Thread: Do you support Obama Care ?

Originally Posted by boopster

is the irs withholding some ppl's returns?

they should sue the irs because that would be discrimination since they do not without government employee pay checks for those who owe back taxes of 3.3 BILLION as of may 2014 http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/p...ncies/9442749/

we also have IRS to pay back-refunds to illegal immigrants who didn’t pay taxes http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/...ts-who-didnt-/

IMHO americans are abused by government while government employees and illegals are treated far better. so O, didn't you say we as americans are all equal?

ER visits were supposed to drop like a lead balloon under obamacare another Obama falsehood


http://www.rickwells.us/er-visits-we...ama-falsehood/

Why Obamacare plans covering 155,000 Louisianians might rise by nearly 25 percent
‘Obamacare’ plans covering 155,000 could rise up to 24 percent
BY TED GRIGGS| June 3, 2015

Health insurers covering more than 155,000 Louisiana residents under “Obamacare” are planning rate increases ranging from 12 percent to 24 percent in 2016.




In records filed with the state Insurance Department, insurers say a number of factors played a role in the higher rates.

Humana expects more people will seek health care services under the Affordable Care Act and that many more will have chronic health conditions, said spokesman Mitch Lubitz. The cost for services and medications will be higher, Lubitz said.

“Another key factor behind rate increases is the price of new specialty drugs that are being created to treat serious diseases,” Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana spokesman John Maginnis said.

These products drove a 13.1 percent increase in U.S. drug spending nationally in 2014, the biggest jump in more than a decade, according to pharmacy benefit manager Express Scripts.



“Addressing this cost trend is critically important to maintaining a workable health care system and safeguarding access and affordability for patients who need life-saving drugs,” Maginnis said.

One situation the insurers didn’t list as a possible factor is a pending U.S. Supreme Court ruling that could end Obamacare subsidies in Louisiana and 33 other states that didn’t set up an online insurance marketplace, instead relying on a federal marketplace.

Almost all of the 184,000-plus Louisiana residents who signed up for coverage for 2015 through the federal marketplace received some form of subsidy. The subsidies meant that 84 percent of enrollees paid $100 or less each month for health coverage.

Under the Affordable Care Act, insurance companies that seek double-digit rate increases must make those requests public.

The enrollment period for 2016 coverage is scheduled for Nov. 1 through Jan. 31, when people can sign up for or change health plans if they find a better one.



Insurance Commissioner Jim Donelon said the average 2016 increase in Louisiana for individual policies is about 16 percent, well below what’s being reported nationally.

For example, Alliant Health Plans has proposed increasing premiums for some plans it offers by as much as 85 percent, according to The New York Times. The Tennessee BlueCross BlueShield has requested an average rate increase of 36 percent.

Blue Cross and Blue Shield of Louisiana requested double-digit increases for six Affordable Care Act-compliant plans, Insurance Department records show. The plans, which cover 125,668 people, would see increases ranging from 11.8 percent to 15 percent.

Louisiana Health Cooperative requested increases of 22.5 percent and 22.9 percent for two plans covering 14,480 people.

The following are other plans, their proposed rate increases, and the number of people covered:



Aetna Health Inc., 20.9 percent, 7,485 people.

Humana Health Benefit Plan of Louisiana Inc., 14.8 percent, 6,839 people.

UnitedHealthcare Life Insurance Co., 24 percent, 1,280 people.

Louisiana law doesn’t allow the Insurance Department to regulate health insurance rates, Donelon said. But the department can review the rates and pressure insurers to reduce them.

It’s too early in the review process to tell whether any of the filings are too high, he said. The department has just gotten the initial filings, and it may take weeks or months before those reviews are completed.

In 2014, he said, the department was able to get insurers to reduce premiums by more than $4 million.

Donelon said state regulation of health insurance — the most important insurance coverage — is needed more now than ever.

Ten years ago, Louisiana ranked 25th in the cost of health insurance, he said. Now, Louisiana’s health insurance premiums are among the 10 highest in the country.

And Blue Cross, the state’s largest health insurer, has become so dominant that the National Association of Insurance Commissioners considers Louisiana a “non-competitive marketplace,” Donelon said.

http://theadvocate.com/news/neworlea...0-louisianians

Obamacare: 2016 sticker shock
By Paige Winfield Cunningham | June 2, 2015 | 12:01 am

Health insurers are proposing to raise Obamacare rates more than in the past — some by more than 70 percent — now that they are finally equipped with all the information they need to price those plans.

Plans wanting to raise rates by at least 10 percent next year posted the proposed increase online Monday, as required by the 2010 healthcare law. Insurers are allowed to raise rates each year, but they must publish significant increases ahead of time.

Insurers have sold plans in the law's new insurance marketplaces for two years in a row. But the difference in 2016 is that for the first time, they have a full year of claims data from enrollees that tells them how high or low to set the price tag.

