It has been revealed that it was Femi Fani-Kayode that created the fake Bianca Ojukwu Twitter account, to drive home his campaign of mudsliding Mrs Ojukwu and her people.
The Fake Bianca Ojukwu twitter Account created by Fani-Kayode, wrote; "I did not sleep with him to the best of my knowledge.
But I remember vividly that he kissed and sucked my breasts then but no full sex," in response to Femi Fani-Kayode's claim that he slept with her.
Mrs Ojukwu's aides has disassociated her from this malicious tweeter and Bianca original twitter has been dormant for the past 3 months.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
The 'Basket Mouth' and former Aviation Minister, Femi Fani-Kayode has moved his war of words against Ndi Igbo by twitting that Dr Oby Ezekwesili who is also his colleague in the Obasanjo's cabinet, saying that she stinks.
The hate symbol, according to Hope For Nigeria, tweeted that "she pretends to be mother Theresa, yet she stinks". "How can the government arrest me for writing an essay about Igbo, while they have not arrest the Boko Haram members.
"It is the Igbo in Dr Oby Ezekwesili that is talking".
Formal Minister of Education, Oby Ezekwesili has found fault in Femi- Fani-Kayode's speech about the deportation of Igbos by the Lagos state Government and his listing the names of his past sex experiences with Igbo ladies.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — A teenager running for mayor in a small U.S. city says he never intended to go through with a plot to blow up his school that landed him in juvenile detention for half a year.
The 18-year-old Joshua Kyler Hoggan told The Associated Press in an email that he recognizes what he did was wrong. But he insists that he never had any explosives or intent to bomb the school.
Hoggan served six months in juvenile detention after pleading guilty in 2012 to possession of a weapon of mass destruction. He says he's rehabilitated and ready to lead the city of Roy in Utah.
He competes in Tuesday's primary against current Mayor Joe Ritchie and a councilman. Two of the three will advance to the general election.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
JERUSALEM (AP) — Israel began the process of releasing 26 Palestinian prisoners late Tuesday, an initial gesture on the eve of renewed Mideast negotiations.
Thousands of Palestinians have spent time in Israeli prisons since Israel's capture of the West Bank, Gaza and east Jerusalem in 1967. They were jailed on charges ranging from throwing rocks to killing civilians in bombings and other attacks.
The decision to release the men has stirred anguish in Israel, particularly among the relatives of those killed in attacks. Meanwhile celebrations were planned in the Palestinian territory, where Palestinians generally view the prisoners as heroes, regardless of their acts, arguing they made personal sacrifices in the struggle for independence.
The Israeli prison service said buses carrying the inmates left the Ayalon jail in central Israel late Tuesday. Israel released them late at night to prevent a spectacle. Some protesters tried in a symbolic move to block the buses from leaving the jail.
Most of the prisoners were convicted of killings, including Israeli civilians and suspected Palestinian collaborators, while others were involved in attempted murder or kidnapping.
The release of the prisoners was part of an agreement brokered by U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry to get Israel and the Palestinians back to the table for peace talks that had been paralyzed since 2008. In all, 104 convicts are to be released in four batches, although their freedom is contingent on progress in peace talks.
Israelis and Palestinians are to launch talks in Jerusalem on Wednesday, following a preparatory round two weeks ago in Washington. The prisoner release is part of an agreement to restart the talks after a five-year freeze.
Israel's Prison Service posted the 26 names online Monday to allow two days for possible court appeals. Israel's Supreme Court rejected an appeal by families of those killed by the prisoners earlier Tuesday.
Most of the prisoners already have served around 20 years, with the longest-held arrested in 1985. Fourteen of the prisoners were to be released to the Gaza Strip and 12 to the West Bank.
Most Israelis view those involved in killings as terrorists for killing civilians. Relatives of those killed by the inmates protested the night before against their release. Protesters dipped their hands in red paint to symbolize what they said was the blood on the hands of the prisoners.
Earlier Tuesday, Israel said it is moving forward with building nearly 900 new homes in east Jerusalem, a decision that angered Palestinians a day before the talks.
The last round of substantive talks collapsed in late 2008, and negotiations have remained stalled mainly over the issue of Israeli settlement construction on territories claimed by the Palestinians for their future state. The Palestinians say the settlements, now home to more than 500,000 Israelis, is making it increasingly difficult to carve out their state and that continued Israeli construction is a sign of bad faith.
