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Mark Levin was livid when he found out that Congress has been in secret talks to figure out how to exempt themselves from Obamacare. And he’s not buying either Boehner or Reid’s statements today to the contrary. In short, Levin says they got caught and you should be furious. And while he made clear he’s not advocating or encouraging this, he said it’s this kind of thing that revolutions are made out of.

Reid: No ObamaCare 'exemption' for lawmakers, staff By Sam Baker - 04/25/13 01:06 PM ET Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) quickly shot down speculation about a possible "exemption" for lawmakers and staff from the central part of ObamaCare. Reid spokesman Adam Jentleson said Reid has never considered exempting members and staff from the law's insurance exchanges, and will not consider it in the future. "There are not now, have never been, nor will there ever be any discussions about exempting members of Congress or Congressional staff from Affordable Care Act provisions that apply to any employees of any other...

Congressional leaders of both parties in the House and Senate are trying to exempt themselves--and their staffs--from Obamacare's health insurance exchanges they will be mandated to join under the law. This would be a devastating indictment of Obamacare and the Democrats who rammed it through. Republicans may give Democrats cover if they join them in agreeing to the exemptions. According to a (Politico) the "high-level" talks involve Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV), House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH), the Obama administration and other "top lawmakers," and both sides are "acutely aware of the potential for political fallout from giving carve-outs...

Setting up insurance exchanges — the centerpiece of President Obama's healthcare reform law — is costing the Health and Human Services Department a whole lot more than it originally expected. According to budget documents released Wednesday, the department expects to spend $4.4 billion on exchange grants to the states by the end of this year — double its estimates a year ago. The HHS is also asking Congress for another $1.5 billion to set up a federal exchange in 26 states. The department has cobbled together money from other programs to get started, but officials said they need another $800...

Under ObamaCare, insurers have the option of charging smokers up to 50 percent more to cover the associated higher costs of providing them with health care — but the District of Columbia, along with several other states, have decided that any plans being sold within their exchange are prohibited from adding tobacco surcharges. That simply wouldn’t be fair, you see: On Monday, the D.C. exchange’s executive board voted to prevent insurers from charging higher premiums to smokers than to nonsmokers — meaning nonsmokers are likely to pay modestly higher rates than if smoking surcharges were permitted. The District joins three...

The District of Columbia’s Obamacare czars — the board that sets rules for the phony insurance marketplace, or “exchange,” that the law creates — have decided that henceforth insurers shall be forbidden by law to charge smokers higher rates than non-smokers. Smoking, as it turns out, “is a preexisting medical condition,” according to Dr. Mohammad Akhter, the chairman of the D.C. Health Exchange Board. Two liberal states, California and Connecticut, have decided likewise, while Colorado and Alaska have rejected the idea.

"What we've learned through the course of this program is that this is really not a sensible way for the healthcare system to be run." That was Gary Cohen, director of the Department of Health and Human Services' Center for Consumer Information and Insurance Oversight, talking. He was specifically responding to the apparently surprising need to halt enrollments in a program designed as a temporary bridge for people with preexisting conditions who couldn't wait until the Affordable Care Act (a.k.a. Obamacare) fully kicks in next year. The program was allocated $5 billion, but some estimate it will take $40 billion...

If you buy your own health insurance now, you'll be in for a big change when you sign up for coverage in 2014. Just over half of the individual plans currently on the market do not meet the standards to be sold next year, when many key provisions of President Obama's Affordable Care Act kick in, according to a University of Chicago study. That's because the law sets new minimums for the basic coverage every individual health care plan must provide. "They will offer a lot more financial protection," Jon Gabel, the report's lead author, said of the individual plans...

(CNSNews.com) - Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is giving another $1.5 Billion in taxpayer money to eleven states to build their new health insurance exchanges. But it appears that half the states will let the federal government do it for them. The “Exchange Establishment Grants” announced on Thursday will go to California, Delaware, Iowa, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, North Carolina, Oregon, and Vermont. “These states are working to implement the health care law, and we continue to support them as they build new affordable insurance marketplaces,” Secretary Sebelius said. “Starting in 2014, Americans in all states...

With President Obama's triumph in November, many political observers sounded the death knell for the "full repeal" movement fighting against ObamaCare. Despite lingering controversy and general unpopularity, the president's victory and a large Democratic majority in the Senate made the law appear safe at last. Is it? In a sense, it is. Full repeal almost certainly won't happen while President Obama is in office, and attempts to reform the law will struggle to gain traction as long as progressives keep their hold on the Senate. If the law won't be repealed before its true implementation in 2014, and if reform...

