Another Benefit of Obamacare

Republican: Pre-Existing Conditions Are Your Own Fault

Ted Cruz Flounders on CNN

Pro-ACA Republican Wins in Louisiana

From Think Progress:

Louisiana voters elected Republican Vance McAllister in a runoff to fill the state’s vacant Fifth District U.S. House seat on Saturday. McAllister, a businessman who embraced the expansion of Medicaid available to the state under the Affordable Care Act, defeated a Republican party favorite who called for full Obamacare repeal.

In a district won by Mitt Romney with 61 percent of the vote in 2012, two Republicans were the top vote-getters in a 14-candidate October primary. McAllister, who received nearly 60 percent of the vote in Saturday’s special election, criticized much of the Affordable Care Act, but also criticized Gov. Bobby Jindal’s (R) decision to dismantle charity hospitals in the state, and to reject its Medicaid expansion, which would expand the qualifications for Medicaid recipients and extend healthcare coverage to hundreds of thousands of uninsured Louisianans. “Our governor and Sen. Riser right here have gutted [heath care] to the core and privatized it.”

McAllister’s top opponent, State Senator Neil Riser (R), received support from House Republican Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA), three of the four other Louisiana Republican Congressmen, the National Rifle Association, FreedomWorks and, more tacitly, Gov. Jindal. Riser ran ads saying that he would go to Washington to balance the budget and stop Obamacare — not make friends — andslammed McAllister for ” attempting to redefine himself and stand with President Obama.”

Clearing Up Some ACA Misinformation

Gov. Kasich (R): There Seems to Be a War on the Poor

From the New York Times:

“I’m concerned about the fact there seems to be a war on the poor,” he said, sitting at the head of a burnished table as members of his cabinet lingered after a meeting. “That if you’re poor, somehow you’re shiftless and lazy.”

“You know what?” he said. “The very people who complain ought to ask their grandparents if they worked at the W.P.A.”

Ever since Republicans in Congress shut down the federal government in an attempt to remove funding for President Obama’s health care law, Republican governors have been trying to distance themselves from Washington.

Gov. Scott Walker of Wisconsin schooled lawmakers in a Washington Post opinion column midway through the 16-day shutdown on “What Wisconsin Can Teach Washington.” Gov. Chris Christie of New Jersey, with a record of bipartisan support at home, remarked after a visit to the nation’s capital, “If I was in the Senate right now, I’d kill myself.”

But few have gone further than Mr. Kasich in critiquing his party’s views on poverty programs, and last week he circumvented his own Republican legislature and its Tea Partywing by using a little-known state board to expand Medicaid to 275,000 poor Ohioans under President Obama’s health care law...

The Anti-Obamacare Plot a Year in the Making

Disney World's Reaction to Obamacare

From Think Progress:  

Walt Disney Co. announced on Wednesday that it is offering full-time employment to the 427 part-time employees at its Disney World theme park in Orlando, Florida who work at least 30 hours per week — the threshold at which the Affordable Care Act requires large employers with 50 or more workers to offer basic health benefits to employees or risk paying a $2,000 per employee fine after the first 30 workers.

Disney already offers a level of health coverage that is acceptable under Obamacare to its full-time employees. But part-time workers, including those who work at the 30-hour cutoff set by the health law, receive more limited benefits. Instead of rolling back these workers’ hours to avoid expanding their health coverage, Disney is choosing to promote them to full-time status.

“Disney wants to be proactive,” said Ed Chambers, president of the Service Trades Council union that represents tens of thousands of Orlando Disney employees, in an interview with Bloomberg News. “Disney is way out in front on this.”

Obama's Reaction to the GOP on Obamacare

Sen McCain: Chasing Obamacare Is Not Rational

Why Trader Joe's Cutting Health Benefits Is Good

From the Washington Post:

For over 77% of our Crew Members there is absolutely no change to their healthcare coverage provided by Trader Joe's.

The ACA brings a new potential player into the arena for the acquisition of health care. Stated quite simply, the law is centered on providing low cost options to people who do not make a lot of money. Somewhat by definition, the law provides those people a pretty good deal for insurance ... a deal that can't be matched by us -- or any company. However, an individual employee (we call them Crew Member) is only able to receive the tax credit from the exchanges under the act if we do not offer them insurance under our company plan.

Perhaps an example will help. A Crew Member called in the other day and was quite unhappy that she was being dropped from our coverage unless she worked more hours. She is a single mom with one child who makes $18 per hour and works about 25 hours per week. We ran the numbers for her. She currently pays $166.50 per month for her coverage with Trader Joe's. Because of the tax credits under the ACA she can go to an exchange and purchase insurance that is almost identical to our plan for $69.59 per month. Accordingly, by going to the exchange she will save $1,175 each year ... and that is before counting the $500 we will give her in January.

