Obamacare in Oregon: An epic example of government incompetence that cost US taxpayers more than $300 million

Oregon fail: Another ObamaCare co-op collapses https://t.co/8H5D0LvtLS

— Ed Morrissey (@EdMorrissey) July 10, 2016

Oregon has long set itself on the leading edge of ObamaCare failure. Their state exchange portal suffered catastrophic failure on launch, and after several months finally gave up entirely. That epic example of government incompetence cost US taxpayers more than $300 million.

At least their co-op lasted longer than those in most other states. In a classic Friday night news dump, the state intervened to shut down its last remaining ObamaCare co-op after the government realized that it had badly misrepresented how much federal funding it would receive.

The Oregon Department of Consumer and Business Services, which regulates insurance, is taking action to shutter the carrier after the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services announced last week the CO-OP owes about $900,000 to the federal risk adjustment program, which pays health insurers that take on a disproportionate number of sick enrollees under the Affordable Care Act. The CO-OP expected to receive about $5 million from the program.

“The issue was the company badly misestimated the amount it would receive from the program,” DCBS Director Patrick Allen said.
That’s curious in and of itself. Supposedly, the co-ops exist to specifically address that contingent of sick enrollees. That report suggests that the co-op had a healthier than average risk pool in the ObamaCare system; otherwise, it would be a net recipient in the risk-adjustment program, not a net contributor. Even with that, the government-backed co-op still couldn’t make the ObamaCare model work...

Greenspan says social welfare 'extremely dangerous.' Agreed. Let's begin by slashing corporate welfare first.

Alan Greenspan said one issue is more important to the U.S. economy now than monetary policy: http://t.co/I4m5hIPUvZ pic.twitter.com/8b2t4GFXaI

— CNBC (@CNBC) July 29, 2015

Greenspan says social welfare 'extremely dangerous.' Agreed. Let's begin by slashing corporate welfare first. http://t.co/bheLSTz9fD

— Jerry Robinson (@FTMDaily) July 30, 2015

GREENSPAN SOUNDS ALARM ON GOV'T SPENDING... http://t.co/L0fsdHxd3z

— SavageNation (@SavageNation) July 30, 2015

Attn seniors: Obama wants you to pick up 73% of ObamaCare's costs by 2025

Attn seniors: Obama wants you to pick up 73% of ObamaCare's costs by 2025. http://t.co/HUIyqdMVQB #tlot #tcot pic.twitter.com/2wWEWJE76a

— IBDeditorials (@IBDeditorials) June 23, 2015

Anyone who thinks ObamaCare will cut the deficit over the next decade should look at Page 11 of the latest Congressional Budget Office report.

McConnell to fast-track ObamaCare tax repeal: http://t.co/rKLPmvHwDx pic.twitter.com/jhYTApse0P

— The Hill (@thehill) June 23, 2015

How many Drs will not comply with ICD10 on Oct 1?It's gonna hit the fan when insurance is revealed a a sham.Your Dr can't see you anymore.

— Kris Held,MD (@kksheld) June 23, 2015

Starting this year, eligible medical professionals will see their Medicare payments cut if they aren't using records.

Doctors 'terrified' of electronic record adoption http://t.co/RPLSCfjE96 pic.twitter.com/tewxbaIsZl

— Washington Examiner (@dcexaminer) June 11, 2015

But doctors haven't been implementing the program because it is so complex, and now they worry about losing Medicare payments, said Sen. Lamar Alexander, R-Tenn., during a hearing Wednesday.

"This year, 257,000 physicians have already begun losing 1 percent of their Medicare reimbursements and 200 hospitals may be losing even more than that," said Alexander, chairman of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Meaningful use is adopted in stages, and currently doctors and hospitals are in stage two.

The stage's requirements, which include allowing patients to view and download records, are too complex to meet, Alexander said. Stage three, set to begin in 2018, is even more complex.

Medicare's Most Popular & Costliest Drugs

Pharmacy - Medicare's Most Popular & Costliest Drugs: http://t.co/QHc2nobyWT

— APHealth (@APHealth1) May 1, 2015

Capitol Hill has seen a burst of bipartisan deal-making and legislating in recent days as newly empowered Republicans try to show voters they can govern responsibly when they’re in charge.

What do-nothing Congress? Under new leadership, the Capitol is in deal-making mode: http://t.co/KfkLNk22uN pic.twitter.com/u2ltnaUqIT

— The Hill (@thehill) April 18, 2015

After a bumpy start, GOP leaders seem to have found their footing — passing a historic $200 billion Medicare reform package, striking big, bipartisan deals on Iran, education and trade, and preparing to pass a GOP budget for the first time in a decade.
Now comes the hard part: keeping the momentum.

