Judge sets back Obama 'amnesty' program, lets employers discriminate against illegals

President Obama's bid to grant special status to illegals in his program to defer deportation does not protect them from employment discrimination, a little known immigration court has ruled.

A judge with the Justice Department's Office of the Chief Administrative Hearing Officer sided with an Arizona Obamacare provider after it withdrew a job offer in 2013 to an illegal immigrant who was unable to get a state driver's license because of his non-citizen status. At the time, Arizona would not issue licenses to illegal immigrants.

The case featured an illegal man granted "Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA)," dubbed amnesty by critics. DACA covers illegals who came to the country as children and gives them temporary and renewable status in the U.S. It also makes them eligible for employment.

After losing his Obamacare navigator job offered by Arizona Family Health Partnership because he couldn't get an Arizona driver's license, Brian Emilio Gonzalez-Hernandez sued claiming discrimination.

But in the June 30 decision, Ellen K. Thomas, administrative law judge, said that as a DACA recipient, Gonzalez-Hernandez wasn't a "protected individual" like illegals granted a green card or other types of residency status, and thus couldn't sue. She added, "An action for citizenship status discrimination may be maintained only by a protected individual…"

The case was reported on by the Center for Immigration Studies Monday. In a blog post, CIS fellow David North said that the court "ruled that a former illegal alien who has secured Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) status may be discriminated against in the job market because of that status."

North added:

"If DACA people cannot use this provision of federal law (which I think was the right decision) it means that it is not against the law to discriminate against them in hiring.

"Perhaps the administration will try to overturn the quoted part of this ruling; it certainly runs counter to th general thrust of the White House's immigration policy.

Via: Washington Examiner

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[VIDEO] Obama Addresses (GOP) Critics of Clean Power Plan: 'If You Care About Low-Income Minority Communities...'

(CNSNews.com) - "No challenge poses a greater threat to our future and future generations than a changing climate," President Obama said Monday in a speech announcing his plan to achieve a 32-percent reduction in carbon dioxide emissions from power plants by the year 2030.

He spent about a third of his speech refuting critics and "cynics who say it cannot be done."

And he managed to sneak in a plug for Obamacare while he was at it:

"Today, an African American child is more than twice as likely to be hospitalized from asthma. A Latino child is 40 percent more likely to die from asthma. So if you care about low-income minority communities, start protecting the air that they breathe, and stop trying to rob them of health care.

"And you could also expand Medicaid in your states, by the way," the president said, prompting laughter.

The Democrats' Affordable Care Act required the states to expand their Medicaid programs to cover people at or below 138 percent of the federal poverty level. But two years later, in 2012, the U.S. Supreme Court said the decision to expand Medicaid programs must be left to the individual states; the federal government could not compel such expansion. To date, 20 states still have not expanded their Medicaid programs.

Although President Obama did not name the critics of his Clean Power Plan on Monday, he clearly was addressing Republicans.

"We've hear the same stale arguments before," he said. "Every time America has made progress, it's been despite these kinds of claims. Whenever America sets clear rules and smarter standards for our air, our water, our children's health, we get the same scary stories about killing jobs and businesses and freedom."

Obama then told a story about arriving in Los Angeles for college as an 18-year-old, in late August.

"I was moving from Hawaii. And I got to the campus, and I decided I had a lot of pent-up energy, and I wanted to take a run, and after about five minutes, suddenly, I had this weird feeling like I couldn't breathe. And the reason was, back in 1979, Los Angeles still was so full of smog that there were days where people who were vulnerable just could not go outside, and they were fairly frequent."

He got personal again at the end of his speech:

"I don't want my grandkids not to be able to swim in Hawaii or not to be able to climb a mountain and see glacier because we didn't do something about it. I don't want millions of people's lives disrupted and this world more dangerous because we didn't do something about it. That'd be shameful of us.

"This is our moment to get this right and leave something better for our kids. Let's make most of that opportunity."

At Monday's White House briefing, spokesman Josh Earnest said the Clean Power Plan will prompt states and individual utilities to "ramp up their investments in efficiency, ramp up their investments in renewable energy, which is cheaper to produce than energy that's produced by coal, and making those kinds of investments will lead to savings in the utility bills of customers down the line, and that is what we're focused on, both in terms of saving consumers money but also a whole set of benefits that are associated with shifting to renewable energy or the use of less energy."

