Showing posts with label enough. Show all posts
Showing posts with label enough. Show all posts
Thursday, July 25, 2013
Saturday, July 20, 2013
Most Individual Health Insurance Isn't Good Enough for Obamacare
If you buy your own health insurance now, you'll be in for a big change when you sign up for coverage in 2014.
Just over half of the individual plans currently on the market do not meet the standards to be sold next year, when many key provisions of President Obama's Affordable Care Act kick in, according to a University of Chicago study. That's because the law sets new minimums for the basic coverage every individual health care plan must provide.
"They will offer a lot more financial protection," Jon Gabel, the report's lead author, said of the individual plans that will be available next year. His team drew its conclusions from 2010 data supplied by health insurers.
Some 15 million Americans, or about 6% of non-elderly adults, currently buy coverage on the individual market. Starting this fall, they'll be able to shop for and enroll in health insurance through state-based exchanges, with coverage taking effect in January. By 2016, some 24 million people will get insurance through the exchanges, while another 12 million will continue to get individual coverage outside of them, the Congressional Budget Office estimates.
Both groups will be affected by the new Obamacare rules. Starting next year, nearly all individual plans -- both in and out of the exchanges -- will be required to cover an array of "essential" services, including medication, maternity and mental health care. Many plans don't currently offer those benefits.
So what happens to the plans that don't meet the new minimum standards? They will likely disappear. A handful of existing plans will be grandfathered in, but the qualifying criteria for that is hard to meet: Members have to have been enrolled in the plan before the ACA passed in 2010, and the plan has to have maintained fairly steady co-pay, deductible and coverage rates until now.
The insurers in the Blue Cross Blue Shield Association are major players in the individual market. They are readying new product lineups for 2014, according to Kim Holland, the trade group's executive director of state affairs. She expects most existing Blue Cross individual plans to be discontinued.
"They are going by the wayside," she said. "Plans will have to conform to the higher level of benefits."
Consumers buying individual plans will be able to choose between four levels of coverage next year: platinum, gold, silver and bronze.
Platinum plans will carry the highest premiums but offer the lowest out-of-pocket expenses, with enrollees paying no more than 10%, on average. At the other end of the spectrum are bronze plans, which will have the lowest monthly premiums but higher deductibles and co-payments totaling up to 40% of out-of-pocket costs, on average. Starting in 2014, all Americans will be required to carry coverage or face fines. Those penalties start at $95 per adult or 1% of adjusted family income, whichever is greater, and escalate in later years.
People with annual income of up to 400% of the poverty line -- or roughly $45,000 for an individual and about $92,000 for a family of four -- will get federal subsidies to help defray the premium costs.
Most individual plans sold next year, even the lowest-level "bronze" plans, are likely to charge higher premiums than today's most bare-bones individual insurance. For many customers, though, those costs will be offset by lower out-of-pocket costs and more comprehensive coverage, said Karen Pollitz, a senior fellow at the Kaiser Family Foundation.
"Now, they buy a policy and when they get sick, they may go broke anyway because the policy leaves them with so much to pay," she said, noting that deductibles of $10,000 are not uncommon.
The insurance industry's trade group counters that some people may wind up with more coverage -- and higher monthly costs -- than they want. Some individuals may choose to simply pay the fine instead, said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America's Health Insurance Plans.
"Now, people can choose the plan that best meets their needs," Zirkelback said. Next year, "they may choose not to buy any coverage."
More From CNNMoney.com
Saturday, May 25, 2013
Sad But True: WSJ Editorial Saying Obama Administration Doesn’t Drill Enough Is Wrong
Today, the Wall Street Journal editorial board published a gem of an editorial titled “Drill, Barack, Drill.” You might be able to guess what it’s about from the title.
It takes a report from the Congressional Research Service about drilling on public lands, engages in some flagrant cherry picking, shoots out some outright falsehoods, and concludes that the Obama Administration has been standing in the way of fossil fuel development on federal lands.
The truth, while sobering, is very different from the creative accounting performed by the Wall Street Journal ed board. Here’s the reality.
WSJ Says: “All of the increased [oil] production from 2007 from 2012 took place on non-federal lands.”
That’s one cherry to pick. There’s a whole tree though. Looking at the whole CRS report gives you the full story:
When comparing fiscal year 2010 with 2007, growth in the federal share of production was about 82 percent of the total.
That’s a lot of growth in production not on private and state lands. The report also says that crude oil production will continue to be significant, and “could remain consistently higher than previous decades.”
WSJ Says: “Federal share of total U.S. oil production has slid under Mr. Obama to 26% in fiscal year 2012 from 31% in fiscal 2008.”
In fact, oil production from federally owned places was higher in every one of the past four years compared to 2008, when oil hit a record high price of $142.50 per barrel. In fiscal year 2008, total crude oil production was 1,550 thousand barrels per day. The rate of production for the next four years has been: 1,731, 1,989, 1,715, and 1,627 thousand barrels per day. The Wall Street Journal may be trying hard here, but none of those numbers is smaller than 1,550.
