“A fair amount of evidence suggests that consumer-driven health plans, which typically pair high-deductible insurance with health savings accounts (HSAs), offer one of the most promising mechanisms for controlling the growth of health insurance premiums as well as overall health spending. Naturally, it looks like ObamaCare’s insurance regulations will impact people with consumer-driven plans more than others, and make it hard for CDHP plans to survive.”
Details“Bill Galston, a former Clinton administration official, and Melissa Rogers, the director of Wake Forest University Divinity School’s Center for Religion and Public Affairs, attempted to inject some balance into a debate that has exploded over the past month in their report examining conscience issues in health care.
But they also said the White House’s initial position on the birth-control rule – which exempted religious groups only when they primarily serve people of their own faith, among other requirements – was not a fair position. It violated the 1993 Religious Freedom Restoration Act, Rogers said, because it was not the ‘least restrictive’ way for the federal government to impose on religious practice.”
“The anti-conscience mandate’s violation of employers’ religious freedom is only the beginning of the law’s profound threat to limited government and personal liberty. Obamacare represents an unprecedented federal overreach into the health care decisions of employers, employees, and individuals—religiously affiliated or not—and further implementation of the law will only increase conflicts between government regulations and individual liberty. The lawsuits filed this week reinforce the need to protect religious liberty specifically and personal liberty more generally by repealing Obamacare.”
Details“A bill conservative Republicans see as an important step toward giving Kansas full control over health care programs received first-round approval Tuesday in the state House, advancing another protest from the GOP-controlled Legislature against Democratic President Barack Obama’s policies.”
Details“The controversy over this particular consequence of Washington’s health care takeover will soon be followed by another, and another, and another– the next mandate, the next rationing, the next restriction, the next loss of liberty.
There will be no rest – ever – from these battles so long as ObamaCare remains on the books. Regardless of their outcomes, these battles by definition cannot be won.”
“President Obama’s health reform law doesn’t offer much encouragement, for two primary reasons: its Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB) and Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI).
Comprised of 15 health care experts who have yet to be appointed by the president, IPAB is charged with finding ways to reduce cost growth in Medicare starting in 2013.
IPAB will set target growth rates for Medicare. If spending on the entitlement exceeds those rates, then the panel will make cost-cutting recommendations.”
“When the health care law passed nearly two years ago, the conventional wisdom was that the temporary insurance pools meant to carry the high-risk uninsured until the coverage expansion kicked in would tear through their $5 billion budget in no time.
That didn’t happen.”
“Offended by President Obama’s decision to force health insurers to pay for contraception and surgical sterilization? It gets worse: In the future, thanks to ObamaCare, the government will issue such health edicts on a routine basis—and largely insulated from public view. This goes beyond contraception to cancer screenings, the use of common drugs like aspirin, and much more. Under ObamaCare, a single committee—the United States Preventative Services Task Force—is empowered to evaluate preventive health services and decide which will be covered by health-insurance plans.”
Details“To help pay ObamaCare’s steep costs, Washington placed a tax on medical device sales. The ugly results: Higher costs that hurt patients, destroy jobs and curb the innovation that extends life and brings relief.
The basic medical devices that we can buy at the retail level won’t be subject to the tax, which begins next year. But devices sold by wholesalers to health care providers will be.”
“Sebelius basically just copped to a double-subversion of the Constitution: Congress appropriates money for X, but not Y. Sebelius says, ‘I know better than Congress. I’m going to take money away from X to fund Y.’ Sebelius has already shown contempt for the First Amendment, first by threatening insurance carriers with bankruptcy for engaging in non-fraudulent speech, and again by crafting a contraceptives mandate that violates religious freedom. Now, she has decided the whole separation of powers thing is for little people. What will Sebelius do the next time something gets in the way of her implementing ObamaCare?”
Details