Sorry, readers. I'm still filling out the form:
"Response mixed on health insurance cancellations change; For many, issue is still unsettling" by Emery P. Dalesio | Associated Press, December 27, 2013
RALEIGH, N.C. — A month after President Obama announced that people could keep insurance policies slated for cancellation under the federal health overhaul, the reversal has gotten a mixed response from insurers, state regulators, and consumers.
See: Obama's Unhealthy Obfuscation
Many consumers complained in October and November after insurers notified them that their individual policies were being canceled because they did not cover preexisting conditions, hospitalization, prescription drugs, or seven other basic benefits required under the law.
In pitching the overhaul, Obama had long promised that people who liked their policies could keep them.
Then Obama said Nov. 14 that companies could continue existing policies that don’t meet the minimum requirements if state regulators approved.
Reporting by the Associated Press shows that older policies are being allowed to continue in 36 states, either because officials allowed it after Obama’s announcement, decided not to intervene in any way, or had made a decision earlier in the year to extend noncompliant policies for a period of time.
Even so, insurers were given a choice of whether to continue the policies, and some declined to do so.
In Kentucky, Humana, United Healthcare, and Assurant chose to extend old policies while Anthem and Bluegrass Family Health opted against it. Seven companies in South Carolina are extending individual plans the federal law considers substandard, while six companies are extending plans in the small group market. Twenty are not participating.
In North Carolina, only Blue Cross and Blue Shield, which controls about 80 percent of the state’s market for individual and small-business policies, offered to renew plans covering 474,000 people that had been slated for cancellation. North Carolina’s insurance commissioner allowed the company to raise premiums by between 16 percent and 24 percent.
Prices on noncompliant policies are rising in other states, as well. Anthem Blue Cross in Maine plans to raise premiums by an average of 12 percent on its no-longer-canceled policies.
The Blue Cross provider in neighboring New Hampshire expects an average 7 percent increase, an amount that is in line with previous years’ premium increases. Blue Cross Blue Shield of Illinois said it would seek undefined price changes.
The problem has not been as pronounced in Massachusetts because the state’s own health care law already required insurers to offer many of the same basic benefits as the new national law.
Raleigh attorney Jeff Poley, 42, says he is fine with paying more for his current policy, considering what it would have cost him to switch to a new one. He has been covered with a high-deductible health policy from Blue Cross for the past two years, which currently costs $137 a month. The plan does not cover maternity and some other benefits required under the Affordable Care Act.
When he initially received a cancellation notice, Blue Cross said the closest plan that met all of the new federal requirements would cost nearly twice as much.
But after Obama’s announcement, Blue Cross offered to extend Poley’s old plan for another year at $170 a month. His wife is covered by a policy through her law firm.
‘‘I was glad for the one-year reprieve, but I would still like a permanent fix because I don’t need abortion coverage, I don’t need maternity coverage,’’ he said. ‘‘We as a family had made that choice, and we are two intelligent people who know better what’s good for our family than the government does.’’
Agree with that last item. As for the rest, I wanted a good, decent, single-payer plan like in Sicko, but no way do I want a $ingle-payer plan under this government.
About 15 million Americans buy policies as individuals, according to Families USA, a nonprofit organization that backs health reform.
Before Obama’s announcement, insurers sent at least 4.7 million policy cancellation notices, according to a tally by the Associated Press. The number is probably much higher because officials in nearly 20 states said they were unable to provide information on cancellation notices or were not tracking it.
Sabrina Corlette, project director at the Health Policy Institute at Georgetown University, warns that Obama’s decision last month could allow younger people with relatively few health problems to stay on bare-bones policies. That could lead to higher premiums in 2015 to offset insurers’ cost of covering people with more health problems, she said.
Already a given -- which is why this thing is such a failure.
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"Health website handles surge of sign-ups as deadline nears; Next hurdle is use of insurance" by Josh Lederman | Associated Press, December 30, 2013
HONOLULU — A December surge propelled health care sign-ups through the government’s rehabilitated website past the 1 million mark, the Obama administration said Sunday, reflecting new vigor for the problem-plagued federal insurance market.
Says who, this $elf-$erving government through their mouthpiece ma$$ media?
