Recent Articles

Justifications for ObamaCare’s individual mandate under the Necessary and Proper Clause and the Commerce Clause both fail to adhere to recent Supreme Court precedents. This suggests that the overturning of ObamaCare is plausible under a realistic analysis of contemporary jurisprudence and not merely an originalist interpretation of the Constitution.

“Competition used to discourage insurers from providing lousy access to care, but under ObamaCare competition will reward skimping. Under ObamaCare’s price controls, insurers that gain a reputation for providing quality coverage to the sick will attract sick people and go out of business. Insurers that gain a reputation for providing lousy access to care will drive away sick people and thrive.”

“Senator Max Baucus recently admitted that he never read the new health care law. But that hasn’t stopped him from trying to re-write it after the fact, in a way that would drive more health plans from the market and give consumers less choice.”

“The CBO estimates that about 32 million individuals will gain health coverage due to the PPACA – about half of whom will be covered by Medicaid. However, about 23 million people will remain uninsured in 2019 – nearly half the 50.7 million today. This figure may be wishful thinking. The penalties for forgoing health coverage are less than the cost of coverage ($695 per individual or 2.5 percent of income). Furthermore, new federal regulations will require insurers to accept all applicants regardless of health status. An unintended consequence of this is that many will wait until they become sick to enroll in health coverage. In the short run, the PPACA may cause 1.4 million people to lose their limited benefit health plans, when new regulations implemented on September 23, 2010, will ban annual caps on benefits.”

A wave of new ObamaCare mandates are starting soon, and insurers are alerting customers than the mandates will cause premium increases. “CBS News correspondent Sharyl Attkisson reports starting next week, your insurance company can no longer put dollar limits on essential benefits such as hospital and lab services. Dependent children will be covered to age 26. You’ll get preventive care with no deductible or co-pay. But there’s a price.”

ObamaCare forces unrealistic mandates on insurers, forcing them to cover children regardless of their health status. Instead of resulting in new health care for children as promised, companies have been driven from the market. “The insurers will no longer write ‘child-only’ policies — a small, niche market — over concern that the health reform law will make the market unstable and unprofitable.”

ObamaCare requires insurers to guarantee health coverage to children with pre-existing conditions starting on September 23rd. That will raise costs so significantly for insurers that they are abandoning the child-only market and cease issuing any new policies.

Democrat strategists uniformly predicted that ObamaCare would be popular after its passage. Looking back, their statements were clearly wrong.

ObamaCare was promised to protect and preserve the Medicare program. But as confirmed by the Congressional Budget Office and the Medicare actuaries, money being is double-counted as both being saved for Medicare and being used to reduce the deficit. Thus it raided hundreds of billions of dollars from the Medicare program to pay for a new entitlement. Furthermore, new cost savings programs are likely to fail, while proven programs, like Medicare Advantage, were dramatically restricted.

HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius threatened insurance companies to stop telling customers that higher prices can be blamed on ObamaCare. “But there is every reason to think this alleged libel is true. The health care law requires health insurers to do all sorts of things, such as eliminate lifetime limits on total costs, include various preventive care with no co-payment, and let unmarried dependent children stay on their parents’ policies until the age of 26. Additional requirements will take effect in 2014.”