Hanan Ashrawi, a senior Palestinian official, said Israel's settlement plans are a slap in the face of the Palestinians and Kerry. "It is not just deliberate sabotage of the talks, but really a destruction of the outcome," she said.
Ashrawi urged Kerry "to stand up to Israel" and deliver a tough response.
Mark Regev, a spokesman for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, rejected the Palestinian claim.
"The Palestinians know that Israel rejected their demands of a settlement freeze as a precondition to these talks, they cannot say otherwise," Regev said. "The construction that the Israeli government authorized is all in Jerusalem and the large blocs, in areas that will remain part of Israel in any possible final status agreement and this construction that has been authorized in no way changes the final map of peace," said Regev.
The U.S. had no immediate comment. On Monday, Kerry repeated the U.S. position that the settlements are "illegitimate," while saying he didn't think the recent flap over Israeli settlements would delay talks. "I'm sure we will work out a path forward," Kerry said.
The latest construction is to take place in Gilo, an area in east Jerusalem that Israel considers to be a neighborhood of its capital. Israel's annexation of east Jerusalem, which the Palestinians claim as their capital, is not internationally recognized.
The housing plan, which received initial approval last year, would expand Gilo's boundaries further toward a Palestinian neighborhood. The plans for 900 housing units in Gilo come in addition to an earlier announcement this week of some 1,200 other settlement homes in the West Bank and east Jerusalem.
Efrat Orbach, an Interior Ministry spokeswoman, confirmed that approval had been given for the Gilo expansion. She said more approvals are needed before construction begins. But Lior Amihai of anti-settlement group Peace Now, said the plan needs no further approval and construction could begin within weeks.
The Palestinians had refused to resume negotiations with Israel unless it halted settlement construction. Israel has refused.
After six trips to the region, Kerry managed to persuade Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to drop the settlement issue as a condition for negotiations to start. In exchange, Israel agreed to release 104 Palestinian prisoners.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Sex on college campuses isn't any more prevalent than it was 25 years ago, despite what's often termed a "hookup culture" that suggests otherwise, says research presented today comparing current-day college students with those of the past.
"Sexual behavior among contemporary college students has not changed greatly over the past 2½ decades," says the study, from the University of Portland in Oregon, presented at the American Sociological Association's meeting in New York City.
"We're questioning some of the popular interpretations of the hookup culture that college is a sexual playground," says lead author Martin Monto. "We wanted to question the assumption that college has become a place with lots of no-strings-attached sex. The evidence suggests it hasn't."
The researchers analyzed nationally representative data from the General Social Survey of 1,829 high school graduates ages 18-25 who had completed at least one year of college. They compared responses from 1988-1996 were compared with those from 2002-2010 – when casual sex, "friends with benefits" and no-strings relationships became part of the lexicon. Most respondents were ages 21-25.
Rather than a sexual explosion, the study says, young adults "do not report more total sexual partners or more partners during the past year than respondents from the previous era. In fact, respondents from the hookup era report having sex slightly less frequently." The term "hookup" can refer to a wide range of behaviors and is often vague, ranging from kissing to oral sex to sexual intercourse.
"The term 'hooking up' is very provocative and very ambiguous," Monto says. "So when researchers ask students about hooking up, students often could be referring to anything from sexual intercourse to kissing. But when the term 'hooking up' is used in the popular media, it is often interpreted as sex. That has led to an assumption that college students' sexual behavior has changed dramatically."
But the study does suggest a shift to the casual. Rather than sex with a spouse or partner, recent respondents were more likely to report having sex with a casual date/pickup (44% vs. 35% in the past) or a friend (69% vs. 56%). They were less likely to report having a spouse or regular sexual partner (77% vs. 85%).
"College students in this era don't feel the need to maintain the pretense that a sexual partner is a potential marriage partner," says Monto, a sociologist.
These new findings echo research from Duke University collected in 2007 that found more virgins in the college population — another suggestion that hookups aren't as prevalent as many believe. The responses from 1,500 freshmen and seniors found about 53% of women and 40% of men said they were virgins. The study was presented two years ago at the sociological association's meeting.
A study published in the journal Health Communication in 2011 also suggests that there's more talk than practice. Researchers from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln found that 84% of students said they had talked with college friends in the previous four months about hookups. But when asked how many hookups they had during the school year, students reported far fewer than the number they assumed for a "typical student." The study of approximately 300 students found that 37% reported two or more hookups that year, but 90% assumed that a "typical student" had two or more. That study found 63% of men and 45% of women had participated in a hookup during the school year.
