Insurer defections and rising premiums in the individual insurance market are spurring Democrats and Republicans alike to talk about changes to the 2010 Affordable Care Act.
For now, the conversations are largely aimed at their party’s base. President Barack Obama led his party’s cry on Thursday with suggestions that would further entrench the law, including the addition of a government-run health plan in parts of the country with limited competition. GOP lawmakers have continued to call for gutting the law, including proposals to waive its penalties for people who forgo coverage in areas with limited insurance options.
In each of these proposals, both sides have been largely talking past one another. Come January, they will have to talk to each other instead.
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States are beginning to turn to hospitals to cover the cost of Medicaid expansion once the federal match begins to drop next year. The Affordable Care Act provides 100% federal financing for those made newly eligible for Medicaid under the law. The federal match rate falls to 95% in 2017, 94% in 2018, 93% in 2019, and then 90% in 2020 and beyond. Starting next year, eight of the 32 states that have expanded Medicaid planned to use provider taxes or fees to fund all or part of the states’ share of costs, the report said. These states have chosen to implement a new or modify an existing provider assessment specifically for the purpose of covering the costs of expansion.
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Though the debate over accessible and affordable health care may appear to be a debate over health care, it is really a debate over what type of economic system delivers the care patients need at the best price. What our country has now is a system of government mandates and price controls, which looks nothing like a real market. What we need is a true marketplace, where families can choose the coverage they need, not the coverage a bureaucrat in Washington thinks they need, and shop and negotiate for the best price. Unfortunately, Obamacare has done the opposite.
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Democrats are already looking beyond ObamaCare’s slow-motion failure, and Colorado is showing where many want to go next: Premiums across the state are set to rise 20.4% on average next year, and some have concluded that the solution is more central planning and taxation. Voters will decide on Nov. 8 whether to try the single-payer scheme that blew up in Vermont.
Amendment 69 would alter the state’s constitution to create a single-payer health system known as ColoradoCare. The idea is to replace premiums with tax dollars, and coverage for residents will allegedly include prescription drugs, hospitalization and more.
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When Illinois’ Obamacare co-op went belly-up last month, Valerie Kincaid faced losing not just her insurance but her team of cancer doctors, too.
For six years, the 41-year-old leukemia patient has relied on doctors at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in downtown Chicago to keep her disease at bay. Once a month, she visits the hospital to receive an oral therapy that keeps her chronic lymphocytic leukemia under control and allows her to live a relatively normal life with her husband, Brian, and her 11- and 13-year-old sons.
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The renewed call by Democrats for a public option health plan has steeled Republican resistance to expanding the healthcare law, suggesting 2017 may bring nothing but more gridlock when it comes to fixing the problems that even Democrats now admit are plaguing Obamacare.
Both House Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Mitch McConnell have called for repealing the law and replacing after President Obama made a new push this week to expand his signature law by adding a government-funded healthcare option long sought by Democrats.
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Outside of politics, perhaps the worst new-product launch of 2016 was the Samsung Galaxy Note 7. Released in August, it was recalled twice and finally withdrawn from the market last week, all because the device has a tendency to catch fire or explode.
It’s an apt analogy for the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, known colloquially as ObamaCare—and that’s not our opinion but that of President Obama himself.
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