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obamacare time bomb 2

Tick….

Undocumented immigrants are expected to make up a larger share of Connecticut’s uninsured population next year, putting “new financial pressures on safety-net hospitals” that provide emergency care to everyone, state and national health experts predict.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) provides coverage options for legal immigrants, but those in the U.S. illegally cannot apply for Medicaid, even if they are poor, or buy coverage at Access Health CT (the new insurance marketplace), even if they have cash. That means undocumented residents without coverage will continue turning to local emergency departments for care at a time when Connecticut hospitals face the loss of millions of dollars in federal and state subsidies to help defray the cost of uncompensated care.

Tick…

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced this morning that nearly 365,000 Americans had signed up for private health insurance under Obamacare. The vast majority came from 14 states running their own insurance exchanges, while 137,000 came by way of HealthCare.gov, the much-faulted federal website that handles enrollment for the remaining states.

But amid the rush to enroll as many people as possible by the Dec. 23 deadline, there’s a huge caveat that isn’t getting much public attention: In order for coverage to take effect on Jan. 1, enrollees must pay their first month’s premium on time. (The deadline varies somewhat by state and by insurer.)

That’s slow going, according to consultants and some insurers, raising the prospect that actual enrollment will be far lower than the figures HHS is releasing.

“There is also a lot of worrying going on over people making payments,” industry consultant Robert Laszewski wrote in an email. “One client reports only 15% have paid so far. It is still too early to know for sure what this means but we should expect some enrollment slippage come the payment due date.”

Tick…

Nearly 15,000 enrollment records from Americans trying to sign up for Obamacare never made it to insurers — but the federal government does not know which records never made it to which insurer.

The federal analysis merely compares the number of times Obamacare enrollees clicked “enroll” to the number of plans HealthCare.gov sent to insurers, according to The Washington Post. Consumers who send the vanishing enrollments, or “orphan files,” are not notified that their information has not been processed and an insurer did not receive sensitive financial and health-related data, meaning that they could be in for an unpleasant surprise when the Dec. 23 deadline — the last day for customers to sign up for health insurance — comes and goes.

But government officials insist that less than one percent of enrollments disappeared into cyberspace since early December, even though their data does not include duplicated and erroneous enrollments.

Tick…

But the third plank in the triad of disinformation hasn’t gotten much attention: Obamacare will save you, me, and the country a lot of money. This lie took several forms.

First, Obama promised on numerous occasions that the average family of four will save $2,500 a year in premiums. Where did that number come from? Three Harvard economists wrote a memo in 2007 in which they claimed that then-Senator Obama’s health-care plan would reduce national health-care spending by $200 billion. Then, according to the New York Times, the authors “divided [$200 billion] by the country’s population, multiplied for a family of four, and rounded down slightly to a number that was easy to grasp: $2,500.”

In September, the Obama administration’s Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services used far more rigorous methods to predict that Obamacare would increase national health-care spending by $621 billion. Using Obama’s own math, that would mean — according to Chris Conover, an economist at the American Enterprise Institute and Duke University — each family of four in America will spend an additional $7,450 thanks to Obamacare.

Of course, that methodology is still bogus. But it’s probably closer to the truth.

Tick…

For the second week in a row, the Washington Healthplanfinder website is down, and it’s causing problems for people who are dealing with billing issues. Some of them say the website is mistakenly debiting their accounts.

Shannon Bruner of Indianola logged on to her checking account Monday morning, and found she was almost 800 dollars in the negative.

“The first thing I thought was, ‘I got screwed,’” she said.

The Bruners enrolled for insurance on the Washington Healthplanfinder website, last October. They say they selected the bill pay date to be December 24th. Instead the Washington Healthplanfinder drafted the 835 dollar premium Monday.

Josh Bruner started his own business this year as an engineering recruiter. They said it’s forced them to pay a lot of attention to their bills and their bank accounts.

“Big knot in my gut because we’re trying to keep it together,” said Shannon Bruner. “It’s important to me that this kind of stuff doesn’t happen.”

They’re not alone.

One viewer emailed KING 5 saying, “They drafted my account this morning for a second time.”

Another woman on Facebook with a similar problem commented, “We are all in the same boat.”

“We’ve got to figure out how to get money to pay the bills for the next week or two until we have another check come through,” said Josh Bruner. “It’s just crazy.”


Tick…

More than 2,400 Connecticut customers who bought health plans on Access Health CT were given incorrect information about their insurance plans, in one case underestimating the maximum out-of-pocket by at least $4,000.

The website for Access Health CT, the state’s new health exchange, had incorrect information online about deductibles and co-insurance impacting all 19 individual health plans from the three insurance companies that offer those plans through the exchange: Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Connecticut, ConnectiCare, and HealthyCT. The 12 small-group plans were unaffected.

