.

[Wilikon]

Who said that it cause the world to end? US health care works very good

No one said Obamacare it cause the world to end.

No one said US health care works very good

You would know if you were living in the USA.

 

[MoonShadow]

Who said that it cause the world to end? US health care works very good

Yes, the US health care system works very well.  Obamacare isn't health care, it's health insurance.  Health insurance in the US does not work very well.

[Wilikon]

Who said that it cause the world to end? US health care works very good

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Now a few word from the propaganda machine:
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 The federal website for U.S. consumers to enroll in private health insurance under Obamacare ran into problems twice on Monday because of a surge of people trying to access the site hours before a midnight deadline to sign up for coverage.

Technical issues that barred access to HealthCare.gov for several hours throughout the day underscored the frantic last-minute pace of an enrollment process that could determine the ultimate success or failure of the healthcare law that represents President Barack Obama's domestic policy achievement.

More than 6 million people had signed up for private health coverage through the new Obamacare insurance markets by last week, surpassing a target set after a disastrous October rollout called the enrollment process into question. With daily volumes continuing to surge, analysts believe the final tally could approach or even exceed an original goal of 7 million.

"We admittedly had just a terrible start because the website wasn't working, and despite losing effectively two months, we are going to be reasonably close to that original projection," Obama said in a CBS Evening News interview that was taped last week and broadcast on Monday.

A successful enrollment would give an important political boost to the administration and its Democratic allies, who are locked in an election year battle with Republicans over the future of Obamacare.

"No one expected us to come back from the brink," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters before the broadcast. "But we have. And I think that merits noting in your reports."

Analysts say the total enrollment is less important than the number of healthy policyholders in the marketplaces, which have probably attracted large numbers of older people and consumers with pre-existing medical conditions, who are costlier to insure. Obama told CBS that young people, who are generally healthy, were signing up in larger numbers late in the enrollment period, as expected.

http://news.yahoo.com/obamacare-website-unavailable-ahead-deadline-enroll-coverage-122359229--sector.html

[Wilikon]

Who said that it cause the world to end? US health care works very good

California Obamacare exchange patches deaf callers through to phone sex hotline...


On the deadline to sign up for health coverage through Covered California, some hearing-impaired residents were sent to a chat line offering ‘hot ladies’ instead of an insurance navigator.
With the deadline looming, an Auburn man scrambled to sign up for Covered California.
A page on the site where users can calculate the cost of coverage lists an incorrect phone number as 1-888-899-4500. The number, which was correct on the Contact Us page, is similar, but just one digit off: 1-888-889-4500.
So what does the incorrect number go to? This is what greets callers instead of health insurance advice:
“Welcome to America’s hottest talk line. Ladies, to talk to interesting and exciting guys free, press one now. Guys, hot ladies are waiting to talk to you. Press two to connect free now,” the recording says.
Jeff Brown admits he dialed that number, thinking he was signing up for health insurance.
He logged onto the Covered California site just hours before the March 31 deadline. He filled out all the boxes, and then he says a box popped up saying he needed to call a 1-800 number.
He says when he called, all he got was a busy signal. He decided to try the number next to that, a TTY number for the hearing-impaired.
“I’ll try this number again just in case I dialed it wrong—same thing,” he said.
A Covered California spokesperson declined an on-camera interview, first saying by email, “We’ve never had the incorrect number on our site.”
A screenshot captured by CBS13 shows the incorrect number as it appeared on the site.
Later, we would get another email saying in part, “…After investigating it further, we are reviewing the shop and compare tool as an incorrect number. We’re currently working to correct the problem.”
The mistake has since been fixed on the Covered California website.
“I guess it’s an honest mistake,” Brown said, “but websites aren’t that hard to keep up right.”
The Covered California spokesperson would later say the issue was isolated and only appeared under certain circumstances, but wouldn’t elaborate.
Some users hurrying to sign up on the last day for Covered California ran into issues with the state’s site, saying they had to sign up in person.


http://sacramento.cbslocal.com/2014/03/31/covered-california-sends-deaf-callers-to-hotline-offering-hot-ladies/

[Wilikon]

Michigan mom and leukemia patient Julie Boonstra already had her run-in with the tolerant Left. Boonstra, who filmed an ad about her struggles with Obamacare for Americans for Prosperity, was targeted by Michigan Rep. Gary Peters, who threatened to sue her into silence.

That wasn’t the end of the attacks, however. Slade O’Brien, southern regional director for AFP, shared this letter sent anonymously to Boostra.


http://twitchy.com/2014/03/31/hope-cancer-kills-you-soon-tolerant-left-reaches-out-to-julie-boonstra/

[Wilikon]

Americans have recently been hit with some of the largest premium increases in years, according to a Morgan Stanley survey of insurance brokers.