In this new study, the researchers said that among young adults in the more recent group, 59% reported having sex weekly or more in the past year, compared with 65% in the 1980s and '90s. Both groups reported similar patterns in the number of sexual partners in the past year: about 32% reported having more than one partner. Slightly more than half (52%) of the earlier group reported having more than two sexual partners after turning 18, compared with 51% of the recent group.
"Our results provide no evidence that there has been a sea change in the sexual behavior of college students or that there has been a significant liberalization of attitudes towards sex," says researcher Martin Monto, who presented the study.
"We find no evidence of substantial changes in sexual behavior that would support the proposition that there is a new or pervasive 'hookup culture' among contemporary college students," the study says.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
GROTON, Conn. (AP) — A Navy sailor returning from a six-month deployment emerged from his submarine, dropped to one knee and proposed to his boyfriend during the homecoming celebration in Connecticut for USS New Mexico.
About 200 people were gathered at the dock of the Naval Submarine Base New London where Machinist's Mate Jerrel Revels proposed to Dylan Kirchner. Kirchner said he had thought about getting married but the proposal Monday came as a surprise.
"I didn't really care everybody was around. It felt just like the two of us," Kirchner told The Day of New London.
The couple has not set a wedding date.
The repeal of the ban on openly gay military service took effect in 2011.
Defense officials estimate there are 18,000 same-sex couples in the active-duty military, National Guard and Reserves. It's unclear how many of those are married.
The attack submarine traveled more than 34,000 miles over six months and stopped at ports in Norway, Scotland and Spain. It marked the first deployment for more than 70 percent of the crew. The sub was commissioned in 2010 and is the second Navy vessel to be named for New Mexico.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Authorities say a man who took hostages at a bank in rural Louisiana shot the two remaining hostages before being shot and killed by police early Wednesday.
Louisiana State Police Superintendent Col. Mike Edmonson said the hostages were taken from the scene at the Tensas State Bank branch in St. Joseph, La., in critical condition.
The suspect is a 20-year-old local man — identified as 20-year-old Fuaed Abdo Ahmed — whose family owns a convenience store in Mississippi River town, Edmondson, said.
"I wouldn't expect something like that to happen here,'' Mayor Edward Brown said. "It's just bizarre."
St. Joseph is a quiet farming town of about 1,200 residents.
Earlier, the suspect seized the three bank employees before releasing a female hostage after nine hours. A man and a woman remained captive.
Family members of some hostages told the Monroe News Star, published by Gannett, the parent company of USA TODAY, that they had heard the gunman had given authorities 10 hours to adhere to his demands, which were not revealed.
At about 4 p.m. CT, a car broke through a police perimeter and drove toward the bank, the News Star reported. It said the driver, a family member of the suspect, was arrested at gunpoint.
The suspect has at least one weapon, a handgun, Edmondson said, adding there was no indication he had explosives.
He said the suspect was apparently armed with "some type of automatic weapon," AP wrote.
About 100 law enforcement personnel, including the FBI, U.S. Marshal Service, a bomb squad and sheriff's deputies from four parishes, were assembled, and lights were brought in as negotiations dragged into the night. A no-fly zone with a radius of 5 miles and up to 5,000 feet was imposed above the bank.
Authorities have blocked Highway 128, the main road that runs through the town, the seat of Tensas Parish, southeast of Monroe and downriver from Vicksburg, Miss.
Residents were unnerved by the massive police presence, which included a SWAT team.
"It's kind of startling for the residents. We're not accustomed to this kind of activity," Richardo Miles, a 25-year-old farmworker, told the Associated Press. "Some people are pretty scared. They're nervous."
Some have left town, the mayor said.
"It's a quiet town. Very little crime. So this is amazing," he said.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
Most Americans know the Affordable Care Act — aka "Obamacare" — as the legislation birthed from one of the most acrimonious political debates in years. In 139 days, the law will shift from talking points to the kitchen table, from an eventuality to reality. This sweeping government experiment, after all, stands to affect tens of millions of people.
Jan. 1, 2014, will be the official launch date for a federal endeavor that will reshape the U.S. health insurance market coast to coast. People without insurance can start signing up Oct. 1. Depending on where you live, your experiences with the new law — and your costs — could differ dramatically.
USA TODAY's Julie Schmit, Rick Jervis and Greg Toppo reported from California, Texas and West Virginia to see what people are seeing, and thinking, as the law is being rolled out in three very different ways in these three states.