Access Health CT would not say how the problem started, or who was responsible. The exchange did say that the problem was discovered in late September and was fixed by Oct. 30.

Tick…

An Associated Press-GfK poll finds that health care remains politically charged going into next year’s congressional elections. Keeping the refurbished HealthCare.gov website running smoothly is just one of Obama’s challenges, maybe not the biggest.

The poll found a striking level of unease about the law among people who have health insurance and aren’t looking for government help. Those are the 85 percent of Americans who the White House says don’t have to be worried about the president’s historic push to expand coverage for the uninsured.

In the survey, nearly half of those with job-based or other private coverage say their policies will be changing next year — mostly for the worse. Nearly 4 in 5 (77 percent) blame the changes on the Affordable Care Act, even though the trend toward leaner coverage predates the law’s passage.

Sixty-nine percent say their premiums will be going up, while 59 percent say annual deductibles or copayments are increasing.

Only 21 percent of those with private coverage said their plan is expanding to cover more types of medical care, though coverage of preventive care at no charge to the patient has been required by the law for the past couple of years.

Fourteen percent said coverage for spouses is being restricted or eliminated, and 11 percent said their plan is being discontinued.

Tick…

Of all of the last-minute delays, website bungles, and Presidential whims that have marred the roll-out of Obamacare’s subsidized insurance exchanges, what happened on Thursday, December 12 will stand as one of the most lawless acts yet committed by this administration. The White House—having canceled Americans’ old health plans, and having botched the system for enrolling people in new ones—knows that millions of Americans will enter the new year without health coverage. So instead of actually fixing the problem, the administration is retroactively attempting to force insurers to hand out free health care—at a loss—to those whom the White House has rendered uninsured. If Obamacare wasn’t a government takeover of the health insurance industry, then what is it now?

On Wednesday afternoon, health policy reporters found in their inboxes a friendly e-mail from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, announcing “steps to ensure Americans signing up through the Marketplace have coverage and access to the care they need on January 1.” Basically, the “steps” involve muscling insurers to provide free or discounted care to those who have become uninsured because of the problems with healthcare.gov.

Tick…

“What’s wrong with ‘urging’ insurers to offer free care?” you might ask. “That’s not the same as forcing them to offer free care.” Except that the government is using the full force of its regulatory powers, under Obamacare, to threaten insurers if they don’t comply. All you have to do is read the menacing language in the new regulations that HHS published this week, in which HHS says it may throw otherwise qualified health plans off of the exchanges next year if they don’t comply with the government’s “requests.”

“We are considering factoring into the [qualified health plan] renewal process, as part of the determination regarding whether making a health plan available…how [insurers] ensure continuity of care during transitions,” they write. Which is kind of like the Mafia saying that it will “consider” the amount of protection money you’ve paid in its decision as to whether or not it vandalizes your storefront.

Tick…

There are other services HHS is asking insurers to offer for free. The administration is “strongly encouraging insurers to treat out-of-network providers”—i.e., costly ones—“as in-network to ensure continuity of care” and to “refill prescriptions covered under previous plans during January.” But the issue of unpaid premiums looms largest.

Tick…

Phyllis Dessel, 63, of Reading, Pa., believes she is finally enrolled after 50 attempts online. The retired social worker, a political independent, currently has her own private insurance.

When Dessel described her experience, she jokingly asked, “Do you mind if I cry?”

Thanks to tax credits available under the law, she was able to save about $100 a month on the monthly premium for her new coverage. But she had to switch carriers because staying with her current insurer would have cost more than she was willing to pay. She hasn’t gotten an invoice yet from her new insurance company.

The premiums she found on the new insurance marketplace were “not at all” what she expected, said Dessel. “They were much, much higher.”

A supporter of Obama’s overhaul, she believes changes are needed to make the coverage more affordable.

“I think with a lot of amendments or updates, it could be very, very helpful and beneficial,” said Dessel. “I know a lot of people who don’t have insurance. My hairdresser, my plumber don’t have insurance and they’re not going to get it if it’s not affordable.”

That “erroneous debit” story could be a peek into the future- how Obama will seize your assets and redistribute them as he sees fit.

Just wait until Obamacare sycophants learn that there is something worse than a non-functional website- that is a functional website.

Just wait until they learn what a deductible is.

Just wait until they learn that “out of pocket” means out of THEIR pockets.

Boom.

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@Smorgasbord:

How about spending $400,000.00 of taxpayer money to study the intelligence of Tea Partiers? Only problem, the study showed that Tea Partiers were more intelligent, at least when it came to science, than the average citizen. Or perhaps paying Nidal Hassan, KILLER AND JIHADIST, almost $300,000.00 in military pay while the military families got squat? And let’s not forget that all important study on duck penises. Or the line man round up in Austin, Texas. The list makes you want to barf.

