Breaking Down Today's Conflicting Obamacare Court Rulings
July 22, 2014 - TheBlaze.com
Two federal appeals courts released conflicting decisions on Tuesday on the legality of giving people subsidies to buy Obamacare health plans under the federal healthcare exchange.  Tuesday morning, a panel in the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia found that a plain reading of Obamacare says that only people who buy insurance from a state-run exchange can be given subsidies. That decision had Republicans cheering, and calling it a significant blow to the law that could unravel it entirely if millions of people were suddenly not eligible for subsidies... Read More

Half of U.S. Adults Fail �€˜Health Insurance 101,' Misidentify Common Financial Terms in Plans
Aug 29, 2013 - InsuranceBroadcasting.com
The telephone survey of 1,008 U.S. adults conducted late last month found that more than half, 51 percent, could not accurately identify at least one of three common health insurance terms: premium, deductible and copay. A third, 34 percent, thought a premium was an expense at the time of receiving medical service or a prescription; more than a quarter, 27 percent, thought a copay was the cost of obtaining insurance; and 12 percent did not know a deductible is the money one pays before an insurance company makes payments....

ObamaCare penalty: Your family could pay more for insurance
Aug 20, 2013 - CNBC
"For a lot of people, that may be a better deal," said Jonathan Wu, co-founder of the price-comparison site ValuePenguin.com. "We're talking like thousands of dollars... (in some cases) if the company didn't pay any part of the employee's premium for the company-offered insurance, the entire family would significantly benefit financially under the Obamacare rule. "

UPS drops healthcare plans for spouses of 15,000 employees
Aug 24, 2013 - Christian Science Monitor
UPS has told nonunion employees that their spouses will no longer be eligible for company-sponsored health insurance if they can get coverage through their own jobs, blaming the decision on President Obama's health-care reform law.

Utah - 99 health insurance choices in Exchange
Aug 24 2013 - Salt Lake Tribune
Utah Department of Insurance announces that there will be 6 Insurance companies and 99 unique health plan choices in Utah's Insurance Exchange Marketplace. The participating insurers are Altius Health Plans, Arches Mutual Insurance Co., BridgeSpan Health Co., Humana Medical Plan of Utah, Molina and SelectHealth. Open Enrollment begins October 1, 2013 for the January 1 2014 Effective date. Utah is using the Federal Exchange. Call (435) 767-1415 for more information

Delta Airlines claim: health care costs will rise $100 Million in 2014
Aug 23, 2013 - Fox News
Delta Air Lines has issued an urgent warning about the impact of ObamaCare, claiming the law's implementation will contribute to a roughly $100 million increase in health care costs next year alone. 

Obamacare's FSA cap reduction: hurts families of disabled children
Aug 1, 2013 - Daily Caller
President Obama's Affordable Care Act, known as �€œObamacare,�€� will make it more difficult for parents of special-needs children to pay for tuition at special schools and to purchase medical equipment, according to a new report.  More than 30 million Americans place money into a pre-tax Flexible Spending Account (FSA) through their employers to help save emergency funds to pay for their families' medical costs. Obamacare institutes a brand new $2,500 cap for FSAs, which will make more money taxable and could raise $13 billion in taxes for the federal government over the next decade.

July 22, 2014 - FoxBusiness.com
WASHINGTON �€“ Two federal appeals court rulings put the issue of ObamaCare subsidies in limbo Tuesday, with one court invalidating some of them and the other upholding all of them.  The first decision came Tuesday morning from a three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The panel, in a major blow to the law, ruled 2-1 that the IRS went too far in extending subsidies to those who buy insurance through the federally run exchange, known as HealthCare.gov.  A separate federal appeals court -- the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals -- hours later issued its own ruling on a similar case that upheld the subsidies in their entirety... Read More

Not a Single State to be completely ready
Sep 11, 2013 - ABC 4 News Utah
The Affordable Care Act is likely to have a rocky enrollment start on Oct. 1 in some U.S. states, because of ongoing technology challenges facing new online health insurance exchanges, a leading expert told U.S. lawmakers on Tuesday. �€œAt this moment, not a single state appears to be completely ready,�€� W. Brett Graham of the Salt Lake City-based consulting firm Leavitt Partners said in testimony to a Republican-controlled oversight panel in the House of Representatives. Read More

Aug 30, 2013 - ABC 4 News Utah
As Secretary of Health, Leavitt had to implement the Medicare prescription drug benefits for the first time. He sees the similarities with implementing Obamacare and says it is a very difficult task. "It requires getting lots of systems together and training people and frankly, I think it is going to be a fairly chaotic and imperfect time." Leavitt says some of the issues are due to the fact the federal government is dealing with a private industry business. "My experience tells me if you use government as a tool to organize things as opposed to operating things - it works out better. And the ACA essentially uses government to operate a lot of things. And I think it will prove they are not particularly good at it."

Will ObamaCare will have a hard time with Uninsured in Utah
Aug 29, 2013 - Salt Lake Tribune
"The success of the Affordable Care Act in Utah hinges on getting these and other pockets of uninsured residents to shop on the online insurance exchanges opening Oct. 1. And by all accounts, it won't be easy. "Most of the people I talk to have no idea this is even coming, even among the business community," said Lorena Riffo-Jenson, director of community outreach for Arches Health Plan."

Regence Blue Cross pulls out of Utah Group Insurance Exchange
Aug 14 2013 - Salt Lake Tribune
One of Utah's largest health insurance companies has abandoned.com/">Avenue H, the state's much-touted "shop exchange" for small businesses. Regence BlueCross BlueShield has participated in the insurance marketplace since its inception in 2009. But its health plans will not be among those available to shoppers on Oct. 1 when Obamacare's insurance exchanges go live.

Utah lets Feds, group promote Individual Marketplace
July 24 2013 - Deseret News
Utah isn't spending money to promote the new health insurance marketplace for individuals. But as implementation of the federal health law approaches, community and advocacy groups are gearing up to get the word out... Blue states such as California, Colorado and Connecticut are each receiving more than $4 per person for outreach or promotion of the law. Utah, a Republican-dominated state where political leaders have been hostile to the law, is getting about 71 cents per person for awareness and outreach to help uninsured residents find coverage.

Obamacare hurts those who most need help
June 23, 2013 - San Diego Tribune
"It is becoming increasingly apparent that Obamacare is going to make health care unaffordable to a shockingly large number of poor people �€” many of them single and childless... Some of this increase is a result of so-called 'community rating,' which means insurance companies can no longer fully take differences in health into account when pricing health insurance for residents of a geographical location...

Utah will use Federal Insurance Exchange
Feb 13 2013 - Salt Lake Tribune
Gov. Gary Herbert said Tuesday he's asked the federal government to handle the newly mandated health insurance exchange for individual consumers while allowing the state to continue to run a similar program for small businesses.