Thread: Do you support Obama Care ?

Unexpected! ObamaCare makes healthcare *more* expensive faster!
Posted by: Phineas on July 28, 2011 at 1:01 pm
http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/20...ore-expensive/

Well color me shocked. Who would’ve guessed that a badly-crafted 2,000-page bill that no one read and was rushed through the night and is just chock-full of new regulations, bureaucracies, and mandates would actually bend the cost-curve up?

Anyone with a lick of sense, I guess, which lets out the Democratic Party, their Leftist supporters, and the fawning media. (But I repeat myself.)

From The Washington Times: http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ts-study-says/

Despite President Obama’s promises to rein in health care costs as part of his reform bill, health spending nationwide is expected to rise more than if the sweeping legislation had never become law.

Total spending is projected to grow annually by 5.8 percent under Mr. Obama’s Affordable Care Act, according to a 10-year forecast by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released Thursday. Without the ACA, spending would grow at a slightly slower rate of 5.7 percent annually.

CMS officials attributed the growth to an expansion of the insured population. Under the plan, an estimated 23 million Americans are expected to obtain insurance in 2014, largely through state-based exchanges and expanded Medicaid eligibility.

The federal government is projected to spend 20 percent more on Medicaid, while spending on private health insurance is expected to rise by 9.4 percent.

A tenth of a percent is not small change, when we’re talking about the scale of healthcare spending in the US. Moreover, we were told that implementing ObamaCare was essential to bending the cost-curve down. Not even, not up.

So, then, what was the point? The only thing accomplished is greater government control over and regulation of a crucial sector of our economy, which will only lead to a nationalized, Socialized single-payer system.

Oh, wait. That is the point! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-bY92mcOdk


No matter what it costs the rest of us.


via Hot Air, which has the White House rebuttal. http://hotair.com/archives/2011/07/2...ut-affordable/


LINKS: Pirate’s Cove notes that ObamaCare cost more than doing nothing. Fancy that. http://www.thepiratescove.us/2011/07...doing-nothing/

Insurers must cover birth control with no copays
By RICARDO ALONSO-ZALDIVAR - Associated Press | AP – 26 mins ago

WASHINGTON (AP) — Health insurance plans must cover birth control as preventive care for women, with no copays, the Obama administration said Monday in a decision with far-reaching implications for health care as well as social mores.

The requirement is part of a broad expansion of coverage for women's preventive care under President Barack Obama's health care law. Also to be covered without copays are breast pumps for nursing mothers, an annual "well-woman" physical, screening for the virus that causes cervical cancer and for diabetes during pregnancy, counseling on domestic violence, and other services.

"These historic guidelines are based on science and existing (medical) literature and will help ensure women get the preventive health benefits they need," said Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.

The new requirements will take effect Jan. 1, 2013, in most cases. Over time, they are expected to apply to most employer-based insurance plans, as well as coverage purchased individually. Plans that are considered "grandfathered" under the law will not be affected, at least initially. Consumers should check with their health insurance plan administrator.

Sebelius acted after a near-unanimous recommendation last month from a panel of experts convened by the prestigious Institute of Medicine, which advises the government. Panel chairwoman Linda Rosenstock, dean of public health at the University of California, Los Angeles, said that prevention of unintended pregnancies is essential for the psychological, emotional and physical health of women.

Birth control use is virtually universal in the United States, according to a government study issued last summer. Generic versions of the pill are available for as little as $9 a month. Still, about half of all pregnancies are unplanned. Many are among women using some form of contraception, and forgetting to take the pill is a major reason.

Contraception is about more than simply preventing pregnancy — it can help make a woman's next pregnancy healthier by spacing births far enough apart, generally 18 months to two years. Research links closely spaced births to a risk of such problems as prematurity, low birth weight, even autism. Research has shown that even modest copays for medical care can discourage use.

In a nod to social and religious conservatives, the rules issued Monday by Sebelius include a provision that would allow religious institutions to opt out of offering birth control coverage. However, many conservatives are supporting legislation by Rep. Jeff Fortenberry, R-Neb., that would codify a range of exceptions to the new health care law on religious and conscience grounds.

Although the new women's preventive services will be free of any additional charge to patients, somebody will have to pay. The cost will be spread among other people with health insurance, resulting in slightly higher premiums. That may be offset to some degree with savings from diseases prevented, or pregnancies that are planned to minimize any potential ill effects to the mother and baby.

The administration did allow insurers some leeway in determining what they will cover. For example, health plans will be able to charge copays for branded drugs in cases where a generic version is just as effective and safe for the patient.

http://news.yahoo.com/insurers-must-...140750830.html

comments

So you don't pay a co-pay. Your premiums go up. People you are still paying.

