![SSDD [UPDATED]](https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgKR4phZvDB7Y5E1mTORKpfXPaVFHcjH9Uk-L9yzSdkhdddQZm651e9i52b5Yr7j4gQybVR4IpD9asRNYiH1YkO6Wv7lxedAz7htGdj0yJ5vPHD6BdozoP9GC9RbE-aF7OEhmtH-uGf1nw/s140-p/hear+no+evil+see+no+evil.jpg)
SSDD [UPDATED]
Nothing changes . . . Outgoing Health and Human Services Sec. Kathleen Sebelius is now refusing to testify before the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services, Education, and Related Agencies, a Senate aide told The Daily Caller Tuesday. Sebelius had originally been set…
Cavalcade of Risk #207 - Workin' Hard for Risk edition
Rebecca Shafer hosts this week's round-up of risk-related posts. It's particularly interesting to see such a wide variety of topics, including Wounded Warriors and venture capitalists, Aristotle and ERM.Do check it out. …
Told Ya So (Part XIV)
As we've noted for a while now, a plurality (if not a majority) of those signing up through the Public Exchanges have enrolled in Medicaid, not "commercial" insurance plans. This is itself problematic not just for the sustainability of the ObamaTax, but as it turns out, for the newly-enrolled themse…
ObamaTax Navigators: What are they hiding?
Y'know, for "the most transparent administration ever," Ms Shecantbeserious and her minions sure do like to keep their little secrets. Problem is, these secrets affect each and every one of us, often in ways we may not even be aware of.Take, for instance, the care and feeding of Navigators. We've be…
Vanilla is Vanilla
My kids love our favorite local ice cream joint. The soft serve isn't what draws them though. It is the fact that they have so many different choices of sundaes and toppings. From a "Mud Sundae" with crushed Oreos, hot fudge, and gummy worms to the quart sized "hot fudge cake" there is something for…
Plan cancelled! Understanding The Full Ramifications of "If You LikeYour Current Plan"
I've written extensively on the broken promise of "if you like your plan you can keep it" yet over and over again it keeps surfacing throughout media outlets. The most recent edition comes to us from a study done by Benjamin Sommers at Health Affairs. In his findings he shares that churn, turnover i…
My Karma Ran Over My Dogma
In case you needed a laugh:"General Electric is telling its investors that Obamacare is to blame for recent losses in the company’s health care division"GE, you may recall, was an early, vociferous proponent of the ObamaTax. It now cites the very real problem of market uncertainty resulting from a l…
Deadline? WHAT Deadline?
Only in DC could this concept make any sense:"The Obama administration said Thursday that sick patients in the temporary, federal [PCIP] program now will have until June 30 to select an exchange health plan."Let's consider this for a moment, shall we?We've always considered the PCIP (Pre-Existing Co…
Cavalcade of Risk #207: Call for submissions
Rebecca Shafer hosts next week's Cav. Entries are due by Monday (the 28th).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 …
Embarrassment of (Link) Riches
■ Say it ain't so! Seems that the Silver State's Health Exchange has a few problems, not the least of which is that it's intent on hiding its problems:"Confidential documents which appear to be from a Nevada Health Link employee may reveal huge problems within the state health exchange."See - I told…
Meanwhile, on This Side of the Pond . . .
Henry likes to write about the MVNHS (Most Vaunted National Health Service). Mike brings us tales about health care in the Sceptered Isle. As it turns out, they don't have to travel that far to find stories about government run health care.At least 40 U.S. veterans died waiting for appointments at…
Health Wonk Review: ACA "Improvement" edition is up
Louise Norris always does a great job hosting, but this week's edition is arguably her finest work. It's full of great posts and helpful context, just a really terrific job. Definitely worth clicking over to read the latest and greatest on ObamaCare. …
Alphabet Soup News
From our friends at FlexBank:■ "The IRS announced [last October] the ability to permit employees to carryover up to $500 of an unused health FSA balance. IRS Notice 2013-71 now offers an employer the option to amend their Section 125 plan to allow up to $500 of unused funds remaining at the end of a…
![Look out below! [UPDATED]](http://brightplus3.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/coyote-fall.jpg)
Look out below! [UPDATED]
Such a success:"[A]n intriguing analysis of Covered California’s state-run exchange found that up to half the 1.2 million new enrollees might actually drop their coverage."To be fair, some of these folks will find new jobs with employer-sponsored insurance plans. On the other hand, a lot will find t…
Dying of Thirst (Literally)
One of the major problems of the ObamaTax is that it does not, in fact, save health care dollars. This problem plagues similar regimes as well, most notably the Much Vaunted National Health System©.Never fear, though, the MVNHS© has a solution:"At least 1,000 hospital patients are dying needlessly e…
Bounty Hunter
What happens when you can't get enough people to follow the "law of the land" and purchase health insurance they don't want and can't afford unless the government robs the rich to pay the poor?If you can't threaten, coax, cajole or force them to buy, you pay a bounty hunter.At least 79 tax service p…
May I Have the Envelope Please?
