The Purging Begins

Somehow, I don't think they really have our best interests at heart:

"[HHS Secretary Shecantbeserious] is proposing to reform existing healthcare regulations and purge unnecessary ones ... We are committed to cutting the red tape for health care facilities"

Oh, I can certainly think of one "unnecessary" healthcare law tax, can't you?

In a fit of uncontrolled irony, Ms Shecantbeserious has released a "114-page proposal cover[ing] a range of medical positions and services"

You really can't make this stuff up.

The problem, of course, is that - with these folks - one must always look for the actual, usually hidden, motivation. That is, nothing they do is ever really for our own good. So although this looks good on (lots and lots of) paper, it's fair to ask "what are they really trying to accomplish?"

In this case, it seems pretty reasonable that they're beginning to understand the incredible provider shortage that they've created, and are now scrambling for a way to somehow mitigate the damage.

Rotsa ruck with that.

HIX and Obamacare

One thing we can always agree on, the federal government is in a class by themselves when it comes to redundancy and coming up with creative (and not so creative) acronyms for another bureaucratic process.

Meet HIX.

Health Insurance Exchange will now be referred to as HIX.

One can imagine the looks you will get when you tell your friends you work for HIX.

The exchanges are supposed to use one application process to help consumers find out whether they are eligible for health coverage subsidies or for exemptions from the PPACA "shared responsibility" health insurance ownership mandate.

Life Health Pro

One application.

The 21 page application linked above.

Yes, that should make it simple. Something like form 1040 + Schedule A + Schedule B + Schedule C all rolled in to one.

Don't you just love the term "shared responsibility"? Makes it sound like we are just one big family. Or it takes a village . . .

Now take a look at who is involved in helping you find a plan and determining if you are even eligible.

An exchange program "Data Services Hub" will help exchanges get eligibility information and check applications by pulling data from the Internal Revenue Service, the Social Security Administration, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, the U.S. Department of Defense, the Peace Corps and the federal Office of Personnel Management.

The Peace Corps?

Or as the prez calls it, Peace Corpse.

With that many agencies helping, what could possibly go wrong?

For all exchanges, CMS will administer the new PPACA health insurance purchase tax credit program and the new "cost-sharing reduction" program, officials said.

There's that term again.

Cost sharing gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling, right?

In addition to PII about HIX program applicants, the system will include PII about navigators, agents and brokers; exchange employees and contractors; CMS employees and contractors; insurers that sell coverage through the exchanges; and employers that have workers sign up for health coverage through the new Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) exchanges.

In addition to names, contact information and health coverage information, the types of data that could be stored in the record system could include information about whether an individual is incarcerated, the individual's religion, the individual's household income, and information about whether an individual is pregnant.

Sounds like hacker's heaven. All that data flowing around between agencies, just waiting to be taken.

Think it will never happen?

Guess again.

Remember the spy drone that was hacked by the Iranian military and forced to land inside their borders? Of course we asked them to give it back.

No word on whether Hell has frozen over or not.

And don't forget you are working with HIX.

Thanks to Henry Stern for the heads up.

Obamacare Logjam

Let's say you have a new give away and need to sign up 30 million folks in 90 days. What do you do?

In the case of Obamacare, you plan to hire "navigators" to assist in the process. These navigators are kind of like online Wal-Mart greeters whose job is to direct you to the right health insurance plan.

While some people will find registering for health insurance as easy as booking a flight online, vast numbers who are confused by the myriad choices will need to sit down with someone who can walk them through the process.

Enter the “navigators,” an enormous new workforce of helpers required under the law. In large measure, the success of the law and its overriding aim of making sure that virtually all Americans have health insurance depends on these people. But the challenge of hiring and paying for a new class of workers is immense and is one of the most pressing issues as the Obama administration and state governments implement the law.Tens of thousands of workers will be needed — California alone plans to certify 21,000 helpers — with the tab likely to run in the hundreds of millions of dollars.

Washington Post

California is broke, as are several other states. Where will they get the money to pay for these navigators?

Groups such as unions, chambers of commerce, health clinics, immigrant-service organizations, and community- or consumer-focused nonprofits can use the grants to train and employ staff members or volunteers to provide in-person guidance — especially to hard-to-reach populations — and to provide space for them to work.

That is a rather diverse group that is expected to become versed in the business of health insurance terms, plans and procedures. So if you need landscaping work, a green card and health insurance you can get it all at one place . . .

Compounding the difficulty, de Percin said, is that many of the uninsured struggle with English or don’t have easy access to the Internet. Others aren’t familiar with concepts like co-payments and deductibles, let alone the subsidies that will be provided for lower-income people or the new eligibility rules for Medicaid.

And the folks that wrote this law never considered any of this . . .

In a kind of Catch-22, the money must come from an exchange’s operating funds, which will rely on fees from insurers. But those won’t be available until at least Jan. 1, well after navigators must be in position.

States can pitch in during the meantime. But that’s an unlikely option in Colorado, which has stringent rules governing its budget.

Buy now, pay later. Hire someone that knew how to ask if you want fries with that order and make them navigators.

What could possibly go wrong?

Cavalcade of Risk #176: Short and Sweet edition

Dennis Wall hosts this week's collection of risk-related posts. From telecommuting to drug prices, you're sure to find something helpful.

Lame Stream Media MIA

Two big Obamacare stories have cropped up in the last week or so, but the low information voter will probably never know anything about these developments. If they are Fox news fans, or follow conservative blogs like Heritage (or InsureBlog) they will be informed.

