The Elder Statement : Kathleen Sebelius

Showing posts with label Kathleen Sebelius. Show all posts

Saturday, May 3, 2014

Final OCare Headcount Lacks Details On Who's Paid, Newly Insured --Fuzzy math...march toward single-payer

By Marguerite Bowling, May 2, 2014, Blog.heritage.org

More than 8 million Americans have signed up for private health insurance plans under Obamacare’s online exchange, officials say, but some details remain vague.

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) reported Thursday that 8.01 million selected a plan from the federal exchange under the Affordable Care Act. This is the final report for the first enrollment period of Oct. 1 through the March 31 deadline, plus some widely publicized extensions.

“Together we are ensuring that health coverage is more accessible than ever before,” outgoing HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said in a statement.

Although the 45-page enrollment report gives more insight into the gender, age, and financial assistance status of the new “enrollees,” it does not say how many had paid their first month’s premium. The Obama administration also did not disclose how many of the enrollees previously were uninsured.

Instead, officials promoted the 2.2 million young adult (ages 18 to 34) that made up 28 percent of the participant pool. Officials originally projected that, to be successful, Obamacare’s state and federal exchanges would need nearly 40 percent of new enrollees to be relatively healthy young adults — and thus spread out health care costs.

The announcement came a day after the House Energy and Commerce Committee chargedthat only 67 percent of Obamacare enrollees paid their first month’s premium by the extended deadline of April 15.

Read the full story: blog.heritage.org

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Saturday, April 19, 2014

No Skepticism As ABC And CBS Cheer “Major Milestone” For ObamaCare --Problems? What problems?

elderstatement.com April 19, 2014 ABC News , Amy Robach 0 Comments

Credit: J. Scott Applewhite / AP

By Rich Noyes, Apr. 18, 2014, Newsbuster.org

Both ABC and CBS carved out a few seconds on their Thursday evening and Friday morning newscasts to boost President Obama’s claims of success for his ObamaCare program. Filling in for Diane Sawyer, ABC World News anchor David Muir cheered the “major milestone” of an alleged eight million enrollees, while CBS Evening News anchor Scott Pelley said the enrollment figures were a “recent success” for the health care law.

Gone was the skepticism that some reporters, like ABC’s Jon Karl, showed at the end of March when ObamaCare was nearing seven million sign-ups, as he threw cold water on the official White House stat: “How many of those have signed up were previously uninsured....We don’t know how many people signed up here were simply – had their previous plans cancelled. Also, we don’t know how many have actually paid their premiums.”

Those questions remain crucial to evaluating the new claim of eight million sign-ups, but neither ABC nor CBS reminded viewers of the potential problems with taking Obama’s figures at face value. (NBC, which joined the other broadcast networks in providing live coverage of the President’s Thursday afternoon press conference, actually skipped ObamaCare on both that night’s Nightly News and Friday morning’s Today.)

And both networks relayed Obama’s claim — accurate, but misleading — that, as ABC’s Amy Robach put it on Friday’s Good Morning America, “35 percent of the new enrollees are under age 35.”

That’s true, but one-fifth of those are young children included in family plans, leaving just 28 percent of those signing up are in the targeted group between ages 18 and 34. As a front-page story in this morning’s New York Times admitted, “some analysts said the optimum level would be 40 percent. ‘In an ideal world, you’d want to get as close to that number as possible,’ said Larry Levitt, a senior vice president at the Kaiser Family Foundation.”

On CBS This Morning, substitute co-host Sharon Alfonsi narrated the only report to cite an Obama critic (just one sentence): “In a statement, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell says he remains committed to repealing and replacing ObamaCare.” But CBS also illustrated their 40-second report with a montage of favorable news headlines: “Enrollments Exceed Obama’s Target for Health Care Act” (New York Times); “Obamacare Is On a Winning Streak” (National Journal); “Obama spikes the football” (Politico); “Obama on health care law: ‘This thing is working’” (USA Today).

Read the full story: www.newsbusters.org

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Saturday, April 12, 2014

Fall Gal: Sebelius Quits After Ocare Roll-Out --Dumb law, stupidly implemented. Obama HAD TO replace her with a woman

elderstatement.com April 12, 2014 Democrats , HHS 0 Comments

Credit: Getty

By Tom Howell and Dave Boyer, Apr. 10, 2014, The Washington Times

With the rocky rollout of his health care law in a post-deadline lull, President Obama will move this week to shake up his health care team, accepting the resignation of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and tapping his budget director as a troubleshooting replacement, the White House confirmed Thursday.

Mrs. Sebelius, a former Kansas governor who has served as HHS secretary for Mr. Obama’s entire tenure, was the president’s point person as his signature law stumbled out of the blocks in October.

Despite calls for her to be fired, Mrs. Sebelius stayed on the job to oversee a recovery of HealthCare.gov that resulted in at least 7.5 million enrollments for health care plans.

Mrs. Sebelius, however, is seen as damaged by too many congressional Democrats who are warily eyeing November’s elections, in which Obamacare is expected to play a major role.

Some Republicans could barely contain their glee.

Read the full story: www.washingtontimes.com

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