Boston Bombing Victims Risk Losing Their Insurance

From Raw Story: 

Months after the Boston Marathon bombing, J.P. Norden is still recovering from losing his leg, but he can’t cash a $1.2 million check provided to survivors because he would lose his state health insurance for the poor.

Norden, and his brother Paul, both had legs amputated and received identical checks as part of the $60 million being distributed by One Fund charity. They told The Washington Post that they are very aware they would quickly use up the $1.2 million with their ongoing medical expenses.

“People will say stuff: ‘Oh, you guys got $1.2 million,’” J.P. Norden explained. “Did we? Because I know I’ve got to buy a leg for the rest of my life. I can’t go out and buy a house.”

While the benefit checks are tax free, cashing them means that the state will drop the brothers from the health insurance program for the poor. And within years, the costs of prosthetics alone will be more than the men were awarded. 

Bad News For Obamacare Opponents

From the Washington Post:

The new Kaiser Family Foundation study looking at Obamacare’s likely impact on health insurance costs is getting a lot of attention, and rightly so. As Bloomberg News puts it, this is the “the broadest look yet at what consumers will pay for health insurance when the Affordable Care Act takes full effect next year,” and its top line finding is that insurance will be “affordable.” In other words, no “rate shock.”

Indeed, if you dig into the report, you’ll find more information that really bodes well for Obamacare’s implementation.

Specifically, the prices of the so-called “bronze” plans turn out to be very affordable, and even more so when you add in the law’s subsidies — which is very good news for those who worried people won’t sign on to the exchanges.

The “bronze” plans represent the least generous level of coverage, and health reformers believe they represent a kind of escape valve for releasing anger over the individual mandate. The idea is those who are least likely to sign on to the exchanges — single youngish people who don’t have a lot of money — are also the most likely to sign on to “bronze” plans. If those are affordable more will sign up.

Wal-Mart to Cover Domestic Partners Health Care

From Reuters: 

Wal-Mart is the single biggest U.S. employer outside of the federal government. More than half of its 1.3 million U.S. employees are on its health-care plans. The company said it does not know how many workers would use either of the new benefits.

Wal-Mart's extension of health insurance to domestic partners comes after the U.S. Supreme Court in June forced the federal government to recognize same-sex marriages in states where it is legal. The Supreme Court also paved the way for same-sex marriage in California.

"Since we operate in all 50 states, we thought it was important to develop a single definition for all Wal-Mart associates in the U.S.," spokesman David Tovar said.

Employees' domestic partners can be covered if they are legal spouses, not legally separated; or a domestic partner of same or opposite gender in an ongoing, exclusive relationship similar to marriage for at least 12 months with the intention to continue sharing a household indefinitely, he said.

GOP Governors Flip-Flop on Obamacare

Republicans Helping WITH Obamacare

From Think Progress: 

In June, two stalwart conservatives, Reps. Tim Huelskamp (R-KS) and Jason Chaffetz (R-UT), announced that their offices would not help constituents who phoned in with questions about Obamacare, such as how to enroll or take advantage of subsidies that are available.

Republicans are doing everything in their power to hinder the new health law’s implementation, and refusing to help constituents who were trying to figure out how Obamacare can work for them is one way to accomplish that.

ThinkProgress spoke with three congressmen this month about whether they would be following Huelskamp and Chaffetz’s lead. Though all three made clear they opposed Obamacare, they unanimously confirmed their offices would “help every constituent that calls our office,” as Rep. Jeff Denham (R-CA) declared. Rep. Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) agreed, explaining, “I’m not going to send our constituents out the door just because I may not like it.” Rep. Tom McClintock (R-CA) said helping guide constituents who call with questions about federal programs is “one of the primary functions of our office.”

Why a GOP Staffer Left the Party

From Think Progress:

Clint Murphy, now a real estate agent from Savannah, Georgia, who’s been involved with Republican campaigns since the 1990s, was diagnosed with testicular cancer in 2000 when he was 25 years old. Four years and four rounds of chemo treatment later — all of which was covered by insurance — Murphy was in remission. Insurance wasn’t a problem in his subsequent political jobs — he worked on John McCain’s election campaign in 2008 and Karen Handel’s Georgia gubernatorial run in 2010 — but when he quit politics in 2010 and entered real estate, he realized just how difficult obtaining insurance with a pre-existing condition could be.

In an interview with the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Murphy said he thought after 10 years since his cancer diagnosis, the insurance companies might cut him some slack — instead, they found something else to charge him for.