AUSTIN — Sometimes Darrell Tatum's car gets only a quarter-tank of gas. Other months, the grocery list gets whittled down. Or the purchase of notebooks, pens and other school supplies for five children is postponed.
The budgetary gymnastics Tatum and his wife, Quintina, perform each month are necessary to meet the $500-to-$600 monthly health care premiums they pay — an amount that has risen steadily over the years and that he says is slowly drowning the Dallas couple in debt.
Tatum, 41, says he's stuck in financial limbo: He makes too much money as a municipal worker to qualify for benefit programs for the poor but not enough to cover the rising cost of health care.
"We're trying to do the best we can with what we have, but it's rough," he says. "It's almost like you're penalized for working."
HOPE OR HEADACHE?
For Tatum and thousands like him, the Affordable Care Act and the health insurance exchanges offer hope. Almost one in four Texans — more than 6 million residents — are uninsured, the highest rate in the nation, according to the Census Bureau. The Affordable Care Act could halve the Texas number by next year, according to a recent study by the Hobby Center for the Study of Texas at Rice University.
Welcomed by many residents and scorned by others, the law has been vilified by Texas' Republican leaders. Gov. Rick Perry has led the charge, criticizing the legislation as bad policy and the health insurance exchanges it creates as lacking appropriate funding. Texas, along with 26 other states, has opted not to set up a state-run exchange to market health coverage to the uninsured. For states with leaders who disagree with the initiative, it's the best way to protest the Washington directive. In these cases, the federal government will run the exchanges.
Texas would be better off receiving block grants from Washington to help the uninsured rather than being forced to participate in a federal system, says state Sen. Dan Patrick, R-Houston, an outspoken critic of Obamacare who has been a state senator since 2007.
"We're smarter about Texas than Washington is," he says. "This is the worst legislation I've ever seen from the federal government."
Despite the resistance from state leaders, grass-roots groups across the state are scrambling to inform Texans about the exchanges. Foundation Communities, an Austin-based group that helps low-income residents with their taxes, has set up two enrollment centers to help residents sift through the benefits of the law, says Elizabeth Colvin,a director of the group.
The key struggle is persuading residents that the exchanges will be available, despite highly publicized attacks from leaders in Austin, she says. "It's a challenge for Texans because there's no state leadership on this issue," Colvin said. "It's all coming from the local level."
'HIGH-RISK POOL'
Cost predictions have been elusive because the federal government has yet to release the health care rates that will be available through the exchanges, says David Warner, health and social policy professor at the University of Texas.
One group of Texans stands to instantly benefit: the "high-risk pool," those previously uninsurable because of pre-existing conditions or other factors. The new law will cut their premiums in half, Warner says.
Also set to benefit are individuals not part of a large employer insurance group. "They'll be able to get coverage, and it won't be totally unaffordable," Warner says.
That's welcome news for Will Love, 27, co-owner of an Austin video production company who has been uninsured for two years. After the Houston firm he worked for closed, Love paid for his own insurance from Humana. The rates steadily began to climb, from $125 a month to $150 a month, even though he remained healthy and incident-free. So he dropped coverage.
He says he's counting on a stable, affordable alternative with the exchanges. "I hope to find a reasonable price with a reasonable company that's not going to jack up the prices once you sign up," Love says.
Though Tatum first heard about the exchanges via a friend's Facebook post, he plans to attend seminars to learn more about the program he says could better his life.
"It'll give me a better feel for where my dollars are going and what I think is best for my family," Tatum says. "I'd just like to have that option."
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
PRINCETON, W.Va. — "What's your sugar?" asks Lawrence Pickering as he walks through his neighbor Catherine Selen's front door. Like Selen, he has diabetes, so whenever the two meet, their blood-sugar levels double as their greeting.
A 31-year-old waitress and West Virginia native, Selen is grateful to have a number that's finally under control, weeks after a life-threatening diabetic event put her in the hospital. The June 2 incident followed nearly six months of having no health insurance, forcing her to scramble to find insulin and supplies.
Like many other West Virginians, she's looking forward to guaranteed health insurance next year under the Affordable Care Act, which will cover her medication, syringes and six daily blood tests.
Many don't share her enthusiasm. In a Gallup survey of West Virginia small-business owners in April, 48% said the law would be bad for business and 55% said they believed it would raise their health care costs. About four in 10 (41%) said they had held off hiring new employees or (38%) had pulled back on plans to expand. The Obama administration has delayed until 2015 the requirement for businesses to offer health insurance to employees.