"This is the first time that insurers have access to a full year of claims under the [Affordable Care Act] in order to project premiums," Kaiser Family Foundation analysts Larry Levitt, Gary Claxton and Cynthia Cox wrote in a blog post Monday.

Until now, insurers have had to mostly guess at who would enroll in Obamacare plans. If the enrollees tended younger and healthier, they could price plans lower. But if they ended up being older and sicker, prices would need to be higher.

And with year two of Obamacare enrollment concluded, there are more older enrollees than younger ones. Almost half were older than age 44, according to final enrollment data from the Obama administration.

Experts are predicting rates will escalate faster next year than in the two years prior, as insurers take a close look at who is enrolling in Obamacare plans to get a good sense of the overall picture.

While plans and rates vary by state, a look at rate increases published Monday on healthcare.gov shows many hovering around 10 to 30 percent in many states.

But there's also a sprinkling of even bigger hikes. Blue Cross wants to raise its most expensive "platinum" plan in Alabama by 71 percent next year. Aetna wants to charge 59 percent more for one of its small group plans in Virginia. Time Insurance Co. is proposing a 64 percent hike for an individual plan in Georgia.

Some states are seeing more plans significantly raise rates than others. In Oregon, 23 plans published rates, indicating they want to bump up the price next year by 10 percent or more. North Dakota, on the other hand, has just three plans that want to raise rates more than 10 percent.

The increases could fuel political controversy over the healthcare law, as Republicans charge that it accelerated growth in healthcare costs instead of reining it in. Later this month, the Supreme Court could aggravate the problem of healthcare costs by blocking insurance subsidies in a majority of the states.

The Obamacare plans are intended primarily for Americans who don't have access to employer-sponsored health coverage and aren't eligible for Medicaid, the federal healthcare program for the poor.

The national group representing insurers quickly jumped to their defense Monday when asked about the big increases. Clare Krusing, a spokeswoman for American's Health Insurance Plans, said there are many reasons for the increases — including taxes and fees and the fact that more insurers are phasing out plans that do not comply with Obamacare's rules.

"Premiums cannot be viewed in isolation," Krusing said. "It's critical to look at the individual market dynamics that impact how much consumers pay for their health care coverage and the factors, like provider consolidation and exploding prescription drug prices, that drive up premiums across the country."

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/ob...rticle/2565411

Obama says Supreme Court should never have taken up health law case, in blunt challenge
Published June 08, 2015

and exchanges run through HealthCare.gov. Foes argue that the Affordable Care Act stipulates subsidies are only intended for those buying insurance on state-run exchanges.

The court decision, expected any day, could have far-reaching implications because millions would lose their insurance if the court rules against the administration.

Yet the Obama administration has faced criticism for declining the spell out what its contingency plan is if the court rules that way, instead voicing confidence that the Supreme Court will keep the program as is.

Obama again voiced that confidence on Monday, and urged the court not to rule otherwise.

He said it's safe to "assume" the court will do what most legal scholars expect and "play it straight." Obama said it has been well-documented that Congress never intended to exclude people who went through the federal exchange.

To rule the other way, the president said, would be a "contorted reading of the statute" and a "twisted interpretation."

But if that does happen, Obama said, "that throws off how that exchange operates" and millions of people would lose subsidies.

"It's a bad idea," Obama said.

The president went on to mount a robust defense of the law itself, saying "none" of the alleged "horrors" associated with ObamaCare have "come to pass."

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015...case-in-blunt/
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video : http://video.foxnews.com/v/428358443...intcmp=related

Dear Mr. President:

During my shift in the Emergency Room last night, I had the pleasure of evaluating a patient whose smile revealed an expensive shiny gold tooth, whose body was adorned with a wide assortment of elaborate and costly tattoos, who wore a very expensive brand of tennis shoes and who chatted on a new cellular telephone equipped with a popular R&B ringtone.

While glancing over her patient chart, I happened to notice that her payer status was listed as "Medicaid"!

During my examination of her, the patient informed me that she smokes more than one costly pack of cigarettes every day and somehow still has money to buy pretzels and beer.

And, you and our Congress expect me to pay for this woman's health care?

I contend that our nation's "health care crisis" is not the result of a shortage of quality hospitals, doctors or nurses. Rather, it is the result of a "crisis of culture", a culture in which it is perfectly cceptable to spend money on luxuries and vices while refusing to take care of one's self or, heaven forbid, purchase health insurance.

It is a culture based on the irresponsible credo that "I can do whatever I want to because someone else will always take care of me".

Once you fix this "culture crisis" that rewards irresponsibility and dependency, you'll be amazed at how quickly our nation's health care difficulties will disappear.


Respectfully,
STARNER JONES, MD

If you agree...pass it on

Cost of Obamacare Plans to Rise as Much as 70% in 2016
By David Zeiler, Contributing Writer, Money Morning • July 8, 2015


http://moneymorning.com/2015/07/08/c...as-70-in-2016/