'Affordable Care Act Looking Less And Less Affordable'
Today in Washington, D.C. - June 17, 2013:
The Senate convenes at 2 PM today. At 5 PM, the Senate will consider the nominations of Luis Restrepo to be U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Kenneth Gonzales to be U.S. District Judge for the District of New Mexico. At 5:30, the Senate will vote on confirmation of the Restrepo and Gonzales nominations.
The Senate will then resume consideration of S. 744, the immigration reform bill.
The House convened at Noon. They are scheduled to take up several Department of Interior and National Forest government land use acts.
In a Sunday editorial, The Journal Times of Racine, Wisconsin, writes, “As the nation heads pell-mell down the road toward implementation of the Affordable Care Act in 2014, the number of warning signs over its impact are also sliding by, at a faster pace.” And just like last week, this week brings news report after news report of warning signs.
The Journal Times editorial explains, “Many raise the unanswered question: Affordable for whom? Not for young individuals buying insurance on their own, that’s for sure, judging by the reports coming in from several states. Despite assurances from Democrats that the national health care plan will drive down health care costs, the evidence is increasingly telling the opposite tale. In Colorado, for instance, insurance companies just submitted plans to the state that show group insurance costs will rise from 13 percent to 30 percent, but individual insurance costs could go up from 60 percent to 120 percent. Similarly, in Ohio, the average individual-market health insurance premium is now projected at about $420 per month next year — up 88 percent from this year’s rates.”
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports, “Some companies are warning that President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul will cost jobs. It won't be in their legal departments. Health-care companies racing to comply with the Affordable Care Act and other rules are calling in the lawyers, sparking a mini-boom for specialist attorneys who can backstop overloaded internal teams and steer clients through an increasingly crowded regulatory minefield. . . . Even companies with robust in-house law departments are increasingly calling on outside lawyers who specialize in the most arcane corners of health-care law. ‘You need to go to outside experts more and more because the pace of change is accelerating,’ said Robert Gilman, general counsel for AmeriHealth Caritas, a managed-care company that focuses on Medicaid members and other low-income populations. ‘There are a lot of questions that nobody knows the answers to yet.’
The WSJ points out, “Businesses across a wide swath of the economy will be affected by the new health-care law, particularly the employer mandate that kicks in next year, under which companies must either provide health coverage for workers who clock 30 or more hours a week, or pay a penalty. . . . For hospitals, insurance providers and other health-care companies, the employer coverage mandate is just one item on a lengthening regulatory to-do list. A host of industry-specific provisions in the Affordable Care Act will change the way they do business, even as many are spending significant time and money to comply with a groundswell of earlier rules. . . . Keeping up with all the changes is like ‘drinking from a fire hose,’ said Gavin Galimi, general counsel for March Vision Care Inc., a Los Angeles company that manages vision benefits nationally for insurers that contract with Medicaid, Medicare and various state insurance exchanges being set up under the Affordable Care Act. ‘Every company is worrying about what they forgot or don’t know.’ The chief legal officer for one company that manufactures medical equipment said his legal team spent a considerable amount of time analyzing how various provisions of the Affordable Care Act—such as a medical device tax—would affect the business, and what steps were needed to comply with the law. Resolving those questions means longer hours for his in-house legal team—and spending more money on outside lawyers and other advisers. ‘No company wants to get it wrong, because the cost of a bad judgment call is significant on this,’ he said.”
But outside of lawyers who specialize in health care regulations, Americans are still not enthusiastic about this massive law that has spawned over 20,000 pages of regulations. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found “far more people think they will be worse off under the new law than those who think they will benefit from it, 38% to 19%” and overall “the number calling it a bad idea reached a high of 49%.”
Given that Americans remain rightly skeptical of Obamacare, Democrats have apparently decided to ramp up their campaign efforts to promote the unpopular law. According to McClatchy, “Three years after it passed, President Obama and fellow Democrats are still trying to sell the federal health care law to a skeptical nation. Lawmakers, armed with tool kits and fact sheets, are fanning out across the nation to tout the law’s benefits. Those charged with implementing its changes, starting with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, are pushing companies to donate money to a private group that’s working to get the program up and running. Obama is touring the nation to talk up the new law’s benefits. . . The nonprofit group that’s helping to implement the health care law, Enroll America, is led by and supported by former Obama aides. Recent reports say that President Anne Filipic, a former deputy director of the Office of Public Engagement, will send volunteers door to door to enroll uninsured Americans, while another former White House staffer, Nancy-Ann DeParle, is raising money for the group.”
The Washington Post adds, “Organizing for Action, the spinoff of President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, is out with its first ad, in which it offers the president some backup on his health-care law. . . . The ad is part of a seven-figure summer ad buy focusing on Obamacare. The implementation of the law has started to cause some headaches for the administration, with even some top Democrats worrying about it. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) recently worried aloud that the implementation would constitute a ‘huge train wreck,’ with people unsure about how to navigate the new law. Recent polling has shown that more Americans dislike the law than favor it.”
Regarding what should be done with Obamacare, we agree with what Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said last month, “What [President Obama] really needs to do, actually, is join with Republicans in agreeing to repeal this job-killing law. He needs to acknowledge the need to scrap it and replace it with the types of common-sense reforms that will lower costs. Because it’s not working. I think he already knows that. Republicans know it. And more and more Democrats are coming around to that realization too. So let’s skip the scripted campaign events and actually work together to get something positive done for jobs, health care, and our economy.”
