“One of the central goals of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) was to increase the number of individuals with health insurance coverage. To encourage employers to offer coverage, the new law creates a tax penalty on firms with more than 50 workers that fail to provide “adequate” coverage for their employees. The result is government intrusion into voluntary arrangements made between employer and employee. The cost of the tax penalty will ultimately be borne by workers (lower wages and fewer jobs), shareholders (lower profits), and consumers (higher prices).”
“The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is an impediment
to economic growth and federal fiscal balance, threatening
nearly 700,000 jobs and increasing the deficit by nearly
$300 billion in the near term. At a time when too many
Americans remain unemployed and the country faces a
daunting budgetary outlook, alternative approaches to
health care reform would be preferable.”
“Defenders of ObamaCare have seized upon a Jan. 6 letter from the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) to House Speaker John Boehner alleging that repeal would ‘increase the deficit.’ Don’t be bamboozled. When big spenders call for ‘deficit reduction,’ they mean raising your taxes. That is what ObamaCare does.”
In light of this week’s good news on the legal front of the war against ObamaCare, Medical Progress Today, a project of the Manhattan Institute, asked a collection of leading health policy experts for their opinions on whether ObamaCare can still stand if the individual mandate is removed.
An interview with ObamaCare Watch’s Project Director Jim Capretta in which he discusses the ruling by a federal judge finding ObamaCare’s individual mandate unconstitutional.
“In a stinging rebuke to the Obama administration, a federal judge Monday invalidated a key provision of the recently passed health care law, saying that it ‘exceeds the constitutional boundaries of congressional power.'”
“The healthcare reform law flunks the test of real healthcare reform. Real reform would: encourage providers to offer higher-quality care at lower costs; reduce the cost pressures that threaten to bankrupt Medicare and Medicaid; and give every American access to more options for quality insurance. To enact real healthcare reform, and help to restore fiscal balance to the nation’s budget, the next Congress should pursue substantial changes to the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA). We recommend the following five healthcare objectives for the 112th Congress.”
ObamaCare levies a $20 billion tax on medical device companies, which will reduce incentives for innovation and raise the cost of care. It will likely be one of the first targets for repeal.
“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.”
ObamaCare is paid for partly with new taxes on health firms, especially medical device manufacturers and drug companies. These taxes will discourage medical innovation and drive up the cost of care.