“Congress had no scruples in passing a bill whose constitutional basis was paper thin. President Barack Obama was proud to sign it. Now only the federal courts stand between our burgeoning federal government and the Constitution’s model of limited government.”
“Given today’s high rates of unemployment and the fact that most Americans get health insurance through their employers, the increased number of uninsureds comes as no surprise. The exodus from job-based insurance will only escalate under Obamacare.”
On Tuesday, September 14th, e21’s ObamaCare Watch project
held an event “ObamaCare at Six Months: What Else Have We Learned?”
The event featured the release of a new, in-depth
research study by OCW Director James Capretta co-authored by Robert Book,
Senior Research Fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Their paper analyzed the
cuts instituted by the new health law on a county-by-county basis. The event
also featured a keynote speech by Sen. Mike Johanns (R-NE) and commentary by
Douglas Holtz-Eakin, all moderated by Bill Kristol.
Read “Reductions in Medicare Advantage Payments: The
Impact on Seniors by Region” at heritage.org.
Click here to see the county-by-county table of
Medicare Advantage disruptions.
Read an op-ed by Book and Capretta summarizing their findings
from The
Daily Caller.
Event Photos:
Presentations:
Introductory Remarks by Jim Capretta from Economics 21 on Vimeo.
Presentation of the study’s findings by Robert Book from Economics 21 on Vimeo.
Commentary by Doug Holtz-Eakin from Economics 21 on Vimeo.
Discussion Moderated by Bill Kristol from Economics 21 on Vimeo.
Keynote Address by Sen. Mike Johanns, (R-NE) from Economics 21 on Vimeo.
Q & A: Two Parts
Q&A – Part 1 – Senator Johanns from Economics 21 on Vimeo.
Q&A – Part 2 – Questions for Panel from Economics 21 on Vimeo.
The Medicare Advantage program, which provides choice and competition in Medicare, is deeply cut by ObamaCare. This study is the first ever county-by-county analysis of the deep cuts, which will result in half those who would be enrolled in the program in 2017 to have been dropped from it.
ObamaCare’s cuts to the Medicare Advantage program will result in millions of seniors losing the extra benefits that program provides because of its increased choice and competition. “The average nationwide per capita reduction in the value of coverage for MA and would-be MA enrollees will total about $3,700 annually by 2017, or a nearly 27 percent cut from what would have occurred without the new law. At the state level, the average cut ranges from $2,020 (21 percent) in Nevada, the state with the smallest cut on a per capita basis, to $4,693 (36 percent) in Hawaii, the state with the highest reduction in the per-capita value of MA-covered benefits. All together, the aggregate cut in payments to MA plans in 2017 will reach $55 billion.”
“The new law gives the Administration extensive authority to achieve broadly outlined goals, allowing it to control every aspect of health care finance and delivery and to impose its view of how the health care system should operate… The structure of the health care system will be determined by one central authority, reducing flexibility and denying Americans the ability to make their own choices.”
“Faced with the fact that the new health-care law was driving up insurance premiums, Health and Human Service Secretary Kathleen Sebelius warned that the administration would have ‘zero tolerance’ for anyone who blamed them for those price hikes… At the very least, she noted ‘bad actors’ could be excluded from new government-run health-insurance exchanges that will begin operation in 2014 under the law. That could cost insurers as many as 30 million customers nationwide. People also might not be able to use government subsidies to buy insurance from companies that don’t toe the administration line. What’s next? Only companies that write checks to the Democratic National Committee can participate? Have too many employees contribute to the wrong candidate, and you get a visit from the insurance commissioner?”
“Sebelius is threatening to put health insurers out of business in a substantial portion of the market if they state that Obamacare is boosting their costs. ‘Congress shall make no law,’ reads the First Amendment, ‘abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press.’ Sebelius’ approach is different: ‘zero tolerance’ for dissent.
The threat to use government regulation to destroy or harm someone’s business because they disagree with government officials is thuggery. Like the Obama administration’s transfer of money from Chrysler bondholders to its political allies in the United Auto Workers, it is a form of gangster government.”
“[T]he Democrats wanted to provide benefits they could tout during the election. So they tucked all these fine sounding goodies into the law to take effect early. Unfortunately, until the individual mandate kicks in (and maybe/probably even after it does), some of these provisions give people every incentive to game the system by waiting until, say, their kid gets leukemia to buy a policy… If you really think that insurance price increases have nothing to do with costs, and everything to do with insurer greed, you need to explain a few anomalies. First of all, why did insurers all suddenly get much greedier now? And if they haven’t gotten greedier, then why did they wait until the middle of a recession to impose price increases just at the time when they are most likely to cost the insurers their healthiest customers?”
“This paper presents updated national health spending projections for 2009–2019 that take into account recent comprehensive health reform legislation and other relevant changes in law and regulations. Relative to our February 2010 projections under prior law, average annual growth in national health spending over the projection period is estimated to be 0.2 percentage point higher than our previous estimate. The health care share of gross domestic product (GDP) is expected to be 0.3 percentage point higher in 2019. Within these net overall impacts are larger differences for trends in spending and spending growth by payer, attributable to reform’s many major changes to health care coverage and financing.”