More Obamacare fuckups

[ClydeR]

Employers may start to offer plans with narrower provider networks to capture cost savings similar to the plans offered on the Obamacare exchanges. Although boring, this is a really big deal.

Health plans on Obamacare's insurance exchanges will on average cost less than employer-sponsored coverage, according to a new report.

More...

So how are the insurers offering plans on the exchanges keeping their costs down?

In part, the use of narrow networks, also known as high-performance health plans, allows insurance companies to increase competition among doctors and hospitals by being more selective about with which companies they include in their coverage.

Ceci Connolly, managing director of the Health Research Institute, said even employers are looking at narrowing their networks to lower costs.

"We anticipate that the public and private exchanges are going to continue to foster greater competition and ongoing pressure to provide better value," Connolly said. "Everyone's going to be able to look at what's out there and available on these exchanges. I think employers will turn around and ask insurers for similar good value, when they compare plan offerings and see if they're getting what they want for their money."

[Atlanteax]

http://money.cnn.com/2014/02/06/news...html?iid=s_mpm

AOL became the latest company to blame Obamacare for cutting back on employee benefits.

The tech firm will now pay its 401(k) company match only to employees who are active on Dec. 31 of that year, as opposed to in their paychecks throughout the year. So those who leave the company before the end of the year will forfeit the match.

AOL (AOL) CEO Tim Armstrong blamed $7.1 million in additional Obamacare costs the company is facing this year. Had the company not made the change in its 401(k) payments, employees would have seen their health insurance costs increase, he told CNN Thursday.

[NinjasLeadTheWay]

Latest from the CBO on O-Care

http://nypost.com/2014/02/05/congres...-to-obamacare/

[Tgo01]

Latest from the CBO on O-Care

http://nypost.com/2014/02/05/congres...-to-obamacare/

I told you all so.

[Latrinsorm]

I don't understand how even the person who wrote that could believe it. "fewer people will have employment-based insurance coverage"... because they'll be getting it through the exchanges instead. Hence, in a decade we will see 89% insured instead of 80%.

And let me stop you right there. "Oh, nonelderly? What about insurance for our elders?" Obviously the death panels will be in full swing by theeeennnn UMMMM I MEAN they'll have insurance too.

[Latrinsorm]

Wait, actually, I see what they did. "Virtually as many Americans will lack health coverage in 10 years as before the law was passed". Raw number, not per capita. That's a great way to trick stupid people, I'll give them that much.

[Jarvan]

Yet another "delay"

http://www.cnbc.com/id/101393331

I find this part highly funny though...

"The government will now exempt companies employing between 50 and 100 full-time workers from complying with the mandate that they offer employees affordable health insurance by another year, until 2016. Officials said that any business claiming they are eligible for the new one-year delay because they have fewer than 100 workers must certify, under penalty of perjury, that it had not reduced its workforce merely to qualify for that exemption."

I could have SWORN numerous people on here said that companies were not doing that. Why would they need to make this stipulation if companies were not doing that? Hmm.. odd.

Then there is this...

"In another rule change, the Treasury Department announced that larger companies with 100 or more workers will only have to offer affordable insurance coverage to 70 percent of their full-time workers in 2015 to comply with the law or face penalties, instead of 95 percent, as originally proposed by regulations. Employers must increase that offer to 95 percent of workers by 2016 under the final rule announced Monday. "

I find it very funny that the President and his people are actually doing more damage to their bill then the GOP is.

and then there is this treasure...

" "We think a phase-in approach is a way to administer the law better, and enhance overall compliance with the law," said the official.

And, a senior official noted when asked what legal authority the administration had to give the year reprieve to smaller businesses, "We've done it in a bunch of other areas."

It's ALWAYS great when someone can just change a law enacted by congress anyway they want to. And Dems wonder why Repubs don't believe the President will hold up his end on Immigration reform.

[Tgo01]

That's a great way to trick stupid people, I'll give them that much.

I wouldn't call you stupid...

[Tgo01]

State And Local Governments Blame Obamacare For Cutting Worker Hours

Conservatives claim Obamacare is a socialist boondoggle that will bloat the federal government. Ironically, state and local governments claim Obamacare is making them tighten their belts.

Part-time public-sector workers like substitute teachers, prison guards, and police dispatchers risk having their hours cut in an effort by state and local governments to dodge the Affordable Care Act's "employer mandate" to give such workers health benefits, the New York Times reports.

“Our choice was to cut the hours or give them health care, and we could not afford the latter,” Dennis Hanwell, the Republican mayor of Medina, Ohio, told the NYT, referring to city employees.

Under President Obama's signature health-care reform law, employers are required to provide insurance for part-time employees working more than 30 hours per week. Many government employers say they simply can’t afford it, according to the NYT, and plan to limit worker hours to 29 per week instead.

Some private-sector employers have also threatened to cut part-time workers’ hours in an effort to skirt the health-care law. Companies such as Regal Entertainment and Olive Garden parent company Darden Restaurants, as well as certain small business owners, claim to have looked to cutting worker hours as a way of reducing health-care costs.

Obama! Obama! Obama!

[Atlanteax]

Looks like the CBO's predictions are becoming fulfilled.