President Obama refuted critics who "claim that this plan will cost you money, even though this plan, the analysis shows, will ultimately save the average American nearly $85 a year on their energy bills."

Via: CNS News

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Obama Administration Refuses To Identify Troubled Healthcare Co-Ops

Federal officials refuse to identify the troubled Obamacare health co-ops that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has placed in a special risk category requiring “enhanced oversight” due to low profitability or low enrollment.

Last week the inspector general for the Department of Health and Human Services revealed that 22 of the 23 non-profit co-ops suffered net operating losses last year and that six were so distressed CMS said they were the subject to extra “enhanced oversight.”

CMS spokesman Aaron Albright, however, refused to divulge the names of the struggling taxpayer-supported co-ops.

He suggested The Daily Caller News Foundation file a Freedom of Information Act request. It’s not uncommon for responses to FOIA requests to take months or even years to be processed by federal departments and agencies.

The secrecy surrounding the identity of the six ailing co-ops is not sitting well with government watchdog groups.

“Taxpayers deserve to know when any sort of taxpayer-funded entity is failing,” said David Williams, president of the Taxpayer Protection Alliance. “Taxpayers need to know the success or failure of those co-ops. We have to name names.”

“Certainly, the government should be identifying co-ops that are at risk,” noted Scott Amey, the general counsel for the non-partisan Project on Government Oversight. “The government seems to be just trying to bury its head in the sand.”

Department of Health and Human Services IG Daniel Levinson was the first to report that six co-ops were in a special risk category within CMS.

“CMS recently placed four CO-OPs on enhanced oversight or corrective action plans and two CO-OPs on low-enrollment warning notifications,” he revealed in his July 30 report.

Levinson further criticized CMS officials, noting that the Obamacare program was now in its third year of existence, yet, “CMS had not established guidelines or criteria to assess whether a CO-OP was viable or sustainable.”

Levinson painted a dismal national picture of the Obamacare health co-ops, noting they were suffering from cash shortages and that their enrollment numbers were “considerably lower than the CO-OPs’ initial annual projections.”

Sparse enrollments could imperil most of the non-profit co-ops that were originally designed to compete with traditional health insurance companies.

“The low enrollments and net losses might limit the ability of some CO-OPs to repay startup and solvency loans and to remain viable and sustainable,” Levinson said.

About $2 billion have been issued in start-up and solvency loans under Obamacare.

Rating agency Standard and Poor’s last February identified 10 co-ops that failed to enroll 6,000 or fewer customers through the third quarter of last year.

Those low enrollment co-ops are operating in Illinois, Massachusetts, Ohio, Connecticut, Arizona, Tennessee, Michigan, Maryland and two in Oregon.

In that report, S&P optimistically claimed that one co-op, operating in Iowa and Nebraska, called Co-Opportunity Health, had enrolled 91,000 customers.

But Co-Opportunity abruptly closed its doors last December and by February the state had liquidated it.

At the time, the Iowa co-op suffered $163 million in operating losses, according to the Iowa insurance commissioner. CMS originally awarded $145 million under Obamacare.

Likewise, S&P also reported that the Louisiana Health CO-OP had successfully enrolled 11,771 customers.

But last month the co-op announced it was shuttering its doors by the end of the year. CMS had loaned that co-op $66 million.

Similar to the experiences reported in Iowa and Louisiana, most of the non-profit health co-ops have been burning through their federal loans at an alarming rate, according to financial reporting agencies.

Insurance ratings firm A.M. Best warned in January that as of Sept. 30, 2014, “the ratio of surplus notes outstanding to capital and surplus exceeded 100% for all of the co-ops.”

A Standard & Poor’s Report on the co-ops reported that the worst performing co-ops that were burning through their existing capital were in Illinois, Arizona, Colorado, Nevada and Maryland.

Thomas Miller of the American Enterprise Institute and Grace-Marie Turner, the president of the free market Galen Institute reported that net losses for all the co-ops amounted to $614 million in 2014.

Last year CMS announced that it was replenishing some co-op cash with emergency “solvency loans.”

Five Obamacare health insurance co-ops in Connecticut, Kentucky, Maine, New York and Wisconsin received solvency loans in 2014 amounting to $322 million.

Via: Daily Caller

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Obamacare Customers Mostly Unsatisfied With Plans

Only 30 percent of Obamacare customers are satisfied with their plans, with cost an important reason why.

