Georgia insurance commissioner: It’s ‘your fault’ if you have a pre-existing condition

Source: Rawstory

Georgia’s Republican insurance commissioner Ralph Hudgens told a group of Republican women in November that having a pre-existing condition like breast cancer or asthma is like being at fault in a car accident and that insurance companies should rightfully be reluctant to cover you.

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“I’ve had several companies come in and they have said just the fact — just the fact — that in the individual market pre-existing conditions have to be covered on Jan. 1, that that is going to double the cost of insurance,” Hudgens said.

“And if you don’t really understand what covering pre-existing conditions would be like, it would be like in Georgia we have a law that says you have to have insurance on your automobile,” he continued.

“But say you’re going along and you have a wreck. And it’s your fault. Well, a pre-existing condition would be you then calling up your insurance agent and saying, ‘I would like to get collision insurance coverage on my car.’ And your insurance agent says, ‘Well, you never had that before. Why would you want it now?’ And you say, ‘Well, I just had a wreck, it was my fault and I want the insurance company to pay to repair my car.’ And that’s the exact same thing on pre-existing insurance.”


Read more: http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2013/12/05/georgia-insurance-commissioner-its-your-fault-if-you-have-a-pre-existing-condition/

Kentucky Governor To Mitch McConnell: Get Your Facts Straight On Obamacare

Source: Huffington Post

WASHINGTON -- It was just Wednesday night that Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) railed against the Affordable Care Act, calling it a "catastrophic failure" for people everywhere.

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But the governor of McConnell's home state came to Capitol Hill on Thursday with a vastly different message: the health care law is working, and people in Kentucky can't get enough of it.

"I have a U.S. senator who keeps saying Kentuckians don't want this. Well, the facts don't prove that out," Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear (D) told reporters.

Beshear said more than 550,000 people have visited the state's Obamacare enrollment website since it launched on Oct. 1. More than 180,000 have called into the health care call center and about 69,000 people have signed up, or about 1,000 Kentuckians per day. Of those who have signed up, he said, 41 percent are under the age of 35.


Read more: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/12/05/kentucky-governor-mitch-mcconnell-obamacare_n_4391860.html?ref=topbar

The Pope's Views Are Hardly At Odds With Bible. The Bible Is Far More Leftist Than Right Wing

And all that believed were together, and had all things in common;
And sold their possessions and goods, and parted them to all men, as every man had need.

And the multitude of them that believed were of one heart and of one soul: neither said any of them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they had all things common.
And with great power gave the apostles witness of the resurrection of the Lord Jesus: and great grace was upon them all.
Neither was there any among them that lacked: for as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the prices of the things that were sold,
And laid them down at the apostles’ feet: and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need.
And Joses, who by the apostles was surnamed Barnabas, a Levite, and of the country of Cyprus,
Having land, sold it, and brought the money, and laid it at the apostles’ feet.

Let everyone be subject to the governing authorities, for there is no authority except that which God has established. The authorities that exist have been established by God.
Consequently, whoever rebels against the authority is rebelling against what God has instituted, and those who do so will bring judgment on themselves.
For rulers hold no terror for those who do right, but for those who do wrong. Do you want to be free from fear of the one in authority? Then do what is right and you will be commended.
For the one in authority is God’s servant for your good. But if you do wrong, be afraid, for rulers do not bear the sword for no reason. They are God’s servants, agents of wrath to bring punishment on the wrongdoer.
Therefore, it is necessary to submit to the authorities, not only because of possible punishment but also as a matter of conscience.
This is also why you pay taxes, for the authorities are God’s servants, who give their full time to governing.
Give to everyone what you owe them: If you owe taxes, pay taxes; if revenue, then revenue; if respect, then respect; if honor, then honor.

Wonkbook: HealthCare.gov will work. That means Obamacare can work, too.

The one thing that Ezra Klein is not mentioning is that he himself was insisting not too long ago that the website would not be able to be fixed within two months based on assurances he received from various insurance IT experts.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/12/02/wonkbook-healthcare-gov-will-work-that-means-obamacare-can-work-too/

A report released by the Obama administration this weekend shows the consumer experience is clearly improved. More than 400 of the 600 fixes on the administration's "punchcard" of repairs have been made. System response time has fallen from eight seconds to less than one second. The administration believes HealthCare.gov can now handle 50,000 concurrent users. The site, which was down 55 percent of the time in early November, is now functional more than 90 percent of the time.

* * *

So there remain reason for concern. But here's what's indisputable: HealthCare.gov is improving, and fast. Or, to put it differently, HealthCare.gov will be fixed. In fact, for most people, it is probably fixed now, or will be fixed quite soon.

