Same-sex marriage bans challenged in Ohio and Colorado

Given that courts everywhere are overturning bans on same-sex marriage I was wondering why it had not been challenged in Oho, which passed by referendum a constitutional amendment banning it in 2004 in the heyday of anti-gay fervor. But yesterday comes news that a family living in a nearby community to mine that is headed by a same-sex couple with an adopted child had challenged it because Ohio’s definition of marriage excludes them from obtaining cheaper health insurance coverage under the Affordable Care Act.
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Sense and nonsense about the CBO report

One of the worst aspects of the current US health insurance system is that it is employer-based, which means that people can get trapped into jobs just in order to get health insurance, a phenomenon that has been given the name of ‘job lock’. So any improvements in the system that would enable people to get affordable health care outside of employment was bound to result in people deciding to leave their jobs voluntarily, either to stay at home to look after children or others who need them, to start their own businesses, to freelance, and so on. [Read more…]

Health care costs and the ACA

Steven Brill has an article in Time describing how some of the very people who would benefit most from the Affordable Care Act have been misled by the virulent anti-Obamacare campaign to think that it is a terrible program and would do nothing for them. He also highlights the way that hospital monopolies and the reluctance of people to change providers prevent a truly competitive system from being created that would lower costs. [Read more…]

The sad plight of poor people in Republican-controlled states

It turns out that about 6 million people have signed up for lower-cost health insurance under either the health care exchanges or are eligible for the Medicaid expansion under the Affordable Care Act, the latter being designed to take care of those who earned too little to be eligible for the former. That is undoubtedly good news. [Read more…]

Medicaid expansion in Ohio survives court challenge

The good news out of Ohio is that the Medicaid expansion program has been upheld by the courts. This was part of the Affordable Care Act that was meant to take care of the people who fell into a gap, who earned too much (although still poor) to be eligible for Medicaid but did not earn enough to get affordable insurance through the new health exchanges. [Read more…]

Medicaid expansion efforts in Ohio

The Affordable Care Act has two main elements. One is to provide affordable health insurance to working people through the health care exchanges but these can be taken advantage of only by people who are working and roughly in the middle class in terms of income but do not have health insurance through their employers. It is this part that was inaugurated on October 1 and has received a lot of attention. [Read more…]

The most disgusting aspect of the Affordable Care Act battle

Whatever one may think of the Affordable Care Act, there are some incontrovertible benefits that it provides. It makes health insurance affordable for the tens of millions of people (many of whom are children) who currently do not have employer-based coverage and could not get insurance on the private markets because of the high cost and/or because they had pre-existing conditions. This situation was an absolute scandal, forcing people to forego not only the peace of mind that comes with knowing that one can see a doctor or go to a hospital if needed, but also not being able to afford treatment for life-threatening illnesses. [Read more…]