Fix Health Care Policy

Happy Birthday, Obamacare? What it Really Means for Consumers

Today marks the one-year anniversary of Obamacare. While advocates spend the week highlighting the new law’s effects on different groups of Americans, we are doing the same. A review of the facts on the ground and the conclusions of Heritage research over the past year reveals the far-reaching negative consequences.

Today, the focus is on the “consumer protections” included in Obamacare. To be sure, some Americans will benefit from these changes, but, as Heritage analyst Brian Blase explains, the overall result is that:

“Obamacare has increased government control of Americans’ health care choices, raised the cost of insurance, forced insurers to stop offering child-only policies, broken the promise that an individual can keep his insurance unaltered, and bailed out underfunded union early-retiree health care plans. The early results suggest that Obamacare’s ‘benefits’ are not worth their costs.” (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: consumer protections, government control, negative consequences, Obamacare anniversary

Obamacare’s Failed First Year

“I think that health care, over time, is going to become more popular,” then-White House senior advisor David Axelrod promised David Gregory about Obamacare last September. That same month, the Health Information Campaign, founded by high-profile leftist activists including former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, spent $2 million on a national television ad campaign touting Obamcare’s first insurance mandates. Now, six months after Axelrod’s promise, and a full year after the bill was signed into law, the results are in: Obamacare is more unpopular than ever.

Look at any poll and you’ll see that Obamacare has only gotten less legitimate. Last year at this time Newsweek showed 40 percent of Americans supporting Obamacare and 49 percent opposing it. Today, only 37 percent support it while 56 percent oppose. According to Quinnipiac, after Obamacare passed last year, 44 percent of Americans approved of President Obama’s handling of health care while 50 percent opposed. Today, only 44 percent approve while opposition has grown to 56 percent. And according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, after Obamacare passed, 62 percent of Americans thought the law would either have no effect on them or make them worse off. Today that number is up to 69 percent.

The reason why President Obama and his liberal allies have failed to turn public opinion around is simple: The major claims made by the President in the effort to pass Obamacare have all been exposed as frauds, and the early implementation by his Administration has been a complete disaster. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: Obamacare anniversary, Public Opinion, repeal, Side Effects

Heritage in Focus: Anniversary of Obamacare

This week marks the first anniversary of Obamacare, and already some of the less egregious aspects of the law have taken effect: minimum loss ratio regulations, the small-business health insurance tax credit, high-risk pools, and coverage mandates on insurance companies. However, the worst parts of Obamacare won’t kick in until 2014. You can learn more about in our recent Heritage in Focus podcast with Heritage expert Bob Moffit. Click here to listen.

So what has health reform accomplished over the past year?

First off, as a result of new laws imposed, insurers cannot limit lifetime benefits, nor can group plans limit yearly benefits. On top of that, it is now permissible that people can stay on their parents’ insurance plans until age 26. These policies have resulted in premium increases: BlueShield of Oregon has attributed 3.4 percentage points of its 17.1 percent rate increase to Obamacare, while Celtic Insurance Company in Wisconsin and North Carolina has attributed 9 percentage points of its 18 percent rate increase to Obamacare. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: Heritage in Focus, high-risk pools, Obamacare anniversary, Podcast, premium increases, repeal

Happy Birthday, Obamacare? What It Really Means for Seniors

This Wednesday marks the first anniversary of Obamacare. While its supporters spend the week highlighting the new law’s effects on affected groups of Americans, we will do the same. By laying out the facts on the ground and the conclusions of Heritage research from the past year, we shed light on the realities of the new law and the negative consequences it has for every American.

Today, liberals will argue that Obamacare is good for America’s seniors. The truth is that the few perks Medicare beneficiaries will experience under the new law are overshadowed by the negative consequences of the far-reaching, fundamental changes it makes to the program. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: Medicare, negative consequences, Obamacare anniversary, Seniors

VIDEO: IHOP Owner Fears Obamacare’s Impact on Jobs and Economy

TERRE HAUTE, Ind. — In 2006, when Indiana small-business owner Scott Womack purchased a development agreement to expand his IHOP franchise into Ohio, he had no idea Congress would pass a massive overhaul of the health care system four years later.

Today, one year after that legislative overhaul became law, Womack is very aware of Obamacare — and of its effects on his plans for growth.

