The White House Thought They Knew What Health Plan You Should Have. They Were Wrong.

[clearvision]

I thought I read early on that O'care somehow made it illegal for doctors to be "cash only".... I'll have to research later.

[pollyannaish]

There are a LOT of doctors in our area headed that way. I am curious about it myself.

[Valin]

[Valin]

@clearvision @pollyannaish

 

 

Texas Doctors Shun Insurance, Offering Care For Cash

Alexa Ura, The Texas Tribune

Apr 11, 2014

 

LAREDO — For 12 hours a day, the waiting room at Dr. Gustavo Villarreal’s family practice is often packed with patients, people who will pay a flat $50 fee for the convenience — or necessity — of a walk-in, quick-turn doctor’s visit. Villarreal’s practice, which does not accept any form of health insurance, has thrived despite its location in a city where nearly one-third of the population lives below the federal poverty line.
At both the state and federal level, efforts are underway to decrease Texas' sky-high rate of residents without health coverage. But Villarreal is among a rising number of primary care practitioners who have given up on the red tape of filing insurance claims, switching to a cash-based model that is growing in popularity among Texas’ insured and uninsured patients.

 

Doctors who use this model, which they call “direct primary care,” say they can keep their costs competitive by avoiding the bureaucracy of the health insurance system and the high processing costs — including additional staff — associated with accepting coverage.

 

“It had always been affordable and possible to maintain a practice with what insurance and patients paid, but about 10 or 15 years ago, you started seeing a decline” in revenue, said Villarreal, who switched his traditional family practice to its current business model in 2012.

 

(Snip)

 

_____________________________________________________________________________________________

 

Obamacare: When You Have to Find a New Doctor

Alicia M. Cohn

August 29, 2013

 

 

Remember when President Obama said if you like your doctor, you could keep him or her? Americans everywhere are finding out that’s not true.

 

“I have to find a new doctor,” Dallas mom Stacy Wilson tells Heritage. “I’ve been seeing the same primary care physician the last 15 years and I just got a letter [in the] last month or so saying that she’s moving to a VIP program where you pay in several thousand dollars and you get more time with the doctor, more personalized care, and because of that, well first of all I can’t afford that, and second of all, she’s shrinking her practice down to like 400 patients.”

 

Wilson’s doctor, an internist, is one of many doctors switching to what is known as “concierge medicine.” A survey of doctors in 2012 found that one in 10 plans to convert their practice to concierge, also known as direct-pay because it eliminates third-party insurance. Many say they are responding to increasing bureaucratic interference and uncertainty over insurance and Medicare payments, and some directly cite Obamacare. This is one way for doctors to guarantee a level of patient care, which they fear is being compromised by indiscriminate regulations.

 

(Snip)

[SrWoodchuck]

 

Via TheoSpark

[Valin]

Premium rates soar under Obamacare

Paul Mirengoff

4/15/14

 

Fox News reports on a recent survey of 148 insurance brokers which shows that Obamacare is sending premiums upwards at the fastest clip in decades. The survey, conducted by Morgan Stanley, shows an increase in premium costs nationally of about 12 percent. California experienced a 53 percent increase; in Florida the increase was 37 percent; Pennsylvanias was 28 percent.

 

According to Fox, analysts attribute the higher costs primarily to Obamacare:

 

 

There are certain regulations and certain requirements that had to be in there. And because of that its driven up the costs of these benefits, says John DiVito of the Flexible Benefit Service Corporation, which represents hundreds of agents.

The hikes reported in the survey are for the first policies issued under ObamaCare in 2014. Next year is likely to be worse:

 

(snip)

[Valin]

Census Survey Revisions Mask Health Law Effects

ROBERT PEAR

APRIL 15, 2014

 

WASHINGTON The Census Bureau, the authoritative source of health insurance data for more than three decades, is changing its annual survey so thoroughly that it will be difficult to measure the effects of President Obamas health care law in the next report, due this fall, census officials said.

 

The changes are intended to improve the accuracy of the survey, being conducted this month in interviews with tens of thousands of households around the country. But the new questions are so different that the findings will not be comparable, the officials said.

 

An internal Census Bureau document said that the new questionnaire included a total revision to health insurance questions and, in a test last year, produced lower estimates of the uninsured. Thus, officials said, it will be difficult to say how much of any change is attributable to the Affordable Care Act and how much to the use of a new survey instrument.

 

(Snip)

[Draggingtree]

Liberals in rose-colored glasses consider ObamaCare a ‘victory’

 

By John Podhoretz

April 15, 2014 | 7:45pm

 

Ever since ObamaCare supposedly hit the arbitrary target of 7 million sign-ups by March 31, its supporters have been taking the most premature victory lap since conservative proponents of the Iraq War (like me) crowed about the results of the three elections inside Iraq in 2005 and how they demonstrated the country was on the verge of a historic peace.

