Government's Health Care Deadlines Shift Again

The Obama administration announced Friday it has adjusted the Affordable Care Act calendar once again, making it possible for consumers to enroll for health insurance through Dec. 23 in order to be covered on Jan. 1. The administration decided to stretch purchasers' decision-making allowance by eight days to accommodate continued challenges prompted by work underway to build and repair the federal website, HealthCare.gov.

Also announced Friday was a delay of the 2014 enrollment period, which will push the start date beyond the Nov. 4 midterm elections.

The 2013 change squeezes the December turn-around time for insurers, who must process all final enrollments and payments. Instead of having two weeks after the cut-off of new enrollments, they will have one week before new policies go into effect in 2014.

The decision also gave the government another week to improve the electronic process of transmitting all accurate data to insurers from both consumers and Uncle Sam before new policies take effect.

The administration consulted with insurers before embracing an extra week of health-care shopping time for Americans before Christmas.

“They are aware of this date change, and this was done in consultation with them to make sure that consumers would be able to access coverage beginning Jan. 1,” said Julie Bataille, director of communications for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which is the arm of the Health and Human Services Department responsible for implementing the enrollment process in 36 states.

Consumers who sign up for new coverage through the federal marketplace are not considered covered until their payments are received by the insurance companies they selected. To be insured on Jan. 1, payments must be received no later than Dec. 31, Bataille said.

Via: Real Clear Politics

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Obama, Staff Still Don't Know Why Rollout Failed

Facing what some believe is its toughest week, the Obama administration is now in reflection and reorganization mode, assessing at a troubling crossroads the disastrous and ongoing fallout of its signature healthcare plan amid other notable errors in foreign and domestic policy.

The "what went wrong" posture on the Obamacare healthcare rollout comes as the president has issued multiple apologies and as media and consumers point a tougher finger at his administration's execution of key policies that some fear will taint his legacy, the Wall Street Journal reported.

The lack of credible responsibility continues to stagger as Democrats in Congress, which the president has repeatedly misread, pull away from him in fear of hot constituent backlash and looming 2014 midterm elections. 

But many inside the Beltway and elsewhere seem shocked as Americans must deal with the ramifications of a health policy that its own government created, but now can't manage. It's no longer Republicans who are using the word "lied" when referring to the president's healthcare debacle.

"Had I been informed (about the healthcare.gov website), I wouldn't be going out saying, 'Boy, this is going to be great,'" Obama told reporters, sparking a ripple among news outlets who diplomatically were forced to concur: if he didn't know, as president, who did and why didn't they tell him? Most notable, some allow, is that no key administration official charged with the healthcare rollout has been fired.

Those dealing with Obama on the issue didn't mute their anger. "I'm sure he has all sorts of reasons he made the decision he made,'' said Monica Lindeen, vice president of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners told the Journal. "But from a practical standpoint, for commissioners all across this country, it really did turn our lives upside down."

Via: Newsmax

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Does Government Dependency Influence Voting Behavior?

Alexis de Tocqueville once prophesied "The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money." The Left vehemently denies that their social spending is anything but altruistic. Any correlation between federal spending on individual aid and voting behavior would reveal this altruism to be politically self-serving. The Left's denial (e.g., Klein, Matthews, Altman, Ponnuru) is often based on state-level observations and Moran has claimed that red states receive greater benefit from federal spending than blue states.The Right (e.g., Bauer and Romney) innately believes that federal largesse buys votes, but has provided little empirical data to back up their belief. Rayne has astutely countered claims of red state welfare, but has not addressed the issue of the influence of social spending on voting behavior.

The 2012 election results have been data mined to determine if a measurable correlation exists between social spending and voting behavior and demonstrate why state-level correlations are misleading. Accurate accounting of the influence of socioeconomic factors on voting behavior will be critical for the 2014 midterm and 2016 election strategies, as well as understanding the political dynamics of current issues including:the fight over federal spending; the expanding welfare, food stamp, and/or disability recipients; immigration reform/amnesty; and ObamaCare.

One key element of obtaining meaningful information from statistical analysis is the determination of the proper sample size. Large sample sizes can obscure trends that are obvious in smaller, more homogeneous subsets. Thus, it should not be unexpected that observations drawn from a statewide basis could mask correlations that exist on a much more local precinct basis. As Tip O'Neill once said "all politics is local."

Via: American Thinker
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