High-deductibles are problematic insofar as markets for health care services are dysfunctional. Fixing those markets should be a priority. An important element here that’s often ignored, however, is the physician or hospital. Much of the focus on price and quality transparency looks to insurers and other tools that patients can use before ever interacting with the health care system. This is very important. A patient looking to schedule a surgery, looking for a new physician, or trying to fill a prescription should have access to cost and quality information that allows for informed decisions.
UnitedHealth expects to lose $425 million on ObamaCare, including $275 million in 2016. The situation is so dire, the company took the unusual step of announcing between quarterly reports both the losses and that it may withdraw from Obamacare entirely after 2016. If United indeed pulls out, it would cause hundreds of thousands more Americans to lose their health plans.
In a new study published today by the Mercatus Center at George Mason University, Brian Blase assesses key predictions made by both government and nonprofit research organizations about the Affordable Care Act’s impact. The misestimates include: overestimating total exchange enrollment, overestimating enrollment of higher income people who do not qualify for subsidies to reduce premiums, projecting too many healthy enrollees relative to less healthy enrollees, and underestimating premium increases. This Forbes post focuses on the Congressional Budget Office’s (CBO) estimates.
The Obama administration and leading members of Congress are clashing over a new Medicare payment rule that could compromise patient care, impede development of a fledgling part of the biologics industry, and make it more difficult to track patient safety issues. At issue is government payment policy for a new class of drugs called “biosimilars”—drugs that are similar but not identical to the original brand name biologic drug.
Lessons in basic economics, simple arithmetic, and crony capitalism can be learned as a result of the ACA co-op failures. In the meantime, more than 800,000 patients have had their health insurance suddenly dropped and are scrambling to find new policies from other insurers.
Proponents of more than doubling the current minimum wage of $7.25 appeared to have overlooked a simple fact. Thanks to government mandates such as Obamacare, today’s minimum wage already effectively amounts to $10.46 an hour. If we more than double the nominal minimum wage to $15, we actually will be requiring employers to pay $18.31 an hour.
As Congress considers year-end legislative options, one small change in the Affordable Care Act could make a big difference in access to quality health care for millions of Americans: Lifting the ban on creation and expansion of physician-owned hospitals.
When Congress was debating the Affordable Care Act (ACA), the debate largely revolved around how many people would gain insurance and how the law would impact the deficit, not about how the law would address existing government policies and programs that largely created the perverse incentives. The ACA created several new perverse incentives, unfortunately.
As eligible Americans today begin to examine health insurance plans on the government’s exchange under the Affordable Care Act’s annual open enrollment period, they will find 2016 premiums that have jumped on average by double-digit percentages compared to this year and 2014.
Last week I reported on a fascinating new Wharton School study of non-poor uninsured people [1]. Another revealing finding from that same study highlights a dilemma facing any would-be health reformer: even before Obamacare, less than one quarter of health costs for uninsured persons were paid for out of pocket, regardless of family income . Think about that. Third parties already covered more than three quarters of health spending for the average uninsured family–even those with incomes above 400% of poverty. In the jargon of Obamacare, uninsured people essentially already had coverage equivalent to an actuarial value (AV) of 75%! In contrast, a Bronze plan under Obamacare has an AV of 60%, while Silver plans have an AV of only 70%.