Obama Health Care on The Huffington Posttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2011:/tag/obama-health-careThe Huffington PostCicily Janus: 5 Reasons Why Obama's Birth Certificate Should Be the Last Thing on Your Mindhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/cicily-janus/5-reasons-why-obamas-birt_b_855300.htmlCicily Janushttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/cicily-janus/
Truth be told, I'm a <em>huge</em> Obama supporter. And I have been from the minute I heard about him. Does he have his faults? Of course. Who doesn't? But I think we need, as a country, to lighten up. Don't you think that someone, somewhere, somehow checked his "CV" before allowing him to take the chair in the oval office? I hope so. <br />
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Regardless of this new "scandal" aimed at the Obama family, we have to remember that he is already in office and already sorting out our country's issues. He inherited an enormous mess (which President hasn't?) and he's doing the best he can. I, for one, wouldn't want to be in his shoes... I don't care how much the gig pays. <br />
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Despite our government's crazy divided ways, I think we, as Americans, are the fortunate souls. We can choose from innumerable reasons to be stressed. There's never just one obvious elephant in the room at any moment. We can choose our poison, our preposterous acts, our neighbors asses and any reality show we damn well please to covet as our own and/or screw up, creating havoc for the rest of the world. After all, we are the same nation that offers more respect to our movie stars and sports "legends" than our political leaders. Right? <br />
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Just a thought. After hearing the gabillionth story on Obama's birth certificate, I began to feel the vomit rising in the back of my throat. So I began thinking... what else is going on in this country and around the world that's either being "downplayed" or brushed over just so people can debate a fake certificate? <br />
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Here's what I came up with: <br />
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5) <strong>The Weather</strong>: Anyone ever read that book, <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Night-Twisters-Ivy-Ruckman/dp/0064401766/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1304057828&sr=1-1" target="_hplink"><em>Night of the Twisters</em></a>? Yeah, that one. I was up all night long, many nights, after reading that. And now, it's reality. As a nation, we haven't seen this kind of devastation, across this many state borders, since Katrina. The impact hasn't even begun to hit home. <br />
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4) <strong>Our Future, Our Kids</strong>: Is violence and destruction really becoming more commonplace, especially among younger students in the elementary grades? Where are we, as parents, going wrong? Or is it something bigger than that? By the time I graduated high school, I had witnessed a mere two fist fights. The most violent video games I came across were Super Mario Brothers and Legend of Zelda. Yes, I really was that cool!<br />
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<a href="http://www.whiotv.com/news/27672338/detail.html" target="_hplink">This story</a> shocked me: (these are eight graders!) <br />
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<blockquote>A pair of Clark County eighth-graders have been identified by police as the vandals who damaged two Northeastern School District buses.<br />
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The two 14-year-old girls from South Vienna Middle School are accused of urinating on seats, defecating on the floor and setting things on fire inside two buses.<br />
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The girls were booked into jail and will be charged, but have been released to their parents, according to police.<br />
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According to deputies, the girls dressed in hooded jump suits and left a lot of destruction on the buses.</blockquote><br />
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If anything needs attention, it's our kids. <br />
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3) <strong>The Budget</strong>: Florida cutting school budgets, according to the House and Senate, by over $540.00/student. Sure, this adds up to less than 1% of the budget funding, but if you break it down to how this effects the bigger picture, aren't our kids already at a huge disadvantage? And, this isn't the only state in the union to leave our future trailing behind the priorities of highway construction and prison systems. Seems backwards to me. Maybe if we invested more in our schools, we wouldn't have to invest so much in our prisons. See the above story. <br />
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2) <strong>Gas Prices</strong>: When I hear about gas prices on the rise, I want to move to an island, (preferably with Tom Hanks, since he has direct experience with surviving on coconuts and weird fish), and leave my car and commuting American ways behind. I learned that one of my friends spent over $800.00 on gas last month. Hearing that companies like Exxon are making more profit while producing less product is deplorable. The <em>L.A. Times</em> has a <em>great</em> <a href="http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-oil-refineries-20110429,0,7502154.story" target="_hplink">story</a> on this. Read it and weep. Time to get our old cars to the junk yard and our sneakers back in the limelight. <br />
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1) <strong>Health care</strong>: If we don't have our health, we have nothing. No, don't even start up with the "this is all Obama's fault." As a freelance writer, single mom and professional worrier, l can't even begin to put my thoughts on this in a coherent order. Do I start with the creditors for the hospitals or the insurance companies and a health care system that is creating a new class of poor in this country. Medically poor. Sounds contagious. Gesundheit. <br />
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Seriously folks. Think about what you can be doing to create greatness and change in our country before you start buying into rumors. You won't be disappointed or let down by standing up for what is right instead of what is projected by the media to be important.
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/stupidity">Stupidity</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-birth-certificate">Obama Birth Certificate</a>, <a href="/tag/oil-industry">Oil Industry</a>, <a href="/tag/american-history">American History</a>, <a href="/tag/president-obama">President Obama</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-reform">Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/school-violence">School Violence</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care">Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="/tag/school-budgets">School Budgets</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Obama Administration Looks To Ease Pain Of Medicare Cutshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/19/obama-administration-look_n_851109.htmlThe Huffington Post News Teamhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
WASHINGTON — Millions of seniors in popular private insurance plans offered through Medicare will be getting a reprieve from some of the most controversial cuts in President Barack Obama's health care law.<br />
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In a policy shift critics see as political, the Health and Human Services department has decided to award quality bonuses to hundreds of Medicare Advantage plans rated merely average.
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/obama-health-care-cuts">Obama Health Care Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-law">Health Care Law</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-reform">Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama-medicare-cuts">Barack Obama Medicare Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama-medicare">Barack Obama Medicare</a>, <a href="/tag/medicare">Medicare</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-medicare-cuts">Obama Medicare Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama-health-care-cuts">Barack Obama Health Care Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/medicare-cuts">Medicare Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-medicare">Obama Medicare</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama-health-care">Barack Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Obama Caught On Open Mic At Fundraiser (AUDIO)http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/15/obama-open-mic-slip-audio_n_849682.htmlThe Huffington Post News Teamhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
President Barack Obama was caught on an open mic making some blunt and intriguing <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=7362843n" target="_hplink">remarks</a> about the actions of Republicans in recent budget negotiations that produced a deal to avert a government shutdown at a fundraiser in Chicago on Thursday, CBS News <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20054185-503544.html" target="_hplink">reports</a>. <br />
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In audio relayed by the network, the president can be heard addressing unsuccessful Republican maneuvering to roll back portions of health care reform, as well as restrict Planned Parenthood from receiving federal funding, in reaching an agreement. <br />
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"I said, 'You want to repeal health care?'" Obama revealed at the private event. "Go at it. We'll have that debate. You're not going to be able to do that by nickel-and-diming me in the budget. You think we're stupid?'" <br />
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Ultimately, the resolutions pushed by Republicans targeting what may be the president's most significant legislative accomplishment to date and the women's health service provider <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/14/budget-deal-passes-house-_n_849334.html#478_senate-defeats-resolutions-to-defund-healthcare-and-planned-parenthood" target="_hplink">failed</a> to advance with the larger <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/14/budget-deal-passes-house-_n_849334.html" target="_hplink">budget deal</a>. <br />
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"Put it in a separate bill," the president said he told House Speaker John Boehner and members of his staff. "We'll call it up. And if you think you can overturn my veto, try it. But don't try to sneak this through."<br />
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CBS Radio News White House correspondent Mark Knoller heard Obama's remarks, which the president perhaps did not realize were being relayed by the microphone he was using to the White House press room on an audio feed. <br />
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<strong>LISTEN:</STRONG><br />
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<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/obama-openmic-comments">Obama Open-Mic Comments</a>, <a href="/tag/2012-election">2012 Election</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-budget-deal">Obama Budget Deal</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-openmic">Obama Open-Mic</a>, <a href="/tag/elections-2012">Elections 2012</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-budget-cuts">Obama Budget Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-openmic-gaffe">Obama Open-Mic Gaffe</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama-2012">Barack Obama 2012</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-2012">Obama 2012</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Sen. Ron Wyden: Is This How You Want Your Senate To Do Business?http://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-ron-wyden/is-this-how-you-want-your_b_849477.htmlSen. Ron Wydenhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-ron-wyden/
The U.S. Senate does not allow legislative provisions to be included in appropriations bills, for much the same reason that most Americans are concerned about earmarks: it creates a slippery slope by which lobbyists and special interest groups can sneak provisions into large, must-pass legislation. <br />
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Today, <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/14/budget-deal-passes-house-_n_849334.html" target="_hplink">Congress has passed a massive appropriations bill</a> -- funding the entirety of the federal government for the rest of the year -- and it includes a number of legislative provisions that have never been considered by a congressional committee or debated on the House or Senate floors. If this bill had been brought up under normal Senate procedures, any senator could have raised a point of order preventing the bill from passing.<br />
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One of the legislative provisions it included is the <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/04/13/us/politics/13lobby.html" target="_hplink">elimination of Free Choice Vouchers</a>, a provision that I authored as part of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to give employees some ability to hold their employers and insurance companies accountable for offering affordable health insurance. With the loss of Free Choice Vouchers, hundreds of thousands of workers will now be forced to choose between their employers' unaffordable insurance or going without health care. <br />
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Groups like the Business Roundtable and lobbyists representing human resource managers -- and others who profit from the current employer-based system -- claim that Free Choice Vouchers would somehow undermine the employer based system. They argue that it would somehow encourage young and healthy workers to leave their employer's risk pools, which misses the reality that employers who don't want to offer Free Choice Vouchers, don't have to offer free choice vouchers <em>as long as they offer their employees affordable health benefits.</em><br />
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Without Free Choice Vouchers, there is little in the health reform law that discourages employers from increasingly passing the burden of health care costs onto their employees. In fact, since PPACA became law, <a href="http://www.kff.org/insurance/090210nr.cfm" target="_hplink">employers have raised their employees' share of health insurance premiums by an average of 14 percent even though the premiums themselves have only gone up 3 percent</a>. <br />
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Free Choice Vouchers would have given workers recourse against employers who continued to jack up their workers' share of health costs because with FCVs if your employer raises your premium contribution above 8 percent of your total income, you would have the option of going to your employer and saying <em>"either offer me more affordable health insurance or let me take my health benefit to the new insurance exchange marketplace where I can find a better value in health coverage."</em><br />
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Without Free Choice Vouchers, no one will have that option. <br />
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While the Affordable Care Act promises to <em><a href="http://www.whitehouse.gov/healthreform/relief-for-americans-and-businesses#healthcare-menu" target="_hplink">"ensure that American families and businesses have, quality affordable health care coverage options,"</a> </em>without Free Choice Vouchers, if your employer raises your health insurance premiums over eight percent of your total income (which is the point at which the law considers your benefits "unaffordable" and exempts you from having to purchase health insurance) you won't have any affordable health coverage options. In fact, unless your income drops or your health costs rise to more than 9.8 percent of your total income, the health law doesn't give you access to the health insurance exchange marketplace or give you any additional assistance to make your health insurance more affordable. The only option it gives you is to attempt to pay what your employer requires or go without health insurance altogether.<br />
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With FCV, the federal government doesn't spend any additional money, because, as the Congressional Budget Office finds, the only money changing hands is employees making use of the employer health care subsidy -- which is already part of their compensation package. In fact, CBO found this week that the only revenue raised by repealing Free Choice Vouchers comes from employees who choose to go without health benefits having to pay taxes on income that would otherwise be tax free. And because CBO finds that many of these Americans would choose to go without health insurance versus pay for their employers unaffordable coverage, their choosing to convert their employer subsidies into a Free Choice Voucher wouldn't undermine their employer's risk pool -- as some employers claim -- because they wouldn't be in their employer's risk pool in the first place.<br />
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The reality is that the special interest groups that have lobbied against Free Choice Vouchers object to any measure that would empower employees to have a say in their health benefits because it begins to erode their power in the current health care system. Big employers and labor unions and health benefits managers like the advantages that the current system affords them. They don't want their employees and members to be able to get better health benefits someplace else. <br />
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But that isn't even the problem with today's bill. <br />
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The problem with today's bill is that without any public debate or congressional consideration, legislative language was slipped into a massive appropriations bill to eliminate Free Choice Vouchers. One lobbyist called the move "an Early Easter gift." <br />
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Is that the way we want the Senate to do business?<br />
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Earlier this year, President Obama used his <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/01/25/obama-state-of-the-union-_1_n_813478.html" target="_hplink">State of the Union Address</a> to take on special interest groups saying that <em>"the American people deserve to know that special interests aren't larding up legislation with pet projects." </em> He promised to veto any appropriations bill that included earmarks. He should extend that pledge to appropriations bills that include legislative language. <br />
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Because in my mind there is no difference between passing an appropriations bill with earmarks intended to reward lobbyists and passing an appropriations bill with legislative language intended to reward lobbyists. As President Obama said in that same State of the Union address, we should be <em>"working to rebuild people's faith in the institution of government." </em> <br />
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I agree and I think we can do better.