The finding in a recent survey is significantly lower than people who get their insurance through their employer (42 percent), Medicaid (48 percent) or Medicare (58 percent). It also doesn't help the administration which has fought back criticism of expected premium hikes set to go into effect next year.

Obamacare customers are less confident than other insured customers they can get affordable healthcare, the research firm Deloitte reported in the survey released Monday. Only 24 percent of enrollees are confident they can get affordable care when they need it, which is slightly lower than the 27 percent who feel that way about their employer's plans.

In addition, only 16 percent of Obamacare enrollees feel financially prepared to handle future healthcare costs, compared to 24 percent for employer plans and 27 percent for Medicare and 17 percent in Medicaid plans.

A majority of the enrollees in Obamacare have lower incomes than those in employer plans, which could play a part in the worries about cost.

The survey of more than 3,800 adults also offered keen insights into the proliferation of narrow networks that restrict doctor choice. A majority of insured enrollees in Obamacare, employer and federal plans were willing to accept a smaller network of hospitals or doctors in exchange for lower payments.

About 59 percent surveyed would choose a smaller network of hospitals and 58 percent for doctors. That is an increase from 2013, when about 50 percent would choose smaller networks.

The reason is again linked to concerns about cost.

All insured consumers, not just Obamacare enrollees, rank price at or near the top of the factors they deem important to choosing a health plan, Deloitte said.

Via: Washington Examiner

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CALIFORNIA: DOCTOR SHORTAGE LOOMS AS OBAMACARE ROLLS OUT, SAYS EXPERT

America faces a deep shortage of doctors as Obamacare is implemented. That is the view shared by 100 health care professionals who gathered at the 33rd annual meeting of Doctors for Disaster Preparedness in Ontario, California over the weekend. They forecast a future of decreased quality of health care and access to doctors if current policies continue.

“What do I mean by medical meltdown? Well, sadly ,I’m here to tell you that the medical care you’ve enjoyed in the past in your life is simply not going to be there in the future,” said orthopedic surgeon Dr. Lee Hieb, who addressed the conference.

Just like a black hole is so dense that no light gets out, “We have so much regulation that almost no medical care gets out,” Hieb told the audience. “We have over 160,000 pages of Medicare regulation and counting.” She continued, “Obamacare is Medicare on steroids.”

“The reason we have a shortage of doctors today and we’re going to get worse in the future began in the early 70s because the great gurus of government looked around and they said probably…look at all this money that’s being sent to all these specialists.”  Hieb went on to say that government bureaucrats decided to limit the number of specialists.

However, Lieb notes,  that the U.S. is only seeing 350 new general surgeons a year. That is not even a replacement rate, she observed.

Hieb professed that being taxed to death and having to send so much money to the government is a disincentive for doctors to work at full capacity.

“Our young people are not trained as well as we were,” she continued.

“We are now the number one profession for suicide. We lose 400 doctors a year to suicide. That’s like losing an entire medical school,” Hieb stated.

Hieb also cited a shortage of “things” or medical supplies–the first she has seen in her 40 years of involvement in medicine. She recalled almost having to close an operating room for shortages of propofols, which are used to put people to sleep; as well as shortages of tetanus vaccine, shoulder catheters and thyroid medication shortages, among other items.

The cause, according to Hieb, is “this huge over-regulatory environment.”

She elaborated on the thyroid example, saying,

These are old medicines that have lost their patent and they’ve been produced without a problem in these factories for years, but the government rolls in and says you have to bring this factory up to some arbitrary new standard and these guys say, well, we can’t do that because–guess what? you guys price fixed. You tell us what you’re going to pay, Medicare’s going to pay for this stuff. We can bill anything we want to, we get paid what you tell us you get paid, and now you’re telling us we have to spend all this money to modernize our factories. We’re going to lose money, we can’t do that, so we’re going to shut down. So after a few factories shut down in one of these nationwide shortages in classic bureaucratic fashion, the government says well wait a minute, wait a minute, you can’t shut down.

You said, “what, what do you mean we can’t shut down?”

[They say] Well, okay, I guess you can shut down, but you’re going to have to give us six months notice.

They just don’t get it.

She pointed the audience to Venezuela as a picture of the “end game.”

Hieb cited a story written by Dr. Richard Amerling and published in the Wall Street Journal (and summarized in Newsmax) that documented the plight of Pedro Gonzalez. Gonzalez, Amerling wrote, checked into a leading Venezuelan public hospital for life saving heart valve surgery. About two months later, all of the cardiac ward patients were discharged due to lack of operating room supplies according to a letter issued. Gonzalez collapsed and died a week later.

