Health exchange sends unqualified to Medicaid
The federal health-care exchange is incorrectly determining that some people are eligible for Medicaid when they clearly are not, leaving them with little chance to get the subsidized insurance they are entitled to as the Dec. 23 deadline for enrollment approaches.
State and industry officials haven’t quantified the problem yet, but the National Association of State Medicaid Directors may release information this week after following up on reports from around the country, says Executive Director Matt Salo.
If the Medicaid determination is wrong, consumers should file an appeal with the federal marketplace, says Department of Health and Human Services spokeswoman Joanne Peters, but she says she does not have an estimate on how long that would take. Brokers are reporting that some of their clients are in insurance limbo as they wait for the error to be corrected.
Snowstorm blasts Mid-Atlantic region
PHILADELPHIA – A powerful storm that crept across the country is dumping a mix of snow, freezing rain and sleet on the Mid-Atlantic region and is headed northeast, threatening as much as a foot of snow in sections of Delaware and New Jersey and raising concerns about a messy morning commute.
The storm covered the fields of the Philadelphia Eagles and Pittsburgh Steelers with white and forced the cancellation of thousands of flights across the country The storm is slowing traffic on roads, leading to a number of accidents, including a fatal crash on the Pennsylvania Turnpike near Morgantown that led to a series of fender-benders involving 50 cars.
The National Weather Service says snow accumulation in some sections of Delaware and southern New Jersey could reach 9 to 11 inches.
Vet: Treated well while confined in N. Korea
SAN FRANCISCO – A day after arriving home to California, the 85-year-old U.S. veteran detained for weeks by North Korea said Sunday that he was well-fed and kept comfortable in a hotel room, not a jail cell.
Merrill Newman spoke briefly with The Santa Cruz Sentinel outside his vacation home steps from the beach in Santa Cruz, a coastal community about 75 miles south of San Francisco. Newman and his wife also live about 45 miles north in a Palo Alto retirement home.
He was detained in late October at the end of a 10-day trip to North Korea, a visit that came six decades after he oversaw a group of South Korean wartime guerrillas during the 1950-53 war.
Newman told the newspaper “that’s not my English” when asked about the video North Korean state media released last month showing him reading an awkwardly worded alleged confession apologizing for, among other things, killing North Koreans during the war.
USA TODAY and Associated Press
