Category Archives: Obamacare

A $5 Billion Obamacare Windfall for Insurers?

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A dozen health insurance co-ops established by Obamacare have so far failed, leaving behind headaches for consumers, providers and taxpayers. Now one of them is suing for more government handouts. [Credit: Manhattan Institute]

A dozen health insur­ance co-ops estab­lished by Oba­macare have so far failed, leav­ing behind headaches for con­sumers, providers and tax­pay­ers. Now one of them is suing for more gov­ern­ment hand­outs. [Cred­it: Man­hat­tan Institute]

Oregon’s health insur­ance co-oper­a­tive is yet anoth­er Oba­macare fail­ure. It squan­dered tax­pay­er-backed hand­outs and loans, dis­ap­point­ed its cus­tomers and now has shut­tered its operations.

But with an audac­i­ty that would make even Don­ald Trump blush, Health Repub­lic of Ore­gon wants more tax­pay­er mon­ey. Its exec­u­tives are suing the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment to demand more gov­ern­ment hand­outs.  Read more on Inside Sources or RealClearPolicy.

Obamacare Does NOT Have A Mandate

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Some conservatives have charged that Marco Rubio has proposed an individual mandate for health insurance. [Credit: ABC News]

Some con­ser­v­a­tives have charged that Mar­co Rubio has pro­posed an indi­vid­ual man­date for health insur­ance. [Cred­it: ABC News]

Some con­ser­v­a­tives have accused Mar­co Rubio of propos­ing an Oba­macare-like man­date on all Amer­i­cans to buy health insur­ance. They’re wrong about Rubio.  And about Oba­macare.  Read more on Nation­al Review Online.

Will HHS Get Away With A $3.5 Billion Heist?

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CMS administrator Andy Slavitt has a $3.5 billion problem. Will Congress and presidential candidates talk about it? [Credit:nextgov]

CMS admin­is­tra­tor Andy Slavitt is plan­ning to short the U.S. Trea­sury $3.5 bil­lion. Will Con­gress and pres­i­den­tial can­di­dates talk about it? [Credit:nextgov]

The Depart­ment of Health and Human Ser­vices (HHS) announced Fri­day night that it was in the process of short­ing the U.S. Trea­sury $3.5 billion.

Well, they didn’t exact­ly announce it.  You had to read between the lines. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Antonin Scalia, R.I.P.

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Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, who died on Saturday, practiced a constitutional conservatism that is out-of-step with today's Right. [Credit: lifenews.com]

Supreme Court Jus­tice Antonin Scalia, who died on Sat­ur­day, prac­ticed a con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ser­vatism that is out-of-step with today’s Right. [Cred­it: lifenews.com]

The arc of con­ser­vatism’s decline was traced in the course of a few hours last Sat­ur­day. That after­noon we learned of the pass­ing of a gen­uine con­sti­tu­tion­al con­ser­v­a­tive, Antonin Scalia. Hours lat­er, we endured anoth­er GOP debate dur­ing which pro­fessed con­ser­v­a­tives trad­ed barbs and insults, now con­sid­ered a suit­able sub­sti­tute for char­ac­ter and sub­stance by a large swath of Repub­li­can vot­ers. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

What We Know And Don’t Know About Obamacare, Part II

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More than five years after its enactment there still are many questions about whether Obamacare is working. Here are four of them.

More than five years after its enact­ment there still are many ques­tions about whether Oba­macare is work­ing. Here are four of them.

My pre­vi­ous post dis­cussed what we know about Oba­macare as its third open enroll­ment sea­son begins.  Here are four major ques­tions about the future of Oba­macare that remain unanswered.

