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Tuesday, October 22, 2013
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PrintOhio panel OK's Medicaid expansion in win for Obamacare
By Kim Palmer
CLEVELAND (Reuters) - An Ohio legislative panel on Monday voted in favor of the state expanding its Medicaid program for the poor in a victory for President Barack Obama's signature federal health reform law.
The decision permits Governor John Kasich, a Republican who otherwise opposes the reform law known as the Affordable Care Act, to bypass the state's Republican-dominated legislature to expand Medicaid, a move strongly opposed by many Ohio conservatives.
Ohio joins 25 states and the District of Columbia in either moving forward with expanding Medicaid or requesting modifications to the plan. Medicaid expansion is a major plank of Obama's health reform law, which aims to ensure that all Americans have access to affordable health insurance.
"I think Ohio and its decision to move forward will be a big incentive for others to look at both the human costs and the fiscal and economic impact," said Diane Rowland, executive vice president of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health care policy.
The decision to expand Medicaid by the seventh most populous state presents a victory for the law, coming on the same day Obama has said he is "frustrated" over the problematic launch of the government website for the program.
Kasich endorsed the Medicaid expansion in February, but state lawmakers failed to act on it. Going through the Ohio Controlling Board, a special legislative panel composed of six legislators and one Kasich appointee, provided an alternate path for the governor.
The Board voted 5-2 to approve the use of $2.5 billion in federal money, which the governor has said would cover 275,000 additional low-income Ohio residents, starting in January and continuing through June 2015.
Though the expansion plan had the support of prominent medical and business groups, such as the Ohio Manufacturers' Association and the state's Chamber of Commerce, some conservatives are expected to sue. Nearly 40 Republican legislators last week formally protested Kasich's request to the board, which represents a majority of the Republican caucus in the state House.
"The basis for this government is supposed to be that everybody gets to vote," said State Rep. Louis Terhar, a Republican, on the panel's decision. "What just happened in there is that 90 percent of the people in Ohio just got disenfranchised because they didn't get to vote."
Ohio Senate President Keith Faber, a Republican, said the Senate is introducing legislation to "rein in the Controlling Board's ability to make such sweeping adjustments in budget items that are better considered by the legislature as a whole."
More than 8 million Americans are expected to receive health coverage under the new Medicaid definition in 2014. Rowland said the expanded definition will help the working poor, particularly low-income adults without dependent children.
(Reporting by Kim Palmer in Cleveland and Jo Ingles in Columbus. Editing by Andre Grenon; Writing by Mary Wisniewski; Editing by Greg McCune and Dan Grebler)
- Politics & Government
- Government
- President Barack Obama
- John Kasich
- Medicaid
- Ohio
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Calling all Android Developers: Schedule your appearance on Android Central Live!
Join us on stage and show off your apps!
If you missed it, earlier today we announced that Android Central is the official community partner of the Samsung Developers Conference. As official community partner, we're going to be streaming a live show from the conference floor Oct. 28-29. Android Central Live will feature our very own Phil Nickinson and Andrew Martonik, plus interviews with Samsung reps, speakers, thought leaders … and YOU.
Android Central is excited to produce this show, not only as a service to our amazing community, but to provide a platform for Android developers looking to show off their apps. If you're going to be at the conference, you should join us on stage because it's going to be a lot of fun!
If you're a developer planning to attend the event, consider this your casting call!
We're busy setting up our interview schedule RIGHT NOW, so if you'd like to appear on Android Central Live, now is the time to act. Email me at james@mobilenations.com ASAP to request an interview slot. Tell me what you'd like to talk about, if you have an app to demo, and basically blow me away with the awesome Android goodness you're going to bring to the stage.
See you in San Francisco!
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Monday, October 21, 2013
Linksys to resume building network hardware for small- to medium-size businesses
If Cisco thought it was unloading a consumer brand that no longer fit with its enterprise focus by selling its Linksys business unit to Belkin, Cisco's in for a surprise: Belkin is embarking on an ambitious campaign to once again make Linksys a major player in the SMB networking market.
"Linksys had been successfully selling SMB infrastructure products into the marketplace for more than 20 years," said Ben Thacker, global vice president of Belkin enterprise business. "Linksys was one of the largest suppliers of switches and routers into the 5- to 99-seat environment. Now under the Belkin International organization we know the Linksys brand can be successful again catering to this environment."
