“What they found calls into question the assumptions that health policy wonks have been making for years: While Medicare indeed spends almost twice as much more per patient in McAllen than in El Paso, Blue Cross spends about the same in both places. In fact, Blue Cross’s per-patient spending was actually slightly lower in El Paso. These findings persisted for overall spending, as well as for spending on specific types of services and several specific diseases.”
“This Essay argues that federal health care reform may induce employers to redesign their health plans to encourage employees who are likely to consume a greater-than-average amount of medical services to opt out of employer-provided coverage and instead acquire coverage on the individual market. Although largely overlooked in public policy debates, this prospect of employer dumping of high-risk employees raises serious concerns about the sustainability of health care reform more generally.”
“The federal government is demanding that states spend precious time in upcoming legislative sessions to set up massive new bureaucracies in anticipation of spending billions of dollars to implement ObamaCare… But there are ways states can protect themselves from being swamped by these federal demands.”
“Big employers faced with incorporating the first round of health-care changes next month are grappling with how to comply with the long list of new rules. Many companies are hiring consultants to help sort though the mountain of new mandates, which include extending dependent coverage to children up to age 26, and may eventually result in covering more employees. Some are also considering changes to their plans—including pushing costs to workers.”
“HHS has spent the past nine months issuing guidance and regulations at a furious pace in an attempt to fill the holes and correct some of the errors in the healthcare law. But that activity does not account for the numerous special circumstances facing millions of people with all sorts of different insurance arrangements that are unknown or poorly understood by Washington regulators. The waivers help, but they are not permanent and only delay the inevitable.”
“The federal government claims that forcing people to purchase health insurance regulates economic activity because everyone eventually uses health care in some form. But as Judge Hudson points out, ‘the same reasoning could apply to transportation, housing, or nutritional decisions. This broad definition of the economic activity subject to congressional regulation lacks logical limitation.’ The same reasoning would give Congress the power to force everyone to purchase a car because everyone eventually uses some form of ‘transportation.'”
“The days of calling the constitutional challenges to the Affordable Care Act ‘frivolous’ and ‘political’ are now officially over. Judge Hudson’s ruling that the individual insurance mandate is unconstitutional is a milestone in the legal process of deciding whether Congress has the power to command every person in the United States to enter into an economic relationship with a private company.”
“Today is a good day for liberty. By striking down the unprecedented requirement that Americans buy health insurance — the ‘individual mandate’ — Judge Henry Hudson vindicated the idea that ours is a government of delegated and enumerated, and thus limited, powers.”
“The decision on the individual mandate handed down today by U.S. District Judge Henry Hudson in the Eastern District of Virginia makes it clear that Obamacare is on extremely shaky legal ground. That’s fitting, because it’s been on shaky political ground for well over a year now. Today’s decision — possibly joined by others in the weeks ahead — is going to strengthen the already strong perception that this law was ill-advised from the get-go and needs to be repealed to make way for a more sensible, consensus-driven program.”
“This is in one sense a debate between different ways of thinking about economics—command-and-control economics vs. market economics. But as Holder and Sebelius demonstrate today, it is also a debate between different ways of understanding American society, and the American Constitution. Their argument makes it awfully clear why it is so important to win that debate and repeal Obamacare.”