“More Solid Proof That Obamacare Is Working”

Hi guys,

The President and First Lady are in London today. Lots of royal stuff, including a last-minute addition of a meeting with William and Kate (OMG! OMG! OMG!!!!! ;).

Full coverage on BBC and Sky News and every freaking British channel. The Guardian live blog is here.

As for the US media, I don’t have any idea what they’re gonna show.  I do know that they’ll hate it…

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Here’s something excellent  for all of us to spread around:

Rick Unger:  More Solid Proof That Obamacare Is Working

Recent data provided by the nation’s largest health insurance companies reveals that a provision of the Affordable Care Act – or Obamacare – is bringing big numbers of the uninsured into the health care insurance system.

And they are precisely the uninsured that we want– the young people who tend not to get sick.

The provision of the law that permits young adults under 26, long the largest uninsured demographic in the country, to remain on their parents’ health insurance program resulted in at least 600,000 newly insured Americans during the first quarter of 2011.

Wellpoint, the nation’s largest publicly traded health insurer with some 34 million customers, reports adding 280,000 new members in the first three months of 2011.

Add in the results of some of the other large health insurers including Aetna, who added just short of 100,000 newly insured to their customer base, Kaiser Permanente’s additional 90,000, and Highmark’s 72,000 new customers, and we begin to sense our health insurance pools are filling up with some badly needed young blood.

The Health & Human Services Department had estimated that the changes in the law would result in about 1.2 million new enrollees in 2011. However, according to Aaron Smith, the executive director of a Washington based non-profit that advocates for the young, it now looks as if that number will be exceeded.

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Meanwhile, things continue to improve on the small business front where business owners are being heavily incentivized to offer health care benefits to employees.

As I wrote in January, there has been a significant uptick in small businesses taking advantage of the tax benefits offered by the ACA to provide health insurance to employees where they previously did not do so.

According to a Kaiser survey, there has been a 46% uptick in businesses with less than 10 employees offering health benefits as compared to last year.

That is a big number.

Further improving the outlook, the IRS has, in the past month, issued guidelines for small businesses which very much bolster the tax credits offered. Included in those guidelines are provisions that clarify that the tax credit will not be reduced by a state health care tax credit or subsidy (except in limited circumstances to prevent abuse of the credit); that small businesses can receive the credit not only for traditional health insurance coverage but also for add-on dental, vision, and other limited-scope coverage; and detailed guidance on how a small business can determine whether it is eligible and how large a credit it will receive.

Health care reform is working, folks – and we have yet to get to the really big benefits which kick in come 2014.

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Heeeeeeeeeeee.

He kissed my cheek,” said teacher Anne Maher, 50. “I’m not gonna wash that cheek for a lifetime. And my husband isn’t getting near it, either.”

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I’ll try to update as much as I can throughout the day, or at least whenever real life won’t get in the way. 

Have a great and positive day.