“The free market doesn’t come up with shortages this way, but we are starting to see it,” Hieb said. “If you live in a very affluent area and you’re privately insured and your neighbors are privately insured, you will probably not…won’t see it as quickly as other places.”

Hieb referenced work in an Arizona area where 85% of payers were government-paid through Medicare, Medicaid and Tricare. Four orthopedic surgeons would do the work that 10, 11 or 12 in more affluent Flagstaff would take on. She said the average orthopedic surgeon in America takes care of 12,000 people. Conversely, the region where Hieb worked was serving approximately 90,000, which later ballooned to 120,000 as Hieb left and only three surgeons remained. She said her 53-year-old former colleague from the region died thereafter under the long and strenuous work.

“The big black hole is already starting to open up,” Hieb said.

She mentioned traveling two hours to reach an obstetrician, waiting six hours to be seen by an orthopedic surgeon, or three or four months to see a rheumatologist as problems facing those in less affluent regions.

“In a free market, when there’s a shortage, it gets filled,” Hieb said.

Hieb then launched into health recommendations for “how to save yourself.” She said going into the future, “you want to be so healthy that you don’t need a doctor” in light of the impending medical shortages which she had detailed.

Dr. Hieb is listed in the Doctors for Disaster Preparedness program as “an orthopedic surgeon specializing in spine surgery and a past president of the Assn. of American Physicians and Surgeons.”

Follow Michelle Moons on Twitter @MichelleDiana

Via: Breitbart

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More paying ObamaCare fines as subsidies go to people who don’t exist

The IRS fined more than 7.5 million Americans who didn’t have health insurance in 2014, even as Obamacare subsidies flowed to people who didn’t even exist.

The Treasury Department reported last week the number of Americans who faced fines because of the Affordable Care Act’s individual mandate was significantly higher than the Obama administration expected. For 2014, the IRS projected that roughly 6 million would face fines, but the final total was 1.5 million higher.

It was the first year in which buying health insurance was made mandatory under the ACA, with penalties of $95 or 1 percent of total income – whichever was higher – for people who did not comply.

The average penalty collected for the 2014 tax year was about $200, the IRS reported.

“Although we have not yet completed our post-filing analysis, we are committed to conducting additional outreach to taxpayers, including letters to these specific taxpayers who did not have to report or make a payment. These letters will inform them about available exemptions and note that they may benefit from amending their return,” said IRS Commissioner John Koskinen.

Penalties will increase to $395 or 2 percent of income per person in 2015; that will jump to $695 or 2.5 percent of income in 2016.

Those penalties are supposed to force Americans to purchase health insurance — or to at least make it financially wise for them to do so.

Click here for more from Watchdog.org. 

Via: Fox News

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FreedomWorks Thanks Sen. Mike Lee for Championing ObamaCare Repeal

Following news that Senators Mitch McConnell and Mike Lee released a joint statement in support of using budget reconciliation to repeal ObamaCare, FreedomWorks CEO Adam Brandon commented:

"Thank you Senator Mike Lee for standing up to Senate leadership and forcing a vote on repealing ObamaCare through budget reconciliation, so it would only need a simple majority vote. Activists across the country worked to elect leaders who would fight for them. Today we can join them in thanking Mike Lee for getting leadership to commit to a repeal vote that can actually reach the president's desk."

"ObamaCare is destroying our health care system, driving up costs, and decreasing the quality of care. It's about time the Senate acted on their promises and used every tool available to repeal this disastrous law."

"This will force the president to defend his signature law that is dismantling America's health care system. Even though he will likely veto the bill, it sets up health care as a major campaign issue in 2016. This is the dry run we need to demonstrate how to actually repeal ObamaCare, and we need all the presidential candidates to commit to full repeal."

FreedomWorks aims to educate, build, and mobilize the largest network of activists advocating the principles of smaller government, lower taxes, free markets, personal liberty and the rule of law. For more information, please visit www.FreedomWorks.org or contact Iris Somberg atisomberg@freedomworks.org.

Via: Freedom works

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Mitch McConnell says he will wipe out Obamacare with simple 51-vote majority

In the waning days of President Barack Obama's presidency, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is vowing to overthrow his signature legislation. Health care reform, better known as "Obamacare" has been a cause of disagreement with conservatives and the U.S. taxpayer alike. McConnell says he will toss out Obamacare with a budget resolution that could be passed in the Senate with a simple majority vote of 51 to 49.

