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Some prominent health insurers, including industry giant UnitedHealth Group Inc., are not participating in California's new state-run health insurance market, possibly limiting the number of choices for millions of consumers. UnitedHealth, the nation's largest private insurer, Aetna Inc. and Cigna Corp. are sitting out the first year of Covered California, the state's insurance exchange and a key testing ground nationally for a massive coverage expansion under the federal healthcare law.

In writing about the ACA and our health-care problems, I started to think more and more about supply restrictions. In every other industry, costs come down when new suppliers come in and compete. Yet our health-care system is full of restrictions and protections to keep new suppliers out, and competition down. Then we wonder why hospitals won't tell you how much care will cost, and send you bills with $100 band aids on them. In that context, I was interested to learn this week about the ACA's limits on expansion of doctor-owned hospitals. The Wall Street Journal article is here,...

I walked out of my Dr's office today without getting my physical. My Dr for the past 13 years closed his private office and joined the behemoth, Baptist Health System. Before my physical, I had to fill out a bunch of new forms... One of them said, "You acknowledge agreement with our Privacy Policy".. I hadn't been given the Privacy Policy... so, I asked for it. Wow. So many things in it that are awful.. for starters, they say right up front, they reserve the right to CHANGE their policy at any time, without notifying anyone, and all information they...

Employers are increasingly recognizing they may be able to avoid certain penalties under the federal health law by offering very limited plans that can lack key benefits such as hospital coverage. Benefits advisers and insurance brokers—bucking a commonly held expectation that the law would broadly enrich benefits—are pitching these low-benefit plans around the country. They cover minimal requirements such as preventive services, but often little more. Some of the plans wouldn't cover surgery, X-rays or prenatal care at all. Others will be paired with limited packages to cover additional services, for instance, $100 a day for a hospital visit. Federal...

The federal Affordable Care Act, better known as “ObamaCare,” may provide activists and government a little-known wedge to advance their obesity agendas through regulated health-care providers — specifically America’s nearly 3,000 non-profit hospitals. One organization, The STOP Obesity Alliance, recently identified this wedge as a way to have such hospitals embrace its core convictions, including one principle which questions the role of personal responsibility as a cause and a solution to obesity.Community Health Needs Assessments. Section 9007 of the Act requires non-profit hospitals, as a condition of maintaining their tax-exempt status, to conduct Community Health Needs Assessments (CHNAs). These documents, which...

As gratifying as it was to see the “news” media actually do its job last week when the IRS scandal broke, it was also odd that the coverage focused exclusively on abuses of power relating to various Tea Party and anti-abortion groups. A much scarier IRS story has been virtually ignored by the establishment press. On Wednesday, it was reported that a class-action lawsuit had been filed against a group of IRS agents who, according to the complaint filed by “John Doe Company” in the Southern District of California, “stole more than 60,000,000 medical records of more than 10,000,000 Americans,...

Such are the quirks and foibles of the super-rich that even outwardly simple occasions, such as the celebration of a 60th birthday, can turn into rather complicated productions. Take Cherie Blair’s arrangements to mark her husband Tony’s 60th earlier this month. Knowing how keen he is to stave off the advancing years, she hired an Italian-based ‘detox chef’ to prepare an unimpeachably healthy dinner for the group of family and friends she flew to Europe to mark the event. Then, she engaged the same chef to rustle up another menu of plain, if pricey, offerings for a dozen guests at...

Men who are heavy drinkers and homeless for long periods of time have 400 times the number of head injuries as the general population, according to a new study by researchers who said they were shocked by their findings. These men have 170 times as many severe head injuries as the general population and 300 times as many injuries that cause bleeding in the brain. The study by Dr. Tomislav Svoboda, a family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital, appears online in Emergency Medicine Journal. The study also looked at head injuries in the general homeless population and among people...

You can argue all you want whether ObamaCare puts into place “death panels” or not. What we can all agree on is that ObamaCare has provisions which allow a government review board to decide if you receive treatment or not based on your “need”. The existence of this review board is not in question. Thousands of pages have been written on this subject both pro and con, and these arguments have established two basic ways of looking at this process. One side is straight logistics and economics: Implementing this kind of healthcare on a massive scale can never be cost...

Boston - Noted Indian American surgeon Mukesh Hariawala will discuss the business implications of President Barack Obama's second term on the Indian healthcare system at a leadership conclave in Mumbai in June. A Harvard trained cardiac surgeon, who is also a healthcare economist, Hariawala will deliver the keynote address at the 4th annual India leadership Conclave & Indian Affairs Business Leadership Awards 2013 June 21. More than 300 businessmen, diplomats, politicians, social reformers and delegates from Middle East and Europe are expected to attend the conclave with the theme of "New India, Agenda for Change" organised by Network 7 Media...