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/senate">Senate</a>, <a href="/tag/ron-wyden">Ron Wyden</a>, <a href="/tag/lobbyists">Lobbyists</a>, <a href="/tag/budget">Budget</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-reform">Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/affordable-care-act">Affordable Care Act</a>, <a href="/tag/special-interests">Special Interests</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="/tag/patient-protection-and-affordable-care-act">Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
New Health Care Advocacy Group Launches With $5 Million In The Bank (EXCLUSIVE)http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/14/new-health-care-advocacy-group_n_849391.htmlThe Huffington Post News Teamhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
WASHINGTON -- The newest health care advocacy campaign already has millions of dollars in the bank. Launched by Democratic lawmakers and reform proponents, the two-part program is meant to frame the debate around the law during the 2012 election cycle.<br />
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On Thursday, Gov. Deval Patrick (D-Mass.), former Gov. Jim Doyle (D-Wis.) and several Democratic operatives launched the latest variation of a pro-health care, non-governmental organization. The project has a dual track: a 501c(3) group, called “Know Your Care,” to promote the Affordable Care Act, and a 501c(4) group, “Protect Your Care,” to lobby on the law's behalf.<br />
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The project already has a healthy fundraising stream, a source familiar with the campaign told The Huffington Post.<br />
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The $5 million launch figure gives an early indication that the organization will succeed where <a href=”http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/06/04/obama-allies-start-health-care-push/”target=_hplink>other health care advocacy groups have failed</a>: primarily, in turning the tide of public and political opinion in the law’s favor.<br />
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In addition to the money, Know Your Care brings some high-profile names to its staff: Patrick and Doyle will serve on the board. Neera Tanden, who worked on President Obama’s health care task force team, will be on the board as well; Paul Tewes, Obama’s state director for the Iowa caucuses, will serve as senior adviser; Tanya Bjork, a former top adviser to Doyle, will serve as campaign manager; Jim Margolis, a top ranking communications consultant, will serve as the group’s media adviser; Eddie Vale, a former top hand at the AFL-CIO, will be communications director; and John Anzalone, a major Democratic pollster, will do the polling.<br />
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“Our efforts here are to really to make sure that this is a factual debate and that the facts are out there,” said Doyle. “It is critical that people understand what the benefits of this act are, and I look forward to making sure those facts are known across the country.”<br />
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How the organizations will structure their operations or spend their money isn’t entirely clear. Officials at the launch were coy with strategy and plans, stressing only that Know Your Care and Protect Your Care will be informative in nature, will be active in races and will work through the 2012 election until the major components of the law are implemented in 2014.<br />
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Only the 501c(4) organization can engage in lobbying -- so long as it pertains to the organizational mission -- but neither side of the operation has to disclose its donor names.<br />
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“The rules are the rules,” said David Donnelly of Public Campaign Action Fund, a group that promotes ethics in government. “We want to change them. There some groups who feel like they have to disclose their donors, [...] there are others that choose not to. The problem comes if they start pushing the boundaries on tax law, spending more money on electoral work than issue advocacy.”<br />
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The new campaign has the luxury of working on an issue that seems likely to remain firmly in the political spotlight. The president’s health care reform is already a fault line in the 2012 Republican presidential primary.<br />
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Obama advisers insist the legislation passed by in Massachusetts by former governor -- and potential GOP candidate -- Mitt Romney (R) was the intellectual foundation for the Obama administration’s own law. Fellow Republicans have insisted that Romney will end up having to either apologize or better explain his role in the Massachusetts legislation. But for now, he provides Know Your Care and Protect Your Care with the type of hook that they can use to make their campaign a bi-partisan one.<br />
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“If people are attacking Mitt Romney for his health care plan,” said the source familiar with the group’s efforts, “we would defend Mitt Romney and his health care plan.”<br />
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On Thursday, Patrick previewed the type of line that could inevitably come from his new organization.<br />
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“I give Governor Romney genuine and sincere credit for his role in working with a Democratic legislature, a Democratic U.S. Senate, a Republican White House, a broad coalition of business and labor leaders and patients’ advocates and experts in the medical field who came together to invent our health care reform,” said the current Massachusetts governor. “And, frankly, that broad coalition -- I guess with the exception of Governor Romney -- has stuck together to refine it.”
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/advocacy-group">Advocacy Group</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-campaign">Health Care Campaign</a>, <a href="/tag/5-million">$5 Million</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care">Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-group">Health Care Group</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-advocacy">Health Care Advocacy</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Robert Reich: Mr. President: Why Medicare Isn't the Problem, It's the Solutionhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/mr-president-why-medicare_b_848630.htmlRobert Reichhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/robert-reich/
I hope when he tells America how he aims to tame future budget deficits the president doesn't accept conventional Washington wisdom that the biggest problem in the federal budget is Medicare (and its poor cousin Medicaid).<br />
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Medicare isn't the problem. It's the solution.<br />
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The real problem is the soaring costs of health care that lie beneath Medicare. They're costs all of us are bearing in the form of soaring premiums, co-payments, and deductibles.<br />
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Americans spend more on health care per person than any other advanced nation and get less for our money. Yearly public and private health care spending is $7,538 per person. That's almost two and a half times the average of other advanced nations.<br />
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Yet the typical American lives <a href="http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/lifexpec.htm" target="_hplink">77.9 years</a> -- less than the average 79.4 years in other advanced nations. And we have the highest rate of infant mortality of all advanced nations.<br />
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Medical costs are soaring because our health care system is totally screwed up. Doctors and hospitals have every incentive to spend on unnecessary tests, drugs, and procedures.<br />
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You have lower back pain? Almost <a href="http://www.raleighchiropracticnc.com/the-one-practice-that-you-can-do-to-relieve-your-back-pain/" target="_hplink">95% </a>of such cases are best relieved through physical therapy. But doctors and hospitals routinely do expensive MRI's, and then refer patients to orthopedic surgeons who often do even more costly surgery. Why? There's not much money in physical therapy.<br />
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Your diabetes, asthma, or heart condition is acting up? If you go to the hospital, 20 percent of the time you're back there within a month. You wouldn't be nearly as likely to return if a nurse visited you at home to make sure you were taking your medications. This is common practice in other advanced countries. So why don't nurses do home visits to Americans with acute conditions? Hospitals aren't paid for it.<br />
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America spends $30 billion a year fixing medical errors -- the worst rate among advanced countries. Why? Among other reasons because we keep patient records on computers that can't share the data. Patient records are continuously re-written on pieces of paper, and then re-entered into different computers. That spells error.<br />
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Meanwhile, <a href="http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMsa022033" target="_hplink">administrative costs</a> eat up 15 to 30 percent of all health care spending in the United States. That's twice the rate of most other advanced nations. Where does this money go? Mainly into collecting money: Doctors collect from hospitals and insurers, hospitals collect from insurers, insurers collect from companies or from policy holders.<br />
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A major occupational category at most hospitals is "billing clerk." A third of nursing hours are devoted to documenting what's happened so insurers have proof.<br />
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Trying to slow the rise in Medicare costs doesn't deal with any of this. It will just limit the amounts seniors can spend, which means less care. As a practical matter it means more political battles, as seniors -- whose clout will grow as boomers are added to the ranks -- demand the limits be increased. (If you thought the demagoguery over "death panels" was bad, you ain't seen nothin' yet.)<br />
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Paul Ryan's plan -- to give seniors vouchers they can cash in with private for-profit insurers -- would be even worse. It would funnel money into the hands of for-profit insurers, whose administrative costs are far higher than Medicare.<br />
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So what's the answer? For starters, allow anyone at any age to join Medicare. Medicare's administrative costs are in the range of 3 percent. That's well below the 5 to 10 percent costs borne by large companies that self-insure. It's even further below the administrative costs of companies in the small-group market (amounting to 25 to 27 percent of premiums). And it's way, way lower than the administrative costs of individual insurance (40 percent). It's even far below the 11 percent costs of private plans under Medicare Advantage, the current private-insurance option under Medicare.<br />
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In addition, allow Medicare -- and its poor cousin Medicaid -- to use their huge bargaining leverage to negotiate lower rates with hospitals, doctors, and pharmaceutical companies. This would help move health care from a fee-for-the-most-costly-service system into one designed to get the highest-quality outcomes most cheaply.<br />
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Estimates of how much would be saved by <a href="http://kmci.org/alllifeisproblemsolving/archives/savings-from-medicare-for-all-firedogs-please-help/" target="_hplink">extending Medicare to cover the entire population</a> range from $58 billion to $400 billion a year. More Americans would get quality health care, and the long-term budget crisis would be sharply reduced.<br />
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Let me say it again: Medicare isn't the problem. It's the solution.<br />
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<em>Robert Reich is the author of </em><a href="http://www.amazon.com/Aftershock-Next-Economy-Americas-Future/dp/0307592812" target="_hplink">Aftershock: The Next Economy and America's Future</a><em>, now in bookstores. This post originally appeared at <a href="http://www.RobertReich.org" target="_hplink">RobertReich.org</a>.</em>
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/robert-reich">Robert Reich</a>, <a href="/tag/federal-budget-deficit">Federal Budget Deficit</a>, <a href="/tag/budget-cuts">Budget Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/budget">Budget</a>, <a href="/tag/medicare">Medicare</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-medicare">Obama Medicare</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Howard Fineman: Obama and the Budget Civil Warhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-fineman/obama-medicare-speech-budget-_b_848259.htmlHoward Finemanhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/howard-fineman/
WASHINGTON -- Today, on the 150th anniversary of the start of the Civil War, we're in the midst of another one. It's bloodless and less dramatic, but sparked by the same issue: the moral role and reach of the federal government.<br />
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This is a never-ending debate, one with roots that go back hundreds of years in our society. But it's more urgent now than it has been in decades.<br />
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There are two main reasons. The obvious one is that we are about as broke as the world's only superpower can afford to be. We have to make agonizing choices.<br />
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The other is that anti-government conservatives have been building to this moment for decades, and the defenders of Washington's role have preferred for most of those years to operate by stealth, by tactical retreats, and by shying away from debating the fundamentals.<br />
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Now they have no choice.<br />
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Republican Rep. Paul Ryan fired the fiscal equivalent of the first shot at Ft. Sumter. He has proposed sun-setting the modern capstone of American governmental commitment: Medicare, which, since 1965, has guaranteed taxpayer-funded health care to every American 65 and older. It looks like the GOP leadership is going to hope for the best and follow his lead and make the idea the centerpiece of their budget in the House.<br />
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Ryan wants to do to Medicare what major corporations have done with their health care plans: convert them from an open-ended commitment (a "defined benefit" plan) to a menu of outsourced private providers, with an individual cap for each employee -- a cap that's easy to ratchet down over time by the employer, AKA, in this case, the government.<br />
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Enter President Barack Obama. He is battered and distrusted by the left for his concessions in budget negotiations -- not to mention his past support of the Bush tax cuts and his retreat on Guantanamo and civilian trials for terrorists.<br />
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But tomorrow night, in a <a href="http://content.usatoday.com/communities/theoval/post/2011/04/obamas-debt-speech-be-sure-to-tune-in-spokesman-says/1" target="_hplink">speech to the nation</a>, a Lincoln-loving Obama will offer viewers and voters a strong defense of the moral role of the federal government.<br />
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He has no choice, but it also is an opportunity if he is willing to seize it with eloquence and conviction.<br />
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He and his advisors see the GOP's attack on Medicare as a fateful blunder, one that can allow Democrats to reframe the debate away from deficit-reduction to the need to preserve the social safety net and sense of one nation.<br />
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History moves in generational waves, and this is both the conclusion of one and the beginning of something, the course of which no one can predict.<br />
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Some forty years ago -- a generation, as measured by the Bible -- the Great Society was at its intellectual and political zenith in the presidency of LBJ. But the upheavals of the 1960s also gave birth to a new wave of conservatives, who have spent the intervening years building an alternative universe of antagonism to the moral prerogatives of a central government.<br />
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Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton rarely fought the conservatives on first principles. Carter and Clinton were small-town Southern Democrats who learned how to swim upstream in a slowly but steadily Rising Right tide embodied by Ronald Reagan.<br />
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Barack Obama was supposed to be something new and different. He ran by presenting himself as a Reagan-level change agent, a new synthesis. But aside from a health-care plan that is in large measure a give away to the industry -- and aside from spending tons of money on tax cuts and two and a half wars -- he hasn't really been either a force for change or a staunch defender of the progressive heritage. Witness the budget deal he just agreed to.<br />
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And yet he is, by background and inclination, a big-city progressive. He does believe in the ameliorative role that only the federal government can play in our system and in our culture. At least he says he does. <br />
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If the Obama thinks Medicare is essential to our Union, he had better make the case convincingly tomorrow. If he does so effectively, Republicans may decide that Private Ryan is a brave man, but not one to be followed into battle. If the president doesn't, say goodbye to Medicare as we know it.
