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Health care website offers more help

By Zachary Tracer © 2015, Bloomberg News

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Monday, Oct. 26, 2015 3:36 PM

Consumers will be able to start previewing next year’s health care premiums Sunday on the HealthCare.gov website. The website for the federal government’s health insurance will offer more information this year to help consumers compare insurance costs more effectively.

Andrew Harnik/Associated Press

The Obama administration is working to make it easier for people to compare health plans and sign up for coverage on the website created under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.

New features on HealthCare.gov will help people to see how much insurance coverage will cost, once subsidies are included, and what their other medical-care expenses are likely to be. Enrollment for 2016 plans starts Nov. 1, and the federal website – which is used by 38 states – will let consumers preview plans starting on Sunday.

About 11.7 million people picked policies last year on HealthCare.gov and state-run websites. The U.S. enrollment system ran mostly smoothly in last year’s sign-up period, a big change from 2013, when the website crashed on its opening day in a major setback for the administration’s signature domestic policy achievement. Though the site has improved, critics said last year it still had too little information to help people make informed choices.

The new website estimates what individuals’ upfront payments and out-of-pocket costs are likely to be in different plans.

GOP seeks repeal

WASHINGTON – House Republicans voted Friday to repeal the core provisions of the Affordable Care Act and strip federal funds from Planned Parenthood, using an expedited process designed to send those proposals to President Barack Obama’s desk for the first time.
The 240-189 vote forwards the measure to the Senate, where Republicans could bypass Democratic opposition and send the bill to the president. Obama would veto it, though, and Democrats have enough votes to block an override.
The legislation would provide relief from the “harmful effects” of the 2010 Affordable Care Act, Budget Committee Chairman and bill sponsor Tom Price of Georgia said during floor debate. “We all want a system that’s affordable for everybody. Does that occur in Obamacare? No.”
The measure would end the requirements that individuals acquire health insurance and that large employers provide it to their workers. It also would repeal a medical device tax and a so-called Cadillac tax on high-cost insurance plans.
The legislation would cut a year of federal funding from Planned Parenthood, which is under fire from Republicans after undercover videos purported to show officials for the reproductive health-care organization discussing reimbursement for providing tissue from aborted fetuses to researchers.
Senate passage isn’t guaranteed, though, because three of the 54 Republicans already have announced their opposition because they want the bill to fully repeal Obamacare. One more opponent would mean Republicans lack a 51-vote simple majority to pass the measure.
The health care law, Obama’s signature domestic achievement, requires insurers to issue policies and set rates without regard to pre-existing health problems. Without the coverage mandate, the government has said those rules would create an industry “death spiral,” in which only patients with costly health conditions would buy insurance. That would drive up premiums, prompting healthy policyholders to drop coverage, causing still more rate increases, the government contends.

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