Planning for retirement usually means budgeting for food, travel and other expenses. Don’t forget to include $220,000 for health care costs. That’s how much the average 65-year-old couple will spend on medical expenses through their retirement, according to the latest estimates from Fidelity Investments. If you’ve set your sights on retiring earlier, plan on squirreling away an even bigger savings pile. The average couple hoping to retire at 55 will spend $744,800 on out-of-pocket health costs if they both live to age 85, according to a separate study released Wednesday by the Society of Actuaries. That’s if you’re relatively healthy...

Thursday, May 16, 2013 May 16, 2013 Another IRS scandal: agents illegally seized 60 million medical records Image009And as if there's not already an abundance of problems at the IRS, another one erupts, involving 60 million private medical records of 10 million patients - including all California state judges - from Healthcare IT News: The Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges. According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in...

he Internal Revenue Service is now facing a class action lawsuit over allegations that it improperly accessed and stole the health records of some 10 million Americans, including medical records of all California state judges. According to a report by Courthousenews.com, an unnamed HIPAA-covered entity in California is suing the IRS, alleging that some 60 million medical records from 10 million patients were stolen by 15 IRS agents. The personal health information seized on March 11, 2011, included psychological counseling, gynecological counseling, sexual/drug treatment and other medical treatment data. "This is an action involving the corruption and abuse of power...

LA: There is a law against what they’re doing and the GAO has also said an agency may not augment appropriations from outside sources. This isn’t a complicated thing. If the administration asks for $5 and Congress appropriates $4, that’s what they get. If the government creates a subterfuge by going outside the government, to raise money through a private entity, that’s a violation of the law. LA: If you read the report of the Iran-Contra select committee, it said that the executive cannot make an end run around Congress by raising money privately and spending it. That seems to...

His bigger fears lie in the IRS administration of Obamacare where he is concerned that "No stent for you," will be heard when the powers that be know what groups you support, what thoughts you have, and what area you live in. Think he is exaggerating? Did you really believe the tin-foil hat wearers conspiracies that the IRS was doing this before it became mainstream news?

In the last few weeks, numerous Hawaii healthcare industry leaders have stepped forward to create deniability for themselves in the upcoming Hawaii Health Connector/Health Exchange disaster. Those who are implementing Obamacare in Hawaii are now putting themselves on the record explaining that Obamacare will mean higher insurance premiums, fewer doctors and nurses, and shuttered hospitals. Here are their statements, accumulated in one place so that it can be clearly seen that many of those who are in charge are predicting failure: HMSA Chief Predicts Obamacare 'Rate Shock' for Hawaii Maui News May 9, 2013: If Hawaii consumers think health care...

Simple Tool Stratifies Mortality Risk in Type 2 Diabetes Marlene Busko May 13, 2013  Researchers have created an online mortality-risk calculator for patients with type 2 diabetes, which stratifies patients into low, medium, or high risk of dying from any cause within 2 years. By plugging in values for 9 readily available patient characteristics — age, body mass index (BMI), diastolic blood pressure, LDL cholesterol, triglycerides, HDL cholesterol, urine albumin-to-creatinine ratio, antihypertensive treatment, and insulin therapy — a physician can quickly determine whether a patient has a high risk for death. "The novelty and the importance of this study is that we provide...

When open enrollment begins in October under the new federal health care law, nearly 260,000 immigrants in Illinois will be eligible to apply for government-subsidized insurance, according to a study released Thursday. However, many of those now uninsured people are either unaware of the Affordable Care Act or are afraid to seek insurance because they have family members who are in the country illegally, the report by the Illinois Coalition for Immigrant and Refugee Rights found. Those families will be targeted in a monthslong campaign to raise awareness of the new law as it begins to affect millions of uninsured...

Many part-timers are facing a double whammy from President Barack Obama's Affordable Care Act. The law requires large employers offering health insurance to include part-time employees working 30 hours a week or more. But rather than provide health care to more workers, a growing number of employers are cutting back employee hours instead. The result: Not only will these workers earn less money, but they'll also miss out on health insurance at work. Consider the city of Long Beach, Calif. It is limiting most of its 1,600 part-time employees to fewer than 27 hours a week, on average. City officials...

