Obamacare Deadline March 31st; Important Points to Remember

March 31 is just around the corner and it is the deadline of Affordable Care Act open enrollment. If you missed the deadline and have not purchased health care coverage you may be penalized (tax penalty) on your 2014 taxes filed in 2015. You will also have to wait for the next open enrollment period.

If you have already insurance from your work, Medicaid, Medicare, or others you will not be penalized as long as it have the minimum standards under the Affordable Care Act.

Under the ObamaCare Act everyone is required to have health insurance or if you don't you will have to pay a tax penalty (in 2015 when 2014 taxes are filed). However, there are exemptions.

- The household income of your family is less than the IRS income tax filing requirement ($10,000 if you are single, $20,000 if you are married and filing jointly).
- If you are a member of ministries or religious sects, or of a federally recognized Native American tribe.
- If you are uninsured for less than three consecutive months in a year.
- If you can't afford to get an insurance because of financial difficulties or the lowest premium is more than 8% of your household income.
- If your insurance plan was recently cancelled and you can't afford a marketplace plan.
- If your health insurance does not meet minimum coverage standards, but your state insurance commissioner allows your insurer to continue to offer out of date plans until the October 1st, 2016 additional grace period.
- If you are 26 yearsold and below you can opt to stay on or be added to your parents' health insurance plan, even if you don't live with them.

Subsidies for the cost of health insurance - you can check if you are eligible for financial assistance from the US government, through subsidy. It will be determined based on your household income and family size. You easily check if you qualify for a tax subsidy by using the health care calculator from TurboTax. The subsidy can go directly to your health insurance provider when you purchase insurance if you are qualified. If you qualified you will pay a lower monthly health insurance premium.

Penalties:

In 2014 the amount of one-time penalty is $95 per adult, or 1% of your total income depending on your income. For uninsured children in your household, the penalty is $47.50 per child with a maximum family penalty of $285.

Visit HealthCare.gov to apply for health insurance, you can also compare plans, and enroll online. You can also apply by phone or get in-person help with your application.

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Congressional Budget Office: Obamacare Will result to Loss of 2 million Jobs, Shrink the Economy

Last Tuesday the Congressional Budget Office said that the Obamacare or healthcare law will diminish work hours that is equivalent to 2 million full-time jobs in 2017.

The latest U.S. fiscal outlook which is a non-partisan CBO indicated that the Obamacare will affect the workforce of the country particularly those who are in the lower income bracket. Congressional Budget Office Director Douglas Elmendorf said that workers will limit their hours so that they will not lose federal subsidies that is provided by the law to help pay for health insurance and other healthcare costs.

The country will feel its impact in 2017 owing to the fact that major provisions of Obamacare

The biggest impact would begin in 2017, CBO said, because major provisions of the law will have started by then. They said that on 2024 the work hours will shrunk by equivalent of 2.5 million jobs.

He further said, "The act creates a disincentive for people to work."

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan, R-Wis that the law will not lay off workers but people will choose not to work because of this provision.

"As a result ... that (lower) labor supply lowers economic growth," Ryan said.

Elmendorf answered: "Yes, that's right."

Ryan added that this would mean that few people would be joining the middle class.

"It's adding insult to injury," he said. "As the welfare state expands, the incentive to work declines meaning grow the government, you shrink the economy."

Obama's Fact Check Highlights Misstatements in Speech

I've stumble upon an interesting article by Calvin Woodward AP, talking about misstatements made by Barrack Obama on his State of Union address. He gave his State of the Union address on Capitol Hill in Washington,last Tuesday January 28, 2014.

My take about the article is I don't think retiring baby boomers is that significant and it is not the same as unemployed. In reality, most of Americans wants to find full time job but can't, because of the continues exporting of jobs to other countries. 

check out the article after the jump!




WASHINGTON (AP) � It seems to be something of an occupational hazard for President Barack Obama: When he talks about his health care law, he's bound to hit a fact bump sooner or later.


So it went Tuesday night, when he declared Medicare premiums have stayed flat thanks to the law, when they've gone up. As for an even bigger theme of his State of the Union address, the president's assertion that "upward mobility has stalled" in America runs contrary to recent research, while other findings support him.

A look at some of the facts and political circumstances behind his claims, along with a glance at the Republican response to his speech:

OBAMA: "Because of this (health care) law, no American can ever again be dropped or denied coverage for a preexisting condition like asthma, back pain or cancer. No woman can ever be charged more just because she's a woman. And we did all this while adding years to Medicare's finances, keeping Medicare premiums flat, and lowering prescription costs for millions of seniors."

THE FACTS: He's right that insurers can no longer turn people down because of medical problems, and they can't charge higher premiums to women because of their sex. The law also lowered costs for seniors with high prescription drug bills. But Medicare's monthly premium for outpatient care has gone up in recent years.

Although the basic premium remained the same this year at $104.90, it increased by $5 a month in 2013, up from $99.90 in 2012. Obama's health care law also raised Medicare premiums for upper-income beneficiaries, and both the president and Republicans have proposed to expand that.

