COVID-19 & Healthcare

Insurers hiding the benefits of ‘ObamaCare’

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

One thing I have found missing in the absolutely craptacular reporting of the past week about "ObamaCare Sticker Shock," particulary from the AP (All Propaganda), is the failure to point out that the "cancellation notice letters" from insurers to customers with substandard crappy insurance that does not meet minimum coverage standards is that these insurers are "upselling" their customers to their pricier plans — hence the so-called "sticker shock" — and are not advising their customers of less expensive comparable options.

Insurers also are not directing customers to the health insurance exchanges where they might find a less expensive, better quality plan from another insurer.

In other words, insurers are still engaging in the consumer fraud practices that the Affordable Care Act is trying to end.

Luckily, Dylan Scott at Talking Points Memo today does real investigative reporting in How Insurers Are Hiding Obamacare Benefits From Their Own Customers:

Donna received the letter canceling her insurance plan on Sept. 16.
Her insurance company, LifeWise of Washington, told her that they'd
identified a new plan for her. If she did nothing, she'd be covered.

A
56-year-old Seattle resident with a 57-year-old husband and 15-year-old
daughter, Donna had been looking forward to the savings that the
Affordable Care Act had to offer.

But that's not what she found.
Instead, she'd be paying an additional $300 a month for coverage. The
letter made no mention of the health insurance marketplace that would
soon open in Washington, where she could shop for competitive plans, and
only an oblique reference to financial help that she might qualify for,
if she made the effort to call and find out.

Otherwise, she'd be automatically rolled over to a new plan — and,
as the letter said, "If you're happy with this plan, do nothing."

If
Donna had done nothing, she would have ended up spending about $1,000
more a month for insurance than she will now that she went to the
marketplace, picked the best plan for her family and accessed tax
credits at the heart of the health care reform law.

U.S. Supreme Court rejects Oklahoma abortion case, wants response from Texas

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The Supreme Court took off of its docket, and thus will not decide, a plea by the state of Oklahoma to revive a law that restricts doctors’ use of drugs rather than surgery to perform an abortion with the medication RU-486 and others. Lyle Denniston at SCOTUSblog reports, Court won’t rule on RU-486 abortions:

Uterus-stateIn a one-sentence order, the Court dismissed as “improvidently granted” the case of Cline  v. Oklahoma Coalition for Reproductive Justice (docket 12-1094).   In issuing other orders, the Court granted no new cases for review.

Meanwhile, a group of women’s health clinics and doctors in Texas asked that the Court at least temporarily a new Texas law that forbids doctors to perform
abortions at a clinic unless those physicians have professional privileges at a hospital within thirty miles of that site.  The Fifth Circuit Court on Thursday allowed that requirement to go into effect, resulting in closing a number of abortion clinics across the state. The application to set aside that order was filed initially with Justice Antonin Scalia, who is the Circuit Justice for the geographic area that includes Texas. He has the authority to decide the issue himself, or share it with his colleagues.

The application is Planned Parenthood of Greater Texas Surgical Health Services v. Abbott (13A452). Justice Scalia immediately asked for the state to respond by 4 p.m. on Tuesday, November 12. The new Texas law also involved a broad restriction on doctors’ option of performing medical abortions with the drug RU-486 and other medications, and that, too, has been allowed to take effect at least in part. The abortion providers’ request to the Supreme Court on Monday, however, did not ask the Justices to take any action on that provision.

The GOP war on women: gradually eroding the constitutional right to abortion

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

The injunction issued by a Texas federal court earlier this week was overturned by a panel of the conservative activist Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals yesterday. Texas court reinstates abortion limits:

TalibanTexas abortion providers’ Monday victory was short-lived. The U.S. 5th
Circuit Court of Appeals on Thursday reversed a federal district court
ruling that found part of the state’s new abortion regulations
unconstitutional, meaning the provisions of House Bill 2 could take
effect immediately if state officials choose to enforce them.

* * *

A three-judge panel in the 5th Circuit appellate court lifted a
permanent injunction placed on the abortion regulations by a lower
court, arguing in a written opinion that the state was likely to succeed
in its legal arguments.

The judges, Priscilla R. Owen, Jennifer Walker Elrod and Catharina
Haynes, wrote that “there is a substantial likelihood that the state
will prevail in its argument that Planned Parenthood failed to establish
an undue burden on women seeking abortions or that the
hospital-admitting-privileges requirement creates a substantial obstacle
in the path of a woman seeking an abortion.” Furthermore, they
wrote,”we also conclude that the state has made a strong showing of
likelihood of success on the merits, at least in part, as to its appeal
of the injunction pertaining to medication abortions.”