“I have sleep apnea. They treated sleep apnea as a pre-existing condition. I’m going right now with no insurance,” he told the AJC.

That’s why Murphy had this to say to his Republican friends who oppose Obamacare on Facebook last week: “When you say you’re against it, you’re saying that you don’t want people like me to have health insurance.”

Murphy says Republicans’ insensitivity towards the health care debate has made it so that he can’t in good conscience call himself a Republican anymore — he now identifies as an independent. He doesn’t think Obamacare is perfect, but he thinks it’s a start, and he says he’s tired of Republicans “not even participating in the process” of improving America’s health care system. Still, he says he’s supporting Karen Handel for Georgia Senate, despite her promise to defund Obamacare, because he thinks she can find a way to improve America’s health care system. Handel says she thinks a proposal from Rep. Tom Price (R-GA), which would provide coverage by incentivizing individuals to purchase coverage through tax credits and deductions, would work in place of Obamacare.

Sexual Orientation on Medical Records

From Queerty:

When you go to the doctor, you want him or her to know everything about you that might affect your health. That’s why a new study says that medical records should include the patient’s sexual orientation. Without that information, the study says, medical groups will not be able to recognize disparities in care based on sexual orientation and take the necessary steps to correct them.

The authors of the study, published in the journal LGBT Health, note that data shows that lesbians are less likely to get screened for cervical cancer and that there is a higher incidence of mental health issues related to stress among LGBT patients. But without routine collection of data about sexual orientation, addressing those issues and identifying others will remain a problem.

“Given the outward invisibility of LGBT people and their history of invisibility in the health-care system, it is critical for clinicians to address and screen for health conditions disproportionately affecting LGBT people and have frank discussions with patients about sexual identity and behavior and gender identity,” the authors write. “However, most clinicians don’t ask questions about these topics; many are uncomfortable discussing sex with patients. Gathering data on sexual and gender identity in EHR [electronic health records] will improve our understanding of LGBT disparities and help improve clinicians’ conversations with patients about LGBT issues.”

Obesity Rates Drop in Low Income Children

From Think Progress:

Young U.S. children from poor families are seeing an unprecedented drop in their levels of obesity, according to new data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). The findings represent the first time ever that the government has witnessed a widespread reduction in low-income children’s obesity rates and may bode well for America’s public health at large. 

The obesity rate for poor children aged two to four fell in 18 states and the Virgin Islands between 2008 and 2011. Only three states witnessed a rise in obesity, while 19 others — as well as the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico — experienced no significant changes. That’s a far cry from a similar analysis conducted in 2009, when 24 states saw higher childhood obesity rates among low-income families and only nine states or territories underwent a decline.  

Although the reductions themselves are modest — averaging around one percent — scientists consider them widespread enough to be significant. “[W]e’ve seen isolated reports in the past that have had encouraging trends, but this is the first report to show many states with declining rates of obesity in our youngest children after literally decades of rising rates,” said CDC director Dr. Tom Frieden during a press conference.

~

Better nutritional and public health regulations may also be a factor. Mississippi saw its childhood obesity rate plummet by 13 percent between 2006 and 2011 thanks to aggressive school nutrition and physical education programs that were passed in 2007. First Lady Michelle Obama has led a national campaign to fight childhood obesity through better food and exercise — a movement that 10,000 child care centers in America have embraced. Those nutritional policy reforms may become more widespread thanks to Obamacare funding for local preventative health care efforts and regulations taking effect this year that force public schools to trade in junk food in cafeterias and vending machines for healthier alternatives. 

Fox Host Confronts Majority Leader Cantor (R-VA)

From Think Progress:

Fox News’s Chris Wallace challenged House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) and the GOP-controlled House for failing to pass key appropriations before the government runs out of money in September, demanding to know why the party is wasting time holding its 40 Obamacare repeal vote and pursuing other highly partisan partisan measures. 

“Rightly or wrongly, none of the bills you passed is going to become law,” Wallace told Cantor on Fox News Sunday. “You have only passed four of 12 appropriations bills you are supposed to pass. We face a government shut down in the fall. Is this the best time to spend your time, passing bills that won’t become law?” 

Cantor responded by accusing President Obama of delivering campaign speeches and failing to consider measures the House has already voted on. But Wallace wouldn’t hear it, reminding Cantor that the GOP couldn’t advance a comprehensive Farm Bill and had to pull a transportation funding measure after moderate House Republicans balked at its deep cuts. “Why not do what the House is supposed to do?” he pressed. Watch it: 

I would like to note that cantor said 'growing deficit." Is he aware that the deficit is falling at the fastest rate in several decades? Apparently not. Maybe he meant to say "growing debt."