U.S. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) (C) walks into the offices of Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) (not pictured) during a rare late-night Saturday session at the U.S. Capitol in Washington, September 28, 2013.
Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst
Showing posts with label delay. Show all posts
Showing posts with label delay. Show all posts
Monday, September 30, 2013
Obama: Government shutdown won't delay healthcare exchange launch
By Lewis Krauskopf
Fri Sep 27, 2013 6:21pm EDT
n">(Reuters) - President Barack Obama said on Friday that the new state insurance exchanges created by his healthcare reform law will launch as scheduled on Tuesday even if the federal government shuts down due to Republican efforts to defund Obamacare.
The new online health exchanges at the heart of Obama's Affordable Care Act are set to open for enrollment on October 1 after years of political attack, offering subsidized health coverage for millions of uninsured Americans. Conservative lawmakers in Congress are pushing to cut out spending for the healthcare law at the threat of shutting down the government on the same day.
"On Tuesday, about 40 million more Americans will be able to finally buy quality affordable healthcare just like anybody else," Obama said in a speech addressing the potential for a shutdown.
"Those marketplaces will be open for business on Tuesday, no matter what, even if there's a government shutdown. That's a done deal."
Obama's statement confirmed speculation that the exchanges would operate regardless of Congress' actions.
The U.S. Health and Human Services Department, the branch of the government overseeing the law's implementation, released its contingency plan on Friday in the event of a potential shutdown.
The department's Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services branch "would continue large portions of ACA activities," according to a document on its Website.
That includes coordination between the Medicaid program for low-income Americans and the insurance marketplaces. Insurance rate reviews and assessments of what portion of premium revenue insurance companies spend on medical services would also continue.
The document said that certain funding for healthcare reform was mandatory and "not affected by a hiatus in annual appropriations," such as the ACA Mandatory Program Management and the ACA Implementation Fund.
The Medicare program for the elderly would also "continue largely without disruption," in the short term. States would also have funding for Medicaid.
Regarding other HHS agencies, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention would continue "minimal support" in the United States and abroad to respond to outbreak investigations, processing lab samples and maintaining an emergency operations center.
The Food and Drug Administration would continue activities to handle emergencies such as high-risk recalls, but "will be unable to support the majority of its food safety, nutrition, and cosmetics activities."
(Reporting by Lewis Krauskopf; Editing by Ken Wills)
Thursday, September 26, 2013
Computer snags delay parts of Obamacare in some U.S. states
By Sharon Begley
NEW YORK | Wed Sep 25, 2013 9:34pm EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - The District of Columbia's online health insurance exchange - one of 51 set up under President Barack Obama's healthcare reform law - will be unable to perform two key functions when it opens on October 1, exchange officials announced on Wednesday.
The District joins Colorado and Oregon on the list of "Obamacare" exchanges hobbled by problems with information technology (IT), contributing to expectations that Obama's signature domestic achievement will get off to a slow start when the exchanges go live next Tuesday.
The "DC Health Link" web-based marketplace, where residents of the nation's capital who do not have other coverage will be able to purchase policies, will lack the ability to calculate whether someone is eligible for Medicaid. It will also be unable to calculate the size of federal subsidies, if any, that a customer qualifies for.
Although numerous online tools created by nonprofit and other groups have offered subsidy calculators for months, "calculating subsidies for real is admittedly more complicated," said one expert. "For example, you have to make sure the family isn't eligible for Medicaid, and you have to collect more detail about their income. That said, I am frankly a little mystified why they couldn't get this right in time."
Under the law, someone whose income is less than four times the federal poverty level, or $45,960 for an individual and $110,280 for a family of five, can receive federal subsidies in the form of tax credits to defray the cost of monthly insurance premiums.
Subsidies are key to making the policies fit the budgets of many uninsured Americans, a primary goal of the 2010 Affordable Care Act. Without subsidies, sticker prices for an individual average $328 but can reach hundreds of dollars higher. But with them, according to the Department of Health and Human Services, an estimated 6.4 million people will be able to purchase policies for less than $100 per month.
Not being able to learn how much of a subsidy one qualifies for could therefore be a significant deterrent to applying for coverage.
