Obamacare
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Burwell Confirmed As HHS Secretary
The U.S. Senate voted in Sylvia Matthews Burwell as the new Secretary of Health and Human Services on Thursday afternoon. Burwell, the former head of the Office of Management and Budget, was confirmed 78-17. Before and after the vote, Burwell both faced her share of fire and garnered high praise...
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Canada's Headed For A HealthCare.gov Disaster Of Its Own
I am deeply disappointed at yet another massive government IT failure, and sadly, not surprised in the slightest. The Canadian government's initiative to consolidate more than 1,500 government websites into a single super site, Canada.ca, is failing and starting to look like Canada's version of the disastrous Healthcare.gov. The original deadline for completing the project passes this month, with costs ballooning from $1.54 million to a reported $9.4 million, and growing...
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CEOs/HR Execs Facing Personal Liability: Dereliction of Fiduciary Duties Triggering Labor Dept Investigations
The first shots across the bow have been fired highlighting how benefits leaders need to pay as close attention to health benefits as they have been paying to retirement plans. The most recent lawsuits name the HR leaders in the companies involved (GAP and CB&I) as defendants since they are listed as the plan administrator (sometimes CFOs are the plan administrators). It’s clear that there is going to be the increased scrutiny for health benefits that has been commonplace for retirement benefits. For example, you can Google “ERISA class action” to find the many cases surrounding retirement benefits going after plan administrators for failing in their fiduciary duties. Similar cases in healthcare could have as far-reaching implications as Obamacare in driving employers to health benefits that deliver value...
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Column: ObamaCare Killed My Sister
This Wednesday, my little sister, Julie, will be buried. She died because she delayed seeking health care for what turned out to be a catastrophic condition after her private health insurance policy was cancelled because of Obamacare...
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Consumers Asked To Verify Income, Other Information — Or Risk Losing Government Subsidies For Health Insurance
...About eight million people signed up for a health plan through the ACA exchanges. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, 85 percent of them were eligible for financial aid, and the government is expected to deliver about $10 billion in subsidies during the first year. Healthcare analysts say some consumers will end up paying higher monthly premiums as a result of the verification process, while others may have to repay some or all of their subsidies if they are found to be ineligible...
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Consumers Frustrated By New Health Plans As They Find Their Doctors Are Not Included
Some consumers who bought insurance under President Barack Obama's health care law are experiencing buyer's remorse after realizing that their longtime doctors aren't accepting the new plans.
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Could Billion Dollar EHRs Bankrupt the Country?
Earlier this year, Monmouth University conducted a survey to determine which issues were most important as the country transitions to a new presidential administration. Among all the potential concerns Americans now face, the issue that rises to the top is healthcare costs. How acute a concern is this? It’s significant enough that, when asked the open-ended question, “turning to issues closer to home, what is the biggest concern facing your family right now?”, 25 percent of respondents made it their number one issue...
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Could There Be a Blockchain Solution to High Prescription Drug Prices?
Prescription drugs are one of the biggest contributors to soaring healthcare costs in the U.S. And for both individuals and families, particularly where multiple prescriptions are needed, drug expenses can quickly escalate to thousands of dollars. According to a report from the Kaiser Family Foundation, 8 in 10 Americans would like the government to negotiate prices for those on Medicare. Additionally, Americans want limits set on the amount drug companies can charge for high-cost drugs, such as those to treat cancer...
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Cover Oregon Should Have Used Open-Source Software: Guest Opinion
To me, guest columnist Charles Jennings accurately represents the old school IT mentality - "No one ever got fired for buying IBM." I couldn't gather from his essay whether he knows anything about modern software development methodology.
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Doctor Seeking Illinois Senate Seat Offers Brutal Diagnosis Of ObamaCare In Viral Video
She's a former nun, an Army major, a lawyer, a college professor and a physician. Now Dr. Barbara Bellar wants to be a state senator from Illinois, and she has one question about ObamaCare. Read More »
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Don’t forget Obamacare’s electronic medical records wreck
The White House finally acknowledged the spectacular public disaster of Obamacare’s Internet exchange infrastructure during Monday’s Rose Garden infomercial. But President Shamwow and his sales team are AWOL on the bureaucratic ravages of the federal electronic medical records mandate. Modernized data collection is a worthy goal, of course. But distracted doctors are seeing “more pixels than patients,” Dr. DiNubile observes, and the EMR edict is foisting “dangerous user-unfriendly technology” on physicians and patients.
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EpiPen Delivers Epinephrine and Healthcare Insight: Price Gouging and Medical Extortion
The header image is a chart that was part of an article by Bloomberg — written over two years ago (May, 2014). The data itself goes back 9 years. Mylan's price gouging was front and center this week, but the issue has been actively percolating for years. It has also erupted before and it will again. Everyone's squawking and legislators are "looking into it," but it won't be solved this year — or even this election cycle. Here's why...
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Eric Holder's Lawless Legacy: Column
Eric Holder is reaping applause as his six-year reign as Attorney General comes to a close. But Holder's record is profoundly disappointing to anyone who expected the Obama administration to renounce the abuses of the previous administration...
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ERs Seeing Increase In Patients Under Obamacare
It wasn't supposed to work this way, but since the Affordable Care Act took effect in January, Norton Hospital has seen its packed emergency room become even more crowded, with about 100 more patients a month...
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Even NPR Agrees That Obamacare Has Failed
A thorough repudiation of the (un-)Affordable Care Act comes from, of all places, state-run National Public Radio. Timed to be buried by Super Tuesday coverage, NPR this week released a new study that indicates that Obamacare has failed on almost all levels. The poll, by NPR, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health, shows that three quarters of Americans think health care in their state has not improved under Obamacare...
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