When President Obama unveiled the Affordable Care Act, he said, "You won't lose your doctor." However, thousands in our area say they are because their doctors are changing their practice. The doctors are switching to a concierge or boutique medical practice. --snip-- Dr. Lazowick says he wanted to get back to the reasons he became a doctor, which was difficult with the way healthcare is going. He says, "I was on this conveyor belt where I was treating a problem moving to the next." Dr. Lazowick is not alone. Many primary care doctors are taking this route. And the pace...

Consumers on Wednesday will finally get some answers about one of modern life’s most persistent mysteries: how much medical care actually costs. For the first time, the federal government will release the prices that hospitals charge for the 100 most common inpatient procedures. Until now, these charges have been closely held by facilities that see a competitive advantage in shielding their fees from competitors. What the numbers reveal is a health-care system with tremendous, seemingly random variation in the costs of services. In the District, George Washington University’s average bill for a patient on a ventilator was $115,000, while Providence...

230.9. (a) It shall be unlawful for a large employer, as defined in Section 14199.1 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, to designate an employee as an independent contractor or temporary employee, reduce an employee's hours of work, or terminate an employee if the purpose of the action is to avoid the employer's obligations under Article 7 (commencing with Section 14199) of Chapter 7 of Part 3 of Division 9 of the Welfare and Institutions Code.

"It's an interesting angle, to talk about people who really only have jobs for the health insurance as being one angle to that. I had a friend who got married to the wrong person just so she could have heath insurance.

Everybody knows the first words spoken on a telephone call — Alexander Graham Bell’s simple demand “Mr. Watson, come here. I want to see you.” April marked the 40th anniversary of the first cell-phone call, which was quite different in tone. Two research teams had been competing to bring the first real consumer cell phone to market, and the first mobile call was placed by Motorola engineer Marty Cooper to his chief rival, Joel Engel of Bell Labs. “Joel, this is Marty,” he said. “I’m calling you from a cell phone.” In other words: “You lose, suckers.” It took nearly...

Health Costs: Americans were promised that ObamaCare would make their health care more affordable. But a pair of studies show the new system has done nothing to lower health costs and will sharply raise them. Between 2009 and 2011, U.S. health spending rose just 3.9% a year, the lowest annual gains in decades. The Obama administration was quick to claim credit for the slowdown, with Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius saying ObamaCare had "contributed to the slowest sustained growth in health spending in 50 years." But two new studies make it clear that ObamaCare wasn't behind the slowdown...

SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — State lawmakers sent Gov. Jerry Brown a pair of consumer protection bills Monday that prevent health insurance companies from discriminating against people with pre-existing conditions and limit how much more insurers can charge older residents. The legislation updates California laws to match new rules under the federal Affordable Care Act and will give state agencies the power to enforce and regulate individual insurance rules. The Assembly passed ABx1-2 on a 49-20 vote, while the Senate passed SBx1-2 on a 27-9 vote. The Assembly bill makes changes to the insurance code, while the Senate bill makes changes...

A 180-degree change in how doctors and hospital administrators think about germs is likely to almost eliminate the biggest risk of being hospitalized: getting an infection. Until now, doctors and hospital administrators routinely dismissed questions about cleanliness by saying "germs are everywhere." But at last week's meeting of the Society for Healthcare Epidemiologists of America in Atlanta, the focus was on making patients' rooms germ-free by testing for bacteria after cleaning and using ultra-violet light and room fogging machines. Finally, the medical community is acknowledging that inadequately cleaned rooms and equipment are to blame for infections and doing something about...

Medical Overhaul: Democrats fret about a "train wreck" when ObamaCare goes into effect next year. But the law is already a disaster for workers who've seen their hours and benefits cut as employers try to avoid its costs. As IBD's Jed Graham reported late last week, government data clearly show that businesses are already cutting worker hours and benefits in advance of ObamaCare's employer mandate, under which every business with 50 or more full-time workers will have to provide government-approved insurance.

For a long time conservatives have warned that the heavy propaganda and regulatory hands of the Obama administration were not going to change the exercise or eating habits of 315 million Americans... Now comes early statistical proof that after reelecting Obama with fewer votes the second time and 1,567 days of his reign of government intervention and stimulation, many Americans are deciding that maybe the Obamas' plans for their lives do not fit their plans for their own lives.

Head Start teachers and administrators told The Daily Caller that their most pressing concern is not budget impacts from sequestration but changes coming from President Barack Obama’s health-care law. In 2014, the impact of 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act “is probably going to be a 9 percent [cost] increase, and significantly more the next year,” said Nancy Nordyk, director of the Head Start program in southern Oregon. Rising healthcare costs will likely force Oregon to reduce some Head Start workers’ hours so they’re not eligible for the medical program, said Nordyk, who spoke to TheDC during a national...