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - "Earlier this year, Senate Republicans passed a balanced budget, and with it the necessary procedural tools - via the budget reconciliation process - to bring an end to the nightmare of Obamacare," McConnell said in the joint statement with Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah).

"Americans have faced skyrocketing health care costs, rampant fraud and more government between them and their doctors. And Republicans are united in working to repeal the broken promises of Obamacare and allow our country to start over fresh with real health reform that Americans deserve," he added.

"We will continue our effort to use reconciliation - as the budget makes clear - to fulfill the promise we made to our constituents," McConnell pledged.

Lee, along with some other conservative senators, promised to withdraw his own amendment to the upcoming must-pass highway-funding bill that would have repealed Obamacare.

Lee's move resulted in pushback from Democrats and some Republicans. Some suggested that adding the Obamacare repeal amendment could endanger the passing of the highway-funding bill.

Lee, in exchange for withdrawing the amendment,  insisted on McConnell's support for a future budget reconciliation measure that would defund Obamacare. 

During this process, Congress can make changes to an existing law through a set of budget instructions for specific government programs. By law, budget reconciliation cannot be filibustered, and only needs a simple majority to pass.

Lee's budget reconciliation measure is not written as of yet.

Lee released a statement ahead of the deal with McConnell. He explained that he would go back to his original plan of using a budget resolution to repeal Obama's health care law. This would allow the highway bill to pass unencumbered, with the provision that the Republican leadership pledged to support the budget resolution.

Via: Catholic OnLine

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Thank God Mr. Cruz is in Washington

My email account was on fire, everyone excited about Senator Ted Cruz calling Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell a liar on the Senate floor. Cruz cited each of Obama's unprecedented unlawful power grabs and repeals of our freedoms that the GOP promised to block, only to stab us (We the People/Tea Party) in the back. Immediately, I thought, “Thank God Ted Cruz is in Washington.”

Before I go on, I wish to address a guy whom I will call Ned. Whenever I praise a conservative, Ned emails to correct me, claiming the conservative is a deceitful traitor. When I share reasons for optimism, Ned vehemently disagrees, even seeming a bit angry that I would think our efforts could possibly make a difference in America's corrupt political environment. Ned always sees the glass less than half empty. I guess we need people like Ned to keep us balanced -- although I am not quite sure about that.

Sure enough, in response to patriots' giving Cruz rave reviews for speaking truth to Washington power, Ned ripped into Cruz about questionable votes. Folks, I realize Ted Cruz is not perfect. But then, which presidential candidate is? Jesus is not running for president in 2016.

To a member of the Tea Party since it began, Cruz going down the list of GOP betrayals brought back memories. Remember how we fought and worked our butts off to give the GOP the House, then the Senate? We worked to elect Republicans to stop Obama from rolling out the welcome mat to illegals.

Over a million of us showed up in DC to protest ObamaCare.

I thought about how Obama sent out his liberal mainstream media air force to bomb us with accusations of racism against the first black president; hoping to soften and diminish our ranks. The Tea Party is not racist, nor do we hate anybody

In his speech, Cruz did two things that were quite remarkable. First -- Cruz exposed the good-cop, bad-cop personal and corporate enrichment scam both parties have been playing on the American people. Second -- Cruz spoke with unprecedented clarity. He did not say McConnell misspoke or McConnell was disingenuous. Cruz said McConnell lied.

Via: American Thinker

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Rising Cost Of Health Care: Obamacare Insurance Premiums To Increase As State Exchanges Face Losses, Even Closure

As the cost of health insurance continues to rise, the fallout from such increases is becoming ever more evident in state-run exchanges established by the Affordable Care Act. Some states have announced insurance rate hikes for the coming year, while others have said they will shut down all or part of their exchanges as insurers contend with higher costs and lower enrollment than originally anticipated.

The Louisiana Department of Insurance said Friday that it would shutter its state health plan by the end of the year. Only 17,000 people out of Louisiana’s population of 4.6 million had enrolled in that plan, which was operating at a medical-loss ratio of 113 percent. That means for every dollar it earned in premiums, it paid $1.13 in expenses, Modern Healthcare reported. Louisiana’s federally run exchange has five other insurance companies offering plans.

