Obamacare...(new title): GOP DEATH PLAN: Don-Ryan's Express

[China]

Obamacare is proving popular in red states that didn't expand Medicaid

 

When Pedro Peña lost his job as a restaurant cook at the start of the coronavirus pandemic, he applied for Medicaid to replace his job-based insurance. A diabetic, Peña understood the importance of being covered.

 

But the Miami resident was repeatedly turned down for public health insurance because Florida is among the dozen states that have not expanded Medicaid to low-income adults.

Peña, 62, didn't realize the Affordable Care Act still existed since he had stopped hearing about it. But late last year, his friends and family suggested he reach out to Epilepsy Florida to see if he could sign up.

 

Shirley Dominguez, one of the navigators at the nonprofit group, enrolled him in a Florida Blue plan with no deductible that costs $41 a month after federal subsidies. Peña, who is afraid to return to work during the pandemic, quickly found a "wonderful" primary care physician and secured his diabetes medication.

"I am very grateful to God to get insurance," said Peña, who noted Dominguez's help was crucial since he found the enrollment process to be very complicated. "At my age, I need to make sure I have access to doctors."

Peña is among the millions of Americans who have selected 2022 coverage on the Affordable Care Act exchanges, many for the first time. More than 13.8 million people have picked plans on the federal and state marketplaces -- 2 million of them new to Obamacare for 2022.

That's an increase of 21% in sign-ups through the federal exchange, Healthcare.gov, as of December 15, from the same time a year ago.

Even more notable, however, is the popularity Obamacare is enjoying in many of the states that didn't expand Medicaid. Florida, which has the highest number of people picking plans at nearly 2.6 million, has seen interest soar by nearly 23%.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Biden says 14.5 mln Americans have signed up for health insurance since November

 

President Joe Biden said on Thursday 14.5 million Americans have signed up for health insurance since Nov. 1, attributing the progress to the passage of his pandemic relief package and the re-opening of an online health insurance marketplace last year.

 

The data includes more than 10 million who enrolled through a U.S government website HealthCare.gov during an open enrollment period, Biden said in a statement. He said the numbers were the "highest ever produced" during such an event.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

How much health insurers pay for almost everything is about to go public

 

Consumers, employers and just about everyone else interested in health care prices will soon get an unprecedented look at what insurers pay for care, perhaps helping answer a question that has long dogged those who buy insurance: Are we getting the best deal we can?

 

Starting July 1, health insurers and self-insured employers must post on websites just about every price they've negotiated with providers for health care services, item by item. About the only exclusion is the prices paid for prescription drugs, except those administered in hospitals or doctors' offices.

 

The federally required data release could affect future prices or even how employers contract for health care. Many will see for the first time how well their insurers are doing compared with others.

 

The new rules are far broader than those that went into effect last year requiring hospitals to post their negotiated rates for the public to see. Now insurers must post the amounts paid for "every physician in network, every hospital, every surgery center, every nursing facility," said Jeffrey Leibach, a partner at the consulting firm Guidehouse.

 

"When you start doing the math, you're talking trillions of records," he said. The fines the federal government could impose for noncompliance are also heftier than the penalties that hospitals face.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

 

[Captain Wiggles]

Yeah butt we have Freedums. Them other places is all socialized pinko commies. 🤪

 

[China]

 

 

 

[Fergasun]

Just the typical "capitalism and freedom" that America has been voting for for around 40 years...

[China]

Hospitals struggle with staff shortages as federal Covid funds run out

 

Hospitals across the country are grappling with widespread staffing shortages, complicating preparations for a potential Covid-19 surge as the BA.5 subvariant drives up cases, hospital admissions and deaths.

 

Long-standing problems, worker burnout and staff turnover have grown worse as Covid-19 waves have hit health care workers again and again — and as more employees fall sick with Covid-19 themselves.

 

Hospitals are coping, as the most transmissible variant to date sweeps the country, by making compromises. They’re shifting staff between departments, handling longer emergency room waits, and even eliminating routine Covid testing. They’re seeking a new balance, recognizing that they cannot sustain the state of vigilance forever that marked the first two years of the pandemic.