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/civil-war">Civil War</a>, <a href="/tag/federal-budget-deficit">Federal Budget Deficit</a>, <a href="/tag/budget-cuts">Budget Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/budget">Budget</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-budget">Obama Budget</a>, <a href="/tag/medicare">Medicare</a>, <a href="/tag/tea-party">Tea Party</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="/tag/paul-ryan">Paul Ryan</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-medicare">Obama Medicare</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Obama Sizes Up Options For Health Care Cutshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/04/11/obama-health-care-cuts_n_847723.htmlThe Huffington Post News Teamhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama's plans to curb health care costs that drive the deficit would mean less taxpayer money for providers and more costs for beneficiaries as he draws from bipartisan ideas already on the table.<br />
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But don't look for his speech Wednesday to endorse a Medicare voucher system or turning Medicaid over to the states, as leading Republicans have proposed.
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/debt-ceiling">Debt Ceiling</a>, <a href="/tag/deficit">Deficit</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-law">Health Care Law</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama-health-care-law">Barack Obama Health Care Law</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-reform">Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care-law-health-care-reform">Obama Health Care Law Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/medicare">Medicare</a>, <a href="/tag/medicaid">Medicaid</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-debt-ceiling">Obama Debt Ceiling</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-deficit">Obama Deficit</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama-health-care">Barack Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Obama Health Care Idea Could Mean Better Treatment, Savingshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/31/obama-health-care-idea-co_n_843084.htmlThe Huffington Post News Teamhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
WASHINGTON — A new approach to medical care could mean higher quality and less risk for patients while saving millions of dollars for taxpayers, the Obama administration said Thursday.<br />
<br />
The administration's plan involves accountable care organizations, which are networks of hospitals, doctors, rehabilitation centers and other providers. They would work together to cut out duplicative tests and procedures, prevent medical errors, and focus on keeping patients healthier and out of the emergency room.
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/obama-health-care-quality">Obama Health Care Quality</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care-savings">Obama Health Care Savings</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-law">Health Care Law</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-reform">Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care-law">Obama Health Care Law</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-medicare">Obama Medicare</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care-reform">Obama Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Opinions Of Health Reform Law Unchanged One Year Laterhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/21/health-reform-law-same-opinions_n_838753.htmlThe Huffington Post News Teamhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
WASHINGTON -- A <a href="http://www.kff.org/kaiserpolls/8166.cfm">new survey</a> released last week by the Kaiser Family Foundation shows that "little has changed on the public opinion front" regarding health reform since the passage of the Patient Protection and <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/law/introduction/index.html">Affordable Care Act</a> (ACA) a year ago. Americans remain sharply divided in their views of the new law, and more than half say they are still confused about the law and its impact. <br />
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A year ago, President Obama <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/24/us/politics/24health-text.html?pagewanted=all">declared</a> that by signing the bill into law, "the overheated rhetoric over reform will finally confront the reality of reform." Then Sen. Evan Bayh (D-Ind.) <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/84437-bayh-dems-counting-on-health-bills-popularity-rebounding-by-elections">predicted</a> that "some of the misconceptions out there" about the reform bill would be proven "false between now and the [2010] election."<br />
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As the monthly Kaiser Foundation tracking surveys show, those high hopes have so far failed to materialize and attitudes about the health reform law have remained essentially constant over the last year. <br />
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First, roughly half of Americans (53 percent on their most recent survey) continue to say that they are "confused" about the health reform law. A similar percentage (47 percent this month) say they lack sufficient information about the law to know how it will impact them personally. <br />
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<p align="center"><a href="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2011-03-21-Blumenthal-20110321confused.png"><br />
</a><img alt="2011-03-21-Blumenthal-20110321confusedSML.png" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2011-03-21-Blumenthal-20110321confusedSML.png" width="500" height="367" /></p><br />
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Second, when asked their overall impression, Americans have remained divided over the past year, with slightly more unfavorable (46 percent) than favorable (42 percent) on the most recent survey.<br />
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<p align="center"><a href="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2011-03-21-Blumenthal-20110321favoppose.png"><img alt="2011-03-21-Blumenthal-20110321favoppSML.png" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2011-03-21-Blumenthal-20110321favoppSML.png" width="500" height="368" /></a></p><br />
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A <a href="http://www.gallup.com/poll/146729/One-Year-Later-Americans-Split-Healthcare-Law.aspx">new Gallup survey</a> released today finds roughly the same result. Americans are divided on whether passage of the law that "restructures the nation's healthcare system" is a good thing (46 percent) or bad thing (44 percent).<br />
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Third, opinions remains sharply polarized along partisan lines, with more than two-thirds of Democrats typically favoring the law, most Republicans opposed, and independents "tilting negative" -- 37 percent rate it favorably and 49 percent unfavorably this month.<br />
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<p align="center"><a href="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2011-03-21-Blumenthal-20110321byparty.png"><img alt="2011-03-21-Blumenthal-20110321byparty.png" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2011-03-21-20110321byparty-thumb.png" width="500" height="369" /></a></p><br />
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The Kaiser analysis also reports that the greater intensity of feeling among Republicans remains "essentially unchanged," with 59 percent now expressing a very unfavorable opinion.<br />
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So why no change? <br />
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The main provisions of the bill have not gone into effect and so Americans are neither experiencing its benefits nor dissuaded from the fears raised by opponents of the law. As I wrote in a <em>National Journal</em> column last year (the <a href="http://www.nationaljournal.com/if-reform-passes-what-then--20091005?mrefid=site_search">article</a> now restored <s>link apparently broken in their redesign</s>), the most relevant historical parallel may be the reaction among seniors to the prescription drug benefit in Medicare, now known as Medicare Part D, that was enacted in 2003. <br />
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Despite initial support for the concept of a prescription drug benefit, the bill that President George W. Bush signed into law was unpopular with seniors after it passed. When Kaiser conducted its first tracking survey in February 2004, three months after the new Medicare drug benefit had passed, more than half of seniors (55 percent) had an unfavorable impression, and only 17 percent were favorable. <br />
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<p align="center"><img alt="2011-03-21-Blumenthal-20110321presdrug.png" src="http://images.huffingtonpost.com/2011-03-21-Blumenthal-20110321presdrug.png" width="439" height="401" /></p><br />
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Negative impressions remained dominant among seniors for the next two years, albeit with a dip in 2005, shortly after the government began a marketing campaign to seniors to promote its benefits. But negative impressions rose again as seniors began the often confusing process of making choices and signing up for drug plans. It was not until seniors began to gain actual experience with the program's benefits that their views grew increasingly positive. <br />
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By November 2006, the last time Kaiser tracked the question, more seniors rated the prescription drug benefit favorably (42 percent) than unfavorably (34 percent). A more recent <a href="http://assets.aarp.org/rgcenter/health/rx_future_08.pdf">AARP survey</a> of enrolled seniors in November 2008 found two-thirds (67 percent) either extremely satisfied or very satisfied, and only 13 percent not very satisfied or not at all satisfied with their Medicare drug benefit.<br />
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Back in 2009, I asked Bob Blendon, the Harvard professor of health policy who has studied Kaiser's opinion data for decades, what this experience might predict about attitudes toward health reform should it pass. "If you give benefits out right away," he said at the time, "and the benefits affect a lot of people, then…there will be support and people will like the bill." <br />
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But the major provisions do not go into effect until 2014 and relatively few benefit from those enacted so far, such as the <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/11/pcip-enrollment-in-high-risk-pools-inches-up_n_821871.html">high-risk pools</a> for those without insurance due to pre-existing conditions. <br />
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Interviewed late last week, Blendon expressed little surprise over the lack of change in health reform attitudes, although he believes the delay before full enactment of health reform has an important impact on the politics of the issue as well. Americans that oppose the bill, he says are most "worried about the impact on Medicare or government interfering with medicine or the costs [or] the deficit." Those fears will remain hypothetical until at least 2014. <br />
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In contrast, he explains, the original Medicare law "was implemented one year after it was in fact enacted. So you could hate it or like it or [say] it was a big mistake, but you could no longer discuss hypothetically what could go wrong." Similarly, "the drug benefit was up and running within two years."<br />
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The lack of change in attitudes toward health reform comes as no surprise to <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/brendan-nyhan" target="_hplink">Brendan Nyhan</a>, a Robert Wood Johnson Scholar in Health Policy Research at the University of Michigan, who agrees that real change in public opinion on health reform is unlikely until 2014. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/03/25/opinion/25nyhan.html?_r=1">Nyhan argued a year ago</a> that attempts to dispel some of the "false and misleading claims" made about the law during last year's debate would fail if based solely on communicating corrective information. Until "the most far-reaching changes" take effect in 2014, he wrote, "false claims about the contents of the bill will just morph into harder-to-debunk predictions about the consequences of reform."<br />
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Blendon predicts that the outcome of the 2012 election, not any variation in public opinion over the next four years, will be critical in determining the ultimate fate of the health reform law. ACA will go into effect on schedule, he says, "if the Democrats [hold] the presidency and one House [of Congress], even if the public opinion looks identical or a little more negative." On the other hand, he says, if Obama loses in 2012 and the Republicans gain a Senate majority, "then part of this bill goes and will never be implemented."
