Fix Health Care Policy

Obamacare at Three Years: One Entitlement Repealed, Two to Go

Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call/Newscom

When the same Congressmen who voted for Obamacare vote to repeal a provision of it, it’s obvious that provision must be totally unworkable on every level. And that’s what happened to the Community Living Assistance Services and Support (CLASS) Act.

Formally repealed in January’s fiscal cliff deal, CLASS was Obamacare’s attempt at creating a new long-term care entitlement that was once referred to by Senator Kent Conrad (D–ND) as “a Ponzi scheme of the first order, the kind of thing that Bernie Madoff would have been proud of.” CLASS was one of Obamacare’s most overt failures.

CLASS was supposed to begin in 2011 as a voluntary, government-run long-term care program that was supposed to be fully funded by beneficiaries’ premiums and require no federal tax dollars. Like most government entitlements, this deal sounded too good to be true—and it was.

This concept was so flawed that even the Obama Administration recognized that implementation had to be stopped. A letter to Congress in 2011 from a CLASS administrator warned of extreme adverse selection in the program, stating that “if healthy purchasers are not attracted to the CLASS benefit package, then premiums will increase, which will make it even more unattractive to purchasers who could also obtain policies in the private market. This imbalance in the beneficiary pool would cause the program to quickly collapse.”

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Tags: CLASS Act, entitlements, extreme adverse selection, high costs, ObamaCare, repeal the law

Obama’s Bogus State of the Union Promises

Tonight, the American people will be watching President Obama’s fifth State of the Union address. How has he done on his promises over the past four years?

Take a look at some of the promises Obama made back in 2009 during his first State of the Union.

“I pledged to cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term in office.”

During his first State of the Union, newly inaugurated President Obama vowed to cut the deficit in half by the end of his first term. Instead, Obama has averaged deficits nearly three times that of his predecessor.

For those who were concerned with President George W. Bush’s $4 trillion national debt, this pledge may have seemed like the “hope and change” the American people voted for in 2008. However, the reality of America’s additional debt over the past four years under the Obama Administration is staggering—almost $6 trillion in four years, on track to triple the amount Bush accumulated over his eight years as President. Now that Obama is heading into his second term, we’ve seen quite a change from the Barack Obama who thought $4 trillion in debt was “irresponsible” and “unpatriotic.”

“Over the next two years, this [stimulus] plan will save or create 3.5 million jobs.”

The President promised great things from the stimulus plan, but as Heritage’s J.D. Foster has said, we have to look at his record. He may have promised 3.5 million new jobs, but he’s 7.7 million jobs in the hole instead.

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Tags: deficits, entitlements, Obamacare spending, State of the Union address, stimulus plan

5 Bipartisan Health Care Reform Options

Photo credit: Newscom

Addressing our nation’s overspending problem cannot be done without reforming entitlements, especially Medicare and Medicaid. As Washington remains clearly divided over how to get it done, Senator Orrin Hatch (R–UT) has outlined 5 health care reforms that are bipartisan.

These reforms have had the support of both parties in the past and are capable of effectively reining in spending:

1. Raise Medicare’s eligibility age. Hatch proposes raising the Medicare eligibility age gradually from 65 to 67, which would coincide with Social Security. This proposal enjoys a wide range of support from both sides of the aisle and would garner significant savings for the Medicare program. Heritage’s reform proposal would raise the eligibility age to 68, which would yield an estimated savings of $243.6 billion over 10 years.
2. Reform Medigap to incentivize better behavior. Limiting Medicare supplemental plans that cover initial out-of-pocket costs would decrease the excessive utilization currently occurring. This would incentivize better behavior from seniors and lower Medicare’s costs over time.

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Tags: bipartisan reforms, eligibility age, entitlements, incentivize, Medicaid, Medicare, Medigap

Side Effects: Obamacare Adds $17 Trillion to Long-Term Unfunded Government Spending

Last week, the Senate Budget Committee Republican staff released a report revealing that, over the next 75 years, Obamacare will add an additional $17 trillion in unfunded obligations—i.e., the benefits promised by the federal government that haven’t yet been paid for.

