare law, and two-thirds of independents agree. Democrats continue to back the law, but their support has dropped by 16 points since last month, from 74 percent in October to 58 percent today.

Just 7 percent of Americans think the Affordable Care Act is working well and should be kept in place as it is.

The problems plaguing the launch of Obamacare are taking a toll on the president’s job approval rating. Just 37 percent now approve of the job Obama is doing, according to the poll, and disapproval is at an all-time high of 57 percent.

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Obama Blames Republicans for ObamaCare’s Rollout Woes

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President Obama on Tuesday sought to redirect some of the political blame for the botched rollout of the federal health insurance exchange to Republicans, characterizing GOP lawmakers as rooting for the law’s failure.

Addressing a gathering of business executives, Obama acknowledged that the health-care rollout “has been rough, to say the least,” and he lamented the government’s archaic information-technology procurement system.

Obama said that fixes to the HealthCare.gov Web portal are underway and that the exchange will function for a majority of people by the end of November. But the president said staunch opposition from congressional Republicans is inhibiting the law’s implementation.

“One of the problems we’ve had is one side of Capitol Hill is invested in failure,” Obama said at the Wall Street Journal’s CEO Council meeting in Washington. “We obviously are going to have to remarket and rebrand, and that will be challenging in this political environment.”

The president also voiced frustration with the toxic political atmosphere endangering his signature legislative achievement. He said Washington needs to “break through the stubborn cycle of crisis politics and start working together.”

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NBC’s David Gregory Does Not Allow Pelosi to Pivot Away from Her ObamaCare Promise (+video)

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In case you missed Meet the Press Sunday, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was confronted by host David Gregory about a promise she made in 2009, similar to the guarantee made by President Barack Obama, that Americans could keep the plans they have under Obamacare.

Then-Speaker of the House, Pelosi said “if you like [the health plan] you have, and you want to keep, you have the choice to do that.” Gregory noted that President Obama has held himself “accountable” for making such a claim and asked Pelosi, who had a blank look on her face after seeing the clip, if she was accountable for a promise that has been proven false as millions of Americans have lost their health plans.

She had no real defense and pivoted to talking points, hoping that Gregory would allow her to deflect from the issue. He didn’t, and hilarity ensued.

“Well, it’s not that it’s not correct, it’s that if you want to keep it and it’s important for the insurance company to say to people, this is what your plan does, it’s doesn’t prevent you from being discriminated against on the basis of preexisting conditions, lifetime limits, annual limits,” Pelosi said before Gregory cut her off.

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No. 2 House Dem: Obamacare Attempt to Change ‘Value System in Our Country’ (+video)

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Photo Credit: APRep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.). the assistant House Democratic leader, said on CNN’s “State of the Union With Candy Crowley” on Sunday the Obamacare is an attempt to change a “value system in our country.”

“The fact of the matter is, this is a rollout problem, this is not a values problem. And I think that if we were to look at what we’re attempting to do with the Affordable Health Care Act, you will know that what we’re trying to do is change a value system in our country.”

Clyburn didn’t elaborate on the nation’s “values system.” Instead, he talked about policy cancellations, which are nothing new to him:

“I’ve been hearing from constituents for the entire 21 years I’ve been in the Congress about cancellation letters that they’ve been getting from insurance companies as soon as a child is born with diabetes, cannot get on your health care policy, gets sick, go for your second treatment you get a cancellation letter, you limit your benefits, you get annual benefits — a cancellation letter from your insurance company.

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Another ObamaCare Cost: Feds Gave $4.4B to States for Exchange Websites

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Photo Credit: Fox News By Fox News.

The Obama administration gave states roughly $4.4 billion in taxpayer dollars to set up their own ObamaCare websites, according to a new analysis, in the latest revelation about the faucet of federal spending switched on by the 2010 passage of the health care law.

Some of the states even took federal money, then decided to let the federal site handle enrollment.

While the steep cost of HealthCare.gov — which is the federally run site — has come under fire, the money granted to the states has so far generated little attention. And while the 14 state-run sites have operated more smoothly than the problem-plagued federal site and have accounted for the lion’s share of signups, the federal money spent on tech support, advertising and other startup costs have hardly yielded the level of customer enthusiasm and participation the administration projected.

Just 106,000 Americans have enrolled since the Oct. 1 rollout — far short of the 500,000 the administration hoped would sign up in the first month. The state-run sites handled 75 percent of the transactions.

The study on state-site spending by the conservative-leaning Americans for Tax Reform group shows the money was distributed through the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services grants and argues “federal taxpayer funds were shoveled to states for a variety of vague purposes.”

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Photo Credit: ReutersObamacare: So, what could go wrong next?

By David Nather.

Busted website, canceled policies, lousy early enrollment numbers. And that could be just the warmup.

Because the lesson of the last six weeks is that when it comes to the Obamacare rollout, if it can go wrong, it probably will.

The stumble-filled debut of President Barack Obama’s health care law is drawing new attention to the other risks that have been on the radar screen of health care wonks for months. Think health insurance plans sinking under the weight of sick customers, newly insured people being stunned that they still have to spend on health care, and possibly another wave of canceled policies — right before the 2014 elections.

They’re mostly worst-case scenarios, and an Obamacare recovery in the next few months could still prevent some of the biggest ones from ever happening. But health care experts are taking all of them a lot more seriously now — because at this point, why wouldn’t they?

A complete list of possibilities could be overwhelming, but here are the main ones to watch…

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