The repair job is likely proceeding quickly enough to protect Obamacare from the most severe threat to its launch: Democrat-backed legislation unwinding the individual mandate or other crucial portions of the law. So long as people can actually purchase insurance through the federal exchanges, congressional Democrats are likely to support the basic architecture of the legislation they passed in 2010.

Republicans realize the Web site is quickly improving, and are planning a multi-phase attack on the law's other disruptions. There are the insurance cancellations, of course, but there also going to be people who happily buy new insurance only to find their doctor isn't covered, and there will be people who end up paying higher premiums in the new market, and there will be employers who raise deductibles to keep from paying the 2018 tax on high-value insurance plans, and so on.

Slate - "Why Does The Economy Do Better Under Democrats?" Re New Study

Alan Blinder and Mark Watson recently published a paper documenting that the economy grows more under Democratic Presidents than Republican ones. Of course, the MSM has largely ignored the publication of this paper.

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/12/02/blinder_and_watson_on_partisan_election_performance.html

They say a liberal is someone who doesn't know how to take his own side in an argument, and the latest paper from former Clinton administration official Alan Blinder and co-author Mark Watson seems to confirm it. The paper looks at the well-established fact that GDP growth under Democratic Party presidents is more rapid than under GOP Presidents, and concludes that it's all just a coincidence. Except they don't mount a very strong argument for that conclusion.

* * *

Lets take this in order. Consumer confidence is definitely something you could imagine the President being able to impact despite central bank independence and the separation of powers. People think of Democrats as representing majoritarian economic interests and unpopular secularism and internationalism. So when a Republican gets in, they expect America to stand tall on the world stage and stand up for core moral values but perhaps give short-shrift to the middle class. When a Democrat gets in, it's just the opposite. So Democrats = more confidence.

Then there's oil. The balance of powers is tilted much more toward the president and away from congress in the foreign policy and national security realm. It's no surprising that Republicans' more confrontational approach to international relations leads to more frequent oil supply disruptions.

Now you come to TFP. If TFP growth were slower under Democrats, then I promise you conservative economists would cite this as evidence that Democrats are obviously promoting productivity-killing regulations. But perhaps that's 180 degrees backwards. Perhaps Republicans, as the party of business, are much more likely to engage in pro-incumbent regulatory decision-making while Democrats who are cross-pressured from a wider range of interest groups (big business has a voice in Democratic administrations, but labor and environmental groups are totally frozen out of GOP ones) do better at making decisions in the national interest.

ABC's Jon Karl Is Frustrated That Carney Does Not Adopt RW Talking Point

You can see why the corporate mainstream media gets so upset when the Obama administration refuses to adopt their Republican narrative of the moment. For example, ABC's Jon Karl starts to get upset that Jay Carney refuses to set up a comparison between Bush's Mission Accomplished speech and the ongoing updates to the website. So, Karl keeps on asking the question and Carney refuses to say, "yes, it is just like the Iraq war." The nerve! Karl was so proud of himself and his cleverness, and Carney is not playing along.

http://www.mediaite.com/tv/jay-carney-bristles-at-jon-karls-repeated-obamacare-question-is-this-mission-accomplished/

In the months-long media debate over the rollout of Obamacare and its website, opponents of the law have repeatedly tried to link health care reform with failures of past presidencies, including the Iraq War. At Monday’s White House Daily Briefing, ABC News Chief White House Correspondent Jonathan Karl found a clever way to invoke that comparison, repeatedly asking Press Secretary Jay Carney if this weekend’s re-launch of Healthcare.gov is “Mission Accomplished.”
“In terms of the goals you set for this moment, in terms of the website being functional for the vast majority of users, is it Mission Accomplished?” Karl asked.

* * *

“Let me try to crystallize that,” Karl said, trying again. “Very clearly, in terms of the goal that you set for this moment in time, is it Mission Accomplished?”

“Using…” Carney began. “That phrase is not one that I would employ. We were able to make the necessary improvements to the website so that the vast majority of Americans who use the website can have an experience in which the website functions effectively. It does not mean, as I said in November and October, it does not mean that there will be no problems with the website going forward. That does not even occur on the most highly functional private sector website. What it does mean is that we have made significant progress. We have made improvements to the system that we hoped we could, and then more work continues.”

