In 1957, the Soviet Union launched a satellite into space. Therefore, taxpayers should give more money to politically favored corporations. This is not a rigorous line of thought. But it was typical of yesterday’s State of the Union address. (more)
There was no way that they would fail. Their bonds were rated AAA, they were managed by the chairman of the stock market, they were America’s seventh largest company, and expert accountants confirmed their long-term fiscal viability. But still, AIG, Madoff Investment Securities, Enron, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac all went bankrupt. (more)
The talk is of jobs and fixing the nation’s fiscal problems, but both sides in Washington are keeping their powder dry at the moment, looking for political advantage over the other. (more)
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) just announced a three-month delay of the implementation of new rules for face-to-face encounters for home care and hospice patients and their physicians. The National Association for Home Care and Hospice commends CMS for recognizing the need to delay implementation and is grateful that CMS listened to our concerns and has given a reprieve in the enforcement of the face-to-face encounter requirements. This is a serious issue and it is important to protect the care provided to patients. While this is not a total solution to the issues, it is an important first step. (more)
As legal challenges over the individual mandate in Obamacare work their way through the court system, it occurred to me that there might be another way to legally challenge a part of the law — the requirement that people be allowed to stay on their parents’ insurance until they turn 26 years old. (I don’t call them children, as the media does, because, quite frankly, they are not and haven’t been for nearly a decade.) How, you might ask, could this be challenged in court? It’s simple, really, which may be why no one has asked the following question: What about Medicare? (more)
To borrow a football term from the NFL, “upon further review,” Proposition 203 is becoming law — and a bad one at that. (more)
A presidential commission’s leaders proposed a $3.8 trillion deficit-cutting plan that would cut Social Security and Medicare, reduce income-tax rates and eliminate tax breaks including the mortgage-interest deduction. (more)
Obamacare is unpopular, unwieldy, expensive, likely unconstitutional, and will shortly be a prime target for repeal. And the worst is yet to come: Obamacare expects states to do much of the law’s dirty work. Obamacare presumes that states will establish “exchanges” to limit the health-insurance choices of many of their residents. States should not swallow this poison pill. (more)
Over the next 10 years, if left unchanged, Obamacare will take $500 billion from Medicare. Medicare beneficiaries will see higher premiums. Doctors, nurses, hospitals, and medical suppliers will get lower payments. Under Obamacare, Medicare reductions will be used to subsidize expanded Medicaid to low-income recipients and to fund insurance for the uninsured. This redistribution of funding from Medicare to other programs is the most controversial part of health reform. (more)
You’ve probably read about ObamaCare’s harm to Snooki and more traditional interest groups like seniors and doctors. But what has gone unnoticed is ObamaCare’s harm to our troops. (more)
A Colorado father was arrested for allegedly smoking marijuana with his daughters ages 6 and 7, authorities said. (more)
About 21,000 Iowans received notice last week that their insurers would no longer provide their Medicare Advantage plans in 2011, a state agency said. (more)
As the true intentions of ObamaCare’s supporters becomes clear — nothing short of the complete transfer of health care decision-making power from patients to politicians — it’s the cost-sharing provisions in the president’s new law that should worry us most of all. (more)
The Kaiser Family Foundation recently issued its annual survey of employer-sponsored health benefits, declaring: “Family Health Premiums Rise 3 Percent to $13,770 in 2010, But Workers’ Share Jumps 14 Percent as Firms Shift Cost Burden.” That’s half-right — but the other half perpetuates a myth about employee health benefits that stands in the way of real health care reform. (more)
Republicans talk about repealing and replacing ObamaCare. The president counters that we should go forward with policies that are beginning to work. Democrats say we should not return to the failed policies of the past. (more)
The move by some health insurance companies to scrap child-only policies has many questioning whether providers will try to circumvent provisions of the new health care reform law in the future. Politically, it has unearthed old tensions between the Obama administration and health insurances at a time when new provisions are being rolled out. (more)
President Barack Obama has repeatedly promised Americans that if they like their current health insurance plans, they will get to keep them under the legislation he championed and Congress passed earlier this year. But that’s demonstrably not true for millions of senior citizens who are enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans today. (more)
Government anti-poverty programs that have grown to meet the needs of recession victims now serve a record one in six Americans and are continuing to expand. (more)
A loophole in Colorado’s medical marijuana rules means thousands of pounds of surplus marijuana are left to feed the black market here and in neighboring states, an I-News Network investigation has found. (more)
Few have read the 2,700 page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). Even if you have, it is difficult to absorb the full implications of the health reform bill. Each week the Department of Labor (DOL), the Department of Health & Human Services (HHS), and Treasury produce new regulations. With so much happening so fast how can employers, insurance agents, consultants, lawyers, or insurance companies keep up with decisions to set strategies, make rational choices, and be legally compliant? (more)
