“What happens when individual states don’t follow the federal government’s orders under ObamaCare? The federal government takes over. Today, Obama’s Health and Human Services department announced that the some part of the health insurance rate review programs in 10 states were not yet up to snuff—and federal officials could elbow past state authorities to conduct the rate reviews themselves.”
“But what’s most important about the report is how it reveals, yet again, that the folks running the ObamaCare show are aware of the effects the law will have on the price of insurance. Like the Obama administration’s decision to grant the state of Maine a waiver from ObamaCare’s medical loss ratio requirement, the GAO’s description of the waiver process is about as straightforward an admission as anyone is likely to get fulfilling ObamaCare’s new insurance requirements does indeed drive up premium prices and/or reduce health insurance benefits.”
“The PPACA repeatedly refers to any IPAB proposal as a ‘legislative proposal’ and speaks of ‘the legislation introduced’ by the IPAB. Each proposal automatically becomes law unless Congress passes — with a three-fifths supermajority required in the Senate — a measure cutting medical spending as much as the IPAB proposal would.
This is a travesty of constitutional lawmaking: An executive branch agency makes laws unless Congress enacts legislation to achieve the executive agency’s aim.”
“The 2012 election, and the existence of a free health-care market in this country, could well depend on a little-known agency called IPAB. Remember that acronym. It stands for the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a vastly powerful but too often overlooked component of the president’s health-care-reform law. IPAB has not yet come into existence, but when Obamacare goes into full effect, it will be an unelected and unaccountable bureaucratic entity with nearly limitless power over federal Medicare spending. IPAB will have the power to effectively ration health care through price controls — which may not even be the scariest thing about it. That distinction arguably falls to its unprecedented overriding of congressional sovereignty, in flagrant violation of the constitutional separation of powers.”
“One of the key provisions in President Barack Obama’s health care reform law — his preferred method for getting Medicare costs under control — is facing a groundswell of opposition from unexpected corners.
Several House Democrats have signed on to support a bill to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board, a panel created by the law that is supposed to help control rising costs in Medicare. The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, a prominent supporter of the law, is now actively lobbying for its repeal, too.”
“Obamacare’s number-one idea for improving health care quality and reducing costs is to promote something called ‘accountable care organizations’ in Medicare. That effort is sinking like a stone, because it – like the rest of this sweeping law – is premised on the fatal conceit that government experts can direct the market better than millions of consumers making their own decisions.”
“The folks at The Cleveland Clinic, a highly integrated provider organization that has been touted as a model for the sort of team-driven health care that ACOs are supposed to encourage, aren’t buying the promises made by the administration and its backers. Last month, I noted that the Clinic was disappointed with the regulations. Since then, its officials have expanded their criticism in a new letter written to Medicare director and superstar ACO-wonk Donald Berwick.”
“Former House speaker Nancy Pelosi’s plea that Congress would have to pass the 906-page Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act to “find out what’s in it” has become an instant classic in the annals of dysfunctional government. But in the months since the bill’s passage, as the Department of Health and Human Services has parceled out waivers, something else has become clear: We may never know what’s in it.”
“So, I’d like the advocates of IPAB to tell me two things: (1) Can they formulate an objective way for the government to determine how much Lucentis should cost? (2) Why shouldn’t individuals get to decide for themselves how much they would be willing to pay to see out of both of their eyes, instead of just one?”
“PhRMA saw the health care overhaul as a chance to advance its long-term interests and played along. But funny enough, it now seems that the White House is not all that interested in holding up its end of the bargain. President Obama’s recent speech on the debt included proposals that would violate the agreement.”