STOCK MARKET WATCH -- Friday, 5 July 2013

[Demeter]

24. THE OBAMA-doesn't-CARE COMPENDIUM

PUTTING ALL THE EGGS HE LAID IN ONE BASKET, SO TO SPEAK...

If You Haven’t Figured Out How to Make the Employer Mandate Work Yet, How Will Another Year Help?

firedoglake.com/2013/07/03/if-you-havent-figured-out-how-to-make-the-employer-mandate-work-yet-how-will-another-year-help-2/

The most concerning aspect about the Obama administration’s decision to delay the employer mandate is the justification for the delay. The Treasury Department is basically claiming that the reporting system they originally created to try to make the poorly designed mandate work is incredibly burdensome. From the Treasury:

The Administration is announcing that it will provide an additional year before the ACA mandatory employer and insurer reporting requirements begin. This is designed to meet two goals. First, it will allow us to consider ways to simplify the new reporting requirements consistent with the law. Second, it will provide time to adapt health coverage and reporting systems while employers are moving toward making health coverage affordable and accessible for their employees. Within the next week, we will publish formal guidance describing this transition. Just like the Administration’s effort to turn the initial 21-page application for health insurance into a three-page application, we are working hard to adapt and to be flexible about reporting requirements as we implement the law.

Here is some additional detail. The ACA includes information reporting (under section 6055) by insurers, self-insuring employers, and other parties that provide health coverage. It also requires information reporting (under section 6056) by certain employers with respect to the health coverage offered to their full-time employees. We expect to publish proposed rules implementing these provisions this summer, after a dialogue with stakeholders – including those responsible employers that already provide their full-time work force with coverage far exceeding the minimum employer shared responsibility requirements – in an effort to minimize the reporting, consistent with effective implementation of the law.

This does beg the question: if you haven’t figured out how to make it work yet, how will another year will help? It is not like the implementation process was rushed. It was one of the longest ones for a piece of legislation ever. The administration had four years to work out the kinks but still haven’t. The other major provisions the administration has previously delayed, the SHOP exchanges and the Basic Health Plan, were at least not core to the basic structure of the law. As quasi-standalone programs it is possibly justifiable to ignore them in order to focus all the limited resources on the core structural elements. The employer mandate is different. It is a core part of the basic structure of the law. It was meant to expand coverage by getting more people covered at work and to prevent a possible death spiral on the new exchanges with companies dumping the sickest employees. It is necessary to make the system work as advertised. The administration should have been heavily focused on getting it ready. It should have been a top priority.

The fact that after three years they haven’t figured out how to make it work well is worrying. The problem might not be with their previous plan to implement this provision but that the very poorly designed employer mandate is unworkable.

The politics of delaying Obamacare By Sarah Kliff

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2013/07/02/the-politics-of-delaying-obamacare/

The White House just swapped one political headache for another. By delaying a requirement that all large employers provide health insurance, the Obama administration heads off the unseemly spectacle of companies vowing to cut jobs or workers’ hours to avoid the costly mandate.

But the late Tuesday action is not a free pass: It contributes to critics’ claims that the White House does not have the ability to launch its biggest legislative accomplishment on schedule...The president’s health care law was leading to workers losing hours — or losing their jobs altogether...

Health Law Delay Puts Exchanges in Spotlight

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/04/business/health-law-delay-puts-exchanges-in-spotlight.html?ref=business&_r=0

Employees who now have to wait another year to get health coverage through their employer will have little recourse but to buy their own insurance at the newly created state exchanges. The Obama administration’s decision, announced on Tuesday, to delay for a year a requirement that larger employers provide insurance or pay a penalty has made the operation of the state exchanges — where individuals can shop for insurance starting Oct. 1 — more critical to the success of the new health care law.

The delay is viewed as an unspoken acknowledgment by federal officials of the size of the task ahead, according to policy experts and benefits consultants. By putting off the employer requirements, officials are in a position to concentrate on making sure the state exchanges work.

“The real focus is now getting the individual exchanges and premium tax credits up and running,” said Timothy S. Jost, a law professor at Washington and Lee University who closely follows the new law, known as the Affordable Care Act. In addition to the creation of the exchanges, the law’s broad market reforms of the insurance industry and the expansion of Medicaid will continue, Mr. Jost said, adding, “I just don’t see this as a game changer.”

Also still in effect is the requirement that people without insurance buy it by 2014 or face fines. Subsidies will be available for people who meet income requirements...

THE BLOG CORRENTE HAS ITS OWN COMPENDIUM, CALLED THE OBAMACARE CLUSTERFUCK:

http://www.correntewire.com/obamacare_clusterfuck


AND IF YOU ARE LOOKING FOR COMIC RELIEF, THERE'S NPR'S CHIRPY CONTRIBUTION:

You Ask, We Answer: Demystifying The Affordable Care Act

http://www.npr.org/blogs/health/2013/07/01/196335133/you-ask-we-answer-demystifying-the-affordable-care-act?ft=1&f=1001

The biggest changes in health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act are set to begin less than three months from now. Oct. 1 is when people can start signing up for coverage in new state health exchanges. The policies would kick in on Jan. 1, 2014.

It can all be a little confusing, we agree. So two weeks ago, we asked what you wanted to know about the health law.

You weren't shy; our inbox was stuffed. Here are some answers. If you don't see your question, or one like it, don't despair. We'll be doing this again periodically throughout the summer and fall....



ALL OF THIS GOES TO POINT OUT VERY PAINFULLY HOW OBAMA IS NOT EVEN LBJ, LET ALONE FDR, THAT HIS "BRAIN TRUST" IS MORE ACCURATELY A "BRAIN BUST" AND WE ARE MOST DEFINITELY SCREWED UNTIL SOMEBODY IN DC GETS A CLUE (OF BOOTED OUT).

UNIVERSAL SINGLE PAYER, ANYONE?