 

“It’s all over but the shouting: ObamaCare is working,” said Eugene Robinson in Tuesday’s Washington Post. “All the naysaying in the world can’t drown out mounting evidence that the Affordable Care Act, President Obama’s signature domestic achievement, is a real success.”http://nypost.com/2014/04/15/liberals-in-rose-colored-glasses-consider-obamacare-a-victory/

 

[cudjo]

is 7 million really that great when you consider the number of people in this country?

[Valin]

is 7 million really that great when you consider the number of people in this country?

 

 

Are You Kidding! It's a wonderful number....Just ask the WH.

[Valin]

GOP steps up demand for documents on White House role in botched health care rollout

Ed Henry

April 17, 2014

 

EXCLUSIVE: Republican Rep. Darrell Issa is ratcheting up pressure on President Obama's top aides to turn over more documents revealing the extent of the White House's direct involvement in the botched rollout of the health insurance exchanges, according to a letter to White House Counsel Kathryn Ruemmler obtained exclusively by Fox News.

 

In the letter transmitted to Ruemmler at the White House Thursday morning, Issa asserts "senior White House officials -- as well as the President -- appear to have been far more personally involved in decision-making related to HealthCare.gov than the White House previously represented. Documents obtained by the Committee show the significant involvement of senior White House officials in the rollout of HealthCare.gov."

 

Issa, chairman of the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform, notes he based that assertion on the contents of more than 8,000 pages of documents that the Department of Health and Human Services has already turned over related to the Oct. 1 rollout in response to a subpoena by the panel months ago.

 

But Issa charges he has been blocked from getting further documents about the president's personal involvement in the rollout because HHS officials have told him that those other documents have been determined to raise "executive branch institutional interests" and have been held back for further White House review.

 

(Snip)

[clearvision]

Listening to radio this morning and people are now discovering yet a new promise in the healthcare law not being what it seemed. "Free" preventative care is ONLY for discussion and portion of physical/visit/test for conditions you Don't have. If you already have been diagnosed with a condition (high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, etc.) then it is considered monitoring and management care and you will be billed for the visit. Everyone was led to believe your annual physical was covered.... Not so.

[Valin]

Listening to radio this morning and people are now discovering yet a new promise in the healthcare law not being what it seemed. "Free" preventative care is ONLY for discussion and portion of physical/visit/test for conditions you Don't have. If you already have been diagnosed with a condition (high blood pressure, diabetes, cholesterol, etc.) then it is considered monitoring and management care and you will be billed for the visit. Everyone was led to believe your annual physical was covered.... Not so.

RACISM

[Valin]

The Growing Financial Disaster of Obamacare
John Hinderaker
4/19/14

President Obama asserts that 8 million people have signed up for Obamacare, as though that were something to be proud of. In fact, Obamacare has always been a fiasco from a fiscal perspective–a black hole of subsidies and expanded Medicaid, with largely fictitious mechanisms in place to pay for it. As the number of subsidized participants grows, the disaster gets worse. Charles Blahous explains:

Our national discussion…is missing the truly significant story here; what is unfolding before our eyes is a colossal fiscal disaster, poised to haunt legislators and taxpayers for decades to come.

It is quite possible that the ACA is shaping up as the greatest act of fiscal irresponsibility ever committed by federal legislators. … [T]he ACA is a commitment to permanently subsidize comprehensive health insurance for millions who could not otherwise afford it, which the federal government has no viable plan to finance. Moreover, experience shows that it is very difficult to scale back such spending once large numbers of Americans have been made dependent on it.

Assuming that all of its provisions were enforced, Obamacare stood to add $340 billion to the U.S. deficit over its first 10 years. But as we all know, the administration has “amended” the law on the fly, and Congress, too, has backed away from some of its provisions. As a result, the intended financing scheme to support a vast expansion of subsidized health care has largely been dismantled:

 

(Snip)

[Draggingtree]

18 Apr

Mary, Mary, Quite Contrary

By: DrJohn

Mary Landrieu really is a prime example of why people loathe politicians. Part of the problem is that she is full of manure.

Landrieu is one of the democrats on the 2014 endangered species list and most deservedly so. Back in December of 2009 Landrieu had this to say:

“Those individuals who like the coverage they already have will be able to keep their current plan”

and added this punctuation:

http://floppingaces.net/2014/04/18/mary-mary-quite-contrary/

[Valin]

[Valin]

MSNBC host offers bold blueprint for Dems: You cant keep your crappy plan! Just deal with that!

 

 

 

 

Repeat As Necessary

[Valin]

Ted Cruz's Worst Nightmare Is Coming True
Obamacare is working.
RICHARD KIRSCH
April 22, 2014

Last August, as conservatives barnstormed the country seeking to build support for a cockamamie plan to shut down the U.S. federal government unless Congress voted to repeal the Affordable Care Act, Ted Cruz, the Texas Republican senator, said something surprisingly prescient about the president’s signature health-care law.