"Employers are working at this from the standpoint of how much this is going to cost," West Virginia Chamber of Commerce President Steve Roberts told the Charleston (W.Va.) Daily Mail. "The (law) regrettably has created an environment of unpredictability that has employers frightened about what might be next."
West Virginia will be one of seven states partnering with the federal government in a subsidized health plan that allows consumers who don't qualify for Medicaid or employer-provided insurance to buy private care on a sliding scale. As part of the Affordable Care Act, the state also will expand Medicaid eligibility. A family of four that now earns more than $8,240 is ineligible, but next year the cutoff will rise to $32,499. About 133,500 more people will qualify, according to recent state estimates. One of them is Selen.
Medicaid would cover virtually all her costs. She'll also be eligible for coverage from her employer, but Selen estimates that would cost her about $200 a month in premiums and diabetes care. Should her family income jump over the next few years, she would be eligible for coverage through the state's new private insurance marketplace.
REASSURING FALLBACK
Selen is leaning toward staying on Medicaid — after cutting back on work, she became eligible — but struggles with her decision.
"I don't want to come across as being a welfare flea," she says. She acknowledges that even if she buys insurance through work, Medicaid is "something to fall back to — that's reassuring to me. I don't have to jump through hoops to get it, and I don't have to be desolate to get it. I can just be an American who needs insurance — to me that's comforting."
The state insurance commissioner says as many as 60,000 people will buy insurance through the subsidized exchange. The Kaiser Family Foundation estimates that 260,000 West Virginians don't have insurance — about 14%, or one in seven. So the new law will be "a huge improvement," says Craig Robinson, executive director of Cabin Creek Health Systems, a chain of four health centers in the state. Nationwide, about one in six Americans is uninsured, making West Virginia's rate slightly better than the national average of 16%.
An audit commissioned by Democratic Gov. Earl Ray Tomblin last spring found that West Virginia ranked 48th in overall health and among the worst in the USA for chronic conditions such as heart disease, obesity and diabetes.
Though the new law will help thousands get coverage, Robinson and other health care providers worry that physicians, who can earn higher fees through traditional insurance, may limit the number of low-income patients they see, leaving patients scrambling to find doctors willing to care for them.
Most of West Virginia's uninsured are like Selen — holding down a job or in a family with someone who's working — but unable to afford insurance or working for an employer that doesn't provide coverage.
DESPERATE SITUATION
Selen, a Type 1 diabetic, had been working at a Cracker Barrel restaurant for about nine months when she lost her Medicaid benefits in January because she earned too much. She couldn't immediately tap into the restaurant's insurance plan, because the new enrollment period wouldn't come for months. She was earning too much to qualify for subsidized drugs but not enough to actually afford them. The bill for the two kinds of insulin she needed was more than $300 monthly — and she takes home just $600 to $700 a month.
Selen qualified for coverage at a free clinic but had to wait about six weeks for an appointment at a facility 40 minutes from home. By then, she says, "I'm looking through old suitcases, old purses to see if I have any medicine left over."
Selen finally persuaded a handful of pharmacies and physicians to give her free samples, but she soon ran out of syringes. The "very low point in my life" came last spring when she approached a prostitute downtown to ask where she could find clean needles. The woman said she had a relative with diabetes.
After weeks of on-again, off-again medication, her condition worsened. She cut back on work as a result, and by June 1, she once again qualified for Medicaid. A day later, she awoke early, walked out her front door and collapsed. Selen has no memory of what happened next, but she ended up several yards away, face-down on the sidewalk. A neighbor called 911. Selen spent three days stabilizing in the hospital.
Weeks later, she is on the mend, hoping the new law will help her find an insulin pump, while allowing her to keep her job and support her husband and two young children. "I can still work," she says. "I can still provide for my family and I can still have means to be healthy. When you've been almost dead and dirt-poor, being able to go to work is a privilege."
Tuesday, Selen learned that her Medicaid benefits were suspended again. She plans to cut her hours until January.
"I will have to work less and force my kids to live in poverty so I can survive," she said.
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
OAKLAND — Leyla Hilmi, 42, is counting the days to Oct. 1 when she'll be able to sign up for health insurance as part of the Affordable Care Act.
The self-employed San Francisco-area architect is getting divorced and will lose coverage. Because of a previous medical condition, she's been denied coverage in the past.
"I would be really, really stuck if it wasn't happening," Hilmi says.
