Fix Health Care Policy

Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) Outlines a New Paradigm for Health Care Reform

Yesterday, Representative Paul Ryan (R–WI) shared his outlook for repealing and replacing Obamacare.

Ryan pointed out that rising health care costs not only make insurance unaffordable for many Americans; they are also a main driver of growing federal deficits. As medical inflation pushes the cost of insurance and medical goods and services sky high, the cost to taxpayers of Medicare, Medicaid, and the new open-ended entitlements created in Obamacare goes up as well.

Adequately addressing rising costs will require pinpointing the root causes of medical inflation. Ryan defined these as over-utilization, under-payments, and inefficiency stemming from the detachment of consumers from the costs of their health decisions in a third-party system. The irony, as Ryan put it, is that “the system that shields us from the cost of services has actually left us paying more.”  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: consumer-driven care, health reform, Rep. Paul Ryan, repeal Obamacare, replace, rising costs

Health Insurance Continues Unaffordable Trend After Obamacare

This week, the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Health Research and Educational Trust released a major survey on employer-sponsored health benefits in the United States. Among the many important findings in the report, one fact stood out: Americans are paying more and more for their health insurance every year, a concerning trend that is only getting worse under Obamacare. The report explains that:

• The cost of insurance is increasingly unaffordable to American families. The cost of health insurance in the United States has grown significantly over the last decade. The Kaiser survey shows that the average annual premium for a family in 2011 is 31 percent higher than it was in 2006, and 113 percent higher than in 2001. This year marks the first year that the cost of family coverage will exceed $15,000, reports The Wall Street Journal’s Anna Wilde Matthews.

Small businesses especially struggle to offer health benefits to their employees because of cost. According to Kaiser, 55 percent of small firms surveyed that did not offer coverage cited the high cost of insurance as the primary reason.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: employer-sponsored insurance, health care costs, Kaiser Family Foundation, premiums, unaffordable

States Should Return Obamacare Grants, Pursue Own Health Care Reforms

Many state lawmakers are concerned that if their states accept Obamacare grant funding, they will be implementing policies counter to the states’ best interests.

In any battle, it is wise to pick targets strategically. Obamacare is a many-headed monster—its funding is not one block grant. Conservatives should focus on refusing federal funding for elements of Obamacare that are integral to the legislation’s design and have significant policy consequences—while giving lower priority to funding that doesn’t meet both of those tests. (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: Obamacare grant funding, return the money, significant policy consequences, States

Obamacare Has Arrived in the Supreme Court

The National Federation of Independent Business (NFIB) stole a march on the Obama Administration this morning by filing a petition with the U.S. Supreme Court appealing the 11th Circuit’s Obamacare decision.

The Department of Justice (DOJ) had announced on Monday that it was not going to ask all 11 judges of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals to review en banc the August 12 decision of a three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit that found the individual mandate unconstitutional. This opened up a path to an appeal by DOJ to the Supremes.

However, with this petition, the NFIB jumped ahead of Eric Holder’s slow-moving DOJ (which until Monday had done everything it could to slow-walk this case filed by 26 states and the NFIB). The NFIB is obviously not appealing the three-judge panel’s opinion about the unconstitutionality of the individual mandate. But the NFIB is appealing the portion of the panel’s decision that held that the unconstitutional individual mandate could be severed from the Obamacare legislation.  (Read the rest on The Foundry…)

Tags: 11th Circuit Court, Individual Mandate, ObamaCare, Supreme Court, unconstitutional