Obama admin. surrenders in HHS mandate case against Bible publisher WASHINGTON, May 6, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - At the government’s own request, a federal appellate court Friday dismissed the Obama administration’s appeal of an order that stopped the president from enforcing the HHS birth control mandate against a Bible publisher. The administration’s retreat marks the first total appellate victory on a preliminary injunction in any abortion pill mandate case. Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys representing Tyndale House Publishers say the administration is apparently nervous about trying to defend its position that a Bible publisher is not religious enough for a religious exemption...

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HealthCare Partners, one of the original pioneer ACOs, appears to have been built on a house of cards. Charges of illegal operations, providing unlawful hospital networks, and repeated denials of care at the patient level are just some of the issues. HealthCare Partners, hand picked by the Obama Administration, allegedly has been operating in California for one decade without the required state license, according to charges filed last September in a class action lawsuit by lead plaintiff Juan Carlos Jandres (lawsuit pdf here). Charges include shoddy, substandard care to more than 675,000 patients in Southern California, including a disproportionate number...

I cannot sit silently after reading “Census Calling on Kaua`i” (April 29, 2013). The article is counter to my personal experience and I feel compelled to share my experience with you. In the article the statements made by Mr. Gene Henry of the American Community Survey are counter to fact. This is not a letter representing one party or another. It is not an attempt to sway you to opt out of the American Community Survey. It is simply a recitation of fact. In 2010 my wife and I received a letter demanding that we participate in the ACS. The...

A perfect bookend to the week, particularly in light of yesterday's news. Maybe all those discussions between Rubio and Schumer are paying off after all: SCHUMER: Our insurance department is in power to protect families. We’re going to watch them like a hawk to make sure they do that. And if they don’t, those rates could go through the roof. REPORTER: Is it because of Obamacare? SCHUMER: It’s in part because of Obamacare, but healthcare costs have been going up in double digits for years and years. Considering Schumer's role as Senate Democrats' chief messaging guru, this is big. Still,...

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius has already admitted that the "affordable" in the "Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act" is something of a misnomer, to say the least, and with all of the hidden costs and complexities the law's implementation is slowly but surely revealing, Democrats have every reason to be nervous. As Josh Kraushaar put it at NJ: While the debate over ObamaÂ’s health care law isnÂ’t a life-or-death battle, health care affects voter livelihood (and their voting decisions) like few other issues do. And there are clear signs that if premiums go up, businesses are forced...

A group of individuals and businesses filed a lawsuit against the Obama administration's healthcare overhaul on Thursday, hoping to stop the law in states that have not set up new insurance exchanges. The complaint filed in the Washington federal court challenges federal rules issued in 2012 for implementing the president's 2010 healthcare law which goes into full force in January 2014. The 12 challengers, ranging from a hospital chain to a restaurant franchise, argue that Internal Revenue Service rules issued last year should be invalidated because they contradict what Congress originally intended. A court win for the challengers could cast...

Addressing Planned Parenthood last week, President Obama made what must be one of the least self-aware statements of his tenure. "Forty years after the Supreme Court affirmed a woman's constitutional right to privacy, including the right to choose, we shouldn't have to remind people that when it comes to a woman's health, no politician should get to decide what's best for you," he said. "No insurer should get to decide what kind of care that you get. The only person who should get to make decisions about your health is you." It's no secret that

Old and busted: ObamaCare is no “train wreck,� no matter what one of its authors says now. New hotness: Give us more money to head off this train wreck! Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) says he shares colleagues’ concerns that the Affordable Care Act could become a “train wreck” if it’s not implemented properly.Reid warned that people will not be able to choose health insurance plans on government health exchanges if federal authorities lack the resources to set them up and educate the public.“Max said unless we implement this properly it’s going to be a train wreck and I...

As is always true when the Wrong Outcome is arrived at, there are two angles to this story. One is the study itself, two is the media hackwork in the aftermath to spin the hell out of it before the Wrong Outcome leads to Wrong Policy. First, the Wrong Outcome via Philip Klein. Oregon expanded its Medicaid program five years ago, then tracked more than 6,000 new participants for a year and a half to see if adding them to the rolls led to major improvements in their health compared to 6,000 people in a control group. Verdict: Nope, not...