Tremaine Manning, 30, a construction worker in central California, isn't as enamored of the new law. He's lacked health insurance for three years, rarely sees a doctor and struggles to make ends meet.
If he doesn't get insurance, he faces a penalty of 1% of his income in 2014, and more after that.
"If you don't have the money, you're going to get penalized. That seems like a double whammy," Manning says.
Given California's size — and the fact that it has one of the highest rates of uninsured residents in the nation, at 20% — its effectiveness in enrolling people such as Manning will be an important test of the new health care law, which requires most people over the age of 18 to have health insurance or pay a penalty starting in 2014.
"People will be watching California," says Paul Ginsburg, president of the non-partisan Center for Studying Health System Change.
California is one of 16 states (and the District of Columbia) that have set up their own marketplace to offer health insurance. The heavily Democratic state was the first to start setting up its own exchange under the federal act, getting a jump on other states in the process.
About 2.6 million Californians will qualify for federal assistance to reduce the cost, says Covered California, the agency running the marketplace, or exchange. An additional 2.7 million could buy through the exchange even if their incomes disqualify them for subsidies.
Covered California hopes to enroll up to 1.4 million people in insurance plans by 2015.
Many younger people won't sign up for the Covered California insurance because it'll cost them more than the annual penalty, says Sally Pipes, Obamacare opponent and CEO of the San Francisco-based Pacific Research Institute. In 2014, the penalty will be 1% of income or $95, whatever is greater.
Over time, the lack of younger people enrolling will make it less enticing for insurers to take part in Covered California and eventually lead to even more government involvement, Pipes says.
"We'll have Canadian-style health care," Pipes says. She sees Covered California as one more costly government program that will drive job-creating and wealthier Californians out of the state while those needing more services will continue to pour in. Only citizens and legal permanent California residents can participate, though, in Covered California.
'PLEASANTLY SURPRISED'
What the uninsured will pay for coverage has yet to be revealed. But a sampling of proposed rates shows lower premiums for Californians than many expected.
"We've been pleasantly surprised," says Betsy Imholz, health care expert for Consumers Union.
Consumers will have at least two insurance companies from which to choose and up to six in more populated areas. Premiums vary by plan, coverage and consumer ages and locations.
For instance, a 40-year-old in Sacramento with a modified adjusted gross annual income of $22,981 to $28,725 a year might pay $206 a month for coverage from Kaiser Permanente.
In parts of Los Angeles, the cost would be $234 for similar coverage, Covered California says.
A federal subsidy — paid to Kaiser — would run $140 for the Sacramento client and $60 for the Los Angeles one.
Big enrollment is key to the plan's success because that will help spread costs, says Daniel Zingale, senior vice president of California Endowment, a private health care foundation.
One challenge will be enrolling the young and healthy. They'll pay premiums, but most won't need costly health care. The insurers need those customers to balance the cost of older enrollees who are more likely to need more services than their premiums cover, says Marian Mulkey at the California HealthCare Foundation.
Another big challenge: California's diversity.
More than 100 languages are spoken statewide. Of those eligible for federal subsidies, about 1 million speak limited English, a recent study showed.
OUTREACH EFFORTS
To help spread the word, Covered California has issued $37 million in grants to 48 community groups and agencies, including unions and community clinics. Those groups will work with more than 200 others to reach out to consumers in such places as nail salons, farmers' markets, block parties, food distribution centers, even support groups.
The challenges facing Covered California were on full display outside a low-cost health care clinic on a recent afternoon in downtown Oakland. Here, Southeast Asian groceries and Mexican restaurants line the same street. English-speaking children translate for their Spanish-speaking mothers. The clinic is packed with people, many of whom greet the phrase "Covered California" with blank expressions.
Jesus Martinez, 23, who works in asbestos removal, is convinced any insurance offered by the government will be too expensive — even though he isn't familiar with Covered California.
Hilmi has gotten much of her Covered California information from unofficial Facebook postings — some of which were inaccurate. Insurance brokers lacked specifics, too.
Manning's girlfriend, Christina Fugazi, attended a recent town hall meeting, one of several state officials have held, to get information for him and other uninsured friends and relatives.
With Covered California, the cost for Manning to get insurance, she says, "is less than he pays for car insurance."
Anthony-Claret is a software Engineer, entrepreneur and the founder of Codewit INC. Mr. Claret publishes and manages the content on Codewit Word News website and associated websites. He's a writer, IT Expert, great administrator, technology enthusiast, social media lover and all around digital guy.
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