Saturday, November 09, 2013

Journalists Receive Specialized Training From Group Led by Former Health Adviser to the President
As the month of October has rolled on and stories regarding the train wreck that is Obamacare mount, one has to wonder when the President's media allies will come to the rescue and skew reality on health care reporting.

The answer may be ... now.

The Society of American Business Editors and Writers (SABEW) is once again teaming up with a private U.S. foundation known as the Commonwealth Fund. The Fund, a self-described ‘progressive’ organization, is currently led by David Blumenthal, former senior health adviser to the Obama campaign. The group makes little to no secret of their support for Obama's universal health care plan.

The Commonwealth Fund's relationship with an organization that deals with supposedly objective journalists is a rather cozy one, offering specialized teletraining to reporters at the SABEW, as well as thousands of dollars in grants for meetings designed to train reporters on how to properly cover the Affordable Care Act....

Report: Is Big Labor about to get some of its doggedly sought-after ObamaCare relief after all?
...Weeks after denying labor’s request to give union members access to health-law subsidies, the Obama administration is signaling it intends to exempt some union plans from one of the law’s substantial taxes.

Buried in rules issued last week is the disclosure that the administration will propose exempting “certain self-insured, self-administered plans” from the law’s temporary reinsurance fee in 2015 and 2016.

That’s a description that applies to many Taft-Hartley union plans acting as their own insurance company and claims processor, said Edward Fensholt, a senior vice president at Lockton Cos., a large insurance broker....

You Also Can't Keep Your Doctor
...My grievance is not political; all my energies are directed to enjoying life and staying alive, and I have no time for politics. For almost seven years I have fought and survived stage-4 gallbladder cancer, with a five-year survival rate of less than 2% after diagnosis. I am a determined fighter and extremely lucky. But this luck may have just run out: My affordable, lifesaving medical insurance policy has been canceled effective Dec. 31.

My choice is to get coverage through the government health exchange and lose access to my cancer doctors, or pay much more for insurance outside the exchange (the quotes average 40% to 50% more) for the privilege of starting over with an unfamiliar insurance company and impaired benefits. ...

...Since March 2007 United Healthcare has paid $1.2 million to help keep me alive, and it has never once questioned any treatment or procedure recommended by my medical team. The company pays a fair price to the doctors and hospitals, on time, and is responsive to the emergency treatment requirements of late-stage cancer. Its caring people in the claims office have been readily available to talk to me and my providers.

But in January, United Healthcare sent me a letter announcing that they were pulling out of the individual California market. The company suggested I look to Covered California starting in October....

...Before the Affordable Care Act, health-insurance policies could not be sold across state lines; now policies sold on the Affordable Care Act exchanges may not be offered across county lines.

What happened to the president's promise, "You can keep your health plan"? Or to the promise that "You can keep your doctor"? Thanks to the law, I have been forced to give up a world-class health plan. The exchange would force me to give up a world-class physician....