Tags: US Senate, US House, negative news, Obamacare To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
The Senate convenes at 2 PM today. At 5 PM, the Senate will consider the nominations of Luis Restrepo to be U.S. District Judge for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania and Kenneth Gonzales to be U.S. District Judge for the District of New Mexico. At 5:30, the Senate will vote on confirmation of the Restrepo and Gonzales nominations.
The Senate will then resume consideration of S. 744, the immigration reform bill.
The House convened at Noon. They are scheduled to take up several Department of Interior and National Forest government land use acts.
In a Sunday editorial, The Journal Times of Racine, Wisconsin, writes, “As the nation heads pell-mell down the road toward implementation of the Affordable Care Act in 2014, the number of warning signs over its impact are also sliding by, at a faster pace.” And just like last week, this week brings news report after news report of warning signs.
The Journal Times editorial explains, “Many raise the unanswered question: Affordable for whom? Not for young individuals buying insurance on their own, that’s for sure, judging by the reports coming in from several states. Despite assurances from Democrats that the national health care plan will drive down health care costs, the evidence is increasingly telling the opposite tale. In Colorado, for instance, insurance companies just submitted plans to the state that show group insurance costs will rise from 13 percent to 30 percent, but individual insurance costs could go up from 60 percent to 120 percent. Similarly, in Ohio, the average individual-market health insurance premium is now projected at about $420 per month next year — up 88 percent from this year’s rates.”
Meanwhile, The Wall Street Journal reports, “Some companies are warning that President Barack Obama's health-care overhaul will cost jobs. It won't be in their legal departments. Health-care companies racing to comply with the Affordable Care Act and other rules are calling in the lawyers, sparking a mini-boom for specialist attorneys who can backstop overloaded internal teams and steer clients through an increasingly crowded regulatory minefield. . . . Even companies with robust in-house law departments are increasingly calling on outside lawyers who specialize in the most arcane corners of health-care law. ‘You need to go to outside experts more and more because the pace of change is accelerating,’ said Robert Gilman, general counsel for AmeriHealth Caritas, a managed-care company that focuses on Medicaid members and other low-income populations. ‘There are a lot of questions that nobody knows the answers to yet.’
The WSJ points out, “Businesses across a wide swath of the economy will be affected by the new health-care law, particularly the employer mandate that kicks in next year, under which companies must either provide health coverage for workers who clock 30 or more hours a week, or pay a penalty. . . . For hospitals, insurance providers and other health-care companies, the employer coverage mandate is just one item on a lengthening regulatory to-do list. A host of industry-specific provisions in the Affordable Care Act will change the way they do business, even as many are spending significant time and money to comply with a groundswell of earlier rules. . . . Keeping up with all the changes is like ‘drinking from a fire hose,’ said Gavin Galimi, general counsel for March Vision Care Inc., a Los Angeles company that manages vision benefits nationally for insurers that contract with Medicaid, Medicare and various state insurance exchanges being set up under the Affordable Care Act. ‘Every company is worrying about what they forgot or don’t know.’ The chief legal officer for one company that manufactures medical equipment said his legal team spent a considerable amount of time analyzing how various provisions of the Affordable Care Act—such as a medical device tax—would affect the business, and what steps were needed to comply with the law. Resolving those questions means longer hours for his in-house legal team—and spending more money on outside lawyers and other advisers. ‘No company wants to get it wrong, because the cost of a bad judgment call is significant on this,’ he said.”
But outside of lawyers who specialize in health care regulations, Americans are still not enthusiastic about this massive law that has spawned over 20,000 pages of regulations. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll found “far more people think they will be worse off under the new law than those who think they will benefit from it, 38% to 19%” and overall “the number calling it a bad idea reached a high of 49%.”
Given that Americans remain rightly skeptical of Obamacare, Democrats have apparently decided to ramp up their campaign efforts to promote the unpopular law. According to McClatchy, “Three years after it passed, President Obama and fellow Democrats are still trying to sell the federal health care law to a skeptical nation. Lawmakers, armed with tool kits and fact sheets, are fanning out across the nation to tout the law’s benefits. Those charged with implementing its changes, starting with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, are pushing companies to donate money to a private group that’s working to get the program up and running. Obama is touring the nation to talk up the new law’s benefits. . . The nonprofit group that’s helping to implement the health care law, Enroll America, is led by and supported by former Obama aides. Recent reports say that President Anne Filipic, a former deputy director of the Office of Public Engagement, will send volunteers door to door to enroll uninsured Americans, while another former White House staffer, Nancy-Ann DeParle, is raising money for the group.”
The Washington Post adds, “Organizing for Action, the spinoff of President Obama’s 2012 reelection campaign, is out with its first ad, in which it offers the president some backup on his health-care law. . . . The ad is part of a seven-figure summer ad buy focusing on Obamacare. The implementation of the law has started to cause some headaches for the administration, with even some top Democrats worrying about it. Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) recently worried aloud that the implementation would constitute a ‘huge train wreck,’ with people unsure about how to navigate the new law. Recent polling has shown that more Americans dislike the law than favor it.”Regarding what should be done with Obamacare, we agree with what Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell said last month, “What [President Obama] really needs to do, actually, is join with Republicans in agreeing to repeal this job-killing law. He needs to acknowledge the need to scrap it and replace it with the types of common-sense reforms that will lower costs. Because it’s not working. I think he already knows that. Republicans know it. And more and more Democrats are coming around to that realization too. So let’s skip the scripted campaign events and actually work together to get something positive done for jobs, health care, and our economy.”
Tags: US Senate, US House, negative news, Obamacare To share or post to your site, click on "Post Link". Please mention / link to the ARRA News Service. Thanks!
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