Posted by Tina
Apparently the group “Demos.org, supported by leftist billionaire George Soros thinks it’s a splendid idea:
The new health care law, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), 7 now provides an additional opportunity to register millions of new voters.
Because subsidized health insurance under the ACA – “Insurance Affordability Programs” – constitutes public assistance, 8 the NVRA’s requirement for providing voter registration services applies.Successfully integrating the NVRA voter registration requirements into the ACA enrollment process will mean millions of additional low-income people will get the opportunity to register to vote and thus to participate in our political process.9
This Policy Brief provides guidance to states on why and how their Health Benefit Exchanges should incorporate the NVRA’s requirements for providing voter registration opportunities.
The NVRA refers to the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, which requires registration entities like the ACA to also offer the opportunity to register to vote.
My question is how will those people charged with signing people up for Obamacare work with people when they register them. The groups that received grants to do this work include leftist organizations like reformed Acorn groups and Planned Parenthood. See here and here. If these navigators attempt to influence party affiliation or coerce people to register as Democrats it will fly under the radar…but indicate yet another pox on the manipulative Democrat house.
Under this president Democrats have been revealed to be cheaters, liars, manipulators and skunks. The brand is ugly…but of course, it’s all the Republican’s fault and Ted Cruz is the dangerous extremist who makes them do it. Well, that’s what the lying liars keep saying.
Tina, I hope you are not trying to draw some sort of comparison between registering eliglible voters … and turning them away from the polls on a technicality?
Your side don’t come off well by such a comparison.
WOW
There are no words to describe that one.
Believe me no one needs to influence any one. The Tea Party does a good job all by itself.
The election was on the ACA against the Paul Ryan Plan. Americans voted on those 2 issues.
Americans saw that were were on track to really make a dent in the national debt then came a Profit war on a lie UNPAID for, Tax cuts for the 1%, and a MAJOR market crash.
The Paul Ryan Plan LOST!
Dewey, you asked a question about the grandfather clause and ACA. Okay, it took me all of 21 seconds to find the answer…this is but one article among dozens of news stories….
Read it Dewey, this is just for you.
By Lisa Myers and Hannah Rappleye
NBC News
President Obama repeatedly assured Americans that after the Affordable Care Act became law, people who liked their health insurance would be able to keep it. But millions of Americans are getting or are about to get cancellation letters for their health insurance under Obamacare, say experts, and the Obama administration has known that for at least three years.
Four sources deeply involved in the Affordable Care Act tell NBC NEWS that 50 to 75 percent of the 14 million consumers who buy their insurance individually can expect to receive a “cancellation” letter or the equivalent over the next year because their existing policies don’t meet the standards mandated by the new health care law. One expert predicts that number could reach as high as 80 percent. And all say that many of those forced to buy pricier new policies will experience “sticker shock.”
None of this should come as a shock to the Obama administration. The law states that policies in effect as of March 23, 2010 will be “grandfathered,” meaning consumers can keep those policies even though they don’t meet requirements of the new health care law. But the Department of Health and Human Services then wrote regulations that narrowed that provision, by saying that if any part of a policy was significantly changed since that date — the deductible, co-pay, or benefits, for example — the policy would not be grandfathered.
Buried in Obamacare regulations from July 2010 is an estimate that because of normal turnover in the individual insurance market, “40 to 67 percent” of customers will not be able to keep their policy. And because many policies will have been changed since the key date, “the percentage of individual market policies losing grandfather status in a given year exceeds the 40 to 67 percent range.”
That means the administration knew that more than 40 to 67 percent of those in the individual market would not be able to keep their plans, even if they liked them.
Yet President Obama, who had promised in 2009, “if you like your health plan, you will be able to keep your health plan,” was still saying in 2012, “If [you] already have health insurance, you will keep your health insurance.”
“This says that when they made the promise, they knew half the people in this market outright couldn’t keep what they had and then they wrote the rules so that others couldn’t make it either,” said Robert Laszewski, of Health Policy and Strategy Associates, a consultant who works for health industry firms. Laszewski estimates that 80 percent of those in the individual market will not be able to keep their current policies and will have to buy insurance that meets requirements of the new law, which generally requires a richer package of benefits than most policies today.