 

“We had to ramp up during surges and then try and figure out, ‘Do we keep people or do we let them go when we’re not surging?’” said Julie Hirschhorn, director of molecular pathology at the Medical University of South Carolina in Charleston. “The surges tend to be just far enough apart to not know what to do … It’s a hard new normal.’”

 

The current wave, in which the new number of patients hospitalized with Covid-19 has risen more than 40 percent in the last month, is also putting fresh stress on facilities as federal funding for the pandemic response is running out, leaving some with less flexibility to hire more staff if they need to.

 

In March, a funding deal to cover part of the White House’s $22.5 billion request fell apart because Democrats in Congress objected to repurposing unspent funds promised to the states earlier in the pandemic, while Republicans said they needed an accounting of the $6 trillion Congress appropriated for pandemic relief in past funding bills before approving new money.

“There is growing concern that this money has run out,” said Nancy Foster, vice president for quality and patient safety policy at the American Hospital Association. “It’s not really getting sufficient attention.”

 

As of July 22, hospitals in nearly 40 states reported critical staffing shortages, while hospitals in all 50 states said they expected to within a week.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

The ambulance chased one patient into collections

 

In retrospect, Peggy Dula said, she shouldn't have taken the ambulance.

 

She was the least injured of the three siblings who were in a car when it was struck by a pickup truck last September. Her daughter had even offered to come to the crash site and pick her up.

 

Jim Martens, 62, and Cynthia Martens, 63, Peggy's brother and sister, were more seriously hurt and on their way to the hospital in separate ambulances.

 

Peggy, 55, was told it would be a good idea for her to get checked out, too. So she accepted a ride with a third ambulance crew.

 

When the wreck happened, the siblings were going to see the horses that Peggy's daughter trains at a barn west of Peggy's home in St. Charles, Illinois, about 45 miles outside Chicago. Peggy, who was driving on unfamiliar country roads, pulled into an intersection, mistakenly thinking it was a four-way stop.

 

The truck slammed into the car's side, spinning it into an electrical box.

 

Cynthia, who wasn't wearing a seat belt in the back seat, spent five days in the hospital with a brain bleed, a cracked rib, and a bruised lung. Jim also had fractured ribs, which he learned days later — only after he was back home in Tampa, Florida.

 

Peggy was "a little stunned" but mostly unhurt as three ambulances descended on the crash site, alerted by 911. She was seen briefly in an emergency room and went home with just a bruised sternum, grateful she had dodged major injury.

 

Then the bill came.

 

The Patient: Peggy Dula, 55, who works in a fine jewelry store in Geneva, Illinois.

 

Total Bill: $3,606 for an ambulance ride to the hospital.

 

Service Provider: Pingree Grove and Countryside Fire Protection District, a fire district serving more than 50 square miles near Elgin, Illinois.

 

Medical Services: An ambulance ride to a nearby hospital and brief medical evaluation.

 

What Gives: All three siblings were charged for the same service: "Advanced Life Support Emergency Level 1." It's code for transportation by a ground ambulance in response to a 911 call, and it can include medical services as simple as an assessment. All three were also charged a mileage fee. Jim and Cynthia were billed for 15 miles; Peggy was billed for 14 miles. But because they rode in separate ambulances, each from a different nearby fire protection district, they were billed three separate amounts:

 

Cynthia was billed $1,250 — $1,100 for life support and $10 per mile — by Burlington Community Fire Protection District.

Jim was billed $1,415 — $1,265 for life support and $10 per mile — by Hampshire Fire Protection District.

Peggy was billed $3,606 — $3,186 for life support and $30 per mile — by Pingree Grove and Countryside Fire Protection District.

And although private, for-profit ambulance companies have become notorious for pricey bills, Peggy and her siblings were being billed by taxpayer-funded fire departments.

 

How could charges for the exact same services vary so widely?

 

"The simple answer is that these bills are all made up," said Dr. Karan Chhabra, a surgical resident at Brigham & Women's Hospital in Boston and a former research fellow at the University of Michigan.

