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Mark Caserta: Let’s truly work to create affordable healthcare

22 Jan

Obamacare just isn’t working

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FSP EDITORIAL

Jan. 22, 2015 @ 12:01 AM

It’s time to get serious about providing affordable healthcare for all Americans.

Most people are now keenly aware of the political motivation behind the passage of the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and the lies and deceptive tactics needed to sell it to the American people. A recent Gallup Poll taken at the beginning of the 2015 enrollment period revealed 37 percent of Americans say they approve of the law, while 56 percent say they disapprove.

It’s also now known the enrollment numbers provided by the Obama administration touting the success of Obamacare were inaccurate. The Department of Health and Human Services recently reported that it had made a “mistake” in calculating the number of enrollments.

Reportedly, 380,000 stand-alone dental plans were “inadvertently” added into the number of healthcare plans, allowing the administration to claim more than 7 million paid enrollments, the “magic number” needed for the new health insurance exchanges to be sustainable.

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Just last week, the leader of the agency charged with the rollout of Obamacare decided to step down. Marilyn Tavenner, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, decided to step down after five tumultuous years on the job. Her tenure included the disastrous rollout of the HealthCare.gov website as well as the recent discovery of the inflated tally of Obamacare’s enrollment numbers.

But even without the inflated numbers, the exchanges have lost more than 1 million subscribers since May 2014, based on Tavenner’s recent testimony before the House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform. Tavenner attributed this to people picking up employer coverage, becoming eligible for Medicaid or simply not paying their premiums.

While proponents of this healthcare nightmare understandably ignore the falsehoods leveraged by this administration to pass the law, they rarely speak about the estimated 5 million people who lost their coverage because it “didn’t meet the ACA guidelines.” No doubt millions of these individuals were forced to purchase a replacement policy from an exchange, seriously compromising the legitimacy of the number of “newly” insured individuals.

And Americans found it insulting that liberal proponents of Obamacare would pompously justify the loss of those existing healthcare plans by declaring they were “inadequate” for the people who chose to purchase them. After all, big government knows best.

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Possibly making matters even worse for the ACA, the Supreme Court will soon decide whether the law provides for healthcare subsidies to people in the 36 states which declined to set up their own healthcare exchange and ended up on the federal exchanges instead. If the court kills Obamacare’s subsidies, more than 4 million people will likely see higher premiums, possibly forcing them to drop coverage altogether.

Liberals have made this simply about “winning.” The goal should be to provide everyone affordable healthcare and Obamacare simply isn’t working.

And once the ACA is replaced, it will be the government’s responsibility to ensure that no person who purchased health insurance from an exchange loses their coverage period.

Voting to repeal Obamacare isn’t enough. The GOP must first provide a visible, well-vetted alternative.

For now, Americans are simply waiting.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

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OBAMACARE PENALTY COULD BE LARGER THAN EXPECTED

19 Jan

Some people will have no insurance and still have to pay their “shared responsibility” payment to Obama!

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Those Americans who didn’t get health insurance last year could be in for a rude awakening when the IRS asks them to fork over their Obamacare penalty — and it could be a lot more than the $95 many of them may be expecting.

The Affordable Care Act requires those who didn’t have insurance last year and didn’t qualify for one of the exemptions to pay a tax penalty, which was widely cited as $95 the first year. But the $95 is actually a minimum, and middle- and upper-income families will actually end up paying 1 percent of their household income as their penalty.

“People would hear the $95, quit listening, and make an assumption that that was what their penalty was going to be,” said Chuck Lovelace, vice president of affordable care for Liberty Tax Service. “I think that a lot of people will be surprised when they get in there and find out that their penalty is [based] on their household income.”

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The penalty is designed to prod Americans to buy insurance and the penalty for not having it is scheduled to rise considerably: to a $325 minimum or 2 percent of income in 2015, and to a $695 minimum or 2.5 percent of income in 2016.

This Aug. 21, 2014, file photo shows health care tax forms 8962, … more >

Tax experts said those stung by a higher penalty the first year may buy plans to escape the penalty the next year.

“We will be showing them what the penalty is,” said Jackie Perlman, principal tax research analyst at The Tax Institute at H&R Block, said of this year’s customers. “But we will also be telling them, ‘How do we not go down this road next year?’”

The tax industry and government officials have been trying to prepare filers for the changes since the Affordable Care Act was signed in 2010, but tax preparers still expect to get strange looks when they inquire about their customers’ health insurance.

“You might think it’s a question that a tax preparer shouldn’t be asking, but we have to ask that,” Ms. Perlman said.

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Tax experts said mixing Obamacare with the annual tax filing season is a major adjustment, and it comes even as the IRS, blaming budget cuts, says it won’t be able to even answer a majority of help calls, and those who do get through will have to wait an average of 30 minutes.