The White House does not dispute that many in the individual market will lose their current coverage, but argues they will be offered better coverage in its place, and that many will get tax subsidies that would offset any increased costs.
“One of the main goals of the law is to ensure that people have insurance they can rely on – that doesn’t discriminate or charge more based on pre-existing conditions. The consumers who are getting notices are in plans that do not provide all these protections – but in the vast majority of cases, those same insurers will automatically shift their enrollees to a plan that provides new consumer protections and, for nearly half of individual market enrollees, discounts through premium tax credits,” said White House spokesperson Jessica Santillo.
“Nothing in the Affordable Care Act forces people out of their health plans: The law allows plans that covered people at the time the law was enacted to continue to offer that same coverage to the same enrollees – nothing has changed and that coverage can continue into 2014,” she said.
Individual insurance plans with low premiums often lack basic benefits, such as prescription drug coverage, or carry high deductibles and out-of-pocket costs. The Affordable Care Act requires all companies to offer more benefits, such as mental health care, and also bars companies from denying coverage for preexisting conditions.
Today, White House spokesman Jay Carney was asked about the president’s promise that consumers would be able to keep their health care. “What the president said and what everybody said all along is that there are going to be changes brought about by the Affordable Care Act to create minimum standards of coverage, minimum services that every insurance plan has to provide,” Carney said. “So it’s true that there are existing healthcare plans on the individual market that don’t meet those minimum standards and therefore do not qualify for the Affordable Care Act.”
Heather Goldwater, 38, of South Carolina, says that she received a letter from her insurer saying the company would no longer offer her plan, but hasn’t yet received a follow-up letter with a comparable option.
Other experts said that most consumers in the individual market will not be able to keep their policies. Nancy Thompson, senior vice president of CBIZ Benefits, which helps companies manage their employee benefits, says numbers in this market are hard to pin down, but that data from states and carriers suggests “anywhere from 50 to 75 percent” of individual policy holders will get cancellation letters. Kansas Insurance Commissioner Sandy Praeger, who chairs the health committee of the National Association of Insurance Commissioners, says that estimate is “probably about right.” She added that a few states are asking insurance companies to cancel and replace policies, rather than just amend them, to avoid confusion.
A spokesman for America’s Health Plans says there are no precise numbers on how many will receive cancellations letters or get notices that their current policies don’t meet ACA standards. In both cases, consumers will not be able to keep their current coverage.
Those getting the cancellation letters are often shocked and unhappy.
George Schwab, 62, of North Carolina, said he was “perfectly happy” with his plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield, which also insured his wife for a $228 monthly premium. But this past September, he was surprised to receive a letter saying his policy was no longer available. The “comparable” plan the insurance company offered him carried a $1,208 monthly premium and a $5,500 deductible.
And the best option he’s found on the exchange so far offered a 415 percent jump in premium, to $948 a month.
“The deductible is less,” he said, “But the plan doesn’t meet my needs. Its unaffordable.”
“I’m sitting here looking at this, thinking we ought to just pay the fine and just get insurance when we’re sick,” Schwab added. “Everybody’s worried about whether the website works or not, but that’s fixable. That’s just the tip of the iceberg. This stuff isn’t fixable.”
Heather Goldwater, 38, of South Carolina, is raising a new baby while running her own PR firm. She said she received a letter last July from Cigna, her insurance company, that said the company would no longer offer her individual plan, and promised to send a letter by October offering a comparable option. So far, she hasn’t received anything.
“I’m completely overwhelmed with a six-month-old and a business,” said Goldwater. “The last thing I can do is spend hours poring over a website that isn’t working, trying to wrap my head around this entire health care overhaul.”
Goldwater said she supports the new law and is grateful for provisions helping folks like her with pre-existing conditions, but she worries she won’t be able to afford the new insurance, which is expected to cost more because it has more benefits. “I’m jealous of people who have really good health insurance,” she said. “It’s people like me who are stuck in the middle who are going to get screwed.”
Richard Helgren, a Lansing, Mich., retiree, said he was “irate” when he received a letter informing him that his wife Amy’s $559 a month health plan was being changed because of the law. The plan the insurer offered raised his deductible from $0 to $2,500, and the company gave him 17 days to decide.
The higher costs spooked him and his wife, who have painstakingly planned for their retirement years. “Every dollar we didn’t plan for erodes our standard of living,” Helgren said.