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/health-care-reform">Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/affordable-care-act">Affordable Care Act</a>, <a href="/tag/pollster-analysis">Pollster Analysis</a>, <a href="/tag/medicare-prescription-drug-reform">Medicare Prescription Drug Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/brendan-nyhan">Brendan Nyhan</a>, <a href="/tag/medicare-part-d">Medicare Part D</a>, <a href="/tag/robert-blendon">Robert Blendon</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Jeffrey A. Miron: Should Governments Subsidize Health Insurance?http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-a-miron/should-governments-subsid_b_840623.htmlJeffrey A. Mironhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/jeffrey-a-miron/
Most people believe that government should subsidize health insurance. Liberals endorse this view with gusto, arguing for universal provision as in Canada or Western Europe. Conservatives endorse less government subsidy, but they routinely defend Medicare and the tax preference for employer-provided health insurance, the two largest subsidies in the United States.<br />
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Given this "bi-partisan" support for subsidizing health insurance, one might assume the arguments for such provision are compelling. Actually, no good case exists for universal provision, or for Medicare, Obamacare, and the tax subsidy. Reasonable people can defend some government role in health insurance, but one far smaller than current policy.<br />
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The standard justification for subsidizing health insurance holds that private markets will not supply "fair" insurance due to a phenomenon known as adverse selection. This perspective assumes that insurers cannot tell which applicants are healthy, so they must charge the same premium to everyone. Then, however, only the unhealthy apply, and insurers go broke.<br />
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Government can in principle fix this problem by mandating that everyone buy insurance, preventing any "adverse selection" of applicants. But this mandate must include subsidies for low-income households, who otherwise cannot afford insurance.<br />
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This argument for government insurance is standard, but it suffers a key flaw: insurers can readily determine applicant health via physical exams and medical histories. So, private insurers will offer health insurance to all applicants, with one key caveat: they will charge higher premiums to those in poor health. This is precisely what most people fear about a free market for insurance.<br />
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The real issue for health insurance, therefore, is whether policy should protect people against the differences in economic circumstance implied by their differences in health.<br />
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This kind of redistribution strikes many people as compassionate. And, behind a veil-of-ignorance -- before knowing one's future health -- most people would trade some consumption for protection against the possibility of a bad health outcome. Since markets do not seem to offer such insurance, government provision can make everyone better off.<br />
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Yet this view does not justify government health insurance for all. Any attempt in this direction would be costly, since everyone would demand unlimited health care. Full or substantial government insurance trades one problem -- the high cost of private insurance for some people -- for a different problem: an inefficient and expensive health care system.<br />
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The natural way to balance these concerns is to subsidize health insurance for the poor, but for no one else. Roughly, this mean eliminating Medicare, Obamacare, and the tax-subsidy for employer-provided insurance, but retaining a (scaled down) version of Medicaid.<br />
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This approach insures everyone against the worst case scenario in which poor health makes it impossible to earn income. This approach also means that even among the non-poor, some people will pay higher health insurance premiums than others.<br />
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This focus on helping the least fortunate is exactly what we do currently about the fact that some people cannot earn a reasonable income. Policies like welfare or a negative income tax protect everyone against extreme poverty, but they do not equalize all differences in income. Doing so would destroy the incentive to work and save, just as broad subsidies for health insurance would guarantee runaway expenditure and a distorted health care system.<br />
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So is it heartless and cruel to force people to become poor before they can qualify for subsidized health insurance?<br />
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Yes, but it is necessary. If policy tries to do more, whether by subsidizing health insurance broadly or by redistributing income beyond the truly poor, it insures that everyone has an equal share of a tiny pie. That is not the right balance. <br />
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<em>Jeffrey A. Miron is Senior Lecturer and Director of Undergraduate Studies at Harvard University and Senior Fellow at the Cato Institute. Miron blogs at <a href="http://jeffreymiron.com" target="_hplink">JeffreyMiron.com</a> and is the author of </em>Libertarianism, from A to Z.
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/government-subsidizing">Government Subsidizing</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-reform">Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/health-insurance">Health Insurance</a>, <a href="/tag/libertarian">Libertarian</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care">Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/healthcare">Healthcare</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Sen. Mark Udall: Health Care Reform: One Year and Thousands of Beneficiaries Laterhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen.-mark-udall/health-care-reform-one-ye_b_839859.htmlSen. Mark Udallhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen.-mark-udall/
<p>Today marks the one-year anniversary of enacting the Affordable Care Act, the health-insurance reform bill I fought hard to pass in the 111th Congress to ensure Coloradans -- not their insurance companies -- can call the shots on their health care decisions. Equally important, it will enable many Coloradans to choose from improved and affordable coverage plans and feel secure in knowing there are new rules to prevent their insurance companies from abusing their trust -- and money.</p><br />
<p>While the law's full range of benefits and protections won't be fully in place for several years, I'm particularly proud of how its early provisions have strengthened Medicare, protected kids and lowered costs for small businesses this past year.</p><br />
<ul><br />
<li>More than 42,000 Colorado seniors who reached the Medicare Part D coverage gap, or "donut hole," received $250 rebates in 2010 to help cover the disproportionately high cost of prescription drugs. This year, those seniors will see a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs in the coverage gap. And nearly 544,000 Medicare beneficiaries can now receive free annual wellness visits and preventive services like mammograms and colonoscopies. </li><br />
<li>Because insurance companies can no longer deny coverage to children with preexisting conditions (this protection will be extended to all Americans in 2014), the parents of about 290,000 Colorado kids can rest easy knowing their little ones are now protected. And parents don't need to worry about their adult kids who can't find coverage; over 20,000 Coloradan young adults can now stay on their parents' plans until they turn 26. As a father to two college-aged kids, I know that's a big relief for many families.</li><br />
<li>In 2014, Colorado small businesses will have access to new health insurance exchanges, where they can pool together and get more competitive rates for employee health coverage. Starting last year, over 90,000 Colorado businesses have been able to take advantage of tax credits to help offset up to half the cost of buying coverage.</li><br />
</ul><br />
<p>The Affordable Care Act was never meant to be a one-size-fits-all cast -- and Coloradans don't want that. Our state is using the flexibility built into the reform to mold it to the needs of our state and people. I'm excited to see members of the Colorado General Assembly, from both sides of the aisle, now working on legislation that would structure Colorado's new health insurance exchanges, which will be one-stop marketplaces for individuals and small businesses to negotiate for better prices and options, starting in 2014. The next few years will see more provisions kick into gear for Colorado families, acting together to reduce the deficit by $143 billion in the first 10 years.</p><br />
<p><img title="Mark Udall" src="http://markudall.senate.gov/files/images/UdallSignature.jpg" alt="Mark Udall" height="43" width="156"></p><br />
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/health-care-reform">Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/health-insurance">Health Insurance</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care">Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/colorado-health-care">Colorado Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/affordable-care-act">Affordable Care Act</a>, <a href="/denver">Denver News</a></p>
Kristin Rowe-Finkbeiner: A Lifetime Limit Would Limit Violet's Life on Earthhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-rowefinkbeiner/a-lifetime-limit-would-li_b_839657.htmlKristin Rowe-Finkbeinerhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kristin-rowefinkbeiner/
Let's face it. At some point, we all get sick. And, sometimes lightning strikes and we, or our families, get sicker than we ever even wanted to imagine. Most people plan for healthy lives, try to eat healthy, and regularly pay insurance premiums. So it's not until lightning strikes that people truly understand in the core of their beings what it means that the Affordable Care Act (also known as health care reform) gave consumers new protections against insurance company abuses, like dropping people from coverage when they get sick and need it most, and like excluding from coverage due to pre-existing conditions.<br />
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These new changes, brought forward by the passage of the Affordable Care Act one year ago today, have already been saving lives.<br />
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<em> <br />
"I paid for health care my entire life either through an employer or with an individual plan, and at the age 31, I gave birth to my first child. I was not overweight, didn't drink or smoke and did everything my doctor said to do while pregnant. Our daughter was born with a rare and life threatening form of epilepsy to do a sporadic gene mutation. In her two years, she has had over a thousand seizures and she stops breathing every single time. She is now 2 years old and when she spends time in the PICU (twice a year for two weeks at a time so far) we come home with a minimum of a $250,000 bill from the hospital, which our insurance pays most of us, fights us on some of it, and flat out denies some of it. If lifetime limits were not lifted, Violet's insurance would run out by the time she is 4 years old and her pre-existing condition would prevent her from being insured by another carrier, whose lifetime limit would run out in another few years. Unless a cure is found, our daughter will be admitted to the hospital throughout her lifetime and a lifetime limit on insurance would limit her lifetime on earth."</em> -- Julie, mother of Violet <br />
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In other words, without the Affordable Care Act, Violet's life would be at risk.<br />
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You can see Violet, as well as hear her parents, Julie and Matt, speak about their experiences as a family in this moving video.<br />
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<iframe title="YouTube video player" width="640" height="390" src="http://www.youtube.com/embed/usayQcRPWwI" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe><br />
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Violet's story is just one of the thousands of stories that illustrates how Health Care Reform is already helping people that have flooded into <a href="http://www.momsrising.org/" target="_hplink">MomsRising</a> since the passage of the Affordable Care Act (also known as health care reform) one year ago today. <a href="http://www.momsrising.org/blog/stories-map/?topic=healthcare" target="_hplink">On this U.S. map, you can click on states and see stories</a> from people across the country who are sharing how health care reform is already helping them. And, <a href="http://www.momsrising.org/blog/happy-one-year-anniversary-to-the-affordable-care-act-a-blog-a-thon-to-keep-america-moving-forward" target="_hplink">right now MomsRising is hosting a blog carnival</a> with many diverse voices sharing how health care reform is helping them.<br />
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Few people know that although health care reform isn't yet fully implemented, people are already being helped. Children's lives are being saved. Stories of success rarely make the news, while stories of strife are the norm.<br />
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While there already are many success stories, many other families are still waiting to benefit from the <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/law/about/order/byyear.html " target="_hplink">full implementation of the law that is staged to go into effect by 2014</a>. In fact, critical provisions that will make health care more affordable, like subsidies to buy health coverage for families of four making up to about $88,000 per year, have yet to go into effect (This is scheduled for 2014). And the end of pre-existing condition exclusions for adults will also go into effect in 2014.<br />
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Help is happening. And more help is on the way.<br />
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Moms, dads, and others are telling us that the Affordable Care Act is saving lives and giving them peace of mind because they know that they won't face lifetime caps on care or exclusion for pre-existing conditions.<br />
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Moms like Emily in New York, who told us about how the Affordable Care Act will ensure that she can get the medicine and treatment her son needs to control his asthma. Like Tracy in Colorado, who described how her family shouted with joy when the Affordable Care Act passed because they knew that their son would not be denied coverage to treat his cancer. Like Barbara in Georgia, who wrote that the state's new Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan will ensure that her adult daughter can continue to receive treatment for her Type 1 diabetes.<br />
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Those are the personal stories we hear. These are the hard cold facts: Without the Affordable Care Act, <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/center/reports/preexisting.html" target="_hplink">as many as 129 million people could be denied care because of pre-existing conditions</a>. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) has estimated that the <a href="http://www.cbo.gov/doc.cfm?index=12040" target="_hplink">savings from health reform will more than offset the cost of expanding coverage</a> and reduce the federal deficit by more than $200 billion over the next ten years. CBO also found that repealing health reform will increase the deficit by as much as $1 trillion over the next two decades. <br />
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In addition to helping small businesses thrive with tax credits for providing health care coverage, the Affordable Care Act can also help grow jobs. Studies show that <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/01/jobs_health_repeal.html" target="_hplink">repealing health reform would prevent 250,000 to 400,000 jobs from being created annually</a> over the next decade. <br />
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Conversely, without health care reform, small businesses are expected to pay nearly $2.4 trillion dollars over the next 10 years in health-care costs for their workers. <a href="http://www.smallbusinessmajority.org/econ_research.php" target="_hplink">With health-care reform, small businesses are expected to save as much as $855 billion</a>, a reduction of 36 percent, money that can be reinvested to grow the economy over the next 10 years, as estimated by Massachusetts Institute of Technology economist Jonathan Gruber. <br />
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In short, experts are finding that health reform law will not only grow jobs and help small businesses; but will also save lives, cut the deficit, give people more freedoms, more choices for care, and help businesses as it's fully implemented over time.<br />
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The Affordable Care Act not only is improving and safeguarding families' health; clearly, the costs of repealing the Affordable Care Act are far too high for our nation's families and businesses. Too many businesses, like the one owned by Nan in Illinois, are counting on the change health reform brings to help in the face of long-time sky rocketing health care costs. <br />
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That's right. As has been splashed all over the news, opponents are rallying to defund, block, and repeal the Affordable Care Act even before we've even had a chance to start fully implementing it.<br />
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Yet for too many people, like Violet, repealing health care reform could be a death sentence. <br />
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Today, we celebrate the passage of the Affordable Care Act a year ago, and we applaud the continued implementation for all of our families and businesses.<br />
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/politics-news">Politics News</a>, <a href="/tag/politics">Politics</a>, <a href="/tag/women">Women</a>, <a href="/tag/momsrisingorg">momsrising.org</a>, <a href="/tag/womens-health">Women's Health</a>, <a href="/tag/children">Children</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-reform">Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/breaking-politics-news">Breaking Politics News</a>, <a href="/tag/health-insurance">Health Insurance</a>, <a href="/tag/moms">Moms</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care">Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/childrens-health">Children's Health</a>, <a href="/tag/momsrising">Momsrising</a>, <a href="/tag/health-insurance-reform">Health Insurance Reform</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
GOP Leaders Mount Assault On Health Care Lawhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/23/john-boehner-mitch-mcconn_1_n_839439.htmlThe Huffington Post News Teamhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
A year after President Obama signed his health care law into effect, the two leading Republicans in Congress are making it clear that they do not intend to let up in their assault on the historic measure.