Finally, the degree to which the health care law improved Medicare finances is hotly debated. On paper, the program's giant trust fund for inpatient care gained more than a decade of solvency because of cuts to service providers required under the health law. But in practice those savings cannot simultaneously be used to expand coverage for the uninsured and shore up Medicare.

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OBAMA: "Today, after four years of economic growth, corporate profits and stock prices have rarely been higher, and those at the top have never done better. But average wages have barely budged. Inequality has deepened. Upward mobility has stalled."

THE FACTS: The most recent evidence suggests that mobility hasn't worsened. A team of economists led by Harvard's Raj Chetty released a study last week that found the United States isn't any less socially mobile than it was in the 1970s. Looking at children born between 1971 and 1993, the economists found that the odds of a child born in the poorest 20 percent of families making it into the top 20 percent hasn't changed.

"We find that children entering the labor market today have the same chances of moving up in the income distribution (relative to their parents) as children born in the 1970s," the authors said.

Still, other research has found that the United States isn't as mobile a society as most Americans would like to believe. In a study of 22 countries, economist Miles Corak of the University of Ottawa found that the United States ranked 15th in social mobility. Only Italy and Britain among wealthy countries ranked lower. By some measures, children in the United States are as likely to inherit their parents' economic status as their height.

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OBAMA: "We'll need Congress to protect more than 3 million jobs by finishing transportation and waterways bills this summer.  But I will act on my own to slash bureaucracy and streamline the permitting process for key projects, so we can get more construction workers on the job as fast as possible."

THE FACTS: Cutting rules and regulations doesn't address what's holding up most transportation projects, which is lack of money. The federal Highway Trust Fund will run out of money in August without action. To finance infrastructure projects, Obama wants Congress to raise taxes on businesses that keep profits or jobs overseas, but that idea has been a political nonstarter.

The number of projects affected by the administration's efforts to cut red tape is relatively small, said Joshua Schank, president and CEO of the Eno Center for Transportation, a think tank. "The reason most of these projects are delayed is they don't have enough money. So it's great that you are expediting the review process, but the review process isn't the problem. The problem is we don't have enough money to invest in our infrastructure in the first place."

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OBAMA: "More than 9 million Americans have signed up for private health insurance or Medicaid coverage."

THE FACTS: That's not to say 9 million more Americans have gained insurance under the law.

The administration says about 6 million people have been determined to be eligible for Medicaid since Oct. 1 and an additional 3 million roughly have signed up for private health insurance through the new markets created by the health care law. That's where Obama's number of 9 million comes from. But it's unclear how many in the Medicaid group were already eligible for the program or renewing existing coverage.

Likewise, it's not known how many of those who signed up for private coverage were previously insured. A large survey released last week suggests the numbers of uninsured gaining coverage may be smaller. The Gallup-Healthways Well-Being Index found that the uninsured rate for U.S. adults dropped by 1.2 percentage points in January, to 16.1 percent. That would translate to roughly 2 million to 3 million newly insured people since the law's coverage expansion started Jan. 1.

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OBAMA: "In the coming weeks, I will issue an executive order requiring federal contractors to pay their federally funded employees a fair wage of at least $10.10 an hour, because if you cook our troops' meals or wash their dishes, you shouldn't have to live in poverty."

THE FACTS: This would be a hefty boost in the federal minimum wage, now $7.25, but not many would see it.

Most employees of federal contractors already earn more than $10.10. About 10 percent of those workers, roughly 200,000, might be covered by the higher minimum wage. But there are several wrinkles. The increase would not take effect until 2015 at the earliest and it doesn't apply to existing federal contracts, only new ones. Renewed contracts also will be exempt from Obama's order unless other terms of the agreement change, such as the type of work or number of employees needed.

Obama also said he'll press Congress to raise the federal minimum wage overall. He tried that last year, seeking a $9 minimum, but Congress didn't act.

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REP. CATHY McMORRIS RODGERS of Washington, in her prepared Republican response: "Last month, more Americans stopped looking for a job than found one. Too many people are falling further and further behind because, right now, the president's policies are making people's lives harder."

THE FACTS: She leaves out a significant factor in the high number of people who aren't looking for jobs: Baby boomers are retiring.

It's true that a large part of the still-high unemployment rate is due to weak job creation in a slowly recovering economy. There are roughly three people seeking every job opening. But one big reason people aren't seeking employment is that there are so many boomers � the generation born in the immediate aftermath of World War II � and therefore more than the usual number of retirements.

sources: http://news.yahoo.com/fact-check-obama-medicare-premiums-035611405--politics.html

Accenture is now the lead contractor for Obamacare website HealthCare.gov

Reuters recently reported that the Obama government awarded Accenture as the lead contractor for the Obamacare enrollment website. They will be replacing CGI Federal, which encountered  a lot of failures and bugs when they launched the website HealthCare.gov in October for millions of Americans shopping for health insurance. This was announced by the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services on Saturday.

