Obama to Offer Health Care Fix to Keep Plans, Democrat Says

WASHINGTON — Facing dissent from his own party and growing pressure from anxious Congressional Democrats, President Obama is to propose on Thursday an administrative fix to a central element of his signature health care law, allowing Americans who are losing their health insurance coverage because of the Affordable Care Act to retain it.

A House Democrat with knowledge of the president’s plan said that the fix would allow insurance companies to renew plans that do not meet the higher standard of the new health care law for a year for existing policyholders, though they would be required to notify the policy holder of alternative available coverage options, as well any benefits they might lose by staying on their existing plan.

The president’s proposal would apply only to people who have had their existing policies already canceled — those currently without insurance would not be able to buy these old plans, said the lawmaker, who declined to be identified discussing the proposal before the president’s announcement.

State insurance commissioners would have the right to override the administrative proposal.

Earlier in the day, Representative Nancy Pelosi of California, the Democratic leader, hinted that a change to the Affordable Care Act was likely before the end of the week.

“Stay tuned. It could be an administrative fix, it could be a legislative fix,” said Ms. Pelosi, speaking at the Washington Ideas Forum. “I would rather it be done administratively, because then it could be done much more quickly without any accompanying agendas.”

Under what authority does the President (ANY President) have to simply “modify” laws which were passed by Congress? I mean, without having to go BACK to Congress to get these changes codified into an actual LAW?

I mean, as written, these insurance companies can NOT just make wholesale changes because a President said, “Okay, just do it!” They could be held liable, REGARDLESS of what the President said!

The first person who keeps his old plan, then has some medical condition which is NOT covered under the old plan, but WOULD BE covered under an Obamacare plan, has a very STRONG legal leg with which to beat the insurance company to death!

And when the insurance companies say, “The President said it was okay.” The courts are going to FORCE the insurance companies to pay and will probably award damages, because the LAW says they MUST comply!

If I was the insurance companies, I would say, “NO EFFING WAY are we going to operate on the word of a KNOWN LIAR!” Because it will be THEIR asses that pay, not The Won!

Obama just has free reign on this law? So what happens next week? He's destroyed the rule of law. That's what 3rd world dictators do.

"......Several states have already announced that all non-compliant plans, regardless of the ACA’s other grandfathering provisions, must be canceled, and nothing in the White House’s announcement will compel them to reverse that decision. Further, the approximately 5 million Americans who’ve seen their plans canceled already won’t necessary get to renew them. That’ll be up to insurance companies, though as the White House noted, it is simpler for both regulators and insurers to continue or adjust existing plans than cancel them and write new ones, so some people whose plans were going to be canceled will surely be offered the chance to renew them.

Officials characterized it as an “administrative fix” — HHS will be deferring enforcement, in other words, of the ACA’s minimum-coverage provisions that had caused so many insurance companies to cancel non-compliant plans for 2014. She defended this “enforcement discretion” as a strategy that’s “been used both in transition and as a predecessor to legislation” in the past, though the only example she adduced was also a legally dubious Obama-administration maneuver, the White House’s enactment of the DREAM Act.

When asked whether HHS was going to determine how much premiums could increase in these plans, or otherwise regulate them, an official said “that’s a question best directed to insurance companies and insurers.”..... Source NRO

Obama really suckered the insurance companies

You really think the Big Insurance companies were suckered?

Despite Glitches, Obamacare Profit Windfall To Insurers Well Underway

While politicians and pundits alike inside the beltway beat up the White House over computer system glitches, health insurance companies still project robust revenue growth and profits from a boom in business from newly insured Americans under the Affordable Care Act.

Take this week’s third-quarter earnings report and financial projections of Wellpoint (WLP), one of the nation’s largest health insurers, which earlier this week raised its earnings guidance for the third time this year. Amid a flurry of stories about the troubled launch of the federal health insurance marketplace web site known as healthcare.gov, Wellpoint said its improved outlook is due in part to gains from the Affordable Care Act. On Friday, the Obama administration named a contractor to fix the site, saying it should be fixed by the end of November.

Wellpoint is the parent of a number of Anthem and Blue Cross and Blue Shield branded plans and a key player in offering benefits to the growing population of consumers that are purchasing private coverage on exchanges as well as those covered by Medicaid insurance for the poor, which is also expanding under the Affordable Care Act.

“We are raising our 2013 membership and earnings per share guidance, reflecting our strong year-to-date performance and our continued expectation for higher investment spending in the fourth quarter as we begin our implementation of the Affordable Care Act,” Wellpoint chief executive officer Joseph Swedish told Wall Street analysts and investors earlier this week on the company’s third-quarter earnings call. “In the fully insured marketplace, the rollout of public insurance exchanges began October 1, and there has been a lot of activity around this area. We remain optimistic about the long-term membership growth opportunity through exchanges.”

Though health plans are frustrated at the slow sign up, their earnings forecasts and balance sheets reflect largely robust growth. Other health plans like Aetna AET +0.97% (AET), Humana HUM +0.84% (HUM) and UnitedHealth Group UNH +0.06% (UNH) are optimistic, according to public statements of their executives.

Health plans are reporting growth across all of their lines of business. “The emergence of public exchanges, private exchanges, Medicaid expansions, growing dual eligible and long-term care need, accountable care experimentation, rising consumerism and the confluence of these elements have the potential to create new opportunities for us to grow and serve in new ways,” UnitedHealth Group chief executive officer Stephen J. Hemsley said on the company’s Oct. 17 third-quarter earnings call with analysts.

There is, however, caution from health insurance executives related to implementation of the Affordable Care Act, executives are telling Wall Street.

“While . . . we’ve raised our 2013 adjusted (earnings per share) guidance by $0.40 or 5%, and we are encouraged by our third quarter operating performance, we caution against run-rating this improvement into 2014 given the number of changes to our business due to ACA implementation,” said Wellpoint chief financial officer Wayne Deveydt. “These include: Exchange enrollment. It is simply too early to get an accurate picture of our exchange-based volume or risk profile.”

So, apparently Obama can do whatever he wants, whenever he wants, no matter what Congressionally passed law says? Don’t dictators do that?

Still, Obama will just do what Obama does until he is challenged in court, which no one has the cojones to do.

What I REALLY want to know is why Obama is allowing these “rotten apple insurance” companies to continue their supposed “substandard” and “garbage” policies.

The OTHER thing I’d really like to know is if this is all the greedy insurance companies fault for cancelling these “substandard” and “garbage” policies, then why is it REQUIRED that Obama ALLOW them to reinstate them?

Well he really took a dump on the heath insurance industry with this one.

First the central planners have been telling us for a couple of weeks that those dropped from a plan cannot be allowed to be placed back on it like there was some law of physics preventing it rather than human debris government types standing in the way like they always do.

Now, he wants to ALLOW insurance companies to go back and reinstate plans after he MANDATED changes in coverage requirements AND do it in the busiest time of the year for plan renewals!

This time of year the Insurance industry is going full bore because so many plans have a DEC 1—>31 renewal date. Requests for quotes, proposals, employee presentations and sales are at their peak and a piece of crap for a human being thinks he can just drop this CACA © (”Can’t Afford Care Act”) on their plate.

To all the Insurance company CEO’s who bent over to kiss his butt because they thought 30 million more people could be billed, well you got it so now what are you going to do about it? Speak against the regime and you will no longer be on the list of approved Insurance companies.

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