“The health legislation doesn’t call on government tribunals to euthanize seniors, as some fanciful critics claim, but the bill does kill off private-practice medicine. ObamaCare envisions that doctors will fold their private offices to become salaried hospital employees, making it easier for the federal government to regulate them and centrally manage the costly medical services they prescribe. To get this control, ObamaCare creates ‘Accountable Care Organizations,’ which are basically hospitals coupled with local doctor networks that the hospital owns.”
“In short, Obamacare marked a decisive pro-abortion shift. Representatives who voted for it should not be surprised if their constituents hold them accountable for doing so.”
“The whole law is bad policy. But even if one agrees with the policy, one can still recognize that the legislation itself was badly executed. The way for conservatives to drive Obamacare’s negatives even higher than they already are is by repeatedly reinforcing the theme that Obamacare is the product of three ‘I’ words: ideology, ignorance, and incompetence. The more negative the public’s opinion of Obamacare becomes, the more likely repeal becomes, regardless of the partisan make-up of the next Congress.”
“As the details of this massive government-led health care overhaul begin to trickle out, let me be clear (to borrow the president’s go-to phrase): The medical system is about to be overwhelmed because there are no disincentives for overuse.”
“But despite seven decades of stretching by a Supreme Court eager to accommodate every congressional whim, the Amazing Elastic Commerce Clause is still not expansive enough to cover the unprecedented command that people purchase a product from a private company in exchange for the privilege of existing.”
“And stretched to its logical conclusion, the mandate’s policy implications are absurd. As one successful political opponent of the mandate once said: ‘If a mandate was the solution, we could try that to solve homelessness by mandating everybody buy a house.’ That’s probably somewhat exaggerated, but it’s basically a fair point. And it was first made on the campaign trail by President Obama.”
“What percentage of premium revenue should health insurance companies spend on clinical services? Thanks to the new health care law, that’s for the federal government to decide.”
“The White House had to play favorites with Senators and special interests to pass ObamaCare, and its implementation is no less ugly. But the waiver wave is most telling for what it says about the architects of this plan. By bending their own rules, they’re conceding their destructiveness.”
This study analyzes the different mandates each state imposes on its insurance market and determines the added costs of each. ObamaCare includes several of these coverage mandates, like ‘guaranteed issue,’ which will have driven up costs in states which have tried them, and will drive up costs nation-wide as well.
“But our recent health reform has created a situation where there are strong economic incentives for employers to drop health coverage altogether. The consequence will be to drive many more people than projected—and with them, much greater cost—into the reform’s federally subsidized system. This will happen because the subsidies that become available to people purchasing insurance through exchanges are extraordinarily attractive.”