Combined with numbers for state-run markets due in January, that should put total enrollment in the new private insurance plans under President Obama’s health law at about 2 million people through the end of the year, independent experts said.
That would be about two-thirds of the administration’s original goal of signing up 3.3 million by Dec. 31, a significant improvement given the technical problems that crippled the federal market during much of the fall. The overall goal remains to enroll 7 million people by March 31....
The real deadline.
‘‘It was a very impressive showing for December.’’
Uh-huh.
The federal website serves 36 states. Yet to be reported are December results from the 14 states running their own sites, including Massachusetts.
Overall, states have been signing up more people than the federal government. But most of that has come from high performers such as California, New York, Washington, Kentucky, and Connecticut. Some states continue to struggle.
Still, the end-of-year surge suggests that the federal insurance marketplace is starting to pull its weight.
The windfall comes at a critical moment for Obama’s sweeping law, which becomes ‘‘real’’ for many Americans on Jan. 1 as coverage through the insurance exchanges and key patient protections kick in.
This agenda-pushing garbage is Obumming me out.
The administration’s concern now shifts to keeping the momentum going for sign-ups and heading off problems that could arise when people who’ve already enrolled try to use their insurance.
‘‘They’ve got the front end of the system working really well,’’ said insurance industry consultant Robert Laszewski. ‘‘Now we can move on to the next question: Do people really want to buy this?’’
No.
The fledgling insurance exchanges are online markets for subsidized private coverage. Obama needs millions of mostly younger, healthy Americans to sign up to keep costs low for everyone. Open enrollment runs until the end of March.
Good luck getting this checked-out, drug-addled, nose-in-their-gadgets generation to do that.
Tavenner said fixes to the website, overhauled to address widespread technical problems, contributed to December’s figures. But some problems persist. Thousands of people wound up waiting on hold for telephone help on Christmas Eve for a multitude of reasons, including technical difficulties.
‘‘We have been a little bit behind the curve,’’ acknowledged Representative Joaquin Castro, Democrat of Texas, whose state has the highest proportion of uninsured residents.
‘‘Obamacare is a reality,’’ conceded one of the law’s opponents, Representative Darrell Issa, Republican of California, who as House oversight committee chairman has been investigating the rollout problems.
May God help us all.
However, he predicted it will only pile on costs.
‘‘The fact that people well into the middle class are going to get subsidies is going to cause them to look at health care . . . sort of in a Third World way of do we get subsidies from the government for our milk, for our gasoline and, oh, by the way, for our health care,’’ said Issa.
OMG!! He didn't say that!
Do "we" get SUBSIDIES for BANK BAILOUTS and the rest? And don't even get me started on the $ub$idizing of Israel in this age of au$terity.
What an Issahole!!!
Castro and Issa both appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press.’’
I'm so glad I no longer watch that shit.
For consumers who successfully selected one of the insurance plans by Dec. 24, coverage should start on New Year’s Day. That’s provided they pay their first month’s premium by the due date, extended until Jan. 10 in most cases.
But insurers have complained that another set of technical problems, largely hidden from consumers, has resulted in the government passing along inaccurate data on enrollees.
What? So when will we NOTICE THAT?
With a flood of signups that must be processed in just days, it remains unclear whether last-minute enrollees will encounter a seamless experience if they try to use their new benefits come Jan. 1.
Based on what has happened now it will be anything but seamless.
The White House says the error rate has been significantly reduced, but the political fallout from website woes could pale in comparison with the heat that Obama might take if Americans who signed up and paid their premiums arrive at the pharmacy or the emergency room and find there’s no record of their coverage.
But the things is getting better, blah, blah, f***ing blah!!!!!!
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"Official retires after overseeing health site; Departure is 2d since insurance exchange’s woes" by Robert Pear | New York Times, December 31, 2013
WASHINGTON — The No. 2 official at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who supervised the troubled rollout of President Obama’s health care law, is retiring, administration officials said Monday.
They should have been fired.
The official, Michelle Snyder, is the agency’s chief operating officer, in charge of day-to-day activities and the allocation of resources, including budget and personnel.
Technology experts who built the website for the federal insurance exchange, HealthCare.gov, reported to her.
And warned her the thing wasn't ready to go live but Obummer insisted!
Snyder is the second administration official to depart since problems with the website frustrated millions of people trying to buy insurance and caused acute political embarrassment to Obama.
