Insurance exchanges have to be up and running in all of the states by October 2013 in order to be able to cover people by January 1, 2014.If the states don't do it, the feds have to be ready with a fallback exchange. States have to tell HHS if they intend to be ready by January 1, 2013.The White House just released a report saying that good progress is being made in 28 states. That begs the
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I Hope Trustmark Tells HHS to Go Pound Sand
Today, the Department of Health and Human Services announced that, "Trustmark Life Insurance Company has proposed unreasonable health insurance premium increases in five states—Alabama, Arizona, Pennsylvania, Virginia, and Wyoming. The excessive rate hikes would affect nearly 10,000 residents across these five states."The HHS statement continued, "In these five states, Trustmark has raised
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2012: A Year of Huge Uncertainty in Health Care Policy
2013 may be the most significant year in health care policy ever.But we have to get through 2012 first.Once the 2012 election results are in there will be the very real opportunity to address a long list of health care issues.If Republicans win, the top of the list will include “repealing and replacing” the Affordable Care Act. If Obama is reelected, but Republicans capture both houses of
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A Litmus Test for Elected Officials
by Brian Klepper and David C. KibbeSix months ago, who could have imagined that a large percentage of rank-and-file Americans would support the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) against special interests’ rigging of the American dream? So why not go to the next step? Why not pointedly ask political candidates, “Will you take money from lobbyists?” and “If elected, what will you do to stop special interest
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Paul Ryan and Ron Wyden Blow the Medicare Reform Debate Wide Open!
House Budget Chair Paul Ryan (R-WI) and Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) have embraced a Medicare reform plan that in concept borrows heavily from one championed by former New Mexico Senator Pete Domenici and former Clinton budget chief Alice Rivlin.Specifically, Wyden and Ryan are proposing to alter the earlier Ryan Medicare plan by:Continuing to offer the traditional Medicare plan—Ryan would have
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The Super Committee Failure—What’s Next?
The stock market today was shocked, simply shocked, that the Super Committee didn’t come up with a debt deal.I don’t know why. Republicans can’t vote for more taxes unless they're willing to get “primaried” from the right and risk losing their seat. Ditto for Democrats who would face the same punishment from their base if they voted to change the sacred defined benefit entitlements without at
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Romney Jumps on the Waiver Bandwagon--And Creates Even More Uncertainty Over the New Health Care Law
Republican presidential frontrunner Mitt Romney has pledged to end “Obamacare.” Upon taking office, he would immediately begin the process by granting the states waivers from having to implement it:“I’ll grant a waiver on Day One to get repeal started. On Day One, granting a waiver for all 50 states doesn’t stop it in its tracks entirely. That’s why I also say we have to repeal Obamacare, and I
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The Ryan Health Care Proposals—Not Your Congressman’s Health Plan
Update: The New Wyden-Ryan Plan - Paul Ryan and Ron Wyden Blow the Medicare Reform Debate Wide Open! In a speech at the Hoover Institution today, Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) argued again that his proposal to reform Medicare, and now his tax credit proposal for replacing the Democratic health care law for those under-age 65, would guarantee to citizens “options like the ones members of
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The Health Leadership Council Medicare Proposal: Too Much Responsibility on Beneficiaries and Not Enough on Providers
The Health Leadership Council (HLC), a coalition of CEOs from many of the leading health care companies, has created a list of Medicare reform recommendations for the Super Committee tasked with finding at least $1.2 trillion in budget savings.As we begin the national debate over what to do about Medicare's unsustainable costs, I will suggest that the HLC proposal gives us one, of what will have
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The Debt Super Committee—Will We Get a Deal?
It’s back to work in Washington, DC and all the attention is now on the Super Committee and their goal of cutting spending by at least $1.2 trillion over ten years.If the committee fails to come up with a plan that passes the Congress, there would be $1.2 trillion in automatic cuts. The health care special interests have reason to hope they will fail—the fallback cuts would only impact Medicare
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