Month: September 2013

Countdown to the Health Insurance Marketplace

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

7dayscal-profileiconI attended a stakeholders Health Inurance Marketplace training session today sponsored by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) and the Cover Arizona Coalition.

The question I most often receive about the Marketplace is about how the tax credits and subsidies for health insurance will work. This is included in the application and enrollment process beginning on October 1. Your estimated income for 2014 will determine the amount of the tax credit and cost-sharing subsidy for which you will qualify.

The Advanced Premium Tax Credit (APTC) will apply to reduce your premium payment. The subsidies will apply to reduce your cost-sharing part of coverage for copays, coinsurance, etc. For example, let's say you select a "Silver Plan" that has a premium of $2000 per month, and has a cost-sharing of 30 percent. In this example, your income level may qualify you for a tax credit that reduces your monthly premium to $1,500 per month and reduces your cost-sharing amount to 20 percent. These credits and subsidies are paid to the insurance provider through the billing process. You will not receive any payment from the government. It is my understanding that the cost-sharing subsidies only apply to the "Silver Plans."

The law of unintended consequences bites J.D. Mesnard in the behind

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Rep. J.D. Mesnard (R-Chandler) desires to be the next Speaker of the House in the Arizona Legislature in 2015. Of course, Republicans would have to maintain their majority first, but hey.

J.D. Mesnard is currently co-chairing a legislative task force on reforming Arizona's income tax as a vehicle to ride to the speakership. He has run into a couple of embarrassing problems recently which demonstrate that he is not ready for prime time.

First, his legislative task force on reforming Arizona's income tax. The Arizona Capitol Times reports, Doing no harm: Tax overhaul effort stalls over vague goals, concerns about middle class:

After four weeks and three meetings of a
task force with intentions to reform, tweak, or overhaul Arizona’s
personal income tax system, the members of the group don’t seem closer
to deciding what, exactly, they want to accomplish.

It’s an issue that Rep. J.D. Mesnard, a
co-chair of the task force and the driving force behind it, has
attempted to address at several points in the past few weeks, most
recently at the outset of a meeting on Sept. 19.

“I keep getting asked the question, ‘What are we trying to do?’ and
my response has always been, ‘Whatever we can to make the system
better,’” Mesnard, R-Chandler, told the task force. 


But that’s precisely what lawmakers,
economists, tax experts and business leaders can’t seem to settle on, as
members of the task force bring their own unique perspective to the
state’s tax code and what’s good for taxpayers and the Arizona economy.

“We seem to still be searching for who we are and what we’re doing,”
said Rep. Bruce Wheeler, D-Tucson. “And it was made clear today from
members on both sides that we need some clarity as to what direction
we’re going, because I can’t answer that question.”

Bob Schieffer schools Rep. Matt Salmon on the reality based world

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

Rep. Matt Salmon is a right-wing ideologue who only knows what he reads from the GOP talking points. Somehow he was a guest on Face the Nation on Sunday, and host Bob Schieffer had to school him on the reality based world. CBS Host Schools GOP Rep. on Defunding Obamacare: 'This Is the Land of What's Real':

CBS host Bob Schieffer on Sunday encouraged Rep. Matt Salmon (R-AZ)
to come back to the "land of what's real" and realize that President
Barack Obama was never going to sign bill that defunded his signature
health care reform law.

"We just had a conservative Democrat and a Republican both say
there's no way, no how that this is going to get done in the Senate,"
Schieffer explained during an interview on Face the Nation, adding that the push to defund Obamacare by forcing a government shutdown was like "a Kamikaze attack, a suicide mission." [Wall Street Journal op-ed The Power of 218.]

"I find it ironic that the president will negotiate with Vladimir
Putin, but he won't negotiate with Republicans in the House of
Representatives," Salmon opined. [John Boehner talking point.] "I heard loudly and clearly during the
August recess, 'We want Obamacare gone.'"

Schieffer reminded Salmon that many business leaders [Business lobby says don't shut down the government!]
— and even elected Republicans — agreed that Obamacare opponents in the House were
"just wasting everybody's time by going down one of these exercises
again to shut down the government."

[The Democratic Policy & Communications Center has compiled a list of 20 Republican senators
who have gone on the record acknowledging that they can’t prevent the
implementation of ObamaCare either legislatively or through a government
shutdown.]