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Indeed, Linksys had significant shares of both the consumer and SMB markets when Cisco acquired it in 2003. But Cisco rebadged Linksys's business-oriented hardware as Cisco products and used the Linksys brand solely for consumer devices. A source inside Linksys, however, tells me that many of the Linksys business-unit engineers remained and came over to Belkin as part of the acquisition.
Belkin, meanwhile, is best known as a consumer-electronics manufacturer, selling cables, smartphone and tablet cases, outlet strips, webcams, and simple home-automation devices. But dig a little deeper and you'll find that Belkin has a robust line of business-oriented products, too, ranging from KVM (keyboard, video, mouse) hardware for controlling rack-mounted servers to the hulking racks those servers are mounted into.
Belkin's first Linksys-branded products after the acquisition were aimed at consumers, but starting in November and continuing into 2014, the privately held company will launch a host of new Linksys products into the SMB market.
The first wave, which Belkin will announce in November, will include a line of unmanaged gigabit switches with between 5 and 24 ports. Dual- and single-WAN VPN routers are the next item on the roadmap, and these will be followed by single- and dual-band 802.11n wireless access points, and dual-band 802.11ac wireless access points.
The Network Magic software that Linksys acquired from Pure Networks a number of years ago will also apparently be returning to the limelight.
In January, Belkin intends to ship Linksys-branded indoor and outdoor IP surveillance cameras, along with a two-bay network video recorder. In the March/April timeframe, Belkin plans to announce a line of managed gigabit switches in configurations ranging from 8 to 52 ports, as well as some PoE (power-over-ethernet) switches.
Later in 2014, Belkin will introduce cloud-management solutions (although the company revealed few details as to what that will entail). This will be followed by an office-automation initiative that will include Belkin's existing WeMo product line for power management and lighting controls with some new products the Linksys team is working on.
The Linksys divestiture ended Cisco's involvement in the consumer market, so one has to wonder if the company's management imagined they'd end up competing with their former business unit in the business market. This should be fun to watch.
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Obama: 'No excuse' for health care signup problems
President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
President Barack Obama gestures while speaking in the Rose Garden of the White House in Washington, Monday, Oct. 21, 2013, on the initial rollout of the health care overhaul. Obama acknowledged that the widespread problems with his health care law's rollout are unacceptable, as the administration scrambles to fix the cascade of computer issues. (AP Photo/ Evan Vucci)
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama on Monday offered "no excuses" — and little explanation — for the computer bugs still frustrating Americans who are trying to enroll online for insurance plans at the center of his health care law. But software developers tasked with building the site said they saw signs a year ago that the debut could fail.
One source of the troubles appears to be the testing procedures employed before the rollout three weeks ago. Several developers of the HealthCare.gov website told The Associated Press they were worried for months about the system's readiness and whether the software meant to link key computer systems was being properly put through its paces.
In addition, congressional investigators raised concerns before the rollout that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services had taken on the job of testing the computer systems for the new markets during the final weeks before the sign-ups opened Oct. 1. That job is often handled by specialized software companies.
Obama, who emphasized the website's simplicity in the week's leading up to the insurance sign-ups, admitted there could now be "no sugarcoating" the problems even as he talked up the benefits of the law at a Rose Garden event that had the feel of a pep rally.
"The website that's supposed to make it easy to apply for and purchase the insurance is not working the way it should for everybody," he said.
He insisted that the problems would be fixed and all Americans seeking insurance would be able to sign up. But it was not clear how quickly that would happen. The administration is beefing up call centers and encouraging more people to enroll over the phone while the website problems persist.
The flood of computer problems since the website went online has been deeply embarrassing for the White House. The glitches have called into question whether the administration is capable of implementing the complex policy and why senior White House officials — including the president — appear to have been unaware of the scope of the problems when the health insurance markets, known as exchanges, opened.
Obama stopped short of apologizing for the failures, saying instead that "nobody is more frustrated than me."
Even as he spoke, more problems came to light. The administration acknowledged that a planned upgrade to the website had been postponed indefinitely and that online Spanish-language signups would remain unavailable, despite a promise to Hispanic groups that the capability would start this week.
The White House says additional technology experts from both inside and outside the government are being brought in to work on the failures.
Administration officials initially blamed heavy website traffic for the frozen computer screens that many people encountered when they first logged on. Since then, they have also acknowledged shortcomings with software and some elements of the system's design, although the administration has yet to fully detail exactly what went wrong with the online system and who was responsible for the problems.