Deadlines to reauthorize the Export-Import Bank’s charter, raise the federal borrowing limit, renew the Patriot Act and replenish the highway fund are fast-approaching, and none of the issues will be simple to sort out.

For now, GOP leaders are in a hopeful mood.

How the New Medicare Proposal Could Affect You

◼ The Obama administration set a bold goal this week to change the way the government pays Medicare doctors. It hopes that by 2018, more than half of all payments will be tied to the quality of care doctors provide. - Brianna Ehley | The Fiscal Times

...Currently, the majority of traditional Medicare payments are based on the traditional fee-for-service model, where doctors are paid for every surgery, physical exam and CT scan they perform, regardless of patients’ outcomes. But alternative payment methods are gaining traction in the health community based on the quality of care, doctors’ performances, patient outcomes, readmission rates and patient experience to determine how much providers should be paid.

...Doctors, of course, want to know how one decides “the quality of care” short of negligence, and who will make those decisions. The greatest fear some patients have is that big city doctors – especially top surgeons and specialists – will drop out of Medicare altogether, which has already started to happen....

Two top doctors from the City University of NY School of Public Health who support Medicare reform – David U. Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhandler – wrote a blistering essay against Affordable Care Organizations in The Journal of General Internal Medicine in early January. In it, they accuse ACOs of being a new version of the reviled HMOs of the 70s and 80s: Their assessment was

Physicians were pressured to withhold care, and to hide that pressure from patients; bonuses of up to $150,000 annually were offered to doctors who minimized specialty referrals, inpatient care, etc. Our protest of those incentives, and a contract provision forbidding their disclosure (a 55 “gag clause”) led to “delisting.” Award-winning physicians—who often attract unprofitably sick 57 patients—were also delisted. An academic leader admonished physicians: “[We can] no longer tolerate having complex and expensive-to-treat patients encouraged to transfer to our group.” In the end, Americans concluded that fee-for-NON-service was even worse than fee-for service.

...“Make no mistake: the results to date on the performance of APMs (alternative payment methods) do not support the administration’s enthusiasm,” John O’ Shea, visiting fellow at the Center for Health Policy Studies at the Heritage Foundation, wrote in a blog post.

“Granted, fee-for-service may have its flaws, but before blindly pushing Medicare doctors and other medical professionals out of fee-for-service and over the cliff, the Obama administration should be sure they have a safe place to land.”

Obamacare offers firms $3,000 incentive to hire illegals over native-born workers

◼ Illegals to receive Social Security, Medicare under Obama plan - Washington Post

Under President Obama’s new program to protect millions of illegal immigrants from deportation, many of those affected will be eligible to receive Social Security, Medicare and a wide array of other federal benefits, a White House official said Tuesday....

For those who work, that includes payroll taxes, also known as FICA taxes, because they are collected under the Federal Insurance Contributions Act.

The tax payments are usually split between employer and employee and include 12.4 percent collected to pay for Social Security, as well as 2.9 percent to pay for Medicare.

Federal law says that people who pay the taxes and are deemed “lawfully present in the United States” can collect benefits under those programs when they become eligible. They may also receive survivor and disability benefits.

“If they pay in, they can draw,” White House spokesman Shawn Turner said by e-mail....

◼ But: Under the president’s new amnesty, businesses will have a $3,000-per-employee incentive to hire illegal immigrants over native-born workers because of a quirk of Obamacare. - Stephen Dinan/Washington Times

President Obama’s temporary amnesty, which lasts three years, declares up to 5 million illegal immigrants to be lawfully in the country and eligible for work permits, but it still deems them ineligible for public benefits such as buying insurance on Obamacare’s health exchanges.

Under the Affordable Care Act, that means businesses who hire them won’t have to pay a penalty for not providing them health coverage — making them $3,000 more attractive than a similar native-born worker, whom the business by law would have to cover.

5 Big Issues Where Voters Trust Republicans More than Democrats

◼ Voters trust GOP the most on economy but not on entitlements - Susan Ferrechio/Washington Examiner

...On taxes, voters favored Republicans 48 percent to 42 percent. On foreign policy, Republicans ruled again, 50 percent to 40 percent. On the federal budget and spending, the gap was even wider, 51 percent to 38 percent in favor of Republicans.

The most troubling number for Democrats concerned the economy. Republicans were favored by likely voters over Democrats, 49 percent to 42 percent.

Economic issues still rank No. 1 when it comes to voter concerns, according to an August Gallup Poll.

