Health Reform Hub Issues

Issues :: Private Health Insurance

The [Insurance] Empire Strikes Back
Alieta Eck, M.D.

Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, 05/15/11

ObamaCare will make things worse by further consolidating the power of the insurance/hospital cartel. It seems like a form of organized crime, where the only reason to buy insurance would be to be protected from the huge hospital bills. And the hospitals still have the nerve to conduct charity fundraisers!   Read more...

Some Employers Already Sending Workers To Exchanges to Buy Health Insurance
Julie Appleby

Kaiser Health News, 04/29/11


Fed up with the unpredictable cost of health insurance for his small business, Mike Sarafolean last year made a dramatic change: Instead of picking a plan to offer workers, he now sends them to a "private exchange" or marketplace where they compare and choose their own insurance. And the amount his company pays toward coverage is capped.   Read more...

Book Review: How to dismantle Obamacare
Sally Pipes

The Washington Times, 4/13/11


“ObamaCare is wrong for families, wrong for patients, wrong for business, and wrong for our children’s futures.” That’s the thesis, laid out on the first page of the must-read “Why ObamaCare is Wrong for America,” a powerful book co-written by four battle-tested veterans of Washington’s health policy battles. There is no doubt that those concerned with less government involvement in our health care system lost the 2009 and 2010 health care battle, a discouraging episode in which facts seemed not to matter and wishful thinking and power politics prevailed. Yet this is not a bitter tale, and there are no sour grapes. It’s a positive book driven by the insight that nothing is ever final in politics and just as President Obama and his band of congressional Democrats could run roughshod over public opinion and force the unpopular plan through a compliant Congress, so too can committed individuals, armed with facts and logic, reverse this disastrous piece of legislation - the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. It won’t be easy, but then nothing worthwhile ever is. Read more...

A New Vision for Medicaid: Deploying the FLEX Strategy to Strengthen the Social Safety Net
Douglas Holtz-Eakin and Michael Ramlet

American Action Forum, 4/13/11


Medicaid is broken. The program fails to deliver consistent, quality care to the neediest Americans and at the same time is bankrupting states and the federal government. Without comprehensive reform, the program will increasingly strain budgets, suffer financial collapse and fail in its role in the nation’s social safety net. This paper lays out a new vision for Medicaid that strengthens the program through financial accountability, lean operations, ensured access and expanded state ownership (FLEX). Read more...

State Health Care Flexibility: The Good, the Bad and the Broke
Merrill Matthews

Forbes: Right Directions, 4/6/11


Governors are demanding, and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius is promising, more state flexibility in implementing President Obama’s health care law. Real state flexibility could be a solution to many of our health care problems—at least for those who live in the right (i.e., red) states.  But the results would surely be a mixed bag: some good, some useless and some terrible. We would likely see the kind of red state-blue state segmentation in state health care reform that we currently see in taxes and regulations.  High tax and pro-regulation blue states seem to want even more government control over health care, including a single-payer health care system. Read more...

ObamaCare: Still a Clear and Present Danger
Grace-Marie Turner

Real Clear Markets, 4/4/11


If only it were actually were true! According to a recent the Kaiser Health Tracking Poll, nearly half of Americans believe that ObamaCare either has been repealed or aren't sure. Just over half correctly understand that this government takeover of health care continues unabated. It's not surprising that people are confused. The House voted to repeal the law in January by a large margin, and headlines across the country read, "House votes to Repeal ObamaCare." People have read other headlines that say, "Court declares ObamaCare unconstitutional." And they have read news reports about numerous efforts in the House of Representatives to defund the law. Read more...

Why States Are Shying Away From ObamaCare’s Health Insurance Exchanges
Peter Suderman

Reason, 3/30/11


Should states refuse to implement the health care overhaul? As I pointed out last week, some of them already are, and now opposition to the law appears to be scoring wins in even more states. A story in Politico this afternoon notes that Tea Party activists opposing the law seem to be “finding surprising success...blocking the law’s implementation.” Those victories are occurring at the state level, where a number of governors are both politically sympathetic and justifiably worried about the burdens the law places on their states. At first glance, the law seems like a trap for those who both oppose the law and favor federalism: ObamaCare calls on states to set up exchanges; in any state that does not sufficiently comply by 2013, the federal government will simply swoop in and set up an exchange on its own. That leaves governors who oppose the law in something of a bind: Either take control and set up a state-run exchange, or let the federal government step in and run things itself. Read more...

A Little Too Enterprising
Peter Pitts

Center for Medicine in the Public Interest: Drug Wonks, 3/30/11


According to a report in the Washington Post, “Medicaid, the joint federal-state health program for the poor, spent $329 million extra in 2009 purchasing 20 brand-name drugs instead of available generic copies, according to an American Enterprise Institute report.” The spending numbers are iffy. The word “extra” is wrong.  And words matter. A lot. The Post writes, “The study included contraceptives, respiratory medicines and antibiotics. Risperdal, New Brunswick, N.J.-based Johnson & Johnson’s antipsychotic, prescribed in generic form exclusively would have saved $60 million in 2009, the report released Monday found.” It’s important to note (and is mentioned in the Post story) that Teva (the world’s largest generic drugs company) makes a generic version of the drug. Read more...

Is Medicaid Real Insurance?
John Goodman

Kaiser Health News, 3/25/11


As governors across the land struggle with fiscal pressures and pepper the federal government with requests to scale back Medicaid – many people are losing sight of the fact that health care reform (what some call ObamaCare) requires a huge expansion of Medicaid. In fact, in just three years the nation is expected to start insuring about 32 million uninsured people. About half will enroll in Medicaid directly. If the Massachusetts experience is repeated, most of the remainder will be in heavily subsidized private plans that pay providers little more than Medicaid does. Read more...

A Glimpse of a Future With Obamacare
Sally Pipes

The Washington Post, 3/24/11


The one-year anniversary of the Affordable Care Act this week brings new reason to consider a major health-care announcement by Massachusetts Gov. Deval Patrick. Almost five years into his state’s Romneycare plan, it turns out that spending is out of control, threatening public-sector budgets and private-sector wealth generation. The solution to this government-created mess, Patrick told the Greater Boston Chamber of Commerce last month, is more government control — or health-care reform Part II, as some are calling it. Americans in the other 49 states should pay attention. Massachusetts is the blueprint for Obamacare, and Patrick is among those who want his state’s plan to serve as a national model. Read more...