In June, Hawaii, which ran its own marketplace, Hawaii Health Connector, announced it would switch to the federally run marketplace, Healthcare.gov. Enrollment had been too low, at close to 40,000 consumers, and it was unable to generate sufficient revenue to sustain itself. "The viability of state health insurance exchanges has been a challenge across the country," Hawaii Gov. David Ige said at the time, when Hawaii became the third state after Nevada and Oregon to transfer its state-run health exchange to the federal one.

Of the twelve states plus Washington, D.C. that run their own health care exchanges, about half of them have financial difficulties, and several states, including Minnesota, Colorado and Vermont, are considering shuttering their marketplaces and using the federal one instead, the Associated Press hasreported.

Other states have acknowledged that in order to compensate for these costs, premiums will have to increase.

State officials announced Monday that premiums for plans sold on California’s exchange would rise by an average of four percent, slightly less than the average rate increase expected by exchanges in other states. Covered California’s executive director, Peter Lee, hailed it as a victory and as proof that the Affordable Care Act, often nicknamed Obamacare, is working, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.

"The health plans know that if they price their products too high and consumers know it's too high, because it's an apples-to-apples comparison, they will not get enrollment," Lee told The Associated Press. About 1.3 million people buy health insurance through Covered California.

But not all states are experiencing the same relative success as California. Although an analysis by the Kaiser Family Foundation in June found that in 11 major cities, the cost of a “silver” plan—one tier of coverage that consumers can pick—would increase by 4.4 percent from 2015 to 2016, costs are still subject to change, and when broken down by city, the increase in premiums varies widely. Some health insurance companies have requested to increase their premiums by as much as 40 percent in 2016, although state or federal officials must approve those increases before they can go into effect.

In Portland, Oregon, for instance, premiums were slated to rise by 16.2 percent in 2016 over the previous year. In Burlington, Vermont, the increase was 9.2 percent. In New York City, it was just .5 percent. Kaiser’s analysis noted that consumers would have to carefully research their options and possibly switch plans or even health insurance carriers in order to avoid paying significantly more in monthly health insurance premiums.

Via: International Business Times

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Christian Schools Ask Supreme Court To Strike Down ObamaCare Abortion Mandate

A group of Christian schools wants the Supreme Court to strike down an Obamacare mandate that they provide health plans that enable access to abortion-inducing pills, the latest religious nonprofits to challenge the law's mandate.

The group of four universities petitioned the Supreme Court on Friday after a lower appeals court upheld the mandate earlier this month. The universities are Southern Nazarene University, Oklahoma Wesleyan University, Oklahoma Baptist University and Mid-America Christian University.

"The government should not force faith-based organizations to be involved in providing abortion pills to their employees or students," said Gregory S. Baylor. Baylor is senior counsel for the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is representing the schools.

The petition is the latest from several religious nonprofits objecting to an accommodation in the healthcare law for birth control and the abortion drugs.

Under the accommodation, the nonprofits' health plans must include coverage for such products. The catch is that the nonprofits don't have to pay for that coverage, which is then paid for by the insurer or third party.

The religious universities would rather get an exemption to the coverage of abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization and contraception. An exemption means that the people covered under the universities' health plans wouldn't get any access under their insurance.

The 10th Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the accommodation on July 14. The court ruled that it found the accommodation did not "substantially burden" the schools' religious exercise or infringe their First Amendment rights.

The schools disagree.

Via: Washington Examiner

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Watchdog report: Fake applicants were automatically re-enrolled in Obamacare

It shouldn’t come as a surprise anymore, but a new report has found yet another issue with Healthcare.gov.

A new report from the nonpartisan Government Accountability Office, found that 11 fictitious image: http://cdn.redalertpolitics.com/files/2014/11/Health-Overhaul-Open-_Dobs.jpg

people created as part of a watchdog effort to test for fraud detection were able to automatically re-enroll in Obamacare coverage.

This report, released by Congressional Republicans Wednesday, is a follow up to one from last year.

It found that the Healthcare.gov marketplace still had no way to test for fake documents.

Eleven out of the 12 people created for the test were able to maintain their coverage through the end of 2014 and then were automatically re-enrolled for 2015. Some were even re-enrolled despite not providing the additional documentation requested.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services defended its process by saying that there has been “no indication of a meaningful level of fraud,” but the GAO pointed out point that there could be fraud that officials do not know about because they are not equipped to detect it.

Congressional Republicans slammed the report’s findings.

