Category Archives: Health Care

Obamacare By The Numbers: Exchange Enrollment

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Some Obamacare supporters claim that 10 million uninsured Americans have so far gained coverage thanks to the new law. Are they right? (Credit: AP)

Some Oba­macare sup­port­ers claim that 10 mil­lion unin­sured Amer­i­cans have so far gained cov­er­age thanks to the new law. Are they right? (Cred­it: AP)

“Let’s look at the bot­tom line. The bot­tom line is this: 10 mil­lion Amer­i­cans have health insur­ance today who would not have had it with­out the Afford­able Care Act. Ten mil­lion.”  — Sen. Richard Durbin (D‑IL)

Oba­macare crit­ics have tak­en con­sid­er­able plea­sure in point­ing out the law’s short­com­ings — can­celed poli­cies, high­er pre­mi­ums and cost-shar­ing, nar­row net­works — the list goes on.

Now that the web­site’s worst prob­lems have been resolved and enroll­ment num­bers look more respectable, you can hard­ly blame the law’s embat­tled advo­cates for using favor­able num­bers a bit loose­ly. After all, if those who find fault with the law have some­times behaved irre­spon­si­bly, why should­n’t its defend­ers stretch the truth a bit? Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare: Should Taxpayers Take the Risk of Subsidies?

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I testified on Obamacare yesterday before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

I tes­ti­fied on Oba­macare yes­ter­day before the House Over­sight and Gov­ern­ment Reform Committee.

I tes­ti­fied yes­ter­day before the House Over­sight and Gov­ern­ment Reform Com­mit­tee on a some­what tech­ni­cal pro­vi­sion of Oba­macare.  The pro­vi­sion estab­lish­es “risk cor­ri­dors,” which lim­it prof­its and loss­es of insur­ers that sell through the exchanges.  Plans that make “excess prof­its” must pay into the risk cor­ri­dor fund; those that suf­fer “excess loss­es” receive mon­ey from that fund.   Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Curly Howard And Our Health Care System

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Curly Howard didn't design our healthcare system, but his plumbing misadventure helps explain why it's such a mess -- before and after Obamacare. [Credit: wondersinthedark.com]

Curly Howard did­n’t design our health­care sys­tem, but his plumb­ing mis­ad­ven­ture helps explain why it’s such a mess — before and after Oba­macare. [Cred­it: wondersinthedark.com]

Curly Howard didn’t design the US health­care sys­tem. Or Oba­macare. Or Repub­li­can pro­pos­als to replace it. But he could have.

Howard, the most cre­ative of the Three Stooges, set out to fix a leak­ing pipe. His solu­tion: add a length of pipe. Each time he did, the flow of water was tem­porar­i­ly inter­rupt­ed, only to resume, this time out of the pipe he’d just added. Unde­terred, he added anoth­er length of pipe. By the end of the episode, a frus­trat­ed and sog­gy Curly is enmeshed in pipes. And still the water flows.

So it is with health­care. The leak, in this case, is the basic premise of insur­ance – that risk is inevitable and its cost must show up some­where. Curly’s pipe is reg­u­la­tion – the unceas­ing attempts by gov­ern­ment to divert and dis­guise the cost of that risk. The sys­tem that result­ed from per­pet­u­al inter­ven­tion resem­bles the one Curly pro­duced – cost­ly, cum­ber­some, inef­fi­cient and con­fus­ing. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

A Modest (And Potentially Bipartisan) Obamacare Proposal

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Here are three changes Congress should make to Obamacare: 1) no cancellations; 2) no bailouts; 3) no tax on the uninsured. [Credit: thinkquest.org]

Here are three changes Con­gress should make to Oba­macare: 1) no can­cel­la­tions; 2) no bailouts; 3) no tax on the unin­sured. [Cred­it: thinkquest.org]

Here’s a crazy idea: Repub­li­cans and at least some Democ­rats say they sup­port mak­ing changes to Oba­macare; why doesn’t Con­gress give vot­ers a pleas­ant sur­prise and change it?

These changes would be polit­i­cal­ly pop­u­lar, rel­a­tive­ly mod­est and enjoy at least some bipar­ti­san sup­port. Although the pre­vail­ing polit­i­cal cli­mate makes it hard for law­mak­ers to do any­thing of sub­stance, mak­ing the health care law more friend­ly to con­sumers and less accom­mo­dat­ing to cor­po­rate inter­ests would appeal to vot­ers across the spec­trum. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Should Obamacare Evolve Into “Medicare for All?”

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Federal agents storm a Los Angeles hospital engaged in a scheme to defraud Medicare. Such fraud is rampant, raising the question of whether "Medicare for All" is a good idea. [Credit: LA Times]

Fed­er­al agents storm a Los Ange­les hos­pi­tal engaged in a scheme to defraud Medicare. Such fraud is ram­pant, rais­ing the ques­tion of whether “Medicare for All” is a good idea. [Cred­it: LA Times]

Estill Mitts, a 68-year-old from Los Ange­les, came up with an enter­pris­ing idea some years back that made him mil­lions: pay home­less peo­ple from the city’s “Skid Row” dis­trict who were eli­gi­ble for Medicare or Med­ic­aid to check into local hos­pi­tals, even if they didn’t need to be there.