The federal government will likely be involved in running the ObamaCare exchange in at least 30 states, 26 of which expressly declined to establish state exchanges. One health-policy expert refers to it as an "administrative nightmare" for the Department of Health and Human Services. Friday was the deadline for a state to let HHS know if it planned to establish a state exchange. Thus far only 18 states and the District of Columbia are planning on doing so. As of right now only Utah and Florida remain undecided. Utah may still decide to set up a state exchange, but few...

Only 15 states have told HHS that they will develop their own online insurance exchanges. This means the government has to design 35 different sites, with 35 different criteria for coverage -- all by next year. From CNBC: Only 15 states have told the federal government they plan to operate health insurance exchanges under President Barack Obama's reform law, leaving Washington with the daunting task of creating online marketplaces for two-thirds of the country. On the eve of a federal deadline for states to say whether they will run their own exchanges, a top health care policy official told lawmakers...

The Department of Health and Human Services extended the original deadline by which states need to decide whether they will be setting up their own versions of the virtual health insurance exchanges required via the auspices of ObamaCare, or allowing (making?) the federal government to do it for them, or forging some kind of partnership with the feds to get the things done --- meaning that states now have until this Friday, December 14th to report their decision to HHS. Many Republican governors have been leaning back on forth on which option to take, torn between trying to mitigate the...

Pennsylvania will not set up its own health care exchange under the federal Affordable Care Act — at least not for now, Gov. Tom Corbett said Wednesday. Setting up a state-based exchange would be irresponsible, Corbett said as he faulted federal authorities for what he said were inadequate answers to his questions about cost and other issues. "Health care reform is too important to be achieved through haphazard planning," said the Republican governor. "Pennsylvania taxpayers and businesses deserve more. They deserve informed decision making and a strong plan that responsibly uses taxpayer dollars."

Despite over 2,000 pages of legislative text, many key details of President Obama’s national health care law were left up to regulators to work out, with Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius given the lead role. The Obama administration wanted to avoid issuing potentially controversial health care regulations during an election year, but now that it’s over, regulations are starting to roll out. In a news dump this past Friday afternoon, HHS released 373 pages of new insurance regulations, and buried on page 299 is a proposed 3.5 percent monthly “user fee” to be levied on the premiums...

".... likely in concert with the White House — and to the chagrin of many HHS employees — Sebelius and other senior HHS officials decided that word could too easily get out about the firewall project. If it did, it would alert people to UnitedHealth Group’s having gained a potentially huge competitive advantage — a political concern for the White House on the cusp of the election, especially in light of the crony capitalism charges that have plagued this administration. Therefore, HHS, under Sebelius’s leadership, suspended work on the firewall and told United-Health Group not to alert the SEC to...

<p>The Obama administration is proposing a new way to finance the health law’s insurance exchanges: A fee levied on the insurers who sell in the marketplace.</p> <p>Health and Human Services will operate a health insurance exchange in all states that decline to set up the marketplace themselves. In order to finance the exchange’s operations, new draft regulations released Friday envision health plans paying a “user fee” if they want to sell in that space.</p>

He may have embraced the president just before the election, but New Jersey Governor Chris Christie is keeping his distance from Obama when it comes to implementing Obamacare. Politico: ******* Echoing complaints from other Republican governors who have declined to build the key component of the president's health law, Christie stressed unanswered questions and potential costs. "We will comply with the Affordable Care Act but only in the most efficient and cost-effective way for New Jersey taxpayers," he said in a statement. But he said the federal government hasn't told states what they need to make the assessment. "Thus far,...

So much for stopping Obamacare by refusing to set up state exchanges. Obama administration will charge a 3.5% user fee on premiums in states where Feds have to create the exchange. The theory rested on the premise there was no funding mechanism in Obamacare for the federal exchanges. Read more.

The signature power grab of the left may be the “law of the land” as conceded by ever conciliatory House Speaker John Boehner, but getting the massively complex statute up and running will be far more difficult than getting it passed. When Democrats rammed ObamaCare through congress in 2010, their intent was to literally acquire the power of life and death over the American people, not create a workable healthcare plan. And this becomes increasingly apparent as the requirements of the 2700 page behemoth are gradually made known. Those who wrote the law believed that elected officials in the 50...