Small businesses have turned their backs on the Affordable Care Act, says healthcare expert Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, a public policy research organization.
“They call it the shop exchange [and] the coverage that’s offered through these shop exchanges is really substandard. It’s very expensive,” Turner said Tuesday on “The Steve Malzberg Show” on Newsmax TV.
In November, voters across the country elected new Republican governors and legislators, many of whom campaigned heavily against Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. Although some of these new leaders (including Governor-elect Asa Hutchinson in Arkansas) will be taking control of states that have opted into Obamacare expansion, there is new hope that these governors and state legislators will work to reduce government dependency and restore the working class.
One idea rapidly gaining currency among legislators and new governors’ transition teams is the possibility of renewing Medicaid expansion on a temporary basis for those who have already signed up, but immediately freezing enrollment going forward. This approach would stop the bleeding, but allow for a more gradual wind down of the program and allow enrollees to keep their plans until they increased their incomes, transitioning out of eligibility.
Sen. Tom Harkin, one of the coauthors of the Affordable Care Act, now thinks Democrats may have been better off not passing it at all and holding out for a better bill.
The Iowa Democrat who chairs the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee, laments the complexity of legislation the Senate passed five years ago.
He wonders in hindsight whether the law was made overly complicated to satisfy the political concerns of a few Democratic centrists who have since left Congress.