Sunday, January 11, 2015

Pence And Zoeller Asking Supreme Court To Cancel 118,000 Hoosier Health Insurance Policies

Gov. Mike Pence and Attorney General Greg Zoeller want to stop Hoosiers who have no other option than to purchase health insurance from an Affordable Care Act exchange that offers subsidies from obtaining health insurance. If those Hoosiers are unable to purchase those policies, they will have no health insurance because it's too costly to obtain health insurance coverage in the private marketplace without the subsidies. The self-employed and people working for a growing number of employers who offer their employees no health insurance have no other choice than to purchase health insurance offered on the exchanges. Because Gov. Pence opposed the health care law, he stubbornly refused to enact a health care exchange. Now he and Greg Zoeller are asking the U.S. Supreme Court to declare it unlawful for Hoosiers dependent on those subsidies offered by the ACA to obtain them, effectively leaving them without any health insurance.

The Northwest Indiana Times' Dan Carden has more on their efforts to take away health insurance from at least 118,000 Hoosiers:
In the filing, written by Indiana Solicitor General Thomas Fisher, a Jasper County native, the state argues any plain text reading of the 2010 health law clearly requires state creation of an insurance marketplace as a condition of that state's citizens receiving federal subsidies to purchase health insurance policies through the marketplace. 
Pence ruled out Indiana establishing a state health marketplace, also known as an exchange, in one of his first pronouncements after winning election in November 2012. The Republican-controlled General Assembly similarly has refused to create an Indiana insurance marketplace. 
The governor has said he has no interest in reversing that action even though approximately 118,000 Hoosiers now receiving health insurance subsidies, worth on average $4,000 each, will lose that money — and likely their health insurance — and may even have to pay back past subsidies, if Pence's argument prevails at the Supreme Court. 
"I stand by our decision not to establish a state-based exchange in Indiana," Pence said. "The truth is, I think that ordering every American to purchase health insurance — whether they want it, or need it or not — was the wrong idea to begin with, and I think Obamacare should be repealed." . . .
These people are playing with people's lives. I realize they care more about what the billionaire Koch brothers think about them than what average Hoosiers struggling to survive think, but to take away a benefit from Hoosiers conferred upon other Americans by virtue of this law because of their ideological opposition to it is asinine and cruelty beyond thought. Both of these men and their families have received free health care courtesy of the taxpayers most of their adult lives. They have no clue how difficult it is to find affordable health care coverage. I get sick and tired of them pretending to support Christian values and then pushing public policy outcomes that could not possibly be more cruel and arbitrary. The fact is that the whole system fails if this law is not made to work. There is no free marketplace any more in the health insurance market, and there hasn't been for a long time. If these men get their way, they are dealing the death penalty to people who have no other choices left and simply want to live with the security of having health care coverage.

On the congressional front, House Republicans passed legislation sponsored by Indiana's U.S. Rep. Todd Young to move the definition of full-time employment from 30 to 40 hours under the ACA, another change favored by the billionaire elites the members of Congress serve. Democratic Sen. Joe Donnelly, who is controlled by the same group of billionaires, plans to sponsor the legislation in the Senate. The lower hourly requirement was imposed because lawmakers knew greedy, larger employers would simply reduce their workers' hours below the 40-hour threshold to evade the requirements under the law. So these people want to allow large employers to stop providing health insurance to employees working any less than 40 hours a week, which is the new reality for many in the workplace. And if Pence and Zoeller get their way, those same Hoosiers without insurance won't be able to afford to buy their own insurance because the policies offered in the workplace without subsidies aren't affordable. Whatever happened to the Contract With America where Republicans pledged to live under the same laws under which all other Americans are required to live?

15 comments:

Anonymous said...

Zoeller and Pence hate poorer people. Repeat........HATE.

Pete Boggs said...

The so called ACA is a Gruber acknowledged conspiracy to commit fraud; by the administration, big insurance & pharma. Madoff's ponzi scheme was minor league compared to Obamacare. Fraud is not binding as law on the American people, it's not a tax or product; but a crime.

Why would states or anyone enjoin this fraud conspiracy; to be named as defendants at a future date? Yes, real people are being hurt by fraud; not by those resisting it. If we remain a nation of laws; the guilty had better prepare to pay damages. If we're no longer a nation of laws; law is whatever any one person says it is.

The ACA is an apparition, it exists only as a scheme & not as a viable product. The remedy for victims of fraud exists within what's known to be law.

Flogger said...

Gov. Mike Pence and Attorney General Greg Zoeller oppose ACA. OK what is their plan. Oh yeah the nonexistent Free Market. Their phoney Christianity is on display, but their rabid supporters are more concerned about Gay Marriage.

Heath Care in the USA is similar to Higher Education - it is there if and only if you can afford it. The answer could have been a National Public Option, but the Public Option never made it to the table for consideration. There are many countries in Western Europe, Canada or Japan that we could have looked to for ideas. But hey lets build a square wheel and see how it works, or lets not build anything.

