“While the resistance of Republican governors has dominated the debate over the health-care law following last month’s Supreme Court decision to uphold it, a number of Democratic governors are also quietly voicing concerns about a key provision to expand coverage. At least seven Democratic governors have been noncommittal about their willingness to go along with expanding their states’ Medicaid programs, the chief means by which the law would extend coverage to millions of Americans with incomes below or near the poverty line.”
“Regulations are slowly strangling HSAs. Under Obamacare, “fully insured” policies must spend at least 80 percent (small group and individual market) or 85 percent (large group market) of every premium dollar on health care related expenses (called the medical loss ratio or MLR). The remainder can be spent on administrative costs (improving health care delivery or combating fraud) and profits.”
“But while much attention has focused on Congress’s intention to repeal or replace the Affordable Care Act, too few are studying the law’s practical impact. The best place to see the effects of the law is in our nation’s laboratories, the states. Although the Supreme Court has ruled on the constitutionality of the act, Wisconsin shows that it is bad policy.”
“Government auditors Wednesday questioned the legality of a costly Medicare bonus program, escalating a running skirmish in the broader battle over President Barack Obama’s health care law and its consequences for seniors.
In a letter to the administration, Government Accountability Office General Counsel Lynn Gibson wrote that the nonpartisan agency remains concerned about Medicare’s legal authority to undertake the $8.3 billion Medicare Advantage quality bonus program.”
“Setting aside the brazen intrusion into state sovereignty and the gross federal overreach, the practical problem with ObamaCare’s Medicaid expansion is that the product the administration is selling is broken. State and federal budgets are simply unable to handle an expansion of this magnitude.”
“Waging old battles with new zeal, the House passed a bill on Wednesday to repeal President Obama’s health care overhaul law less than two weeks after the Supreme Court upheld it as constitutional. The bill was approved by a vote of 244 to 185, with five Democrats supporting repeal.”
“In short, nearly all of the professed current benefits of ObamaCare are overstated and consist mostly of a system of imposed cost-shifting that hides the cost of the regulations. The problems they allegedly solve are relatively easy to fix and at a far lower cost to us all.”