“Hospitals groups are afraid a healthcare reform tax on medical device manufacturers will wind up hurting them more than the device makers.
The reform provision, which is the target of repeal efforts in the House and Senate, imposes a 2.3 percent excise tax on the sale of most medical devices starting in 2013.”
“Sebelius’ comments—and many more that I don’t have space to address—help explain why so many people are confused about the law. The law’s biggest defenders remain confused themselves. There is misinformation being delivered, and most is coming from the White House.”
“President Obama’s signature health care reform law just passed its one year anniversary, but many companies have yet to come to terms with what the new law will mean for their operating costs and bottom lines. Large firms flush with low-wage workers will get hit hard because their bare-bones, low-cost employee health insurance policies don’t comply with the new law, which takes effect in 2014. These companies will have two choices: offer an unlimited insurance minimum, or reduce their workforces.”
“Big companies may eventually look to dump their employees onto new state-run health insurance markets in the future if a key aspect of healthcare reform turns out to be successful, an Obama administration health official predicted Tuesday morning.”
“For Republicans committed to maintaining a vibrant and free society, there is no choice but to make genuine health care reform the centerpiece of their domestic agenda. If the health care debate is lost, then the fight for limited government is lost as well. That means that the effort to repeal and replace Obamacare and to fix our health care entitlements must be well underway by 2013.”
“The absolute worst feature of Obama Care (and it truly is inexplicable) is that close to 310 million Americans are going to get more primary care coverage than they had before. Not just welfare mothers, but Bill Gates, Bill Gates’ father, Warren Buffett — everyone in the whole country is going to have access to a long list of preventive care services with no deductible or copayment. If they respond to their new incentives, they will all try to get more care than they were getting before.”
“Bottom line: after we get through 10 years of spending our $1 trillion under ObamaCare, there is no convincing reason to believe that the bottom half of the income distribution will have more care, better care, or better access to care than they have today.”
“But one thing that is sometimes lost in this debate is the significant opportunity costs involved in passing ObamaCare. That is, the money that Democrats raised through tax hikes and Medicare cuts is slated to be used to pay for a new entitlement program instead of to fix problems with existing entitlements.”
“There’s ample evidence in the literature that physician productivity declines when doctors become owned employees rather than entrepreneurs. How then will the new marketplace that ObamaCare creates deliver efficiencies is downright quizzical.”
“On ObamaCare’s first anniversary, let’s give the president his due: It wouldn’t be in law today without his persistent push for its passage.
Not that his policy arguments carried the day or were persuasive. They weren’t. No, in the end, Obamacare was passed because the president had so tied his political fate to it that it became quite literally impossible for most members of his party in Congress to oppose it. And so it passed.”