You are correct the cruelty of Pence and Zoeller seem to have no boundary event horizon. They have set themselves above and beyond the citizens they were elected to Serve.

I suspect Pence would find no problem with subsidizing the Colts and Pacers.

Gary R. Welsh said...

He signed into law the $100 million give-away to the Indianapolis Motor Speedway so you're probably right that he has no problem providing government subsidies for the Colts and Pacers as well.

Anonymous said...

Mitch gave Mikey Pence, Jr. a full ride scholarship to attend Purdue so the Pence household wouldn't have to worry about the outrageous higher education costs like the rest of Hoosier families.

Anonymous said...

I would like to see a list of the purchasers of Karen Pence's crappy water color paintings and how much they are paying for them. It would make for a nice little conduit to supplement the Pence household income.

Anonymous said...

I have a great deal of respect for this blog and your opinions, and no great admiration for Mike Pence or Republicans but your are way off on this one.

Health insurance and the costs to obtain health care is a DIRECT result of the staggering amount of prior government intervention, Obamacare being the grotesque icing on the interventionist cake. That is the reason people struggle to afford both the insurance and the actual care.

I lost my health insurance on 12/31/13 because my insurance company left the business as a direct result of Obamacare (Pekin Insurance out of Illinois). I now participate in a christian healthshare ministry.

It is wrong to accept this grossly immoral, unethical law and it should be fought tooth and nail. I am sorry that many people cannot afford insurance w/o a subsidy from their fellow citizens, in fact I am one of them. I change my life as necessary to take responsibility for myself. It is wrong to ask my fellow citizens to support me involuntarily and I will not do it.

It would be better for all of us that struggle to afford health care if Obamacare and every other intervention were finally repealed and a true free market restored.

They will be repealed whether the state of Indiana and the national government do it or not. It will happen when The Great Default descends on this nation.

Gary R. Welsh said...

The Medicare and Medicaid programs created long before the ACA came along have been the driving force in shifting health care costs to the point of making private health insurance in this country unaffordable. Over 120 million qualify for Medicare or Medicaid. A pregnant woman from Mexico can walk across the border illegally, show up at a hospital to give birth to her child and automatically qualify for free health care. Yet tens of millions of Americans who've lived and worked here their entire lives can't find affordable health insurance in the private market. Simply standing up and saying repeal the ACA does nothing to fix the problem, and that's where the cruelty comes into play. If Pence has a replacement plan that will ensure affordable health care, then let's hear it. He doesn't have such a plan, and he doesn't care what will happen to people who can't afford to pay for it.

Anonymous said...

Gary,

They're not Christians. They're Evangelicals. Evangelicals are a homemade quasi-Jewish offshoot of Christianity.

You must always understand that Evangelicals are not Christians.

Evangelicals are a self-made restoration of Old Testament Jews who only sort of accept Jesus as a divine prophet.

Evangelicals are a religion built around respect for money and power. In their religious services, Evangelicals worship the United States military, the United States as a country, police officers, less government, the immorality of government intruding on corporate activity and the obligation of all citizens to keep their place in the corporate economy. They preach all of this blasphemy right from the pulpit. Evangelical churches even keep an American flag on the altar.

Don't think that Evangelicals worship Christ or walk in fellowship with Christ's mission. Were he alive, today, Evangelicals would hate Christ. Evangelicals simply find Christ and Christianity useful as the European religion that keeps order and gives an official stamp of divine approval for having everyone know their place.

Anonymous said...

"Health insurance and the costs to obtain health care is a DIRECT result of the staggering amount of prior government intervention,"

Intervention written, lobbied for and paid for by medical providers and insurance companies.

These players can't complain about legislation only when it doesn't benefit their interests.

Anonymous said...

It seems that the Health Advantage is an alternative. Health Advantage is a managed care program providing high quality, seamless medical care to low-income and uninsured residents of Indianapolis. All Marion County residents that fall at or below 200 percent of the federal poverty level and do not qualify for any other assistance program are eligible. - See more at:

Anonymous said...

ObamaCare is a miserable failure. I support our governor's decision.

There are alternatives to ObamaCare that far exceed the problems of the ObamaCare bureaucracy.

Anonymous said...

Anon @ 3:26 said..
"Intervention written, lobbied for and paid for by medical providers and insurance companies"

So what...it is still the guns of government that implemented the interventions. It is still the terrible distortions of Medicare, Medicaid, mandates, tax treatment of employer-paid plans, regulations beyond the knowledge of any person, and all topped off by Obamacare that has all but destroyed the efficient, effective market for health care.

The medical providers and insurance companies couldn't make you or I do it their way. ONLY the guns of the government can do that.

Anonymous said...

Glad I had insurance through the exchange when my new dr. didn't do a complete physical for cbc and differentials and missed cancer for ten weeks...
karma

Anonymous said...

Gary,

You might find this story interesting:

http://www.theguardian.com/money/2015/jan/12/us-healthcare-system-leaves-brits-baffled-enraged