It appears the problems were well-known to some of those designing the system. One developer said that in the weeks leading up to the Oct. 1 launch, he and his colleagues huddled in conference rooms trying to patch deficiencies in computer code.
"It was an extremely tight deadline," said the developer, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was told not to talk to the news media about his work.
A review of internal structural diagrams obtained by AP also revealed the complexity of the system. The diagrams show that applicants must submit at least 50 pieces of personal information, including income and immigration status. That data is then connected to at least eight distinct federal computer systems, including the Social Security Administration and the Peace Corps.
The schematics from late 2012 show how officials preferred a "data services hub" — a traffic cop of sorts for managing information — instead of a setup that would have allowed state exchanges to connect directly to government servers when verifying an applicant's information.
On Sunday, the Department of Health and Human Services said the data hub was working, but the initial consumer experience had not lived up to the public's expectations. "We are committed to doing better."
Administration officials have so far refused to say how many people have actually managed to enroll in insurance during the three weeks since the new marketplaces became available. Without enrollment numbers, it's impossible to know whether the program is on track to reach the projections from the Congressional Budget Office, which estimated 7 million people would gain coverage during the first year the exchanges were available.
Officials have instead pointed selectively to figures putting the insurance exchanges in a positive light. They say more than 19 million people have logged on to the federal website and nearly 500,000 have filled out applications for insurance through both the federal and state-run sites. The applications must be completed before people can enroll in insurance policies.
An internal memo obtained by the AP showed that the administration had projected nearly a half million people would actually enroll for the insurance markets during the first month.
Uninsured Americans have until about mid-February to sign up for coverage if they are to meet the law's requirement that they be insured by the end of March. If they don't, they will face a penalty.
Officials say that at this point they are not considering extending the enrollment window beyond that time. They also say they are not considering taking the website down for an extended time to address the problems, but instead will do that maintenance during low-traffic overnight hours.
But the White House appeared to open the door to not penalizing those whose efforts to sign up were confounded by the system's problems.
"The law is clear that if you do not have access to affordable health insurance, then you will not be asked to pay a penalty because you haven't purchased affordable health insurance," White House spokesman Jay Carney said.
So far, no one within the administration is known to have been fired for the problematic rollout. Some Republicans have focused their ire on Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, though the White House says she continues to have the confidence of the president.
Sebelius is scheduled to testify about the botched rollout before the House Energy and Commerce Committee next week. Representatives from some of the contractors working on the websites were also scheduled to testify before the committee on Thursday.
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Associated Press writers Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, Luis Alonso and Laurie Kellman contributed to this report.
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Follow Julie Pace on Twitter at http://twitter.com/jpaceDC and Jack Gillum at http://twitter.com/jackgillum
Associated PressSource: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/89ae8247abe8493fae24405546e9a1aa/Article_2013-10-21-Obama-Health%20Care/id-fac638ddb1234a6695440edaacbd959dTags: st louis cardinals Rebel Wilson revenge Paula Patton us open tennis
Choosing Payday Loan Wisely | Finance Information
Written on October 19th, 2013 by Carlos S. Ryan
According to recent research from customer advocates and many other sources, there are a lot of Americans that use payday loan to solve their financial problem. A payday loan is a short term loan you can use to solve your financial problem between the paycheck. However, Payday loan has higher risk and interest rate than any other loan. Therefore, to make sure that you have payday loan and enjoy the advantage of payday loan, today I will give you a step by step tutorial to choose a payday loan company.
The first step is understanding about the payday loan market. You will need to educate yourself about the regulation of payday loans. A payday loan is a high risk loan option that will make you pay for a high price if you late. Therefore make sure that you take a payday loan when you really need it.
The next step is choosing a payday loan company that has connection with larger institutions. This kind of payday loan company will be more trusted and credible than other small companies. Make sure that the payday loan company also has a good reputation.
The next step is check the payday loan company interest rate and terms. A payday loan will charge you with extremely high interest rate, therefore you will need to read and understand the payday loans term and conditions to assess your capability to pay back.
The next step is asking about the actual loan value you need to pay in due date. Payday loan company sometime not too honest about how much you need to pay in due date. To calculate their interest, fee and make sure you know the actual loan value you need to pay. If you interested and want to know more about payday loan, you will need to go to this website.
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