“Insurance” on The Daily Caller

Democrats moved Saturday to make contraception an issue in the 2012 election by releasing a video attack-ad that portrays opposition to the White House’s proposed regulation of churches as a GOP-led effort to deny free contraception to all women. (more)

New York Democratic Rep. Jerrold Nadler, the ranking member of the House Judiciary subcommittee on the Constitution told The Daily Caller that the Catholic Church “cannot impose their religious views” on employees by refusing to offer health plans that cover contraception, as required by the health care law. (more)

President Barack Obama says he will bypass religious groups’ opposition to a health insurance mandate by directing insurance companies to hand out free birth control services to employees of religious institutions. (more)

Holly Madison, the former Hugh Hefner girlfriend who co-starred in the reality series “The Girls Next Door,” took out a $1 million insurance policy with Lloyd’s of London to insure her breasts, she told People magazine Thursday. (more)

EASTON, Pa. — Ken Kewley woke up Tuesday without health insurance for the first time in nearly nine years. (more)

Will the Department of Health and Human Services’ current “two-waiver-a-day” rule keep Obamacare away, effectively waivering the law obsolete? (more)

I’m sure that many of you have driven a car for so many years that eventually the engine gives out. You can put in a new muffler or a new radiator. You can replace the transmission and put on a new coat of paint. But if the engine has failed, then that car won’t run again until you put in a new engine. (more)

— “It is unlikely that House Republicans will take the vote to repeal the health care law, shrug their shoulders when it doesn’t reach the Senate, and move on,” writes The Daily Caller’s Chris Moody. “We aren’t going to just check the box off and say that we had one vote and we’re going to move on to other topics,” Rep. Michele Bachmann said Tuesday. Rep. Steve King echoed Bachmann’s sentiments, saying, “This is going to be a debate that goes on not just today and tomorrow and next week. It’s going to go on for the next year or two. It’s probably going to go on until we elect a president that will sign a final repeal of Obamacare. So this is an ongoing debate.” The GOP will fight, just like the Spartans fought at Thermopylae, until they are all dead of old age/exasperation, or until Americans return both the legislative branch and the executive branch to the second worst party in the country. In the meantime, House Republicans will build their own health care bill, starting with the key accomplishment of Obamacare: “A measure to restrict insurance companies from discriminating based on pre-existing conditions.” (more)

1.) Remember: You’re a liar and/or an idiot if you call it ‘a government takeover of health care’ — Tomorrow, a group of bureaucrats will meet to determine which treatments private insurance companies will be mandated to cover, and for how long. “The Obama administration faces a tough balancing act,” writes Kaiser Health News. “The benefits package must be broad enough to be comprehensive but not too broad as to be unaffordable. Patient advocates and industry lobbyists already are drawing up wish lists for items they want covered – including autism therapy, obesity treatments, infertility treatments and unlimited chemotherapy visits.” AEI’s Joe Antos told KHN, “This is an invitation for all kinds of lobbying from every conceivable disease group and provider group in the country.” For instance: Joe Nadglowski, CEO of the Obesity Action Coalition, thinks insurers should be required to cover bariatric surgery. “Adding a wider range of treatments would raise premium costs, Nadglowski acknowledges, but could save money over time if people sought both prevention and treatment for obesity.” That’s a lot of ifs. (more)

Americans have a love/hate affair with health insurers. We like that they provide coverage for expensive things like hospitalization and surgeries, but get annoyed when they deny coverage for medications or other services we think should be covered. We are sometimes annoyed with the high compensation level of their executives, but we like the fact that some 80+ percent of us have coverage through our employer, so we don’t have to spend time shopping in the individual market to make sense of complicated policies. Of course, getting coverage through group plans at work naturally limits the number of available options, so we tend to bitch and moan about this as well. Hence, our attitudes about health insurance companies are often contradictory and ambivalent. (more)

Rep.-elect Joe Walsh, a Republican from Illinois, will make good on a campaign promise and forgo government provided health care for himself and his wife in protest of the Obama’s health care plan — in spite of his wife’s a preexisting condition. (more)

“And what manner of man dares to assume the post of insurance commissioner?” LA Weekly columnist Hillel Aron asked recently. It is an important question to consider. Early next year, 29 new governors will take office. Twenty-five of them have the authority — in some cases shared with other executive branch officials — to appoint insurance commissioners. (more)

An early feature of the new health-care law that allows people who are already sick to get insurance to cover their medical costs isn’t attracting as many customers as expected. (more)

Bureaucrats have thankless jobs, always under attack for some horrible decision or another they’re making or choice to the public they’re limiting, and justifiably so. This is not a defense of bureaucrats, they’re deserving of almost every criticism that comes their way. This is to point out yet another way in which bureaucrats could limit options for you and your family through their ever-growing control over our health care. (more)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Health insurers must spend most of the premiums they collect for medical care, or issue rebates to consumers, the Obama administration said in regulations issued Monday. (more)

In its ongoing effort to repay taxpayers, bailed-out insurance giant American International Group in recent days has raised nearly $37 billion through the sale of one of its premier subsidiaries and the initial public offering of another. (more)

The U.S. government’s bailout of financial firms through the Troubled Asset Relief Program provided taxpayers with higher returns than they could have made buying 30-year Treasury bonds — enough money to fund the Securities and Exchange Commission for the next two decades. (more)

It’s a sound bite that just won’t die, and one Democrats plan to take to the grave this elections season: Republicans are only winning because their campaigns are flush with cash from secret donors. (more)

This Saturday, one of Greece’s most respected newspapers, To Vima, reported that the nation’s largest government health insurance provider would no longer pay for special footwear for diabetes patients.  Amputation is cheaper, says the Benefits Division of the state insurance provider. (more)

As Obama administration officials put into place the first major wave of changes under the health care legislation, they have tried to defuse stiffening resistance — from companies like McDonald’s and some insurers — by granting dozens of waivers to maintain even minimal coverage far below the new law’s standards. (more)