Affordable Care Act

New data show ObamaCare expanded insurance coverage to just 3% of uninsured Illinoisans

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
05/13/2014
Despite the recent back-slapping and self-congratulations from the Obama administration over the ObamaCare health exchange “enrollments,” there is little reason to believe that the health insurance overhaul is going to have a significant impact on expanding private health insurance coverage in Illinois. Based on national survey data, ObamaCare may have expanded private health coverage to...

Chart of the week: Despite enrollment ‘success’ ObamaCare more unpopular than ever

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
05/07/2014
While the president and his political allies have been celebrating ObamaCare’s “success,” not everyone is sharing this sentiment. In fact, most people are now taking the opposite view. According to a recent Pew Research Center/USA TODAY survey, more Americans disapprove of the Affordable Care Act now than when the law was enacted. Americans, now that...

HHS reporting ObamaCare enrollment duplications

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
05/07/2014
In a House Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations subcommittee hearing this morning, a major health insurance trade association representative testified that the administration is reporting inflated enrollment numbers. According to their testimony: “Duplicate enrollments: Because of the challenges that surfaced with the launch of the Exchanges in October 2013, some consumers were advised to create a new account and enroll...

ObamaCare’s bailout for health insurers

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
05/06/2014
A little known, but important, provision in the Affordable Care Act, or ACA, is turning into a major point of contention between some policymakers and insurers participating in the ObamaCare exchanges. The ACA includes provisions to pay insurers for their financial losses in the ObamaCare exchanges. In response to lawmaker and public pressure, the federal...

ObamaCare: Politicians living by the same set of rules gaining support

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
05/06/2014
Republican Sen. Ron Johnson of Wisconsin has filed suit in federal court “to make Congress live by the letter of the health-care law it imposed on the rest of America.” He now has support from dozens of his Congressional colleagues, as well as a growing number of supporters across the country, to make congressmen participate...

Another state-funded ObamaCare health exchange goes up in smoke

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
05/06/2014
Before ObamaCare, there was RomneyCare, the Massachusetts model upon which ObamaCare was built. This week, Massachusetts announced that it is scrapping its failed state-funded exchange website. The state will simultaneously merge with the federal healthcare.gov site and attempt to build another state exchange website before open enrollment season for 2015 coverage which begins in the...

ObamaCare enrollments in Illinois: at best, halfway to goal

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
05/01/2014
Media outlets across Illinois are trumpeting the “surge” in ObamaCare enrollments during March, as well as the “extended” enrollment period during the first half of April. But to see the reality behind the ObamaCare enrollments, one needs to dig deeper than the Obama administration’s press release. Instead of counting people who have actually paid for...

Half of Illinois ObamaCare ‘enrollees’ haven’t paid their premium

By Hilary Gowins
05/01/2014
You’re not signed up unless you pay. And in Illinois, half of ObamaCare “enrollees” haven’t paid for their premium. That puts the Land of Lincoln well below the national average. Nationwide, just 67 percent of those the Obama administration counted as “enrolled” in the Affordable Care Act had paid their premiums as of April 15,...

TAGS: enrollment

Where are the ObamaCare enrollment numbers?

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
04/29/2014
The president and his political allies haven’t been shy about touting an ObamaCare enrollment number of 8 million. But it now seems curious that, for all their back-slapping and self-congratulations, the administration is weeks late in releasing its monthly ObamaCare enrollment report. But this delay should not be all that surprising, given that it merely...

ObamaCare: Wrong side up

By Naomi Lopez Bauman
04/22/2014
Under ObamaCare, if an employer offers a generous health insurance plan that does not happen to cover the law’s mandated minimum set of “essential health benefits” to its employees, the employer would pay more in penalties than if they had offered no coverage at all. There are 10 coverage categories that comprise the essential health benefits,...