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/mitch-mcconnell-health-care-law">Mitch Mcconnell Health Care Law</a>, <a href="/tag/john-boehner-obamacare">John Boehner Obamacare</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-law">Health Care Law</a>, <a href="/tag/mitch-mcconnell-obamacare">Mitch Mcconnell Obamacare</a>, <a href="/tag/john-boehner">John Boehner</a>, <a href="/tag/mitch-mcconnell-health-care">Mitch MCConnell Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/john-boehner-health-care">John Boehner Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/mitch-mcconnell">Mitch McConnell</a>, <a href="/tag/mcconnell-obamacare">Mcconnell Obamacare</a>, <a href="/tag/boehner-obamacare">Boehner Obamacare</a>, <a href="/tag/john-boehner-health-care-law">John Boehner Health Care Law</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care-law">Obama Health Care Law</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Ethan Rome: Mother's Truth Inadmissible at Republican Show Trialhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ethan-rome/mothers-truth-inadmissibl_b_839293.htmlEthan Romehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ethan-rome/
<strong>On Wednesday the Republicans on the powerful House Energy and Commerce Committee are <a href="http://www.energycommerce.house.gov/News/PRArticle.aspx?NewsID=8367&IID=9" target="_hplink">holding a "public" hearing</a> about the Affordable Care Act (ACA) at the state capitol in Harrisburg, Penn.</strong> <em>Except they're not there to listen to the public and people like Pennsylvania's <a href="http://healthcareforamericanow.org/page/-/Testimony of Stacie Ritter 1-18-11.pdf" target="_hplink">Stacie Ritter</a>, whose family had good insurance and still had to file for bankruptcy because of massive medical bills. </em><br />
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Stacie and her husband Ben had to pay huge fees for the treatments their twin little girls, Hannah and Madeline, needed when they were diagnosed with leukemia. At the same time, Ben had to take time from work to help care for the twins and their other children. It was too much and<a href="http://www.c-spanvideo.org/program/PlantoR&showFullAbstract=1" target="_hplink"> they went bankrupt</a>. Thankfully Hannah and Madeline are doing well today.<br />
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Unfortunately, the Republicans don't care about people like the Ritters.</strong> They want to repeal the new law that would help prevent other families from going through the same thing that happened to Stacie's family. They even want to repeal one of the provisions Stacie is most grateful for - the one that requires insurance companies to cover people with pre-existing conditions. That provision means Madeline and Hannah will always be able to get affordable health insurance despite their medical history. <br />
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The Republicans are in Pennsylvania on the first anniversary of this historic law to play politics and to grandstand. They've invited Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett and other partisan opponents of the law to testify. Not invited: ordinary members of the public. <strong>So it's not really a public hearing - it's a show trial, another act of political theater in the Republicans' relentless effort to <a href="http://nationaljournal.com/are-gop-leaders-going-soft-on-obamacare--20110315?mrefid=site_search" target="_hplink">repeal and undermine</a> the new law.</strong> Just down the hall, Stacie and others are holding a reality-based hearing in the Capitol Rotunda to make sure the stories of average Pennsylvanians are heard, especially those already benefiting from the law's many cost savings and consumer protections.<br />
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Stacie Ritter's story is all too familiar.</strong> People finding coverage or claims denied. People being forced to pay more because of a pre-existing medical condition or being denied coverage outright. People getting stuck on hold for hours to get a simple issue resolved by phone. People running up against annual or lifetime coverage caps and unaffordable co-pays and deductibles that cause more than <a href="http://prescriptions.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/09/07/insured-but-bankrupted-anyway/" target="_hplink">900,000 medical bankruptcies a year</a>. All the while, insurance company <a href="http://hcfan.3cdn.net/a9ce29d3038ef8a1e1_dhm6b9q0l.pdf" target="_hplink">profits soar</a>, and <a href="http://hcfan.3cdn.net/684f3fa81c1e757518_01m6bxg6s.pdf" target="_hplink">CEOs make millions</a>. That's why Stacie joined Health Care for America Now to fight for change.<br />
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<strong>The ACA is putting a stop to this madness.</strong> <strong>It <a href="http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0311/51205.html" target="_hplink">ends the worst</a> health insurance company abuses and protects our care.</strong> <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/law/provisions/billofright/patient_bill_of_rights.html" target="_hplink">It provides cost savings, consumer protections and greater health care choices</a>. It puts a check on <a href="http://hcfan.3cdn.net/b61802440a3b0e08a6_gum6bhxaw.pdf" target="_hplink">out-of-control profits</a> that fuel premium increases that are crushing families and small businesses. <br />
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The Republicans derisively call the ACA "Obamacare" and <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qQ4Ee6octtY" target="_hplink">rail against</a> the "government takeover of health care." They'd rather not tell the truth about what the law really does because that information does not help their case. <br />
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<strong>Here are the facts: </strong><br />
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• Millions of seniors are receiving free preventive care, such as mammograms and colonoscopies, and relief from skyrocketing prescription drug prices, including $250 checks for people who reached the "donut hole" and a 50% discount on brand name drugs. The ACA has <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/law/timeline/index.html" target="_hplink">provided these savings</a> while eliminating waste, fraud and abuse in the Medicare system. <br />
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• For small businesses, job-creating tax credits are available to help cover their employees. <a href="http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/small-business-health-coverage-becomes-more-affordable-and-accessible-with-new-tax-credit-118438409.html" target="_hplink">More small businesses are now providing coverage</a>.<br />
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• Adult children <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/law/provisions/youngadult/index.html" target="_hplink">can stay on their parents' health plans until they're 26</a>, which provides much needed access to care and peace of mind (especially for the parents) in this tough economy.<br />
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• The ACA ends unconscionable abuses like dropping you because you fall ill or because you made a mistake in your paperwork. It bans the odious practice of denying your care or charging you more for having a pre-existing condition. <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/law/provisions/limits/limits.html" target="_hplink">It ends annual and lifetime caps on coverage.</a><br />
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• For the first time ever, the <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/medical_loss_ratio.html" target="_hplink">insurance companies are being held accountable</a>, capping how much they can charge, limiting excessive profits and putting the brakes on bloated compensation for CEOs. Guaranteeing a good deal instead of a raw deal with our health insurance - that's what the ACA does.<br />
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The ACA is providing life-changing benefits, cost-savings and protections that are making a huge difference in people's lives right now.</strong><br />
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The ACA is about more than health care. It's also about economic security for families struggling to make ends meet. We can't preserve and expand the middle-class if people have to worry about health care. People have enough to worry about with high unemployment, rising gas and food prices and keeping up with mortgage payments.<br />
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Instead of <a href="http://www.americanprogress.org/issues/2011/03/aca_anniversary.html" target="_hplink">creating jobs and growing the economy</a>, <strong>the Republicans are re-fighting the battles of the past and trying to take us back to the days when insurance companies had a stranglehold on our health care.</strong><br />
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<strong>People like Stacie Ritter are insisting that we move forward.</strong> "This is America," she says. "I knew we could do better with our heath care than we've done in the past and I'm glad we have this law. We won't go back. We've got to move forward." <br />
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NOTE: Health Care for America Now has a chart that highlights the features of the Affordable Care Act and shows what the Republican repeal plan would do. You can download a printable, high-resolution version with citations <a href="http://www.healthcareforamericanow.org/chart" target="_hplink">here</a>. <br />
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<em>Cross posted on the NOW!Blog <a href="http://blog.healthcareforamericanow.org/2011/03/22/mothers-truth-inadmissible-at-republican-show-trial/" target="_hplink">here</a>.<br />
</em>
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/small-business">Small Business</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-for-america-now">Health Care for America Now</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-reform-repeal">Health Care Reform Repeal</a>, <a href="/tag/john-boehner">John Boehner</a>, <a href="/tag/economy">Economy</a>, <a href="/tag/republicans-health-care-repeal">Republicans Health Care Repeal</a>, <a href="/tag/stacie-ritter">Stacie Ritter</a>, <a href="/tag/jobs">Jobs</a>, <a href="/tag/health-insurance">Health Insurance</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-repeal">Health Care Repeal</a>, <a href="/tag/harrisburg">Harrisburg</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/house-energy-and-commerce-committee">House Energy and Commerce Committee</a>, <a href="/tag/house-republicans">House Republicans</a>, <a href="/tag/michele-bachmann">Michele Bachmann</a>, <a href="/tag/senior-citizens">Senior Citizens</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-reform">Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/affordable-care-act">Affordable Care Act</a>, <a href="/tag/aca">Aca</a>, <a href="/tag/cancer">Cancer</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care">Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/preexistingcondition">Pre-Existing-Condition</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Andrea Kovach: Affordable Care Act Anniversaryhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-kovach/affordable-care-act-illinois_b_838982.htmlAndrea Kovachhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/andrea-kovach/
America's health care law, the <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/law/introduction/index.html" target="_hplink">Affordable Care Act</a>, turns one year old on March 23rd. That's good news for Illinois' four-year-olds -- and forty-four-year-olds, and lots of other Illinoisans too. That's because the law<a href="http://www.healthreform.gov/newsroom/new_patients_bill_of_rights.html" target="_hplink"> imposes consumer protections</a> on the hugely unregulated health insurance industry, and <a href="http://www.rwjf.org/coverage/product.jsp?id=71998" target="_hplink">promises to cover over half of the uninsured</a> by allowing states to create insurance marketplaces that provide transparent, comprehensive, affordable health plan choices; makes federal subsidies available to ensure middle class families won't break the bank to pay for their plans, and <a href="http://www.cbpp.org/cms/index.cfm?fa=view&id=3162" target="_hplink">expands Medicaid to low-income adults. </a><br />
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Illinois' leaders have worked hard to build a track record of success on access to health insurance coverage. Democrats and Republicans have put partisan politics aside and worked together to reform Medicaid and to enact consumer protections in the private insurance industry, such as dependent care coverage for young adults. Now it's time for our leaders in Springfield to again make some critical decisions -- this time about how the Affordable Care Act works in Illinois. And we all have a role in ensuring that the law works for Illinois' families and individuals.<br />
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The Affordable Care Act has <a href="http://www.theshriverbrief.org/2010/09/articles/health-care-reform-1/health-care-reform-is-here/" target="_hplink">already delivered important wins for Illinois' residents</a>. Illinoisans diagnosed with cancer or other serious conditions can no longer be denied care because of annual or <a href="http://www.protectyourcare.org/" target="_hplink">lifetime insurance limits</a> and insurers cannot deny coverage outright for children. Parents can keep their college-aged children on their family health insurance policies. And Illinoisans with private insurance can get the screenings and check-ups they need to stay healthy, without the out-of-pocket costs that encourage fix-it care instead of health care.<br />
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And the Affordable Care Act can deliver even bigger wins for Illinois in the coming years. It authorizes <a href="http://www.healthcare.gov/news/factsheets/esthealthinsurexch.html" target="_hplink">new insurance marketplaces or "exchanges,"</a> to make private insurance work better. Exchange subsidies can make care more affordable for middle-class families. The law authorizes <a href="http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Content/Blog/How-the-Affordable-Care-Act-of-2010.aspx" target="_hplink">improvements to Medicaid </a>that can make health care a reality for hundreds of thousands more Illinoisans who are uninsured today.<br />
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But these gains for Illinois' families and individuals are not automatic. Our leaders in Springfield will make decisions over the next few years that will have consequences for decades to come. They will decide whether Illinois' exchange provides adequate access to health care for patients, families and employers in Illinois in a manner that is in the best interest of such individuals, and they'll decide whether the exchange offers coverage parents can afford. <br />
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They'll decide whether insurance consumer protections actually work and whether Medicaid reaches more uninsured Illinoisans, or whether they will be left behind. And they'll make dozens of other decisions that will determine how -- or even if -- the Affordable Care Act works for Illinois.<br />
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Every Illinois resident who cares about their access to health care can help our leaders in Springfield make the right choices. Policymakers need to hear that it's time to embrace Illinois' long-standing tradition of putting access to health care ahead of partisan politics. They need to hear that the cost of failure is too high. They need to hear that they must keep implementation moving forward, and that making the right choices for Illinoisans is the best way to define success.<br />
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The Affordable Care Act's first birthday is the perfect time to send a strong message to Illinois' leaders. If we get off the sidelines and into the game today, Illinois will be the big winner.<br />
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/health-care-reform">Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/affordable-care-act">Affordable Care Act</a>, <a href="/tag/health-insurance">Health Insurance</a>, <a href="/tag/illinois-politics">Illinois Politics</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/illinois-health-care">Illinois Health Care</a>, <a href="/chicago">Chicago News</a></p>
Kevin Zeese: One Year Anniversary: The Incredible Shrinking Obama Health Care Lawhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-zeese/one-year-anniversary-the-_b_838535.htmlKevin Zeesehttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/kevin-zeese/
At its one year anniversary the Obama health care law is shrinking while <a href="http://www.pnhp.org/">the health care crisis grows</a>. Americans who lack any health coverage still exceeds 50 million, over 45,000 deaths occur annually due to lack of health insurance, and 40 million Americans, including over 10 million children, are underinsured.<br />
