Month: November 2013
Health Insurers Caught Lying to Customers about Policy Cancellations
Talking Points Memo investigated the rash of policy cancellations by heath insurers as a result of implementation of the Affordable Care Act. TPM reporter Dylan Scott found that insurers are routinely not informing customers that cheaper but better policies are available on the insurance exchanges:
If Donna had taken the default option that LifeWise offered outside of the marketplace, she would have paid nearly $1,000 more per month for a worse plan than she was able to obtain on the marketplace.Before Obamacare, Donna paid a $724 monthly premium for $10,000 deductible, catastrophic health coverage from LifeWise, a subsidiary of the state’s Blue Cross/Blue Shield affiliate. She asked that TPM withhold her last name because she was disclosing personal financial information.
The Sept. 16 letter from LifeWise told her that her existing plan was being canceled to comply with the new requirements of Obamacare and that she would automatically be rolled over into a new plan that was the “closest match” to her old plan. “If we don’t hear from you, we’ll automatically move you to this plan and you’ll be covered starting January 1, 2014,” the notice read.
GOP 2016 Frontrunner Chris Christie Bullies a Constituent at a Rally — Again
Pundits all seem to agree that when New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie wins reelection today, he will automatically become the Republican frontrunner for the presidency in 2016. That may be so, but most of these pundits live in the Northeast where a sarcastic, bullying style, of which Christie is the examplar, is part of everyday life.
To live in the Tristate Region is to deal with bombastic, aggressive smart asses at every turn — at the DMV, the supermarket checkout, at work and behind the wheel. This is the world in which the political opinionistas live. The fact that their lives are filled with blowhards like Christie blinds them to the fact that the bully-boy persona that is so common in the Northeast is considered ridiculous and repulsive outside the region.
3 Things to Know About Florida Politics Now
- Former Florida Republican Gov. Charlie Crist is running for governor in 2014 as a Democrat. The official announcement was made in Crist’s hometown of St. Petersburg, and puts an end, not to speculation that Crist would run, but to when the campaign would begin. It’s on.
- Alex Sink (D), former state chief financial officer, who lost to Gov. Rick Scott (GOP/Tea) in 2010 by 1% in a campaign where Scott provided $75 million of his own money, announced she is running for Congress to fill the seat of U.S. Rep. Bill Young (R), who died in October. Sink claims a fundraising headstart, and if successful, will help chip away at the Republican majority in the House. Dist. 13, where Sink is running, is 37.7% Republican, 35.2% Democratic, 23.2% independent, and the rest “other.”
- Republicans are already gunning for both Crist and Sink. This promoted tweet from the Florida GOP went up as Crist was delivering his announcement:
Republicans Can’t Even Pick a Winner in Baseball
54%
Proportion of Americans who said they didn’t care who won the World Series before the games concluded. Another 25% said they were pulling for the Boston Red Sox, who went on to win, with 21% fans of the St. Louis Cardinals. Among those identifying as Democrats, according to Public Policy Polling, 34% were rooting for the Sox while 16% were for the Cardinals. For those in the GOP, the percentage was Cards 27, Sox 18.
Romneycare Architect: 3% of Americans Will Lose Their Junk Health Insurance Plans
University of Michigan professor and senior Brookings fellow Justin Wolfers on Thursday created a chart depicting the “winners and losers” under the Affordable Care Act, sourced to a Ryan Lizza article that used estimates from M.I.T. economist Jon Gruber, a former adviser to Mitt Romney.
The chart portrays the degree to which Republicans and critics of Obamacare have amplified the media’s coverage around the relatively small percentage of Americans who have received cancellation notices for stripped-down individual market plans that failed to meet the benefit requirements of the ACA.
Gruber, called the architect of Romney’s successful health care plan in Massachusetts, argues that of the six percent of Americans who buy their own health care on the individual market, three percent would have negligible change to their policies.
