Did we forget that? Our bad

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You know how it is when you are up against Christmas Eve vote deadlines and having to deal with pesky pro-life Congressmen (in our own party, even!) and Senators who want some kick-back love while you are attempting to ram through your 22-hundred page signature legislation... some things are just going to fall through the cracks, right? Stuff happens, right?

State officials are pushing back hard against what they view as shortcomings in the healthcare reform law for fear they'll be barraged with complaints when people have trouble affording insurance.

Federal regulators are writing the rules governing key aspects of the law, including the guidelines to determine who's eligible for subsidies to buy private insurance.

Those benefits will be delivered through state-based exchanges, however, leaving state officials on the receiving end of angry phone calls if glitches in the law aren't ironed out by 2014.

One key shortcoming is found in the law's subsidies for people who don’t have access to affordable coverage through their employer. As The Hill first reported in July, the law links the subsidies to the cost of coverage for a single employee. If that coverage is found to be affordable, the individual does not qualify for subsidies in the state health exchanges.

But the determination is based on the single-employee rate regardless of whether the individual has a spouse and/or children — meaning that someone could end up disqualified from the federal assistance yet unable to afford the family coverage that an employer offers.

(emphasis, ours)


Ooops.

Minor actuarial details like factoring in how many crumb-catchers are laying about the house got left out of the pages of ObamaCare? Shocking.

"Such an outcome would undermine Maryland's goal of reducing the number of uninsured residents," Maryland Health Benefit Exchange officials wrote in comments to the Department of Health and Human Services that were due Monday.

"It could also engender significant frustration with the Exchange among affected families."

But it gets better. There are nine states that don't have individual income tax, including Florida and Texas, so it will be nigh impossible for the IRS to determine who qualifies for federal assistance. (ed. note: it is never, repeat, never a good thing when you are forced to mention the IRS in relation to your health care. But you all knew that.)

NAIC (National Association of Insurance Commissioners) consumer advocate Tim Jost this past week urged the group to take a "leadership role" in pressing states to address potential gaps in the healthcare law's consumer protections.

Self-insured plans are exempt from most of the law's regulations, Jost pointed out, and policies offered by large employers also don't have to meet certain requirements.

Jost also said small businesses are shifting toward self-insurance, so employees will be stuck without benefits Congress intended to provide.

(italics, ours)

Allow us to translate what The Hill article does not: small businesses can't afford the mandates in ObamaCare so it just make more sense for them to apply for a waiver or just drop health care coverage for their employees altogether. So, that means the President's promise that if you liked your health care plan you could keep it, came highly qualified.


Former Speaker Pelosi was right: like cordwood, the shortcomings, gaps, pratfalls and outright lies contained in ObamaCare have been stacking up once our dear leaders passed ObamaCare and we are now getting a chance to see what's actually in it.