“As President Obama took his victory lap Tuesday, declaring that 7.1 million people signed up for coverage through his health care program, he said, “The bottom line is this: Under this law, the share of Americans with insurance is up and the growth of health care costs is down.”
This wasn’t the first time that Obama attempted to credit his health care law for the slowdown in the growth rate of health care spending that’s been recorded in recent years.”
“President Obama’s promise that Americans could keep their health insurance if they liked it was the most infamous of the Affordable Care Act’s sketchy sales pitches. But many of the law’s most damaging aspects are less known, buried in thousands of pages of regulations.
Consider the “fee”—really a hidden sales tax—that all health-insurance companies have been forced to pay since the first of this year on premiums for policies sold to individuals and small and medium-size businesses. The health-insurance tax—known as HIT in business circles—is expected to generate revenues of about $8 billion this year and as much as $14.3 billion by 2018, according to the legislation.”
“Have you heard? Obamacare survived! It got to that magic number it was looking for to make everything right!
Or rather, it got to half the number the Congressional Budget Office predicted it would get to after the Supreme Court ruling.”
“Young workers signed up for company health plans at a lower rate than last year, a surprising result that kept overall corporate enrollment rates flat.
American companies had been bracing for a big bump in the number of employees signing on to workplace plans as a result of the new government mandate that most American adults buy health insurance or pay a penalty. New data on worker behavior for the 2014 coverage year from payroll services supplier ADP suggests that surge of enrollment never happened, at least for large companies.”
“The Affordable Care Act (ACA) has served as a catalyst to an ongoing national debate on the cost of health care in the United States. An important aspect of this question is the cost impact of the new law on the employer community. Employers spend $578.6 billion annually in providing health coverage for 170.9 million employees, retirees, and dependents. If the law leads to significant cost increases for them, this would affect the behavior of employers, which could in turn affect how—and even whether—they provide health care for their employees.”
“On Monday, the first open enrollment period for the new Affordable Care Act will close, and the opportunity to sign up for health insurance will not reopen again until November. For our family, President Barack Obama’s promise to make health insurance “affordable and available to every single American” has not come true. “
“Liberals keep dismissing challenges to ObamaCare, political and legal, so it’s no surprise they mostly ignored last week’s oral argument at the D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals that could send another case to the Supreme Court. Coming in the week the White House wheeled out its 38th rewrite of the law, Halbig v. Sebelius is even more important for the contours of executive power and the rule of law.”
“The law clearly states that today is the final day to sign up for Obamacare. Only it isn’t. The extension announced last week covers anyone who merely claims they intend to apply. Allowing such a frivolous and unverifiable gesture to circumvent the law neatly captures the paternalistic arrogance of the White House and its signature legislation — only the intent matters. Pay no attention to the cavalcade of undesirable consequences; if we mean well, we can do whatever we want.”
“Maryland officials are set to replace the state’s online health-insurance exchange with technology from Connecticut’s insurance marketplace, according to two people familiar with the decision, an acknowledgment that a system that has cost at least $125.5 million is broken beyond repair.
The board of the Maryland exchange plans to vote on the change Tuesday, the day after the end of the first enrollment period for the state’s residents under the 2010 Affordable Care Act.”
“Today is March 31, 2014: in theory, the last day you can sign up for coverage under the subsidized Obamacare insurance exchanges. If you’ve been a regular reader of this space, you know that the numbers routinely paraded by the Obama administration regarding Obamacare website sign-ups don’t tell us much about the actual number of uninsured individuals who have gained coverage. A new study from the RAND Corporation indicates that only one-third of exchange sign-ups were previously uninsured.”