Tag Archives: individual mandate

What We Know And Don’t Know About Obamacare, Part I

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Obamacare's third open enrollment season launched yesterday. Here are six things we know about the program. (Tomorrow: four things we still don't know.) Credit:americanlegislator.org

Oba­macare’s third open enroll­ment sea­son launched yes­ter­day. Here are six things we know about the pro­gram. (Tomor­row: four things we still don’t know.) Credit:americanlegislator.org

Obamacare’s third open enroll­ment sea­son has kicked off, begin­ning the next chap­ter in its tur­bu­lent his­to­ry.  Today’s post dis­cuss­es what we know about Oba­macare.  Tomorrow’s will dis­cuss what we still don’t know.

What We Know

Few­er peo­ple are unin­sured. How many few­er is a mat­ter of dis­pute, but the improve­ment is sub­stan­tial by any mea­sure.  HHS Sec­re­tary Sylvia Bur­well cred­its Oba­macare with reduc­ing the num­ber of unin­sured peo­ple by 17.6 mil­lion since 2010.   And though you’ll like­ly hear this num­ber repeat­ed (and often round­ed up to 18 mil­lion), it’s almost cer­tain­ly exag­ger­at­ed.   Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Cuccinelli Era Is Over

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Ken Cuccinelli fell short last night in his bid to become Governor of Virginia. Is the GOP mature enough to accept defeat and find a new way forward? [Credit: Huffington Post]

Ken Cuc­cinel­li fell short last night in his bid to become Gov­er­nor of Vir­ginia. Is the GOP mature enough to accept defeat and find a new way for­ward? [Cred­it: Huff­in­g­ton Post]

Chris Christie and Ter­ry McAu­li­ffe were both sup­posed to win big in their guber­na­to­r­i­al bids. Christie did; McAu­li­ffe didn’t. And that presents Con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans with a gen­uine oppor­tu­ni­ty to make crit­i­cal changes to the President’s health care law. If they don’t squan­der it. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

More Than A Website: Will Insurers Prosper Under Obamacare?

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The Bee Gees' "More Than A Woman" was a 70s sensation. In promoting his health care law, the President now has a similar mantra: "More Than A Website." (Credit: AP)

The Bee Gees’ “More Than A Woman” was a 70s sen­sa­tion. In pro­mot­ing his health care law, the Pres­i­dent has adopt­ed a sim­i­lar phrase, remind­ing us that Oba­macare is more than a web­site. (Cred­it: AP)

The Pres­i­den­t’s health care law has had a trou­bled first month, but it is far too soon to know whether its prob­lems will prove last­ing and severe.  Even some of its most fer­vent sup­port­ers, like the Wash­ing­ton Post’s Ezra Klein, acknowl­edge that its defi­cien­cies run deep­er than a clunky web­site.  Oba­macare, the Pres­i­dent reminds us, is more than a web­site, but its prob­lems extend far beyond its 5 mil­lion lines of errant code. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Republicans Should Join Democrats in Impeding Obamacare Implementation

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Media reports indicate that Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) and Republican Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) are nearing an agreement on temporarily funding the government and increasing its borrowing authority. [Credit: Huffington Post]

Media reports indi­cate that Sen­ate Major­i­ty Leader Har­ry Reid (D‑NV) and Repub­li­can Leader Mitch McConnell (R‑KY) are near­ing an agree­ment on tem­porar­i­ly fund­ing the gov­ern­ment and increas­ing its bor­row­ing author­i­ty. [Cred­it: Huff­in­g­ton Post]

Octo­ber 14, 2013, 7:15 am

Sen­ate lead­ers are report­ed­ly clos­ing in on a deal that would both fund the gov­ern­ment and restore its bor­row­ing author­i­ty for a few months. The deal report­ed­ly con­tains two changes to the health care law, one pro­posed by Repub­li­cans, the oth­er by Democ­rats. The pro­vi­sion backed by Repub­li­cans is polit­i­cal­ly mis­guid­ed, unwork­able and would do lit­tle to impede the law’s imple­men­ta­tion; the pro­vi­sion backed by Democ­rats, by con­trast, appears to com­pli­cate imple­men­ta­tion of a law whose launch has so far not gone smooth­ly. Repub­li­cans who oppose Oba­macare should join Democ­rats in seek­ing changes that would dam­age its imple­men­ta­tion. Con­tin­ue read­ing →