Well it’s a good thing the repayment of erroneous subsidies for Obamacare health insurance occurs in April at tax time rather than in November at election time otherwise the Administration would be issuing another modification of the law to exempt repayment.
The fact is that enrollment went forward before systems were in place to verify subsidy eligibility prospectively rather than retroactively.
Between Medicare allowing massive fraud on a regular basis (because there is very little concurrent review), VA bureaucratic mismanagement and the Affordable Care Act game playing (including arbitrary exemptions from the penalty for not having coverage) and many yet to be realized negative results, especially costs, it is truly hard to comprehend how there can be support for government-run health care in any form. As they say, the devil is in the details.
Here is another aside. With the expansion of Medicaid and health insurance generally, it was anticipated there would be a decrease in emergency room use for non-emergencies. Unfortunately, the opposite has happened straining many resources. Old habits plus convenience and the anticipation of near immediate care, has caused many people with new coverage to flood some emergency rooms for non-emergency care.
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration is contacting hundreds of thousands of people with subsidized health insurance to resolve questions about their eligibility, as consumer advocates express concern that many will be required to repay some or all of the subsidies.
Of the eight million people who signed up for private health plans through insurance exchanges under the new health care law, two million reported personal information that differed from data in government records, according to federal officials and Serco, the company hired to resolve such inconsistencies.
The government is asking consumers for additional documents to verify their income, citizenship, immigration status and Social Security numbers, as well as any health coverage that they may have from employers. People who do not provide the information risk losing their subsidized coverage and may have to repay subsidies next April.
via Thousands to Be Questioned on Eligibility for Health Insurance Subsidies – NYTimes.com.
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