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So really you will still be paying for them when your premium goes up slightly....

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Who, exactly, is going to pay?

"Slightly" higher premiums...heh.

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Another tax on all of us, indirect as it is. We will now all have to pay more for insurance so a group of people can get something for free.

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So many people on here seem to be interested only in the part of the article that says that this move could increase premiums. You (and the author of the article) must not realize that most women who have unplanned pregnancies DO NOT have abortions. They have the baby, who is then put on their insurance plan. It is a lot more expensive to pay for a child's health care than it is to cover birth control for the mother. Think it through people. If you're only interested in the bottom line, make sure you understand what that bottom line really is.

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Since Obama-care my premium is up 30%. This is Great! I cant wait to pass on more of my money to others in need of birth control.
... the birth rate in poor neigthborhoods will still manage to increase. And there will still be no fathers present... in a neighborhood near me, babies are almost like trophys to the teen girls..They push them around in these nice stroolers..all paid for by our tax dollars

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Why the hell am I paying for birth control, viagra, and a host of other crap I don't need in my health care? The problem in cost to the average person is these mandates.

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Why does anyone think this is good. Coverage would be fine but why with no Copay thereby passing the cost to everyone else? Sound like a redistributionist agenda to me.

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Another good bet would be offering welfare sows a one-time, tax-free payment of $20,000 cash to get a hysterectomy. Each of their precious little miracles costs my state around $280,000 to raise over 18 years, and then there's always the cost of prison afterwards

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I'm not following the logic here. Medicaid already covers birth control in my state, and at my insurance company's copay for the generic birth control shot is $20 plus a small injection fee and there are a number of county programs that will provide birth control to the unimsured for next to nothing, so I'm unclear as to exactly whom this is supposed to benefit.

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I have to pay higher premiums because people cant pay $9 a month for birth control pills.There is so much discrimination to this health reform!

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This year my health insurance went up thirty percent do to the mandates of Obamacare. When they continue to "find out what's in the bill after it was passed", it will go up another thirty percent. That was the agenda of Progressives, make it so expensive we have to look to Washington (who caused the problem) to save us.

Two justices may decide fate of Obama healthcare law
By James Vicini | Reuters – 5 hrs ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The legal fate of President Barack Obama's signature healthcare law will likely come down to two Republican appointees on the U.S. Supreme Court -- Chief Justice John Roberts and Justice Anthony Kennedy. That would be a familiar role for Kennedy, a moderate conservative who often has cast the decisive vote on the most contentious issues before the nine-member high court divided between conservative and liberal factions.

A Supreme Court ruling on the healthcare law, adopted by a Democratic-controlled Congress after a bruising political battle, could be a defining moment for Roberts, who was named chief justice in 2005 by Republican President George W. Bush. "Given the deep ideological divisions over the case and the lack of precedent clearly on point, the court could easily rule either way," Ilya Somin, associate law professor at George Mason University, wrote in a recent blog post.

U.S. appeals courts have issued conflicting rulings on whether Congress exceeded its power under the Constitution when, in adopting the healthcare law in 2010, it required that Americans buy insurance or face a penalty.

The latest decision, handed down on Friday from an Atlanta-based appeals court, struck down that individual mandate provision, making it more likely the Supreme Court will get involved.

University of Richmond assistant law professor Kevin Walsh said the Supreme Court seemed virtually certain to decide the issue by the end of June next year. That would mean a ruling before the U.S. elections in November 2012, with the law seen as a major political issue.

Obama has championed the individual mandate as a major accomplishment of his presidency and as a way to try to slow the soaring costs of healthcare while expanding coverage to more than 30 million Americans without it. "If the Supreme Court follows existing precedent, existing law, it should be upheld without a problem," Obama said in Minnesota during a town hall discussion. "If the Supreme Court does not follow existing law and precedent, then we'll have to manage that when it happens."

REPUBLICANS CRITICAL

Republican presidential candidates have strongly criticized the law as costly and evidence of intrusive government power. Legal experts said the court's four liberals, all appointees of Democratic presidents, were likely to uphold the individual mandate. Justices Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg were appointed by President Bill Clinton while Obama named Justices Sonia Sotomayor and Elena Kagan.

The experts said Justice Clarence Thomas was expected to vote to strike down the mandate, based on his past opinions, and could be joined by fellow conservatives, Justices Antonin Scalia and Samuel Alito. All three were named by Republican presidents.

That would leave Roberts, a conservative who on occasion has refused to join far-right positions taken by Scalia and Thomas, and Kennedy to control the outcome.