The investment bank’s April survey of 148 brokers found that this quarter, the average premium increase for customers renewing an insurance plan is 12 percent in the small group market and 11 percent in the individual market, according to Forbes’ Scott Gottlieb.

The hikes — the largest in the past three years, according to Morgan Stanley’s quarterly reports — are “largely due to changes under the [Affordable Care Act],” analysts concluded. Rates have been growing increasingly fast throughout all of 2013, after a period of drops in 2012.

While insurers were hiking premiums since 2012 by smaller amounts, the lead-up to the Obamacare’s launch has seen the average rate at which premiums are growing fourfold.

The small group market saw a jump from a growth rate of close to 3 percent during Morgan Stanley’s September 2013 survey to just above 6 percent three months later in December — the month before a surge of Obamacare regulations hit insurance companies.

Over the next three months, the rate doubled again to the current average small growth premium growth rate of 12 percent.

Individual policies saw a much starker jump after the Obamacare exchanges launched, in anticipation of the health care law going live in 2014. Morgan Stanley’s September 2013 survey, like the previous three quarters, found a fairly constant growth rate around 2 percent — but in December, the rate had shot up to above 9 percent.

Morgan Stanley’s results echo what consumers are already seeing: the Affordable Care Act’s intensive regulation of the insurance market is driving health care premiums up strikingly.

The survey found that premium increases are due to several specific Obamacare policies. The most talked about may be the new benefits all insurance plans are required to offer and excise taxes targeted at insurers themselves, Forbes reports.

But there are two other big contributors to the rise in costs. Age restrictions on premiums prevent the insurer from charging older customers who cost more to cover a higher premium — hiking the costs for young and healthy people disproportionately. Commercial underwriting restrictions also bump up insurers’ costs and are reflected in premiums.



http://dailycaller.com/2014/04/07/survey-u-s-sees-sharpest-health-insurance-premium-increases-in-years/?advD=1248,657751

[Wilikon]

http://youtu.be/QYz0LUI7o1k

[Wilikon]

Crossing border for health care not as simple as it seemed on BlueChoice network




S.C. resident Daniel Martin picked a BlueChoice HealthPlan insurance policy through the new Health Insurance Marketplace in part because his North Carolina primary-care physician was on the provider list.

Martin and his physician’s office even made calls to BlueChoice to confirm it, and his first visit to the doctor was covered.

Then, last week, Martin was diagnosed with a ruptured disc in his lower neck and scheduled for immediate surgery, only to find the S.C.-N.C. state line was a huge hurdle.

In the end, BlueChoice is going to cover his surgery, and its parent company, BlueCross BlueShield of South Carolina, is admitting its online list of providers was confusing, even to its own customer-service agents. The website will be updated, but S.C. customers like Martin who signed up because they thought they could use North Carolina doctors still will face hurdles.

The Columbia-based insurer plans to reach out to BlueChoice members who have encountered similar situations to clarify its provider network and out-of-state policy, said BlueCross BlueShield of S.C. spokeswoman Patti Embry-Tautenhan.

Martin appreciates BlueCross BlueShield has understood his argument. But he is frustrated at the delay in his surgery, which had been scheduled for Monday, was rescheduled for Tuesday when his coverage first was denied and now is scheduled for next Monday.

“This is probably an overstatement, but I could be paralyzed by next Monday,” said Martin, 63, of Lake Wylie. “The neurosurgeon had told me we needed to get this done as quickly as possible. I went in on Friday, and he cleared his schedule to do it on Monday.”

This isn’t the typical tug-of-war with an insurance company to cover a certain procedure. Private insurance companies had to create new products and set up new purchasing procedures for the Health Insurance Marketplace under the Affordable Care Act. It was inevitable there would be bumps in the road.

The Martin case made it clear that BlueChoice’s online list of provider networks was unclear, even to some of the company’s employees.

“For health insurance to work effectively, there are procedures that must be followed,” Embry-Tautenhan said. “We recognize that especially for people new to health insurance, those rules can sometimes be confusing.”

http://www.thestate.com/2014/04/16/3391018/crossing-border-for-health-care.html?sp=/99/205/&ihp=1#storylink=cpy

[Wilikon]

http://youtu.be/jywc3c1MYUw

“More than two dozen widows who were married to retired Madison county employees, lost their health insurance coverage earlier this year. And now one commissioner says it’s time to give it back to them. The change was sparked by the new federal health care law, but whether or not coverage can actually be restored really isn’t clear,” said the anchor.

Says the reporter, “Madison county commissioner Roger Jones says no one realized just how much the new federal health care law would change things, especially for the spouses of some of his former employees.”

