Obama to announce fix for canceled health plans
- Thread starter gwb-trading
- Start date
Richter, that's one of the clearest articles i've seen delineating the positions of the two warring camps. Thanks for posting it!
I thought this was a fairly astute summary:
The Republican plan is to move as many people as possible from the kind of insurance they like to the kind of insurance they hate. Obama's plan is to make unpopular individual health insurance more like the popular employer-based health insurance, with lots of cross-subsidies from healthy to sick. The conservative plans propose to make popular employer insurance more like the unpopular individual market.
I don't know why more women aren't complaining about having to pay for prostate cancer, since 100% of men who lives long enough will eventually get a cancerous prostate, but very few women will. I guess, if I have to pay for their babies than should pay for my prostate cancer.
Or maybe we should all just write down what diseases we plan to get, and how many broken bones, and when, and just be able to buy the specific coverage we need.
What a mess we have created, and apparently we've assigned a bunch of morons the task of straightening things out!
Yesterday, President Obama announced a unilateral change to the implementation of Obamacare, delaying the cancellation of health insurance plans until after the next election. Almost immediately, both Democrats and Republicans began to wonder on what legal basis President Obama was planning to implement these new changes to the law.
The answer? None at all.
from Volokh:
According to the Presidentâs announcement, insurance companies will be allowed to renew policies that were in force as of October 1, 2013 for one additional year, even if they fail to meet relevant PPACA requirements. What is the legal basis for this change? The Administration has not cited any. (See, e.g., this letter to state insurance commissioners explaining the change.) According to various press reports, the Administration argues it may do this as a matter of enforcement discretion (much as it did with immigration). In other words, the Administration is not changing the law. Itâs just announcing it will not enforce federal law (while simultaneously threatening to veto legislation that would authorize the step the President has decided to take).
Does this make the renewal of non-compliant policies legal? No. The legal requirement remains on the books so the relevant health insurance plans remain illegal under federal law. The Presidentâs decision does not change relevant state laws either. So insurers will still need to obtain approval from state insurance commissioners. This typically requires submitting rates and plan specifications for approval. This can take some time, and is disruptive because most insurance companies have already set their offerings for the next year. Itâs no wonder that some insurance commissioners have already indicated they have no plans to approve non-compliant plans...
The answer? None at all.
from Volokh:
According to the Presidentâs announcement, insurance companies will be allowed to renew policies that were in force as of October 1, 2013 for one additional year, even if they fail to meet relevant PPACA requirements. What is the legal basis for this change? The Administration has not cited any. (See, e.g., this letter to state insurance commissioners explaining the change.) According to various press reports, the Administration argues it may do this as a matter of enforcement discretion (much as it did with immigration). In other words, the Administration is not changing the law. Itâs just announcing it will not enforce federal law (while simultaneously threatening to veto legislation that would authorize the step the President has decided to take).
Does this make the renewal of non-compliant policies legal? No. The legal requirement remains on the books so the relevant health insurance plans remain illegal under federal law. The Presidentâs decision does not change relevant state laws either. So insurers will still need to obtain approval from state insurance commissioners. This typically requires submitting rates and plan specifications for approval. This can take some time, and is disruptive because most insurance companies have already set their offerings for the next year. Itâs no wonder that some insurance commissioners have already indicated they have no plans to approve non-compliant plans...
The whole thing makes a lot more sense if you think of the country as a team, like our peers who have such healthcare systems appear to do. But in a highly stratified society like ours the sense of being a team, a community, erodes and disappears. Looking up it's envy and resentment, looking down it's condescension and resentment.Quote from piezoe:
Richter, that's one of the clearest articles i've seen delineating the positions of the two warring camps. Thanks for posting it!
I thought this was a fairly astute summary:
The Republican plan is to move as many people as possible from the kind of insurance they like to the kind of insurance they hate. Obama's plan is to make unpopular individual health insurance more like the popular employer-based health insurance, with lots of cross-subsidies from healthy to sick. The conservative plans propose to make popular employer insurance more like the unpopular individual market.
I don't know why more women aren't complaining about having to pay for prostate cancer, since 100% of men who lives long enough will eventually get a cancerous prostate, but very few women will. I guess, if I have to pay for their babies than should pay for my prostate cancer.
Or maybe we should all just write down what diseases we plan to get, and how many broken bones, and when, and just be able to buy the specific coverage we need.
What a mess we have created, and apparently we've assigned a bunch of morons the task of straightening things out!