Kevin Russell, a Washington lawyer who argues before the Supreme Court and who has followed the healthcare law, said Kennedy has been one of the justices most protective of state power against federal government encroachment. "If he views the mandate as invading an area of traditional state authority, I think he may be one of the least likely justices to vote to uphold it," Russell said.

Orin Kerr, a George Washington University law professor, predicted Roberts and Kennedy both would likely end up voting to uphold the individual insurance mandate. He cited an opinion by Kennedy in 1995 and the expansive view that Roberts recently supported of the power of Congress under the Constitution to adopt laws necessary and proper.

http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-obama...203330433.html


comments

The health care debate will end here and and most likely become a thing of the past as the court almost always devides along party lines on political issues. Obama's biggest mistake was in his timing on this issue and not really trying to get a balanced approach. When this country is staggering from high unemploment the last thing we need to hear about is health care. Very simply put it is all about jobs ... you know the ones that a family can live on!

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I believe we need health care reform, but this legislation is such a mess that it would be a relief if the Supreme Court did not uphold it. We didn't investigate and control the banking industry in time, if we don't look closely at the healthcare industry we will have a repeat performance. Suggestion - if we are going to try for universal healthcare build on/revise current systems like Medicaid/Medicare and kill several birds with one stone.

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What the author fails to mention is Kagan will have to recuse herself from hearing the case as she had a hand in providing advise on how the law was put together while in the Obama administration and prior to her joining the court. Anything else would be a direct conflict of interest.

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If it is not good enough for Congress and the President why should it be good enough for us? They are supposed to serve ... not be served

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The "I have to have auto insurance why not health insurance.." is idiotic. This is more like being told what house to by and in what town becuase some people can't afford homes and since nobody should be denied shelter we need to make sure everybody has access to the same type of homes. It is as toxic a piece of legislature that ever was put together and should result in any senator or representitive who voted in favor of it to be removed, and Obama to be impeached. It's that bad, and the fact people don't treat it as anti-constitutional proves that we have a certain segment of society who are willing to throw the country down the tubes for freebies they don't have to work for.

"Ridiculous" Obama Administration Blocks Modest Medicaid Reforms in Illinois
By Avik Roy | Forbes – Sat, Aug 27, 2011

There are a lot of people out there who think that, just because Medicaid is jointly run by the states and the feds, that states have a great deal of flexibility in how they administer the program. As Harold Pollack happily puts it in The New Republic, “In practice, states already enjoy great flexibility, with the Obama administration sending many signals that it is wiling to grant more.”

The logic of Harold’s argument is clear: if states “already enjoy great flexibility,” there’s no need to give them more flexibility in the form of block grants. Doing so would only give state governments “more incentive to make deeper cuts.” So I thought I would share with you an example of how ludicrously inflexible Medicaid really is: an example from Illinois, President Obama’s home state.

Illinois has one of the most expansive Medicaid programs in the country, with annual state and federal spending of $15 billion. That compares to a state budget of $33 billion. In the Land of Lincoln, you can qualify for Medicaid if your income is under 200 percent of the federal poverty level—$44,700 for a family of four. Children qualify at 300 percent of FPL. One out of every five Illinoisans is on Medicaid, including one-third of all Illinois kids.

But in order to prove that you’re eligible for Medicaid in Illinois, all you have to do is provide a single pay stub. If that pay stub happens to be artificially low, suggesting a lower income than you actually have, it still counts as “proof” of Medicaid eligibility. As to proving Illinois residency? The nice people of Illinois merely ask that you write down your address. As a result, people earning more than the Medicaid threshold, and people who don’t even live in Illinois, are collecting Illinois Medicaid funds.

So in January, the State of Illinois, under a Democratic House, a Democratic Senate, and a Democratic Governor, passed a landmark Medicaid reform bill aimed at fixing this and other problems with the program. The new law required the state’s Medicaid recipients to provide a month’s worth of pay stubs, instead of just one, in order to provide evidence of residency and income. Not a big deal, you might think.

You’d be wrong. In July, the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services informed Illinois that the seemingly innocuous reform violated federal law, because Obamacare doesn’t allow states to restrict Medicaid eligibility, and this reform, they decided, was an eligibility restriction. From the Chicago Tribune:

One of the long-sought goals of Illinois Medicaid reforms enacted this year was to require more proof that people lived in Illinois and that their incomes were not too high to qualify for the state and federal health care program for the poor.

Illinois wanted more proof of residency than the current requirement that calls for little more than writing down an address, officials said. The new Illinois law also asked for a month’s worth of pay stubs instead of just one paycheck to show income eligibility. That requirement, officials said, was aimed at lessening the chance that a person could become eligible simply by using a particularly small paycheck to make his overall income look smaller than it is.

