“Of course, I imagine that at this point supporters are saying that the best is yet to come–that ObamaCare just hasn’t really gotten going yet. Perhaps so! But this is the one year report card, and the first-year grades are pretty underwhelming.”
“Our review of the research has found that there is no credible evidence of a cost shift of any substantial consequence, either within state boundaries or across state lines. Moreover, the new law will likely generate more cost shifting—the opposite of what its supporters would have us believe.”
“So why do Medicaid patients fare so badly? Payment to providers has been reduced to literally pennies on each dollar of customary charges because of sequential rounds of indiscriminate rate cuts, like those now being pursued in states like New York and Illinois. As a result, doctors often cap how many Medicaid patients they’ll see in their practices. Meanwhile, patients can’t get timely access to routine and specialized medical care… President Barack Obama’s health plan follows this logic. Half of those gaining health insurance under ObamaCare will get it through Medicaid.”
“Despite all the uncertainty, private insurers aren’t taking any chances. They’re in the midst of adjusting to the law’s requirement that they spend a certain percentage of their revenues on medical claims. ObamaCare’s advocates hope the provision will ensure consumers get good value for their premium dollars. And if the rule makes life harder for insurers, so much the better.
Unfortunately this ‘minimum medical loss ratio’ regulation will harm not just insurers but workers and employers too, as they’ll face higher prices and fewer choices for insurance.”
“Beginning in 2014, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law in March 2010, is expected to significantly extend health-insurance coverage in New York by increasing Medicaid enrollment and offering federal subsidies for the purchase of private health insurance. However, there is no guarantee that the newly insured will be able to access the health-care system in a timely fashion as new demand for services outstrips physician supply.”
“The free-rider problem was caused by clumsy government policy. The solution to the problem, therefore, isn’t to add more clumsy government policy on top: it is to fix the original policy. PPACA’s individual mandate is not needed to address the free-rider problem. Furthermore, aspects of the individual mandate have nothing to do with the free-rider problem.”
“Health insurers in 34 states have stopped selling child-only insurance policies as a result of the health reform law, and the market continues to destablize.
According to a survey of state insurance departments by Republican Senate committee staff and obtained by POLITICO, states that have seen carriers exit the market include those that have been ardent supporters of the health reform law, like California and Oregon. Twenty states now have no insurers offering child-only policies.”
“Without President Barack Obama’s health care law, as many as 129 million Americans — half of those under age 65 — could be denied coverage or charged more because of a pre-existing medical condition.
The new estimate by the Health and Human Services Department is more than twice as high as a figure that supporters of the law were using last year.
It just might need an asterisk.
Most of those millions of people are covered by health insurance at work and don’t face any immediate risk of being denied care for their pre-existing medical problems. And as a rule, those who take a new job and sign up in their employer’s health plan are already protected by a 1990s law.”
“The problems of the uninsured, including the ‘free rider’ issue, are best addressed through a judicious combination of positive economic incentives, such as tax credits and vouchers for insurance, creative new mechanisms to facilitate coverage (such as automatic enrollment with a right to refuse coverage), and transparency in personal choice and consequences, such as an upfront signed acknowledgement of financial liability for refusing coverage.[18] This policy encourages the adoption of coverage and individual responsibility while not compromising Americans’ personal freedom and responsibility.”
“The truth is that the issue of preexisting-condition exclusions is yet another example in ObamaCare where Congress focused on a small (though legitimate) problem with the current health system and, rather than enacting a modest and sensible solution, instead used the problem to justify an ideologically motivated, sweeping, and disruptive policy change that creates new and bigger problems than the one Congress claimed to be solving.”