“A lot of these people are on fixed incomes, low fixed incomes. Some of them are living on Social Security and very little else and health insurance is very important to them,” says the county commissioner.


http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/widows-dropped-health-care-due-obamacare-alabama_786961.html

[Wilikon]

Health Care Site Flagged In Heartbleed Review





People who have accounts on the enrollment website for President Barack Obama’s signature health care law are being told to change their passwords following an administration-wide review of the government’s vulnerability to the confounding Heartbleed Internet security flaw.

Senior administration officials said there is no indication that the HealthCare.gov site has been compromised and the action is being taken out of an abundance of caution. The government’s Heartbleed review is ongoing, the officials said, and users of other websites may also be told to change their passwords in the coming days, including those with accounts on the popular WhiteHouse.gov petitions page.

The Heartbleed programming flaw has caused major security concerns across the Internet and affected a widely used encryption technology that was designed to protect online accounts. Major Internet services have been working to insulate themselves against the problem and are also recommending that users change their website passwords.

Officials said the administration was prioritizing its analysis of websites with heavy traffic and the most sensitive user information. A message that will be posted on the health care website starting Saturday reads: “While there’s no indication that any personal information has ever been at risk, we have taken steps to address Heartbleed issues and reset consumers’ passwords out of an abundance of caution.”

The health care website became a prime target for critics of the Obamacare law last fall when the opening of the insurance enrollment period revealed widespread flaws in the online system. Critics have also raised concerns about potential security vulnerabilities on a site where users input large amounts of personal data.

The website troubles were largely fixed during the second month of enrollment and sign-ups ultimately surpassed initial expectations. Obama announced this week that about 8 million people had enrolled in the insurance plans.

The full extent of the damage caused by the Heartbleed is unknown. The security hole exists on a vast number of the Internet’s Web servers and went undetected for more than two years. Although it’s conceivable that the flaw was never discovered by hackers, it’s difficult to tell.

The White House has said the federal government was not aware of the Heartbleed vulnerability until it was made public in a private sector cybersecurity report earlier this month. The federal government relies on the encryption technology that is impacted – OpenSSL – to protect the privacy of users of government websites and other online services.

[Wilikon]

Despite Obamacare's woes, many high-ranking CMS employees got raises, data show


Despite controversial delays in Obamacare and costly problems with its healthcare.gov website, most officials at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services were paid more last year than the year before, newly released data show.

CMS, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, is the federal government’s ground zero in launching and managing Obamacare.

Data obtained by the Washington Examiner through a Freedom of Information Act request showed CMS employed at least 522 people at the federal government’s highest rating, GS-15, and other senior-level civil service employees in 2013, an increase of 53 over the previous year.

The total cost of the CMS payroll data released to the Examiner increased to more than $76 million, compared to $69 million in 2012.

Senior CMS employees made at least $113,000 or more, according to the data.

Of the nearly 400 people in the data who worked with CMS in 2012 and who remained with the agency last year, nearly half got raises, with the average raise being worth $4,706, the data shows. Of those who got raises, their average pay rose from $147,279 to $149,289, a raise of about 1.4 percent.

The justification for the raises was not clear from the data. Federal workers have not gotten cost-of-living adjustment raises since 2010.

http://washingtonexaminer.com/despite-obamacares-woes-many-high-ranking-cms-employees-got-raises-data-show/article/2547537#

[bryant.coleman]

Americans have recently been hit with some of the largest premium increases in years, according to a Morgan Stanley survey of insurance brokers

The healthcare sector in the US / EU has turned extremely exploitative. People are paying medical insurance premiums of $2,000 to $3,000 per year, per capita on average. In Singapore, the average medical premium is only around one-fifth of this amount, and the quality is extremely high. Why can't the Americans go to Singapore or Malaysia to get medical treatment?

[MoonShadow]

Americans have recently been hit with some of the largest premium increases in years, according to a Morgan Stanley survey of insurance brokers

The healthcare sector in the US / EU has turned extremely exploitative. People are paying medical insurance premiums of $2,000 to $3,000 per year, per capita on average. In Singapore, the average medical premium is only around one-fifth of this amount, and the quality is extremely high. Why can't the Americans go to Singapore or Malaysia to get medical treatment?

We can, we just have to pay out of pocket for it, since we're not citizens of Singapore or Malaysia.

[bryant.coleman]

We can, we just have to pay out of pocket for it, since we're not citizens of Singapore or Malaysia.

But when compared to the medical premiums in the US, the hospital expenses are much more affordable in Singapore even for non-citizens. A lot of Americans do travel to Singapore in search of affordable treatment.

[MoonShadow]

We can, we just have to pay out of pocket for it, since we're not citizens of Singapore or Malaysia.

But when compared to the medical premiums in the US, the hospital expenses are much more affordable in Singapore even for non-citizens. A lot of Americans do travel to Singapore in search of affordable treatment.

