QUOTE OF THE DAY
Rare: Think you’re enrolled in Obamacare? Think again
Individuals aren’t signed up for Obamacare unless they’ve paid their premium and, in Illinois, half of Obamacare “enrollees” haven’t paid their premium.
That puts the Land of Lincoln well below the national average of those who may receive Obamacare. Just 67 percent of those the Obama administration counted as “enrolled” in the Affordable Care Act nationwide had paid their premiums as of April 15, according to new data from the House Energy and Commerce Committee.
The Obama administration as of March 1 counted 114,000 Illinoisans as signed up or Obamacare.
Chicago Tribune: Obamacare enrollment makes late surge in Illinois
A last-minute surge nearly doubled the number of Illinoisans who signed up for insurance policies offered under President Barack Obama’s health care law in the first year of open enrollment, administration officials said Thursday.
From March 2 to April 19, nearly 104,000 people in the state signed up for coverage, bringing the total to 217,492, beating the federal government’s original estimate of 143,000 for the state by 52 percent.
Still, the preliminary figures fall short of Illinois state officials’ internal goal of enrolling 300,000 in 2014 on the private health insurance exchange set up by the Affordable Care Act. The data also fail to offer a complete picture of actual health plan enrollment because it includes people who have not paid their first month’s premium, the final step to gaining coverage.
Reason: Unemployment Down to 6.3 Percent as 800,000 Americans Drop Out of Job Market
The headlines say the news is good.
Official unemployment in the U.S. dropped from 6.7 to 6.3 percent, the lowest rate in five years, as 288,000 nonfarm jobs were added, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS).
The steep drop in the unemployment rate, however, was a function of more than 800,000 unemployed Americans dropping out of the job-seeking market altogether. Only 62.8 percent of working-age Americans are employed or looking for work, back to lows seen in December.
The road to reelection for Illinois Gov. Pat Quinn (D) was always going to be difficult. But it looks even harder at the end of a troubling week for the Democrat when a federal probe of an anti-violence initiative he started has received widespread attention in the state.
At minimum, the episode is an unwelcome distraction; at most, it could become a big blow to the good-government image Quinn has carefully crafted, close watchers say.
“It’s obviously very early in terms of the details, but one of the things that Pat Quinn has been able to hang his hat on for about three decades is his positioning himself as a reformer, an outsider and a champion of good government,” said Republican strategist Doug O’Brien, a former aide to Sen. Mark Kirk (R-Ill.). “This really has the potential to undermine what was really one of the few positives he had going in terms of his public image.”
Chicago Sun Times: What a real governor could do
Why does it matter whom we elect as governor next fall, a young friend asked me recently.
If Pat Quinn is re-elected, nothing much will change. We’ll have too many people on the payroll, and we’ll pay them more than market wages. Whether pension reform passes court review or not, Illinois will face about $100 billion in unfunded liabilities — growing at 8 percent per year. And since we can’t fund them adequately, we’ll borrow until we can’t borrow any more.
Even if Bruce Rauner is elected, we’ll still have big Democratic majorities in the House and Senate. The governor by himself can’t enact into law a defined contribution plan to replace pensions. He can’t enact a budget by himself. The best he can do is come to deadlock with the legislature.
WBEZ: Chicago Teachers Union: New taxes to fix pensions–but not higher property taxes
The Chicago Teachers Union is rolling out a plan they say will help solve the teachers pension crisis. CTU leaders say their proposals would raise much-needed money for the cash-strapped retirement fund that covers the city’s educators. The fund is just under 50 percent funded.
Speaking to WBEZ Thursday, CTU head Karen Lewis said cutting benefits for retired schoolteachers is “unconscionable,” and that cannot be the answer to pension woes. Instead, she said, the union is suggesting ways to raise more revenue. A Chicago Public Schools spokesman called those ideas “not a responsible solution.”
CTU wants the city and state to adopt three proposals that it says could bring in billions of dollars that could be devoted toward retirement accounts:
How would you like a cut in your income taxes while protecting funding for education and public safety?
Or how would you like the Illinois General Assembly to stick it to you by making permanent the income-tax increase of 2011 that is supposed to (mostly) expire next year?
Lucky you: In a bizarre set of circumstances, a “Fair Tax” proposal would give you both! Ninety-four percent of Illinois taxpayers would see their income taxes drop in 2015, while lawmakers wouldn’t have to make the tough budgetary choices they promised to. Win-win!
CARTOON OF THE DAY
