TPM - "3 Signs That Obamacare Is Slowing Health Care Spending"

The MSM is stuck in its Koch funded narrative of repeating the same canned story over and over along with a file photo of President Obama frowning. I should have went into journalism, because cutting and pasting without attribution to Frank Lutz seems fairly easy.

The three years since the Affordable Care Act passed -- 2011, 2012 and 2013 -- have seen the slowest growth in health care spending since 1965, when the statistic began being consistently tracked, according to a new White House report.

That's great news, but the source of that trend is important. For the last couple years, most experts have credited the Great Recession for much of the decline. It makes sense: When times are tough, people are going to do what they can to minimize spending on everything, including health care.

But the second goal of Obamacare, beyond expanding health coverage to the uninsured, was getting health care costs under control. Health care spending had grown by an average annual rate of 3.9 percent between 2000 and 2007, before dipping to 1.8 percent between 2007 and 2010. According to the new report, the average annual rate of growth from 2011 to 2013 dropped still further, to 1.3 percent.

At some point, the White House needs to prove that the law is achieving that objective. According to the report released Wednesday, they think they have the evidence to say it's starting to. Jason Furman, chairman of President Obama's Council of Economic Advisors, explained why in a briefing with a small group of reporters.

USA Today - "Health care spending increases hit new low"

This does not fit into the current news narrative of repeating a right wing talking point along with an old picture of President Obama frowning, then commenting that the ACA will hurt Democrat's chances in 2014. Yup, this is what is reported as news, the same right wing talking points you have heard 24/7 by the MSM.

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-now/2013/11/20/health-care-spending-growth/3650243/

WASHINGTON — Buoyed by a report showing that health care spending has risen by the lowest rate ever recorded, White House officials said Wednesday a continuation of the trend could lead to more jobs and lower-than-expected costs.

Reduced health care costs for employers could lead to 200,000 to 400,000 new jobs per year by the second half of the decade, said Jason Furman, the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers.

"If just half the recent slowdown in spending can be sustained, health care spending a decade from now will be $1,400 per person lower," Furman said.

The Council of Economic Advisers report released Wednesday also said health care inflation is the lowest it has been in 50 years.

"Don't Compare Obamacare to Bush's Medicare Part D" by Jonathan Cohn

Interesting article that notes some of the flaws in Ezra Klein's comparison to Medicare Part D. It is a shame that the MSM is generally missing this type of in depth policy analysis, and instead simply reiterates the Republican talking point of the day,

http://www.newrepublic.com/article/115646/obamacare-vs-medicare-part-d-comparing-two-health-care-reforms

On Monday, writing in the Washington Post, Ezra Klein reminded everybody of the history: The program’s first few weeks were chaotic, with seniors unable to get their drugs because enrollment into their chosen plans hadn’t worked. Even Republicans called it a disaster. But the Bush Administration fixed the problems and, eventually, it became popular. Today millions of seniors use it to pay for their prescriptions. Nobody talks of modifying the program, let alone repealing it. It’s part of the policy landscape.

Even this analogy, though, has its limits. The most important difference between Medicare Part D and Obamacare has nothing to do with information technology—and everything to do with policy trade-offs. The Bush Administration and its allies weren’t particularly concerned about budget deficits, though they frequently talked about them. And it showed in their drug benefit proposal, which called for spending hundreds of billions dollars in perpetuity—and no new revenues or cuts to offset the new spending. When a government actuary warned that the program would cost even more than the administration projected, the Bush Administration famously tried to squelch the finding. The actuarial projections turned out to be wrong, but the law is still increasing deficits by hundreds of billions of dollars in the next decade alone.

* * *
Obama and his allies adopted a very different approach. They made two vows—that health care reform would pay for itself and that, over time, it would actually reduce the deficit. Critics mocked them and, to this day, few people seem to believe them. But the official projections suggest they were good to their word. The Congressional Budget Office has on several occasions estimated the cost of the Affordable Care Act, first upon passage and then following various tweaks to the law. Each time, the conclusion has been the same: A slight reduction in the deficit during the first ten years, with greater reductions after that.

