Tag Archives: Medicaid

Student Loans: Punishing People Who Play By The Rules

Posted on by

President Obama believes that requiring student loans to be repaid is punishing good behavior. [Credit: NPR]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma believes that requir­ing stu­dent loans to be repaid is pun­ish­ing good behav­ior. [Cred­it: NPR]

“If some­body plays by the rules, they shouldn’t be pun­ished for it.” — Pres­i­dent Obama

The Pres­i­dent made this inar­guable state­ment in the course of pro­claim­ing a change in the law gov­ern­ing stu­dent loans.  Hence­forth, mil­lions of peo­ple who bor­rowed for col­lege will have their month­ly pay­ments restruc­tured and, in some cas­es, be entire­ly relieved of the oblig­a­tion to repay their debt.

In the President’s mind, bor­row­ing mon­ey is play­ing by the rules; pay­ing it back is pun­ish­ment. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Was Speaker Boehner Right About Obamacare?

Posted on by

House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) was heavily criticized for saying last month that Obamacare cancelations had outnumered enrollments. Now a new study touted by the Administration shows that he had a point. [Credit: Politico]

House Speak­er John Boehn­er (R‑OH) was heav­i­ly crit­i­cized for say­ing last month that Oba­macare can­ce­la­tions had out­nu­mered enroll­ments. Now a new study tout­ed by the Admin­is­tra­tion shows that he had a point. [Cred­it: Politico]

“When you look at the 6 mil­lion Amer­i­cans who have lost their poli­cies and some — they claim 4.2 mil­lion peo­ple who have signed up — I don’t know how many have actu­al­ly paid for it — that would indi­cate to me a net loss of peo­ple with health insur­ance.”  House Speak­er John Boehn­er (R‑OH)

Boehner’s state­ment last month that few­er peo­ple had gained cov­er­age through health exchanges than had lost their insur­ance due to can­ce­la­tions required by the health care law was met with wide­spread deri­sion. The state­ment earned him 4 Pinoc­chios from the Wash­ing­ton Post’s Fact-Checker.

But a new sur­vey released by the RAND Cor­po­ra­tion at least par­tial­ly vin­di­cates the Speaker’s claim. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare By The Numbers: Medicaid

Posted on by

Obamacare supporters are greatly inflating estimates of the number of previously uninsured people that have gained coverage because of the new law. Here's sensible look at the numbers. [Credit: CNN/Money]

Oba­macare sup­port­ers are great­ly inflat­ing esti­mates of the num­ber of pre­vi­ous­ly unin­sured peo­ple that have gained cov­er­age because of the new law. Here’s sen­si­ble look at the num­bers. [Cred­it: CNN/Money]

Near­ly 13 mil­lion Amer­i­cans now have health insur­ance thanks to Oba­macare. Tell Repub­li­cans to stop vot­ing to take their cov­er­age away. – Demo­c­ra­t­ic Leg­isla­tive Cam­paign Com­mit­tee peti­tion drive

Hyper­bole over how many peo­ple have pre­sum­ably gained health cov­er­age as the result of Oba­macare won’t sub­side any­time soon. At its cur­rent pace, we seem des­tined to reach the point where the num­ber of peo­ple who are alleged to have gained cov­er­age because of Oba­macare sur­pass­es the num­ber that lacked cov­er­age in the first place. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Curly Howard And Our Health Care System

Posted on by

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

Posted on by

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?”

Posted on by

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 →

In Washington, All Is Well

Posted on by

The faces of Congressional leaders are hardly etched with joy, but they did manage to avert a fiscal crisis, even if only for a few months. [Credit: Bloomberg]

The faces of Con­gres­sion­al lead­ers are hard­ly etched with joy, but they did man­age to avert a fis­cal cri­sis, even if only for a few months. [Cred­it: Bloomberg]

Octo­ber 16, 2013, 6:00 am

All is well in Wash­ing­ton. The gov­ern­ment is spend­ing and bor­row­ing again. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Welfare or Work: A Difficult Choice

Posted on by
The choice between welfare and work is not always an easy one, according to a new study by the Cato Institute. (Credit: LA Times)

The choice between wel­fare and work is not always an easy one, accord­ing to a new study by the Cato Insti­tute. (Cred­it: LA Times)

(NOTE: This post was updat­ed on Sep­tem­ber 23 to incor­po­rate the gov­ern­men­t’s new­ly-released pover­ty rate data.)

If forced to choose between a full-time job that paid $24.40 per hour and enrolling in a pack­age of gov­ern­ment ben­e­fits that paid a com­pa­ra­ble amount, which would you choose? Con­tin­ue read­ing →

What Will The Poor Pay for Obamacare?

Posted on by

Credit Huffington Post

Mil­lions of unin­sured Amer­i­cans with low incomes will find that cov­er­age under Oba­macare isn’t free. How they react to that brac­ing bit of news will help deter­mine whether the law suc­ceeds. [Cred­it: Huff­in­g­ton Post]

Pres­i­dent Oba­ma promised change.  Oba­macare will bring it.  But one of its most far-reach­ing changes has noth­ing to do with health care.  Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Tortured Politics of the Health Care Law

Posted on by
Boehner and Reid

Putting aside per­son­al ani­mos­i­ty for the greater good.

House con­ser­v­a­tives yes­ter­day scut­tled a bill that would have denied the White House mon­ey it urgent­ly needs to imple­ment the new health reform law. But a promi­nent Sen­ate Demo­c­rat, who helped write the law, maneu­vered to deny the Admin­is­tra­tion those des­per­ate­ly need­ed funds. Mean­while, Speak­er Boehn­er and Sen­ate Demo­c­ra­t­ic Major­i­ty Leader Har­ry Reid are locked in qui­et talks to exempt them­selves and their staffs from the new law.

Got all that? Con­tin­ue read­ing →