When CGI build the website HealthCare.gov it was riddled with errors, slow speeds, and glitches that gave President Barack Obama a lot of problems and gave Republican another reason to repeal Obamacare.

CGI Federal announced last Friday that its contract that was awarded in 2011, will end on February 28, and would not be renewed.

Accenture said the contract was worth $45 million for the initial phase of the project, and the final value of the one-year contract would be about $90 million.

March 31 is the deadline for signing up for a 2014 health insurance under the Affordable Care Act, Accenture will need to be ready and take on the surge of last-minute sign-ups.

US Government Extends insurance Enrollment deadline by 24 hours

The deadline for registration for health insurance coverage on healthcare.gov has been extended by the Obama Government by 1 day. The deadline used be 11:59 p.m. last Monday.

Times said that on Monday there's a huge traffic on Healthcare.gov and the Whitehouse wants to be sure that people who wants coverage can have one.

Monday, December 23 had been the deadline for selecting a plan, it will take effect on the 1st day of the new year 2014.

Penalty: Under the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare, you will have to pay $95 penalty or 1% of income in 2014 if you don't have health insurance coverage. It is set to rise to $695 or 2% of income by 2016.

To avoid the penalty, you will need to enroll in a plan by February 15 or qualify for an exemption from the penalty.

Obamacare Enrollment Stats

Obamacare enrollment statistics released last Wednesday showed that 364,682 people in the US have already signed up for private coverage as of November 30, 2013. It is still less than 1/3 of the 1.2 million people officials had originally projected would enroll nationwide by the end of November.

The Obama government also projected that 7 million consumers would sign up for coverage during the first year. The government and insurers targeting desperately healthy, young adults to convince them to enroll to pay for the costs of paying for older, sicker consumers. Obamacare is designed to get money from people who value their health. 

Critics says that "The president's health care law (Obamacare) has driven up costs, reduced choices and resulted in the cancellation of over 5 million health care plans that the president promised the American people they could keep," Rep. Congressman Jim Renacci said. "Though we know that problems with the president's health care law run far deeper than a broken website, it also is our responsibility to ensure that we reduce the negative effects of the law. It is time for the administration to update Congress and the American people on its efforts to correct serious back-end issues within its government-run health care system that could potentially be disastrous for insurers and Americans everywhere."

Small Businesses cancelling Health Insurance plans for Employees

The US government promised that HealthCare.gov will be ready and run without glitch by the end of this week. However, CBS News reports that employees form small businesses are losing their insurance coverage. 

The government estimated that millions of workers would be dropped from their work insurance under the Affordable Care Act, it's already happening now.

Nancy Clark owns a small business in New Hampshire, she was featured last year in a White House video blog, said that things are not right for her plan. She said that her insurer will increase her rates by 39: starting next year. Insurance that will cost her an additional $30,000.

Because of this she decided to terminate the insurance she's offered her 8 employees and turn to Obamacare, but there's been one problem after another.

�We�re experiencing technical difficulties. That's the nature of the beast,� said Clark.

Betsy Atkinson owns a business in Virginia Beach is also cancelling company insurance because her plan doesn't meet new Obamacare requirements and she can't afford to offer employees one that does.

�They�re going to have to go find their own insurance,� she said. �I�m sorry.�

Chao: Health Insurance Marketplace is Still Incomplete

Henry Chao the deputy chief information officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said that the federal health insurance marketplace is not yet complete. He said that they are still building the �back office systems." 

�we still have to build the financial management aspects of the system, which includes our accounting system and payment system and reconciliation system,� he said. "This part is still being developed and will be tested."

He admitted Tuesday that up to 40 percent of IT systems supporting the exchange still need to be built.

The Obama government completed the online system which allowed consumers to apply for insurance, compare health plans and enroll however, many parts of the system were still being repaired and were not performing as well as they had hoped.

�It�s not that it�s not working,� Chao told lawmakers at an Energy and Commerce Oversight and Investigations subcommittee hearing. �It�s still being developed and tested.�

Financial management tools are not yet done, he said, particularly the process that will deliver payments to insurers.

Infographics on Why Others Can't Keep Their Old Insurance Plans

Check out the Infographics done by NYTimes, which explains why some people can't keep their insurance plans. It is very detailed and easy to comprehend. President Barrack Obama promised that people can keep their old insurance plan under the Obamacare, however the truth is most need to buy a new plan.

Thousand of Users are Visiting Online insurance Exchanges

FRANKFORT, KY. - More than 160,000 users have visited the kynect.ky.gov to check and review information about health insurance coverage. The online visitors also have viewed more than 2.6 million web pages on kynect since Kentucky launched the health benefit exchange last Tuesday.

Gov. Steve Beshear's office said in a news release Monday that more than 6,080 individuals and/or families are now enrolled in new affordable health care coverage that will go into effect on Jan. 1.

As of 4pm Monday, 142,242 people had completed the pre-screening process to determine if they qualify for subsidies and discounts for insurance policies or to determine if they qualify for Medicaid.

About 19,372 applications for health care coverage have been started and 12,955 are now completed.