Recent Articles

“The tax penalties of the ACA are trivial, the subsidies are complicated, and the available plans will provide little value to most people. I don’t need coverage for psych counseling and in vitro fertilization. This is how many (most?) people think. So, I therefore believe the ACA will result in FEWER people being covered, not more.”

“But as the president fights to keep the conservative-leaning state in his column this November, education officials here are complicating his campaign message by citing ‘Obamacare’ as a reason for the rising cost of student health insurance plans on campuses from Asheville to Wilmington.”

“Despite efforts by state and health plan officials to smooth the transition, caregivers and others reported ‘the managed care system … was not prepared’ to care for the population’s specific needs, which include complex cases involving mental illness, homelessness and developmental disabilities, the report said… The report about California’s experience comes as the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is ramping up plans to move many of the nation’s 9 million ‘dual eligibles,’ who qualify for both Medicaid and Medicare, into managed care plans.”

“Beginning in 2014, Section 9010 of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will impose a new tax on health insurance providers… All of that said, starting in 2014 your fully insured health insurance premium renewal could have an extra 2% (or more) added on to it, representing the pass-through of this tax to you.”

“So, benefits and HR professionals are going to be responsible for providing information on a new state-run program that won’t be part of anything they do in their everyday job? The simple answer is yes. So, on March 1, 2013 when you hand an employee the state health insurance exchange guide, get ready for the following questions from employees…”

“Paul Ryan warned Wednesday night that President Barack Obama’s health care law was the greatest threat to the Medicare program, but mentioned few details of his own ambitious plans to reform the program.
In his speech accepting the vice presidential nomination at the Republican National Convention, Ryan attacked the president’s law and its cuts to the popular Medicare program.”

“Two articles over the weekend highlight the continuing effect of Obamacare on the health care industry – particularly how it is accelerating industry consolidation. In both the insurance and hospital industry, players are consolidating to lower costs, gain market share, and defend their bottom lines. The big question, however, is whether these trends will ultimately benefit consumers and the health care system as a whole, through improved quality and lower costs.”

“Under Obamacare, the industry is transfigured from an inefficient, barely competitive mess that tries, against the laws of health care gravity, to control medical costs, to a non-competitive, profit-regulated utility rewarded with 15 to 20 extra cents for every dollar it allows its medical costs to rise.”

“At first glance, it would seem that this graph vindicates the ACA – come 2021, the difference in growth rates between NHE pre-and-post ACA have fallen to less than a percentage point. What they gloss over, however, is the massive spike in growth rates starting in 2014, when the ACA’s coverage provisions go into effect. This adds to the absolute cost of the ACA over time, even though the growth rate slows down eventually, based on projections.”

“Such human misery, multiplied by tens of millions of people, rolls up into a bureaucratic colossus of breathtaking complexity. Running a Medicaid program involves coping with a jungle of paperwork, cacophony of regulations and, worst of all, sanctimony in nearly every conversation with every stakeholder. It requires constant vigilance against scam clinics, crooked providers, rogue labs, pill mills, vaporware vendors, and a scuzfest of health care bottom-feeders. A successful day in the Medicaid ‘business’ is measured not by goals achieved but catastrophes averted.”