The Sebelius Ruling: Not Good for Health Insurers
You wouldn’t know it from Robert Pear’s write up in The New York Times this morning, but a new HHS ruling appears to be great news for hospitals and bad news for private insurance companies. Here is what Pear said:
The Affordable Care Act is the biggest new health care program in decades, but the Obama administration has ruled that neither the federal insurance exchange nor the federal subsidies paid to insurance companies on behalf of low-income people are “federal health care programs.”
The surprise decision, disclosed last week, exempts subsidized health insurance from a law that bans rebates, kickbacks, bribes and certain other financial arrangements in federal health programs, stripping law enforcement of a powerful tool used to fight fraud in other health care programs, like Medicare.
Here is what I think this really means: hospitals are going to be able to sign up patients for insurance in the exchange (platinum plans, of course), pay the premiums for them and wave any deductible. Just one more reason to worry about death spirals.
“The surprise decision, disclosed last week, exempts subsidized health insurance from a law that bans rebates, kickbacks, bribes and certain other financial arrangements in federal health programs, stripping law enforcement of a powerful tool used to fight fraud in other health care programs, like Medicare.”
At this point, it seems that this administration will do just about anything to make this program work.
Yet, I don’t think there is any chance that they will be able to make this plan sustainable. Well that is if we do truly plan on paying back our debt at some point in the future.
Hospitals are about to get rich on the tax payer’s dollar. What a crock…
Don’t worry, as Dr. Goodman has been saying for sometime now, a death spiral is looming in the future. How quickly we will see the demise of this program?-I’m not sure.
Well I am worried. There is so much evidence supporting that only a small amount of individuals are going to experience positive net benefits from this program at the expense of the rest of the country. It shouldn’t have come into legality in the first place.
Let’s just hope the negative effects aren’t felt for a lengthy amount of time..
Don’t hold your breath on that one.
Hindsight is 20/20, Mr. Obama.
“Mr. Obama provided some additional explanation: “Now if you have or had one of these plans before the Affordable Care Act came into law and you really liked that plan, what we said was you could keep it if it hasn’t changed since the law was passed.”” (Pear)
He lied to the U.S. citizens. Bottom line.
“Ms. Sebelius may not have the last word, lawyers said. A whistle-blower could file suit under the False Claims Act…” (Pear)
This is intriguing.
No what he said was correct. If people held on to their pre-Obamacare plans they would be grandfathered now and nothing would change.
Consumers continued changing plans in order to save premium dollars and buying plans post-Obamacare.
Consumers shot themselves in the foot and are looking for someone to blame and politicians are only too happy to point their fingers left.
Dont kid yourself, grandfathering only saved a plan from a few provisions of the law, they still had to change.
They changed for the better and they are not being cancelled either.
It all depends if you hear left, right, or center.
I like the way they just keep changing the rules.
Maybe Im niave here, but arent law changes, like with the new FSA rollover deal which I like, supposed to have to go through congress? They are just doing whatever they want as they go along.