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Showing posts with label brokenpromiseshealthcare. Show all posts
Showing posts with label brokenpromiseshealthcare. Show all posts
Surprise increase in the cost of Obamacare for next fiscal year

Surprise increase in the cost of Obamacare for next fiscal year

Some technicalities apparently have some real consequences. So much for Obama's promises about how much Obamacare would cost.From the AP:

Cost estimates for a key part of President Obama's health care overhaul law have ballooned by $111 billion from last year's budget, and a senior Republican lawmaker on Friday demanded an explanation.
House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Dave Camp, R-Mich., wants to know by Monday why the estimated ten-year cost of helping millions of middle-class Americans buy health insurance has jumped by about 30 percent.
Administration officials say the explanation lies in budget technicalities and that there are no significant changes in the program.
The revised numbers, buried deep in the president's budget, stumped lawmakers and some administration officials for most of the week. At a congressional hearing Tuesday, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, who is in charge of carrying out the health care law, indicated she was unaware of the changes.
At issue are subsidies that will be provided under the health care law to help middle class people buy private coverage in new state insurance markets that will open for business in 2014.
Last year's budget estimated the cost of the aid to be $367 billion from 2014-2011. This year's budget puts it at $478 billion over the same time period. . . .
30 percent of employers may soon drop health insurance for their employees

30 percent of employers may soon drop health insurance for their employees

Boy, this is a big surprise. NOT. The fee for going through the government insurance is very small compared to what the insurance actually costs, so why not let the taxpayers pick up the tab. So much for the government estimates on how many people would stay on private insurance. Remember these additional costs will blow the budget apart. From Fox News:

Three years before the new health care law takes full effect, a survey of employers has found 30 percent of them are thinking about dropping coverage, in part because most employees will have an alternative -- government-subsidized insurance exchanges.
McKinsey & Company commissioned a survey of 1,329 private sector employers in February and found that three out of 10 respondents who said their companies offered employer-sponsored health insurance said they would "definitely" or "probably" drop coverage in the years following 2014, the year the Affordable Care Act takes full effect.
"The employer knows there's no reason to provide private, expensive coverage if there's free options available from the government," said John Goodman, of the conservative National Center for Policy Analysis in Dallas.
Workers in the exchanges making all the way up to more than $90,000 in income would get generous federal subsidies. For lower-wage workers, the government would pay almost the entire cost of insurance.
"For a $12,000-dollar health insurance plan, if you make about $30,000 a year, the government pays about $11,000 of the premium," Goodman said. . . .
Obamacare spending will not ask beneficiaries for residency status

Obamacare spending will not ask beneficiaries for residency status

Whatever one thinks of the merits of providing this health care and however large one thinks that the benefits are relative to the costs, he is pretty clear that President Obama has broken another promise and that it was an issue that he thought could have defeated his health care bill. From the Hill newspaper:



Rep. Joe Wilson (R-S.C.) on Wednesday said his infamous cry of “You lie!” at President Obama has been vindicated.



Wilson said an Obama administration decision on healthcare centers proves the president wasn’t telling the truth during a 2009 address to a joint session of Congress. . . .



Wilson said Wednesday that a recent award of $28.8 million to 67 community healthcare centers around the country would inevitably end up benefiting illegal immigrants, contrary to Obama’s pledge.



Of that $28.8 million, $8.5 million is earmarked to target migrant and seasonal farm workers — a group that Wilson claims is comprised of illegal immigrants.



"It is clearly providing money that should be going to American citizens to illegal immigrants," Wilson said on Fox News's "America Live." "It's even worse than I thought, they won't even ask for status." . . .
Obama breaks Obamacare promise to drug companies

Obama breaks Obamacare promise to drug companies

Well, Obama's promise to pass Obamacare lasted about a year.

The White House’s new deficit plan has the drug industry crying foul, and that means Big Pharma may now join Big Insurers to push back on health reform.
Drug industry sources tell FOX Business the Administration is backtracking on what is called the “PhRMA deal” in health reform, a deal that was struck behind closed doors in late 2009 and early 2010 in order to get the industry to support and endorse health-care reform.
In the “PhRMA” deal, drug companies would fork over $80 billion in fees as well as give drug discounts to seniors in Medicare over 10 years, among other things (The CBO has reported that those fees may be passed along to customers, anyway, in the form of higher drug prices. (See EMac's Bottom Line, "CBO Says Health Reform Causes Drug Costs to Rise")
In exchange, the White House agreed, among other items, to not force the drug industry to accept rebates on drugs sold through Medicare Part D, a program launched under President George W. Bush to subsidize prescription drugs for seniors.
But President Barack Obama's new deficit push calls for those Medicare rebates, via the Simpson-Bowles plan. . . .
Not only did Obama break his promise to televise health care negotiations, but he is fighting Congress over releasing records

Not only did Obama break his promise to televise health care negotiations, but he is fighting Congress over releasing records

Fox News has this:

President Obama once promised that negotiations over his health care overhaul would be carried out openly, in front of TV cameras and microphones. Tell that to the White House now.
Republican congressional investigators got the brush-off this past week after pressing for details of meetings between White House officials and interest groups, including drug companies and hospitals that provided critical backing for Obama's health insurance expansion.
Complying with the records request from the House Energy and Commerce Committee "would constitute a vast and expensive undertaking" and could "implicate longstanding executive branch confidentiality interests," White House lawyer Robert Bauer wrote the committee. Translation: Nice try.
It's one more roadblock for Republicans who tapped into widespread anxiety about the scope and costs of the new health care law to regain control of the House in last fall's elections. . . .
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