When House Republicans voted Friday to block funding for health care reform implementation (see below), it was with the knowledge that most Americans disapprove of the tactic. A new CBS News poll shows 55 percent of Americans disapprove of the defunding effort while just 35 percent support it. The poll also shows, however, that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) continues to be unpopular overall. Just 21 percent think the law will make the health care system better while 23 percent believe it will make things worse. Perhaps most interesting of all is that 44 percent are unsure of what the law does, and they don’t know enough to say what the impact will be. T

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Last Wednesday, Jan. 19, the United States House of Representatives voted 245-189 to repeal the nation’s individual health insurance reform law, the Affordable Care Act. While a full repeal is not expected, we should see a number of congressional hearings on the topic over the next few months.

The Affordable Care Act extended to insured group health plans the non-discrimination provisions found in the Internal Revenue Code, which previously had been applicable only to self-insured group plans. Effective for Plan Years which begin after Sept. 23, 2010, non-grandfathered health insurance plans are prohibited from discriminating in favor of highly compensated employees, and a penalty is imposed of $100 per day per participant on plans that discriminate. H

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Health insurance reform will inevitably add to the already unsustainable federal deficit. In addition, it will prove impossible for the government to create and establish a more efficient system than the one now in place.

These are some of the arguments of more than a dozen states that have filed lawsuits. The lawsuits challenge the constitutionality of the reform. Their arguments also include that the government should not force citizens to buy health insurance.

It will be several years before the reforms take effect, and opponents are trying to ensure that they never will.

But significant improvements have already been made and insurers are also moving into compliance ahead of schedule.

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As lawmakers returned to Washington this week, Republicans affirmed their commitment to repealing the health care reform legislation, while Democrats continued to campaign on the health care reform law’s merits. Meanwhile, President Obama stepped up his efforts to energize his core supporters by capitalizing on health care reform.

Health Care Reform

New Health Care Reform Law Means Tax Increase for Middle Class: According to a report recently received by congressional staffers, the new health care reform law will result in higher taxes for approximately 14.7 million middle class Americans. Taxpayers can currently deduct medical expenses in excess of 7.5 percent of their adjusted gross income (AGI). S

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???A new study from the Robert Wood Foundation that hypothesizes the role of health insurance exchanges after health reform.

Introduction

While the health reform debate continues in Washington, both the House and the Senate proposals include the establishment of health insurance exchanges to help facilitate the purchase of insurance for individuals and small employers.

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One of the aims of the health care reform legislation is to encourage employers to provide health insurance for their employees.  In order to close the loophole that would allow employers to hire many part-time workers (and avoid paying benefits for them), the new law looks at the total number of hours worked to determine “full time equivalent employees”.  On page 309-310 of the Senate Bill, the math is explained:

“The term ‘full-time equivalent employees’ means a number of employees equal to the number determined by dividing the total number of hours of service for which wages were paid by the employer to employees during the taxable year, by 2,080.“

Overtime is not counted, as explained in section B of that paragraph.  Neither are sea Read all post…

There is no doubt that health care reform will result in plenty of changes over the next few years in terms of how we access and pay for health care.  Clarifying Health has a thought-provoking article in last week’s Cavalcade of Risk, discussing how health care reform might result in more people being covered by individual health insurance policies, and fewer people covered by group plans.  The article is well-researched, and presents a lot of good arguments for the idea that group plans could become less popular over the next few years.  But there are some other possibilities that need to be considered too.

First is the reason employers offer group health insurance benefits in the first place.  Ben

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