But hey, the rainmen in this administration had to come up with something that would top the turtle tunnels of the Stimulus Bill.

@Smorgasbord:

The military has little say on their spending, aside from making appropriation requests from Congress and the WH. Congress decides what they will fund and what they wont. Congress also however, passes bills forcing certain appropriations for things that the military neither needs nor wants. The latter is usually due to pork projects. I think it would makea hell of a lot more sense to leave the Military retiree funding as was promised them, and instead ask the Pentagon what pork barrel based projects they can do without.

@retire05: The Republican controlled House under Paul Ryan
passed this compromise bill. I’m against any cuts to military benefits.

@retire05: #51
Anyone with any common sense knows that without a strong military, the USA can’t defend itself. Even devout liberals know this. So, ask yourself, “Why would members of congress go along with almost everything that obama wants to do to shrink our military? I can only think of two things: (1) They have become career politicians who only think of themselves and how much more money and power they can get, or (2) They are part of an infiltration process to turn the USA into a non-free country.

congress has constantly voted against our military for years. The democrats voted against almost every new military hardware we are using in Iraq and Afghanistan. We know they are against a strong military. congress allowed bill clinton to reduce our military down so much to make the federal budged look balanced.

We need to kick almost every politician out and start over. We also need to take the money out of campaigning so that the only people the politicians have to pay back are the ones who voted for them. Who knows what countries donated to obama’s campaign? I haven’t kept track of how many politicians belong to the different secret organizations that many are saying are trying to control the government, but it is too many.

I’d like to see someone like Glenn Beck or other popular conservative do a documentary about bringing our founding fathers to today, and let them see how congress in run, and what they would think of the political process and the laws passed.

As I have mentioned different times, look at the events that happened before countries became dictatorship, and compare them to what obama and congress are doing now, and try to convince me that they are not trying to bring the USA down.

@Ditto: #52
Thanks for reminding me of the spending that congress mandates for the military. They have been trying to close MANY military bases they no longer need, but the politicians keep the attitude of, “I’ll vote for your bases to be kept open if you will vote for mine.” Many years ago I remember congress forced the Air Force to buy six Lear jets that they didn’t want. They didn’t use the jets, and had to find a place to store them. I’m guessing that they were later sold as surplus for very little.

Lets not forget about the thousands of buildings that the government is renting or owns that are not used, and the billions of dollars in grants given out to study stuff nobody cares about, and the many different federal agencies that do the same thing, and the many different welfare agencies that people can get money without telling what other agencies they get money from.

I used to say this jokingly, but think about it. For those who are having financial troubles, especially since obamacare kicked them off of their insurance, they should go to Mexico, become Mexican citizens, sneak into the USA, and they are set for life. They and their kids will then get free medical care, my Social Security, income tax refunds even if they pay no taxes, free or reduced schooling, aid for rent and other things, a free obama phone, and who knows how many other things I have never heard of. I am no longer joking about this. If I were a lot younger, and was in the situation that a lot of people are today, I would seriously look into doing this. For the first time in my life I wouldn’t have to fill out ANY state or federal income tax forms. WHAT A LIFE!!!!!

Smorgasbord
IT’S OBVIOUS, HE IS AIMING AT IT,
LOOK AT THE ABORTION NUMBERS OF AMERICAN BABYS,
THAT IS ONE EVERY 94 MINUTES, AND PROMOTE AND PAID WITH MILLIONS BY OBAMA,
THIS ALONE IS ENOUGH FOR ANY MOST UNINFORMED TO REALIZE HIS INTENT TO LIKE HE SAID CHANGE AMERICA FOREVER,
HE WANT TO EXTERMINATE THE AMERICANS
OF THE FUTURE GENERATION,

DrJohn, the ”Tick,tick, tick,” just keeps on coming.
This AM I heard, for the 1st time, about how ObamaCare is locking people into one county.
No longer can one live in the Northeast but ”winter” in the South!
ObamaCare will not pay a penny for medical care outside one’s network.
Here’s one article about it with the economic implications for both the real estate and travel industries:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2013/12/more_obamacare_devastation.html
ObamaCare May Devastate the Real Estate and Travel Industries

Millions are losing their health insurance policies and being forced onto the ObamaCare exchanges, where most plans only provide local medical coverage.
As Americans realize they must pay for all non-emergency medical care when they leave their home county, their decisions may have a profound impact on the real-estate market, particularly the second home sector, and on the travel business.
…..
…..
“Any plan will cover emergencies.
But if you need routine medical services, they will not be covered when you leave your local area, and on the old plans they were.”

Not only will routine medical care out of network be out-of-pocket, but those expenses will NOT apply toward one’s deductible!

@ilovebeeswarzone: #56

HE WANT TO EXTERMINATE THE AMERICANS
OF THE FUTURE GENERATION

All I am saying is obama wants to change America into a non-free country.

