Recent Articles

White Castle finds that the new law might cut its net income in half.

“[Explaining the health care law is] just like trying to explain the Encyclopedia Britannica.”

An MIT economist says that past increases in government-provided insurance have raised health costs far more than expected.

The Milliman consulting and actuarial firm discusses how an ineffective individual mandate — one that leads many people to defy the requirement that they buy insurance — combined with a mandate that insurers cover all comers without charging any additional premiums for those with preexisting conditions, would likely raise health insurance premiums dramatically.

As this chart visually demonstrates, the Congressional Budget Office projects that the total costs of the Senate health-care bill, which eventually became law (in tandem with the Reconciliation Act), are about $2.5 trillion — more than double the tally that the Democrats cite.

In perhaps the most authoritative study to date on ObamaCare’s likely impact on insurance premiums, the Oliver Wyman consulting firm spent eight months developing a model to gauge the legislation’s effects, drawing on a database of actual insurance information for nearly 6 million people.  The firm’s analysis of the Senate bill (which, in connection with the Reconciliation Act, became law) concludes that its weak individual mandate wouldn’t coax high participation among younger and healthier people; that its other mandates (requiring more expensive coverage and not allowing i

As this slide-show depicts, subsidies provided through ObamaCare for lower- and middle-class workers who receive health-care through the government-run exchanges would be much greater than the tax-breaks provided to lower- or middle-class workers who receive employer-provided health insurance.  This would lead employers to drop these workers’ insurance and let them be covered through the exchanges, at taxpayer expense.  Thus, ObamaCare is not only a new health-care system but a new welfare and tax system, which would lead to the segregation of the labor market:  upper-income workers would cont

WellPoint estimates that, under ObamaCare, insurance premiums for younger, healthier people would more than double in the individual markets in California, Colorado, Connecticut, Georgia, Indiana, Kentucky, Maine, Missouri, Ohio, Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Richard Epstein examines Supreme Court precedent in rate-making cases and concludes that, even apart from the question of whether the health-care overhaul is an unconstitutional extension of Congress’s power to regulate interstate commerce, it is unconstitutional under the takings and due process clauses of the Fifth Amendment.  According to Epstein, the Supreme Court’s “basic constitutional requirement” in this realm is that “any firm in a regulated market must be allowed to recover a risk-adjusted competitive rate of return.”  Because the Reid bill (which, in connection with the Reconciliati

ObamaCare would impose higher implicit marginal tax-rates on lower- and middle-class workers than on millionaires, thereby penalizing work and providing a barrier to upward mobility.  Under the Senate bill (which, along with the Reconciliation Act, became law) those making $14,560, who make another $560, would be $200 worse off than if they hadn’t made that extra money at all; those making $12,000 would pay implicit marginal tax-rates of 66 percent on the next $5,000 earned; and people who make between $30,000 and $100,000 would pay implicit marginal tax rates of over 50 percent.  Disincentive