“That the administration failed to weed out fake applicants one year later is yet another shocking development that, unfortunately, continues the trend of ObamaCare’s gross mismanagement at the expense of hardworking taxpayers,” said Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), as quoted by The Hill.

“Last year, this committee warned that weaknesses in HealthCare.gov could put billions of taxpayer dollars at risk, and the GAO undercover review has confirmed our concerns,” Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) said. “One year later, this investigation continues to reveal alarming flaws in the ObamaCare system.”

Via: Red Alert Politics

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Is Obamacare preventing access to hospitals in conservative states?

It’s been a year and a half since the Affordable Care Act — also known as “Obamacare” — brought sweeping reforms to the U.S. healthcare system, but the results aren’t all uniformly positive, and can differ greatly depending on which hospital you go to.

In fact, there has been a growing divide nationwide between hospitals that are suddenly making nice profits and those that are desperately turning to public donations to stay open, according to a Reuters report.

As it turns out, some hospitals that are accepting federal money to expand Medicaid are getting paid, allowing patients that were uninsured to get regular care, but in states that didn’t expand Medicaid — most notable, those in conservative areas that opposed Obamacare like Georgia — the Affordable Care Act hasn’t been helping public hospitals at all. So while Obamacare may not be actively preventing access to healthcare in those states, rejecting some of the key aspects of it is indirectly.

The public exchanges the government has established along with 14 other states have allowed previously uninsured people in all parts of the country to start getting health coverage for the first time in a long while, but poor people in many states aren’t seeing any difference.

In fact, nearly four million uninsured Americans with low incomes who live in states that didn’t expand Medicaid would have qualified for coverage had the states not avoid expanding Medicaid, and hospitals in these states often have to rely on bond markets to fund themselves. And they are probably going to feel the financial pain as time goes on, which will limit available health care for people.

The Affordable Care Act has caused the number of Americans with health coverage under Medicaid to increase by 21 percent to 71.1 million, and nonprofit hospitals in states that expanded Medicaid had 13 percent less bad debt on average.

So it appears that ACA appears to be working on a large-scale level. In conservative states that voted against Medicaid, however, not so much.

Via: Morning Tickler

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6.6 Million People Just Learned the Hard Way How Much It Costs to Be Uninsured Under Obamacare

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known also as Obamacare, was signed into law by President Obama in March 2010, but it didn't go into effect until Jan. 1, 2014. Despite the more than three years for insurers, states, the federal government, physicians, and consumers to prepare for the coming overhaul of our healthcare system, there were still plenty of hiccups (and challenges) when the calendar changed over.

Pretty much from the get-go of the first enrollment period there were technical issues with the online marketplace servers and software that prevented consumers from completing the enrollment process. But even bigger challenges would be fought at the legal level with the constitutionality of the individual mandate penalties coming into question in 2012, and more recently the challenge to the federal government's ability to divvy out subsidies to enrollees on behalf of 34 states. The defense proved victorious in both challenges, which made it to the Supreme Court.

America dislikes the individual mandate penalty

Yet in spite of Congress' ability to levy penalties against consumers, the individual mandate remains one of the most touchy and least-liked components of the healthcare reform law.

The individual mandate is the actionable component of Obamacare that requires individuals to purchase health insurance or face a penalty. The penalty in 2014, the first year Obamacare was fully in effect, was the greater of $95 or 1% of your modified adjusted gross income (MAGI). This year the penalty for not having insurance, which is officially known as the Individual Shared Responsibility Payment (ISRP), jumps to the greater of $325 or 2% of your MAGI. In 2016, another sizable spike to the greater of $695 or 2.5% of your MAGI. In 2017 and beyond the penalties rise on par with the level of inflation.

Why is there even an individual mandate penalty in the first place, you wonder? When Obamacare became the law of the land, one of the stipulations was that insurers could no longer pick and choose who they wanted to become members. In other words, people with preexisting conditions couldn't be turned away. This meant that through the process of adverse selection some sick and elderly consumers who are costly to insurers would be quick to enroll, while healthier young adults, which are needed to help offset the high costs of the elderly and terminally ill, would possibly shun being forced to buy insurance. The individual mandate penalty was put into place in order to encourage younger adults to enroll, otherwise they'd have to pay a penalty come tax time.

