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WASHINGTON – The Obama administration often touts that people with pre-existing conditions and countless others can now get covered under ObamaCare. But there's another group that's starting to benefit from the law -- prison inmates. Cash-strapped state and local prisons increasingly are using the Affordable Care Act to pay for their inmates' medical costs, taking advantage of a little-known provision that lets them shift some of those expenses to the federal government. Ohio, Illinois and Iowa are among the states trying to offload the rising costs of health care – which include mental health programs – by enrolling inmates into...

(Reuters) - Three million lower-income Americans have enrolled in the Medicaid program for the poor so far during the rollout of U.S. President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law, the administration announced on Friday. That brings to more than 10 million the number of people who have signed up for both public and private health coverage since the October 1 launch of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known as Obamacare. This week, the White House announced there were 7.1 million sign-ups as of March 31 for private health plans through new electronic insurance marketplaces now operating in all 50...

It's almost become a cliché: If the new health care law makes it here, it can make it anywhere. As thousands of California procrastinators try to beat Monday's midnight deadline to apply for a health care plan, they'll be joining more than 1 million others in the Bellwether State who already have enrolled through California's health insurance exchange. And another 2 million have been determined eligible for Medi-Cal, the state's program for the poor.

What happens when one half of the Virginia General Assembly passes a budget and the other half isn’t there to receive it?

Senator Bill Kintner Medicaid expansion has been stopped when the proponents failed to get the necessary 33 votes to invoke cloture. The vote was 27-21 -1. Krist was a not voting. This is a huge win for the citizens of Nebraska for all the reasons I have previously covered. Thank you to all the people that called and wrote the senators.

David Moxley, Political Director Friday, March 14, 2014 Will you join me? Tomorrow morning, Obama is sending his national group, Organizing for America, to rally at our Capitol (1000 Bank Street, Richmond) in support of Governor McAuliffe's decision to negotiate Virginia's local and state budgets for Medicaid Expansion. We oppose expansion of a failed program rather than partaking in these Washington games of political brinksmanship. So I'm heading up to the Bell Tower at 10:30am to let them know just that - will you join me? The media will be there and they will let OFA's paid activists speak for...

If you listen to the President, and other supporters of Obamacare, you might get the impression that the reason why tens of millions of Americans go without health insurance is because these people have pre-existing conditions, and health insurers are too mean to cover them. The truth is quite different. Less than a million Americans lack health insurance because of a pre-existing condition. And it turns out that a good number of Americans are uninsured not because they are sick, but because they are convicted criminals.

Hillary Clinton showed more signs of flexibility Wednesday on how Obamacare is implemented, but she insisted the law is too important to “turn the clock back.” In a question-and-answer session following a lecture at UCLA, Clinton suggested she’s open to different ways of achieving the health law’s goals. She praised Arkansas — the state where she and her husband rose to political fame — for carrying out a new approach to expanding Medicaid coverage, by using the federal money to buy private health insurance for more than 100,000 low-income residents. Clinton called the move, spearheaded by Democratic Gov. Mike Beebe...

Rep. Joe Wilson was right. The South Carolina Congressman screamed, “You lie!” when Barack Obama told Americans the Affordable Care Act would not cover abortions or illegal immigrants. [video] Now we know – Obamacare covers illegal immigrants. 125,000 illegal immigrants will be eligible for free healthcare under Medi-Cal, California’s Medicaid expansion. The LA Times reported: A new report shows that as many as 125,000 young California immigrants may qualify for an expansion of Medi-Cal, the state’s Medicaid program. The Affordable Care Act bars insurance subsidies and enrollment in the Medicaid expansion for undocumented immigrants, but a wrinkle in California rules...

It’s not the first time that the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler has dropped a bunch of Pinocchios on claims from Democrats on Medicaid expansion, and it looks like it won’t be the last, either. Kessler even gave himself three Pinocchios a month ago for initially buying the White House spin on the Medicaid numbers. Today, he gives Barack Obama the maximum four Pinocchios for claiming that ObamaCare has resulted in seven million enrollments in the federal program for low-income Americans: “We’ve got close to 7 million Americans who have access to health care for the first time because of Medicaid...