During the health care debate, liberals argued that government had to a moral duty to enact legislation that expanded health insurance among lower-income individuals. But a landmark study published in the New England Journal of Medicine dramatically undermines this assumption and shatters the rationale behind the law’s Medicaid expansion. In 2008, Oregon expanded its Medicaid program, but because the state could not cover everybody, lawmakers opened up a lottery that randomly drew 30,000 names from a waiting list of almost 90,000 and allowed them to apply for the program. This created a unique opportunity for health researchers, ultimately allowing them...

Medicare Already Means-Tested, Retirement Expert Says 01 May 2013 The Obama administration's controversial proposal to "means-test" Medicare recipients is ostensibly aimed at generating more cash for the government from those who can afford it - or squeezing more money out of upper-income seniors, depending upon one's point of view. But according to a University of Illinois expert on retirement benefits, the Medicare program is already means-tested. Law professor Richard L. Kaplan says whenever the issue of cutting Medicare emerges, one of the first ideas to "fix" the program is to make its upper-income beneficiaries pay more. "Indeed, the claim is...

Democrats are fretting that Obamacare is going to crush their hopes of big gains in the midterm elections, just like it cost them the House in 2010. And as bad-news headlines and big-time dips in the polls pile up, the signs of anxiety are starting to show. On Monday night, South Carolina’s Elizabeth Colbert Busch, a favorite of the Democratic left, couldn't get away from the law fast enough, calling Obamacare “extremely problematic” — a quote that got wide play from GOP groups like the National Republican Senatorial Committee. Sen. Max Baucus warned that there could be a “train wreck”...

Starting in tax year 2013: Obamacare Surtax on Investment Income: A new, 3.8 percent surtax on investment income earned in households making at least $250,000 ($200,000 single). Obamacare Medicare Payroll Tax Increase: Obamacare Medical Device Tax: Medical device manufacturers employ 409,000 people in 12,000 plants across the country. Obamacare imposes a new 2.3 percent excise tax on gross sales – even if the company does not earn a profit in a given year. Obamacare High Medical Bills Tax: Before Obamacare, Americans facing high medical expenses were allowed a deduction to the extent that those expenses exceed 7.5 percent of adjusted...

Obama Admits "Glitches And Bumps" Coming In ObamaCare Implementation (April 30, 2013)

It is entirely possible that we have a public so spectacularly ill-informed, we are no longer capable of governing themselves. Here’s an April tracking poll from the Kaiser Family Foundation: “Four in ten Americans (42%) are unaware that the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is still the law of the land, including 12 percent who believe the law has been repealed by Congress, 7 percent who believe it has been overturned by the Supreme Court and 23 percent who say they don’t know enough to say what the status of the law is.” With the public so vague on whether or...

Start with people who have individual and small-group health insurance. These policies are most affected by ObamaCare's community-rating regulations, which require insurers to accept everyone but limit or ban them from varying premiums based on age or health. The law also mandates "essential" benefits that are far more generous than those currently offered. According to consultants from Oliver Wyman (who wrote on the issue in the January issue of Contingencies, the magazine of the American Academy of Actuaries), around six million of the 19 million people with individual health policies are going to have to pay more—and this even after...

Under President Obama’s 2010 health law, the government officials in charge of keeping Medicaid afloat have until Tuesday to report whether costs for the fiscally foundering program will exceed expectations. But they won’t have anywhere to send their report. That’s because the Independent Payment Advisory Board – perhaps the most controversial entity created under Obama’s law – still doesn’t exist. This 15-member board, denounced by critics as a “death panel,” is tasked under the law with determining which patients ought to receive which treatments and whether taxes ought to be raised to finance the program. The board has been the...

A young Russian couple living in California is struggling to understand the events of the past few weeks, which began with a trip to the hospital and continued days later with police forcing entry into the couple’s home to take their child. Anna Nikolayev and her husband Alex brought their five-month-old boy Sammy to Sacramento’s Sutter Memorial Hospital after he began exhibiting flu symptoms. He had been diagnosed with a heart murmur at birth, according to News 10, a local ABC affiliate. Sammy was admitted to the hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, at which point his mother witnessed a nurse administering...

As ObamaCare rolls out, some of its biggest backers from labor to D.C. lawmakers are having second thoughts. It's a sign that the idea of ending this national nightmare isn't about to go away. Late last week, the 22,000-member United Union of Roofers, Waterproofers and Allied Workers dropped a bombshell on the Obama administration, not only withdrawing its support for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, but also demanding its repeal. The reason: ObamaCare subsidizes low-paid non-union workers in small companies that don't insure their employees, while leaving union shops with ObamaCare's higher health care costs and a 40%...