“Temporarily” Suspend Individual Mandate For People Who Had Their Plans Cancelled…



Unbelievable, where do they get the authority to unilaterally re-write a law?

Today, the Obama administration announced that people whose insurance plans were cancelled this year will “temporarily” be exempted from the individual mandate. Here’s how they’re doing it — and what it means for the law.

1. The individual mandate includes a “hardship exemption.” People who qualify can either ignore the individual mandate altogether or purchase a cheap, bare-bones catastrophic insurance plan that’s typically only available to people under age 30.

2. According to HHS, the exemption covers people who “experienced financial or domestic circumstances, including an unexpected natural or human-caused event, such that he or she had a significant, unexpected increase in essential expenses that prevented him or her from obtaining coverage under a qualified health plan.”

3. Today, the administration agreed with a group of senators, led by Mark Warner of Virginia, who argued that having your insurance plan canceled counted as “an unexpected natural or human-caused event.” For these people, in other words, Obamacare itself is the hardship. You can read Sebelius’s full letter here. HHS’s formal guidance is here.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonk...-canceled/

(12-19-2013 11:26 PM)EagleRockCafe Wrote:  Unbelievable, where do they get the authority to unilaterally re-write a law?

From the fear, confusion, panic, and loss-of-nerve within the legislative and judicial branches, the state and local government agencies, the insurance industry, and the public at large.

They are simply and obviously making it up as they go along. Beyond a vague desire to put the country on a glide-path to single payer, there is no clarity or strategic thought to any of this; they don't know what they're doing. It's just an ad-hoc attempt to survive each media-cycle as it comes.

Even dying wont' get you out of paying for health care.

Quote:It wasn’t the moonlight, holiday-season euphoria or family pressure that made Sofia Prins and Gary Balhorn, both 62, suddenly decide to get married.

It was the fine print.

As fine print is wont to do, it had buried itself in a long form — Balhorn’s application for free health insurance through the expanded state Medicaid program. As the paperwork lay on the dining-room table in Port Townsend, Prins began reading.

She was shocked: If you’re 55 or over, Medicaid can come back after you’re dead and bill your estate for ordinary health-care expenses.

...


As Prins began searching for answers, she found that even those trained to help people sign up for insurance under the ACA weren’t aware of this provision, nor were some government officials.

It's actually very smart because if the GOP complains Obama can make them look like the bad guys who don't want to help people. The best thing the GOP can do is 1. Say Obama is trying to fix problems that were raised by the GOP a long time ago. 2. Continue to ask what other surprises are in store for us. 3. Go on and on about how Obama refuses to admit this whole thing was a very, very expensive mistake and is willing to make innocent people suffer as he tweaks his socialist experiment.

4. Come up with a proposal to solve the problems.

(12-19-2013 11:51 PM)smn1256 Wrote:  It's actually very smart because if the GOP complains Obama can make them look like the bad guys who don't want to help people.

That has been Obama's tactic all along. He will never let go of that, and the media will never let go of its role as enabler/cheerleader for him. It's a big problem, no doubt.

(12-19-2013 11:54 PM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  4. Come up with a proposal to solve the problems.

I'm not against having "a proposal to solve the problems", but let's be clear on two points: 1. It's not a question of "coming up with" something. The GOP has had health-care proposals going back to the Nixon years. Some were good, some were bad, but they (the proposals) have always been there for discussion and debate. 2. The proposals that have been put forward (allowing the purchase of insurance across state lines, just for example) have always been blocked by Democrats in either the House, the Senate, or the White House. There is no reason whatsoever to think that is going to change now.