Health Care Archives

Halfway through review, Illinois Medicaid eligibility error rate at nearly 60%

Illinois’ Medicaid program has long been plagued with wasteful spending. The U.S. Government Accountability Office designates Medicaid as a high-risk program, largely because it is “particularly vulnerable to fraud, waste, abuse and improper payments” and has inadequate oversight to prevent wasteful spending. Indeed, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, reports an improper payment...

By Jonathan Ingram

State attorneys general school Obama on constitutionality when it comes to ObamaCare

Eleven state attorneys general are coming out against the unconstitutionality of changes in implementing President Barack Obama’s Affordable Care Act. This group – not including Illinois Attorney General Lisa Madigan – lambasted the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, or HHS, for proposed regulations they say “[compound] illegal executive action” and “[fail] to protect...

By Bryant Jackson-Green

Wisconsin senator files lawsuit over congressional exemption from ObamaCare

Republican Senator Ron Johnson of Wisconsin is filing suit today “to make Congress live by the letter of the health-care law it imposed on the rest of America.” According to Johnson: “By arranging for me and other members of Congress and their staffs to receive benefits intentionally ruled out by the Patient Protection and Affordable...

By Naomi Lopez Bauman

New Year’s resolution for ObamaCare: #ComeClean on enrollment numbers

The Obama administration’s Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced that 2.1 million have enrolled in a private insurance plan in the ObamaCare exchanges and at least another 3.9 million are eligible for Medicaid and Children’s Health Insurance Program, or CHIP. While the announcement was thin on details, it is safe to assume that these...

By Naomi Lopez Bauman

ObamaCare: Year-end review

It is not uncommon for a president’s signature policy to unanimously make every news outlet’s top stories of the year list. But when that policy provides late-night talk show fodder and comedy sketch parody material for the same policy would be. Beating out the George Zimmerman trial, the birth of a royal baby and the...

By Naomi Lopez Bauman

If you like your crummy health insurance plan, you can’t keep it — but now you can buy ours!

To paraphrase political humorist P.J. O’Rourke, “Giving the Obama administration control over one-sixth of the economy is like giving whiskey and car keys to teenage boys.” Last night provided yet another example of ObamaCare rollout chaos. The Obama administration announced that people who had their plans canceled by ObamaCare regulations (because they were inferior plans,...

By Naomi Lopez Bauman

Thousands of Illinoisans have to reapply for ObamaCare

If navigating the ObamaCare website or filling out the applications weren’t challenging enough, some in Illinois and around the country are facing yet another challenge. USA Today reports that some people are being mistakenly enrolled into Medicaid. Not only are individuals improperly enrolled in Medicaid faced with the problem of canceling that enrollment, but they...

By Naomi Lopez Bauman

ObamaCare’s awkward, hipster Christmas

The same president who wanted gift registries filled with donations to his campaign and to infiltrate Thanksgiving dinner with an ObamaCare enrollment push is back at it again. This time, the Obama administration has added a mascot. And he wears a plaid onesie. Obama’s #GetTalking campaign aims to stir up conversations about ObamaCare and encourage...

By Naomi Lopez Bauman

After ‘backroom deal,’ Illinois to hire 500 new government workers to replace private Medicaid scrub contractor

Republican state Sens. Dale Righter and Patti Bellock accused the Quinn administration of cutting a “backroom deal” with the largest state employee union that will dismantle efforts to crack down on Medicaid fraud, according to the State Journal-Register. In 2012, the state hired a private vendor to help rein in out-of-control costs associated with Illinois’...

By Hilary Gowins

Hundreds of policies canceled for every ObamaCare enrollee in Illinois?

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services has announced that 7,043 Illinoisans enrolled in the ObamaCare health insurance exchanges through the end of November. But about 185,000 policies in the individual market have been canceled or terminated as a result of ObamaCare. The new health care scheme may cost more than 175,000 Illinois individuals and families health insurance coverage come...

By Naomi Lopez Bauman

7,000 Illinoisans enrolled in ObamaCare plans in the first 2 months

Almost 365,000 Americans have “enrolled” in the ObamaCare exchanges, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That number is far below the Obama administration’s impending goal of enrolling 3 million people by the end of December and 7 million by the end of March. But the true number of people who have...

By Naomi Lopez Bauman

President pushes for a side of ObamaCare this Thanksgiving

The same president who wanted gift registries filled with donations to his campaign is back with another turkey of an idea. This time, the idea is to infiltrate Thanksgiving dinner with an ObamaCare enrollment push. Never mind that talking politics is right up there with the “when are you going to finally get your life...

By Naomi Lopez Bauman

Illinois to replace private firm with state workers to scrub state’s Medicaid eligibility rolls

The late newspaper columnist Charley Reese once wrote: “Government is inherently incompetent, and no matter what task it is assigned, it will do it in the most expensive and inefficient way possible.” Reese could have easily been referring to the state of Illinois’ recent decision to replace a private firm to scrub the state’s Medicaid...

By Naomi Lopez Bauman

Illinois to allow insurers to extend canceled health insurance policies

In an effort to curb the tide of millions of health insurance cancellations as a result of ObamaCare, the president called on state regulators to extend the terminated health insurance policies that were canceled as a result of ObamaCare mandates. In response, Illinois Department of Insurance Commissioner Andrew Boron announced that the department “will follow...

By Naomi Lopez Bauman