Leading Massachusetts health insurers and state regulators squared off in court Thursday in their dispute about acceptable health insurance premiums for a pivotal sector of the local economy: small-business owners.

The insurers argued the state's decision last week to reject nearly all of their proposed 2010 premium increases will cause "destabilizing" losses for them. The state said the insurers fundamentally misunderstand both the rate rejection and the way to resolve their dispute.

During a two-hour hearing in Suffolk Superior Court, an attorney for Blue Cross Blue Shield of Massachusetts and five members of the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans asked Judge Stephen Neel to issue a temporary injunction overruling the state's decision.

Attorney Dean Richlin also asked that the companies be allowed to collect the new premiums they had proposed be effective April 1 while a trial is held on the matter.

He said that requiring them to collect premiums at April 2009 rates, as he contended the state has ordered them to do, was "grossly unsound" and would create losses of more than $100 million in the next eight months.

"These are losses that will quickly mount up, and for some number of companies, the immediate losses will be destabilizing," Richlin said.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

"This is a political exercise for too many on the other side of the aisle," said Sen. Dick Durbin. "We're going to tell our people back home, 'It's time to govern. It's time to lead.' "

Durbin appeared Wednesday on a nationally broadcast interview show with South Carolina's Jim DeMint, who had said last year he believed the health care overhaul would turn out to Obama's "Waterloo."

"America doesn't want a broken presidency," countered Durbin, D-Ill.

DeMint did not back down, saying "Americans are very angry," not only with the substance of the sweeping health care bill Obama signed into law Tuesday, but also with the process Democrats used to muscle it through Congress.

The pair swapped barbs on NBC's "Today" show as the Senate entered a second day of debate on a package of fixes to the new health law. These legislative adjustments were demanded by House Democrats as their price for passing the mammoth overhaul legislation that will extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans over the next decade.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://breakinglegalnews.com/.

"This is a political exercise for too many on the other side of the aisle," said Sen. Dick Durbin. "We're going to tell our people back home, 'It's time to govern. It's time to lead.' "

Durbin appeared Wednesday on a nationally broadcast interview show with South Carolina's Jim DeMint, who had said last year he believed the health care overhaul would turn out to Obama's "Waterloo."

"America doesn't want a broken presidency," countered Durbin, D-Ill.

DeMint did not back down, saying "Americans are very angry," not only with the substance of the sweeping health care bill Obama signed into law Tuesday, but also with the process Democrats used to muscle it through Congress.

The pair swapped barbs on NBC's "Today" show as the Senate entered a second day of debate on a package of fixes to the new health law. These legislative adjustments were demanded by House Democrats as their price for passing the mammoth overhaul legislation that will extend coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans over the next decade.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

With the stroke of President Obama’s pen, his health care overhaul — the most sweeping social legislation enacted in decades — became law on Tuesday.

Mr. Obama affixed his curlicue signature, almost letter by letter, to the measure, the Affordable Health Care for America Act, during a ceremony in the East Room of the White House, surrounded by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid and a raft of other lawmakers who spent the past year on a legislative roller-coaster ride trying to pass it. Aides said he would pass out the 20 pens he used as mementoes.

The ceremony included two special guests: Vicki Kennedy, the widow of the late Senator Edward M. Kennedy of Massachusetts, who had been a driving force for health care legislation before his death last year, and Connie Anderson, the sister of Natoma Canfield, the Ohio cancer survivor whose struggle to pay skyrocketing health insurance premiums became a touchstone of Mr. Obama’s campaign to overhaul the system.

Mr. Kennedy’s son, Representative Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island, was also there, carrying a gift for the president: a copy of a bill his father introduced in 1970 to provide national health insurance. On it, the younger Mr. Kennedy had written a personal message to Mr. Obama.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

President Barack Obama said on Friday he expected a tough vote this weekend, but Democrats were poised to make history when the House of Representatives votes on his healthcare overhaul bill.

"Right now we are at the point where we are going to do something historic this weekend," Obama told a raucous audience at George Mason University, as Democratic congressional leaders scrambled to round up support for the plan to revamp the $2.5 trillion medical industry.

"If this vote fails, the insurance industry will continue to run amok. They will continue to deny people coverage. They will continue to deny people care. They will continue to jack up premiums 40 percent or 50 percent or 60 percent as they have in the last few weeks," he told the rally.

"That's why they're pouring millions of dollars into negative ads. That's why they're doing everything they can to kill this bill," Obama said in a fiery speech.

"The time for reform is now," he said.

After more than a year of intense debate, the House is expected to vote on Sunday on the sweeping healthcare overhaul, intended to extend insurance coverage to 32 million uninsured Americans.

The bill has faced solid Republican opposition, and Obama and his fellow Democrats were struggling to ensure enough votes from Democrats, who hold a majority of seats in both houses of Congress, to ensure its passage.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.

The 10-year plan would provide coverage to more than 30 million people now uninsured through a combination of tax credits for middle class households and an expansion of the Medicaid program for low income people. Release of the legislation later Thursday sets the stage for a House vote on Sunday.

It would restructure one-sixth of the U.S. economy in the biggest expansion of the social safety net since Medicare was created in 1965. It would also impose new obligations on individuals and businesses, requiring for the first time that most Americans carry health insurance and penalizing medium-sized and large companies that don't provide coverage for their workers.

Hospitals and doctors, drug companies and insurers would gain millions of new paying customers, but they would also have to adjust to major changes. Medicare cuts would force hospitals to operate more efficiently or risk going out of business. Insurance companies would face unprecendented federal regulation. Health care industries would be hit with new federal taxes. Upper-income households would face a new tax on investment earnings.

Originally posted at Breaking Legal News. Please visit http://www.breakinglegalnews.com/.