Under the year-old law, Womack must provide health insurance to all full-time employees beginning in 2014. Right now, he employs nearly 1,000 full- and part-time workers and already offers insurance to his management staff. He simply does not know how he’ll generate the revenue to do more. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: anniversary, employer mandates, IHOP buiness owner, job losses, ObamaCare

In The Green Room: Scott Rasmussen on Obamacare’s Unpopularity

Pollster Scott Rasmussen joined us “In The Green Room” to discuss Obamacare on the eve of its one year anniversary. We discussed how the law has remained consistently unpopular—from about 54% of Americans favoring repeal one year ago to 53% still favoring repeal nearly one year later.

As Mr. Rasmussen pointed out, this is still an issue on the minds of many voters, especially among seniors who are likely impacted most by the new law. While admitting that attention to this issue may not always be this high, Mr. Rasmussen suggested that it will continue to weigh on Americans’ minds. “They will be interested when they see it impacting their life,” he explained, “And that could be in terms of expanded deficits—which is sort of a distant relationship—or it could be when they have to change their insurance coverage or when their doctor says, ‘I have to do this because of the health care law.’”

But while the future may be unclear, one thing is certain: this issue is not going away any time soon.

Tags: American opinion, ObamaCare, repeal the law, Scott Rasmussen, Seniors

Happy Birthday, Obamacare? What It Really Means for American Businesses

This Wednesday marks the first anniversary of Obamacare. While advocates spend the week highlighting the new law’s effects on different groups of Americans, we will do the same. A review of the facts on the ground and the conclusions of Heritage research over the past year reveal the far-reaching negative consequences of the new law.

Today, the argument is that Obamacare is good for American business. Though there are sure to be those who experience some benefit under the new law, its overall effect will be to cause great harm to job growth and the economy at large. By and large, Obamacare will also fail to remove the obstacles that smaller employers face to provide health insurance for workers. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: businesses, job losses, low-income workers, Obamacare anniversary, regulations

Breaking Health Care Research: After One Year, the Effects of Obamacare Are Grim

This week marks the first anniversary of Obamacare. In response, Heritage analyst Brian Blase has provided a one-year checkup on the provisions that are already in place and the effects Americans are experiencing as a result.

Obamacare’s more popular provisions were supposedly front-loaded, and liberals are taking full advantage of this in the ongoing attempt to build support for the unpopular law. This week, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified before the Senate Finance Committee on how, in her opinion, Obamacare is already benefiting Americans.

But a closer look shows that her perception may be based more on wishful thinking than reality. Blase’s research highlights how many of the provisions of Obamacare are already impacting Americans in harmful ways.

According to Secretary Sebelius, new insurance regulations “give millions of Americans important new health insurance protections.” But though these new rules are advertised as “consumer protections,” they often do the opposite. Blase writes that “Obamacare has resulted in insurance companies exiting markets, thereby reducing consumer choice.” (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: consumer protections, HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, impacting markets, ObamaCare, rules, Senate Finance Committee

Why Doctors Need Repeal of Obamacare: Dr. Martha Boone’s Diagnosis

On the one-year anniversary of Obamacare, the problems of the health care law remain a constant frustration for doctors around the country. Many go about their lives feeling frustrated, but a few brave doctors are speaking out. 

Dr. Martha Boone of Atlanta is one of them. She’ll speak on a panel at The Heritage Foundation today at noon about the difficulties doctors face from Obamacare and other entitlement programs. Rep. Michael Burgess (R-TX), a medical doctor, will join her along with Gurjeet Guram, a student at Harvard Medical School. Click to watch it . 

In an interview with Heritage last year, Boone explained how she was forced cut her salary by 32 percent and move to a less expensive, older office building. If she had not made these sacrifices, Boone would have been forced to refuse Medicare patients or lay off one of her employees. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: Dr. Martha Boone, ObamaCare, repeal the bill, salary cut

Lunch With Heritage: Online Chat on the Anniversary of Obamacare Passing

The one year anniversary of Obamacare being signed into law is next week. There has been a lot of parts of the law already enacted. We are joined by Heritage Health Policy expert Brian Blase and he will take your questions about the pain Obamacare is already causing and what we can expect in the future. (Read the entire Webchat at The Foundry…)

Tags: anniversary, ObamaCare, passage