Andy Griffith is running ads paid for the government to promote the benefits of ObamaCare for Medicare beneficiaries. “Hate to quarrel with a television legend, but we have two problems. First, there’s the curious timing of the ad. The Medicare changes don’t fully kick in until 2014, but the government spent about $3 million to run the ad in October alone, in the heart of the midterm campaign, Politico reported.”
“Among respondents in the 100 most targeted House districts, 51 percent called their vote a message of opposition to the law, while just one in five said it was a sign of support for it. A majority of independent voters, a voting bloc that Republicans won by a whopping 18 points, also said in the McInturff survey that their vote was in opposition to the law.”
The state of Texas is considering ending their Medicaid program entirely rather than dealing with new Medicaid costs from ObamaCare. The law’s “maintenance of effort” provisions prevent Texas from modifying eligibility requirements or implementing most other cost-saving measures. This could require new federal spending to offset the reduction.
ObamaCare is paid for partly with new taxes on health firms, especially medical device manufacturers and drug companies. These taxes will discourage medical innovation and drive up the cost of care.
Since the subsidies for the uninsured don’t begin until 2014, ObamaCare creates high-risk pools to help the uninsured get coverage. This program is so poorly designed and ill-conceived that instead of insuring hundreds of thousands of people, as expected, only about 8,000 people have coverage in the program.
“A conservative group of healthcare analysts today welcomed the intention of the new House Republican majority to immediately pass a bill repealing President Obama’s health reform law. After that’s done, though, the analysts suggested the Republican leaders get to work on a more realistic strategy to destroy the president’s signature piece of legislature.”
“AARP’s endorsement helped secure passage of President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul. Now the seniors’ lobby is telling its employees their insurance costs will rise partly as a result of the law. In an e-mail to employees, AARP says health care premiums will increase by 8 percent to 13 percent next year because of rapidly rising medical costs.”
“ObamaCare doesn’t reduce medical costs under even the rosiest of scenarios (that is, projections that take seriously all its creators’ assumptions). What we can be certain of is that this legislation increases the amount of money taxpayers will be forced by law to pay for health insurance to the tune of $420 billion over the next 10 years. Claims about ObamaCare’s deficit-reduction effects depend on new taxes growing even faster than new spending. Despite the persistent claims of Peter Orszag and other defenders of the president’s health care legislation, ObamaCare has nothing to do with cutting costs.”
“Until the next presidential election, the short-term tactical agenda for the new de facto majority in Congress remains mostly defund, delay, and debunk. Initiatives to reduce or cut off funding for implementation of the next round of ObamaCare need to be targeted narrowly to succeed… Trying to wind back the ObamaCare implementation clock so that it doesn’t get so dark so early is a more promising approach. Congressional appropriations riders could attach new conditions that must be met before proceeding further.”
“McInturff found that 52 percent of independents said their vote was a message opposing President Obama’s health-care plan; only 18 percent said their vote was a message of support. Those numbers were crucial in bringing down Democratic candidates in dozens of swing House districts.”