Update on ACA and other health care policy stories for the new year

As part of my opening to Unemployment insurance extension and the State of the Union, I mentioned that I was sitting on a backlog of material.

I watched tonight's State of the Union address and marveled that the entire speech was organized around the conflict between austerity and sustainability, with President Obama consistently coming down on the side of sustainability.  It fits what I've been blogging about here for the past three years, as I've written about every major topic Obama mentioned at least once, some of them, such as energy, education, healthcare, and technological innovation many times.  I felt validated.  It also reminded me that I have a long backlog of material from the past two months of Overnight News Digests on Daily Kos about healthcare and energy that I need to post here.

I took care of the energy news in More energy and the State of the Union, but got distracted by the Super Bowl, so I didn't get around to the healthcare items.  So, it's high time to update on the ACA for the first time since More ACA news from KPBS and UAB.  I begin with Maggie Fox of NBC News making her forecast on the topic with Think 2013 was a bad year for health politics? Just wait for 2014.

It was the gift that kept on giving: The disastrous roll-out of the health-insurance exchanges provided daily fodder for Republican opponents of Obamacare. And the dire state of U.S. health care, coupled with a headlong rush by people to get health insurance, gave Democrats ample opportunity to say “we told you so.”

So once it’s January 2014 and people can start having their new insurance and all the deadlines have passed, can we relax and talk about something other than health reform?

Not a chance, say experts. They predict 2014 will be, if anything, worse than 2013.

So far, that's been true, as this week's news about the ACA inducing people to reduce their hours has shown.

Follow over the jump for news from KPBS and other sources about health care policy, including the ACA, that I've included in Overnight News Digest on Daily Kos since New Years.