The domestic boom is driven by ample tight oil (shale oil) and shale gas resources on private lands. In 2012, Adam Sieminski, the Administrator of the Energy Information Administration testified before the House Energy and Commerce Committee that:
Because the shale resource basins are largely outside of the Federal lands, so too is shale production. In this case, the geology is working in favor of non-Federal landowners.
The rapid increase in natural gas production from shale resources, found largely outside the Federal lands, over the last 5 years has significantly reduced natural gas prices and the relative attractiveness of conventional natural gas resources, including those of Federal and Indian lands. (EIA)
Also, most oil and gas shale plays in the contiguous U.S. are on private lands:
WSJ Says: “The sharp drop in production on federal lands is a direct result of Obama Administration policies. They include a drilling moratorium imposed after the 2012 Deepwater Horizon Spill…”
The CRS report helpfully points out that “offshore, most of the 1.7 billion acres of federal water are no longer under leasing and development moratoria.” Since the new standards were put into place, the Obama administration has approved over 600 permits for activities at hundreds of wells in the Gulf of Mexico. Drilling is nearly up to pre-Deepwater Horizon levels.
Specifically, per the Energy Information Administration Short Term Energy Outlook released last month:
During 2012, oil production in the Federal GOM [Gulf of Mexico] is projected to have increased from about 1.31 million bbl/d [barrels per day] in January to about 1.39 million bbl/d in December (up 6 percent). … EIA expects Federal GOM production to increase from an average 1.27 million bbl/d in 2012 to an average 1.39 million bbl/d in 2013.
WSJ Says: “Average time to process a federal application for a drilling permit increased 41% from 2006 to 2011—to 301 days”
Again, the CRS report contains information that the Journal must have missed:
In 2006 it took the BLM [Bureau of Land Management] an average of 127 days to process an APD [application for drill permit], while in 2011 it took BLM 71 days. In 2006, the industry took an average of 91 days to complete an APD, but in 2011, industry took 236 days.
The delay in the permitting process is not the in the federal government’s court, but rather the oil and gas industry. The BLM is almost twice as quick in processing permits as it was in 2006.
The report also helpfully puts in context the claim that private lands permitting takes less time than public lands permitting:
“Some critics of this lengthy timeframe highlight the relatively speedy process for permit processing on private lands. However, crude oil development on federal lands takes place in a wholly different regulatory framework than that of oil development on private lands…. A private versus federal permitting regime does not lend itself to an ‘apples-to-apples’ comparison.”
WSJ Says: “The few leases he has put up for auction contain land that is of little value to drillers”
Since FY 2006, there has been nearly a 67 percent decline in the amount of public land nominated by the industry in the Rocky Mountain States. And remember, the Administration has approved more than 600 permits in the Gulf of Mexico alone.
Last year, a report from Rep. Ed Markey showed that 131 oil and gas companies had 3,684 idle leases in the Gulf of Mexico alone. That means oil companies are not using 72 percent of offshore acres, and 56 percent of total offshore acres. This is 20.7 million acres we’re talking here — not small potatoes.
WSJ Says: “Readers may recall that Mitt Romney raised this issue in the second presidential debate. Mr. Obama responded that “What you’re saying is just not true. It’s not true.” The Congressional Research Service now documents that it is true….”
Mitt, it’s still not true. Read the report — all of it.
* * *
It would be great for the climate if federal oil and gas production were slowing as we transition to renewables. The takeaway of this sad state of affairs is that we continue to pursue hydrocarbons to burn, at rates equal to or greater than historical rates.
jQuery(document).ready(function(){jQuery('#comment_submit').click(function(){if(jQuery('#comment_check:checked').lengthWednesday, February 6, 2013
Democratic freshman lawmaker: Congress not working enough
Rep. Rick Nolan (D-Minn.) said Friday that Congress is not working enough.
Speaking on MSNBC’s “The Ed Show,” Nolan, who served before in the House for three terms starting in the 1970s, told host Ed Schultz that lawmakers are working less now than they did the last time he was in Washington.
“Back when I served before, we worked 48 out of 52 weeks. This Congress is going to work, you know, 31, 32 weeks out of 52 weeks,” Nolan said. “We used to work four and five days a week. And we would be in committee in the morning. We would be in session during the afternoon and into the evening. And we got things done.”Nolan said that time spent together would lead to lawmakers getting to know each other and learning how to better collaborate on legislation. The lawmaker, who beat Republican Chip Cravaack last election to return to Congress, has blamed fundraising in the past for the low legislative workload.
“Money has really corrupted the entire political process. The sad story, Ed, here is that the one with the most money generally gets the most votes,” Nolan said on Friday. “So people have come to the conclusion — and, quite frankly, understandably so, that there`s no sense running unless you're going to have at least enough money, and hopefully more than the other person that you're running against.”
Nolan also said Congress is not governing.
“Congress isn`t governing, in your opinion?” asked Schultz.
“No. You can`t run a business that way. You can’t run a country that way,” Nolan said.
View Comments
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)