Allah:
The December 23rd enrollment deadline? Time to move that to next month. The deadline to pay your first month of premiums? Let’s go ahead and move that back too. Emergency treatment needed from an out-of-network provider? It’d be swell if that was covered the same way in-network treatments are. And what if your coverage is temporarily screwed up in January when you desperately need your prescriptions refilled? HHS “strongly encourages” insurers to pick up the slack.
In other words, they’re finally realizing that lots of people who had planned to have coverage next month won’t have it, whether because of their own procrastination, HHS’s technological incompetence, or the mind-boggling logistical problems that have been forced on insurers by Obama’s screw-ups and ass-covering political “fixes.” So now they’re going to pile another bunch of “fixes” on them — mere suggestions, wink-wink — and hope for the best, and if chaos ensues anyway in January, it’ll be insurers who are scapegoated.
Phil Klein’s right: It’s panic time in the White House. Let’s let this be the end of the “things are working better now” propaganda.
Among the guidance the HHS announced:
– It is requiring insurers to accept payments until Dec. 31 for coverage starting on Jan. 1. It is also “urging” insurers to give individuals more time beyond that to pay for coverage. In other words, if somebody pays for coverage in the middle of January, HHS is asking insurers to retroactively make that person’s coverage effective as of Jan. 1. HHS is also asking insurers to cover individuals who offer a “down payment,” even if that payment only covers part of the first month’s premiums.
– In a press release, HHS said it was also “strongly encouraging insurers to treat out-of-network providers as in-network to ensure continuity of care for acute episodes or if the provider was listed in their plan’s provider directory as of the date of an enrollee’s enrollment.”
– HHS is also “strongly encouraging insurers to refill prescriptions covered under previous plans during January.”…
Of course, for insurers who have spent years designing plans to comply with the law, this would present huge and unreasonable logistical hurdles.
To put it slightly differently:
https://twitter.com/philipaklein/statuses/411245910182477824
I’m confused. Is the federal government actually asking the private sector for help? I thought the government was supposed to help the private sector. Isn’t that what the democrats have been saying for years: “I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.” How many insurance companies will take back customers who they know will cost them a lot more than the customer will pay in premiums?
Some companies have already said that because of the way they had to change their web site because of obamacare, they can’t accept them. Will the government pay for the cost of redesigning their web site,s then pay for the cost of re-redesigning them to work with obamacare again? The obamacare web site is a perfect example of what is wrong with the economy when the democrats are in charge. If the republicans would have been in charge of building the site for obamacare, the work would have been given to companies who donated to the republican party, but it would have worked, and it PROBABLY would have cost a lot less.
Why are the republican politicians letting obama change the obamacare law as he sees fit? The law was passed by CONGRESS, and only CONGRESS can change a law that was passed by CONGRESS. Have you asked your politicians why they are letting obama change the rules of the game as the game is being played?
Note well that these ideas are mere suggestions and not either codified law or executive orders.
Obama would veto such laws from Congress, were they to make it to his desk…..he’s already used Sen. Reid to make sure like laws never made it there.
He said it, himself; it would be easier to be king (or emperor).
Having a Constitutional Republic’s top executive position isn’t good enough for him.
The Wall Street Journal has read the whole thing, this ”suggestion” from ObamaCare.
Turns out there are TEETH in it!
So……
to remain on the ”exchange” an insurance company must backdate all exchange applications.
Simply selecting a plan is now sufficient as long as buyers eventually make a “down payment,” however much that might be.
Upon receipt, the insurer is responsible for all medical claims incurred that month.
That includes doctors, medications and hospitals outside the insurers’ network, for whatever amount of time Obama decides!