Ulltimately, though Helgren opted not to shop through the ACA exchanges, he was able to apply for a good plan with a slightly lower premium through an insurance agent.
He said he never believed President Obama’s promise that people would be able to keep their current plans.
“I heard him only about a thousand times,” he said. “I didn’t believe him when he said it though because there was just no way that was going to happen. They wrote the regulations so strictly that none of the old polices can grandfather.”
For months, Laszewski has warned that some consumers will face sticker shock. He recently got his own notice that he and his wife cannot keep their current policy, which he described as one of the best, so-called “Cadillac” plans offered for 2013. Now, he said, the best comparable plan he found for 2014 has a smaller doctor network, larger out-of-pocket costs, and a 66 percent premium increase.
“Mr. President, I like the coverage I have,” Laszweski said. “It is the best health insurance policy you can buy.”
I think we should register as many people to vote as possible. Republicans will be buying insurance on the exchange as well as Democrats. One of the biggest reasons we lose elections is people don’t vote. If we can get them registered that is the first step then we need to get them to the polls. Obama won because they had a better GOTV program that we do. Lets get our people registered and then voting.
I do not understand why the Republican party has all of a sudden decided they want to keep people from voting. It has been a major disappointment for me lately.
Libby: “I hope you are not trying to draw some sort of comparison between registering eliglible voters…”
There you go again, projecting that bigoted caricature. This article suggests nothing of the sort.
It does suggest that there is ample room for purposeful influence to register Democrats as often as possible.
“…and turning them away from the polls on a technicality? Your side don’t come off well by such a comparison.”
A specious accusation if ever there was one!
Dewey American have been told lies by this administration, the Democrat Party and the leftist fawning media that supports them.
They have also been told lies about the Tea Party.
As I have said previously, you are no independent. You are another tool of the left.
Princess I agree.
If Obama and his cohorts also agreed they wouldn’t have given fat grants, including fat salaries, to partisan organizations for this work, especially the one that has been prosecuted for registration irregularities (to put it kindly)
I would not be as suspicious if navigators were more independent. I also suspect that some of them were picked in particular areas of the country that are vital to democrats in the coming election.
There is nothing I can do about it except inform our readers of the possibility that another scam by this administration is in process.
One thing people don’t take into consideration because we all tend to think only in terms of our own circumstances is that the taxes on business polices. (I don’t know if they apply to all policies) will likely go up over time. Taxes on investment income will put continuing downward pressure on the economy. Regualtions have already and will continue to make this a thirty hour workweek society. (Unions got their waiver on this point apparently)
This law has been altered without going through the legislative process several times by the administration…it should be null and void.
I can understand why you’d make these accusations. After all, a county Republican chairman was just fired for admitting on “The Daily Show” that he favored voter ID laws in order to stop “lazy blacks” and Democrats from voting, and other Republicans have also been caught on record talking about the “advantage” that voter ID laws give them in the polls.
Then there were the embarrassing spectacles of Wendy Davis and a female judge almost being turned away from the polls because they had their maiden names on their IDs.
How’s that voter outreach going, by the way?
Chris we could get into a pi$$ing contest but believe me your side wouldn’t win any medals.
I think it is a legitimate concern. Too bad you don’t. That could suggest that you are in favor of former Acorn members and Planned Parenthood representatives cheating if they get the opportunity.
And let’s not pretend that Democrats have never said anything like that. the Vice President and Harry Reid have both made similarly offensive comments, The difference is they aren’t ever held accountable. Cheats, liars and skunks…what a party!
“I can understand why you’d make these accusations. After all, a county Republican chairman was just fired for admitting on “The Daily Show” that he favored voter ID laws in order to stop “lazy blacks” and Democrats from voting, ….”
No shit! Oh, I do like that. And you know, my riddle was only incidental to a story about how a judge in Texas who’s been using her driver’s license to vote for 50 years was turned away from the polls cause her married name is on the register and her maiden name is on her license. She marched straight off to the local TV station.
Even the Robert’s Court is gonna have a thing or two to say about this. And I am panting to read the Scalia/Thomas dissent.
What that tells you Libby is that the person/s who ran her voting place for 50 years were incompetent. As a judge she shopuld know better. It is her responsibility to make changes that would affect her voting.