But fiscal responsibility is not easy. To offset the law’s new spending—and, by the way, to reduce health care spending overall—the Affordable Care Act raises revenue and cuts spending. Among other things, the law reduces Medicare spending, caps the existing tax break for employer health insurance, and raises payroll taxes on the wealthy. It also calls upon individuals to spend some of their own money on insurance, even if that means requiring them to buy coverage they might not otherwise get. And for each of these changes, there’s a constituency bound to get angry about it. Seniors and parts of the health care industry don’t like Medicare cuts. People with more generous health plans don’t like losing some of their tax benefits. Wealthy people don’t like paying taxes. Healthy people don’t like paying more for their coverage.

Affordable Care enrollments pick up steam

Source: CNN

Obamacare might be off to a slow start but it's starting to pick up steam, at least in states that are not using the beleaguered HealthCare.gov website.

For the past month, CNN has conducted a state-by-state survey to determine enrollment in the new insurance plans. As of Tuesday afternoon, at least 133,257 people had chosen new insurance plans in the 14 states with their own signup apparatuses. Nearly half of them were enrolled in the past two weeks.

One of the biggest jumps is in California. Through November 2, 35,364 Californians had selected private plans through the new insurance marketplace. Less than two weeks later, the number was up to 59,000. The state with the second-highest enrollment is New York, where at least 24,509 have selected a plan. The next highest enrollments are in Washington state, Kentucky and Connecticut.

* * *
The trends are likely to come into sharper focus in the next several weeks. Most experts expect the pace of enrollment to accelerate, as the HealthCare.gov website starts to function better and potential customers have more of a chance to explore their options.

Read more: http://www.local10.com/thats-life/health/health-care-reform/affordable-care-enrollments-pick-up-steam/-/21925634/23057624/-/4qah7y/-/index.html

Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,800. Obamacare’s Web site doesn’t work yet. Stop comparing them

I guess Ezra Klein started to realize that he was starting to lose credibility by simply reciting Republican talking writing off the ACA based on a website that was glitch in its opening month, particularly since the evidence is that the website has significantly improved. So, here is Ezra Klein thankfully not making a Katrina or Iraq comparison, but one that is actually in the ballpark.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/11/18/hurricane-katrina-killed-more-than-1800-people-obamacares-web-site-doesnt-work-yet-stop-comparing-them/

Hurricane Katrina killed at least 1,833 people and damaged more than $80 billion worth of property. It was one of the deadliest, costliest storms ever to hit the United States.

Meanwhile, the Affordable Care Act's Web site isn't working very well yet. So of course the media is asking whether "this is Obama's Hurricane Katrina." I look forward to future coverage in this vein: "Is the failure of immigration reform Obama's 1906 San Francisco Earthquake?" "Are the 2014 sequestration cuts Obama's 1918 Influenza?"

The interest in comparing HealthCare.Gov to a lethal natural disaster is all the odder because the Bush years actually offer a ready analogue to Obamacare: Medicare Part D.

Like Obamacare, Medicare Part D was a massive health-care expansion. Like Obamacare, it was administratively complex. Like Obamacare, the Web site didn't work on launch. Like Obamacare, people who were supposed to be benefitting from the law found their plans upended and the supposedly superior alternatives inaccessible. Like Obamacare, the early months were, in the words of then-Majority Leader John Boehner, "horrendous."

CNN Plagiarism - Crowley Repeats GOP Talking Points on Obamacare Rollout and Immigration

CNN and the rest of the MSM might as well apologize to Rand Paul, since it appears that the MSM is simply plagiarizing off of the Republican Party. Frank Lutz should demand royalties.

http://videocafe.crooksandliars.com/heather/crowley-repeats-gop-talking-points

Isn't it amazing that somehow these Sunday show hosts all managed to come to the same conclusion that President Obama can no longer be trusted and that his presidency is now in peril due to the problems with the rollout of the Affordable Care Act? It's almost like they were all reading off of the same script.

Nicole already discussed the Martha Raddatz segment on This Week, where the audience was treated to a big heaping helping of the latest Republican talking points of the day. CNN's Candy Crowley took it one step further and threw in some of Eric Cantor's rhetoric on why it's supposedly impossible for the House to pass immigration reform. If you missed it over the weekend, go read this post from Think Progress: Cantor: We Can’t Pass Immigration Reform Because Healthcare.gov Is Having Technical Difficulties.

Then tell me who Crowley is carrying water for during the beginning of her show this Sunday:

* * *

CROWLEY: Thirty-nine Democrats voted against the president and with Republicans on an Obamacare fix. The bill goes nowhere from here, but it's the thought that counts and the thought is that the president's broken keep your health care promise is toxic. Hence, the direct message to voters.

