Republicans blasted the White House on Monday after President Obama’s administration announced premiums for his signature health care law will rise sharply next year and many consumers would be down to just one insurer.
Trump added that his Democratic rival, Hillary Clinton, "wants to double down and make it more expensive and it's not gonna work. ... Our country can't afford it, you can't afford it." He promised his own plan would deliver "great health care at a fraction of the cost."
House Speaker Paul Ryan's office predicted Thursday that President Obama would continue to have a hard time selling Obamacare to millennials, since it's too expensive and has cut down the number of available jobs for millions of young adults.
"Obamacare has been anything but a hit with millennials — the group has among the highest rates of uninsured in the country," Ryan's office said in a Thursday morning email. "This, of course, is much to the dismay of the Obama administration — that whole subsidizing thing isn't exactly working out as planned."
​At the same time, officials have acknowledged that millions of people remain uninsured, including many young, healthy people who are needed to make the program viable. Officials have already been floating the the idea of a government-funded healthcare option to get them covered.
MetLife will no longer be using Snoopy, Charlie Brown or any other members of the Peanuts gang in its ad campaigns.
The insurance giant said Thursday it was ditching the beloved Charles Schulz characters in favor of a new image that the company claims will reflect "a clean, modern aesthetic."
So instead of a giant blimp featuring Snoopy in his World War I pilot gear, MetLife said that it will have an M in blue and green colors.
MetLife has always had blue as one of the main colors in its logo. The green apparently "represents life, renewal and energy." Uhh. Okay.
The marketing shift comes as MetLife prepares to spin off a chunk of its consumer life insurance business to shareholders as a new company called Brighthouse Financial. The "old" MetLife will focus more on group life insurance and international operations.
Democratic governor says Affordable Care Act "no longer affordable"
Minnesota’s Democratic governor said Wednesday that the Affordable Care Act is “no longer affordable,” a stinging critique from a state leader who strongly embraced the law just a few years ago.
Gov. Mark Dayton made the comments while addressing questions about Minnesota’s fragile health insurance market, where individual plans are facing double-digit increases after all insurers threatened to exit the market entirely in 2017.
They follow cost concerns and criticism nationwide, including President Bill Clinton saying last week that the law was “the craziest thing in the world” before he backtracked.
“The reality is the Affordable Care Act is no longer affordable for increasing numbers of people,” Dayton said, calling on Congress to fix the law to address rising costs and market stability.
Harken Health — billed as an "innovative" health insurer and started by America's biggest insurance company to appeal to Obamacare customers — will exit the only two government-run exchange markets where it was selling coverage after reportedly booking losses of about $70 million in the first half of this year.
But its departure in 2017 from the Obamacare exchanges that serve those cities represents another setback for advocates of the Affordable Care Act and their efforts to offer individual health plan customers a broad range of affordable coverage options.
Harken in August said it was abandoning plans to sell Obamacare exchange coverage in Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, next year.
​And Harken's parent, UnitedHealth, earlier this year said it would itself exit most Obamacare exchanges, including the federal marketplace that services Illinois, in 2017.
Minnesota Commerce Commissioner Mike Rothman today released the 2017 insurance company rates for individual and small group health plans – saying that rate increases in the individual market are unsustainable but that tax credits available through MNsure will help many Minnesotans.
About five percent of Minnesotans (approximately 250,000) currently get their coverage from individual policies, while another five percent get coverage from small group policies, which are for employers with fewer than 50 workers.
The individual market rates apply only to health insurance plans that Minnesotans purchase for themselves and their families through MNsure, insurance agents or the insurance companies directly. The rates do not affect most Minnesotans, who are covered by employer-based insurance or public programs like Medicare, Medicaid and MinnesotaCare.
Rothman encouraged consumers to contact MNsure to see if they are eligible for federal tax credits that automatically reduce monthly premiums. The tax credits are available only for individual policies purchased through MNsure for people with incomes up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level. The upper income threshold for tax credit eligibility in 2017 is $47,520 for an individual and $97,200 for a family of four.
The Commerce Department does not set health insurance rates. Instead, it reviews each company’s rate proposals to make sure they comply with state and federal laws based on the benefits that consumers receive and the company’s ability to collect adequate premium revenue to pay for consumers’ medical claims. Insurers must provide coverage for a comprehensive set of essential health benefits, and they are no longer allowed to deny coverage or charge higher premiums to consumers based on preexisting health conditions.
​Continue reading this news release at the Minnesota Department of Commerce's website.