 

In a 2020 paper published in the journal Health Affairs, Chhabra and his colleagues looked into surprise ambulance bills by analyzing a large national insurer's claims data from 2013 to 2017. They found that 71% of ambulance rides were out of network, meaning the ambulance companies were not bound by a rate that was negotiated in advance with the insurer and could basically charge whatever they want. Even local fire departments can decline to join local insurance networks.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Mismanaged hospitals in rural Missouri abandoned their own employees' health insurance plans

 

The first unexpected bill arrived in December, just weeks before Tara Lovell’s husband of 40 years died from bladder cancer. 

 

Lovell worked as an ultrasound technologist at the local hospital, in Mexico, Missouri, and was paying more than $400 each month for health insurance through her job. The town’s struggling hospital, the sole health care provider and major employer, had changed ownership in recent years and had been sold to Noble Health, a private equity-backed startup whose managers had never run a hospital. 

 

One year later, facing staggering debt and a pile of lawsuits, Noble closed Audrain Community Hospital and another it owned in a neighboring county.

 

Now, Noble Health is the subject of at least two federal investigations.

 

As the hospitals collapsed, Lovell and the facilities’ doctors, nurses, and patients saw evidence that the new owners were skimping on services — failing to pay for and stock surgical supplies and drugs. For example, in Callaway County, Missouri, state inspectors deemed conditions in the hospital to be endangering patients.

 

What was less apparent, former workers said, was that Noble had also stopped paying for employee health, dental, vision and life insurance benefits. They were unknowingly uninsured. 

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

South Dakota signals the end of an era on Medicaid expansion

 

South Dakota is poised to expand its state Medicaid program to more than 40,000 people in November, the culmination of a years-long strategy from progressives to broaden Obamacare’s reach in deeply red states.

 

If voters approve the referendum, South Dakota will be the seventh Republican-controlled state in the past five years to expand the low-income insurance program at the ballot box — and likely the last for some time to come.

 

There are 11 other states that have not expanded Medicaid, but only three — Florida, Mississippi and Wyoming — allow voters to collect signatures for a ballot measure, and none appear likely to take up the effort in the near term.

 

For Democrats who hoped Medicaid expansion would be a step toward universal access for low-income Americans, South Dakota signals the end of a protracted battle that has added 17 million low-income Americans to the insurance rolls but has fallen short of reaching every state. Some 4 million Americans — about half of whom live in Florida and Texas — still fall into a coverage gap, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

 

“The lower-hanging fruit has been picked on that strategy,” said Joan Alker, executive director of the Center for Children and Families and a research professor at the Georgetown McCourt School of Public Policy. “The ballot path is coming to the end.”

 

In Florida, a Medicaid expansion ballot measure remains a possibility, though the state’s 60 percent voter approval threshold makes the prospect of doing so challenging, as does the cost of running a campaign in the nation’s third-most populous state. In Mississippi, the state Supreme Court in 2021 quashed a nascent expansion effort when it effectively declared the entire ballot initiative process unconstitutional. And in Wyoming, expansion advocates are pressing to pass the policy legislatively, rather than at the ballot box.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

US hospitals are so overloaded that one ER called 911 on itself

 

Although COVID-19 remains in a lull, hospitals across the country are in crisis amid a towering wave of seasonal respiratory illnesses—particularly RSV in children—as well as longer-term problems, such as staffing shortages.

 

Pediatric beds are filling or full, people with urgent health problems are waiting hours in emergency departments, hallways, and even parking lots, and some hospitals have pitched outdoor tents, conjuring memories of the early days of the pandemic.

 

In one of the most striking examples, the emergency department of a Seattle-area hospital became so overwhelmed last month that the department's charge nurse called 911 for help, telling the fire department that they were "drowning" and in "dire straits." There were reportedly over 45 people in the department's waiting room and only five nurses on staff.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

Who’s opposed to Mississippi Medicaid expansion and why?

 

While running for governor in 2019, then-Lt. Gov. Tate Reeves was quizzed at a Capitol Press Corps luncheon whether his opposition to expanding Medicaid coverage to working-poor Mississippians was softening.

 

“I am opposed to Obamacare expansion in Mississippi. I am opposed to Obamacare expansion in Mississippi. I am opposed to Obamacare expansion in Mississippi. I don’t know how many ways I can explain this to y’all,” Reeves said.

