Recent Articles

Cigna CEO David Cordani says the individual market created by the 2010 health law would be better off if insurers were given more flexibility in designing coverage, as well as a more compressed, focused open enrollment period. Just days after UnitedHealth Group’s CEO said their move into the new marketplace was a mistake, Cordani reaffirmed that Cigna…

The penalty for failing to have health insurance is going up next year, perhaps even higher than expected. Among uninsured individuals who are not exempt from the ObamaCare penalty, the average household fine for not having insurance in 2015 will be $661, rising to $969 per household in 2016, according to a Kaiser Family Foundation analysis.

The Affordable Care Act will make the labor supply, measured as the total compensation paid to workers, 0.86% smaller in 2025 than it would have been in the absence of that law, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. Three-quarters of that decline will occur because of health insurance expansions, which raise effective tax rates on earnings…

  Everyone knows ObamaCare subsidizes low-income individuals, but few are aware it also subsidizes big insurance companies. Corporate welfare payments to insurers under the risk corridor and reinsurance programs (both of which are slated to expire in 2017) amounted to $10.4 billion for the 2014 benefit year. In ObamaCare’s first year, “excess” losses outpaced “excess” gains by $2.5 billion. The…

The ObamaCare program for small business in Illinois—known as SHOP—has been troubled from the start. Only two insurers sold health plans on the online marketplace to Chicago small businesses: startup Land of Lincoln Health and Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Illinois. Now there’s just one. Facing massive financial losses, Chicago-based Land of Lincoln has…

ObamaCare is expected to cost the U.S. workforce a total of 2 million jobs worth of hours over the next decade, the Congressional Budget Office said Monday. The total workforce will shrink by just under 1% as a result of the new coverage expansions, mandates and changes in tax rates, according to the report.

An increasing number of preferred provider plans (PPOs) offered under the health care law have no ceiling for out-of-network costs, leaving policyholders facing unlimited financial exposure. Forty-five percent of the silver level PPO plans coming to the market for the first time in 2016 provide no annual cap for policyholders’ out-of-network costs, an analysis by the Robert…

To stay on the path of repeal and replace, ObamaCare opponents need to address three critical aspects of the effort. First is the question of risk-corridor payments under ObamaCare. These are the payments made to insurers with “excessive” losses from the plans they offer on the exchanges. A second important question is the “Cadillac” tax,…

Since the Affordable Care Act was implemented, the number of hospital merger and acquisition deals jumped from 52 in 2009 to more than 100 in 2014, according to Irving Levin Associates. But the economic evidence suggests consolidation drives costs up, not down – and may even hurt patient care. Two thorough literature reviews, from 2006 and…

Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services released its official estimates of the uninsured population and of health spending. In 2014, ObamaCare’s coverage expansion fell between 6 and 12 million short of expectations, while driving the growth of health spending to its highest rate in 7 years. ObamaCare has only reduced the percentage…