Can insur­ance com­pa­nies make mon­ey in the exchanges with­out cor­po­rate wel­fare? Oba­macare con­tains some very expen­sive sweet­en­ers to entice insur­ance com­pa­nies to sell through the exchanges. These include risk cor­ri­dor pay­ments and $20 bil­lion over three years in inapt­ly named “rein­sur­ance” pay­ments, mon­ey gov­ern­ment takes from par­tic­i­pants in group health plans and gives to insur­ers that par­tic­i­pate in the exchanges. Both are sched­uled to end in 2017.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

What We Know And Don’t Know About Obamacare, Part I

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Obamacare's third open enrollment season launched yesterday. Here are six things we know about the program. (Tomorrow: four things we still don't know.) Credit:americanlegislator.org

Oba­macare’s third open enroll­ment sea­son launched yes­ter­day. Here are six things we know about the pro­gram. (Tomor­row: four things we still don’t know.) Credit:americanlegislator.org

Obamacare’s third open enroll­ment sea­son has kicked off, begin­ning the next chap­ter in its tur­bu­lent his­to­ry.  Today’s post dis­cuss­es what we know about Oba­macare.  Tomorrow’s will dis­cuss what we still don’t know.

What We Know

Few­er peo­ple are unin­sured. How many few­er is a mat­ter of dis­pute, but the improve­ment is sub­stan­tial by any mea­sure.  HHS Sec­re­tary Sylvia Bur­well cred­its Oba­macare with reduc­ing the num­ber of unin­sured peo­ple by 17.6 mil­lion since 2010.   And though you’ll like­ly hear this num­ber repeat­ed (and often round­ed up to 18 mil­lion), it’s almost cer­tain­ly exag­ger­at­ed.   Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare’s Next Chapter

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Chief Justice John Roberts ' opinion in King v. Burwell betrayed widely-held misconceptions about health insurance markets. [Credit: Human Events]

Chief Jus­tice John Roberts ’ opin­ion in King v. Bur­well repeat­ed wide­ly-held mis­con­cep­tions about health insur­ance mar­kets.  Con­ser­v­a­tives should take note. [Cred­it: Human Events]

“The Patient Pro­tec­tion and Afford­able Care Act grew out of a long his­to­ry of failed health insur­ance reform.” Chief Jus­tice John Roberts, in uphold­ing Oba­macare subsidies.

Oba­macare is the newest chap­ter in that long his­to­ry of failed health insur­ance reform.  Con­ser­v­a­tives who hope one day to replace it would do well to learn from its errors and con­ceits. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare And The Daughters of (40% Less) Charity

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The President last week professed his love -- appropriately chaste, of course -- for Sister Carol Keehan, president of the Catholic Health Association and tireless Obamacare advocate. [Credit: Wikipedia]

The Pres­i­dent last week pro­fessed his love — appro­pri­ate and chaste, of course — for Sis­ter Car­ol Kee­han, pres­i­dent of the Catholic Health Asso­ci­a­tion and tire­less Oba­macare advo­cate. [Cred­it: Wikipedia]

I just love nuns gen­er­al­ly.  I’m just say­ing.  – Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, June 9

And nuns just love him too.  At least nuns who run hos­pi­tals seem to.  And with good rea­son: the Pres­i­dent advo­cates poli­cies that enable hos­pi­tals like those oper­at­ed by the Daugh­ters of Char­i­ty to pro­vide less char­i­ty.  Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare Has Reduced Uninsured By Nearly 8 Million

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A fresh government study has found that Obamacare has so far reduced the number of uninsured by eight million. [Credit: publicbroadcasting.net]

A fresh gov­ern­ment study has found that Oba­macare has so far reduced the num­ber of unin­sured by eight mil­lion. [Cred­it: publicbroadcasting.net]

The num­ber of unin­sured peo­ple declined by near­ly eight mil­lion dur­ing the first nine months of 2014, reduc­ing their ranks to 37.2 mil­lion, accord­ing to an analy­sis of data released late last week by the Nation­al Cen­ter for Health Sta­tis­tics (NCHS).

The survey’s find­ings con­flict with a report issued last month by the RAND Cor­po­ra­tion, which esti­mat­ed that the num­ber of unin­sured fell by 16.9 mil­lion since Obamacare’s imple­men­ta­tion [sub­scrip­tion required].  The RAND study put the num­ber of unin­sured at 25.8 mil­lion, near­ly 12 mil­lion few­er than the NCHS esti­mate. Con­tin­ue read­ing →