The federal government denied the Illinois plans because states are not allowed to put in place procedures that are more restrictive than they were on March 23, 2010, the day Democratic President Barack Obama signed the sweeping federal Affordable Care Act. “Frankly, this is what enrages people,” said Illinois Senate Minority Leader Christine Radogno, R-Lemont. “If all we want to do is find out if people are actually eligible for the services, and the federal government is telling us we can’t do that, that’s absolutely ridiculous.”

http://news.yahoo.com/ridiculous-oba...163406029.html

comments

15 billion in a state that has a budget of 33 billion, and raised taxes 66%....

MSM: Obamacare was Obama’s Biggest Mistake (Neutral Story Line)
posted at 1:37 pm on September 4, 2011

On Sunday’s The Chris Matthews Show, the HuffPo’s Howard Fineman and the WaPo’s David Ignatius both identified Obamacare as Pres. Obama’s biggest mistake. On Twitter, some on the right — including some I consider to be very sharp — consider the comments an interesting admission, or worthy of mockery. There is more to the comments than that.

Consider the actual quotes: http://newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sh...medium=twitter

HOWARD FINEMAN, HUFFINGTON POST: Chris, on things under his control, not the wars so much because they were built in, his decision to spend all of his political capital in a year and a half of his time on the healthcare reform law I think was his biggest political mistake.
MATTHEWS: Wow. Smart statement.
***
DAVID IGNATIUS, WASHINGTON POST: I would agree with Howard. The idea of launching a major change in social legislation without having a consensus in the country and in Congress about what that should look like was a mistake. That’s just not how a president makes good policy.

Note what is not said. Neither believes a government takeover of the healthcare sector was a bad policy. Rather, they believe it was a political mistake and that it is “bad process” to pass legislation without consensus. The establishment media took an entirely opposite position when it counted. When the debate was raging, the media never tired of writing about how everyone was going to love Obamacare after it was passed.

The comments from Fineman and Ignatius reflect two things. First, they are a belated recognition that Obamacare is truly unpopular. Second, they reflect a need to get themselves on the record against passing big, controversial legislation now, before the 2012 election. Should the GOP thump Obama and the Dems next year, they want to be able to point to comments like this when they oppose anything like the House GOP budget, entitlement reform and so on.

It’s just another iteration of the “Neutral Story Line.” http://minx.cc/?post=304568 The establishment media rejected the idea that it was wrong to legislate gigantic societal change when Democrats had big enough majorities in Congress. Now that the GOP may end up in control, it’s a bad idea… until such time as the Dems win again.

http://hotair.com/greenroom/archives...al-story-line/

they reflect a need to get themselves on the record against passing big, controversial legislation now, before the 2012 election. Should the GOP thump Obama and the Dems next year, they want to be able to point to comments like this when they oppose anything like the House GOP budget, entitlement reform and so on.

This is dead on accurate.

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It’s the usual “communication” problem. We didn’t explain it clearly enough in word of one syllable to the knuckle-dragging, Bible-clinging sheeple what a wonderful laws their betters had drafted for them.

Same with Obamacare. It was rushed through before the sheeple could be indoctrinated into its wonderfulness, including the social necessity of “cost control.” Once Palin used the term “death panels,” the sheeple reacted emotionally, rather than seeing why some life is “not really living” (too expensive to keep around), and enlightened “experts” on the panel would determine this.

And then the GOP started complaining that it would cost too much and kill businesses. But not, according to the liberals, if those who had “made enough money” paid their “fair share.”

Liberals cannot accept any flaws in their philosophy, which has the status of revealed truth to them. It’s always in the implementation.

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And if the GOP did repeal Obamacare by budge reconciliation rules, and then went on to pass entitlement reform, the liberals would say that the GOP is hypocritical, because it claims to be opposed to “tranformative legislation.”

Of course, this is the all-or-nothing fallacy. “Either you’re in favor of all big government bills or you’re opposed.” No third alternative in the fallacy.

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We’ll see another embodiment of this come January 2013 when the MSM falls back in love with the filibuster.

When the Dems filibuster major entitlement reform, they won’t be “The Party of No” or “obstructionists” or “putting party before country.”

Instead, the filibuster will once again reflect the “genius of American democracy” where “the Senate is the saucer where the hot brew of the House cools” and “the rights of the minority are protected from being trampled by the majority” and “tyranny of the majority” is prevented.

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I wonder, where is the blame of Nancy Pelosi for all of this ruination of Obama’s administration? After all, she pretty much wrote the failed stimulus bill, and it was her idea to ditch the health care bill that had actually gone through the committee process, rewrite it in her office with nobody allowed to read it until the day it hit the House floor, and then ram it through under reconciliation rules after Scott Brown was elected to the Senate and the Democrats lost their 60-vote majority. Even if the only objection of the MSM now is to the “process” by which this bill was passed, Obama was not responsible for that process, Pelosi was.