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<a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/health/policy/05cost.html">Premiums are rising and coverage is shrinking</a> a new norm is taking hold in America: 'Unaffordable underinsurance.' This month, the number of <a href="http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-503544_162-20040244-503544.html">waivers granted to the Obama health law broke 1,000</a> protecting inadequate insurance plans. The expansion of health insurance to the uninsured is becoming a mirage. The Obama administration has told states they <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11035/1122920-84.stm">could reduce the number of people covered</a> by Medicaid as well as reduce the services provided. And, the centerpiece of the law is under court challenge - the mandate is the first time ever the federal government has forced Americans to buy a corporate product, private health insurance - is heading to a close Supreme Court decision.<br />
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<strong>The New Norm: 'Unaffordable underinsurance'</strong><br />
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To make insurance premiums affordable, the quality of insurance will need to be reduced so there is less coverage and more out-of-pocket costs, as <a href="http://www.pnhp.org/news/2011/march/reform-in-massachusetts-fails-to-reduce-medical-bankruptcies">Don McCanne, MD, Senior Health Policy Fellow for Physicians for a National Health Program writes</a>: "'Unaffordable underinsurance' is rapidly becoming the new standard in the United States." The trend in health insurance is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/05/health/policy/05cost.html">rising premiums and shrinking</a> coverage for many Americans who get their coverage at work as well as on the individual insurance market.<br />
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Premiums have been increasing with reports ranging from 20% to 60% increases for many Americans and businesses. Further, the law may <a href="http://www.healthaffairs.org/healthpolicybriefs/brief_pdfs/healthpolicybrief_42.pdf">decrease employment-based insurance by 3 million people by 2019</a>, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation. This combined with high unemployment and underemployment will push people into the individual insurance market. The individual market is particularly at risk for increased premiums which is of growing importance because of high unemployment. <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/celebrities/ci_17627357?nclick_check=1">Blue Shield of California</a> decided this month to withdraw a major hike in the face of <a href="http://pnhp.org/blog/2011/01/07/blue-shield-of-californias-rate-hikes/">public outcry</a>. This <a href="http://pnhp.org/blog/2011/01/07/blue-shield-of-californias-rate-hikes/">proposed 30%-35% increase</a> would have been the third rate hike since October, the three increases would have raised rates by 59% to <a href="http://www.mercurynews.com/celebrities/ci_17627357?nclick_check=1">87%</a> for 200,000 policy holders. While some hope the Obama health law will slow premium hikes, Claudia Fegan, MD of Physicians for a National Health Program <a href="http://www.pnhp.org/news/2011/january/thinking-about-health-care-ppaca%E2%80%99s-impact-on-small-business">writes under the Obama heath law "sudden premium hikes are still possible</a> and, in my opinion, quite likely under the new law."<br />
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Underinsurance, requiring Americans to pay more of the cost of health care, may become the norm because of the 2010 law. <a href="http://www.pnhp.org/news/2011/march/employer-sponsored-health-plans-under-the-affordable-care-act">The new law will hasten the current trend toward underinsurance</a> as plans where patients pay an average of 40% of their health care bills qualify to fulfill the employers' obligations to provide coverage rather than pay an assessment. Massachusetts, the model on which the Obama reforms are based, recently found that <a href="http://www.pnhp.org/sites/default/files/docs/2011/AJM_Mass-Reform-hasnt-stopped-med-bankruptcies.pdf">medical bankruptcies have not decreased</a> with the new law. The lesson - it is not just health insurance, but the quality of the insurance that matters. After deriding merely adequate insurance as Cadillac Plans," <a href="http://www.pnhp.org/news/2011/february/sec-sebelius-promotes-consumer-directed-health-plans">the Obama administration</a> is showing support for high deductibility plans with large out of pocket costs that do not provide financial or health security.<br />
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One promise of the Obama health plan was that millions of underinsured would get decent insurance coverage because the "reform" required minimum levels of insurance. But, waivers to the requirements of the 2010 law are being widely granted resulting in millions of Americans continuing to have inadequate health coverage. Waivers allowing poor quality insurance affect 2.6 million people and are being granted rapidly to businesses, unions, insurance companies as well as states who cannot meet the Obama law requirements. The administration says the purpose of the waivers is to avoid disruption in the insurance market, in clearer language it is <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/07/business/07insure.html?partner=rss&emc=rss">to prevent</a> employers from dropping coverage and insurance companies from leaving markets. The requirement for a waiver is relatively simple; the applicant must show HHS "a significant increase in premiums or a decrease in access to benefits." <a href="http://www.businessinsurance.com/article/20110217/BENEFITS02/110219941">Ninety-four percent of requests for waivers have been granted</a>, the largest area where waivers have been denied has been for unions. Republicans have asked HHS for in-depth details about every waiver decision and request.<br />
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The <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/147715-number-of-healthcare-reform-law-waivers-climbs-above-1000">major area of waivers are so-called mini-med plans</a>, these are limited medical plans which provide workers with as little as $2,000 in health care coverage. The Obama health care law requires $750,000 minimum coverage in 2011. The mini-med plans do not provide security in the event of serious illness or accident. The <a href="http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/approved_applications_for_waiver.html">vast majority of these waivers</a> are for employment-based health coverage. Some of the initial waivers went to fast food chains like <a href="http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Daily-Reports/2010/October/07/Health-reform-waivers.aspx">McDonalds and Jack-in-the-Box</a>. Unions, insurance companies and state governments have also received waivers. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/health/policy/17health.html?_r=1">Four states have received waivers</a>, Florida, New Jersey, Ohio and Tennessee. Waivers are set to disappear in 2014, when people will be required to purchase insurance with tax payer subsidies - assuming that Obama health law survives and that low-paid workers can afford insurance even with a subsidy.<br />
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<strong>Expanded Numbers of Americans with Insurance Becoming a Mirage</strong><br />
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The two largest areas of expansion, Medicaid and the insurance mandate are in jeopardy. States are cutting the number of people covered by Medicaid and reducing health coverage. The insurance mandate is under constitutional attack. And, there is little evidence that people are taking advantage of programs that provide coverage for those with pre-existing illness.<br />
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The area with the biggest immediate impact on reduced coverage is the roll backs of Medicaid. Medicaid was projected to be the largest area of expansion of medical care under the Obama health care plan, covering 16 million more people, making up half the projected increase in additional Americans covered with some type of insurance under the Obama law. That is now becoming a mirage.<br />
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HHS Secretary <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11035/1122920-84.stm#ixzz1FyqpCsKX">Sebelius wrote the 50 states</a> letting them know benefits could be cut, poor people could be required to pay a higher share of costs and that federal law allows states to reduce people covered by Medicaid. Medicaid is health care for the poor and is jointly funded by federal and state governments. Medicaid <a href="http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/11035/1122920-84.stm#ixzz1FyphIPvU">currently covers 53 million poor children, poor pregnant women and disabled and extremely poor adults.</a> Individuals must make less than $14,500 to be included in Medicaid.<br />
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<a href="http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748704430304576170842026286166.html" target="_blank">More than half the states want permission to remove hundreds of thousands of people from Medicaid</a>. Arizona alone is planning to <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/16/AR2011021607238.html">reduce Medicaid coverage by 250,000 people</a> and the Obama administration has indicated it will not oppose this reduction in coverage. In Wisconsin, where Governor Walker has proposed deep cuts to Badgercare (which includes Medicaid and other programs) <a href="http://politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2010/oct/25/greater-wisconsin-committee/scott-walker-wants-kick-350000-families-badgercare/">up to 350,000 could lose health care coverage</a>. Rather than an increase in the number of people covered, the nation is on a path to reduce total people covered.<br />
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Other states, like <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/26/nyregion/26medicaid.html?src=twrhp" target="_blank">New York</a>, <a href="http://www.civilbeat.com/posts/2011/03/08/9467-key-concepts-to-consider-before-cutting-medicaid/">Hawaii</a> and <a href="http://www.politicsdaily.com/2011/02/21/cascading-medicaid-cuts-hurt-the-poor-and-burden-the-states/" target="_blank">California</a> which are led by Democratic governors, are cutting benefits of Medicaid programs that already provide insufficient coverage. Medicaid is often one of the largest expenses of a state but because the cost is shared with the federal government it is also a large source of revenue. As a result it takes <a href="http://www.civilbeat.com/posts/2011/03/08/9467-key-concepts-to-consider-before-cutting-medicaid/">more than $2 of Medicaid cuts to save a state $1</a>. When Medicaid is cut the economy is weakened and revenues reduced as for every dollar cut, health care jobs are lost. Cutting health care for the poor and disabled continues the downward economic spiral - <a href="http://www.prosperityagenda.us/node/4658">the race to the bottom</a>.<br />
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When it comes to people taking advantage of expected benefits of the health care law, thus far only 12,000 people have enrolled in <a href="https://www.pcip.gov/Default.html">the Pre-existing Condition Insurance Plan</a> despite an <a href="https://www.pcip.gov/Default.html">aggressive marketing effort</a>. The Medicare actuary, Rick Foster, <a href="http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-reform-implementation/143299-high-risk-pool-enrollment-up-slightly-still-lags">told The Hill</a> the low enrollment is a "surprise," given that "millions" are eligible for the coverage. The Medicare actuary had conservatively predicted the new pools would enroll 375,000 people by the end of 2010, but that projection has not been met because the insurance is too expensive for most people who need it.<br />
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Better results might be being seen for <a href="http://health.howstuffworks.com/medicine/healthcare/insurance/health-care-for-young-adults.htm">young adults</a>. Approximately 13.2 million 18-29 year olds are without insurance, 30% of that population. Under the health care law these youth can stay covered under the parents' health insurance. There are no hard numbers for how many have taken advantage of this but the Obama administration estimates it could be as many as 1.2 million. As we see with the pre-existing illness option, predictions are one thing and reality is very likely another. Covering each dependent will cost about $3,380 in 2011, so it is difficult to predict how many families can afford that cost in these difficult economic times when unemployment and underemployment are up and incomes are down.<br />
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The Obama health care law may <a href="http://www.healthaffairs.org/healthpolicybriefs/brief_pdfs/healthpolicybrief_42.pdf">decrease employment-based insurance by 3 million people by 2019</a>, according to the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and the Joint Committee on Taxation. One estimate made by the CBO is that 8-9 million people currently covered under an employer plan would lose employer coverage because firms would choose to no longer offer coverage. They assume this would be balanced in part by those getting coverage on the exchange.<br />
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The other area where increased coverage was promised is the mandate forcing Americans to buy insurance. The mandate is <a href="http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,2057477,00.html">hotly contested in the courts</a> with 27 states challenging the law and over 20 lawsuits filed it. The courts have split 3-2 in favor of the mandate thus far. In the two decisions finding the mandate unconstitutional, a Virginia judge threw out only the mandate, while a Florida judge found the mandate so intertwined with the rest of the law that he would stop the whole law. The decisions have been issued along partisan lines, with three district judges appointed by Bill Clinton upholding the law; and two district judges -- one appointed by Ronald Reagan and the other by George W. Bush -- finding it unconstitutional. The U.S. Supreme court has five Republican appointed justices and four appointed by Democrats. It is generally viewed as four on the center-left, four on the right and Justice Kennedy as the swing vote. The vote on the Supreme Court will be a close one.<br />
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The health care law faces a congressional challenge, especially from the Republican controlled House of Representatives which has already voted to repeal the law, but more importantly, promises to use the power of the purse to not fund its implementation. <br />
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<strong>Single Payer Rising: Why Not Just Improve and Expand Medicare to All?</strong><br />
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<strong> </strong><br />
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The imploding health care law is creating an opening which may require a re-consideration of health care reform within the next five years. <a href="http://www.wpasinglepayer.org/PollResults.html">Americans consistently favor</a> simply expanding and improving Medicare to cover all Americans. Terry Dougherty, director of MassHealth, from a state which the model for the Obama law is in place is reaching <a href="http://news.bostonherald.com/news/politics/view/20110220medicaid_chief_single_payer_may_be_better_than_devil-may-be_market/">the obvious conclusion</a>: "I like the market, but the more and more I stay in it, the more and more I think that maybe a single payer would be better." He notes that unlike the insurance industry government costs less, with much lower administrative costs and "We don't build big buildings. We don't have high salaries. We don't have a lot of marketing."<br />
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The low cost of publicly funded health care is consistent with the experience of America's single payer system - Medicare. The administrative cost of running the Medicare program <a href="http://www.kff.org/medicare/7731.cfm">has remained under 2%.</a> But, the bureaucracy of trying to control the insurance industry is already growing rapidly. The <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2011/02/17/health/policy/17health.html?_r=1">growth of the federal insurance bureaucracy</a>, the federal office that regulates private insurance along with other important duties under the Obama health law, already has 252 employees and a budget of $93 million for 2012 budget requested by the White House.<br />
