Tag: regulation

Finding out what’s not in it: New census data has now confirmed that Obamacare has consistently failed to enroll the predicted numbers of the uninsured.

The population-wide uninsured rate fell from 14.5% in calendar year 2013 to 11.7% in 2014. The total number of uninsured dropped from 45.2 million in 2013 to 36.7 million in 2014–a net of 8.5 million who gained coverage.

While some, including President Obama, have bragged about these numbers, when we compare them with the predictions we find that Obamacare is significantly failing to insure the numbers it promised. Leftwing think tanks had generally predicted numbers 50% to 100% higher. The Obama administration however was even more optimistic.

For example, around the time Congress passed the bill, the Medicare actuary (at Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services or CMS) had predicted that the number of uninsured would decline by 23.8 million just in its first year! The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had been somewhat more cautious, but nevertheless expected Obamacare to reduce the number of uninsured by 19 million in 2014 alone.

What these facts teach us is that the utopian dreams of ideologues rarely come close to reality. Often, they not only fall short, they often worsen the situation, which in the case of Obamacare is certainly true. Though more people now have health insurance, that coverage is generally far more expensive and covers far less than plans did prior to the law.

Finding out what’s in it: An Obamacare provision to Medicare is instead penalizing hospitals that care for poorer and sicker patients.

The provision penalizes hospitals that have a high readmission rate. What it doesn’t consider is that some hospitals focus on poorer and sicker patients, who also have a higher readmission rate. Obamacare then punishes them for doing so.

But remember! The Democrats and Obama care! What matter if the policies and laws they pass cause harm to the most helpless citizens. What really matters is that we vote for Democrats over and over and over again, no matter how many times they prove to us that their ideas are incredibly foolish.

Finding out what’s in it: State insurance regulatory agencies have been routinely granting the gigantic rate increases requested by health insurance companies due to the costs imposed on them by Obamacare.

It’s the third year in a row for huge rate hikes, all due to the uncertainties built into the mandate-driven system of ObamaCare. The White House explained the hikes after the first year as an artifact of sudden access to care, but by year three that explanation has worn thin. The cost curve isn’t bending downward in any phase of health care, and it’s not even bending upward any longer. It’s skyrocketing, and insurers are reflecting that in their premium hikes.

At the same time that premiums have escalated, of course, deductibles have expanded almost exponentially for some families. Consumers are paying outrageously high premiums for insurance they will almost certainly never access, thanks to the need to spend thousands more out of pocket on top of these premiums before insurers have to cover anything but wellness checks.

Obviously this is the fault of Bush-Reagan and the evil Republicans in Congress, none of whom wrote or voted for Obamacare and in fact opposed it vehemently. Obama and the Democrats, who wrote the law and then forced it through Congress, are obviously innocent of any blame for that law’s disasters. Let’s vote for them again!

Finding out what’s in it: This article, mostly about the impending Supreme Court decision on whether individuals in states with no state-run health exchanges can receive federal health insurance subsidies, contained this significant little bit of information about the overall failure of Obamacare:

Sixteen states and the District of Columbia established state-based exchanges. But more than half of these exchanges are already inoperable or are facing budget shortfalls. Even after spending $4 billion in federal grants, the track records of state-based exchanges have been nothing short of calamitous. In fact, at least three state-based exchange efforts — Maryland, Oregon and Massachusetts — are now the subjects of federal investigations.

This astonishing track record bears repeating: Only 16 out of 50 states chose to create state health exchanges, even though the law stated that by not doing the citizens of the remaining 34 states would not get federal subsidies (the whole point of the Supreme Court case). Yet, of those 16 that did create exchanges, more than half have failed to work or have gone over budget, after wasting more than $4 billion in federal funds. On top of that, three are now under investigation.

And obviously, according to many mainstream press reports, if the Supreme Court upholds the actual language of the Obamacare law — written and voted for solely by Democrats — and voids federal subsidies in the remaining 34 states, it must be the Republicans fault. They had the nerve to not agree to this law, and refused to vote for it!

But then, this all fits in with the modern logic of our cultural elites, who also think a man can be a women and a white person black, merely because they say so.

Trying to avoid what’s in it: Faced with the possibility that the Supreme Court could declare that the Obamacare subsidies are illegal in most states, House Republicans have come up with a new bill to revise the law.

In the tentative responses discussed in separate closed-door meetings Wednesday, House GOP leaders said they would continue the subsidies for a year. Then, states could receive federal block grants for the following two years that they could structure into any kind of health care aid they wish. All of the health law’s regulations would end for those states, including popular ones like assuring coverage of children until age 26. In 2017 — when Republicans hope to control the White House — the entire health law would be eliminated.

The law would also immediately repeal the Obamacare tax on medical devices as well as the Obamacare advisory board designed to ration care to save money.

We know already that Obama will veto this plan, which to my mind is a good thing. The only solution that will work to fix Obamacare is to repeal it in toto. Partial fixes, even ones that last only a few years, can only cause more harm and will increase the chances that legislators will chicken out of full repeal when it is finally time to kick in.

Finding out what’s in it: An audit by the inspector general of Health and Human Services (HHS) has found that the agency has no internal system to verify that $2.8 billion in Obamacare subsidies were paid correctly, or even to the right people.

The [inspector general] said the agency did not have a system to “ensure that financial assistance payments were made on behalf of confirmed enrollees and in the correct amounts.” In addition, [HHS] relied too heavily on data from health insurance companies and had no system for state-based exchanges to “submit enrollee eligibility data for financial assistance payments.”

The government does “not plan to perform a timely reconciliation” of the $2.8 billion in subsidies. [emphasis mine]

Not only have they given out billions without proper record-keeping or proper verification, the agency has no intention of fixing the problem. “Ain’t my job, man!”

Finding out what’s in it: A new poll has found that Obamacare, five years after it was passed, is more unpopular now then ever before.

Which is why the Republicans should do nothing to fix it should the Supreme Court rule against Obamacare subsidies in states with no health exchanges, and instead stick with full repeal followed by specific fixes to the previous laws.

I am even more convinced that full repeal is the right political approach after reading this leftwing reporter’s take on the situation. He thinks the above plan is stupid, knows the Democrats and Obama will never agree to it, but also knows that the public does not blame Obamacare in any way on the Republicans. As he notes,

And one of the reasons why Democrats should not assume that a ruling for the plaintiffs in King will totally backfire on Republicans is the cynical, but powerful, source of leverage that Thune is tapping into here: Democrats passed health care reform, and thus Democrats will get blamed for anything bad that happens to the health care system.

The above poll confirms this. The Republicans had better recognize this if they want to take full political advantage of it.

Finding out what’s in it: Doctors are finding that they better not criticize Obamacare in public or they will face retribution from its bureaucracy.

For physicians in this position, public advocacy against the ACA could be in violation of employment contracts or could be a source for dismissal. Most doctors’ contracts also include a two-year noncompete clause that essentially requires the doctor to move out of town once he or she leaves a specific job. So, running afoul of your employer by criticizing the ACA could result in not just losing your job but also forcing you to leave your hometown.

And that’s not all. Many doctors are also afraid of losing insurance contracts. The vast majority of doctors who are still private-practice owners are dependent on a handful of large insurance contracts for revenue. Speaking out against insurance companies — which were complicit in the ACA’s passage and are some of its primary beneficiaries — can result in cancellation of those contracts.