Gearing up for the challenge, Treasury Secretary Jacob Lew and Health and Human Services Secretary Sylvia Mathews Burwell spoke to more than 100 volunteer tax preparers Friday.

Most taxpayers will only have to check a box asserting they had their own insurance, usually through their employer. But those who bought insurance on the Obamacare exchanges with the help of federal subsidies will have to reconcile their payments with their income level.

Some people will get money back, although those who failed to report raises or bonuses to their respective health exchanges will pay back some amount of subsidy.

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HealthCare.gov, the federal exchange that serves 37 states, started to mail out 1095-A forms to customers last week, and state-run exchanges say they will meet the end-of-month deadline to postmark theirs.

But the subsidies were paid directly to insurers, and not the Obamacare customer, so filers might not remember them or realize they need the form.

It’s a short wait for the 1095-A — about two weeks — but tax experts fear some taxpayers, looking to get a jump on the process and with a W-2 already in hand from their employers, will file without waiting for the Obamacare form, causing problems and delaying their refund.

“Hopefully, we’ve communicated that to our customers,” Mr. Lovelace said. “But as a general rule, I’m not sure that the population out there is understanding it.”

obamacare 3 years later Affordable Care Act Fair Draws Floridians As Enrollmnent Deadline Looms

Filers who ignored the exchanges, or couldn’t get insured through government programs or a job, may qualify for an exemption from the individual mandate and avoid penalties.

Some of the exemptions are baked into the law — ones for prisoners, members of Indian tribes or the Amish, for example — while others may qualify for far-reaching “hardship exemptions” from the Obama administration.

Mark Steber, chief tax officer for Jackson Hewitt Tax Service, noted that filers can only apply for certain exemptions on their actual tax forms, making it one of the trickier aspects to navigate under Obamacare.

Someone who doesn’t take advantage of an exemption will end up paying more than they should.

“I would say the exemption area is one opportunity for missteps,” Mr. Steber said, “both by a taxpayer or a tax preparer.”

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Free State Patriot – Year in review!

31 Dec

a 2014

A note from the editor: 

I want to thank all those who helped make this a banner year for FSP!  I am so blessed to have the smartest followers in the blogging world. Thanks for all your comments and shares!  Thanks to all those who have contributed columns and a special thanks to my regular contributors, S.H. Townsend and Doug Smith.  And I can’t thank enough my son Aaron, for his masterful design of the FSP brand.  I love you son!

God Bless everyone in the New Year.  Now let’s go out there and “make a difference”.

2015 is our year!

Mark Caserta

FSP editor

Scroll down to view this year’s highlights.

Here’s an excerpt:

A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 6,100 times in 2014. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 5 trips to carry that many people.

Click here to see the complete report.

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OBAMA RELEASES 5 MORE PRISONERS FROM GUANTANAMO BAY

31 Dec

US releases 5 more Guantanamo Bay prisoners, sends them to Kazakhstan

Published December 31, 2014

FoxNews.com

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The Defense Department announced Wednesday that five more prisoners will be transferred out of Guantanamo Bay to another nation, in the latest step by the Obama administration to whittle down the prisoner population in pursuit of ultimately closing the camp.

The five men will be transferred to the Central Asian nation of Kazakhstan for resettlement, the U.S. government announced.

The two men from Tunisia and three from Yemen — who have been at the camp for a dozen years — had been cleared for release from the prison by a government task force but could not be sent to their homelands. The U.S. has sent hundreds of prisoners from Guantanamo to third countries but this is the first time Kazakhstan has accepted any for resettlement.

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Their release brings the prison population at Guantanamo to 127, according to a Pentagon statement on Tuesday.

The transfer appears to be the latest step in the administration’s strategy to rapidly bring down the prison population at Guantanamo, potentially to under 100, so that the White House can make a more aggressive argument to Congress that the camp should be closed. Congress continues to block Guantanamo prisoners from being brought for detention on the U.S. mainland.

Many vocal critics of the administration’s push to close the camp, though, have not backed off their concerns. And the accelerated prisoner transfers have raised additional security concerns.

All the prisoners being transferred to Kazakhstan had been captured in Pakistan and turned over to the U.S. for detention as suspected Islamic militants with ties to Al Qaeda.

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The U.S. identified the Yemenis as Asim Thabit Abdullah Al-Khalaqi, who is about 46; Muhammad Ali Husayn Khanayna, who is about 36; and Sabri Mohammad al Qurashi, about 44.

According to a 2007 Defense document, posted on The New York Times website, Al-Khalaqi was “assessed” to be part of Al Qaeda and was captured alongside an Al Qaeda commander at Tora Bora.

Al Qurashi, likewise, allegedly got “militant training” at an Al Qaeda training camp and was arrested at an Al Qaeda safe house. Both were assessed to be “medium risk.”