The appellate court’s decision overrules U.S. District Judge Lee
Yeakel’s ruling on Monday that a provision in HB 2 that requires
abortion doctors to have admitting privileges at a nearby hospital
imposed an undue burden on women seeking the procedure. Additionally,
Yeakel ruled that it would be unconstitutional for the state to require
physicians to follow federal standards for drug-induced abortions if a
physician determined it would be safer for the woman to use a common
evidence-based protocol.

D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals rules against contraceptive coverage in ‘ObamaCare’ in a deeply disturbing decision

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Posted  by AzBlueMeanie:

"Corporations are people, my friend." – Willard "Mittens" Romney

Apparently the legal fiction of a corporate entity also enjoys rights far superior to the individual rights and liberties guaranteed to citizens by the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights. This is a brave new world of corporatocracy, my friends.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals today upheld a legal challenge to the provision of the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) that mandates employer coverage of birth control,
arguing that it “trammels” the expression of religious freedom.

Wait, the legal fiction of a corporate entity has a "religion" (other than profits and shareholder dividends)? And it is free to impose its religious beliefs on its employees under some perverse notion of "religious liberty"?

This is the exact opposite meaning of religious liberty: it is a "get out of jail free card" for an employer to discriminate against its employees of other religious beliefs, or no religious beliefs, who do not share the corporate entity's "religious beliefs" — under the sanction of federal law, which would violate the "free exercise" clause of First Amendment religious liberty.

Steve Benen reports, Court rules against ACA contraception policy:

Birth-control opponents wonan especially significant round this morning.

The D.C. Circuit Court has upheld a legal challenge to the
provision of the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) that mandates employer
coverage of birth control, arguing that it “trammels” the expression of
religious freedom. While the legal process over the issue isn’t final,
the decision hands a huge political victory to conservative activists
that have long made this argument.

The ruling is online here (pdf).

(Update) Media villager concern trolling over cancellation of individual health insurance plans

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Posted by AzBlueMeanie:

As I said the other day, "There is some actually very good reporting on this topic, none of which
will be reported on the tee-vee by the concern troll media villagers,
nor reported in your local newspapers which rely on the AP (All
Propaganda) concern trolls for sensationalistic reporting. Horseshit
reporting is what is killing any serious policy discussion in this
country."

Paul Waldman at The American Prospect wrote about this the other day, Another Phony Obamacare Victim Story:

In the last couple of decades, a particular technique of news-story
construction has become so common that I'm sure you barely notice it as
something distinctive. It's the use of a device sometimes referred to as
the "exemplar," in which a policy issue is explained through the
profile of one individual, whose tale usually begins and ends the story.
It's ubiquitous on television news, but print reporters do it all the
time as well.

* * *

To see how misleading some of these exemplar stories can be, let's take this piece from last night's NBC Nightly News,
which uses an exemplar named Deborah Cavallaro, a self-employed realtor
from Los Angeles who buys insurance on the individual market[.]

Waldman then systematically destroys the NBC news reporter's reporting. "Unfortunately, we seem to be seeing a lot of these stories; here's an almost identical story from CBS about a 56-year-old Florida woman that goes through the same routine[.]"

Journalists have a natural inclination to cover bad news over good and
to be skeptical of the government, which is usually healthy. But if you
aren't careful it can also lead to misleading reporting. If you're going
to do a story presenting one person as a victim of the law, it might be
a good idea to make sure they are what you say they are.

Similarly, Michael Hiltzik, the excellent business reporter for the Los Angeles Times also looked into this same "exemplar," Deborah Cavallaro, by the tee-vee reporters. Another Obamacare horror story debunked (shockingly, this story did make the editorial pages of the Arizona Daily Star today Michael Hiltzik: Don’t believe the canceled insurance hype):

"Please explain to me," she told Maria Bartiromo on CNBC
Wednesday, "how my plan is a 'substandard' plan when … I'd be paying
more for the exchange plans than I am currently paying by a wide
margin."

Bartiromo didn't take her up on her request. So I will.

The bottom line is that Cavallaro's assertion that "there's nothing
affordable about the Affordable Care Act," as she put it Tuesday on NBC
Channel 4, is the product of her own misunderstandings, abetted by a
passel of uninformed and incurious news reporters. 

I talked with Cavallaro, 60, after her CNBC appearance.