![The Clock is Ticking [UPDATED]](http://bighousenation.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/countdown-clock1.jpg)
The Clock is Ticking [UPDATED]
Today is (currently) the last day of the initial Open Enrollment season. Ms Shecantbeserious has indicated that, if you've tried to sign up and met with no success, the actual final day is April 15th [ed: irony - how does it work?]. I have several clients in this boat right now, and am waiting with …
Happy 9th Blogiversary to the HBB!
Congratulations to my friend David Williams' Health Business Blog, which recently hit the 9 year mark (just a few months after IB did).Kudos, David, and many more years of successful bloggetry! …
Does the ICD 10 have the Metric Curse?
Headlines on all the health care outlets yesterday (3/27/2014): BREAKING NEWS: House approves temporary SGR fixBill also delays ICD-10, two-midnight rule and RAC auditsAccording to the article: “The House of Representatives on Thursday approved a temporary fix to the sustainable growth rate (SGR) fo…
Cavalcade of Risk #205: Call for submissions
Nancy Germond hosts next week's Cav. Entries are due by Monday (the 31st).To submit your risk-related post, just click here to email it.You'll need to provide:■ Your post's url and title■ Your blog's url and name■ Your name and email■ A (brief) summary of the postPLEASE remember: ONLY posts tha…
Yo Quiero Obamacare?
The Obama administration has been helping to facilitate a series of events nationwide at Mexican Consulate offices to enroll people in Obamacare – and a key activist says the efforts are “our responsibility” regardless of citizenship.“Whether they’re Mexican nationals or whether they’re United State…
The 6 Million Person Question
So there's this:"More than 6 million Americans have now signed up for private insurance under the [ObamaTax]"But have they really bought insurance?Consider that we already know that Ms Shecantbeserious counts plans left unpaid for as "sold." So one is left with the real question:How many of these (a…
Health Wonk Review: March Madness edition
The bad news is that this week's HWR host Chris Fleming missed a total of (sweet) 16 posts by that much.The good news is that there are plenty of great posts from which to choose, from HWR founder Joe Paduda on ideology and business decisions to David Williams ground-breaking interviews of all 9 can…
Buyers Remorse
Did you ever have one of those moments when you realize a decision you made, or a choice, was a really, really, really stupid idea? Now you know how some of our Congress critters feel.Like roaches that scatter when the light comes on, vulnerable Representatives and Senators are running away from Ob…
One Ringy Dingy
The latest excuse for not enrolling in #Obamacare? According to Dirty Harry . . .Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D., Nev.) said the fault of struggling to sign up on the Obamacare exchanges didn’t lie with the faulty website, but with the people who weren’t “educated on how to use the Internet.”E…
Deadline? *What* deadline?!
Earlier this morning, Bob noted that the Obamastration itself has acknowledged that it has no "statutory authority to extend the open enrollment period in 2014."But that was then, and this is now:"Federal officials confirmed Tuesday evening that all consumers who have begun to apply for coverage on …
Pants on Fire
The Obamacare open enrollment deadline is just around the corner. March 31, 2014 in case you are wondering. If you haven't applied by then you can't buy coverage until 11/15/14.Unless you have a qualifying event that creates a special enrollment period.Many wonder if the deadline will be extended.H…
Oops!
A newly discovered glitch in the main ObamaCare website reportedly is giving thousands of people the wrong information about whether they qualify for premium subsidies. Because of the glitch, some people may be initially told they qualify for subsidies when they don't. Others may be told they don't …
Preview
Care to take a stab at where premiums will be on 2015 Obamacare plans? Here is a preview of things to come. Two months before health insurers must submit rate proposals for 2015 to government regulators, WellPoint Inc. fired a surprising shot across their bow by predicting it may ask for “double-d…
About that *Other* Big ObamaTax case
Cato's Michael Cannon has been following the Halbig case for quite some time. Last we checked, it looked like a US District judge had shot down this case, which argues that IRS enforcement of the (Evil) Mandate was illegal in 34 of the 58 states.Reports of the case's death, however, are greatly exag…
Cost Accounting
Never let a simple thing like the cost of enforcement get in the way of a government give away program.The conservative American Action Forum (AAF), which is often critical of the Obama administration,released a study Monday that estimates the regulatory costs have totaled $27.2 billion since Presid…
Shecantbesious vs Hobby Lobby
A simple, factual accounting of tomorrow's SCOTUS hearing on Ms Kathy vs Hobby Lobby:"Quite simply, if you read a newspaper to find out about the contraception mandate cases, you will read lies. Here are the top six."Read the whole thing. …
The Morally Bankrupt MVNHS©
[Content warning - this is NOT for the squeamish. To access this post, click on the "Read More" button. But I'm serious, this is a VERY disturbing article. HGS]So, it's winter and you need to heat your hospital. What would be a readily available, natural resource with which to do so?Why, of course:"…
Impeach Mitt Romney!