Millions of consumers just learned this the hard way

Just how many people were required to pay the penalty in 2014? According to a report released by National Taxpayer Advocate via the IRS, some 6.6 million people owed an ISRP due to not having health insurance. What may have come as a big surprise to many of those who owed was the fact that the penalty was the greater of $95 or 1% of their MAGI, not the lesser. Thus, the average penalty paid by these 6.6 million people was double the lower-bound figure, $190, since their MAGI often came into play when calculating their penalties.

Source: Pictures of Money via Flickr

In addition to the 6.6 million who owed an ISRP, an estimated 300,000 people paid the ISRP unnecessarily. Some $35 million was collected, or about $110 per person, despite these 300,000 individuals qualifying for a low-income exemption. The oddest part of this whole situation is the IRS may not be able to simply give these 300,000 people back their money because it would require an amended tax return, which would probably cost more than $110 if these individuals sought the help of a tax professional. The IRS is undecided on whether to refund these 300,000 people without the need for an amended return, but if it doesn't the $35 million in overpayments may wind up being a "gift" to the Treasury.

National Taxpayer Advocate also noted that some 10.7 million people filed Form 8965, the Health Coverage Exemptions form that allowed them to use one of roughly one-dozen exemptions, such as low income or economic hardships, to get out of having to pay the individual mandate penalty.

It's worth keeping in mind that these figures could change as they were preliminary through the end of April.

Why the individual mandate may not be working as intended

The short story here is that some 6.6 million consumers got a rude awakening of just how much it costs to be uninsured under Obamacare. But the grim reality, in my eyes at least, is that the individual mandate penalty may not wind up working as it was originally intended.

For starters, the IRS is pretty much powerless when it comes to collecting on ISRPs. When an individual doesn't report income on their taxes, the IRS has an entire arsenal of fines and legal tactics it can use to coerce someone to correct the problem. When an individual doesn't pay their ISRP, all the IRS can do is ask nicely to please do so.

Source: Flickr user Reynermedia

You see, the IRS can't garnish wages or seize property to collect on an ISRP, and it isn't likely that the IRS is going to file individual lawsuits against nonpayers and go to court for what amounts to an average of $190 per person. The IRS's only real "weapon" here is that it can withhold the ISRP from a consumer's refund.

In 2014, 91.8 million people received a refund from the IRS out of 126.1 million individual tax returns -- that's nearly three out of four people. Those are pretty good odds for the IRS to collect on ISRPs. But it's also noteworthy that there were three million fewer refunds processed for the most recent tax year despite 500,000 more total returns from the prior year. If there is no refund, there is no way for the IRS to collect the ISRP if a taxpayer doesn't voluntarily pay it. It makes you wonder if we're seeing this shift down in refunds as a result of the individual mandate penalty.

But the bigger issue as I see it is that the cost of paying the penalty, while perhaps a bit higher than some had expected in tax year 2014, is still well below the cost of purchasing health insurance for a full year. In 2015, the average silver plan price across the country was $307. In other words, health insurance for the most commonly chosen tiered plan in the country runs around $3,700 per year without any subsidies. In contrast, the average individual mandate penalty in 2014 was $190. It's a night and day difference.

Source: Flickr user Eric Snopel

Yes, there's the advantage of possibly being able to write off some of your health-premium costs on your taxes by purchasing health insurance, as well as the peace of mind of knowing you're covered in case something happens where you need to seek medical care. But on a comparative basis it's just easier for millions to bite the bullet and take the penalty in order to save thousands of dollars per year. Even in 2016 when the ISRP moves to the greater of $695 or 2.5% of your MAGI, the average payment will still likely be less than half the average cost of a silver plan around the county over the course of a year.

This raises a big question

The big question mark is what this might do to the insurance companies offering Obamacare plans. The individual mandate penalties were expected to begin shuffling the holdouts (which are primarily healthy individuals) toward enrollment by 2015 and 2016, thus helping to offset the higher costs associated with sicker enrollees in the 2013-2014 enrollment period. But with the IRS's hands tied and consumers coming to the realization that the penalties are a drop in the bucket relative to actually purchasing a health plan, I have to wonder if insurers are going to see the margin boost Wall Street has been projecting.

On the flipside, investors should keep in mind that Obamacare enrollment still represents just a small low-to-mid single-digit percentage of the pie for most insurance companies. Employee-sponsored enrollment, Medicaid, and Medicare Advantage plans can often make up a much larger percentage of insurers' total revenue. Thus, even if Obamacare struggles to court younger, healthier adults via the individual mandate penalties, insurers will probably be just fine from the perspective of profitability.

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