 

Reeves’ fellow Republican House Speaker Philip Gunn has frequently given equally deep and erudite explanations of his steadfast opposition to accepting $1 billion a year in federal money to help the working poor and Mississippi’s distressed hospitals.

 

“From what I know about it, we cannot afford it,” Gunn said tersely to questions as the 2021 legislative session ended, obviously not wanting to discuss the issue further.

 

For more than a decade, despite most other states expanding Medicaid and despite hospitals, doctors, economists and experts saying it would be a net benefit to the poorest, sickest, most uninsured and most federally dependent state in the country, most of Mississippi’s top elected leaders have refused the offer.

 

As some hospitals across the state close their doors and others struggle on the brink of collapse — even as the state budget sees record gains from other federal spending — Mississippi leaders’ recalcitrance growingly appears more political than pragmatic.

 

Reeves and Gunn, who can block expansion from their posts, remain steadfast in their opposition. Republican Lt. Gov. Delbert Hosemann has said he’s open to the idea, as are a small but growing number of legislative Republicans. But Hosemann avoids even saying the words “Medicaid expansion” and hasn’t pressed his colleagues on full expansion. He has, unsuccessfully, pushed for expanding postpartum Medicaid coverage for mothers.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[China]

How banks and hospitals are cashing in when patients can't pay for health care

 

Patients at North Carolina-based Atrium Health get what looks like an enticing pitch when they go to the nonprofit hospital system's website: a payment plan from lender AccessOne. The plans offer "easy ways to make monthly payments" on medical bills, the website says. You don't need good credit to get a loan. Everyone is approved. Nothing is reported to credit agencies.

 

In Minnesota, Allina Health encourages its patients to sign up for an account with MedCredit Financial Services to "consolidate your health expenses." In Southern California, Chino Valley Medical Center, part of the Prime Healthcare chain, touts "promotional financing options with the CareCredit credit card to help you get the care you need, when you need it."

 

As Americans are overwhelmed with medical bills, patient financing is now a multibillion-dollar business, with private equity and big banks lined up to cash in when patients and their families can't pay for care. By one estimate from research firm IBISWorld, profit margins top 29% in the patient financing industry, seven times what is considered a solid hospital margin.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Larry]

1 hour ago, China said:

How banks and hospitals are cashing in when patients can't pay for health care

 

Patients at North Carolina-based Atrium Health get what looks like an enticing pitch when they go to the nonprofit hospital system's website: a payment plan from lender AccessOne. The plans offer "easy ways to make monthly payments" on medical bills, the website says. You don't need good credit to get a loan. Everyone is approved. Nothing is reported to credit agencies.

 

In Minnesota, Allina Health encourages its patients to sign up for an account with MedCredit Financial Services to "consolidate your health expenses." In Southern California, Chino Valley Medical Center, part of the Prime Healthcare chain, touts "promotional financing options with the CareCredit credit card to help you get the care you need, when you need it."

 

As Americans are overwhelmed with medical bills, patient financing is now a multibillion-dollar business, with private equity and big banks lined up to cash in when patients and their families can't pay for care. By one estimate from research firm IBISWorld, profit margins top 29% in the patient financing industry, seven times what is considered a solid hospital margin.

 

Click on the link for the full article

I'm shocked that a system in which people have life or death needs, and can't find out what the price is till after the fact, are getting soaked by powerful corporations. 

[China]

Cash-strapped Americans are putting off healthcare

 

We already know that these challenging economic times have prompted many people to cut back on spending.

 

But we’ve entered an entirely more troubling place as a growing number of Americans are putting off healthcare for financial reasons.

 

According to a new Gallup poll, the percentage of Americans who say they or a family member delayed medical treatment due to cost rose to 38% last year from 26% a year before.

 

“Young adults, those in lower-income households and women were especially likely to say they or a family member had put off medical care,” Gallup found.

 

Even more alarming, a large share of the deferred treatment is for conditions that people describe as “a very or somewhat serious condition.”

 

Sky-high medical bills are a leading cause of personal bankruptcies in this country — a dubious distinction that underlines how unaffordable healthcare is for millions of households.

 

“In 2022, Americans with an annual household income under $40,000 were nearly twice as likely as those with an income of $100,000 or more to say someone in their family delayed medical care for a serious condition,” Gallup found.