OBAMA: I want them to know that, you know, their senator or congressman, they were making representations based on what I told them and what this White House and our administrative staff told them. And so, it's not on them, it's on us.

CROWLEY: Of the president's numbers collapsing beneath the roll out, this one weighs heaviest. Is Barack Obama honest and trustworthy? Just 44 percent of Americans think so, down 10 points since late September. It has prompted comparisons to George Bush's failed response to the deadly hurricane Katrina.

The situations are entirely different but politically trusted Bush and in the government fell and never recovered, undermining the rest of Bush's term. Without argument, this president is at the lowest political moment of his tenure and it is difficult to govern without trust.
OBAMA: I think it's legitimate for them to expect me to have to win back some credibility on this health care law in particular and on a whole range of these issues in general.

CROWLEY: Time is short. As some allies inch away, Republicans are circling.

REP. FRED UPTON, (R) MICHIGAN: Presidencies are often associated with one famous utterance. Ask not what your country can do for you. The only thing we have to fear, tear down this wall. And our current president will be no different. If you like your health care plan, you can keep it. Period.

CROWLEY: Poll numbers are snapshots in time and time moves on. For the president, days like this could become months or they could become different kinds of days entirely.

(END VIDEOTAPE) CROWLEY (on-camera): Joining me now, members of their party leadership, Democratic congressman, James Clyburn and Republican senator, John Barrasso. Gentlemen, thank you both for coming this morning.

I want to pick up first on the Katrina references with generally go to the idea that once a president falls below that 50 percent line when it comes to honesty and trustworthiness it makes it very hard to govern, but that really litigating George Bush and Katrina, Senator Barrasso. Do you buy into that argument that the president may be in a hole he can't get out of?

BARRASSO: He maybe, Candy. I'm a lot less concerned about the president and his legacy than I am about the lives of the people in my state in Wyoming and around the country who are being hurt by the policy of this health care law. They're losing their coverage, millions. They're being hit by sticker shock.

They can't keep their doctors. And what the president is proposing is basically a false fix. It's a political band aid, but it's not a permanent cure for the people that are being hurt by his policies so it's time to start over with trying to get people the health care that they wanted from the beginning which was affordable care from their doctor that they choose.

CROWLEY: Congressman Clyburn, it remains true, however, that a president who loses kind of the faith of Americans finds it hard to pass other things, immigration, all the other things that are on. It was a very ambitious second term agenda for this president. How does he win back trust? I'm assuming you think he can.[/div]

Healthcare.gov - Nov. 18 - "Progress Over the Weekend"

Reuters, but not most cable news, has reported that navigators assisting people with obtaining coverage under the ACA have noticed a significant improvement in website performance, and here is the latest from the Healthcare.gov website on the updates:

http://www.hhs.gov/digitalstrategy/blog/2013/11/progress-over-weekend.html

Over the past few weeks, we’ve made measurable progress to improve HealthCare.gov, addressing both software glitches and hardware upgrades–all of which will make a meaningful difference in the consumer experience.

I’m pleased to say that, as of today, we’ve cleared more items from our punch list that will have a direct, positive impact on consumers using the site. The pace and quality of execution on bug fixes and hardware upgrades intensified when QSSI came in as general contractor and thanks to their management and coordination with CMS leadership and our other contractors we made progress over the weekend implementing important fixes.

Nearly half of the fixes resolved issues specifically related to issues within the application and another set of fixes focused on improving Plan Compare shopping functionality.

Some of the most consumer-facing examples of improvements are:

•Issues that were preventing some users from proceeding through the income information of the online application have been fixed.
•Users can now select “weekly,” for the frequency they receive unemployment benefits.

In the Plan Compare shopping:

•When consumers choose a Catastrophic coverage plan, the available dental coverage for that plan now appears properly.
•When users save plan information in the Plan Compare section, those results now display correctly.

In addition to these software fixes that significantly improve the user experience, we also increased system capacity. This upgrade is part of an ongoing hardware improvement process that will help keep the system stable with growing volume, improving overall system performance.

We have a lot more work to do but as this work to date demonstrates, HealthCare.gov is getting better and improving performance and user experiences each week. We will continue to make improvements and we won’t stop working until every American who wants it gains access to new options for quality, affordable health coverage.

