ObamaCare created an unworkable cost-control method when it proposed Accountable Care Organizations to manage care in Medicare. Medicare’s payment board is predicting that they will have negative consequences and is calling for them to be pared back.
“The Susan B. Anthony List, responding to Rep. Steve Driehaus’s defamation lawsuit against the anti-abortion group, said his vote for healthcare reform — and not the group’s messaging — cost him a seat in Congress.”
“During the recent health care debate I heard many people on both sides of the debate worry out loud about passing a heath care bill that did not enjoy broad support. I guess this question is no longer a theoretical one. December will be a big month when it comes to seeing some of the fallout accruing from the very partisan passage of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.”
The Obama Administration has now granted over 200 waivers to corporations for different ObamaCare mandates so they can keep their current plans. ObamaCare is so restrictive with its new mandates that corporations will be unable to keep their current plans and will have to switch to more expensive ones. Businesses are concerned that only the larger and more politically connected firms will be exempted from the rules.
ObamaCare is premised on the assumption that government-run systems lower costs better than patient-centered health care. “Private insurance plans might be better at controlling healthcare costs than Medicare, according to a Health Affairs study released Tuesday morning.”
“Incentives count, it turns out. People will do what they are paid to do. Doctors paid to implant stents will implant stents.
Doctors paid to think long and hard about whether a stent is necessary may be less eager surgeons. This story will not be the last in this genre as incentives settle into place under government-run health care.”
“The future of health care in America looks grim—but it does not have to be. Representative Paul Ryan (R–WI) has proposed ‘A Roadmap for America’s Future’—the only comprehensive plan in Washington that deals with the looming fiscal and economic crisis, driven by ever-increasing government spending on health care. Ryan’s Roadmap would reduce the deficit, allow Medicare to become truly sustainable, establish equity and efficiency in the federal tax treatment of health insurance, and improve access to health care for middle-class and low-income families. Congressman Ryan’s critics have accused him of trying to destroy the Medicare system and claim that the Roadmap will increase the deficit. While they may have honed the harshness of their rhetoric, they have not offered a comparable alternative. Heritage Foundation health policy experts explain how the Ryan Roadmap would really work, and how it would benefit Americans.”
“Republicans have rightly pledged to pass legislation in the House to repeal Obamacare, but they are also considering trying to repeal Obamacare ‘piece by piece’ after the Democrats inevitably kill that full repeal legislation. It’s understandable that Republicans, in their determination to repeal Obamacare, would seek and would welcome any partial victories in this vein. But it’s important that Republicans resist that temptation, which is highly problematic for two principal reasons…”
In light of evidence that cost controls in Medicare result in wide disparities between different regions, a study was conducted to see how private insurance fared on that measure. It turns out that medical providers respond differently to pressures in a private, competitive market and private health plans are better able to control costs than government-run plans.