“Squads of health care experts and political pundits envisioned a Pax Obama for heath care once the political hubbub quieted down. It won’t happen. Without major steps to overhaul or repeal ObamaCare, government by waiver will become standard operating procedure to the detriment of us all.”
“The health-care overhaul has taken some of the flex out of flexible spending accounts, which let workers pay medical expenses with pretax dollars. Starting in January, you’ll no longer be able to use your FSA for over-the-counter drugs and medicines unless you have a doctor’s prescription. Experts agree that the new rules will likely discourage people from tapping their FSAs for routine purchases of aspirin, vitamins, cough medicine and other drugstore essentials.”
“Congress must repeal the new law. Congress cannot build sound market-based health care reform on the PPACA foundation, which is utterly incompatible with a health care system based on consumer choice and free markets.”
“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration estimates that it will take the food service industry 14 million additional hours each year to comply with a new regulation that mandates chain restaurants and vending machine operators label the products they sell with a calorie count in a place visible to the consumer.”
“A conservative group of healthcare analysts today welcomed the intention of the new House Republican majority to immediately pass a bill repealing President Obama’s health reform law. After that’s done, though, the analysts suggested the Republican leaders get to work on a more realistic strategy to destroy the president’s signature piece of legislature.”
“Voters in Oklahoma and Arizona resoundingly supported ballot initiatives to opt-out of the federal health reform law, while Colorado voters appeared headed to rejecting a similar measure.”
“But even if the Supremes act to spare us the ObamaCare train wreck, our health-care system is still a train wreck. This is the toughest wicket for Republicans. Happily, a path back to the future exists that just might be politically actionable in a divided Washington. It involves not repealing ObamaCare but adding something to it—an optional federal charter for health insurers.”
ObamaCare’s new mandates terrify employers. According to benefit consultants, “What we are hearing in our meetings is, ‘We don’t want to be the first one to drop benefits, but we would be the fast second.’ We are hearing that a lot.”
“Right now we’re estimating the cost of the minimum benefit package that everyone will be required to have at $4,750 for individuals and $12,250 for families… That translates into a minimum health benefit of $2.28 an hour for full time workers (individual coverage) and $5.89 an hour (family coverage) for fulltime employees.”
“The whole law is bad policy. But even if one agrees with the policy, one can still recognize that the legislation itself was badly executed. The way for conservatives to drive Obamacare’s negatives even higher than they already are is by repeatedly reinforcing the theme that Obamacare is the product of three ‘I’ words: ideology, ignorance, and incompetence. The more negative the public’s opinion of Obamacare becomes, the more likely repeal becomes, regardless of the partisan make-up of the next Congress.”