The two parties were nearly tied on jobs, with Republicans at 47 percent and Democrats 46 percent. They also tied on “solving problems,” with Republicans at 40 percent and Democrats at 41 percent....

Dr. Ellen McKnight: Remove the Caps from Health Savings Accounts

◼ This eloquent physician explains to Scott Ott everything going wrong with the medical system. Medicaid and the ACA cannot solve the issues; let private citizens choose their own healthcare. - PJ Media

"If you like your plan you can keep it” debate now expands beyond private insurance & into Medicare.

◼ Democrats Are About To Awake A Political Giant - NRSC

Today the Obama administration is expected to announce massive cuts to the payment rates for Medicare Advantage plans next year. American Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) reports that these seniors could face premium increases and benefit reductions of $35-$75 per month, or $420-$900 next year.

Of the more than 50 million older Americans who receive coverage through Medicare, about 30% - or 15 million - are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans.

If President Obama were actually listening to seniors, they'd share with him one of Joe Biden's famous lines... this is a big deal.

Seniors will see the impact of any cuts in late October 2014, when they begin enrolling in their Medicare Advantage coverage for the following year. That comes at a politically disastrous time for Democrats -- their policies will have awakened a political giant.

Democrats, including former top operative for Harry Reid are sounding the alarm bells saying:

"Democrats they had better watch out" Already worried about the political fallout of seniors that are being hit with a reduction in benefits and higher costs, Democrats like Kay Hagan, Mary Landrieu and Mark Pryor are panicked. This week, they were forced to admit in a letter to Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services that they indeed cut Medicare for seniors after repeatedly promising they would protect these programs from cuts.

Democrats should be worried. Americans want Obamacare and it's Medicare cuts dismantled.

GOP: Obama's Medicare cuts 'a breach of faith with seniors'

◼ Rep. Tom Rooney gives the Republican Party's Weekly Remarks - Andrew Malcolm/IBD

Good morning. My name is Tom Rooney, and here in the House, I represent Florida's 17th District.
Few promises are more sacred than the ones we make to older Americans.

Protecting the dignity and the security our seniors have earned is a commitment that spans generations and party lines. For example, during President Obama's health care speech to Congress in the fall of 2009, he took a moment to speak directly to older Americans.

Democrats’ Deceive Voters on Medicare in Wake of ObamaCare Trainwreck

◼ Democrats are out pushing another lie… This time that Republicans who voted for the Budget written by Paul Ryan in the House of Representatives supported the Medicare cuts in ObamaCare. - NRSC

Here's the truth: President Obama and Democrats who supported ObamaCare (like Mark Pryor, Kay Hagan, Mary Landrieu, and every other incumbent Democrat on the ballot in 2014) cut Medicare to help pay for it (they actually double counted). The Ryan budget used those savings (under current law) to help protect and preserve Medicare.

Democrats raided Medicare by more than $700 billion to help pay for ObamaCare. They repeatedly deceived voters about this fact (and continue to do so today). Taking funding from a crucial safety net program to pay for a massive government entitlement (ObamaCare) is nonsensical policy that not only jeopardizes the long term solvency of Medicare for those approaching their sixties, but worsens America's fiscal health by using blatant budget gimmicks to claim that the Affordable Care Act is actually Affordable.

UnitedHealth drops thousands of doctors from insurance plans: WSJ

◼ The Journal report said that doctors in at least 10 states were notified of being laid off the plans, some citing "significant changes and pressures in the healthcare environment." - Reuters

UnitedHealth Culls Doctors From Medicare Advantage Plans

◼ Physicians in 10 States Notified; Insurer Cites 'Funding Pressure' From Federal Government - Wall St. Journal

UnitedHealth Group Inc., UNH +0.60% the nation's largest provider of privately managed Medicare Advantage plans, has dropped thousands of doctors from its networks in recent weeks—spurring protest from lawmakers and physician groups and leaving many elderly patients unsure about whether they need to switch plans to keep seeing their doctors.

Doctors in at least 10 states have received termination letters, some citing "significant changes and pressures in the health-care environment." The notices also tell doctors they can appeal within 30 days. That means many physicians and patients won't know for sure who is in or out of UnitedHealth's Medicare Advantage networks before the open-enrollment period to switch Medicare plans ends on Dec. 7.

Scandal number five (Six? Seven?): Insider-trading probe of Medicare announcement reveals hundreds of HHS employees had secret info

◼ Is this scandal number five or number six? There’s Benghazi, the IRS, the DOJ snooping on reporters, Sebelius shaking down health executives for ObamaCare contributions, and now the NSA/PRISM/Snowden mega-clusterfark. This new WaPo story makes six. No, wait — seven. - HotAir

Ed just posted on the State Department covering up misconduct. We’re going to need a bigger boat.