Set­ting up shop at a faux med­ical facil­i­ty that he dubbed the ”Assess­ment Cen­ter,” Mitts hired what he called “stringers” to pay home­less peo­ple small sums of mon­ey to go to one of three med­ical facil­i­ties that were in on the scam – City of Angels, LA Met­ro­pol­i­tan and Tustin Hos­pi­tal and Med­ical Cen­ter – where they were admit­ted whether or not they actu­al­ly required care. The hos­pi­tals billed Medicare or Med­ic­aid for the inpa­tient stays and made kick­back pay­ments to Mitts. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare’s Comfort Food For The Insurance Industry

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The President huddled with health insurance executives last month, part of a White House effort to assure them that the government has their back. (Credit: LA Times)

The Pres­i­dent hud­dled with health insur­ance exec­u­tives last month, part of a White House effort to assure them that the gov­ern­ment has their back. (Cred­it: LA Times)

The healthcare.gov web­site now works to the Admin­is­tra­tion’s sat­is­fac­tion.  While only 30 per­cent of users could enroll when the site first launched, it’s now up to 80 per­cent.

Frus­trat­ing one in five poten­tial cus­tomers, evi­dent­ly the gold stan­dard for the White House, is viewed less favor­ably by pri­vate insur­ers.  It’s among the rea­sons that the health care law is caus­ing such anx­i­ety in the C‑suites of insur­ance com­pa­nies that are hop­ing to prof­it by sell­ing poli­cies through the exchanges. Which is why White House meet­ings with insur­ance exec­u­tives are hap­pen­ing more fre­quent­ly than Cab­i­net meet­ings. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare Bipartisanship: You Probably Can’t Keep Your Coverage

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President Obama had another stressful week. But not nearly as stressful as millions will experience when they find that they still can't keep their health coverage. [Credit: Dr. Lillian Glass Body Language Blog]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma had anoth­er week of stress.  But not near­ly as much stress as mil­lions will expe­ri­ence when they find that they still can’t keep their health cov­er­age. [Cred­it: Dr. Lil­lian Glass Body Lan­guage Blog]

Wash­ing­ton has at last arrived at a bipar­ti­san con­sen­sus on what to do about the mil­lions of peo­ple whose insur­ance poli­cies are being can­celed because of Oba­macare: not near­ly enough. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Cuccinelli Era Is Over

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Ken Cuccinelli fell short last night in his bid to become Governor of Virginia. Is the GOP mature enough to accept defeat and find a new way forward? [Credit: Huffington Post]

Ken Cuc­cinel­li fell short last night in his bid to become Gov­er­nor of Vir­ginia. Is the GOP mature enough to accept defeat and find a new way for­ward? [Cred­it: Huff­in­g­ton Post]

Chris Christie and Ter­ry McAu­li­ffe were both sup­posed to win big in their guber­na­to­r­i­al bids. Christie did; McAu­li­ffe didn’t. And that presents Con­gres­sion­al Repub­li­cans with a gen­uine oppor­tu­ni­ty to make crit­i­cal changes to the President’s health care law. If they don’t squan­der it. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Blaming Insurers: Why Valerie Jarrett is Wrong

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Valerie Jarrett last night blamed insurers for cancelling policies. But it was the Administration itself that broke the President's promise to let people keep the coverage they like. (Credit: justpiper.com)

Valerie Jar­rett last night blamed insur­ers for can­celling poli­cies. But it was the Admin­is­tra­tion itself that broke the Pres­i­den­t’s promise to let peo­ple keep the cov­er­age they like. (Cred­it: justpiper.com)

Valerie Jar­rett last night sent the fol­low­ing tweet: “FACT: Noth­ing in #Oba­macare forces peo­ple out of their health plans. No change is required unless insur­ance com­pa­nies change exist­ing plans.”

Jarrett’s tweet sig­nals that the White House is now blam­ing insur­ers for can­celling cov­er­age for hun­dreds of thou­sands — and per­haps mil­lions — of Amer­i­cans. This is utter­ly men­da­cious. The text of Oba­macare, as Jar­rett sug­gests, explic­it­ly gives peo­ple the right to keep their exist­ing cov­er­age. But in an inex­plic­a­ble action, the Admin­is­tra­tion in 2010 issued a reg­u­la­tion that stripped peo­ple of that right and made it ille­gal for many insur­ers to renew cov­er­age for next year. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

More Than A Website: Will Insurers Prosper Under Obamacare?

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The Bee Gees' "More Than A Woman" was a 70s sensation. In promoting his health care law, the President now has a similar mantra: "More Than A Website." (Credit: AP)

The Bee Gees’ “More Than A Woman” was a 70s sen­sa­tion. In pro­mot­ing his health care law, the Pres­i­dent has adopt­ed a sim­i­lar phrase, remind­ing us that Oba­macare is more than a web­site. (Cred­it: AP)

The Pres­i­den­t’s health care law has had a trou­bled first month, but it is far too soon to know whether its prob­lems will prove last­ing and severe.  Even some of its most fer­vent sup­port­ers, like the Wash­ing­ton Post’s Ezra Klein, acknowl­edge that its defi­cien­cies run deep­er than a clunky web­site.  Oba­macare, the Pres­i­dent reminds us, is more than a web­site, but its prob­lems extend far beyond its 5 mil­lion lines of errant code. Con­tin­ue read­ing →