Jonathan Gruber, the economist who was a paid top adviser to the Obama administration on health care reform but didn’t disclosed the fact in media interviews at the time, continues his tradition of defending the Affordable Care Act with his special brand of half truths, distortions, extreme hyperbole and logically incoherent statements. In an interview [...]

The implementation of the new universal health care law adopted by Vermont earlier this year will result in system wide health care savings there of between 5.5 percent and 18.3 percent in the year 2020, according to a new report (PDF) by the Vermont Legislative Joint Fiscal Office. Vermont’s new health care system will be [...]

The percentage of Americans who don’t have health insurance continues to grow slowly, increasing slightly since last year according to the latest data from Gallup. An average of 16.8% of all American adults were uninsured in the first half of 2011, similar to the 16.4% in 2010. This percentage, however, has been edging up each [...]

With less than three years until most aspects of the new health care law start, only 10 states have passed legislation creating new health insurance exchanges according to a report from the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities (PDF). The Affordable Care Act requires states to set up these exchanges; and if a state fails [...]

During the health care reform debate the Democrats put an absurd amount of focus on getting a pretty CBO score for the law. President Obama said the new law must reduce the deficit and have net outlays below an entirely arbitrary $900 billion dollars. To achieve this, the Democrats made some truly bizarre policy decisions, [...]

The Affordable Care Act will eventually start requiring health insurance policies to be explained in a simpler to understand manner. While this a good thing there is still the huge problem that simpler is not the same thing as “simple.” Insurance policies in this country are just inherently complex, making it almost impossible for regular people who will be using the new exchanges to actually know what is the best policy for them.

It is never a good idea to get focused on the politics instead of results of your policy. When you do you wind up making bad policy and still get hammered politically.

When deciding how to move forward with our roughly $100 billion a year war in Afghanistan, President Obama apparently didn’t even take into consideration the issue of cost at least according to White House Press Secretary Jay Carney.
Apparently the position of our government that when it comes to saving the lives of regular Americans it will only be done if it can done on a tight budget but when it comes to killing foreign people cost is no obj

Administration of High Risk Pools
Administration of High Risk Pools

In a move that should provide some help to relatively few additional Americans the HHS is making changes to the high risk pools created by the Affordable Care Act. The Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan will have its premiums reduced and eligibility restrictions loosened. From the Huffington Post:

To boost enrollment, Sebelius said monthly premiums, which vary by age and region, will drop in 17 of the states where HHS runs the program starting in July. In Alabama, Arizona, Delaware, Florida, Kentucky, and Virginia, premiums will plummet by 40 percent. Come July, people older than 55 who enroll in the Virginia PCIP’s standard plan will have to pay $297 a month, a steep drop from the current $498 monthly premium.

Sebelius also said PCIP applicants will no longer have to brandish rejection letters from insurance companies to prove they have pre-existing conditions. Instead, a doctor’s note will suffice.

Currently PCIP only provides insurance to roughly 18,000 people. This move should help modestly boast the number getting insurance through the program but the HHS will probably still need to maintain a difficult balancing act to prevent too many more people from signing up.

The ACA only provide $5 billion in funding for the high risk pools, which according to the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services would be insufficient to keep the program going until 2014, if total national enrollment reaches even the low six figures (PDF). Given the both the current anti-spending and anti-Obamacare mood in the House of Representatives, it is safe to assume Congress is unlikely to appropriated any more money to the program if it ran out of funds early.

I’ve recently started being covered by a new insurance policy. As a result, I just received this over-hundred-page packet about it: the coverage rules, co-pays, benefits, requirements for getting proper approval for procedures, what counts toward the deductible, rules about out of network coverage, etc. I thought I could use this as a teaching moment [...]