Obamacare 'Fix' Could Turn Insurance Marketplace into Chaos

President Barack Obama’s latest decision to back-pedal on individual health plans — allowing insurers to extend existing policies to consumers for one year — could drive the marketplace into pandemonium, resulting in the very legislation intended to improve national healthcare being its impetus to fail, The Hill reported Friday.

"Changing the rules after health plans have already met the requirements of the law could destabilize the market and result in higher premiums for consumers," said Karen Ignagni, president and CEO of America’s Health Insurance Plans, the nation’s largest trade group for insurance companies.

"Premiums have already been set for next year based on an assumption of when consumers will be transitioning to the new marketplace. If due to these changes fewer younger and healthier people choose to purchase coverage in the exchange, premiums will increase in the marketplace and there will be fewer choices for consumers."

Ignagni also said her organization strongly opposes legislation, which some lawmakers are pushing, that would allow consumers to keep existing plans, saying it "would provoke an administrative fiasco and could have serious implications for the new marketplace’s pool, premium prices and the cost of the law to the federal government," The Hill reported.

The newspaper also noted a report online by Forbes magazine saying the president’s proposed fix may just delay the inevitable for consumers. 

"It’s not clear whether insurance companies will actually renew plans they have already cancelled, and many may still feel they need to cancel plans because the Affordable Care Act fundamentally changes the dynamics of the individual insurance market,” Forbes staffer Matthew Herper wrote. "The fix also makes no promises about next year. The Administration will get to decide whether to agree to allow these plans to be continued again. So it’s not like the plans are being officially grandfathered."

Via: Newsmax

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Obamacare Might Not Let You Keep Your Doctor

How many times have we heard, over the last three and a half years, that one of the primary and most popular features of Obamacare is that no one could be denied coverage for a preexisting condition?

The Affordable Care Act does indeed specify, in Section 1201, that “a health insurance issuer offering group or individual health insurance coverage may not impose any preexisting condition exclusion with respect to such plan or coverage.” In other words, a health plan cannot deny enrollment, or the plan’s benefits, to someone based on that person’s preexisting condition.

However, that is not the same as saying that a plan has to enable a patient to continue the same course of treatment that they started before obtaining coverage in an exchange plan on January 1, 2014.

Key to understanding this distinction is that having “health coverage” is not the same as actually obtaining “health care.” The insurance plan has to take anyone who wants to enroll, regardless of their health status or health history – but they don’t have to provide the same treatments, the same doctors, or the same medications that a patient has been receiving.

Via: Forbes

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Putin topples Obama in Forbes power ranking

New York (United States) — Having outfoxed him on Syria, Russian President Vladimir Putin has pipped Barack Obama to the title of the world's most powerful leader as ranked by Forbes on Wednesday.

It was the first time in three years that the US president has dropped to second place on the magazine's list and came as US-Russia relations slid to a new low.

Putin, who has enjoyed 13 years of dominant rule over Russia, was again elected president in March 2012.

Obama, on the other hand, has just emerged scathed from an embarrassing 16-day US government shutdown caused by a budget and debt crisis in Washington.

"Putin has solidified his control over Russia, while Obama's lame duck period has seemingly set in earlier than usual for a two-term president -- latest example: the government shutdown mess," wrote Forbes.

In August, Russia granted asylum to former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden, wanted in the United States over a mammoth intelligence leak.

A month later, Putin played the trump card again by averting Obama's threatened missile strikes on Syria with a plan for Damascus to hand over chemical weapons.

"Anyone watching this year?s chess match over Syria and NSA leaks has a clear idea of the shifting individual power dynamics," Forbes wrote.

The 2013 list of 72 powerbrokers was chosen to reflect one for every 100 million lesser mortals on Earth.

Third prize went to Chinese President Xi Jinping, who is expected to rule for a decade in which China is set to eclipse the US as the world's largest economy.

Pope Francis made his debut at number four and German Chancellor Angela Merkel rounded out the top five.

Among 13 newcomers were Samsung Chairman Lee Kun-Hee at number 41 and Nigerian billionaire Aliko Dangote, the richest man in Africa, in at number 64.

There were 17 heads of state who run nations with a combined GDP of $48 trillion and 27 CEOs and chairs who control over $3 trillion in annual revenues.

Only nine women made the cut despite representing half the world's population.

Via: Google

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Forbes: 7 Ways to Fix Obamacare

Congressional Republicans should develop their own healthcare proposal as an alternative to Obamacare, banking on the deepening public opposition to the president's healthcare law, according to former presidential candidate Steve Forbes.

In an article for Forbes Magazine, he says that crafting a pro-patient, pro-free-market healthcare package will not only be popular, but will avoid the political backlash associated with plans by some GOP lawmakers to defund Obamacare and cause a government shutdown.

"Obamacare is becoming more unpopular as people realize that it increases medical expenses and restricts their choice of doctors and where they get treated," Forbes, the magazine's editor-in-chief, writes.

Editor's Note: Obamacare Secrets Revealed in New Book, ObamaCare Survival Guide. Get It Here!

"Defunding this monstrous legislation, however, is even more unpopular than the bill itself. People feel that would be underhanded: If it's bad, repeal it or substantially change it. The problem, of course, is that the Democrat-controlled Senate would block any such move, and the president would veto it, even if Congress passed it.

"So what should the GOP do? It should take the president up on his taunt that the Republicans have no alternative: 'There's not even a pretense now that they're going to replace it with something better.'"

Forbes outlines seven key guidelines that should be part of a GOP proposal. They would: 

1. Allow interstate shopping for insurance;
2. Give tax deductions for insurance premiums currently limited to businesses and the self-employed to everyone;
3. Prevent Medicare money from being used to fund Obamacare;
4. Stop the exemption of Congress and staff from Obamacare;
5. Encourage high-risk pools to lower costs for everyone else;
6. Push medical malpractice reform; and
7. Eliminate Obamacare's mandated benefits and let people decide what coverage they want.

Forbes concludes by saying, "GOP House leaders, apparently having done nothing on this front so far, may say there's no time left to craft such legislation. Well, then, take up a batch of individual bills covering these areas and offer them as a package."

Via: Newsmax

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‘Democratic’ and ‘Anti-Business’ Are Becoming Synonymous

Forbes’s recently released list of “The Best States for Businesses and Careers” provides further evidence of the Democratic party’s striking erosion as a party of economic growth and prosperity.  Based on their votes in the most recent presidential election, all but three of Forbes’s top-10 states are Republican-leaning, while all but two of its bottom-10 states are Democratic-leaning. 

The top-10 states on Forbes’s list — Utah, Virginia, North Dakota, North Carolina, Colorado, Nebraska, Texas, Georgia, Oklahoma, and Iowa — voted for Mitt Romney by an average margin of 14 percentage points.  Meanwhile, the bottom-10 states on Forbes’s list — California, Wisconsin, New Mexico, Vermont, West Virginia, Mississippi, Michigan, Hawaii, Rhode Island, and Maine — voted for President Obama by an average margin of 13 points.  That’s a 27-point swing from Romney to Obama as we move from the top-10 states to the bottom-10 states.

Forbes rated the states based on six factors: “business costs,” “labor supply,” “regulatory environment,” “economic climate,” “growth prospects,” and “quality of life.”  Forbes rated 62 percent of Obama’s states as being below average and 63 percent of Romney’s states as being above average.  Obama won only 33 percent of Forbes’s top-15 states but 73 percent of its bottom-15 states.

Via: Weekly Standard

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