IGX

Batboy2/75 wrote:Microsoft executive brought in to fix Obamacare website.

... I'm surprised they couldn't't find some Six Sigma Clown at GE to take the helm.

Because of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, seniors enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans are paying higher premiums and experiencing a reduction in benefits and disrupted coverage. And that’s just the beginning.

That’s the dire message from America’s Health Insurance Plans, which predicts will hit seniors even harder over the next two years.

In a letter to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Marilyn Tavenner in late November, AHIP CEO Karen Ignagni said the Medicare Advantage program faces “severe underfunding” due to the administration’s regulatory actions to the program.

Another message from the carrier group? Let the carriers decide how to best handle the cuts so they can preserve benefits — and that includes being able to cut networks

Batboy2/75 wrote:

Good news Terry B: Obamacare is there for the sexually ambiguous hipster demographic.

protobuilder wrote:I have those same pajamas.

Freki wrote:

protobuilder wrote:I have those same pajamas.

Crotchless?

Freki wrote:

Batboy2/75 wrote:

Good news Terry B: Obamacare is there for the sexually ambiguous hipster demographic.

From the blog in my sig, in reaction to this very picture. I chuckled.

"That's the best argument for lesbianism I've seen in decades.

Can you imagine this "ad" with John Wayne holding that coffee?

Well, no. See, John Wayne had a penis, he had guns, he knew how to use 'em and he rode a horse.

He didn't need "health insurance", he effused health, testosterone and manhood.

This thing displays everything that has gone wrong in America and that this is Obama's latest attempt to sell his disaster tells me everything I need to know about the non-existent future of this nation. Were I female and 20 I'd immediately find some carpet to munch if this was what my "choices" looked like at the local bar, student union or beach.

Speaking of which, can you imagine this "guy" playing volleyball on the beach down here in Florida in the summer? Riding a motorcycle? Stalking, shooting, gutting and cleaning a deer?

Neither can I, and I'm hardly John Wayne material.

I do, however, have a pair of balls."

Americans whose health plans are being canceled because their coverage doesn’t meet Obamacare rules will be exempt from the mandate that they carry insurance, under a change announced by the Obama administration.

Officials estimated the change will affect fewer than 500,000 people as a Dec. 23 deadline looms to purchase health policies to be eligible for coverage beginning Jan. 1. People losing coverage also will be eligible to buy high-deductible “catastrophic” insurance the law usually limits to those younger than age 30.

johno wrote:The problem isn't the website. Even if they get the lipstick right, it's still a pig.

Just wait 'til Joe Average (voting) worker gets his premium & co-pay jacked up. Or loses his employer-provided coverage.

Today, the administration agreed with a group of senators, led by Mark Warner of Virginia, who argued that having your insurance plan canceled counted as "an unexpected natural or human-caused event." For these people, in other words, Obamacare itself is the hardship.

But this puts the administration on some very difficult-to-defend ground. Normally, the individual mandate applies to anyone who can purchase qualifying insurance for less than 8 percent of their income. Either that threshold is right or it's wrong. But it's hard to argue that it's right for the currently uninsured but wrong for people whose plans were canceled.

Put more simply, Republicans will immediately begin calling for the uninsured to get this same exemption. What will the Obama administration say in response? Why are people who plans were canceled more deserving of help than people who couldn't afford a plan in the first place?

Covered California said Monday that two of the numbers it had released regarding October health insurance enrollment were wrong. The agency said it had mistakenly transposed the numbers in two categories: the people who bought plans with federal subsidies, and those who bought unsubsidized policies.

The corrected numbers for October are 25,978 individuals who enrolled with a federal subsidy, and 4,852 individuals who enrolled without a subsidy.

KPCC raised questions about the numbers last Thursday after Covered California issued new data for combined enrollment in October and November. The numbers indicated that unsubsidized enrollment had gone from 84 percent of all enrollment in October to just 14 percent of the total for October and November combined.

A spokesman had initially insisted the numbers were correct, and that the huge fluctuation was due to such things as cancellations, duplicate records and changes in eligibility. Covered California now says it discovered the error after further review of its data.

The Obama administration has told Vista volunteers and other AmeriCorps workers that their government-provided health coverage does not measure up to the standards of the new health care law, and that they may be subject to financial penalties unless they obtain insurance elsewhere.

The notice has surprised and worried workers in AmeriCorps, the federal community service program that is often described as a domestic version of the Peace Corps.

Mary Strasser, the director of AmeriCorps’ Vista program, described the changes in a bulletin to members on Dec. 16.

The coverage provided by the agency — the AmeriCorps Health Care Benefits Plan — “does not satisfy the individual responsibility requirement of the Affordable Care Act,” which takes effect on Jan. 1, Ms. Strasser said. Accordingly, she said, Vista members may be required to pay a tax penalty if they do not have other coverage and do not receive an exemption.

The impact on community service workers is another unanticipated consequence of the health care law, which is making coverage available at little or no cost to many uninsured people but disrupting coverage for others who already had it.

Abby Grosslein, a Vista member in New Orleans, said she thought it was strange that the health benefits provided by a federal agency did not meet the standards of a law adopted more than three and a half years ago. “It would be nice if the government waived the penalty because we are a federally funded program,” said Ms. Grosslein, 24, who is completing her third year of service with AmeriCorps. “It’s as if the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing.”

Moreover, she said: “The Affordable Care Act has been on the books since 2010. Why are we hearing only now that our health plan is not compliant?”

Thousands of private employers and state and local government agencies have revamped their employee health plans to meet the law’s requirements. But AmeriCorps says that its members are technically not employees, and that it does not have to provide them with the “minimum essential coverage” they need to comply with the individual mandate. “There will be no changes to the AmeriCorps Health Care Benefits Plan,” Ms. Strasser wrote.

At this point, when asked to define success for 2014, White House officials often answer by noting that the worst-case scenario for the health care law is unlikely to happen. But that "non-failure" standard falls far short of the high expectations Democrats once had for the law, and of the promises they made to sell it.

"They are masters at moving the goalposts, and they have done that a lot. They'll move the goalposts again," said Douglas Holtz-Eakin, a conservative economist and former Congressional Budget Office director who now leads the American Action Forum.

Most recently, the White House has been looking to distance itself from the expectation that it would enroll about 7 million people in the first year of Obamacare coverage. The estimate came from the CBO, and the administration described it in pre-launch memos as a "target" for 2014. "I think success looks like at least 7 million people having signed up by the end of March 2014," Sebelius said in September.

But HHS's ability to hit that mark is in question because of the rocky HealthCare.gov rollout, and the administration now says 7 million wasn't its goal, or even its estimate.

"That was CBO's projection, not ours. I'm not aware that we put a numerical projection on what we hope to see by March 31st," White House spokesman Jay Carney said last week.

(When the White House says the law will ultimately cover 25 million people, or that it will reduce the deficit—two points it is still fond of making—those predictions are also based on CBO estimates.)

Sad trombone:

Marylanders who use the federal health reform site to search for navigators who can help them enroll in health plans in-person are getting directed to agencies in other states.

The problem lies with a glitch in the federal website that occurs when Marylanders type in their zip code. The website directs users to navigators in Pennsylvania, Virginia and other states.

Dori Henry, a spokeswoman for Maryland’s website, said state officials are “aware of the problem and we’ve reached out to (Health and Human Services) to ask them to get it fixed as expeditiously as possible.”

Well, who could expect the federal government to know…zip codes?