 

This is, of course, an intolerable situation for the wealthiest, most powerful nation in the history of the world.

 

But it’s pretty much par for the course for our more than $4-trillion healthcare system. Americans pay roughly twice as much for treatment as people in other developed countries.

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Cooked Crack]

 

 

[Captain Wiggles]

Only took a decade to pass. Better late than never. 😏

 

Now get to work on legalizing recreational cannabis. 

Edited March 15, 2023 by Captain Wiggles

[EmirOfShmo]

Thanks Obama!

 

 

[CobraCommander]

5 minutes ago, EmirOfShmo said:

Thanks Obama!

 

 

[skinsmarydu]

7 hours ago, CobraCommander said:

Are we playing Uno?  COOL! 

[China]

A Green Beret's cancer changed military malpractice law. His claim still got denied.

 

When he was diagnosed with advanced lung cancer in 2017 at the age of 36, Richard Stayskal was stunned. The Army Green Beret had undergone chest scans earlier that year for dive school and was told the results were normal. Then he discovered that his military hospital had misread the exams and failed to recognize the early-stage tumor in his upper right lung.

 

Stayskal wanted to sue for malpractice. But another shock awaited him: A decades-old Supreme Court decision banned military malpractice lawsuits, declaring that the government was not liable for injuries to service members on active duty. So Stayskal lobbied Congress - and had a new law named in his honor. The Sgt. First Class Richard Stayskal Military Medical Accountability Act, passed in 2019, allows troops to file claims with the Defense Department alleging malpractice by military health-care providers. The process also allows them to seek damages for economic losses, pain and suffering.

 

But Stayskal, a former Marine who is now an Army master sergeant, got word this month that not even he can win in the tort claims system he helped create. On March 15, the U.S. Army Claims Service wrote to one of his attorneys, denying Stayskal and his family $40 million for injuries resulting from the failure to alert him of his growing cancer. The Army's rejection letter said there was "no evidence that [Master Sgt.] Stayskal's prognosis or chance of survival was adversely affected by the delay in the diagnosis of lung cancer."

 

"I definitely felt like this should have been an easy decision, a slam-dunk," said Stayskal, 41, whose cancer has progressed to Stage 4. "If my claim doesn't get paid, that sets the tone for every service member who files a claim after me."

 

Click on the link for the full article

[Larry]

Was reading an article. Apparently a federal judge in Texas has ruled that the Obamacare mandate that preventative procedures must be included with no deductible or copay is unconstitutional. 
 

Because an insurance company argued that covering HIV screening "encouraged homosexuality", which was against the insurance company's religion. 
 

(Because as we all know, even if we assume that "HIV=gay" and that "gay=religion", it's becoming established law that when there's a conflict between a corporation's religion and an individual's religion, the corporation's religion is enforced.)

[Cooked Crack]

 

Republicans just literally want the worst for everyone

[China]

Why doctors pay millions in fees that could be spent on care

 

Imagine if each time your wages were deposited in your bank account, your employer deducted a fee of 1.5% to 5% to provide the money electronically. That, increasingly, is what health insurers are imposing on doctors. Many insurers, after whittling down physicians' reimbursements, now take an additional cut if the doctor prefers — as almost all do — to receive funds electronically rather than via a paper check.

 

Such fees have become routine in American health care in recent years, according to an investigation by ProPublica published on Monday, and some medical clinics say they'll seek to pass those costs on to patients. Almost 60% of medical practices said they were compelled to pay fees for electronic payment at least some of the time, according to a 2021 survey.

 

With more than $2 trillion a year of medical claims paid electronically, these fees likely add up to billions of dollars that could be spent on care but instead are going to insurers and middlemen.

 

Congress had intended the opposite to happen. When lawmakers passed the Affordable Care Act in 2010, they encouraged the use of electronic payments in health care. Direct deposits are faster and easier to process than checks, requiring less labor for doctors and insurers alike. "The idea was to lower costs," says Robert Tennant of the Workgroup for Electronic Data Interchange, an industry group that advises the federal government.

 

When the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services created rules for electronic payments in 2012, the agency predicted that shifting from paper to electronic billing would save $3 billion to $4.5 billion over 10 years.

 

Click on the link for the full article