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While the single payer movement is growing stronger through groups like <a href="http://www.healthcare-now.org/">Health Care Now</a> and <a href="http://www.pnhp.org/sites/default/files/docs/2011/FINAL%20VT%20Hsiao%20Presentation%20for%20Jan1911_1.pdf">Physicians for a National Health Program</a>, the insurance industry is also getting stronger. Not only will they receive hundreds of millions in new annual tax payer subsidies but they are taking over other parts of health care. <a href="http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/March/20/health-insurers-reform-business.aspx">Kaiser Health News reports</a> "Insurers have moved into technology, health-care delivery, physician management, workplace wellness, financial services and overseas ventures." The Obama law is spurring the cancer of health insurance to spread throughout health care.<br />
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At the state level <a href="http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011110305007">Vermont</a> is striving toward single payer. Governor <a href="http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011110218018">Shumlin, his technical advisers</a> and <a href="http://www.workerscenter.org/node/778">Vermonters support a single payer</a> program, and are considering <a href="http://www.pnhp.org/sites/default/files/docs/2011/FINAL%20VT%20Hsiao%20Presentation%20for%20Jan1911_1.pdf">a bill</a> that reduces the number of funding sources and if federal waivers are granted, which <a href="http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=2011103010301">Obama reportedly supports</a>, it will evolve into a single payer program. The current version of the bill <a href="http://workerscenter.org/h.202_assessment">falls short of the goals of advocates who want health care treated as a human right</a> as well as of <a href="http://pnhp.org/blog/2011/02/15/the-vermont-health-bill-a-brief-analysis/">physicians</a> who seek a single payer program.<br />
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<a href="http://thomas.gov/cgi-bin/bdquery/D?d112:1:./temp/%7Ebdfaye:@@@L&summ2=m&%7C/home/LegislativeData.php">The "Expanded and Improved Medicare for All Act," H.R. 676,</a> a bill that sets up a single payer system has been introduced. It would provide health care to all and give consumers the most choice, provide strong health coverage as well as save money for government, business and individuals. Unlike the Obama law, improved Medicare for all would also be easier to implement. Medicare transitioned Americans over 65 from private insurance to Medicare within a year and did so without computers.<br />
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The failing Obama reforms shows that the obvious must be faced: confront the health insurance industry which makes coverage of all Americans unaffordable. President <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fpAyan1fXCE">Obama knew before running for president that single payer was the solution</a>, but after <a href="http://www.prosperityagenda.us/node/3152">receiving $20 million in donations</a> from the insurance industry refused to let the only real solution, improved Medicare for all, be considered. It is time to put in place a single payer health care program that ensures that all U.S. residents have quality health care at less cost than they currently pay.<br />
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Kevin Zeese is director of <a href="http://www.prosperityagenda.us/">Prosperity Agenda.</a><br />
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/health-insurance">Health Insurance</a>, <a href="/tag/health-insurance-industry">Health Insurance Industry</a>, <a href="/tag/medicaid">Medicaid</a>, <a href="/tag/medicare">Medicare</a>, <a href="/tag/single-payer">Single Payer</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Health Care Reform Taking Root In Divided Nationhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/21/health-care-reform-taking_n_838296.htmlThe Huffington Post News Teamhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
WASHINGTON — One year after President Barack Obama signed his historic health care overhaul, the law is taking root in the land. Whether it bears lasting fruit is still in question.<br />
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The legislation established health insurance as a right and a responsibility. Thousands of families, businesses and seniors have benefited from its early provisions.
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/health-care-reform-repeal">Health Care Reform Repeal</a>, <a href="/tag/republicans-health-care">Republicans Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/obamacare">Obamacare</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-law">Health Care Law</a>, <a href="/tag/gop-health-care">Gop Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-reform">Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-approval">Health Care Approval</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-favorability">Health Care Favorability</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-repeal">Health Care Repeal</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Sen. Tom Carper: Lessons Learned From the Affordable Care Acthttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-tom-carper/lessons-learned-from-the_b_837089.htmlSen. Tom Carperhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/sen-tom-carper/
Yesterday one of the committees on which I serve, the Senate Finance Committee, held a hearing on the lessons learned from the first year of implementing of our comprehensive health care reform law, the Affordable Care Act. This is a welcome opportunity to take a step back and take a look at the impact of this historic legislation over the course of its first year, and specifically focus on the new law's programs to improve our health care system for all Americans, especially our seniors.<br />
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Since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law last spring, I have traveled across the First State talking to my constituents about our new health care reform law. From Dover, to Wilmington, to Rehoboth, I often heard the same questions and concerns, particularly from seniors who fear that the new law will reduce their Medicare benefits. <br />
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I hope the information discussed during this hearing will help to correct some of the myths about the law and highlight the increased benefits that Americans are already experiencing as a result of the Affordable Care Act. Many Delawareans, and most Americans, <a href="http://carper.senate.gov/press/record.cfm?id=327894" target="_hplink">are unaware of many of the law's benefits that have already gone into effect.</a> <br />
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In particular, the Affordable Care Act contains many provisions that make health insurance more accessible, more affordable, and more dependable. For example, <a href="http://carper.senate.gov/press/record.cfm?id=327826" target="_hplink">small businesses can receive tax credits</a> that represent up to 35 percent of the cost of providing insurance coverage to their employers. <a href="http://carper.senate.gov/press/record.cfm?id=328939" target="_hplink">The tax credit provides $40 billion</a> for small companies over the next 10 years. In addition, young adults will be able to stay on their parents' insurance plans until their 26th birthday. New health insurance plans are also banned from placing lifetime limits on the amount of health insurance, so over 500,000 Delawareans and all Americans can rest assured that they will have health insurance coverage when they need it the most.<br />
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Seniors are also receiving <a href="http://carper.senate.gov/press/record.cfm?id=328564" target="_hplink">significant new benefits in Medicare</a>. For instance, thousands of Medicare beneficiaries in Delaware have received a one-time, tax free $250 rebate to help pay for prescriptions in the "doughnut hole" coverage gap. Moreover, seniors who now enter the Medicare Part D doughnut hole will get a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs and a 7 percent discount on generic drugs. Delaware's 140,000 Medicare beneficiaries will receive preventive services, such as screenings for diabetes, cancer, heart disease, cognitive screenings, and an annual wellness visit without having to pay copayments, coinsurance, or deductibles.<br />
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I also want to highlight the new tools the law provides to better protect tax payer dollars by curbing waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare and Medicaid. Earlier this month my subcommittee on Federal Financial Management held a hearing the steps that have been taken through the Affordable Care Act, and other steps that could be taken to curb waste and fraud. For example, the new health care law expands the use of Recovery Audit Contractors, which has already recovered over $1 billion taxpayer dollars through a small pilot program. As part of that hearing we had Mrs. Helen Carson, a resident of New Castle, Delaware, <a href="http://hsgac.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Hearings.Hearing&Hearing_id=e3150ecc-3d8c-4ffd-8236-1358d876e761" target="_hplink">come and share her experiences working with the Senior Medicare Patrol</a>, an organization that works directly with seniors in Delaware to identify fraud. Clearly we've made some important progress in curbing waste, fraud, and abuse in these programs over the past year, although more remains to be done. <br />
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Nearly one year later, the Affordable Care Act clearly is a significant step forward in our effort to improve health care for all Americans, but as we all know there is no such thing as a perfect law and my colleagues and I will continue to look for ways to work with the Administration to continue to improve and strengthen our health care reform efforts. Moving forward, I will remain focused on improving our health care system, extending high quality health care to all Americans, and getting better health care outcomes while lowering costs. I urge my colleagues to continue working with me to improve the health reform law and our health care system. While the health reform law is not written in stone, today's hearing offered us another important opportunity to work with the Administration to strengthen the law and by extension, further improve our health care system. As I like to say, if it isn't perfect, make it better.<br />
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/health-care-reform">Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/tag/medicare">Medicare</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care">Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/healthcare">Healthcare</a>, <a href="/tag/health-insurance-reform">Health Insurance Reform</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Ernest Istook: The "Untouchable" $23.6 Billionhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ernest-istook/the-untouchable-236-billi_b_836434.htmlErnest Istookhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/ernest-istook/
Untouchable. That's the treatment being given to the $23.6 billion being spent right now to implement Obamacare. <br />
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This $23.6 billion is part of the $105.5 billion appropriated by the last Congress to fund Obamacare. The remainder (Think of it as post-dated checks for the other $81.9 billion.) automatically becomes available between now and FY2019. <br />
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None of this is to be confused with an additional $115 billion authorized for additional appropriation to Obamacare--but which the current Congress is unlikely to provide.<br />
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The most pressing question, however, is whether any of the current $23.6 billion will be rescinded as part of the spending reductions being pursued in Congress.<br />
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Despite campaign promises to defund Obamacare, it isn't being done. Why not? <br />
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The excuses are flimsy. Claims that it "cannot" be done under House rules are wrong and misleading. The House has constitutional authority to package legislation however it wishes. Self-imposed rules of the House should be no barrier to action, either. Those same rules were waived repeatedly to permit defunding of other programs in the series of continuing resolutions (CRs) that are being used to keep the full federal government open.<br />
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In the first full-year CR, the relevant rule (House Rule XXI) was waived to permit 123 previous appropriations to be rescinded. But Obamacare funding was not touched. Perhaps doing the same thing for the 124th time was considered going too far?<br />
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Congress waived the rules again in the second two-week CR. But Obamacare funding still went untouched.<br />
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In the latest three-week CR, the rules were waived once more, and again Obamacare funding was not touched.<br />
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To its credit, the House Energy and Commerce Committee is pushing legislation to eliminate portions of the $81.9 billion to be spent on Obamacare in future years. But the Committee's proposal would do nothing to stem the $23.6 billion front-end money flowing into the program already. <br />
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Unfortunately, that bill faces the same fate as the House's previous (and praiseworthy) legislation to repeal all of Obamacare outright. The Senate leadership has no intention of letting the proposal pass. And even if the Senate approved the bill, President Obama would most certainly veto it. <br />
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This is why the only meaningful method for defunding Obamacare is to package the spending cuts with must-pass legislation that has other things--like spending--that President Obama and his team desire. There is no other way to apply political leverage.<br />
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Another approach--which likewise would need to be packaged and leveraged--is to delay all Obamacare funds until we have a final decision from the U.S. Supreme Court on the law's constitutionality. The 11th Circuit is expediting its handling of the Justice Department's appeal of Judge Roger Vinson's landmark ruling that the entire law is unconstitutional. In the meantime, why should tens of billions of taxpayer dollars be spent to implement a measure that is unconstitutional? <br />
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This is the approach taken in the Save Our States Act. In the House, Representatives Tom Graves (R-Ga.) and Kevin Brady (R-Texas) have filed HR 663 to create this moratorium on implementing Obamacare. In the upper chamber, Senators Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-Texas) and John Barrasso (R-Wyo.) have filed the companion version, S.281.<br />
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The savings would certainly be in the billions. The entire $23.6 billion of current front-end funding has not yet been spent, although the remaining balance has not been determined.<br />
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Congress is in recess the week of March 21-27. Many lawmakers will return home; some will hold public meetings. It's an important opportunity for public meetings and feedback.<br />
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Perhaps then they can explain to citizens why Obamacare's funding--especially the $23.6 billion they're already spending--is being treated as untouchable.<br />
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Ernest Istook, a distinguished fellow at The Heritage Foundation, was a 14-year Congressman, member of the House Appropriations Committee, and subcommittee chairman.<br />
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/appropriations">Appropriations</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
White House: GOP Health Care Move Would Come With Consequenceshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/09/kathleen-sebelius-gop-hea_n_833581.htmlThe Huffington Post News Teamhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
HELENA, Mont. — The Obama administration says a Montana Republican's long-shot effort to deny funding for the new federal health care law would prevent Medicare from paying the bills for millions of seniors – displaying the GOP's difficulty trying to unwind a law that recrafted much of the nation's health care rules.<br />
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Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius says if Congress passes defunding legislation, Medicare would not be able to issue payments to popular private insurance plans that cover about one-fourth of all the seniors in the program. The health care law scaled back payments to Medicare Advantage plans, as the private insurance option is known.