From Victoria Cobb at Family Foundation: On Thursday, the House of Delegates and state Senate passed their respective budgets. As anticipated, one of the most glaring differences between the two budgets is their approaches on the expansion of ObamaCare in Virginia. The Senate included expanding ObamaCare in its budget despite agreement last year between the two chambers that the issue would be kept separate from the budget so it wouldn't become a stumbling block to passing a budget. Three Senate Republicans, John Watkins, Walter Stosch, and Emmett Hanger joined 20 Democrats in passing the budget. Last year, the General Assembly...

Congratulations! You have successfully signed up for a truly excellent plan on the Covered California website! It's a really, really great plan. Really. Now, good look finding a doctor who will treat you. Los Angeles Times: After overcoming website glitches and long waits to get Obamacare, some patients are now running into frustrating new roadblocks at the doctor's office.A month into the most sweeping changes to healthcare in half a century, people are having trouble finding doctors at all, getting faulty information on which ones are covered and receiving little help from insurers swamped by new business.Experts have warned...

Missouri’s Medicaid program expected to see an uptick in enrollment with the rollout of HealthCare.gov because outreach efforts would attract more people – particularly children – who were already eligible. But the state hasn’t added any of them to the Medicaid rolls. Rather, the number of Missourians on Medicaid has actually decreased by about 14,000 since the marketplace launched on Oct. 1. The state says application data forwarded by the online exchange is fraught with errors and duplication. “We’re in the process of sorting it out,” said Brian Kinkade, acting director of the social services department. As for declining Medicaid...

What are the major differences between Medicaid, Medicare? Which covers more? Since Obamacare thrusts so many into Medicaid, and has raised income limits, can a retiree chose Medicaid over Medicare? Can I assume a person who retires early (at 62) and can't get Medicare until 66, can get Medicaid?

On Oct. 1, 2012 the Obama administration started awarding bonus points to hospitals that spend the least on elderly patients. It will result in fewer knee replacements, hip replacements, angioplasty, bypass surgery and cataract operations. These are the five procedures that have transformed aging for older Americans. They used to languish in wheelchairs and nursing homes due to arthritis, cataracts and heart disease. Now they lead active lives. But the Obama administration is undoing that progress. By cutting $716 billion from future Medicare funding over the next decade and rewarding the hospitals that spend the least on seniors, the Obama...

As healthcare reform occurs throughout the nation, Virginians voice their opposition to Medicaid expansion. Funding Limitations The promised levels of Federal funding for Medicaid expansion cannot be fulfilled. The evidence is mounting. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Budget Committee, recently stated that funds will not be available for Medicaid expansion. Medicaid ExpansionThe funding streams for expansion have been greatly impacted by the disastrous roll-out of the ACA. The federal government has recently refused to pay what they promised to Indian tribes for medical services. Health insurance companies are guaranteed a bailout because not enough young people are singing up...

Look closely at this tweet by the @BarackObama account, maintained by the pro-Obama group Organizing for America. The 6 million figure comes from combining a figure of 2.1 million for people selecting a plan via state and federal exchanges, through December, and 3.9 million for Medicaid, through November. Thus the claim that “6 million Americans have already signed up for coverage thanks to health reform.” There is much less to the Medicaid figure than meets the eye. (The exchange figure has been updated recently, to 2.2 million, but not the Medicaid figure.) Indeed, there has been vast confusion about what...

Failure: ObamaCare is driving millions of people into Medicaid, a program we now know does nothing to improve health and actually drives emergency-room use higher. A central premise of ObamaCare was that vastly expanding Medicaid would ultimately save health care dollars. The millions of uninsured gaining access to Medicaid would no longer crowd costly emergency rooms looking for care, the thinking went. And that improved access would keep them healthier. Turns out that neither of those claims is true.

A couple of weeks ago I visited my internist for the annual physical to which she subjects me in order to confirm that my various organs are still operating according to specifications. As she poked and prodded, I asked how her practice was going. This question elicited a resigned sigh and a brief but poignant discourse on the necessity of “firing” her Medicaid patients. Medicaid, the government program that ostensibly provides health coverage for the poor, imposes so much red tape and pays so parsimoniously that she simply cannot afford to treat these patients if she wishes to avoid bankruptcy.

Another example of Obamacare's brilliant implementation in Kentucky. In the short video clip, he pulls out his son's Medicaid card and shows it to George Stephanopoulos...