Update: H.R. 6311 has been posted to the House Rules Committee's website. The bill is the vehicle for the Increasing Access to Lower Premium Plans and Expanding Health Savings Accounts Act. The bill now includes the text of H.R. 6313, H.R. 6306, H.R. 6309, H.R. 6314, and H.R. 5963. Although the bill still expands the eligibility for catastrophic health plans to individuals older than 30, the language that would expand ObamaCare's premium tax credit has been removed.
Health insurance companies are signaling huge health insurance premium increases ahead of the 2016 open enrollment period. This is due to the droves of older and sicker consumers who signed up for coverage on the ObamaCare Exchanges, according to a report from The New York Times. Requests submitted by insurance are approved by state regulators, such as state insurance commissioners, but the proposed rates reflect a higher utilization of healthcare than expected.
Another interview has surfaced in which Jonathan Gruber, the MIT economist whose bragged about being involved in writing ObamaCare, suggested that subsidies will not be available to consumers in states that don't set up health insurance exchanges under the so-called "Affordable Care Act."
Americans already spend some 6 billion hours and $168 billion each year complying with a complex and onerous tax code. But ObamaCare is going to make tax filing even more of a chore for consumers who received subsidies for health plans purchased through the state and federal exchanges.
As the second ObamaCare open enrollment period came to a close over the weekend, more Americans learned that they owe Uncle Sam money because they received subsidies that were too great, in many cases because they had underestimated their income levels for 2014 when they applied for coverage through the health insurance exchanges.
In the nearly five years since ObamaCare passed Congress and became law, Republican leaders have yet to rally around a specific set of healthcare alternatives. Railing against the 2010 law has been convenient for campaign trail rhetoric, but stalling, as the Supreme Court prepares to hear oral arguments in King v. Burwell, is no longer acceptable.
In addition to his stunning arrogance and the insincerity of the so-called "apology" he offered to American public on Tuesday, Jonathan Gruber gave a new, albeit completely misleading defense of remarks he's made about the availability of ObamaCare subsidies to states that don't set up their own exchanges.
ObamaCare is, once again, headed to the nation's highest court. The Supreme Court will hear oral arguments over an IRS rule that granted tax credit subsidies to states that opted not to create an ObamaCare exchange. By granting review, the Supreme Court is going against the wishes of the Obama administration, which had argued that the case, King v. Burwell, should work its way through lower courts:
April 15th – Tax Day – is going to be another not-so-fun milestone for hundreds of thousands of ObamaCare’s beneficiaries. The paperwork to comply with the law’s individual mandate is already going to be an annoyance to all who file taxes, but those who receive subsidies to help pay for their health insurance could be in for an especially rude surprise.
In 2013, the IRS itself estimated that the average taxpayer would spend 13 hours preparing and filing their taxes. That’s just the basic forms – for those who have different kinds of investment income, or lots of deductions, or who run a small business, the time and money burden grows much higher.