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/gop-health-care-repeal">Gop Health Care Repeal</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="/tag/kathleen-sebelius-gop-health-care">Kathleen Sebelius GOP Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/republicans-health-care-repeal">Republicans Health Care Repeal</a>, <a href="/tag/kathleen-sebelius-health-care">Kathleen Sebelius Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/sebelius-health-care">Sebelius Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/republicans-health-care-funding">Republicans Health Care Funding</a>, <a href="/tag/kathleen-sebelius">Kathleen Sebelius</a>, <a href="/tag/sebelius-gop-health-care">Sebelius GOP Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-gop-health">Obama Gop Health</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/gop-health-care-funding">Gop Health Care Funding</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Senate Republicans Push To Oust Medicare Chiefhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/03/senate-republicans-push-t_n_830824.htmlThe Huffington Post News Teamhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
WASHINGTON — Unable to repeal President Barack Obama's health care law, Republicans are trying to oust the official who is quarterbacking the overhaul of the nation's medical system.<br />
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In a letter released Thursday, 42 Republican senators asked the president to withdraw the nomination of Dr. Donald Berwick as Medicare administrator, saying his experience isn't broad enough and past statements raise fundamental questions about his views on policy.
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/donald-berwick">Donald Berwick</a>, <a href="/tag/senate-republicans-donald-berwick">Senate Republicans Donald Berwick</a>, <a href="/tag/senate-gop-donald-berwick">Senate Gop Donald Berwick</a>, <a href="/tag/medicare">Medicare</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/senate-republicans-medicare">Senate Republicans Medicare</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care">Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-medicare">Obama Medicare</a>, <a href="/tag/senate-gop-medicare">Senate Gop Medicare</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
GOP Govs & Obama At Impasse Over Health Care Programhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/03/02/gop-governors-obama-at-im_n_830143.htmlThe Huffington Post News Teamhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
WASHINGTON — Strained state budgets and a new crew of Republican governors have combined to reopen the debate over Medicaid, the health care program for the poorest and sickest Americans.<br />
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GOP governors want control of the purse strings and leeway to rewrite coverage and payment rules. So far President Barack Obama has turned them down, but he may be forced to give some ground if negotiations to reduce federal debt get serious later this year.
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/medicaid-cuts">Medicaid Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-medicaid-cuts">Obama Medicaid Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/gop-governors-medicaid">Gop Governors Medicaid</a>, <a href="/tag/gop-governors-medicaid-cuts">Gop Governors Medicaid Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/haley-barbour-medicaid-cuts">Haley Barbour Medicaid Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care-cuts">Obama Health Care Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/haley-barbour">Haley Barbour</a>, <a href="/tag/gop-governors">GOP Governors</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-law">Health Care Law</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="/tag/haley-barbour-medicaid">Haley Barbour Medicaid</a>, <a href="/tag/haley-barbour-health-care">Haley Barbour Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/gop-governors-health-care">Gop Governors Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/haley-barbour-health-care-cuts">Haley Barbour Health Care Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/medicaid">Medicaid</a>, <a href="/tag/gop-governors-health-care-cuts">Gop Governors Health Care Cuts</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-medicaid">Obama Medicaid</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Obama's Embrace Of Health Care Opt-Out Could Shift Legal, Public-Relations Debateshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/28/obamas-embrace-of-health-care-opt-out_n_829314.htmlThe Huffington Post News Teamhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
WASHINGTON -- White House officials insisted on Monday that President Barack Obama's embrace of a provision that would give states the right to opt out of his health care law three years earlier then is currently allowed was a function of policy preferences and not due to ongoing legal drama. <br />
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Behind the scenes, however, defenders of the legislation quickly began an aggressive push to see if the new provision, which moves the opt-out date from 2017 to 2014, could alter the balance of arguments taking place both in the courts and the realm of public opinion. <br />
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"This is the first major bipartisan reform effort that has won the president's support since the law was passed," Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), who cosponsored the opt-out amendment with Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.), noted in an interview with The Huffington Post. "I think this is an opportunity to dramatically change the debate about health reform." <br />
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Rather than spending what he described as "a huge amount" of effort and taxpayer money to roll back the bill, Wyden said, the compromise measure could make design of an alternative to the federal system seem more promising to officials at the state level.<br />
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The Oregon Democrat declined to speculate on how an expedited opt-out date might change the legal argument around the bill. "I'm a lawyer in name only," he said. But his staff has put in a request with the Congressional Research Service's legal department to get its take. <br />
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At issue is the constitutionality of the individual mandate, which forces almost all U.S. citizens to purchase health insurance or face a financial penalty. Congress' capacity to legislate such a measure has been contested as far back as the bill's crafting. On Monday, administration officials insisted that merely allowing states to scrap the provision -- provided they meet minimal standards -- in 2014 rather than 2017 did little to change their argument that Congress has such authority under the commerce clause. <br />
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"This doesn't really change anything in terms of what is being challenged in court," one senior administration official. "The only impact maybe one could point to is that it really does emphasize that states really do have flexibility to design these programs in ways that best meets the needs of their citizens and the makeup of their state."<br />
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In a conference call organized for consumer advocates earlier in the day to explain the Obama's policy proposal, White House officials made much the same case. Simply moving the opt-out date to 2014 doesn't change the fundamentals of their legal argument. But constitutional scholars and health care advocates, when looking closely at the issue, said the White House made its lift in the case a bit lighter. <br />
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"This puts the burden back on the states as to whether they want to have the mandate apply or not," said Tim Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University who specializes in health care law. "This gives them more flexibility and it at least detracts some from their argument." <br />
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In particular, Jost and others stressed, states would have a tougher time asserting "standing" in court should the opt-out date be moved up three years. Already, a <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/03/obama-health-care-legal-victory_n_818428.html" target="_hplink">case was dismissed</a> in a U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi on grounds that the plaintiffs could not prove that the law was currently causing them harm. The judge in that case, Keith Starret, cited the far-off date of the individual mandate's implementation, 2014, as well as various waivers that groups and individuals could utilize to exempt themselves from the mandate, as reasons not to offer a ruling. An advanced opt-out date should, theoretically, offer judges greater pause when deciding whether to rule on the law. <br />
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"The courts who have accepted that there is standing have more or less articulated that the present existence of a federal law is enough ... They would still be doing that," said Ian Millhiser, a policy analyst for the Obama-allied Center for American Progress. "That said, the states themselves, the Virginia case and the various states in the Florida case already have a very weak standing claim... and given that, it is quite possible that courts would point to [a 2014 opt-out date] as another factor undermining their standing."<br />
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Standing, however, is only a provisional ruling. Eventually, the law will be at such a stage of implementation that no court can say that plaintiffs aren't yet affected, and that day will likely come before the state opt-out clause is in effect, even if Obama persuades Congress to move it from 2017 to 2014. But as the administration continues to argue that the president's health care law is not a dramatic power grab by the federal government, it will have another arrow in the quiver.<br />
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"I don't think the debate over the individual mandate really gets affected by this," said Doug Kendall, founder and president of the Constitutional Accountability Center, a progressive think tank and law firm. "What does are cases like in Florida, which was brought by the 26 attorney generals who do much more than challenge the individual mandate. They call this bill an assault on federalism and a violation of the federal structure." <br />
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Kendall's organization represented state officials arguing the reverse, "That the law builds in a great deal of flexibility to the states and is a good example of constitutional federalism at its best," he said.<br />
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/health-care-2014">Health Care 2014</a>, <a href="/tag/state-waivers">State Waivers</a>, <a href="/tag/wyden-opt-out">Wyden Opt Out</a>, <a href="/tag/obama">Obama</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/optout-health-care">Opt-Out Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/state-optout">State Opt-Out</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care-reform">Obama Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>
Obama Open To Easing Health Care Law Requirementshttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/02/28/obama-offers-states-leewa_n_829145.htmlThe Huffington Post News Teamhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/the-news/
WASHINGTON — President Barack Obama is offering to let states unhappy with his health care overhaul design their own plans as long as they fulfill the goals of his landmark law.<br />
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The law already allows states to submit their own plans, but not until 2017. A White House proposal provided Monday to The Associated Press says states would be able to offer their plans for federal approval three years earlier. These could include alternatives to the unpopular requirement that most Americans get health insurance.
<p>Read more: <a href="/tag/health-care-law-opt-out">Health Care Law Opt Out</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-reform-repeal">Health Care Reform Repeal</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care-op-out">Obama Health Care Op Out</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-law">Health Care Law</a>, <a href="/tag/barack-obama">Barack Obama</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care-law-opt-out">Obama Health Care Law Opt Out</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care">Obama Health Care</a>, <a href="/tag/health-care-repeal">Health Care Repeal</a>, <a href="/tag/obama-health-care-reform">Obama Health Care Reform</a>, <a href="/politics">Politics News</a></p>