The chief information officer at the Medicare agency, Tony Trenkle, stepped down in November to take a job in the private sector.
Why am I not $urpri$ed.
Marilyn B. Tavenner, the administrator of the Medicare agency, said Snyder was retiring this week “after 41 years of outstanding public service.”
You $elf-$erving slobs are sickening.
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Many of the initial problems have been fixed, but their effects linger, as the agency and insurers try to correct enrollment records....
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Thank God I live in Massachusetts!
"Connector enrollments up as deadline approaches" by Chelsea Conaboy | Globe Staff, December 27, 2013
Tens of thousands of people who have applied for coverage remain in limbo.
The Connector is working with system developer CGI to increase the website’s ability to handle many users at once before the Tuesday deadline, though the site has for months been finicky and slow in processing data....
See: States Agree CGI Computer Software Sucks
Related:
"The state’s beleaguered unemployment insurance system suffered yet another setback this week, with users unable to file for benefits online or through the automated phone line just as holiday bills are piling up."
How you feeling?
The Massachusetts marketplace created under a 2006 state law was the model for the Affordable Care Act. But the website has performed so poorly since being overhauled to comply with the federal law that many customers have had to submit paper applications....
Unreal. Obummercare ruined the Mass. website!
The website has locked people out of their accounts, been slow to load pages, and has delivered confusing error messages. Users have also endured long waits for customer service.
Some people are happy about that.
On Monday, the Connector extended the January enrollment deadline to next Tuesday, giving people an extra week to submit their application.
The Connector is meant to be a marketplace where people who work part time, are self-employed, or otherwise do not have access to employer-sponsored insurance can shop for plans....
I gue$$ I'm feeling $ick because I'm a patient, 'er, con$umer in the marketplace of health care.
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"State to aid new health coverage; Subsidies for 24,000 to pay insurance in ’14; Difficulties with site still frustrate many" by Chelsea Conaboy | Globe Staff, January 01, 2014
More than 24,000 people will receive new assistance from the state to pay for health insurance in 2014 and tens of thousands of people who previously received such subsidies will continue to get them, despite a bungled overhaul of the online insurance marketplace run by the Massachusetts Health Connector.
Agency officials on Tuesday celebrated the modest gain in enrollees, which counters fears that the Connector’s faulty website would cause the state’s notably high rate of insurance coverage to decline.
Perfume and paint that turd!
The state was able to maintain coverage for tens of thousands of Massachusetts residents only by extending assistance programs that were scheduled to end in December and creating new tools to process applications offline. And most of those receiving new subsidized coverage haven’t yet been able to choose their preferred health plan.
What is unclear is how many other people may go without coverage in January because they were not able to complete an application before the Tuesday deadline, stymied by an online system that locked users out, was slow to process data, and was never fully functional....
And we paid how much for that pos?
Nationally, about 2.1 million people have signed up for private insurance plans through federal and state exchanges. US and Massachusetts health officials on Tuesday could not say how many new enrollees were previously uninsured.
Why not?
The state website was developed by the same firm, CGI, that created the federal marketplace used by more than 30 states, which also got off to a rocky start. While the federal website has seen improvements, problems with the state website were so persistent that Connector officials last month said they would forgo trying to fix it before the end of the year and instead focus on processing applications without it....
“As frustrating as these IT problems are, today’s news that we have met our goals of protecting the coverage gains that Massachusetts has already achieved through health care reform, and adding to the ranks of the insured in Massachusetts is cause for encouragement,” Connector spokesman Jason Lefferts wrote in an e-mail....
He's delusional. Good thing taxpayers are covering his health care.
Globe cites a woman in limbo that needs care for chronic kidney disease as well as coverage for her husband and 16-year-old son, who have been uninsured since November, and while generally healthy she worries about them being in an accident --m same as so many of us.
Anne Mahon was able to buy an unsubsidized plan through the Connector this week, after hours of frustration with the website.
I can empathize.
The real estate agent from Belmont said the Connector plan saved her several hundred dollars a month, compared with the COBRA plan offered by her husband’s former employer....
That means he was just laid off during this recovery that is gaining momentum.
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Yeah, you can call someone for help and it's great -- unless you are put on hold.
