Posted by AzBlueMeanie: From the Department of Economic Security (DES) standardized AHCCCS eligibility letter: For a person over the age of 18 to be elibible for AHCCCS Health Insurance they must be in one of the groups listed below — A parent or relative living with a child under the age of 18, or age … Read more
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
When I opened the Arizona Daily Star this morning, I was treated to a Howard Fischer report on how former state legislators Frank Antenori and Ron Gould are planning a referendum drive should the Arizona legislature enact Governor Jan Brewer's Medicaid (AHCCCS) restoration plan. 2 want Medicaid issue up to voters:
Frank Antenori, who represented Tucson, said Tuesday he already has written commitments from 500 GOP precinct committeemen to gather signatures this summer to refer the issue to the ballot if the proposal by Gov. Jan Brewer is approved by the Legislature. He and Ron Gould of Lake Havasu City need just 86,405 valid signatures within 90 days of the end of the session — whenever that happens — to force the issue to a public vote.
* * *
House Speaker Andy Tobin said Tuesday he has given up on his own bid to make approval of Brewer's plan contingent on voter approval at a special election. Tobin said he cannot line up support in his chamber.
* * *
Antenori said, though, it should be no problem finding enough Arizonans to sign referendum petitions — especially if the measure is sold as a way to kill "Obamacare.''
Just getting the signatures would be a setback for Brewer. The Arizona Constitution says any measure referred to the ballot cannot take effect until voters get a chance to either ratify or reject what lawmakers have approved.
The earliest that could happen is the 2014 general election. Antenori said that delay works in his favor.
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday declined to hear an appeal from Indiana in the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals involving that state's attempt to defund Planned Parenthood from use of federal Medicaid funds on the theory of "indirectly subsidizing" abortions (state and federal law bans use of these funds for abortions).
The Indiana law is nearly identical to the Arizona law that seeks to defund Planned Parenthood on the same specious grounds, which is on appeal before the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Arizona Republic reports today, Supreme Court declines to hear abortion case:
In a decision that may have implications for Arizona, the
Supreme Court refused to consider Indiana’s appeal of a lower-court decision
striking down its denial of Medicaid funds to health-care providers that
perform abortions. The law was challenged by Planned Parenthood.
A similar Arizona abortion law is on hold pending appeal
to the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. A hearing in that case is
scheduled for June 12.
* * *
The Indiana law aimed to deny Planned Parenthood funds
from the joint federal-state Medicaid health program for the poor that
are used for general health services, including cancer screening.
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Paul Krugman has more on the good news for the implementation of "ObamaCare" today. The
Obamacare Shock:
The Affordable Care Act, aka Obamacare, goes fully into effect at the
beginning of next year, and predictions of disaster are being heard far
and wide. There will be an administrative “train wreck,” we’re told;
consumers will face a terrible shock. Republicans, one hears, are
already counting on the law’s troubles to give them a big electoral
advantage.
[See this AP report GOP to frame 'debacle' of Obama health law as 2014 campaign issue in today's Arizona Daily Star.]
No doubt there will be problems, as there are with any large new
government initiative, and in this case, we have the added complication
that many Republican governors and legislators are doing all they can to
sabotage reform. Yet important new evidence — especially from
California, the law’s most important test case — suggests that the real
Obamacare shock will be one of unexpected success.
Before I can explain what the news means, I need to make a crucial
point: Obamacare is a deeply conservative reform, not in a political
sense (although it was originally a Republican proposal) but in terms of
leaving most people’s health care unaffected. Americans who receive
health insurance from their employers, Medicare or Medicaid — which is
to say, the vast majority of those who have any kind of health insurance
at all — will see almost no changes when the law goes into effect.
Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
The Tea-Publican strategy for 2014 is to once again run against the Affordable Care Act (aka "ObamaCare"), focusing on every little problem, real or imagined, with the implementation of the program. Of course there are going to be problems with implementation, but rather than make adjustments to fix those problems, the Tea-Publican ideological knee-jerk reaction is to yell "kill it!"
Imagine how different the course of human history would have been without trial and error eventually leading to success and the advancement of the human race. If these people had been in charge, all modern scientific and technological advancements would never have occurred because damn near every one of them was a failure at first.
"ObamaCare" was set up to allow the 50 states to experiment and to learn what works best to establish best practices. AS FDR famously said of his New Deal programs, " It is common sense to take a method and try it: If it fails, admit it frankly and try another. But above all, try something."
For all the nit-picking by Tea-Publicans over the implementation of "ObamaCare," things are actually going quite well in states that are making a good faith effort to implement the program. Matthew Iglesias writes at Slate, Obamacare Rollout Is Going to Be Like a Train Getting You to Your Destination in a Timely Manner:
You heard it here first from me in April,
but I want to reiterate that over the next 18 months you're going to
read a lot of stories about problems with Affordable Care Act
implementations. Many of those stories are going to be accurate. But
fundamentally Affordable Care Act implementation is going to work out
great, and people are going to love it.
The latest evidence comes to us today from California, America's largest
state and one of the states that's tried the hardest to actually
implement Obamacare. As Sarah Kliff explains, their exchanges are
getting set up, and it looks like premiums for "silver" and "bronze"
plans are both going to be lower than was previously expected [California Obamacare premiums: No ‘rate shock’ here].
Far from a "train wreck," in other words, the biggest single set of
clients for the program is getting something like a nice, smooth
high-speed train ride. There was also good news from Oregon recently,
where insurers that had initially come in with high premium bids are now
asking to resubmit with cheaper offerings in the face of competition [Oregon may be the White House’s favorite health exchange]. And the Affordable Care Act's goal of slowing the growth in aggregate health expenditures is also coming true.
Now of course not every state is going to have as happy an experience as California and Oregon.