You gotta love it when Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) rages on possible Social Security cuts.
Sahil Kapur on the early outlines of a budget deal — emphasis on early.
A very interesting letter from TPM Reader JS on a little discussed part of the ‘cancellation’ and rollover story, namely that a lot of insurers, far from ‘dropping’ or ‘canceling’ coverage are working hard to keep their existing coverage holders from going to the exchanges to see the better deals they can get …
I am not terribly different than some other writers who have been in the individual market. We have BCBS covering a family of four with a variety of pre-existing (but not life threatening) conditions. Like others, BCBS of Illinois informed us that our policy would no longer be valid after January 1, 2014. They also informed us that they would role us automatically into a slightly more expensive (and largely comparable) plan if we did nothing.
Sen. Tom Coburn (R-OK) tells Fox & Friends: It was inappropriate for me to call Harry Reid an “absolute a–hole.”
Ongoing coverage of HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius’ testimony before the House Energy and Commerce Committee at TPMLivewire.
27 Republican Senators vote to “disapprove” of their two week old votes to raise the debt ceiling.
TPM Reader MD helps us understand the power of building a robust state based exchange …
I also live in California, and my experience is very similar to that of the family in “Real Lives, Part 6.”
Our exchange is very effective, clear as can be, and the call center has no wait times of any significance.
As you’ve seen I’ve been reading many dozens of testimonials from TPM Readers (and publishing a handful of them) about their experiences so far with Healthcare.gov, Obamacare, the different options it provides. I’d like to put out another call for your stories. As before, I’m particularly interested in hearing about your recent experiences with the HealthCare.gov website – particularly if you tried it earlier in the month and have tried again in the last few days. The upshot of emails we received last week was that there were pretty substantial improvements in the site over the first three days of last week. But for every couple of emails noting real improvements and successes using the site, there was at least one saying, no, it’s still a complete f’ing mess. So again, let me know what you’re seeing now.
TPM Reader GC tells us her story from California …
I am a RN. When I worked in health care for big hospitals or surgery centers I received pretty decent health coverage from my employers that covered me and I paid to cover my husband and two kids. When both my husband and I became self employed we ended up having to buy four separate plans on the individual market for the four of us, mostly because of some preexisting conditions. Every year on our birthdays our premiums have gone up.