Tag: "ObamaCare"

Obamacare Is A Terrible Jobs Progam

doctor-with-family(A version of this Health Alert was published by American Thinker.)

As congressional Republicans embark on their promise to repeal and replace President Obama’s signature Affordable Care Act, they are being overwhelmed by claims that imply it’s a jobs program.  Scholars affiliated with the Milken Institute School of Public Health at George Washington University estimate Obamacare repeal would kill 2.6 million jobs by 2019.  Almost a million jobs would be lost from health services, while the balance would be lost in construction, real estate, retail, finance, and insurance.

Unfortunately, such research relies on the so-called “multiplier effect,” a politically seductive but misleading type of voodoo economics.  It goes like this: Obamacare throws money at hospitals, doctors’ offices, and other health services.  Those recipients build new facilities and hire more workers, who spend their paychecks in their communities.  It is the same kind of research that developers seeking taxpayer-subsidized stadiums commission – and it is meaningless.

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Feb 01, 2017 | 14 comments | by

Bernie Sanders’ Single-Payer Utopia

Back in October I wrote “Is Obamacare’s Failure Intentional, to Promote Medicaid-for-All?”  In it I discussed how Bernie Sanders famously advocated for single-payer socialized medicine during his campaign. In 2011, the Vermont legislature passed a bill to create a single-payer initiative known as Green Mountain Care. In 2014 it was abandoned by Vermont’s governor — a Democrat — as being too costly. Green Mountain Care was going to require an 11.5 percent payroll tax and an additional sliding-scale income tax that topped out at 9.5 percent. Despite the heavy tax burden, a single-payer system in Vermont was projected to run deficits by 2020.

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Jan 30, 2017 | 62 comments | by

Massachusetts Governor Hiking Taxes To Rescue Failed Health Reform

(A version of this Health Alert was published by Forbes.)

Governor Charlie Baker of Massachusetts has proposed a tax of $2,000 per worker on businesses which do not offer health coverage to employees who become dependent on Medicaid. This makes him the second Republican governor of Massachusetts to buy into the notion that imposing taxes (or fines or penalties or fees) on individuals and businesses can force them to accept responsibility for government failure at getting health spending under control.

image017bEvidence from Massachusetts and the nation shows the opposite is true. Yesterday, I testified on the effect of Obamacare’s individual mandate before the Oversight Subcommittee of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Committee. (The video is at this link, and my written testimony is at this link.)

I was joined on the panel of witnesses by Dr. John E. McDonough of Harvard University’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Professor McDonough was a central figure in Governor Mitt Romney’s 2006 Massachusetts health reform, where the individual mandate was first implemented. Governor Romney tried to label it a “conservative” or “Republican” idea. The spin was that the mandate characterized individual responsibility.

The reality is the mandate merely camouflages significant growth of government spending and control over health insurance. This has been the case in Massachusetts since day one: Spending has grown out of control despite many failed efforts to bend the cost curve.

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Jan 25, 2017 | 27 comments | by

Trump Disembowels Obamacare… Slowly and Painfully

InsFormSmallOn the day of his inauguration, President Trump took time out to issue an executive order directing his administration to drag its feet enforcing provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA). Regulators were instructed to “waive, defer, grant exemptions from, or delay…” whenever possible to the “maximum extent of the law.” Many believe this move was intended to destabilize the ACA and hasten its demise without Republicans getting blamed.

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Jan 24, 2017 | 94 comments | by

Obamacare’s Bureaucracy: The Amazing Rise in Health Insurance Jobs

health-insuranceAs Congress and President Trump debate how to repeal and replace Obamacare, the obsession with health insurance, rather than actual access to health care, has dominated the debate. It invites the question: How have jobs in health insurance fared before and after Obamacare?

They have boomed, growing over one quarter since the pre-recession January 2008 employment high-water mark.

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Jan 23, 2017 | 2 comments | by

Obamacare’s Individual Mandate Very Inefficient

Healthcaredotgov(A version of this Health Alert was published by Forbes.)

Next Tuesday afternoon, I am scheduled to testify before the U.S. House of Representatives’ Ways and Means Oversight Subcommittee on Obamacare’s individual mandate that almost all Americans maintain health insurance.

This is Obamacare’s least popular feature. It was the subject of the 2012 lawsuit asserting Obamacare was unconstitutional: Never before had the federal government forced any resident to buy a good or service from a private business. The people lost that argument. Nevertheless, Republicans have pledged to eliminate the individual mandate. This commitment remains good politics. However, it is also good economics.

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Jan 20, 2017 | 56 comments | by

Graham to Testify at House Ways & Means Oversight Subcommittee January 24

NCPA Senior Fellow John R. Graham has been invited to testify in person to the U.S. House of Representatives Ways & Means Oversight Subcommittee on January 24 at 2 p.m. The topic is Obamacare’s individual mandate to buy health insurance, which Graham concludes is a burden without benefit.

Learn more at this link. Come in person, or watch online.

Jan 18, 2017 | 5 comments | by

Council of Economic Advisers’ Bad Obamacare Economics

CEAPresident Obama’s Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) has issued its valedictory report on the state of Obamacare. The gist of the argument is that Obamacare is doing fine, on the verge of overcoming its growing pains since 2014.

The CEA claims critics who suspect the 25 percent increase in premiums for 2017 are a problem are off-base. In a normal insurance market, this would indicate a “death spiral”: The sick enroll and the healthy stay away, causing next year’s premiums to increase. The cycle repeats itself until only the sickest enroll. The CEA asserts this cannot be occurring because 11.3 million people enrolled in Obamacare last December, which was 300,000 more than in December 2015. Further, insurers underpriced their policies in 2014 because the market was new. However, they have learned since then and are pricing policies more realistically.

While it is true enrollment in Obamacare’s market is a little higher than last year, it is still well below the Congressional Budget Office’s estimate of 21 million enrollees in 2016, which it made as recently as March 2015. Even in January 2016, it estimated 13 million would enroll last year, which was almost one fifth too high.

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Jan 17, 2017 | 10 comments | by

Obamacare Repeal Has Begun For Small Firms

Businessman Sitting at His Desk(A version of this Health Alert was published by Forbes.)

My previous Health Alert suggested the 21st Century Cures Act, which President Obama signed on December 13 demonstrated Republicans can lead on health reform. Promoted as a pro-innovation bill, the new law will improve the Food and Drug Administration’s regulatory processes; as well as fund Vice-President Biden’s Cancer Moonshot, the National Institutes of Health, and steps to reduce the opioid epidemic.

However, the final version of the bill also included an important payment reform, which takes a small but significant bite out of Obamacare. Tacked onto the end of the bill, section 18001of the 21st Century Cures Act expands the use of Health Reimbursement Arrangements (HRAs) by small businesses. This is a win for small businesses which were harmed by Obamacare. Indeed, given the overwhelming bipartisan support for the 21st Century Cures Act, section 18001 could be defined as Democrat politicians’ first real step towards conceding Obamacare needs to be repealed and replaced.

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Dec 29, 2016 | 31 comments | by

Zeke Emanuel, Obamacare Architect, Visits Trump To Urge One-Term Presidency

Confident DoctorsLast Wednesday, the Trump transition team disclosed the remarkable news that Ezekiel Emanuel, MD, an architect of Obamacare, was Mr. Trump’s first official guest of the morning. The spokesman demurred with respect to the details of the conversation, but I can guess: Dr. Emanuel was urging Mr. Trump to remain in office only one term, in accordance with Dr. Emanuel’s principle that people should be cut off at age 75.

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Dec 19, 2016 | 15 comments | by
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