But if they live under a rock, or get their news from the lame stream media of ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC or USA Today they are SOL.

A few days ago as reported here on InsureBlog, the IRS informed us that the average family health insurance premium under Obamacare will run $20,000 per year.

Where did we get our information?

From CNS News.

We also could have found out from Drudge, Townhall, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Daily Caller, Hotair and numerous other sources.

But not from ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC or USA Today.

Keep in mind this information did not originate from some dirty old man in a dark alley, or a shadowy figure named "Deep Throat".

The proclamation that health insurance rates will rise to $20,000 came from the I.R.S.

Yes, the folks in D.C. that come calling every April, 15th and will be responsible for oversight of the Obamacare premium subsidy program are telling us health insurance premiums are expected to go through the roof.

This of course is in direct opposition to the campaign promise of lower insurance premiums.

Now we learn that an estimated 7 million people will LOSE health insurance under Obamacare.

More Americans lose employment-based insurance. CBO has updated its projection for the number of Americans who will lose employer-sponsored insurance (ESI) as a result of Obamacare. In August 2012—about six months ago—it estimated that 4 million people would lose ESI. It now estimates that 7 million Americans will lose ESI due to Obamacare. Also, employers are now anticipated to pay $13 billion more in penalties compared to the August 2012 baseline, totaling $130 billion over 10 years.

Heritage

Where did the folks at Heritage get their information?

From the CBO (Congressional Budget Office).

You can also learn this information from WND, Twitchy (Michelle Malkin) and the Washington Examiner.

But if you rely on ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC or USA Today you are once again part of the low information crowd.

There is a reason they are called the lame stream media.

Now you know why.

Calhoun Memorial Hospital Closes

Calhoun Memorial Hospital is closing. The loss of this Georgia hospital is a combination of the failing economy and financial strain caused by uninsured patients and increased number of Medicaid patients.

A handful of other rural hospitals in the state also may be teetering on the brink, with rising levels of uninsured patients and with Medicaid continuing to pay low rates for services.
HomeTown Health, an organization of rural hospitals in Georgia, says a half-dozen facilities could follow Calhoun Memorial’s move and shut down in the coming months.

Georgia Health News

Providers that accept Medicaid patients receive roughly 20% less than Medicare pays for the same services and Medicare pays about 15% less than private insurance carriers. With more patients relying on Medicaid doctors and hospitals feel the squeeze and have to take action.

Hospitals that accept any kind of federal funds cannot refuse Medicaid patients but doctors and other medical providers are not obligated to treat Medicaid patients.

The 25-bed “critical access’’ Calhoun Memorial is the first rural Georgia hospital to close since Telfair Regional Hospital in McRae, in south-central Georgia, closed in 2008, Lewis said Monday.
Earl Whiteley, CEO of Calhoun Memorial, cited the increase in charity care that the Calhoun County hospital incurred as a major reason for the hospital’s demise.
He told GHN on Monday that indigent charity care rose from $834,000 in 2008 to $1.8 million last year.
“You just can’t continue to give away free care,’’ Whiteley said.

Tell that to the low information voters that gave Obama another 4 years.

Whitley said part of the financial crisis is due to the loss of indigent care funds under Obamacare. Those patients were supposed to be covered under Medicaid expansion but Georgia, like most other states, do not have the money to pay their share of the cost of Medicaid.

Prior to Friday’s action, the Calhoun hospital authority had sold an assisted living facility and its nursing home. The hospital had stopped admitting patients, so there were none left to transfer to other hospitals. A medical clinic will remain open in Arlington, Whiteley said.
The economic impact on Arlington and Calhoun County will be profound, with up to 100 employees losing jobs.

With the closing of this Georgia hospital, local residents will have to drive about 45 minutes to the nearest hospital.

Everyone Counts (except you) . . . A timely reminder about government exercise of power

Via Drudge, we learn this from the London Daily Mail Feb 1:

The British National Health Service (NHS) is launching a program called Everyone Counts.  This program requires family physicians to hand over to NHS their patients’ confidential and personally-identifiable records including drinking habits, waist size, weight, cholesterol, BMI, family health history and pulse rate, and other details.  Physicians are ordered to comply.  Patients cannot opt out.

NHS plans to “analyze” the data.

I’ll just bet they do, too.

NHS officials say the data will be stored in a giant information bank where, they insist, it will be “anonymous and deleted after analysis.”

This raises several questions about the program er, excuse me, programme. 

Will anonymous third-parties be supplied with this patient data for analysis? 

Is the patient data easier to hack when it resides in a “giant information bank” or when it's supplied to an unknown number of anonymous third-parties, or when it remains where it is now, in tens of thousands of physician office files?

How long “after analysis” will NHS delete the data?  A day?  A decade?

Here's a better question  – will a day ever come that is "after" NHS “analysis” ends?

Here's the best question of all – what reasons do the British public have, to believe anything NHS officials say about this new program, er programme?

This seems to me a timely reminder that, when the people agree to give powers to the government, the government will actually, you know, use those powers.  This also seems a timely reminder that sometimes governments will use their powers for purposes the people don’t want - and which the government may strenuously deny it's doing.  Thus, the article quotes an unidentified NHS spokesman: "The NHS constitution makes clear what information can be used for by the NHS and this proposal complies exactly with that."

History teaches that to expect governments to behave otherwise is foolishly naïve.