And the winner is . . . (pregnant pause)One company, though, stands out from the crowd as probably the single biggest real winner from Obamacare so far -- private health insurance exchange operator eHealthFoolThe national insurance brokerage firm did something the federal government could not.Estab…
“Pay No Attention to the Man behind the Curtain”
The government, this time the State of California, has decided that maybe it should ensure that the plans it has been selling to unsuspecting the general public will be accepted by the patient’s choice of physicians.“A little too little a little too late,” but I digress.So they came up with a brilli…
Obamacare Ka-Ching . . . . Not!
When is a door not a door? When it is ajar.Old joke. Never understood it as a child since no one I knew ever said ajar. A jar was something you put moonshine in.So when is a sale not a sale?When you don't pay the seller. (Don't confuse this with five finger discounts)."Georgia insurers received more…
Easter, More than Bunny's and Eggs
Easter is a sacred time for Christians throughout the world. However, like many religious traditions, the meaning and symbolism of this Holy day has become commercialized.Easter shares some of the tradition with Passover, but Easter is not Christian Passover any more than Passover is Jewish Easter. …
My Bleeding (404Care.gov) Heart
By now, IB readers are presumably fully aware of the dangerous Heartbleed virus (well, major internet security flaw). Some may recall that a week or so ago, the folks in DC assured us that users of the 404Care.gov site weren't at risk there.But that was then, and this is now:"Healthcare.gov users to…
We’re lost, but we’re making good time
Today's Wall Street Journal reports President Obama saying that eight million people had picked health-insurance plans through the Affordable Care Act. “The point is, the repeal debate is and should be over," the president said. "The Affordable Care Act is working..." Well yeah, it's a start, but i…
Friday Spindle-Clearing Time
Each of these may well deserve their own post, but alas, 'tis not to be:■ The Obamastration's touting the latest (fake) number of sign-ups at 29 gazillion (or 8 million - I've heard it both ways). Thing is, that seems to include thousands of actual prison inmates.Kudos, Kathy!■ From the MVNHS© Files…
![Lose Your Husband, Insurance [UPDATED]](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/42/Anders_Zorn-The_Widow.jpg)
Lose Your Husband, Insurance [UPDATED]
Apparently, the ObamaTax is all about the "glitches:""More than two dozen widows who were married to retired Madison county employees, lost their health insurance coverage earlier this year."That's Madison County, Alabama (no, not that Madison County), which had been self-insured. It's not really cl…
Cavalcade of Risk #206: Work in Progress edition
Dennis Wall hosts this week's roundup of risky posts. One risk, of course, is that one may encounter various technical glitches, which is why you'll need to check back from time to time to see what's new. …
HSA and LTCi: What a match!
Long term readers know that we're big fans of both Health Savings Accounts (HSAs) and Long Term Care insurance (LTCi). What a lot of folks may not know, though, is that these two seemingly unrelated risk-management tools can actually work together to help you stretch your health care dollars.How tha…
You Can Check Out But You Can Never Leave
As we posted before, sometimes getting OUT of Obamacare is as difficult as getting in. Well, it get's worse.A fellow agent in the midwest has two clients that are turning 65 and would like to get OUT of Obamacare and INTO Medicare.But they can't.Both bought through the exchange.In his own words . . …
Pesach 5774 / Passover 2014
Tonight marks the first evening of Passover, and the first of the two traditional meals called "seders" ("seder" means "order"). It's a ritual and a meal, and commemorates the end of the Israelites' 400 year stint as slaves to the Egyptians.I use the term "Israelites" because there is a significant …
Caution, Socialism at Work
Universal health care is a wonderful consideration, but the political dogma doesn't match up with results. We were told the U.S. was the only civilized nation that did not have free health care. So?Is free better?Half of nurses are working through breaks or beyond their shift, revealing a health se…
Goodbye Shecantbeserious, Hello Burntwell
While I realize that it's not a "done deal," the latest from DC tells us that the ObamaTax is in the very best of hands:"[Burntwell] testified “in laborious detail about what she had found in Mr. Foster’s garbage on the night he died.”Dumpster-diving Diva Burntwell seems to be eminently qualified to…
Split Personality
The creators of Obamacare envisioned a massive overhaul of the U.S. health care system that would insure millions. Noble idea, long on grand intentions, short on effectiveness.Liz Linton feels stuck in health insurance limbo. She has policies protecting herself and her husband, but no coverage for h…
Cavalcade of Risk #206: Call for submissions
Dennis Wall hosts next week's Cav. Entries are due by Monday (the 14th).To submit your risk-related post, just click here to email it.Dennis would specifically like to see posts about residential mortgages, force-placed insurance, the participants in the mortgage process, the participants in se…
Patrick's in The Federalist (Again)!
For the second time in as many months, co-blogger Patrick has penned a post for The Federalist. This time, he discusses O'Care's impact on Employer-based (ie group) health insurance plans:"Now that there is a tax for not having it many have simply added on to their employer’s plan. As shown in the K…
Is your healthcare different today than it was yesterday?
The Center for Medicare services has released how much it paid doctors in the year 2012. The big news is that one doctor in Florida made a lot of money:“Medicare paid a tinygroup of doctors $3 million or more apiece in 2012. One got nearly $21 million.”Let’s take a look at these doctors based on CMS…
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