With its stock prices falling as Obamacare’s impact is assessed, Big Pharma may regret spending roughly $100 million in support of the overhaul — but health care innovation could become the bigger casualty.
Obamacare would condemn more low-skilled workers to the ranks of the unemployed, with part-time workers — disproportionately women — being hit the hardest.
Obamacare would limit Medicare spending by cutting Medicare’s payments to providers, leading to reduced access for seniors as the supply of willing providers dwindles.
A report by the Obama administration’s Medicare Chief Actuary forecasts that, among other things, ObamaCare would fail to achieve its number-one stated goal — reducing health care costs — and would instead raise costs, which helps explain why the legislation was rushed to a midnight vote (though its major programs wouldn’t begin until 2014) and why a clear majority of Americans oppose it.
The increasing political toxicity of Britain’s not-so-aptly-named NICE (National Institute of Clinical Excellence) is not a good omen for supporters of ObamaCare and its Independent Payments Advisory Board.
The AMA, a high-profile supporter of Obamacare, has largely been transformed from an association that looks out for — and reflects the opinions of — doctors, into a special-interest group that’s beholden to the federal government and would prefer that doctors stay silent.
The culture of Washington doesn’t like to admit mistakes and, if necessary, to correct them — and Obamacare is one giant mistake in need of correction via repeal.
Depending on how Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius decides to calculate medical loss ratios — the proportion of premiums that insurers spend on actual medical care (as opposed to on things like 24-hour nurse hotlines or chasing down fraudulent claims) — ObamaCare could cause massive dislocation in the health insurance industry, thus reducing competition and leading to more insurance monopolies, which would then be decried by the very people who caused them.
Richard Epstein argues that ObamaCare would unconstitutionally coerce the states.