But leave it to irresponsible bigoted progressives to make the person at the voting place the bad guy when he/she was simply doing her job.
I’d hate to see how this judge runs her court if her own sense of civic responsibility is so low.
Libby, yu too should know that your correct name should be the same on both…pathetic!
Tina: “I think it is a legitimate concern. Too bad you don’t. That could suggest that you are in favor of former Acorn members and Planned Parenthood representatives cheating if they get the opportunity.”
Tina, this is backwards and hypocritical. You are so concerned about possible cheating on my side, that you’re ignoring the actual, proven cheating on your side. You’re making up accusations out of thin air. You favor voter ID laws that have now been proven to have a discriminatory against women, African-Americans, the poor, and the elderly, in order to stop in-person voter fraud, which is practically non-existent. The real voter fraud is the Republicans’ attempt to stop perfectly eligible, Democrat-leaning voters from voting. This has been denied at every level but now several Republicans have admitted that this was the intent, and we can see that it has had this effect as more and more stories come in.
You were wrong about this.
“What that tells you Libby is that the person/s who ran her voting place for 50 years were incompetent.”
What? How? This stupid, pointless voter ID law never existed until this year.
“As a judge she shopuld know better. It is her responsibility to make changes that would affect her voting.”
What are you talking about? No one realized this technicality existed in the law until women started being turned away from the polls.
“But leave it to irresponsible bigoted progressives to make the person at the voting place the bad guy when he/she was simply doing her job.”
You need rest. You are the one who said that the person who ran the voting place for 50 years was “incompetent.” No one else has said anything about the person who ran the voting place. You just accidentally called yourself an “ignorant bigoted progressive.” Get some sleep, girl.
Chris: “You are so concerned about possible cheating on my side, that you’re ignoring the actual, proven cheating on your side. You’re making up accusations out of thin air.”
Chris I didn’t make anything up.
It is a fact that those people working at voting stations in Texas are required to ask for Photo ID and the information has to match how the person has registered. The person checking the ID was just doing her job.
The judge should have corrected her registration. (She should have done it years ago!) It would be the same for any citizen.
This is another ad hoc accusation of racism.
“You favor voter ID laws that have now been proven to have a discriminatory against women, African-Americans, the poor, and the elderly”
Proven by whom?
And please explain how a law that requires ID of everyone can be discriminatory toward anyone. What an insult to women, the elderly, the poor, and black people (And why not Latino’s or the Chinese?)
The Texas law:
“…now several Republicans have admitted that this was the intent”
Source please.
A proposed law in one state included a requirement that if a person had no ID and couldn’t get to the bank or registrars office to acquire one someone would go to them to create ID for them and arrange to have them picked up and taken to vote. Democrats still used the same tired ad hoc racial claims to defeat the law.
This tells me Democrats are not interested in making sure everyone’s vote counts equally with everyone else’s. They like having opportunities for people to vote more than once.
“What? How? This stupid, pointless voter ID law..”
Chris do you believe citizens have a responsibility to change official documents when they experience a name change? Your registration card is an official document.
How about the people running the voting stations…do you think they have an obligation to make sure people are who they say they are when they come in to vote? Do you realize the person in charge of verifying the identity of voters can be prosecuted if they fail to do the job properly?
“What are you talking about? No one realized this technicality existed in the law until women started being turned away from the polls.”
it has always been the law that voters can only vote once and that voting station workers verify the voters as they come in to vote. I have to sign my mail in ballot and my signature is on file. When I net to the polls I had to give my name so they could check it off that I had voted. It has always been the responsibility of the voter to update his information.
Do Democrats have any respect for laws? Sure doesn’t sound like it.
“You are the one who said that the person who ran the voting place for 50 years was ‘incompetent.'”
When the woman presented herself to vote if she said her name and it was different than the name on her registration card and they let her vote anyway then yes they were incompetent.
The judge is even more culpable. It is irresponsible of her to go 50 years without correcting her registration information.
Grow up, Chris!
Tina, none of this blather counters the fact that the Texas law is exclusionary … the point of it is to prevent people from voting.
They could have done what we do here. All the voters get a piece of mail, a postcard with their “registered voter name” on it, that serves as their ID at the polls.