The Vatican's Journey From Anti-Communism to Anti-Capitalism

It is funny how the Atlantic, which is sometimes portrayed as liberal, seems to describe the Pope's statements on capitalism as almost being revolutionary when in truth it simply brings Catholic doctrine more in line with actual scripture, which repeatedly discusses the plight of the poor, rather than spending much time on abortion or gay marriage, which preoccupies most of the religious right.

http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2013/11/the-vaticans-journey-from-anti-communism-to-anti-capitalism/281874/

Pope Francis is once again shaking things up in the Catholic Church. On Tuesday, he issued his first “apostolic exhortation,” declaring a new enemy for the Catholic Church: modern capitalism. “Some people continue to defend trickle-down theories which assume that economic growth, encouraged by a free market, will inevitably succeed in bringing about greater justice and inclusiveness in the world,” he wrote. “This opinion, which has never been confirmed by the facts, expresses a crude and naive trust in the goodness of those wielding economic power and in the sacralized workings of the prevailing economic system.”

He couldn't be much clearer. The pope has taken a firm political stance against right-leaning, pro-free market economic policies, and his condemnation appears to be largely pointed at Europe and the United States. His explicit reference to “trickle-down” economic policies—the hallmark of Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher, and their political successors—is just the beginning: Throughout 224 pages on the future of the Church, he condemns income inequality, “the culture of prosperity,” and “a financial system which rules rather than serves.”

Taken in the context of the last half-century of Roman Catholicism, this is a radical move. Fifty years ago, around the time of the Second Vatican Council, Church leaders quietly declared a very different economic enemy: communism. But Pope Francis’s communitarian, populist message shows just how far the Church has shifted in five decades—and how thoroughly capitalism has displaced communism as a monolithic political philosophy.

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While the earnings of a minority are growing exponentially, so too is the gap separating the majority from the prosperity enjoyed by those happy few… Consequently, they reject the right of states, charged with vigilance for the common good, to exercise any form of control. A new tyranny is thus born, invisible and often virtual, which unilaterally and relentlessly imposes its own laws and rules.

Dems Say Boehner Blocking Farm Bill, Wants More Food Stamp Cuts

Source: Mother Jones

Over the past month, the House and Senate have been working to come up with a compromise farm bill—the five-year piece of legislation that funds agriculture and nutrition programs. The main sticking point is the level of cuts to the food stamp program. House Republicans want to cut $40 billion from the program, while the Senate wants to trim $4 billion. Last week, the talks fell apart, and the two sides are fighting over why.

A Democratic aide tells Mother Jones that House Speaker John Boehner shot down several informal compromise farm bill proposals because the food stamps cuts were not deep enough. Boehner's spokesman denies this.

The Democratic aide says the joint House-Senate panel that is trying to work out a deal presented Boehner with a few proposals that contained food stamps levels close to what the Senate wants. Even though Rep. Frank Lucas (R-Okla.)—the chairman of the House agriculture committee and a top member of the compromise panel—was willing to give a lot of ground to the Senate on food stamps, he says, Boehner rejected the proposals. "Boehner is playing spoiler," he adds. "That's why [negotiations] fell apart."

Another source familiar with the negotiations echoes the Dem aide's claim, saying that the House leadership has Lucas on a tight leash. Sen. Tom Harkin (D-Iowa), who is on the compromise committee, told Congressional Quarterly the same thing last week. "I'm hearing that the speaker still keeps inserting his people into the process," and that House members on the farm bill compromise panel "have to go and check with the speaker’s people [who] say they want this and this and this. I hear that's one of our major problems."


Read more: http://www.motherjones.com/mojo/2013/11/john-boehner-farm-bill-food-stamps

Stores selling Obamacare policies popping up across California

Source: LA Times

With enrollment deadlines looming, California officials, insurance companies and agents are staking out retail space to sign up thousands of people as part of the Affordable Care Act. These sales tactics reflect how dramatically the healthcare law is changing the insurance industry.

Until recently, most health insurance companies and agents didn't put much time into selling policies to individuals and focused more on catering to employers and large groups in the workplace. But the health insurance mandate and billions of dollars in federal premium subsidies have made individual policies a far more attractive market.

* * *

The Covered California exchange has posted solid enrollment since opening Oct. 1, primarily through its website and call centers. It has signed up nearly 80,000 people in private health plans through Nov. 19 and an additional 135,000 people have applied for Medi-Cal, the state's Medicaid program for the poor.

But the exchange estimates that about 80% of people will want in-person help to figure out their insurance options. Rather than set up storefronts itself, Covered California has focused more on training people who then go out to farmers markets and health fairs to promote the exchange and do enrollment.


Read more: http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-exchange-retail-20131128,0,380583.story#axzz2ltqx9x4E

LA Times - "The Obamacare success stories you haven't been hearing about"

Even in California, FM 98.7's news described the Iran nuclear deal as an obvious effort to distract from the federal website problems. Thankfully, the print media does offer occasional glimpses of the reality that the ACA has been having a positive impact.

http://www.latimes.com/business/hiltzik/la-fi-mh-obamacare-success-20131125,0,1801769.story#axzz2loqfBW9N