Obama re-election forces states to scramble on health care law

[WestVirginiaRebel]

Fox News:

President Obama’s re-election has effectively ended the waiting game about whether his law that overhauls the U.S. health care system would really take effect, sending states into a scramble to -- among other things -- decide by Friday whether to establish their own programs for residents and businesses to buy the insurance.

President Obama’s re-election has effectively ended the waiting game about whether his law that overhauls the U.S. health care system would really take effect, sending states into a scramble that includes deciding by Friday whether to establish their own programs for residents and businesses to buy the insurance.

The decision is just one of several that states, businesses and individuals must make before roughly 30 million Americans start applying for insurance just 11 months from now -- through programs known as exchanges.

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius sent a letter to governors Friday that extends some deadlines – including those for exchange partnerships and grants to establish exchanges. However, the letter made clear that the cutoff for governors to decide on state-run exchanges was still Friday and that insurance purchases would begin Jan. 1, 2014 “with no delays.” Open enrollment begins two months earlier.

An agency spokeswoman told FoxNews.com Tuesday this week’s deadline needed to be enforced so federal officials can see whether states are on the right track.

Obama’s re-election signals crunch time for the many businesses and states, particularly those with Republican governors, that were waiting until after the Nov. 6 election to learn whether the president would stay or the law would potentially head toward repeal, as Republican Mitt Romney had promised if elected president.

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Now inevitable?

[Valin]

The REAL Questions Are Still About Benghazi, NOT the Petraeus Sex Scandal

Monica Crowley

11/13/12

 

The sex scandal is merely the diversion. Of course, everyone is fascinated by the salacious details and intriguing personalities involved in the latest scandal involving sex. In this case, people are riveted by the extramarital affair between America’s once-golden General, David Petraeus, and his biographer, Paula Broadwell. Since that story exploded last Friday afternoon, there has been a steady drip-drip-drip of new allegations involving another woman (Jill Kelley), an FBI agent who was reportedly thrown off the original case for “growing obsessed” with Kelley and sending her “shirtless” photos of himself to her, and the Commander of U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, General John Allen, who reportedly sent Kelley tens of thousands of “potentially inappropriate” emails. He is now under investigation as well.

 

Wonder why we’re getting a drip-drip-drip of wild new details every day? To keep us distracted. The sex scandal is a mess, but it’s not the mess that matters.

 

What matters is what happened in Benghazi, Libya on September 11 that resulted in the deaths of four Americans, including two Navy SEALS, a longtime foreign service officer, and the personal representative of the President of the United States, U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

(Snip)