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Moody’s Investor Service has changed its outlook for the U.S. health care insurance sector from stable to negative, citing Obamacare’s rollout and the uncertainty it brings. The private credit rating agency said potential fallout from the Affordable Care Act’s implementation — including changes to the individual market and the impact of the law’s “employer mandate” on commercial group plans in January 2015 — presents the greatest challenge to health insurers’ credit profile. Lower reimbursement rates among Medicare Advantage plans also are creating financial pressure, it said.

A record high number of voters now oppose the 2010 Affordable Care Act and a record low number supports it, according to the latest Fox News poll. In addition, a majority thinks the new law will increase their health care costs, while few think it will improve their quality of care. Click here to view the poll results. The new poll finds 59 percent of voters oppose the health care law, up from 55 percent who opposed it six months ago (June 2013). The increase in opposition comes from both independents and Democrats.

Obamacare does not mandate healthcare coverage for part-time employees (defined as those working less than 30 hours a week). As a direct result, numerous retail stores including Trader Joe’s and Home Depot have already stopped offering healthcare plans to part-time workers. Today, Target, the second-largest U.S. discount retailer by sales with about 361,000 total employees last fiscal year, joined the list. Effective April 1, Target to Drop Health Insurance for Part-Time Workers. “You see a lot of retailers making adjustments in contemplation of the full effect of the employer mandate penalties in 2015,” Neil Trautwein, a lobbyist with the National...

WASHINGTON — Lots of conservative lawmakers hate Obamacare. Rep. Louie Gohmert is putting his money where his mouth is. The Tyler Republican gave up his health insurance for 2014, asserting that the president’s signature health care law, the Affordable Care Act, has made coverage too expensive. “Other people are going to see what I did when I looked into health insurance for my wife and me: that the deductible rate, it doubled, about $3,000 to $6,000, and our policy was going to go from about $300 to about $1,500 a month,” he said during a recent radio interview with Trey...

Tennessee nullification legislation of Obamacare and all federal gun laws is being pushed by lawmakers in the Volunteer State. On one hand lawmakers are pushing new legislation, that if passed, would gut the implementation of Obamacare. On the other hand legislation that is an expansion of the 2009 Tennessee Firearms Freedom Act was introduced yesterday, which is designed to protect Tennessee citizens from Congress’ violations of the Second and Tenth Amendment. First, SB1680 is being sponsored by Sen. Mae Beavers (R-Mt. Juliet), along with eight co-sponsors in the Tennessee senate and a companion bill in the House by Rep. Mark...

If the ObamaCare contractor brought on last week to fix the back-end of the HealthCare.gov portal doesn’t finish the build-out by mid-March the healthcare law will be jeopardized, according to a procurement document posted on a federal website. It said insurers could be bankrupted and the entire healthcare industry threatened if the build out is not completed. The procurement document signed by healthcare officials in late December says that the government determined in mid-December that CGI Federal, the contractor originally tasked with connecting the online healthcare portal to insurers, was not up to the task. The Centers for Medicaid and...

Obamacare had the worst debut since the Titanic. The website was non-functional for weeks, the back-end still isn't fully built out, whole states have had minimal numbers of people signing up, countless Americans have been cut back from full-time work to part-time, millions lost their insurance, and Obama has been illegally changing the law every other day like some sort of banana republic dictator. In other words, Obamacare has been a rolling train wreck that has shown Barack Obama's promises about the law to be nothing but lies while proving the conservatives who said the Affordable Care Act was a...

Record-keeping snags could complicate the start of insurance coverage this month as people begin using policies they purchased under President Barack Obama's health care overhaul. Insurance companies are still trying to sort out cases of so-called health insurance orphans, customers for whom the government has a record that they enrolled, but the insurer does not. Government officials say the problem is real but under control, with orphan records being among the roughly 13,000 problem cases they are trying to resolve with insurers. But insurance companies are worried the process will grow more cumbersome as they deal with the flood of...

"...That's why we're modernizing our unique system. Under the new approach—made possible by the Affordable Care Act and approved by the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Services—Maryland will implement a groundbreaking new system of health care delivery. Using the rate setting structure, the state will set global budgets and other alternative approaches to payment that reward clinical systems of care for providing improved outcomes at lower costs. Support for this new demonstration has come from a coalition of the hospitals, the insurance companies and the state all working together with a common vision....Under the new model, our hospitals have committed...