Smorgasbord
AND THE WOMENS THINK OBAMA IS ON THEIR SIDE,
THIS IS NOW AN AWAKENING FOR THEM, TO SEE WHO IS ON THEIR SIDE
IS NOT OBAMA BY FAR.
THEY JUST NOW ARE AWARE THAT NOT ONLY THEM HAD AN ABORTION BUT
ONE EVERY 94 MINUTES HAD ONE , IF THEY CALL THAT BEING ON THEIR SIDES,
THEY HAVE TO BE INDOCTRINATED STONE STUPID,

@ilovebeeswarzone: #59
When the propaganda media start telling some of obama’s lies, and even rating one of them the top lie of the year, you know they have figured out that they need to start reporting SOME of obama’s lies, or they will lose so many viewers they will have to go out of business. Fox News has more viewers than several of the other networks added together. A propaganda machine that few are paying any attention to any more isn’t much good for brainwashing the public any more.

Smorgasbord
I believe that it”s like in a couple married and sharing every thing,
when one find a fault that is shaking their both life,
it”s a start of suspicion on the other no matter what they try to continue the same life,
they can”t because the credibility is broken,
well that”s what OBAMA IS NOW TAKING A BACK STAGE WITH THOSE HE LIED TO,
it took them a long time for some of them, but they have to recognize the lie in front of them,
AND THEY MUST BE IN A DENIAL PHASE, WHICH IS A FIRST HEALING SELF MIND PROCESS,
TOWARD THE LET GO ON THEIR IDOL, WHICH THEY PROTECTED SO MANY TIMES FROM THOSE WHO WHERE TRYING TO SAVE THEM FROM THAT INFATUATION.
BYE

@ilovebeeswarzone: #61
Let’s not forget that most of the democrats knew obama was lying about most, if not all of the lies he told, so they were in on the lies, but now they have a problem: obama won’t be up for reelection again, but they will. They know that their friends, the propaganda media, aren’t passing on the lies any more, so what are they going to do. The democrats realize that WE THE PEOPLE are not watching the brainwashing media any more, and are going to Fox News, Glenn Beck, and the conservative blogs.

I sent Curt an email telling him he should be proud that the liberals are devoting so much time to FA trying to get conservatives to believe any of the lies they spread. They only devote that much manpower to web sites they feel are a threat to their spreading of their liberal agenda. If you keep track of the times that some of the libs are posting, they are doing it all though the day, and sometimes into the night, without much time between posts. This tells me that either they are posting all day long on conservative sites, or there is more than one using the same ID and email, and and working in shifts. Either way, Curt should be proud that the libs are devoting so much time and effort on his site.

I don’t mind playing with them for a while, but it is like a new toy that does the same thing all of the time. After a while, I get tired of it, and look for a new toy to play with. Liberal toys can only do one thing, and I tire of them quickly. You never know what a conservative toy will do. They keep a person entertained longer.

Smorgasbord
I feel like kidding you on it,
what toy did you ask SANTA for CHRISTMAS?
BYE

@ilovebeeswarzone: #63

…what toy did you ask SANTA for CHRISTMAS?

I never really thought about it. Our family quit gift giving after our parents passed on. The only thing I can think of would be a snowmobile to go along with my ATV. A lot of people in my area have an ATV, or a snowmobile, or both. I’m not going to buy both, but if you are going to get me something, that would be OK with me.

Smorgasbord
i wish you get your toy,
even if you have to pay for it,
BYE

@ilovebeeswarzone:

I want our government to represent the people instead of their Washington DC & MSM country club.

@Ditto: #66

I want our government to represent the people instead of their Washington DC & MSM country club.

You reminded me of one of my Tea Party signs: http://www.flickr.com/photos/35983084@N07/10220156603/

You used to be able to just slide an image out of Flickr and onto your desktop, or wherever you wanted to put it. I see this can’t be done any more. I haven’t checked into how to get an image, but I’m guessing there is a charge involved. These are my images, but I can’t have them from Flickr any more.

Smorgasbord
THAT IS SAD BECAUSE YOUR IMAGES ARE VERY ARTISTIC,
AND THE TALK OF WHAT MESSAGE YOU WANT TO SEND,
ALWAYS PATRIOTIC, HOPE YOU KEEP THEM ALL,
THEY ARE PRECIOUS,
BYE

@ilovebeeswarzone: #68
I still have the original images. It’s that others can’t get the images any more is what bothers me. I will have to find out how a person can get an image if they want one. I checked other people’s images and couldn’t get their images either. I’m guessing that somewhere in the “Agreement” a person has to agree to to get a Flickr account, it says that they images become their property. It would be part of the price for using their web site for free.

I never have been able to figure out how to post pictures in FA.