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Most standard questions aimed at presidential candidates in recent years have sought affirmation or denial of standard propositions. For example: Do you favor repealing or extending ObamaCare? Would you ensure near-universal insurance coverage? Do we need more federal regulation or greater state-level discretion? That or they try to generate advance signals about near-term tactics. For example: Should…

Since October, at least six independent and credible sources have confirmed rate increases on the ObamaCare exchanges will be in the double digits. However, these are gross premium hikes. Net premium hikes paid by enrollees are distorted by tax credits paid to insurers. These badly designed tax credits have a number of perverse consequences. It…

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office released its latest Budget and Economic Outlook. In this report, CBO notes that the deficit in 2016 is expected to be $544 billion and federal outlays will rise by 6 percent, to $3.9 trillion, compared with 2015. Mandatory spending—such as that for entitlement programs like Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid—will…

A reason that might explain why fast-food employees aren’t getting more hours: ObamaCare. Starting Jan. 1, businesses with 50 or more full-time employees must offer health insurance to all full-time staff or pay a hefty fine. Employers with 100 or more workers had to start offering coverage last year. But smaller businesses that operate on lower…

So, to sum up: Trump has offered scant details about how he would replace ObamaCare. But what little he has said is philisophically consistent with the arguments in favor of single-payer, a policy approach that he has praised in the past. The whole irony of this is that right now, Sanders and Hillary Clinton are…

Today the Mercatus Center unveiled a study by Bradley Herring (Johns Hopkins University) and Erin Trish (University of Southern California) finding that the much-discussed health spending slowdown that continued in 2010-13 “can likely be explained by longstanding patterns” over more than two decades, rather than suggesting a recent policy correction. Projecting these factors forward and…

KEY FINDINGS At least 70% of the recent slowdown in health care spending per capita—and possibly as much as 98%—can likely be explained by long-standing patterns known to affect health care spending trends, not by new, unexplained conditions in the medical sector. Breaking down those figures, roughly 41% of the slowdown probably resulted from the…

Recently, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders released the outline of a plan to move to a single-payer health care system in the U.S. along with proposed tax increases intended to pay for the overhaul. According to the Sanders campaign, the plan would cost roughly an additional $1.4 trillion per year, or $14 trillion over…

A vote to overrule President Obama’s veto of a bill that would repeal key parts of the Affordable Care Act and take away federal funding from Planned Parenthood failed to gather a two-thirds majority on the House floor today. The House voted 241-186 to override the veto. They would have needed 285 votes to do…

Private health insurers made a Faustian bargain with Democrats in 2010: In return for supporting passage of the Affordable Care Act, the companies would be able to grow their business with subsidized customers who were required to buy insurance. How’s that working out? Except for Dr. Faustus, not great. Democrats lost control of the House…