Texas could have gone about it this way, but chose not to.
“When the woman presented herself to vote if she said her name and it was different than the name on her registration card and they let her vote anyway then yes they were incompetent.”
No, they were civilized. To prevent Mary Hansen Rogers from voting because her driver’s license says Mary Hansen is petty, perverse, and not the sort of thing nice people do. You really want to live in a society like that?
It is no more than a calculated way to disenfranchise voters in Texas. Democracy is the enemy. Remember they have no problem saying “My way or the Highway”
In fact jack I have your writings from the past…. I knew right then who Tina was.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/2463008/posts
Dewey, what you quote is not from anything I wrote… sorry to disappoint.
Tina: “Chris I didn’t make anything up.
It is a fact that those people working at voting stations in Texas are required to ask for Photo ID and the information has to match how the person has registered.”
I’m referring to your made-up allegations of the ACA being a tool to register Democrats. You’ve provided no evidence that registration will be done in a partisan manner. Yet there is evidence of the voter ID laws disenfranchising voters. You are more concerned about the former than the latter because you don’t shape your beliefs based on evidence, but on what the group you identify with tells you to believe.
“The person checking the ID was just doing her job.”
Again, no one here has criticized the person checking the ID but you, so I don’t understand why you keep saying this.
“This is another ad hoc accusation of racism.”
No. I don’t believe you are racist. I think you are oblivious to the concerns that this law discriminates against certain racial groups. I think you are oblivious to actual racists on your side, such as the Republican who was fired for admitting he favored voter ID laws in order to keep “lazy blacks” away from the polls.
“Proven by whom?”
http://lmgtfy.com/?q=voter+id+disenfranchisement+statistics
“And please explain how a law that requires ID of everyone can be discriminatory toward anyone.”
I will, just as soon as you can explain how a literacy test that requires everyone take it can be discriminatory toward anyone.
And as soon as you can explain how a poll tax that applies to everyone can be discriminatory toward anyone.
“Source please.”
Mike Turzai, Pennsylvania House Republican leader: “Voter ID, which is gonna allow Governor Romney to win the state of Pennsylvania, done,”
Read more: http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0612/77811.html#ixzz2jRxINsrq
Phyllis Schlafly: “The Democrats carried most states that allow many days of early voting, and Obama’s national field director admitted, shortly before last year’s election, that “early voting is giving us a solid lead in the battleground states that will decide this election.”
The Obama technocrats have developed an efficient system of identifying prospective Obama voters and then nagging them (some might say harassing them) until they actually vote. It may take several days to accomplish this, so early voting is an essential component of the Democrats’ get-out-the-vote campaign.”
http://www.bustle.com/articles/4325-north-carolina-sued-over-voter-id-law-as-republicans-admit-such-laws-target-democratic-voters
“Former Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer says he attended various meetings, beginning in 2009, at which party staffers and consultants pushed for reductions in early voting days and hours.
“The Republican Party, the strategists, the consultants, they firmly believe that early voting is bad for Republican Party candidates,” Greer told The Post. “It’s done for one reason and one reason only. … ‘We’ve got to cut down on early voting because early voting is not good for us,’ ” Greer said he was told by those staffers and consultants.
“They never came in to see me and tell me we had a (voter) fraud issue,” Greer said. “It’s all a marketing ploy.”
http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/news/state-regional-govt-politics/early-voting-curbs-called-power-play/nTFDy/
The fraud would seem to be on your side.
“This tells me Democrats are not interested in making sure everyone’s vote counts equally with everyone else’s. They like having opportunities for people to vote more than once.”
Except you’ve shown no evidence that this has happened. In-person voter fraud is more rare than shark attacks:
http://www.politifact.com/florida/statements/2012/mar/02/aclu-florida/shark-attacks-are-more-common-voter-fraud-florida/
If in-person voter fraud were actually happening in large numbers, it would make sense to favor voter ID laws. But a simple cost-benefit analysis shows that many people will not vote due to these laws, for no real purpose.
There have only been ten proven cases of voter fraud in the past twelve years. It makes no sense to disfranchise thousands of voters in order to stop one or two from voting illegally. Clearly, voter ID laws will sway elections far more than in-person voter fraud does.