Why does she continue to escape any scrutiny by the MSM?

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You also have to factor in the desire by the media to eruditely deliver a verbal knee to the groin of the person or persons they think screwed up their grasp at creating a veritable Shamgra La on the North American continent.

The more overtly passionate of Obama’s supporters — the Paul Krugman wing of the media — who have a hard time separating their core ideology from there analysis — are the ones doubling down on attacking Obama by saying he didn’t spend enough, and are openly angry that he didn’t crush the right with the tools at hand when he had the chance. Fineman and Igatius are just as angry at Obama for messing things up, but have the ability to check a lot of their passion at the door and see that they may be dealing with a lot more Republicans in positions of power in Washington in the near-future.

Their own enlightened self-interest males them now contradict the same positions they shared with the Krugman types two years ago. It’s similar to those in the Democratic Party who attacked U.S. military action in Iraq under Bush and painted American soldiers with a broad brush as killers, torturers and rapists — the far left of the parry truly believes that, while for others, it was just situational, in order to inflame people and goose turnout on their side. Howard and David remain liberals, but they’re situational liberals, ready to sound a more moderate tone when they think that’s the route the parade’s taking.

In a way, it’s more odious than Paul Krugman, because he’s lost the capacity to know better, and truly believes if the conservatives gain power, they’re going to eat him. Fineman and Ignatius haven’t and are just trying to cover their keisters, though in the age of the Internet and YouTube videos, whitewashing your past is nowhere as easy as it was 10-20 years ago.

[/i]

The true costs of Obamacare about to hit Wisconsin


Peter Suderman at Reason points us to a report on the costs of Obamacare for Wisconsin. Gruber is a supporter of the health care reform and he was also a consultant for Romney's Massachusetts health care reform. The analysis of what Obamacare would cost the state was ordered by the former Democratic governor, Jim Doyle, who was a big supporter of the health care reform law.

The report does say that about 340,000 Wisconsinites will get insurance coverage, though half of them will be on Medicaid. It's not clear how the state is going to afford all those new enrollees in Medicaid.

But the real kicker that might surprise Wisconsinites is what the plan is going to do for those who already have health insurance.

Meanwhile expanding the state’s health insurance coverage will come at a significant cost to hundreds of thousands of individuals, especially within the individual market, where the law has the greatest effect. Gruber projects that the average individual market health insurance premium will cost about 30 percent more than if ObamaCare had never passed. For most individual market enrollees, the average premium increase will be even higher: 87 percent of the individual market is projected to see a premium price increase of 41 percent.

Defenders of the law might note that more than half—about 57 percent—of those who get their insurance through the individual market will benefit from the law’s generous health insurance subsidies. But even discounting the enormous public cost of financing those subsidies (which account for roughly half of the law’s $950 billion price tag over the next decade), it’s still not much consolation for the majority of individual market enrollees.

That’s because more than half the individual market will still end up paying more: “After the application of tax subsidies,” the report projects, “59 percent of the individual market will experience an average premium increase of 31 percent.”

And over half of small businesses are going to see their premiums rise as a result of the law. I wonder how many of those businesses will give up their coverage for their employees and throw them onto the state services.

Gee, you might say, that's not what Obama and the Democrats promised us. Remember all those promises that Obama made about how nothing would change for those of us who are happy with our coverage.

Never mind.

http://betsyspage.blogspot.com/2011/...ut-to-hit.html

Hospitals, drugmakers lash out at Obama deficit plan
By David Morgan | Reuters – 15 hrs ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. hospital and drug industries lashed out at provisions of President Barack Obama's deficit reduction plan that would saddle them with more than $200 billion in federal healthcare spending cuts.

Lobbyists vowed to fight proposals for Medicare, which covers the elderly, that are aimed at saving $135 billion on prescriptions by requiring drugmakers to provide steeper rebates similar to those for Medicaid, which covers the poor.

Another $42 billion would come from adjustments in Medicare payments to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and in-patient rehabilitation centers.

Obama outlined the plan on Monday as part of a $3.6 trillion proposal to cut the nation's debt that would largely rely on raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

Other provisions target payments that hospitals and drugmakers receive from Medicaid, aiming to put more of the burden of cost-savings on industry than on beneficiaries of government health benefits.

Together, the hospital and pharmaceutical industries will bear about two-thirds of the $320 billion in savings that the Obama plan envisions in federal healthcare spending.

