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“Rarely has one law so exemplified the worst of the Leviathan state — grotesque cost, questionable constitutionality and arbitrary bureaucratic coerciveness. Little wonder the president barely mentioned it in his latest State of the Union address. He wants to be reelected. He’d rather talk about other things.”

“The health law remains a tough sell for reasons that go beyond the drumbeat from Republicans for its repeal and questions about its constitutionality that will be debated next week at the Supreme Court. Several of the law’s early pieces, designed to win public support, haven’t worked as well in the real world as on paper and have irked even some of the Americans they were designed to help.”

“The argument here is that health care is an important problem facing this country, and the administration’s preferred remedy for that problem can’t be carried out without the individual mandate. The mandate, therefore, is a ‘necessary and proper’ way to accomplish its larger goals. Again, this would open the door to unlimited government power. If the government has the authority to enact any law it deems necessary to doing whatever it wants to do, the Constitution essentially becomes meaningless.”

“It’s time to scrap the Affordable Care Act and try again. One thing hasn’t changed: There continues to be bipartisan agreement that the U.S. health care system is riddled with overuse, underuse, and misuse of therapies; senseless inefficiencies; and inadequate opportunities for affordable insurance. The U.S. needs real health care reform. But the ACA is a dramatic step in the wrong direction.”

“In 2009, during the height of the debate over Obamacare, the law’s architect, MIT economist Jonathan Gruber, was all over the op-ed pages, talking about how the bill would reduce the cost of health insurance… His words were trumpeted by the law’s advocates, and were critical to persuading skittish Democrats to vote for the bill. But it turns out that ‘for sure’ doesn’t mean what you thought it did. Because, now, Gruber is quietly telling state governments that the law will significantly increase the cost of insurance. And it will especially do so for young Americans: the ones who most struggle to find affordable health coverage.”

“On its second anniversary, Obamacare remains unpopular. The provisions currently in effect have fallen short of expectations and disrupted the market, causing even greater uncertainty for the future. Overall, Obamacare has increased government control of Americans’ health care choices and limited consumer choice. The recent controversy over the preventive care benefit mandates are a good indication of things to come. The fundamental structure of Obamacare is based on centralizing the financing, delivery, and management of health care, and is completely incompatible with patient-centered, market-based reforms.”

“The House on Wednesday afternoon approved legislation that would repeal the healthcare law’s Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), and also institute medical tort reform. Members approved the rule for the bill in a 233-182 vote that only five Democrats supported. While some Democrats support IPAB repeal, many oppose the GOP’s vision of tort reform, and are thus expected to oppose the package.”

“The IPAB puts rationing of health care on autopilot. The IPAB is to be composed of 15 unelected, unaccountable officials who will have the authority to make cuts in Medicare payments if per capita spending exceeds defined target rates. The IPAB epitomizes Obamacare’s command-and-control approach, and passing a targeted repeal bill is an excellent way to help people understand that.”

“Congress could have achieved this wealth transfer in perfectly constitutional ways. It could simply have imposed new taxes to pay for a national health system. But that would have come with a huge political price tag that neither Congress nor the president was prepared to pay. Instead, Congress adopted the individual mandate, invoking its power to regulate interstate commerce.”

“Two years after Congress passed President Barack Obama’s health-care legislation, despite all the assertions about what it will or won’t do, no one really knows how it’s going to work. The U.S. has rarely attempted anything of this scale before. If the law survives the Supreme Court and Republican repeal efforts, its impact turns on what Paul Keckley, head of the Deloitte Center for Health Solutions, a unit of the accounting firm, calls ‘four big bets.'”