“Illinois Medicaid Director Julie Hamos is warning that there won’t be enough doctors to treat the expected surge next year of new Medicaid patients unless more physicians participate in the health care program for the poor… About 1.2 million uninsured people in Illinois are expected to gain some form of health insurance coverage on Jan. 1 under the landmark overall of health care. About half of those people will be newly eligible for Medicaid.”
“Obamacare is designed to destroy the insurance market. Markets do not function without prices, and Obamacare ensures that prices will not be allowed to emerge. There is a medical price associated with smoking, but the District of Columbia has decided to suppress that price by law. Pretending that smoking has no relationship with health-care costs does not make it so — it is only a way to push costs around in a way that is agreeable to the likes of Barack Obama, converting a system that prices risk into a system of entitlements.”
“One of the many objections to President Obama’s health care reform law echoed philosophical beliefs rather than explicitly appealing to empirical evidence; the refrain is that Obamacare is a government takeover of our health care system, and as such, infringes on our freedom. While the reality isn’t quite that gloomy, the law does significantly increase government involvement in health insurance – through subsidies, Medicaid expansion, and new regulations for health care providers and insurers.”
“Even when the law was passed three years ago, $1 billion for implementation was thought to be just the start. Getting the massive law up and running was expected to cost 10 times that. And that was before the federal exchange task ballooned as conservative states refused to do much to make the law a success.”
“In a 2010 paper I authored for the Heritage Foundation, I documented the delayed and failed effort by the Massachusetts public exchange (Connector) to offer real choice and savings to small businesses. My report suggested the experience served as a warning to other states. I suppose I should have targeted it toward the federal government instead.”
“Here’s another ominous sign for ObamaCare’s future: The Department of Health and Human Services admitted yesterday that setting up the law has cost twice as much as expected so far. And you can’t really blame Republican opposition for the overrun: That’s just accounting for the cost of building exchanges in states that said they want to run them.”
“President Barack Obama and his fellow Democrats sold many Americans on the Affordable Care Act largely by emphasizing two arguments: The law would help to reduce overall health-care costs, and it would provide health insurance to those who, for financial or health reasons, cannot get it now. Unfortunately, both of these arguments are flawed.”