Tag Archives: Obamacare

Is Obamacare What We Deserve?

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Many who signed up for Obamacare coverage

Some who signed up for Oba­macare cov­er­age had been unin­sured for years.  That cov­er­age could unrav­el if the Supreme Court rules next month that the Admin­is­tra­tion unlaw­ful­ly sub­si­dized their cov­er­age. [Cred­it: Mia­mi Herald]

For 20 years, I was afraid.  Afraid of get­ting sick and not hav­ing health insur­ance.  But when I got can­cer, I final­ly had a health plan that I could afford.  With­out it, I wouldn’t be here…I’ll always remem­ber how afford­able health care saved my life.  I believe every­one deserves the same chance I had.  Don’t you?  Julie, the pro­tag­o­nist of a recent ad pro­mot­ing Obamacare

The Supreme Court next month will issue a rul­ing that could result in Julie los­ing the health insur­ance cov­er­age she feels she deserves. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Let States Exchange Obamacare For Something Better

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Colorado Governor John Hickenlooper established an Obamacare state exchange that is now "teetering," according to a state official. [Credit: mnginteractive.com]

Col­orado Gov­er­nor John Hick­en­loop­er estab­lished an Oba­macare state exchange that is now “tee­ter­ing,” accord­ing to a state offi­cial. [Cred­it: mnginteractive.com]

In the 34 states that did not estab­lish Oba­macare exchanges, Gov­er­nors ner­vous­ly await a Supreme Court rul­ing that could throw their health insur­ance mar­kets into chaos. Mean­while, many of the Gov­er­nors who did estab­lish exchanges are regret­ting their decision.

More than five years after its enact­ment, Oba­macare has proven a bit­ter brew for many states.  Nowhere is this more evi­dent than in health care exchanges.  Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The GOP’s Gift To Henry Waxman — Part I

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Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and John Boehner (R-OH) took a bow when the House passed a $141 billion health care bill. But Henry Waxman deserves the credit. [Credit: Politico]

Nan­cy Pelosi (D‑CA) and House Speak­er John Boehn­er (R‑OH) took a bow when the House passed a $141 bil­lion health care bill. But Hen­ry Wax­man deserves the cred­it. [Cred­it: Politico]

“What a way to cel­e­brate a birth­day!”  – House Minor­i­ty Leader Nan­cy Pelosi (D‑CA) after the House passed bipar­ti­san health care legislation

Sor­ry, Nan­cy.  It’s not about you.

The $141 bil­lion health care bill that cleared the House last month and that is expect­ed to win Sen­ate approval next week is a trib­ute from the GOP-con­trolled Con­gress to for­mer Con­gress­man Hen­ry Wax­man, a man who worked tire­less­ly – and with great suc­cess – to expand health care-relat­ed wel­fare spend­ing. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Obamacare: The More You Pay, The Less You Get

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Obamacare enrollment increased this year, but only the poorest among the uninsured have so far signed up. [Credit: Arkansas Times]

Oba­macare enroll­ment increased this year, but only the poor­est among the unin­sured have so far signed up. [Cred­it: Arkansas Times]

Can gov­ern­ment get peo­ple to buy a prod­uct that mil­lions think isn’t worth the price?

That’s the ques­tion that health care ana­lysts are ask­ing as they pore over the results of the Oba­macare open sea­son that con­clud­ed on Feb­ru­ary 15. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

What We Know And Don’t Know About Obamacare

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The White House spent billions last year on efforts like this to promote Obamacare enrollment. How will they do this year? [Credit: Washington Post]

The White House spent bil­lions last year on efforts like this to pro­mote Oba­macare enroll­ment. How will they do this year? [Cred­it: Wash­ing­ton Post]

If you are a law­ful res­i­dent of the Unit­ed States and you lack health insur­ance today, it’s almost cer­tain­ly your fault.  You can’t blame your employ­er, the gov­ern­ment or the insur­ance com­pa­nies.  It’s on you.

That is the last­ing achieve­ment of Oba­macare, whose sec­ond open enroll­ment peri­od began yes­ter­day. Gone are the days when peo­ple with pre-exist­ing med­ical con­di­tions could not find afford­able cov­er­age.   Whether the ends of this achieve­ment, which are unde­ni­ably good, jus­ti­fy the means its sup­port­ers employed to win its enact­ment remains a mat­ter of con­tro­ver­sy. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The President, His Critics And the Politics of Impatience

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What do these two men have in common? More than you might think. [Credit: Politico]

What do these two men have in com­mon? More than you might think. [Cred­it: Politico]

“But what I’m not going to do is just wait.  I think it’s fair to say that I’ve shown a lot of patience…But what we can’t do is just keep on wait­ing.”  Pres­i­dent Oba­ma, Novem­ber 5, 2014

The Con­sti­tu­tion offers no rem­e­dy for pres­i­den­tial impa­tience. Pres­i­dents, Mem­bers of Con­gress and judges are some­times con­sti­tu­tion­al­ly required to “just keep on wait­ing.”  And that is some­thing office­hold­ers of both polit­i­cal par­ties seem increas­ing­ly unwill­ing to do.  When it comes to cir­cum­vent­ing the rules to achieve the polit­i­cal objec­tives of the moment, the Pres­i­dent and some of his most stri­dent con­ser­v­a­tive foes are soulmates.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