Actually, there are two potential scandals here. One is HHS tossing around what was supposed to be sensitive information to a huge swath of employees in-house. The other scandal is who actually leaked it, assuming anyone did. It might not have come from HHS at all but rather from some old-fashioned Beltway congressional/lobbyist incest. As with most of the other Obama scandals, this story is less about O himself than about the foreseeable abuses that result as the federal whale grows. You can have bigger government or you can have more accountable government. The guy who signed ObamaCare into law has made his choice.

Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa) told The Washington Post late last week that his office reviewed the e-mail records of employees at the Department of Health and Human Services and found that 436 of them had early access to the Medicare decision as much as two weeks before it was made public…

“In the statistical agencies, where the handling of sensitive information is their bread and butter, they’re very serious about confidentiality,” said Keith Hall, a former commissioner at the Bureau of Labor Statistics who has spent more than two decades in government. “But in other parts of the government that handle policy issues, there’s a whole different level of treatment.”

Hall said employees in other parts of the government, including the Medicare office, are not subject to the same types of potential consequences as employees at statistical agencies, who can land in prison for up to five years and face a fine of a quarter of a million dollars for disclosing information early.

Giving hundreds of government employees advance notice of a policy decision “is way too many,” said Hall, now a senior fellow at George Mason University’s Mercatus Center. “I’ve done my share of working on policy issues and policy decisions, and you just don’t spread that stuff around like that.”

Obamacare in Trouble?

◼ Obamacare in Trouble? Exchange provision delayed until 2015 - FOX

The Obama administration now says a special system of exchanges designed to make it easier for small businesses to provide insurance will be delayed an entire year -- to 2015.
"Lots of small businesses struggle with providing insurance for their workers so this was supposed to facilitate it and make it easier for small business to do this," said Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. "It was a huge portion of the sale job. When they passed the law in 2010 there were many senators and members of Congress who were saying 'I am doing this because it's going to help small businesses.'"

◼ JOE KLEIN: Early incompetence 'really bad sign' - TIME

Let me try to understand this: The key incentive for small businesses to support Obamacare was that they would be able to shop for the best deals in health care super-stores—called exchanges. The Administration has had 3 years to set up these exchanges. It has failed to do so.

This is a really bad sign. There will be those who argue that it’s not the Administration’s fault. It’s the fault of the 33 states that have refused to set up their own exchanges. Nonsense. Where was the contingency planning?

◼ Cancer Clinics Turning Away Thousands of Medicare Patients - Washington Post

Cancer clinics across the country have begun turning away thousands of Medicare patients, blaming the sequester budget cuts.

Oncologists say the reduced funding, which took effect for Medicare on April 1, makes it impossible to administer expensive chemotherapy drugs while staying afloat financially.

Patients at these clinics would need to seek treatment elsewhere, such as at hospitals that might not have the capacity to accommodate them.

“If we treated the patients receiving the most expensive drugs, we’d be out of business in six months to a year,” said Jeff Vacirca, chief executive of North Shore Hematology Oncology Associates in New York. “The drugs we’re going to lose money on we’re not going to administer right now.”

After an emergency meeting Tuesday, Vacirca’s clinics decided that they would no longer see one-third of their 16,000 Medicare patients.

“A lot of us are in disbelief that this is happening,” he said. “It’s a choice between seeing these patients and staying in business.”

Some who have been pushing the federal government to spend less on health care say this is not the right approach.

The true story of sequester

◼ link - Bill Wilson/Net Right Daily

A little discussed impact of sequestration, due to take effect on March 1, is the fact that after 2014, spending will increase every single year in both defense and non-defense categories, reports the Congressional Budget Office (CBO).

In addition, there are real spending cuts, but they come nowhere near to totaling the $1 trillion figure that has been reported by various government agencies...

For example, sequester partially hits Medicare, but for that program spending will rise from its 2012 level of $551 billion to $592 billion in 2013, to $605 billion in 2014, and so forth. CBO never foresees a decrease there.

...The point that must be made is that the American people were promised these cuts.
To secure the votes needed to suspend the $16.394 trillion debt ceiling until May 19, House leaders had to promise members they would stick to the sequestration.

In fact, all of these cuts were the price for increasing the debt ceiling by $2.1 trillion in August 2011. Imagine that, $2.1 trillion in new borrowing authority, that the government burnt through in less than two years — in exchange for just $115.3 billion of real cuts.

