Jake and Allen, married couple from Illinois, share their experience with signing up for Obamacare.
(h/t JMG)
Illinois: Married Gay Couple Featured In Obamacare Ad
President Obama Takes A Shot At Stephen Colbert’s Job
President Obama dropped by The Colbert Report last night telling Stephen Colbert, “You’ve been taking a lot of shots at my job, I’ve decided to take a shot at yours.”
He then took over the next segment – The Word – and “read” Colbert’s comments on Obamacare. The bit was a cute way to encourage young viewers to sign up at Healthcare.gov, and along the way took a few funny hits from Colbert in the form of witty phrases that appeared next to him on screen. Via Raw Story:
“There are things that people from both parties like about Obamacare,” the president said, as the screen told viewers, “Everything but the ‘Obama.’”
The program, Obama said, had enrolled more than 1 million people within the past few weeks (“So, half as popular as [a] Grumpy Cat video”). But, though, Republicans could still pass bills to repeal it once they take control of the Senate on top of the House.
“If I know that guy, he is willing to use it,” Obama-as-Colbert said. “And let’s face it, even if Republicans managed to repeal it, they’d have to replace it with their own health-care plan. And once they touch it, they own it. Then, if anything goes wrong, suddenly everybody will be complaining about Mitch McConnellcare.”
Cute.
The video may get yanked, so watch while you can.
Republicans Say Nobody Wants Obamacare – 100K Sign Up In One Day
|
| Via Occupy Democrats |
US Supreme Court To Hear New Challenge To Obamacare
The US Supreme Court has agreed to hear a new challenge to Obamacare.
The justices will hear arguments as to whether or not the folks who get their insurance through he federal exchange (healthcare.gov) actually qualify for the subsidies that make health care insurance more affordable.
Those who get their insurance through one of the 16 states that set up their own exchanges definitely qualify. The opponents of Obamacare say it’s ambiguous as to whether or not those on the federal exchange qualify for those subsidies.
And to the letter of the law, it may be true.
It’s kind of like this – when driving and you come upon a stop sign, you stop and then assume you can move on even though there’s no “go” sign next to the “stop” sign. The intent of the law was clearly to extend the subsidies to all Americans, just like it’s clear you can drive on without a “go” sign. But the opponents of Obamacare may be successful in canceling those subsidies due to a technicality based on verbiage.
If the opponents are successful, the law could become destabilized and millions who currently receive the subsidies could lose their health insurance coverage.
Check out Jon Stewart’s take on the lawsuit below:
California: Tax and minimum wage increases leads to rising economy
What happens when a state implements modest tax increases, raises minimum wage and embraces Obamacare?
Conservatives won’t be happy to learn the truth.
Paul Krugman for the New York Times:
If tax increases are causing a major flight of jobs from California, you can’t see it in the job numbers. Employment is up 3.6 percent in the past 18 months, compared with a national average of 2.8 percent; at this point, California’s share of national employment, which was hit hard by the bursting of the state’s enormous housing bubble, is back to pre-recession levels.
On health care, some people — basically healthy young men who were getting inexpensive insurance on the individual market and were too affluent to receive subsidies — did face premium increases, which we always knew would happen. Over all, however, the costs of health reform came in below expectations, while enrollment came in well above — more than triple initial predictions in the San Francisco area. A recent survey by the Commonwealth Fund suggests that California has already cut the percentage of its residents without health insurance in half. What’s more, all indications are that further progress is in the pipeline, with more insurance companies entering the marketplace for next year.
And, yes, the budget is back in surplus.
[snip]
So what do we learn from the California comeback? Mainly, that you should take anti-government propaganda with large helpings of salt. Tax increases aren’t economic suicide; sometimes they’re a useful way to pay for things we need. Government programs, like Obamacare, can work if the people running them want them to work, and if they aren’t sabotaged from the right. In other words, California’s success is a demonstration that the extremist ideology still dominating much of American politics is nonsense.
One court rules against Obamacare, another court rules in favor
On the same day that the Fourth Circuit of Appeals ruled in favor of government subsidies for people signing up for Obamacare health coverage, a second appeals court in the District of Columbia has ruled against such subsidies.
The DC Circuit Court seems to have determined it’s ruling on what appears to be the equivalent of a typo.
Via Vox:
The plaintiffs rely on an unclearly worded sentence in the law to argue that Congress never intended to provide subsidies in federally-run exchanges and so the subsidies that are currently being provided in those 36 states are illegal and need to stop immediately.