The U.S. identified the Tunisians as 49-year-old Adel Al-Hakeemy, and Abdallah Bin Ali al Lufti, who military records show is about 48.

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None of the men were ever charged and a government task force determined it was no longer necessary to hold them.

The U.S. does not say why they could not be sent home but the government has been unwilling to send Yemenis to their country because of unrest and militant activity there while in the past some Tunisians have feared persecution.

Nearly 30 prisoners have been resettled in third countries this year as part of Obama’s renewed push to close the detention center over opposition from Congress. Earlier this month, four Afghan detainees were returned to their home country.

The Washington Post reported that the administration plans to “significantly reduce” the camp’s population over the next six months by transferring prisoners out. Officials reportedly are hoping other nations will accept the roughly 60 prisoners approved for transfer.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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America Is Coming Apart at the Seams

7 Dec

america coming apart

2012 Dec 5, 2014 3:39 PM EST

By Francis Wilkinson

It was the most Republican of times, it was the most Democratic of times.

That’s the U.S. right now, a nation heading in two diametrically opposed directions. Where you live in the country has always influenced how you live. But divergent public policy choices, rooted in sharp partisan conflict, are heightening the geographic distinctions.

House Republicans this week passed legislation designed primarily to channel conservative rage and secondarily to vaporize 11 million or so undocumented immigrants living in the U.S. Republicans won’t provide funds to deport the immigrants, and they won’t provide a method of rationalizing those immigrants’ existence here. So they will simply pretend that they don’t exist.

In January, the first Republican legislative act of 2015 is expected to be another vote to repeal Obamacare, the health-care reform that has been working out better than even its proponents predicted.

Meanwhile, across the the continent, California Democratic Governor Jerry Brown also has immigrants and health care on his mind. Brown is analyzing whether the state can extend its version of Medicaid health insurance to undocumented immigrants who are covered by President Barack Obama’s executive action on amnesty.

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“We’re still evaluating, but the president’s recent action on undocumented immigrants could perhaps open a door for more coverage of more people under Medi-Cal,’’ Nancy McFadden, the governor’s top policy aide, told the Los Angeles Times.

California is not just a blue state with a Democratic governor and legislature. It’s home to almost one in eight Americans. And it has by far the nation’s largest population of undocumented immigrants — one in four live there, according to the Pew Research Center.

So in the very near future, undocumented immigrants who reside in California (some by virtue of having snuck illegally over the border) may be covered by publicly-funded health insurance while many U.S. citizens living in Texas and the Deep South will have no access to health insurance of any kind, thanks to the Republican war on Obamacare. (In Texas, more than one quarter of the population lacks health insurance, a number that seems stubbornly resistant to the charms of the “Texas miracle.”)

The U.S. also looks like two different places when it comes to guns and abortion. In Washington state, for example, where abortion law was recently liberalized, there are no waiting periods, mandated parental involvement or limitations on publicly funded abortion. In Mississippi, restrictions are plentiful, and the state government has been working steadily to shut the sole abortion clinic in the state. On guns, Connecticut voters reelected a Democratic governor who supported sweeping gun regulations in the wake of the Newtown shooting. In Georgia, you can now legally carry a loaded firearm into a bar.

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Then there are voting rights. Legislators in red states, such as North Carolina and Texas, have been adding carefully crafted layers of difficulty to voting, from voter ID laws to reduced early voting and restrictions on student ballots. Illinois, meanwhile, appears poised to enact same-day registration for voting.

The Chicago Sun-Times:

Besides allowing people to register and vote on the same day at polling places, the bill would allow extended early voting, as well as make it easier for students to vote at college campuses.

Increasingly, the rights of many American citizens depend less on the U.S. Constitution and more on which state they live in. Again, this isn’t a new phenomenon — especially for blacks, who had no guaranteed rights in most of the South for most of American history. But the divergence is stark.

And growing. As Bloomberg News reporter Greg Giroux reported, many red and blue states are only deepening their partisan identities as voters increasingly abandon split-ticket voting:

If Louisiana Democrat Mary Landrieu loses her runoff election next week, the Senate that convenes in January will have 84 senators of the same political party that carried their state in the most recent presidential election. That’s the most in more than six decades, according to statistics compiled by Gary Jacobson, a political scientist at the University of California at San Diego. There were 61 such senators in 1999, after the second midterm election of President Bill Clinton’s administration, and 43 in 1987.

There’s also more partisan alignment in voting for the House of Representatives and for president.

Polarization has its own logic. And as red and blue states pursue their sharply divergent versions of government, each increasingly presents a vision of Dickensian hell to the other.

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To contact the author on this story: Francis Wilkinson at fwilkinson1@bloomberg.net

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