“A great deal of analysis has been published on the causes of the health care spending slowdown system-wide — including in the pages of Health Affairs. Much attention in particular has focused on the remarkable slowdown in Medicare spending over the past few years, and rightfully so: Spending per beneficiary actually shrank (!) by one percent this year (or grew only one percent if one removes the effects of temporary policy changes).
Yet the disproportionate role played by prescription drug spending (or Part D) has seemingly escaped notice. Despite constituting barely more than 10 percent of Medicare spending, our analysis shows that Part D has accounted for over 60 percent of the slowdown in Medicare benefits since 2011 (beyond the sequestration contained in the 2011 Budget Control Act).”
“Ohio Gov. John Kasich, the Republican governor and possible 2016 contender, had a dust-up this week when the Associated Press reported pro-Obamacare comments he made. In reality, he subsequently said, he was only praising the Medicaid expansion — which he’s trying to argue is totally separate.
I’ve already written about why this is a dishonest distinction, but his office has decided to dig in further. In a statement released on Twitter on Tuesday, his press department attempted to trick conservatives by using several cynical strategies often employed by Republicans trying to explain their big government policies.”
“The vast majority of Americans gaining health coverage under Obamacare actually qualified for Medicaid because of loosened eligibility —and that’s what boosted enrollment among those previously uninsured, according to a new report from The Heritage Foundation.
The Obama administration has boasted that the Affordable Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, would allow those previously uninsured to purchase quality, affordable health care.
“The inescapable conclusion is that, when it comes to covering the uninsured, Obamacare so far is an expansion of Medicaid,” Heritage Foundation health policy experts Edmund F. Haislmaier and Drew Gonshorowski write in a research paper scheduled for release today.”
“In last night’s U.S. Senate debate in New Hampshire between incumbent Jeanne Shaheen (D.) and challenger Scott Brown (R.), Shaheen uttered a flat-out, bald-faced lie: that Obamacare doesn’t cut Medicare spending to pay for its expansion of coverage to the uninsured. It’s a talking point that a number of Democratic Senate candidates—and their enablers in the lefty blogosphere—have been clinging to. And it’s embarrassingly dishonest.”
“Republican Senate Budget Committee analysts reported last week that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) — a.k.a. ObamaCare — would increase the federal deficit by $131 billion over the period from 2015 to 2024. Drew Hammill, a senior aide to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), dismissed the report as “complete garbage.”
Name-calling is no substitute for analysis. The Senate budget analysts’ work is fully transparent. Based on Congressional Budget Office (CBO) data on medical spending and labor market effects, it is quite easy to check out.
In fact, the Senate Budget analysts do not question any of the CBO’s assumptions concerning ObamaCare’s biggest fiscal problem: massive government spending. The CBO now says that the Medicaid expansion and the new exchange subsidies will cost taxpayers $1.9 trillion by 2024. It will account for more than half the cost-growth in federal health programs by 2023.”
“Republicans are in a strong position as the midterm election approaches. They are nearly certain to retain control of the House of Representatives in the next Congress and may pick up a few seats to add to their majority. They are also poised to make gains in the Senate, perhaps even adding the six seats necessary to take control of the upper chamber—and maybe more.
The mere possibility of full Republican control of Congress in 2015 is leading some to wonder what Republicans would do if they found themselves in such a position come January.”
““If we hadn’t taken this on, and [health insurance] premiums had kept growing at the rate they did in the last decade, the average premium for family coverage today would be $1,800 higher than they are. Now, most people don’t notice it, but that’s $1,800 you don’t have to pay out of your pocket or see vanish from your paycheck. That’s like a $1,800 tax cut.”
–President Obama, remarks on the economy, Northwestern University, Oct. 2, 2014
Remember that 2008 campaign promise touted by then-candidate Obama — that his health care law would reduce the cost of premiums by $2,500 by 2014? As we have noted, he was quickly called out by fact checkers for making a dubious claim based on shaky assumptions.”
“Remember this categorical assurance from President Obama?
“I will not sign a plan that adds one dime to our deficits.”
This was no casual, throw-away campaign promise. The pledge was made on September 9, 2009 in his health speech before a joint session of Congress. In reality, we have known for years that Obamacare would violate this promise. But champions of Obamacare have repeatedly pointed to the CBO score that purported to show that the law would reduce federal deficits by $143 billion in its first 10 years.[1] They conveniently ignored the fact that less than four weeks before the law even passed, Paul Ryan had deftly exposed all the “gimmicks and smoke-and-mirrors” underlying that calculation.”
“I will be covering Medicaid Health Plans of America’s annual conference in Washington, DC from October 26 to 28. So, I thought I’d prepare for it by reviewing the research on health outcomes for patients on Medicaid. What a tangled web!
According to evidence cited by Forbes opinion editor and Manhattan Institute Senior Fellow Avik Roy, “patients on Medicaid have the worst health outcomes of any insurance program in America – far worse that those with private insurance and, strikingly, no better than those with no insurance at all. “ On March 10, 2011, the Wall Street Journal published a column by Forbes contributor and American Enterprise Institute Resident Fellow Scott Gottlieb, MD, which concluded that “Medicaid coverage is worse than no coverage at all.””
“If there’s one thing that the left and right can agree about on Obamacare it’s that the employer mandate is bad policy. The health care law’s requirement that companies with 50 or more full-time equivalent workers offer health insurance locks further in place our unique, and idiosyncratic employer-based health insurance system. But just because the employer-based system of health insurance is itself undesirable, doesn’t mean that there’s nothing we can learn from it. After all, it makes sense that if anyone holds the keys to improving the performance of our health care system, it might just be the companies that have been involved in paying for it for over half a century.
A recent report from the Kaiser Family Foundation underscores one such lesson – the growing takeup of private exchanges has the potential to be a catalyst for some major revolutions in our health care system.”