This is plainly ridiculous. The point of Obamacare is to subsidize insurance for those who can’t afford it. The point of the federal exchanges is to make sure the law works even in states that can’t or won’t set up an exchange.
For Congress to write a law that provides for federal exchanges but doesn’t permit money to flow through them would have been like Congress writing a transportation law that builds federal highways but doesn’t allow cars, bikes or buses to travel on them.
Meanwhile, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals saw things differently:
“It is…clear that widely available tax credits are essential to fulfilling the Act’s primary goals and that Congress was aware of their importance when drafting the bill,” the Fourth Circuit Court ruled.
Only 16 states and the District of Columbia set up their own exchanges. This would mean, following the DC Circuit Court ruling, that the 4.7 million who signed up for subsidized health coverage through HealthCare.gov would be affected.
The Obama administration has said it will appeal to the full District of Columbia Court of Appeals.
For now, the law remains unaffected by the rulings until all appeals are exhausted.
Obamacare beneficiary who resisted signing up now says it “probably saved my life”
|
|
Dean Angstadt, left, with Bob Leinhauser (Photo courtesy of Bob Leinhauser)
|
What happens when you ONLY watch FOX News?
Dean Angstadt needed life-saving heart valve surgery but didn’t have insurance. He refused to sign up for Obamacare because, since he only watched FOX News he’d only heard bad things about the policy.
Finally a friend pulled an intervention and forced him to sign up for a health insurance policy – a Silver Blue Cross PPO policy that costs him $26.11 a month. The policy took effect just before he had heart surgery.
From the Washington Post:
But what accounts for Angstadt’s resistance to Obamacare in the first place? He says that he “leans” Republican and essentially listened to what the GOP had to say about Obamacare, and not so much to what the Democrats had to say. As for his media diet, Anstadt says he goes online for some of his news, but when it comes to television, “Fox News, of course, and that’s basically what I watch on TV,” in addition to local news, he says. “I like some of those radicals” on Fox News, he says. “I like O’Reilly.”
Asked if Fox News had molded his view of Obamacare, Angstadt responded, “Yeah, yeah — they get people fired up. You know what, I really do have a different outlook on it. It’s really wrong that people are making it into a political thing. To me, it is a life-and-death thing.” Of Obamacare’s namesake, Angstadt says, “I didn’t care for Obama. I can’t say nothing bad about him now because it was his plan that probably saved my life.”
There you have it folks. You can watch FOX News and prepare to die, as Dean Angstadt did, or you can look around and listen to other folks. It just might save your life.
Kathleen Sebelius to resign as Secretary of Health and Human Services
Kathleen Sebelius is resigning as secretary of Health and Human Services, Bloomberg News and The New York Times reported Thursday. Two senior administration officials confirmed the news to The Huffington Post.
Sebelius is expected to announce her resignation on Friday. According to the Times, President Barack Obama accepted her resignation earlier this week.
Obama will nominate Sylvia Mathews Burwell to replace Sebelius on Friday morning, the senior administration officials said. Burwell currently serves as director of the Office of Management and Budget.
The move comes just a week after the initial sign up period for Obamacare ended. The rollout of the new healthcare initiative was marked by several weeks of a faulty website making enrollment difficult.
(via Huffington Post)
Obamacare enrolls over 7 million by deadline
Obamacare site gets record traffic as public support moves into positive territory
Record traffic continues before tonight’s deadline. 1.6M+ visits (2pm) to http://t.co/oZaZC4p00C and 840k+ calls (4pm). #GetCoveredNow
— HealthCare.gov (@HealthCareGov) March 31, 2014
The federal Obamacare website is experiencing “record volume” Monday, the deadline for enrolling in coverage, the Obama administration said.
At the same time, news comes that the Affordable Healthcare Act has more support than naysayers for the first time.
A new Washington Post-ABC News poll found 49 percent of Americans support the law and 48 percent oppose it.
Support surged among Democrats, jumping from 65 percent in January to 76 percent today.
Even among conservatives, support doubled to 36 percent of them backing it now compared to 17 percent in November. Still negative numbers, but a strong sign of improvement.
Also, on the constantly voted upon issue of repealing the law, Americans were also narrowly split: 49 percent of all respondents oppose those efforts, and 47 percent support them. Among registered voters the split was a slightly wider 50 percent oppose versus 46 percent support.