Tag Archives: Hot Topics

[unable to retrieve full-text content]Charles Gaba reviews the three leg stool necessary to support Healthcare and why each of those legs are necessaryfor healthcare to be important today. Charles reviews Enrollee Responsibility, Career Responsibility, and Government Responsibly (the three legs) necessary to support Healthcare in the US, explains how each Republican bill has or would have impacted the ACA, […]

The current mania for “job guarantee” policies is making the Sandwichman anxious. I’ve been on the full employment beat for over 20 years so I think I have a pretty good grasp of the terrain. First principle is that there are no panaceas. My favorite policy option — reduction of working time — is not a panacea. Neither is yours. Like my learned friend Max B. Sawicky, I am in favor of a job guarantee — provided it meets MY criteria. The proposals currently...

“The Trump administration wants to effectively pull Title X funding from family planning clinics providing abortion services” as reported in Modern Healthcare. Planned Parenthood while offering other healthcare services would not receive federal funding if they provided any abortion services or referred patients to other facilities that did perform abortions. The Washington Post “For Planned Parenthood abortion stats, ‘3 percent’ and ’94 percent’ are...

The Detroit News story, January 2018 “What MSU Knew” details when the abuse started. For twenty years, the female athletes who engaged in the Michigan State Gymnastics program complained of Dr. Larry Nassar to university representatives. MSU President Lou Anna Simon was amongst those who were informed and had known of the 2014 Title IX complaint and police report filed against an unnamed physician. According to university records and victim’s accounts,...

The State of Michigan Legislature is applying for an ACA Waiver as I pointed out in my post Why States Should Not Be Allowed to Alter the ACA with Waviers This is a relief valve for “counties” with high unemployment. In effect if Michigan counties have a high unemployment rate (8.5% or above), the unemployed workers in that county can have Medicaid until such time as the Unemployment Rate drops to 5%. Then the workers are expected to seek employment to...

[embedded content] Having talked about the proposed state High Risk Pools and why they are bad; Charles Gaba at ACASignups.net turns his attention to the proposed Short Term Plans and why they are also bad. Keep in mind the proposed Short Term Plans are not the same as the ACA Catastrophic plans. Most of the protection found in the ACA plans are not in the proposed short term plans. This would include insurability, rates, pre-exiting conditions,...

CBO Director Keith Hall responded to a request from House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy to project the impact of the $7 billion CHIP rescission package. The CBO letter estimates that the rescission “would not affect outlays, or the number of individuals with insurance coverage.” Well this is good news, I guess? Except, the key here is this is based upon the present number of children enrolled in CHIPS. However, “In its estimates, CBO doesn’t (and can’t)...

February of this year and Mick Mulvaney already started to dismantle the CFPB by stripping the agency’s fair-lending office of enforcement powers reducing oversight and penalties for firms that discriminate against borrowers. Enforcement of fair-lending laws is governed by the 2010 financial reform law. Taking away the agency’s enforcement powers creates a vacuum making it unclear as to what happens now. Senator Elizabeth Warren sees Mulvaney’s actions...

Charles Gaba: Why Risk Pools are Bad [embedded content]Charles Gaba at ACA Signups.net has an excellent explanation on how Risk Pools work and how they harm those amongst us who depend upon a community rating system to balance out cost. Michigan Medicaid Wavier Strikes at the Poor The Center on Budget and Policy Priorities reported on how Michigan’s Medicaid Proposal would lead to “Large Coverage Losses” harming Low Income Workers. The coverage reduction...

CMS is allowing states to seek waivers to alter parts of the ACA. According to Republicans, state government knows better than the federal government the needs of its citizens and can design a better healthcare plan for them. Michigan along with Kentucky and another state have applied for waivers. Michigan and Kentucky have been approved. The Michigan bill has made it through the Republican legislature and will go to the governor to be signed (hopefully...