BAY CITY — The Affordable Care Act was supposed to help families with pre-existing conditions, not hurt them. But that has not been the case for the Davert family. Their health insurance bill has gone up 300 percent and the family is looking at taking out loans and returning to work while on disability to pay the increased costs. The Davert's experience with Obamacare is not just frustrating, it could be dangerous given the medical issues and special needs of the family. "We have such a unique family and we've overcome many obstacles," said Ken Davert, who has cerebral palsy....

Is this the first moderately big tremor for O-Care on the news wires this year or did I miss something earlier? It’s been so cold in most of the country, I imagine some significant number of new enrollees decided to put off their first doctor’s appointment, which means few cases so far of people discovering technical snafus that have left them in government/insurer limbo.But now things are warming up. Insurance companies are still trying to sort out cases of so-called health insurance orphans, customers for whom the government has a record that they enrolled, but the insurer does not. They...

Another day, another Obamacare glitch. This time, the issue is more than 13,000 people who have signed up for health insurance, but the insurance companies have no idea who they are. From the Associated Press: The government says the problem is real but under control. Officials say the total number of problem cases they are trying to resolve with insurers currently stands at about 13,000. That includes orphan records. More than 1 million people have signed up through the federal insurance market that serves 36 states. Officials contend the error rate for new signups is close to zero. Insurers, however,...

When the administration points to statistics counting Americans that have signed up for Obamacare, they inevitably depend on California’s exchange numbers – so far they have signed up the most of any state. But while the media is beginning to remember how much they love Barack Obama and his signature healthcare law, Americans who are trying to sign up for healthcare are running into more and more obstacles. And they’re going online to voice their anger and frustration. Here are some complaints from customers to Blue Cross Anthem:

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court has refused a group of doctors' request to block implementation of the nation's new health care law. Chief Justice John Roberts turned away without comment Monday an emergency stay request from the Association of American Physicians & Surgeons, Inc. and the Alliance for Natural Health USA.

The Obama administration came out with new Obamacare numbers today. Almost twice as many Americans have signed up for the taxpayer-funded Medicaid as the private Obamacare plans. 2.1 million have signed up for Obamacare 3.9 million have signed up for the Medicaid coverage with Obamacare 6.1 million Americans have lost their insurance due to Obamacare

Full title: 'They had no idea if my insurance was active or not!': Obamacare confusion reigns as frustrated patients walk out of hospitals without treatment Hospital staff in Northern Virginia are turning away sick people on a frigid Thursday morning because they can't determine whether their Obamacare insurance plans are in effect. Patients in a close-in DC suburb who think they've signed up for new insurance plans are struggling to show their December enrollments are in force, and health care administrators aren't taking their word for it. In place of quick service and painless billing, these Virginians are now facing...

In 2013, the American people learned what whoppers the key promises of ObamaCare turned out to be. But the biggest whopper about the Affordable Care Act is yet to be exposed: the tightening grip the federal government will have over your doctor — even if you’re paying with private insurance. Section 1311(h)(1)(B) of the health law gives the secretary of Health and Human Services blanket authority to dictate how doctors treat patients. Not just patients in government programs like Medicare and Medicaid, but patients with private plans they pay for themselves. On Dec. 2, 2013, we learned from the Federal...

People who use subsidies to help pay for their Obamacare policies may get a nasty shock at tax time, when the Internal Revenue Service could hit them with a big demand to repay the money. While it's in the law, it's still likely to make plenty of Obamacare subscribers angry at the IRS. "If I were the IRS, I would be very concerned that I’m going to be viewed as the villain when people have to pay back money the government gave them for health insurance,” says Chris Condeluci, who served as Senate Finance Committee GOP tax counsel when Obamacare...

<p>Anyone who opposes the Affordable Care Act is a subhuman. It is a great law but lying republicans are trying to destroy it. I signed up with no problem on the website. Republicans want to repeal my new insurance. Obama is a hero!</p>

A primary rationale of ObamaCare's insurance reforms limiting age-rating and precluding pricing based on health status has been to ensure that people will be able to afford health coverage when they need it most. An IBD analysis finds that middle-class households in their late 50s and early 60s could spend 25% or more of their income on health care — before their deductible is exhausted and ObamaCare's benefits kick in. Covered California's shop-and-compare tool shows that a 58-year-old couple in Los Angeles County with $65,000 in income buying a bronze plan would have to spend $19,400, including $9,400 in premiums...