“If the courts were to accept Adler’s and Cannon’s argument, that could effectively enable states to kill federal exchanges by empowering them to cut off the subsidies. Without subsidies, the federal exchanges would not be economically viable because they couldn’t get as many people to sign up for coverage.”
“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.”
“While the individual mandate tax gets most of the attention, the ObamaCare law actually contains 20 new or higher taxes on the American people. These taxes are gradually phased in over the years 2010 (with its 10 percent “tanning tax”) to 2018 (when the tax on comprehensive health insurance plans kicks in.) Six months from now, in January 2013, five major ObamaCare taxes will come into force.”
“So, by refusing to go along with Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion and by blocking state-run exchanges, governors are not just saving state taxpayers money. They are potentially reducing future federal spending by as much as $1.5 trillion over the next ten years. While congressional Republicans have been reduced to taking symbolic repeal votes, and Mitt Romney struggles to determine whether or not the individual mandate is a tax, governors — and state legislators — have become the real heroes of the fight against Obamacare.”