On Wall Street, shares of hospital operators declined as investors feared more reimbursement cuts to the Medicare program. HCA Holdings Inc fell 6.7 percent, Community Health Systems Inc 3.2 percent and Tenet Healthcare Corp 3.8 percent.

The NYSE Arca pharmaceuticals index fell 0.9 percent, in line with the wider stock market, as investors are already expecting weaker sales in the U.S. market with an influx of generic medicines.

The two industries' main trade groups -- the American Hospital Association and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America -- said the president's deficit-cutting plan could mean the loss of thousands of jobs and curtail access for the elderly, disabled and the poor.

"Funding cuts would mean decreased access to care for our nation's seniors and could overload emergency rooms, shut down trauma units and reduce patient access to the latest treatments," AHA President and Chief Executive Rich Umbdenstock said in a statement.

PhRMA Senior Vice President Matt Bennett took aim at the plan's intent to strengthen the Independent Payment Advisory Board, an oversight panel created by Obama's 2010 healthcare law, saying a strengthened body could impose sweeping changes to Medicare without congressional scrutiny.

"We believe IPAB will result in access problems for Medicare beneficiaries," he said in a separate statement.

PhRMA's interests would also be affected by a proposal to speed generic drugs to the market by prohibiting court settlements that delay their arrival and reducing the period of time that brand name biologic drugs are protected.

The overall debt reduction plan calls for $1.5 trillion in tax revenues, $580 billion in mandatory spending cuts and more savings from drawing down U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The president's proposals are a recommendation for the six Republicans and six Democrats on a congressional "super committee" that is charged with reducing the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years ahead of a November deadline.

Analysts said few of the president's healthcare savings proposals were likely to pass muster with Republicans in Congress, who rejected them as a political stunt.

Advocates for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries warned that the proposals would still shift a significant amount of the burden onto elderly, disabled and poor beneficiaries as well as cash-strapped states.

For example, about $4 billion would be saved from future retirees by raising deductibles for Medicare doctor visits, imposing a new charge for home healthcare and placing a surcharge on some private insurance plans that help pay Medicare costs. All of those changes would begin in 2017.

At least one healthcare group welcomed the plan. The American Medical Association said a proposal to reform Medicare payments to doctors would better reflect the costs of caring for patients.

http://news.yahoo.com/hospitals-drug...211050962.html

Hospitals, drugmakers lash out at Obama deficit plan
By David Morgan | Reuters – 15 hrs ago

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. hospital and drug industries lashed out at provisions of President Barack Obama's deficit reduction plan that would saddle them with more than $200 billion in federal healthcare spending cuts.

Lobbyists vowed to fight proposals for Medicare, which covers the elderly, that are aimed at saving $135 billion on prescriptions by requiring drugmakers to provide steeper rebates similar to those for Medicaid, which covers the poor.

Another $42 billion would come from adjustments in Medicare payments to hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and in-patient rehabilitation centers.

Obama outlined the plan on Monday as part of a $3.6 trillion proposal to cut the nation's debt that would largely rely on raising taxes on the wealthy and corporations.

Other provisions target payments that hospitals and drugmakers receive from Medicaid, aiming to put more of the burden of cost-savings on industry than on beneficiaries of government health benefits.

Together, the hospital and pharmaceutical industries will bear about two-thirds of the $320 billion in savings that the Obama plan envisions in federal healthcare spending.

On Wall Street, shares of hospital operators declined as investors feared more reimbursement cuts to the Medicare program. HCA Holdings Inc fell 6.7 percent, Community Health Systems Inc 3.2 percent and Tenet Healthcare Corp 3.8 percent.

The NYSE Arca pharmaceuticals index fell 0.9 percent, in line with the wider stock market, as investors are already expecting weaker sales in the U.S. market with an influx of generic medicines.

The two industries' main trade groups -- the American Hospital Association and the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America -- said the president's deficit-cutting plan could mean the loss of thousands of jobs and curtail access for the elderly, disabled and the poor.

"Funding cuts would mean decreased access to care for our nation's seniors and could overload emergency rooms, shut down trauma units and reduce patient access to the latest treatments," AHA President and Chief Executive Rich Umbdenstock said in a statement.

PhRMA Senior Vice President Matt Bennett took aim at the plan's intent to strengthen the Independent Payment Advisory Board, an oversight panel created by Obama's 2010 healthcare law, saying a strengthened body could impose sweeping changes to Medicare without congressional scrutiny.

"We believe IPAB will result in access problems for Medicare beneficiaries," he said in a separate statement.

PhRMA's interests would also be affected by a proposal to speed generic drugs to the market by prohibiting court settlements that delay their arrival and reducing the period of time that brand name biologic drugs are protected.