The Lawsuit Boehner Should Bring

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The House has authorized the Speaker to sue the Administration for overreaching in its Obamacare implementation. He should sue over its corporate welfare provisions. [Credit: rightspeak.net]

The House has autho­rized the Speak­er to sue the Admin­is­tra­tion for over­reach­ing in its Oba­macare imple­men­ta­tion. He should sue over its cor­po­rate wel­fare pro­vi­sions. [Cred­it: rightspeak.net]

Hi Chet –
After speak­ing at length today with Jeanne and our oth­er pol­i­cy folks, I do not think I have any more to add. They seem to have giv­en you 80 per­cent of what you request­ed and I am not in a posi­tion to sec­ond guess there [sic] analy­sis.
Sin­cere­ly,
Valerie

“Valerie” would be Valerie Jar­rett, one of Pres­i­dent Obama’s clos­est advis­ers. “Chet” would be Chet Bur­rell, CEO of Care­First Blue Cross. In the April 15 email, Jar­rett advised the insur­ance exec­u­tive that he would have to live with 80 per­cent of what his indus­try asked the White House for.

A month lat­er, the Admin­is­tra­tion relent­ed and gave the indus­try 100 per­cent of what it asked for – a reg­u­la­tion that will involve the give­away of an addi­tion­al $1 bil­lion in tax­pay­er funds to insur­ers par­tic­i­pat­ing in the Oba­macare exchanges.

If the Speak­er intends to file a law­suit against the Admin­is­tra­tion for abuse of pow­er, as a res­o­lu­tion adopt­ed last evening by the House autho­rizes him to do, he should sue over this. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

When Dead Men Rule

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G.K. Chesterton worried that our predecessors would have too little influence on our politics. But Gene Steuerle says that they have too much. [Credit: christiancompletely blog]

G.K. Chester­ton wor­ried that our ances­tors would have too lit­tle influ­ence on our soci­ety. But a new book by the Urban Insti­tute’s Gene Steuer­le says that they exert too much con­trol over our pol­i­tics. [Cred­it: chris­tian­com­plete­ly blog]

“Tra­di­tion means giv­ing votes to the most obscure of all class­es, our ances­tors.  It is the democ­ra­cy of the dead.” – G.K. Chester­ton

Chester­ton fret­ted that mod­ern democ­ra­cies might show too lit­tle def­er­ence to past gen­er­a­tions.  But accord­ing to the Urban Institute’s Gene Steuer­le, the very oppo­site is true: in Amer­i­can democ­ra­cy, dead men rule. Con­tin­ue read­ing →

War on Women: Dispatches From The Front

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The latest skirmish in the "war on women" took place this past week in the Senate. [Credit: ACLU]

The Sen­ate was the scene last week of the lat­est skir­mish in the war on women, one of sev­er­al con­trived con­tro­ver­sies man­u­fac­tured by the polit­i­cal class. [Cred­it: ACLU]

Resolv­ing con­flicts is a core func­tion of gov­ern­ment.  Incit­ing them is a core com­pe­ten­cy of our polit­i­cal class.

The habit of inflam­ing pas­sions for polit­i­cal pur­pos­es was on dis­play again this week in the US Sen­ate. Wednes­day’s show vote osten­si­bly con­cerned the right of women to receive “free” birth con­trol from their employ­ers.  But the leg­is­la­tion, as its authors sure­ly knew, would not become law.  If it did, it would result, not in employ­ers buy­ing more con­tra­cep­tives for their employ­ees, but in more work­ers los­ing employ­ment-based health insurance.

Con­tin­ue read­ing →

Tolerance, The Amish And Hobby Lobby

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Pamela Harris, shown here with her disabled son, prevailed at the Supreme Court this week in her challenge to an Illinois law requiring her to pay union dues. [Credit: Heartland Institute]

Pamela Har­ris, shown here with her dis­abled son, pre­vailed at the Supreme Court this week in her chal­lenge to an Illi­nois law requir­ing her to pay union dues. [Cred­it: Heart­land Institute]

For a brief time dur­ing the 1980s, I was Direc­tor of Pol­i­cy Devel­op­ment for the Social Secu­ri­ty Admin­is­tra­tion.  The title is more glo­ri­fied than the real­i­ty.  Social Secu­ri­ty is a big and ossi­fied pro­gram that resists “pol­i­cy devel­op­ment.”  Con­gress, ever cog­nizant of the polit­i­cal risks of tam­per­ing with the pro­gram, had been forced by its loom­ing insol­ven­cy to pass a mas­sive law hik­ing pay­roll tax­es and rais­ing the retire­ment age just a few years before.  They were in no mood to enter­tain addi­tion­al legislation.

But my job was to pre­pare options for the Commissioner’s con­sid­er­a­tion, so I met with career staff who had an idea: why not advo­cate for a bill requir­ing self-employed Amish farm­ers to pay social secu­ri­ty tax­es? Con­tin­ue read­ing →