ICYMI: The Latest ObamaCare News

Dr. Bucshon comments on ObamaCare delay – On Monday, Congressman Larry Bucshon, a physician from Southern Indiana, released the following statement after the Administration again unilaterally delayed part of ObamaCare. (2/10/14)

Manchin: Just Delay the Whole Law till 2015 – As he was headed to the Democratic caucus lunch yesterday, Senator Joe Manchin had strong words about the president’s extension of the employer mandate deadline. “You’re just picking and choosing,” the West Virginia Democrat said of the administration’s decision. “First it’s basically the large employers, then it’s medium groups, then it’s 50 to 100 — medium-sized. If there’s a problem, there’s a problem.” (National Review; 2/12/14)

ObamaCare Raises Medicaid Cost as Insurers Shift Tax Bill – Health insurers told to pay $150 billion in taxes over a decade to help fund ObamaCare are now shifting at least part of that cost back to taxpayers. (Bloomberg; 2/12/14)

The Whatever President – We were told that President Obama would wield his executive power this year to defy Congress. Instead, he is defying his own health-care law. The Obama administration announced this week it is delaying and changing the law’s employer mandate, the latest in a series of seat-of-the-pants revisions to ObamaCare. The president was eager to highlight steps he was taking to bypass Congress in his State of the Union last month, but left this one out. If he had demanded congressional action to delay the employer mandate, he surely would have gotten a bipartisan bill on his desk forthwith. Maybe we should revise his call for executive unilateralism in his speech: “If Congress will act … I still prefer to act on my own.” (Politico; 2/12/14)

New delay ensures ObamaCare to be issue in 2014, 2016 elections – President Barack Obama on Tuesday defended his administration’s latest decision to delay an aspect of the Affordable Care Act, saying the move was about “smoothing out” the health care law’s rocky implementation. Obama acknowledged that “challenges” exist in implementing the massive Affordable Care Act. (CNN; 2/11/14)

ObamaCare patients may encounter fewer doctors, longer wait times – Those who signed up for ObamaCare or were forced into it now are learning they’re going to face some nasty surprises when they seek care. “Many consumers ended up purchasing a plan through the exchange, thinking it would cover their normal set of physicians, and hospitals,” says Jim Capretta of the Ethics and Public Policy Center. “Now as they are using services, they are figuring out that they don’t.” (Fox News; 2/11/14)

California’s Physician Directories Removed Because of Errors  - The California health care exchange has taken down its physician directories, amid continuing complaints from doctors and patients alike that the lists of doctors and hospitals included in each insurance plan were error-riddled and unreliable. Since the October rollout of Covered California, inaccuracies have posed countless problems: The lists described doctors as fluent in languages they did not speak; obstetricians were labeled as ophthalmologists; and physicians were falsely listed under insurance plans that did not cover care at their offices. (The New York Times; 2/10/14)