The overall debt reduction plan calls for $1.5 trillion in tax revenues, $580 billion in mandatory spending cuts and more savings from drawing down U.S. military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The president's proposals are a recommendation for the six Republicans and six Democrats on a congressional "super committee" that is charged with reducing the deficit by at least $1.2 trillion over 10 years ahead of a November deadline.

Analysts said few of the president's healthcare savings proposals were likely to pass muster with Republicans in Congress, who rejected them as a political stunt.

Advocates for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries warned that the proposals would still shift a significant amount of the burden onto elderly, disabled and poor beneficiaries as well as cash-strapped states.

For example, about $4 billion would be saved from future retirees by raising deductibles for Medicare doctor visits, imposing a new charge for home healthcare and placing a surcharge on some private insurance plans that help pay Medicare costs. All of those changes would begin in 2017.

At least one healthcare group welcomed the plan. The American Medical Association said a proposal to reform Medicare payments to doctors would better reflect the costs of caring for patients.

http://news.yahoo.com/hospitals-drug...211050962.html

Intended or Unintended Consequence? Obamacare Disincentivizes Marriage
By Kevin Glass on 10.28.11 @ 3:09PM

The major part of President Barack Obama's health care law that would expand coverage involves subsidizing households looking to obtain health insurance up to 400 percent of the federal poverty line.

And it turns out that there's a problem there. Whereas many welfare and government programs take into account the number of people involved in a household, Obamacare does not. Analysts testifying before Congress yesterday discussed the disincentives: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2011...=Yahoo%21+Mail

"The way this bill is structured, there are disincentives for women to marry and disincentives for women to work," said Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute for Policy Research.

"Two singles would each be able to earn $43,000 and still receive help to purchase health insurance, but if they got married and combined their earnings to $86,000, they would be far above the limit," Furchtgott-Roth explained. So those with that much income as a couple would lose the government subsidies and be on their own for thousands of dollars in health coverage.

The subsidies disappear at 400 percent of the poverty line and it's the poor structure of the program that creates work disincentives. Economics 21 reports, "Once that threshold is crossed, the subsidy immediately drops to zero. So for a family of four in that income range, a raise in wages would actually result in a significant reduction in take-home pay." We know that Obamacare was questionably-designed and rushed through Congress. It might be true that we had to pass it to find out just how big of a mess it's put us in.

http://spectator.org/blog/2011/10/28...tended-consequ

Nancy Pelosi on 1,800 Obamacare Waiver Recipients: Mostly Very Small Companies
By Doug Powers • October 29, 2011 01:25 PM




During an interview on CNBC, Nancy Pelosi claimed that the health care law was put into place to help save businesses money on health care costs. Pelosi, hopelessly unable to appreciate the irony of the need to afford certain businesses special protections from a law that was purportedly enacted to safeguard them, was asked about companies that have received a number of the 1,800 Obamacare waivers that have been issued:

“They’re small. I couldn’t speak to all 1,800 of them, but some of the lists that I have seen have been very, very small companies. They will not have a big impact on the economy of our country,” Nancy Pelosi said in an interview with CNBC.

True… very small companies and organizations, such as McDonalds and Darden Restaurants. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/10/he.../10waiver.html Heck, entire states have gotten waivers (but only very small ones). http://www.boston.com/news/local/new...nted_to_maine/

Also being allowed on the waiver train have been other not-so-small entities, such as AARP http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20101104/..._health_plan_2 and countless labor unions. The United Federation of Teachers Welfare Fund, with 351,000 people, was also a waiver recipient. http://cnsnews.com/news/article/new-...ft-union-spent

Pelosi also should have said the waivers went to “mostly unionized companies” instead of “mostly small companies.” http://biggovernment.com/tfitton/201...acare-waivers/

Quite a few of those businesses are also in Pelosi’s district. In May, 20 percent of a single round of waivers went to businesses located in the area Pelosi represents — but to very small businesses, so “nothing to see here.” http://dailycaller.com/2011/05/17/ne...losi-district/


Go into your nearest “mom & pop” store (if any still exist) or to a local “very small business” and ask if they’ve received their Obamacare wavier. Chances are they haven’t, and won’t — unless the law is repealed.

