“Without President Barack Obama’s health care law, as many as 129 million Americans — half of those under age 65 — could be denied coverage or charged more because of a pre-existing medical condition.
The new estimate by the Health and Human Services Department is more than twice as high as a figure that supporters of the law were using last year.
It just might need an asterisk.
Most of those millions of people are covered by health insurance at work and don’t face any immediate risk of being denied care for their pre-existing medical problems. And as a rule, those who take a new job and sign up in their employer’s health plan are already protected by a 1990s law.”
“Today’s ruling vindicates the constitutional first principle that ours is a government of delegated, enumerated, and thus limited powers. Like Judge Hudson in the Virginia case, Judge Vinson recognized that the individual mandate represents an unprecedented and improper incursion beyond those powers: the federal government, under the guise of regulating commerce, cannot require that people engage in economic activity.”
Chili’s, the popular chain restaurant, is trimming staff and changing their operating procedures in anticipation of ObamaCare’s new labor costs.
“The most noteworthy characteristic of the new law is that it is the largest entitlement expansion since the 1960s… How then does a new law which increases spending by nearly $1 trillion over the period 2010 to 2019 reduce the federal deficit (by about $130 billion over ten years according to the Congressional Budget Office and by a modest amount in the decade after that)? The only way is by raising taxes and cutting spending by amounts in excess of the new spending commitments. According CBO’s estimate of the final legislation, spending reductions will bring the net increase in spending down to about $430 billion over the next decade. The tax hike to pay for this spending will total about $560 billion over the same period.”
“Residents in 20 states can no longer purchase new child-only policies as a result of the Democrats’ healthcare reform law, according to a survey released Thursday by Republicans on the Senate Health committee.”
“According to the AP, two of the central promises of President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul law are unlikely to be fulfilled, Medicare’s independent economic expert told Congress today. The landmark legislation probably won’t hold costs down, and it won’t let everybody keep their current health insurance if they like it, Chief Actuary Richard Foster told the House Budget Committee. (Foster’s office is responsible for independent long-range cost estimates.)”
“A week after Republicans announced plans to investigate waivers granted to organizations for healthcare reform provisions, President Obama’s health department made public new waivers for more than more than 500 groups.”
“Abbott Laboratories, maker of the rheumatoid arthritis drug Humira, said it will cut about 1,900 jobs as part of a restructuring of its pharmaceutical business. The cuts, amounting to 2 percent of the workforce, will help the Abbott Park, Illinois-based company cope with the U.S. health-care law passed last year, Abbott said in a statement today.”
“Compared to last year’s report, the new CBO figures predict faster growth of healthcare spending in terms of GDP. The 2010 outlook predicted healthcare spending in 2020 would represent 6.8 percent of the GDP… The CBO report also projects faster growth in Medicaid enrollment in light of the healthcare reform law. The 2010 report projected that 76 million people will be enrolled in Medicaid in 2020, while the new report predicts the number will be closer to 97 million in 2021.”
“The government’s chief actuary for Medicare spending on Wednesday said he had more confidence that Republican Paul Ryan’s plan to reform entitlements would drive down health-care costs than President Obama’s recently passed overhaul.”