If your goal is to sway elections, than supporting voter ID laws makes sense. But at least be honest, and say that your goal is to sway elections. Pretending that you actually care about the integrity of the democratic process, when the laws you support actually have the effect of persuading thousands of eligible voters not to vote, is simply not convincing. Voter ID laws do more to manipulate the democratic process than the very, very rare cases of voter fraud.
“How about the people running the voting stations…do you think they have an obligation to make sure people are who they say they are when they come in to vote? Do you realize the person in charge of verifying the identity of voters can be prosecuted if they fail to do the job properly?”
Yes, but that job before didn’t require IDs, and Republicans have made no convincing arguments for why it should.
“it has always been the law that voters can only vote once and that voting station workers verify the voters as they come in to vote. I have to sign my mail in ballot and my signature is on file. When I net to the polls I had to give my name so they could check it off that I had voted. It has always been the responsibility of the voter to update his information.”
Yes, but you’ve never had to show ID. What is your point?
Chris: “You’ve provided no evidence that registration will be done in a partisan manner.”
That’s because I expressed a personal concern. It’s called self-expression; I’m sure you’ve heard of it?
“no one here has criticized the person checking the ID”
What else does this mean:
“…turning them away from the polls on a technicality?”
Turning the judge away from the polls, even on a technicality is the poll persons job. We are talking about serious laws and serious responsibilities. The seriousness of it doesn’t seem to occur to either you or Libby. It doesn’t seem to occur to either of you that the voting official did what the law expected of her to protect the judges voting rights along with everyone else. Libby would just wave people through…come on down, more than once if you’ve a mind to. As she has said, the end justifies the means.
“I think you are oblivious to the concerns that this law discriminates against certain racial groups.”
How when it applies to all citizens?
All citizens that qualify for food stamps, welfare, Medicaid, social security and government grants all manage to sign up for them and they are required to bring ID and fill out a lot of paperwork. How is this more burdensome or discriminatory? (It isn’t)
“I think you are oblivious to actual racists on your side”
I think you are oblivious to the racists and bigots on your side. You are also oblivious to the way your side uses race as an excuse for growing governments power and a falsely as weapon against its opponents.
Can we at least agree that there are bad apples in every bunch and that those apples don’t define the quality of the bunch as a whole?
“…such as the Republican who was fired…”
And immediately! He was also denounced by the State and national Republicans.
What happened to Joe Biden and Harry Reid? they were promoted. Same with old Robert Byrd and a lot of other Southern Democrats who voted against equal rights laws. Johnson was a supreme racist and he was made President by your party.
“I will, just as soon as you can explain how a literacy test that requires everyone take it can be discriminatory toward anyone.”
And you call yourself a logical person. The reality is you cannot really justify this. ID is required for many things in our society and for good reason.
“The fraud would seem to be on your side.”
Sure…all that early voting didn’t involve manipulation of the voter or cheating of any kind.
The concern expressed by Republicans couldn’t have been vote fraud ’cause…it certainly didn’t happen in Ohio:
TownHall:
The case of intimidation at a polling place by The New Black Panther leader is another example of ways Democrats cheat.
If a party will cheat in one way it will cheat any way it can and the Democrat party is KNOWN for its cheating ways. Chicago is the most corrupt city politically in the country…although controversial, cheating there is said to have given the election to JFK:
Whether it changed the election result or not is irrelevant now…that there was cheating involved helps to establish a well known pattern of cheating by the Democrat Party.
Then there is the lovely Lois Lerner who used the intimidation and power of office to suppress Republican campaign and get out the vote efforts. She is implicated in a felony misuse and abuse of her power when she gave personal information of conservative groups to the Federal Election Commission. No small cheat.
There is no desire by Republicans to disenfranchise voters. Republicans want to protect every citizens vote.
There is the accusation coming from the Democrats who always accuse others of what they themselves are doing. The accusation about Republicans wanting to disenfranchise minorities and women is just such an accusation…Democrats do everything they can to disenfranchise any Republican voter in any way they can.
The American Spectator:
The point has been made.
I never read the cut and paste when I already know the answers. All those people who answered and bought the scam insurance I feel no sorrow for. Is that not the free markets working? They were phony policies that did not meet the standards and they did not provide anything that could be called coverage! LOL
healthcare reform a number 1 Koch no no.
Who here has read any part of the Bill?