Recent Articles

“Beginning in 2014, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law in March 2010, is expected to significantly extend health-insurance coverage in New York by increasing Medicaid enrollment and offering federal subsidies for the purchase of private health insurance. However, there is no guarantee that the newly insured will be able to access the health-care system in a timely fashion as new demand for services outstrips physician supply.”

“Obamacare was passed under the expansive notion that government can run Americans’ health care better than we can ourselves. Bureaucrats in Washington believes they have the power to get things done, but with unmet deadlines passing each month and promises to the American public broken, it seems to be the opposite.”

“One way to think about all this is to see the ACA as a sham of sorts. Long before the passage of the bill public opinion polls consistently showed over many years that the average voter was willing to pay only $100 or so to insure the uninsured. If you think about it, everything that has come out of the White House and other administration officials is consistent with that finding. ObamaCare, we are being told, is one big free lunch. No one’s premium will be higher. No one’s wage will be lower. Millions of people are supposed to benefit and no one is acknowledged to be the slightest bit worse off because of it.”

“GOP committee members repeated their warnings that the law will drive doctors away from treating older Americans, ruin people’s ability to keep their current health care, undermine the free enterprise system and place health care in the hands of what one called ‘unelected bureaucracies.’ These were arguments they and GOP House colleagues made last month when the chamber voted to repeal the entire law – a step the Senate has refused to take.”

“In a hearing of the House Budget Committee today, Paul Ryan asked CBO director Douglas Elmendorf about that claim, saying that some people have argued the new law ‘will create jobs and increase labor force participation. But if I recall from your analysis, it was quite the opposite. Is that not the case?’ Elmendorf answered ‘Yes.'”

“Sebelius began her remarks by stating that taxpayer funds will not be used to bail out CLASS in the event of insolvency. But a taxpayer bailout is a real possibility for several reasons. First, premiums may be set lower than the actuarially correct amount. This is because there isn’t a useful model for actuaries to determine premiums, especially given the uncertainties of enrollee make-up. Second, within the law’s provisions, if benefits paid out are larger than anticipated, then either premiums will have to increase or benefits will have to be cut. This is a move that would be vigorously opposed by interested parties. Beneficiaries with a vested interest in preserving their CLASS payment will likely lobby vigorously to spread the pain through broad-based tax increases.”

“If waivers are necessary to keep 733 insurance plans in place now, think of what will be necessary in 2013, when the amount policies must cover in a year will be nearly three times that cost, or in 2014, when full-blown PPACA kicks in and insurers are prohibited from offering a policy without unlimited coverage. The waiver option will be gone: nothing in PPACA gives HHS the authority to waive the statutory ban on annual limits. At the same time, other parts of PPACA will require Americans to have more comprehensive insurance than what they have now. Ineluctably, the result will be to require Americans to purchase insurance packages far more comprehensive and far more costly than what HHS has already determined in 733 cases is too expensive to buy.”

“First, ObamaCare’s restraints amount to nothing more than ratcheting down the price controls that traditional Medicare uses to pay health care providers. Structuring Medicare subsidies in this way — setting the prices that Medicare pays specific providers — makes it very difficult to lower those prices, because the system itself creates huge incentives for providers to organize and lobby to undo those restraints. As I explain more fully in this op-ed from September 2010, Medicare vouchers would change that lobbying game by reducing the incentives for provider groups to expend resources in the pursuit of higher Medicare spending. That gives the Ryan-Rivlin restraints a much better shot at surviving.”

“For example, under reconciliation the Senate Budget Committee could instruct the Senate Finance Committee to reduce mandatory spending on insurance subsidies and Medicaid expansion. These two items make up more than 90% of spending in ObamaCare. All the changes from all the committees are then bundled into one measure and voted upon. Because reconciliation is protected by the rules of the budget process, it doesn’t take 60 votes to bring it up and it requires only a simple majority to pass.”

“Bending the cost curve is not a matter of simply paying less for a service. What’s needed is real and continuous productivity improvement in the health sector. Doctors, hospitals, nursing homes, labs, clinics and others finding better ways to deliver higher quality care at less cost. Because if productivity in the health sector does not rise, then payment-rate reductions will simply drive willing suppliers of services out of the marketplace.”