h/t to Charles Ornstein for the link to this amusing, if befuddling column in the Wall St. Journal today:
Two reports released in the past week demonstrate a potential bifurcation in state insurance exchanges: The insurance marketplaces appear to be attracting a disproportionate share of low-income individuals who qualify for generous federal subsidies, while middle- and higher-income filers have generally eschewed the exchanges.
And there we have it: The "Healthy Michigan" program, the Wolverine State's implementation of ACA Medicaid expansion, has broken the 600,000 enrollee mark:
Healthy Michigan Plan Enrollment Statistics
Beneficiaries with Healthy Michigan Plan Coverage: 603,681
(Includes beneficiaries enrolled in health plans and beneficiaries not required to enroll in a health plan.)
*Statistics as of March 30, 2015
*Updated every Monday at 3 p.m.
Montana senators endorsed a Republican's compromise Medicaid expansion bill Friday after voting to blast it out of committee and onto the floor earlier in the week.
Senators endorsed the amended measure 28-22 on Friday after more than 90 minutes of debate.
If it makes it past the state House, the Governor will definitely sign it, which is great news for up to 70,000 Montanans.
No, not that anti-Obamacare SCOTUS case; the King v. Burwell decision won't be announced until June.
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday declined to hear a new challenge to President Barack Obama's healthcare law that took aim at a bureaucratic board labeled by some Republicans as a "death panel" because it was designed to cut Medicare costs.
The high court left intact a ruling by the San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals that threw out the lawsuit.
As you'll recall, after over a month of radio silence since the end of Open Enrollment, a couple of weeks ago the HHS Dept. finally stated, when asked directly about it by CNBC's Dan Mangan(although they didn't bother responding to me about it over the previous few weeks), that yes, they would be releasing post-OE2 enrollment data last week.
Well, last week came and went...and nothing. When called out for this publicly by Mangan on Friday afternoon, HHS responded by claiming that they'll do so this week.
While there's a few somewhat plausible ideas tossed in here and there, and a few even voluntarily participated in the ACA's Medicaid expansion program (ironically the most "socialized medicine-ish" provision of the law), on the whole their "policies" are pretty much big nothingburgers.
The most telling (and amusing/depressing, depending on your POV) entries are the ones for Rand Paul, Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, Rick Perry, Lindsey Graham and particularly Carly Fiorina:
UPDATE 3/30/15: I wasn't planning on "tweet-spamming" this one, seriously. However, given that this survey is starting to get traction among mainstream news outlets, I thought it was important to take a serious look at the methodology and what the survey is really saying.
So, some outfit called the Foundation for Government Accountability released a Big Survey which claims that Americans hate Obamacare, that they "don’t expect or want states to bail out Congress or the Obama administration" and that they're "prepared to vote against their state lawmakers the next time they’re up for re-election if they set up a state exchange."
First of all, who the heck is the Foundation for Government Accountability? Well, according to Wikipedia:
Hmmm...the headline looks bad, but when you read further it's clearly a matter of perspective more than anything else:
Maryland's health insurance exchange improperly billed the federal government $28.4 million, a Department of Health and Human Services audit reported Friday.
An inspector general's probe found a lack of oversight and internal controls, not criminal wrongdoing, was the cause of the exchange's problems since the marketplace opened in 2013.
Look, I'm not trying to be an obnoxious pain in the ass, but I've been asking for weeks now whether or not the HHS Dept. will or won't be releasing off-season enrollment data for HealthCare.gov, at least during the #ACATaxTime special enrollment period, with nary a peep in response.
Last year, they didn't provide any off-season enrollment reports, but at least they announced as much. I was upset about it, but at least I knew.
Since things are a bit slow at the moment (and inspired by this post (on Facebook, natch) from dKos Sr. Campaign Director Chris Bowers), I figured this would be a good time to ask for some love for the ACA Signups Facebook Page.
As for Twitter, while my personal account is the best known, If you'd prefer just the ACA posts without my personal garbage posts, don't forget to follow the officialACA Signups Twitter Feed.