Here’s a clip from the interview. You have to click the link to find out what’s in it: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/vid...companies.html


The CMMS website noted: “As of the end of April 2011, a total of 1372 one-year waivers have been granted. This update includes 221 new approvals.” http://cciio.cms.gov/resources/files...or_waiver.html

Among the recipients:

Local 485 Health and Welfare Fund
Detroit and Vicinity Trowel Trades Health and Welfare Fund
CWA Local 1182 Security Benefits Fund
CWA Local 1183 Health and Welfare Fund
Bakers Union and FELRA Health and Welfare Fund
SEIU Healthcare IL Home Care & Child Care Fund
UFCW San Diego Employers Health & Welfare Trust
Welfare Fund of the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 15, 15A, 15C, 15D AFL-CIO
USW Local 1-0318 Health and Welfare Trust Fund
United Association of Journeymen and Apprentices Local 198 AFL-CIO Health and Welfare Trust
Teamsters Local 617 Welfare Fund
Local 734 Welfare Fund
Plumbers and Steamfitters Local 60 Health and Welfare Fund

The Hill reminds us that the GOP is still seeking answers on the get-out-of-Obamacare process: “‘The fact that over 1,000 waivers have been granted is a tacit admission that the healthcare law is fundamentally flawed,’ Energy and Commerce Chairman Fred Upton (R-Mich.) said in March. Upton is one of three House committee chairmen who has used new oversight powers to investigate the annual limit waivers.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch...-keeps-growing

HHS secretary has patient-privacy double standard for abortion, Obamacare
The Daily Caller – Mon, Oct 31, 2011

Privacy by convenience? Kansas Republican Rep. Tim Huelskamp pointed out what he says is Kathleen Sebelius’s double standard on patient privacy: one standard for abortion records while she was governor of Kansas, and another for Obamacare as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Back in 2006, Sebelius championed patient privacy rights as a reason to forbid the disclosure of anonymous abortion information to the state. “[W]e can never take our health privacy for granted,” she wrote in her 2006 veto of legislation that would have required physicians to give information to the state about late-term abortions.

But according to Huelskamp, Sebelius was only concerned about defending the abortion industry in Kansas, and privacy was just a convenient excuse. “The issue about defending Planned Parenthood and pro-abortionists here in Kansas was not about personal privacy rights. It was an excuse,” he said. “She was defending the abortion industry.”

Under Sebelius, HHS is considering instituting an Obamacare risk adjustment program that would create a national database of all Americans’ health care records.

And this month Kansas prosecutors revealed that the Sebelius administration destroyed abortion records that were sought in a 2003�“2005 criminal investigation of Planned Parenthood in Kansas.

Former Kansas attorney general Phill Kline launched that investigation into the abortion providers Planned Parenthood and George Tiller, based on “credible information” that they were failing to report child abuse. “These records the Sebelius administration destroyed were not medical records; they were actually much less sensitive. They were records that were required by law to ensure the abortion clinics were complying with the law,” Kline told TheDC. “They are really compliance records. They do not contain patient names but they do contain their ages. Also, with assistance we could determine the abortion clinics that performed the abortions.”

If Planned Parenthood was covering up child abuse, Kline — who is now facing ethics charges himself for misleading state agencies about his investigation — explained that it would have resulted in the loss of federal funding to the group. “The Sebelius administration in Kansas, when it knew these records were pertinent to a criminal investigation which could cause the loss of hundreds of millions of dollars to a key political ally, started destroying these records claiming privacy,” Kline said. “It is somewhat disingenuous to now say all Americans must reveal the full nature of their medical records to the federal government and to Kathleen Sebelius.”

Huelskamp’s office has composed a letter of opposition to the database and will be sending it to Sebelius once he has amassed a critical number of signatories. So far he has 42. “One of the most intimate relationships Americans have is with their doctors. The idea that you will have Kathleen Sebelius, a bureaucrat, or any other politician have access to that information is a profound violation of personal privacy,” he told TheDC. “Even if you say ‘don’t worry,’ which is the current response from HHS, our office has put together a list of — in the last decade or so — of about 550 million violations of personal privacy, data breaches by either federal or state governments or contractors or local officials. Your data isn’t safe with them. It doesn’t belong in their hands.”

An HHS spokesman explained to TheDC in an emailed statement that despite such concerns, the information will be secure. The spokesman did not address the discrepancy between Sebelius’ view of patient privacy in Kansas and her understanding of it at HHS. “Neither HHS nor states will collect any personally identifiable data in implementing this policy. Protecting the privacy of Americans’ health information is a top priority of the Obama administration. We have taken important steps to improve the security of people’s information and will continue to do so in all that we do to improve health care.”

Huelskamp said he is working with Montana Republican Rep. Denny Rehberg’s office to insert language to stall the proposed rule in the next appropriations bill, but adds that the prohibitions of funds would only run to the end of the fiscal year. “It is progress, but in order to completely stop it we would need to repeal that provision in Obamacare,” he said. “But by the appropriations process, that is the only avenue we have.”

http://news.yahoo.com/hhs-secretary-...050403569.html