Yes, it's called medical tourism, and it's not just Singapore.  There are many reasons that the health care costs in the United States are high; some are directly related to government regulations (including Obamacare) and some are not.  One really big contributing factor is that health care professionals in general and specialist doctors in particular make significantly more money for the same skillset in the US than most other places in the world.  Granted, there are exceptions depending upon the specialty, but there is a very good reason that many of the best doctors from former British colonies have moved to the US in the past 30 years.  Odds are high they already speak the language well enough, and they can't make the same kind of income, nor expect the same quality of life in general, by staying in India or Trinidad.  For the Americans here, how often do you end up with a doctor (even a general prac) that has an accent?  Ironicly, Obamacare stands a decent chance of actually affecting this trend; by undercutting the medical payments regime in place for insurance companies and employers, income growth in the health care industry is likely to slow for some time.

[Wilikon]

Bay State officials are taking steps this week to junk central parts of their dysfunctional health insurance exchange — the model for President Barack Obama’s health care law — and merge with the federal enrollment site HealthCare.gov.

The decision is part of an expensive plan that would occur alongside a parallel, last-ditch attempt to still build a working state system.

Three sources with knowledge of the plan told POLITICO on Monday that the state is set to announce the hiring of hCentive, a Virginia-based contractor that helped construct the Kentucky and Colorado exchanges. The company would rush to build a viable state exchange in time for the next enrollment season, which begins Nov. 15.

But officials aren’t sure it’s possible to make that happen in less than six months. Given the narrow timeframe, they intend to simultaneously start shifting the Massachusetts exchange, known as the Connector, to HealthCare.gov.
Massachusetts is the second state to begin that transition. Late last month, Oregon opted to scrap its $200 million system and join the federal exchange.

It’s unclear what either option will cost Massachusetts or whether federal officials will cover that expense. Massachusetts has already spent $57 million on a system that never was able to enroll people with subsidies start to finish, and its failure has forced the state to enroll more than 160,000 residents in temporary Medicaid coverage — at an estimated $10 million-a-month cost.


Read more: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/05/massachusetts-romneycare-health-care-exchange-106362.html#ixzz30sohkAbd

[Wilikon]

North Carolina Couple’s Premiums Double Due To Lack Of Young Enrollees In Obamacare

A North Carolina couple’s health insurance costs have doubled due to the lack of young enrollees in Obamacare.

A certain percentage of young enrollees is needed to offset the higher costs of treatments that older enrollees need. The Obama Administration failed to reach their goal of enrolling 50 percent of people 34 years and younger. Only 32 percent of Obamacare enrollees are young Americans, leaving other Americans’ insurance rates to see a huge hike.

“We pay $998.70 for two people,” Amanda LaRoque told WTVD. Her and her husband own their own business and buy their own health insurance. She is angry at the sudden premium increase by Blue Cross Blue Shield of North Carolina.

“From the whole beginning when they introduced the Affordable Care Act, they said if they didn’t get enough young people, there was a good possibility it was going to go up,” LaRoque said.

Premiums could increase once again in 2015. LaRoque and her husband say they don’t think they can endure another price hike.

http://freebeacon.com/issues/north-carolina-couple-obamacare-has-doubled-our-premiums/

http://youtu.be/2fGoUFyckRU

[Wilikon]

Health care’s hidden tax on Main Street


[...]
To add insult to injury, a hidden tax within the law is coming to light that threatens the very livelihood of thousands of U.S. businesses and millions of American workers. Known as the health insurance tax or HIT, this is a new discriminatory tax on small businesses and their employees that will raise the premiums by as much as $500 per policy per year.

Main Street enterprises are now being faced with the choice of eating the costs, passing it on to their employees, ending coverage altogether or other unexpected decisions impacting their operations and workers.

Adding to the confusion is the fact that the cost of the tax is only going to grow over time – collecting an estimated $145 billion from small businesses in the first ten years alone and making it that much harder for business owners to prepare for the future.

Ironically, during one of the ACA’s many back door deals, large corporations and unions received a carve-out from the HIT, leaving the full burden of the tax to fall on the fully-insured marketplace, where nearly 90 percent of small businesses, their employees and the self-employed purchase their insurance.

http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2014/05/09/health-cares-hidden-tax-on-main-street/

http://www.stopthehit.com/hit

[Wilikon]

SHOCK VIDEO➙ Obamacare Contractor Pays Workers to DO NOTHING – Sit at Computer & Press Refresh





http://www.kmov.com/news/investigates/News-4-investigates-Workers-paid-taxpayer-dollars-to-do-nothing-259002161.html

[hashman]

SHOCK VIDEO➙ Obamacare Contractor Pays Workers to DO NOTHING – Sit at Computer & Press Refresh

Imagine my shock.  Federal government employees paid to do nothing?  Stop the press!