Even a liberal columnist and ObamaCare supporter doesn’t believe the law’s deficit projections. “But the costs of the new law are far more certain than the savings. Anyone who’s spent any time in Washington knows better than to assume that health-care reform will end up as a money saver. Democrats will, I suspect, have ample opportunities to accuse Republicans of hypocrisy on fiscal responsibility. This isn’t one of them. And there are stronger defenses of the new law than to claim that repeal would be a budget buster.”
“Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich’s advocacy group American Solutions on Thursday launched a website to support congressional Republicans’ fight to defund and repeal the health care reform law. In an email to supporters, Gingrich described the new site, NoMoreObamaCare.com, as an ‘action center’ for citizens who want to get involved in promoting efforts to repeal President Obama’s signature domestic achievement.”
“The health care reform law was signed 10 months ago, and what’s striking now is how vulnerable it looks. Several threats have emerged — some of them scarcely discussed before passage — that together or alone could seriously endanger the new system.”
“When government controls so much of health spending, it can quash investments in innovation and interfere with the natural processes of scientific investigation by denying payment and therefore blocking access to its huge markets. Many investigations are better than one centralized government body in determining whether a product is efficacious. Governments too often make decisions in silos. Integrated private plans are more likely to see the overall benefit of paying for a costly drug to avert an even more expensive hospitalization.”
“Regional variation in Medicare spending is not correlated with variation in non-Medicare spending, and variation in non-Medicare spending is associated with measures of disease burden and health status. The data indicate that something is deeply wrong not with the doctors or the patients but with Medicare’s payment system, service mix, and incentives.”
“If Congress is really serious about reducing long-term deficits, the best path forward is to accept the CBO report for what it is and also set aside PAYGO in favor of real budget process reform. In the meantime, repealing Obamacare is the right step toward reducing the federal deficit and getting health care reform right.”
“The current Medicaid program is arguably the worst health insurance plan in the country. It has expanded massively beyond the original intent in 1965 and is now one of the two or three largest budget items for nearly every state. In spite
of massive annual increases in spending, Medicaid chronically experiences budgetbreaking costs. Expanding Medicaid, as the new health care reform law requires,
will only compound these problems.”
“The ACA essentially imposes price ceilings on Medicare payments to providers. These price controls will lead to fewer health care options and lower quality of care for the Medicare population. In contrast, the Rivlin/Ryan approach would affect both the demand and supply side of the health care market – patients would shop and providers would respond. Provision for low-income beneficiaries in the form of health spending accounts could be structured to keep pace with the new system. The more realistic cost savings resulting from the Rivlin/Ryan proposal could be accomplished without the unintended consequences of price ceilings.”
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan spoke at an e21 event where he said the true cost of ObamaCare is $700 billion in new deficit spending. “Ryan said this afternoon at the National Press Club that the only reason a Congressional Budget Office letter claims the national health care law will reduce the deficit–i.e. bring in more revenue through tax hikes and Medicare cuts than it spends on Obamacare–is because ‘the books have been severely cooked’–not by the CBO but by the Democrats who wrote the bill.”
“It’s not hard to connect the dots. The Obama administration is using waivers to reward friends. On the flip side, business executives will be discouraged from contributing to the president’s opponents or from taking any other steps that might upset the White House or its political appointees at HHS. This is not what people had in mind when candidate Obama promised in his acceptance speech in August 2008 to undo ‘the cynicism we all have about government.'”