Before Obamacare, federal programs were already responsible for racking up 75-year unfunded obligations of an astounding $65 trillion. According to the report, Medicare accounted for $38 trillion, Medicaid was responsible for over $20 trillion, and Social Security added $7 trillion.

With the enactment of Obamacare, projected federal unfunded obligations have increased by $17 trillion, now totaling $82 trillion. Obamacare’s massive Medicaid expansion and new exchange subsidies are largely to blame.

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Tags: $17 trillion, entitlements, Medicaid, Medicare, ObamaCare, Senate Budget Committee, unfunded obligations

Obamacare Spells Disaster for Americans

Now that Obamacare passed, the Left is calling it a truly historic achievement, chalking it up as a victory for health care reformers everywhere. With the enactment of the House-Senate reconciliation bill, the so-called “fix” to the Senate bill, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) remarked that the bill did “something very important for the American people, very significant to their daily lives.” Well, Congressional liberals are correct about one thing. It’s historic. It is an unprecedented takeover of Americans’ health care now equal to one-sixth of the entire US economy. It is historic for its partisan backroom deals and controversial parliamentary tactics. And it is historic for its apparent disregard for the strongly held opinion of the majority of the American people. But it will long be remembered for its catastrophic side effects- in record spending and its disruption- on the lives of millions of Americans.

Recent research by Heritage’s Kathryn Nix looks at some of the major consequences of Obamacare. The paper outlines the ten ways in which liberals’ health care agenda will be a disaster for Americans. They include: (more…)

Tags: Caterpillar Inc., entitlements, federal deficit, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, John Deere & Co., ObamaCare, reconciliation bill

The Health Care Summit: Getting Reform Done Right

Thursday, Democrats and Republicans will convene at the President’s request to discuss the way forward on achieving bipartisan health care reform. In a recent paper, Heritage’s Nina Owcharenko discusses how congressional Democrats and the President can use this meeting to start over on health care reform by enlisting Republicans to pass legislation both sides agree on.

Says Owcharenko, “If the President is sincere and the summit is going to be successful, it must begin by setting aside the highly unpopular bills that the House and Senate have developed. Simply adjusting the magnitude of these proposals or adding new “conservative” provisions as suggested in the President’s latest proposal, does not change their fundamental direction.”

Polls show a majority of Americans stand in opposition to the left’s health care proposals, which fall short of meeting expectations established by promises made by the President. To restore the nation’s trust in Washington, Congress and the President should focus on areas of reform which have bipartisan support. Owcharenko suggests the following as areas in which to move forward: (more…)

Tags: entitlements, Health Care Summit, insurance, insurance reforms, ObamaCare, President's proposal, state-based reform, tax treatment

Obama’s Health Plan Has Dangerous New Taxes

The health care plan President Obama recently released is mostly a combination of the different plans passed by the House of Representatives and the Senate. But in one major way it breaks with long-standing precedent, proposing a fundamental wrong-headed change to both entitlement policy and tax policy. He proposes for the first time to tax capital income to support entitlement programs.

Payroll taxes have always applied just to wages and salaries and the revenue those taxes raise has gone solely to pay for entitlements like Social Security and Medicare. The deal has always been that we pay payroll taxes during our working years and receive the benefits they fund after we retire. President Obama’s health care plan would shatter this compact forever.

The Hospital Insurance (HI) portion of the payroll tax is 2.9 percent on all wages and salary that is paid half (1.45 percent) by workers and half (the remaining 1.45 percent) by employers. It is supposed to pay only for the hospital insurance portion of Medicare benefits that retirees receive. President Obama’s plan adopts this break with long-held policy and doubles down by further severing the link between HI and Medicare benefits. Obama’s plan not only increases the HI tax on wages and salaries for high-income earners similar to the Senate bill, it also applies the HI tax to investment income for the first time. Obama’s unprecedented plan would levy the current 2.9 percent HI tax on what the administration obnoxiously refers to as “unearned” income, which includes capital gains, interest, dividends, annuities, royalties and rents for families earning more than $250,000 a year ($200,000 for single filers). (more…)

Tags: entitlements, Hospital Insurance, Medicare, Medicare payroll tax, President's proposal, Social Security