FixHealthCarePolicy

Getting Health Care Reform Right

The health care system needs reform, but not the types of changes enacted under the new health care law. The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act moves the health care system in the wrong direction. This highly unpopular law would assert federal control over health care benefits and financing, erect a complex one-size-fits-all health system, and centralize America’s health care decisions in Washington. Instead, Congress should transform the health care system into one that empowers individuals and families, not Washington, to control more of their health care decisions.  Click here to read a Heritage Foundation report on Health Care Solutions for America.

Tags: health care, health care reform, Obama Health Care Plan, ObamaCare, Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act

Medicare Trustees Issue Report Disavowed by Chief Actuary

Over the past six years, Congress has twice passed and two Presidents have signed into law major legislation affecting Medicare.  President Obama signed “Obamacare” into law, which appeared to improve Medicare’s finances—if one assumes that the difficult programmatic changes Obamacare requires take effect.  Heritage expert JD Foster, explains in a recent Heritage paper how Medicare’s Chief Actuary felt compelled to release a detailed statement appended to the Trustees’ Report calling the assumptions “implausible” and “unreasonable.”  Click here to read the analysis of the 2010 Medicare Trustees’ Report and the Chief Actuary’s addtional statement.

Tags: 2010 Medicare Trustees' Report, Medicaid, Medicare, Medicare's Chief Actuary

Utah’s Defined-Contribution Option: Patient-Centered Health Care

In Utah, state policymakers have taken a different approach in health care reform by  giving businesses and their workers the option of “defined contribution” health benefits—where participating workers choose coverage from a wide variety of plans offered by competing insurers through Utah’s health insurance exchange.  In a recent Heritage paper, Gregg Girvan explains how Utah’s state leaders are innovators who are doing precisely what they should be doing.  Click here to read how Utah policymakers are using their authority to resist concentrated power in Washington, and working to provide more and better choices for their citizens.

Tags: defined benefits, defined contribution, health care, health care reform, Utah

The Drawbacks of Dutch-Style Health Care Rules: Lessons for Americans

In 2006, the Dutch government implemented a universal insurance mandate.  Many American policy makers are looking to the Dutch experiment as a model to fix America’s complex and costly health care system.  Given the narrow, partisan enactment of Obamacare, America appears to be on a similar path.  In a recent paper, Heritage experts Ryan Lynch and Eline Altenburg-van den Broek explain why patients in the Nehterlands do not have a significant choice among the health insurance companies nor can they access sufficient information about the health system and different options.  Click here to read about why this system would not benefit patients in America, either.

Tags: Dutch-Style Health Care, health care, individual mandates, Obama Health Care Plan, ObamaCare, transparency

Further Medicaid Bailout: Unfair and Irresponsible

Congress has made several attempts to extend the Medicaid bailout included in the stimulus package.  In recent research, Heritage expert Brian Blase explains that this was bad policy.  Congress should avoid another bailout, which would treat low-income Americans inequitably from state to state and further delay reforms to increase the fiscal sustainability of Medicaid.  To read more, click here.

Tags: entitlement reform, Medicaid, state budgets, stimulus

Obamacare: Impact on States

According to recent research from Heritage’s Ed Haislmaier and Brian Blase, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will impose significant new costs on state government budgets, while also constituting a significant usurpation by the federal government of long-standing state authority over health insurance regulation.

State lawmakers must find ways to protect their constituents from the adverse effects of Obamacare.  To learn how, click here.

Tags: federalism, Medicaid, ObamaCare, PPACA, states' rights

Revitalizing Federalism: The High Road Back to Health Care Independence

In recent research, Heritage expert Robert E. Moffit, Ph.D., explains that Americans face a historic challenge to their personal liberty and to their unique citizenship in a federal republic due to the enactment of the massive Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA).  This piece of legislation is not merely a federal takeover of health care, but also radically alters the role of the federal government.

In other words, the PPACA is a direct threat to federalism itself.  To read more, click here.

Tags: federalism, health care reform, Individual Mandate, ObamaCare, states' rights

The Prospects for Ending Obamacare: Learning from Health Policy History

In Washington’s policy battles, the players are either on offense or defense. Those who frame the terms of the debate are on offense and, by outlining a compelling program for change, can win.  The experience of the Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988 demonstrates that full-scale repeal of Obamacare is not politically unrealistic.  To learn more, click here.

Tags: HR 3590, Medicare Catastrophic Coverage Act of 1988, Obama Health Care Plan, ObamaCare, repeal and start over

Check Out New Obamacare Watchdog Site

www.obamacarewatch.org is a project of e21, a new think tank devoted to promoting sound, market-based economic policy.  The site pulls together evidence and analysis about the legislation, as well as relevant news items and commentary.  To learn more about Obamacare and its impact on America, be sure to check out this site!

Tags: health care reform, ObamaCare

The Debt Commission, Health Care, and Obama’s Budgetary Game Plan

When the President’s National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform held its first official meeting in April, all of the talk was of getting serious about putting the nation’s fiscal house in order and that everything would be “on the table” for consideration.   But if everything is on the table, Obamacare must be included, too.  To read more, click here.

Tags: budget reform, debt commission, National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform, ObamaCare, rising federal deficits