"DC Health Link is not currently deploying the function that makes new Medicaid eligibility determinations and calculates tax credits," Mila Kofman, executive director of the DC Health Benefit Exchange Authority, said in a statement. The reason, she said, is "a high error rate discovered through extensive systems testing.
People who might qualify for Medicaid coverage or tax credits will be able to submit an online application for coverage if they are willing to do so without knowing what they'll be paying. Experts will determine their eligibility off-line and applicants will be notified in early November, Kofman said.
Her statement emphasized that DC Health Link "will open for business October 1" and said, "We are excited to announce that ... almost all functionality is operational for individual consumers." Only two sentences buried in the nearly 800-word statement mentioned the glitches.
D.C.'s setback is even more severe than other states'.
ACCURACY PROBLEMS
On Monday, employees running Connect for Health Colorado told board members that the exchange would not be able to calculate federal subsidies either, at least for the first few weeks.
Instead, Coloradoans who wish to buy a policy and learn their eligibility for subsidies will be directed to call customer service representatives, who will do the calculations manually.
Connect for Health Colorado was not "completely satisfied" with the accuracy of the tax credit calculations, said Ben Davis, an outside spokesman for the exchange. "There are 100,000 scenarios they want to test for" - combinations of income, family situation and other factors - "and it takes X amount of time. We just did not have enough time to test."
Colorado will therefore spend two more weeks testing the system "to make sure every possible scenario has been accounted for and providing an accurate response," Davis said.
Connect for Health Colorado will have 187 customer service representatives at its call centers throughout the enrollment period, which ends on March 31.
In another potential glitch, Oregon's exchange reported on Wednesday that its IT problems were causing information about policies that insurers plan to sell on Cover Oregon to appear incorrectly on a test site. As a result, crucial details such as deductibles are incorrect.
"We are in a validation process with our carriers," executive director Rocky King said.
State-based exchanges being run by the federal government reported similar display problems last month.
HHS spokeswoman Joanne Peters played down the IT snafus, saying in a statement that "there will be a marketplace open in every state and D.C. on October 1, where families can comparison shop for quality, affordable health coverage."
(Reporting by Sharon Begley, Lewis Krauskopf and David Morgan; Editing by Cynthia Osterman)
Wednesday, April 17, 2013
Fed anti-money-laundering concerns to delay M&T-Hudson deal
Buildings are reflected in the window of an M&T Bank branch in New York August 27, 2012.
Credit: Reuters/Brendan McDermidBy Frank McGurtyNEW YORK | Fri Apr 12, 2013 10:17am EDT
NEW YORK (Reuters) - M&T Bank Corp's (MTB.N) proposed purchase of Hudson City Bancorp Inc (HCBK.O) will probably take more time to close than previously expected because of U.S. regulatory concerns over anti-money-laundering procedures, the banks said on Friday.
Buffalo, New York-based M&T has hired an outside consultant to help it address the concerns raised by regulators at the U.S. Federal Reserve, it said in a statement. It did not immediately identify the consultant.
Shares of M&T fell nearly 4 percent to $100.99 on Friday morning, while Paramus, New Jersey-based Hudson City's stock dropped 5.2 percent to $8.31.
When the deal was announced in August, it was worth $7.22 for each Hudson City share, or a total of about $3.7 billion.
At the time, the banks said they expected the closing in the second quarter of 2013. Given the delay, they have extended the date after which either could abandon the proposed acquisition to January 31 from August 27.
M&T, which has Warren Buffett's Berkshire Hathaway Inc (BRKa.N) as a major shareholder, aims to expand its presence on the U.S. East Coast by buying Hudson City, which has branches in New Jersey and other parts of the New York City area.
The deal, which would create a combined network of about 870 branches, is expected to boost M&T's earnings as soon as it closes.
The purchase price and exchange ratio announced in August will remain the same, the Friday statement said, and both companies will proceed with shareholder meetings scheduled for later this month to vote on the deal.
Hudson City shareholders are to receive M&T shares for 60 percent of the purchase, plus cash for other 40 percent. The total value per Hudson City share is fixed at 0.08403 M&T share.
The amount of cash will increase or decrease with the price of M&T stock until the deal's closing.
(Reporting by Frank McGurty; Editing by Gerald E. McCormick and Lisa Von Ahn)
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