By Ricardo Alonso Zaldivar, AP; Bloomberg Businessweek ~ Nov 06, 2013

WASHINGTON (AP) — Obama administration officials are facing mounting questions about whether they cut corners on security testing while rushing to meet a self-imposed deadline to launch online health insurance markets.

Documents show that the part of HealthCare.gov that consumers interact with directly received only a temporary six-month security certification because it had not been fully tested before Oct. 1, when the website went live. It’s also the part of the system that
stores personal information.

By Julie Appleby; Kaiser Health News ~ Nov 06, 2013

When setting premiums for next year, insurers baked in bigger-than-usual adjustments, driven in large part by a game-changing rule: They can no longer reject people with medical problems.

Popular in consumer polls, the provision in the health law transforms the market for the estimated 14 million Americans who buy their own policies because they don’t get coverage through their jobs. Barred from denying coverage, insurers also can’t demand
higher rates from unhealthy people and those deemed high risks because of
conditions including obesity, high blood pressure or a previous cancer diagnosis.

By Amy Schatz; The Wall Street Journal ~ Nov 05, 2013

WASHINGTON—The Obama administration official overseeing the troubled federal health-insurance website acknowledged Tuesday that a North Carolina man accidentally received another applicant’s personal information, raising concerns among lawmakers about the site’s security.

“We made a fix yesterday,” said Marilyn Tavenner, administrator for the Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid Services, during a hearing of the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee.

Several senators in both parties raised concerns about the federal government’s ability
to keep secure the private information consumers are required to provide when applying for health insurance, including Social Security numbers and birth dates.

By United Press International ~ Nov 04, 2013

WASHINGTON, Nov. 4 (UPI) — Millions of U.S. consumers are eligible for free healthcare policies, but officials say they’re reluctant to push them because they may not be a good fit.

Three independent estimates by Wall Street analysts and a consulting firm told The New York Times up to 7 million people, under provisions of the Affordable Care Act, could qualify for the no-premium plans, the majority in the bronze category, the least expensive available. Bronze policies require people to pay the most in out-of-pocket costs, for doctor visits and benefits such as hospital stays, the Times reported Sunday.

By Jamie Weinstein; The Daily Caller ~ Nov 04, 2013

If Obamacare is fully implemented, 68 percent of Americans with private health insurance will not be able to keep their plan, according to health care economist Christopher Conover.

Conover is a research scholar in the Center for Health Policy & Inequalities Research at Duke University and an adjunct scholar at the American Enterprise Institute. In an interview with The Daily Caller, he laid out what he estimates the consequences of Obamacare’s implementation will ultimately be.

“Bottom line: of the 189 million Americans with private health insurance coverage, I estimate that if Obamacare is fully implemented, at least 129 million (68 percent) will not be able to keep their previous health care plan either because they already have lost or will lose that coverage by the end of 2014,” he said in an email. ”But of these, ‘only’ the 18 to 50 million will literally lose coverage, i.e., have their plans entirely taken away.

By Amy Goldstein & Juliet Eilperin; The Washington Post ~ Nov 02, 2013

In May 2010, two months after the Affordable Care Act squeaked through Congress, President Obama’s top economic aides were getting worried. Larry Summers, director of the White House’s National Economic Council, and Peter Orzag, head of the Office of Management and Budget, had just received a pointed four-page memo from a trusted outside health adviser. It warned that no one in the administration was “up to the task” of overseeing the construction of an insurance exchange and other intricacies of translating the 2,000-page statute into reality.

Summers, Orzag and their staffs agreed. For weeks that spring, a tug of war played out inside the White House, according to five people familiar with the episode.

By Zachary Karabell; Reuters ~ Nov 01, 2013

The Obamacare blame game is in full swing, and without other news to fill pages and airtime, it’s likely to continue for some time. Attention is shifting from the myriad problems with the official website Healthcare.gov, and toward the health plans that are being canceled, even though President Obama promised that they would not be.

But the longer-term story isn’t the rollout and its many severe glitches. No one recalls whether the first batch of Social Security checks was sent on time in the late 1930s. The story that will matter, and linger, is that the Affordable Care Act was the first major law implemented almost entirely online. It’s the template for the future, and rather than using its launch as an excuse to renew attacks on the law, we need to learn what we can because, like this bill or not, it is part of the next wave of government.

By Cathy Burke; Cybercast News Service ~ Oct 28, 2013

White House spokesman Jay Carney admitted Monday some Americans won’t be able to hold onto their current healthcare plans under Obamacare — despite the president’s 2009 emphatic promise “if you like your healthcare plan, you’ll be able to keep your healthcare plan. Period.”

“So it’s true there are existing healthcare plans on the individual market that do not meet those minimum standards and therefore do not qualify for the Affordable Care Act,” Carney said in response to a question about an earlier remark by David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Barack Obama during his first term, the Weekly Standard reported.

By Kelly Kennedy; USA Today ~ Oct 28, 2013

WASHINGTON — The premiums for Medicare Part B will remain flat in 2014 and seniors have saved $8.3 billion on Part D prescriptions since the Affordable Care Act was enacted in 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services announced Monday.

Medicare Part B covers medically necessary services, as well as preventive services.

Premiums for Medicare Part B will stay at $104.90 a month for 2014, the same as in 2013, according to the Center for Medicare Services. Premiums have either decreased or stayed the same for the past three years. The deductible will also remain at $147.

By Penelope Wang; Money ~ Oct 28, 2013

Peter Diamond, professor of economics, emeritus, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and recipient of the 2010 Nobel Prize in economics, answers the big question of how to fix Social Security.

Can we save Social Security?

Yes, Social Security can be fixed. There’s a long-term deficit problem, but it’s far from a crisis yet. Projections show the trust fund will run out of money by 2033. At that point everyone’s benefits would have to be cut by 25% if nothing is done.