Close your eyes and let yourself go back in time. What if this had been our last few years...It's November 7th of 2012 and Mitt Romney has just defeated Barack Obama to become the President of the United States. Much has been made of this being a referendum on Obamacare but Mr. Romney has come out a…
Happy Anniversary, Baby: The ObamaTax at 4: - "Success!"
For a certain value of "success."It seems appropriate to note, four years to the day of its passage, that the over-arching purpose of the ObamaTax - insuring the uninsured - has managed to cover....wait for it...hmmm:"[J]ust 1.4% of uninsured Americans."Ta-da! …
Ms Kathy Overreaches (Again)
What rational person confuses Critical Illness (CI) coverage with major medical? Well, apparently Ms Shecantbeserious believes it's a pretty substantial demographic, because she's proposing new reg's to significantly decrease the availability of CI plans.We reached out to the Director of Health Prod…
Shocker: Ezekiel Emanuel doesn't know anything about employee benefits
It always amuses me when academics and politicians who think themselves so smart really know so little."Mr. Emanuel expects the law to produce an unadvertised but fundamental shift in where most working Americans get their health insurance — specifically, a sharp drop in the number of employers who …
AMA Plays Catch-up
Almost a full year ago, Bob noticed that:"... exchange participants [have] a 90-day grace period to pay their premiums ... but in the second month, if the patient is still delinquent, all claims can be held as pending. By the third month, if the patient still has not paid, the insurer can terminate …
Clearing the ObamaTax Spindle
■ As we recently reported, getting off an ObamaPlan is almost a hard as getting onto one:"When there is something that needs to be changed on the policy through the marketplace, no one seems to know how to fix it — not people at the marketplace nor their supervisors."Mr and Mrs Carpenter may have ha…
Hey, Big Spender
Stimulus is not dead, just redirected.From January until the end of March, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs the HealthCare.gov site and administers the Affordable Care Act, will have spent $52 million on paid media, officials said. BreitbartThat may not sound like much to f…
Cavalcade of Risk #204: Bountiful edition
Once again, Van Mayhall presents a cornucopia of risk-related posts, from frat boys to folks who've fallen and can't get up (hmmm, may be some overlap there).Do check it out. …
Hertz Hurts - How NOT to do Customer Service
According to its Mission Statement, Hertz strives to be the "most customer focused rental company in every market [they] serve." Recently, FoIB Bill M had the opportunity to put this to the test.Hertz failed. Miserably:"On March 3, my daughter rented a car from Hertz in Lafayette, IN. Upon renting …
Harry's $407,000 Bind: Liar or Victim
On the one hand, we know that Harry Reid considers all reports of ObamaTax problems to be lies.On the other, there's this little problem for Harry:"Basich, 62, bought a plan through the state’s Nevada Health Link insurance exchange in the fall ... Yet the Las Vegan is stranded in a no-man’s-land whe…
![Help is on the Way [UPDATED]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiLX9XJfy-ed1l2CRIx-t9qJvCl1fSrACZTfDyVlygQzuWcTlo7Jhz8i79YDXdBmuK5AY0zuVrnyArHkjuyouMSC2BUg0FC9E2Z0SU-uqR7kSRm-W-ThDpHcrDGopghc0tj5gArgXb-qgs/s140-p/super+navigator.jpg)
Help is on the Way [UPDATED]
Are you confused about your #Obamacare options? Is healthcare.flub a mystery? Have questions? Where do you turn? No fear.Dumbed down navigators will be there to guide you.Obamacare has taken a formerly confusing product and turned it into a simple Bronze, Silver, Gold and Platinum choice. Insurance …
Cliff, Kathy and PCIP
As we've remarked on numerous occasions, the PCIP (Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan) was actually a pretty great idea, and one of the very few pieces of the ObamaTax that was well-executed. And it's been scheduled to be executed for some time now: first, at the end of 2013, then the end of Marc…
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