 

“President Obama wants to get as many Americans addicted to the subsidies because he knows that in modern times, no major entitlement has ever been implemented and then unwound,” he said. The worry, according to Cruz, was that once the ACA went into effect, we’d all be “addicted to the sugar.” Then, it would be too late to roll it back.

 

Cruz’s nightmare, and the left’s long-held dream, has come true. Finally, after years of failed reform efforts, the U.S. government is actually trying to provide affordable health coverage for all. And it’s working, despite Republicans’ relentless attempts to deep-six the law. As a result, the politics of Obamacare will never be the same.

 

The right’s biggest fear was never really, as Cruz’s comments revealed, that Obamacare wouldn’t succeed. It was that it would.

 

Americans, it turns out, have a compelling desire for a basic necessity of life: affordable health coverage. That’s why, despite the HealthCare.gov debacle, and campaigns in red states to discourage enrollment and defund outreach efforts, eight million Americans signed up......(Snip)

_______________________________________________________________________________

 

OH NO! What ever shall we do....A Progressive says its working....except maybe....just maybe its not.

[Valin]

Administration Has Missed More Than Half of Obamacare Deadlines
44 deadlines under the law missed; agencies tardy on reports, issuing regulations
Elizabeth Harrington
April 23, 2014

 

The administration has failed to meet 44 statutory deadlines required under Obamacare, according to a new report by the Congressional Research Service (CRS).

 

The report, released on Monday, documents every provision with a specific deadline within the health care law and the administration’s actions taken as of April 15, 2014. The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has missed more than half of the 83 deadlines mandated since March 2011.

 

The missed deadlines range from several days to years. The administration was only four days late in issuing a final regulation for HIPAA electronic transactions, while it was two years and seven months past the deadline for a report on domestic violence victims on Indian reservations.

 

The secretary was one year and one month late in developing a plan to increase HHS’s Indian Health Service (IHS) by 500 positions. Due by June 21, 2010, HHS did not begin implementing a plan for a “skilled and culturally competent behavioral health workforce” for the agency until August 2011.

 

(Snip)

 

 

____________________________________________________________________________________________________

 

OK....who's surprised? Raise your hand.

[Valin]

More here at Washington Free Beacon

[Valin]

The ObamaCare Jobless
The small-business hiring that won't happen this year.
James Freeman
April 24, 2014

A new survey demonstrates the Affordable Care Act's negative impact on employment. According to the Journal, "nearly half of small-business owners with at least five employees, or 45% of those polled, said they had had to curb their hiring plans because of the health law, and almost a third—29%—said they had been forced to make staff cuts, according to a U.S. Bancorp survey of 3,173 owners with less than $10 million in annual revenue that will be released Thursday."

Given how much the President talks about income inequality, it is perhaps ironic that his signature achievement is preventing people from earning incomes. Even though many businesses won't have to provide health insurance until next year or later, the Journal reports that "the law is already having a lasting impact on how lots of owners choose to run their companies."

 

Businesses with fewer than 50 employees will remain exempt from many of ObamaCare's most onerous provisions—and from many other costly federal mandates. This has created the phenomenon of "49ers"—companies that grow to 49 employees and then cap their workforces to avoid expensive federal requirements. Needless to say, this is not supportive of job creation.

 

(Snip)

 

________________________________________________________

 

Why do small businessmen want people to die?

[clearvision]

Oregon gets ready to jettison healthcare exchange after website woes

 

Oh yeah, move them to that perfectly functioning national website.

[Valin]

Oregon gets ready to jettison healthcare exchange after website woes

 

Oh yeah, move them to that perfectly functioning national website.

 

 

Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?

[Valin]

Obamacare Cancellations, Round Two
4/25/14

The second wave of Obamacare insurance cancellations is about to break. Vox reports on the impending demise of so-called fixed-benefit insurance, which pays out a fixed sum to patients regardless of how much the procedures cost or where they get them. The Obama Administration now wants to get rid of them—even if you like them. More:

It’s worth being clear that even now a fixed-benefit plan doesn’t satisfy the individual mandate. The new rule would mainly affect people who had chosen to pay the individual mandate, or who were exempt from the mandate, and who bought a fixed-benefit plan as a stopgap. The Obama administration is saying that they can’t do that unless they also buy a more comprehensive plan.
[...]
The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services proposed in late March barring the purchase of fixed-benefit health plans as stand-alone coverage. Instead, the Obama administration plans to require fixed-benefit plan enrollees to show proof that they have a full medical plan—and are only using the indemnity product as a supplement.

We don’t yet know exactly how many people will be affected by these cancellations. It may be too few to cause another PR disaster on the scale of the one that followed the previous round of cancellations.

 

(Snip)

[clearvision]

It's done...

 

Cover Oregon officially calls it quits, state to use federal ObamaCare site