++The most impressive cabinet member has to be HHS' Kathleen Sebelius. You have not seen her much the last five years but HHS has been moving ahead with the implementation of Obamacare. You won't know it with all the hoopla over the House repealing Obamacare. This week they will make their 40th attempt or going by Dana Milbank it would be the 68th attempt to repeal the Affordable Care Act.
++If you already have health insurance, Obamacare has already been implemented. Free preventive care, colonscopies, mammograms, and the ability to carry your adult children on your health plan for five years. For me personally,ACA has saved and saved me over $20,000. But I worry about the uninsured and whether the various attempts by the Republicans will stop it.
++About a week ago, Senator Al Franken appeared on the Rachel Maddow Show to talk about his contribution to the bill--health insurance companies have to pay at least 80% to healthcare and only 20% can be used for overhead and profit. Franken was very mellow in the interview saying in his trips around Minnesota that the 60-year olds and above liked Obamacare because health insurance companies no longer can deny people for pre-existing conditions and Medicare recipients like free preventive care and the closing of the Donut hole. His body language showed no apprehension about its further implementation.
++This week brought more news about the state exchanges and that they are projecting far greater savings on health insurance premiums than HHS and the CBO had projected. Maryland released its numbers which --so far--make it the lowest in the nation. Previous test projects in Oregon showed that ACA will work to expand the coverage of the uninsured.
++But what happens in the Republican states that opted out of the exchanges? I had assumed this was a broad attempt to sabotage the whole program. This was an out left in the Supreme Court decision. The federal government will allow citizens in these states to acquire health insurance on their exchange. But won't that be too complicated?
++Romneycare in Massachusetts was sold state-wide through the use of sports teams. When the Obama administration sent inquiries out to sports leagues for participation in selling Obamacare, Republicans in the Senate wrote threatening letters to the sports leagues to get them to back off. The Obama Administration has signed on comedy internet outlets and Hollywood to sell the program.
++As a reaction the Koch Brothers-funded front groups like Americans for Prosperity have started a campaign to urge young people not to have health insurance. Great idea, heh?
++Indiana led by Republican Governor Pence released figures that showed rate increases but reporters sank themselves into the figures and found it was not true.
++I wondered why Republicans are hysterical now in mid-2013 about Obamacare. It seems too early for the 2014 race. The reason is that October 1 is the date the state exchanges start working and when hospitals will sign up people for health insurance subsidized by Medicaid. If you are a young person and have an accident and injury and go to the emergency room, the hospital will automatically sign you up for pre-clearance for Medicaid and if you don't qualify they will pick up the cost of the emergency anyway. Tell me people will not take advantage of this.
++So if people start liking what they see or hear, can those states who refused state exchanges and Medicaid opt in at any point. The answer is yes.
++This morning Ezra Klein has a piece how entrepreneurs are taking advantage of Obamacare to break the insurance monopoly and create their own. And besides thousands of jobs will be created in the IT sector.
++While people have observed the legal suits by the Catholic Bishops over contraceptives, we've all missed the negotiations with Catholic hospitals on their ad campaign for Obamacare. Democratic Underground ran one yesterday that makes it plain and simple, something I thought couldn't be done.
++Paul Krugman has a piece about the Republican panic over Obamacare. In short, the wiser of the group knows it will work and that once it is working people will like it. I, for one, believed it would only get half implemented because of GOP obstructionism but the Administration has been far cleverer than I believed.
++An open fight has broken out in Washington among the GOP over Obamacare. Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and the Presidential wannabes are threatening not to raise the debt ceiling unless Obamacare is defunded. Tom Coburn, a fiscal conservative, says this is all bunk and hype and these guys should be ashamed of themselves. Senator Roy Blunt has also chimed in by saying defunding Obamacare is not an option.
++AEI's Norm Ornstein wrote a blistering article for the National Journal basically calling GOP congress critters treasonous for trying to nullify and sabotage Obamacare. He wrote that it can not recall any other episode in American history where an opposition party willfully tried to ignore a law. Congessional offices have often refused to help constituents about how to access Obamacare.
++All this is being played out for the October 1 deadline for the budget, the debt ceiling and the implementation of the healthcare exchanges. So we can be assured of more hysteria. But the way this is going , we should all thank Sec. Sebelius for keeping under the radar.
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