Morning Briefing
Summaries of health policy coverage from major news organizations
Survey: 10 Million Got Coverage Due To Obamacare
More than 10 million people got covered by health insurance over the past year, bringing the rate of uninsured down from 17.7 percent to 12.4 percent, a new survey shows. The data from the left-leaning Urban Institute shows 10.6 million people gained health insurance between September 2013 and September 2014, thanks in large part to new health insurance exchanges and the expansion of Medicaid in 27 states plus Washington, D.C. (Fox, 12/3)
As a software engineer in this outer suburb of Washington, Sanjay Singh was literally and figuratively outside the Beltway in 2008 when the Affordable Care Act was finalized on Capitol Hill. That didn't matter to the self-described "public policy geek." He pored over the Senate Finance Committee's markup of the legislation and sat riveted in front of C-Span during the Senate markup of the health law. ... Six years later, a guy who made less than $200 a month in 1991 writing software code in India has a company with multimillion-dollar contracts with Massachusetts for its insurance marketplace and the federal government to run the Small Business Health Options Program (SHOP) exchange. (O'Donnell, 12/3)
Health insurance sign-ups through HealthCare.gov slowed over Thanksgiving week, the Obama administration said Wednesday. But they’re not hitting the panic button yet. A Thanksgiving slowdown was expected, because consumers are traveling, spending time with family, and going shopping. (12/3)
In other news, USA Today examines how the moving of subsidy payments from one account to another became fodder for the House lawsuit against the president -
Earlier this year, the Obama administration quietly moved nearly $4 million in health insurance subsidy payments from one Treasury account to another. The budget director explained action in terms of "efficiency." But the House of Representatives says the transfer skirted the law and violated the Constitution — and is asking a court to strike down part of the Affordable Care Act as a result. That argument comes from a lawsuit filed by the House of Representatives last month as it attacks Obamacare on two fronts. The first, long-debated claim is that Obama did not have the power to delay a provision requiring large employers to provide health insurance for full-time employees. (Korte, 12/3)
