“The Obama team is woefully behind its own schedule for implementing features of the legislation. The critical regulations outlining what the Obamacare insurance benefit will look like was supposed to be out more than six months ago. Now it looks like this regulation won’t be dropped until after the election. This is just one key aspect of the program that is way behind the administration’s own timeline.”
“Officials in California want prime-time TV shows to help promote President Obama’s healthcare law.
Outreach to television producers is part of the marketing plan adopted by California’s insurance exchange — a new marketplace, created by the Affordable Care Act, where individuals and small businesses will be able to buy private insurance.”
“Perhaps that sounds like a successful jobs program, as it will keep 40,000 people fully employed, filling out paperwork and sorting through a confounding pile of government regulations. Only problem is, that work is entirely wasteful and creates zero wealth for America as a whole. It would be better for America and for the 40,000 workers to do something useful, like build the empire state building 11 times over, to use the Ways and Means example.”
“The Affordable Care Act will expand the reach of government into our personal health-care choices, while exacerbating the problems with our current health-care system. Market forces, if allowed to work properly, are the best means for reducing the growth in health costs, encouraging continued innovation, and ensuring that consumers have access to quality health care.”
“Though the ultimate disposition of the case was disappointing, today could become a turning point of constitutional law, so long as the public maintains its current level of interest in the constitutional limits on congressional power that have been affirmed by the court. To see why, we need to step back.”
“The Supreme Court’s ObamaCare decision is both a triumph and a tragedy for our constitutional system. On the plus side, as we have long argued in these pages and in the courts, the justices held that Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce cannot support federal requirements imposed on Americans simply because they exist. The court also ruled that there are limits to Congress’s ability to use federal spending to force the states to adopt its preferred policies.”
“It’s unfortunate that Chief Justice Roberts joined the liberal justices to uphold the individual mandate as a tax. Yet as I understand the ruling, the opinion does very little to enlarge the federal government’s power and, in key respects, reinforced federalism limitations on federal power. According to SCOTUSBlog, while Chief Justice Roberts concluded the mandate is a tax, he also rejected the Commerce Clause arguments in favor of the mandate.”
“If the health law withstands the Supreme Court challenge, two physician legislators in Congress want to make sure the Obama administration doesn’t get away with its attempt to rewrite the law to fit its larger agenda.”
“The ACA is a classic illustration of placing a persuasive title on a controversial statute to conceal its deep internal weaknesses. There is no way that one can “protect patients” by restricting, either through private employers or public exchanges, the choices they have in the type of plans they can join. It would be impossible for the statute to make health care more affordable when it piles major mandates on private plans, which could make them too costly to operate at all.”
“Holtz-Eakin points out that this unconventional tax structure will dramatically skew the health care market in favor of non-profit providers. Insurers subject to the free will have to make up for the expense it imposes on their business somehow, either by cutting their costs or by raising their premiums. Those not subject to the fee will obviously not face this dilemma, and hence they won’t face any financial pressure to raise their premiums. However, the for-profit insurers subject to the fee will suffer the most, as their losses will be compounded by the fee’s non-deductibility. Holtz-Eakin calculates that for-profit insurers subject to the tax will have to raise their premiums by $1.54 for every $1 imposed on them by the fee just to break even.”