Now it’s questionable if those will even be kept in place. If the House caves on sequester, members’ promises of cuts down the road will forever ring hollow and empty to the American people. If the Republican Party does not stand for getting our fiscal house in order and keeping the tax burden low, what does it stand for?

It is time to stand strong on the sequester. This is no time to go all wobbly — because much, much more needs to be done down the road to save this country from certain bankruptcy. read the whole thing, at the link

PRESIDENT OBAMA’S MISSED BUDGET DEADLINES

◼ An Unprecedented Disrespect for the Law - COMMITTEE ON THE BUDGET: U.S. HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

The Budget and Accounting Act of 1921 requires the President to submit his budget request for the upcoming fiscal year no later than the first Monday of February. Earlier this week, the Obama administration announced that for the third time in four years it will not adhere to this legal deadline. The Office of Management and Budget cites “the need to finalize decisions and technical details of the document.” This failure to meet statutory budget obligations has become a pernicious pattern for the President and his party’s leaders. For over 1,000 days, Senate Democrats have failed to pass a budget resolution, ignoring the legal requirement to pass a budget resolution by April 15 of each year.

As House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan recently noted, “The decision to delay the release of his budget again could not come at a more precarious moment for our fiscal and economic future. Rather than tackle these challenges head-on, this President continues to punt, while his party’s leaders in the Senate have simply abandoned responsible budgeting altogether.”

Despite trillion-dollar deficits and a growing urgency for Washington to put its fiscal house in order, President Obama continues to demonstrate an unprecedented disrespect for his legal obligations. A review of the historical record reveals that no administration has so flagrantly ignored its budgetary roles and responsibilities. The House Budget Committee has compiled a chronological review of Presidential budget submissions dating back to 1923. Several key points from the data:

◼ In just one term, President Obama has missed the budget deadline more than any other President.

◼ In the 90 years covering FY1923 through FY 2013, President Obama is the only President to miss the deadline two years in a row. He is the only President who has missed the deadline in three of the four years of a term. And, he holds the record for the longest delay (at 98 days).

◼ All Presidents from Harding through Reagan’s first term met the statutory budget submission deadline in every year. In five of these years, a change in the law was requested and passed to extend the deadline, and the President always met it.

◼ Since the budget process moved the date of submission to the first Monday in February, the incoming President’s first budget submission has been delayed for practical reasons (the President’s inauguration is less than three weeks before the budget submission’s deadline). Yet President Obama’s first budget in his first year set a new record with a 98-day delay for his FY2010 budget.

◼ Since the statutory deadline was extended to the first Monday in February, with the exception of the first budget for a new President, this deadline has only been missed three times: Clinton FY1998; Obama FY2012; and Obama FY 2013.

The President’s flagrant disrespect for budget deadlines extends beyond the late submissions of his annual budget request. The President is required to submit a Midsession Review no later than July 16 each year. The President is required to submit a Financial Report of the U.S. Government no later than December 15. The President is required to submit a plan to shore up Medicare’s finances within 15 days of a funding warning by the Medicare Trustees.

Not once has President Obama adhered to any of these deadlines:

◼ The President’s Midsession Review has never been released by July 16;

◼ The President’s Financial Report of the U.S. Government has never been released by December 15;
◼ The President has not once responded to the Medicare Trigger.

The President’s failures to meet his legal obligations are symptomatic of a failure to meet his more critical moral obligation to the American people by tackling our most pressing fiscal and economic challenges. DETAILS at the link.

◼ White House tells Paul Ryan it won’t meet budget deadline - The Hill

The White House has informed House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that it will miss the legal deadline for sending a budget to Congress.

Acting Budget Director Jeff Zients told Ryan (R-Wis.) in a letter late Friday that the budget will not be delivered by Feb. 4, as required by law.

A PUBLIC SERVICE MESSAGE FOR AMERICA'S YOUTH: Here's How You're Being Ripped Off

◼ My public service message is this: this money is being taken from your pay in exchange for a promise that will be broken in just a few years. You'll never see that money again. And it is the government -- the government, not "the rich", not the Koch brothers, not the oil companies -- that is ripping you off. - Doug Ross

It is the government, not corporations, spending untold billions on "green energy" scams like Solyndra. It is the government, not "the rich", slathering EBT-welfare cards around like confetti. And it is the government, not "the Tea Party", that is promoting illegal immigration and offering huge financial benefits to those in the country illegally. All with your money.

Unless you like being ripped off every week, I'd recommend you get involved in returning government to its rightful and proper role, which includes having Washington spend within its means -- like all of us must do to survive.