Health law helpers finding more luck on HealthCare.gov

Source: Reuters

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Healthcare workers assisting people to sign up for insurance on the HealthCare.gov marketplace on Monday told Reuters they had noticed improvement in the problem-plagued website.

* * *
"Saturday was the first day that I was actually able to get someone through the entire process on the website. That was pretty exciting. And I know on Saturday that wasn't the case for everyone on my team, but more and more consistently we're having success with it," said Rachel Udow, program director for MHP, a community-based organization focused on migrant issues in Weslaco, Texas.

The Obama administration has pledged that the websites would be working smoothly by the end of November, just two weeks before the December 15 deadline to purchase health insurance that starts on Jan 1.

"We've had more completed online enrollments in the last week or so than probably all the weeks before combined, and we're pretty excited about that," said Laura Line, corporate assistant director of healthcare at the Philadelphia-based Resources for Human Development.


Read more: http://news.yahoo.com/health-law-helpers-finding-more-luck-healthcare-gov-003241359--sector.html

According to a government official familiar with the new target, the 20 percent who are unlikely to be able to enroll online are expected to fall into three groups: people whose family circumstances are so complicated that the Web site cannot determine their eligibility for subsidies to help pay for health plans; people uncomfortable buying insurance on a computer; and people who encounter technical problems on the Web site.

TPM - "Beneath the Headlines on HealthCare.gov"

I read this on WaPo and I glad that TPM calls it out. Included in the 20 percent for whom the website does not "work" are people who refuse to use the website!!! Can you imagine saying that Amazon does not work for people who refuse to use it and insist on bricks and mortar stores? Under that definition, Amazon is probably not "working" for 20 percent of people.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/beneath-the-headlines-on-healthcare-gov

A few days ago I was speaking to some folks on the inside of the effort to get HealthCare.gov working. Their take on the much-discussed Post piece stating that the site was likely not to be ready by December 1st was that it mistook how any site works. Not that it was wrong per se but was too binary in its take. It's not like a car where you put your key in the ignition and it starts or it doesn't. It's an inherently incremental and iterative process - which at least as a general matter is true with any website, large or small, especially large.

* * *
But fairly far down in the article is this paragraph ...

According to a government official familiar with the new target, the 20 percent who are unlikely to be able to enroll online are expected to fall into three groups: people whose family circumstances are so complicated that the Web site cannot determine their eligibility for subsidies to help pay for health plans; people uncomfortable buying insurance on a computer; and people who encounter technical problems on the Web site.

It would clarify a lot if we knew a breakdown of these three categories within that 20%. But this is some pretty serious fine print and puts the 80/20 in a somewhat different light.

After all, getting the site to "work" for people who are unwilling or uncomfortable buying insurance on their computer seems like a pretty intractable problem and not what most people think of when they talk about the site 'working'.

Vance McAllister [R] wins 5th District congressional seat [Obamacare Win In Louisiana]

Source: Shreveport Times

BATON ROUGE — Vance McAllister, a political newcomer with the backing of the popular "Duck Dynasty" TV family, is Louisiana's newest member of Congress.

* * *

McAllister ran as a political outsider, capitalizing on voter frustration with politicians and Congress. Riser, a funeral home owner, campaigned on his experience in the Legislature and with the support of tea party groups.

Their strongest disagreement was on President Barack Obama's signature health care law.

Both opposed the health overhaul, but Riser wanted only repeal. McAllister said repeal had no chance with Democrats leading the Senate, so he said Congress should work on improvements to the law.


Read more: http://www.shreveporttimes.com/viewart/20131116/ELECTION/131116015/Vance-McAllister-wins-5th-District-congressional-seat-?odyssey=mod%7Cbreaking%7Ctext%7CFRONTPAGE

Roy Fletcher, a veteran Louisiana Republican political consultant who's also not affiliated with either campaign, agreed, calling the move a self-inflicted wound. He added that McAllister may be trying to position himself slightly to the left of Riser in a district where African-Americans make up about a third of the population.

Riser has earned the backing of both establishment and Tea Party wings of the Republican Party. Alexander, House Majority Leader Eric Cantor and Louisiana GOP Reps. John Fleming, Charles Boustany and Steve Scalise all endorsed him early in the campaign.

Recently, groups such as the National Rifle Association, FreedomWorks and the Tea Party of Louisiana also got behind Riser.