Think About the Worst Corporate Merger Ever – Then Add Obamacare

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1. Single-Payer Extremists: Obamacare Has Increased Health System Overhead Drs. David Himmelstein and Steffie Woolhander are the Bernie Sanders of health policy. For decades, they have advocated that the U.S. adopt a government monopoly, single payer, health system. They write economically illiterate articles asserting that Medicare is great because it has low administrative costs. Nevertheless, a stopped clock is right twice a day, and the good doctors’ latest article nails Obamacare for increasing the overhead of U.S. health insurance. Who would have even thought that was possible? The roughly $6 billion in exchange start-up costs pale in comparison to the ongoing insurance overhead that the ACA has added to...
2. Is the Administration Low-Balling Their 2015 Obamacare Enrollment Estimate? Well, with an estimate of only 9 million to 9.9 million, apparently they are. But I will suggest the focus should not be on anybody's estimate for 2015 but rather on how many people need to enroll in Obamacare to make it sustainable. A few points: The Kaiser Family Foundation estimated that when Obamacare launched in 2014, 17.2 million people were eligible for subsidies. The only place you can...
3. Price’s Health Reform Hit From The Right I recently discussed Rep. Tom Price, MD’s Empowering Patients First Act in quite positive terms. Not everyone is on board. My good friend Dean Clancy labels the bill Health Care Cronyism: Section 401, for example, authorizes new federal “best practice” guidelines written by medical societies, designed to give physicians extra protections from malpractice lawsuits. These guidelines aren’t merely educational, though. They’re established as powerful litigation tools in state courts. If a physician can show he followed them, his accuser must meet a higher burden of proof to establish negligence. That may be a good idea, but it’s unconstitutional. The power...
4. Republicans Would Extend Obamacare Subsidies If the Supreme Court Strikes Down State Exchange Payments––But With Lots of Conditions The Republicans should offer an unconditional subsidy extension if the Supreme Court strikes them down Wisconsin Senator Ron Johnson (R) has offered a plan to extend the Obamacare state exchange subsidies into 2017 if the Supreme Court strikes them down this summer. The Republican Senate leadership is supporting his bill. But Johnson has some pretty big conditions: Existing subsidies in the...
5. $1 billion in Federal Tax Dollars and a One Star Rating on Yelp––Quite an Expose––Behind the Scenes at Covered California California's Obamacare Insurance Exchange Posts Poor Results and is the Subject of an Expose What a difference a year makes. Last year the California Obamacare insurance exchange, Covered California, was touted as the poster child for the Obamacare launch. Supporters said it worked well, enrolled lots of people, and was off to the kind of start that proved how successful Obamacare could be....