Fix Health Care Policy

Obamacare’s Medicaid Trap

While Members of Congress are arguing about defunding parts of Obamacare, the rubber is meeting the road in the states. Governors and state legislatures are sweating decisions about setting up government health care exchanges and expanding the Medicaid program.

While the offer of additional federal money for Medicaid is tempting for many governors and legislatures, it is a trap. And it is just one of the reasons Obamacare doesn’t work.

>>> STATE OF CONFUSION: Maps of State Positions on Obamacare Lawsuits, Exchanges, and Medicaid Expansion

The Medicaid expansion is a crucial part of Obamacare that is supposed reduce the number of uninsured. But adding millions of people onto an already strained program doesn’t help anyone. The Medicaid program is already struggling to provide care to its core obligations—a diverse group of low-income children, disabled people, pregnant women, and seniors. So dumping more people into the program will make matters worse. Research shows that Medicaid enrollees already have worse access and outcomes than privately insured individuals.

This will have real effects on America’s needy, including children. Dr. Hal Scherz has seen the problems Medicaid creates firsthand. He practices in the only pediatric urology group in the state of Georgia, and more than half of his practice is made up of Medicaid patients.

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Tags: America's needy, exchanges, expansion, lawsuits, Medicaid, repeal the law, state of confusion

Obamacare “Rebranded”

Text from http://www.cuidadodesalud.gov/glossary.html

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), charged with implementing Obamacare, is running into a classic marketing problem: The dogs won’t eat the dog food.

So HHS officials recently announced that they are “rebranding” one of Obamacare’s major components; henceforth they will replace the word exchange with marketplace.

HHS has been implementing Obamacare for over 36 months now. The law is just as unpopular as the day it passed. Employers are trying to figure out if they will need to drop their employee health plans or cut their workers’ hours. Insurers still don’t have the answers they need to design and price the new required coverage. At least half the states are unwilling to set up their own exchanges.

What does HHS conclude? That its product needs a different name. Apparently the Administration thinks the dogs will like the dog food better with a different label on the can.

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Tags: bad policy, exchanges, marketplaces, ObamaCare, rebranded, Spanish, States

12 Days of Obamacare Surprises: Exchange Subsidies

Photo: Dominique Bruneton/Altopress/Newscom

Not all surprises are good. When it comes to Obamacare, the original projections are turning into unfortunately different realities. For the next 9 days, Heritage is going to highlight one of the various changes in Obamacare projections (i.e. cost, enrollment, etc.) from when the law first passed until now.

The federal government will provide subsidies to offset the cost of coverage in Obamacare’s new exchanges for those with incomes between 100 percent and 400 percent of the federal poverty level.

In 2010, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projected that exchange subsidies would average $6,000 per enrollee in 2019, for a total cost of $113 billion.

In 2012, the CBO updated its projection for an average subsidy cost of $6,470 per enrollee in 2019. The total cost of subsidies and related spending is now projected to be $137 billion in 2019.

Surprise: With premiums higher than initially anticipated, the average subsidy is now projected to cost $470 more per person in 2019 alone. This increase in projections of about 8 percent is an indication that both health care premiums and the cost of Obamacare will continue to rise faster than reindeer take flight!

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Tags: exchanges, federal poverty level, ObamaCare, subsidies, surprises, uninsured

Hearing Exposes Obamacare’s Implementation Challenges for States

Joshua Sharfstein (left), secretary of the State of Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, testifies on state exchanges and Medicaid expansion. (Photo: Chris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call/Newscom)

Yesterday, the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing to discuss the implementation of Obamacare’s exchanges and Medicaid expansion, both of which are slated to begin in 2014.

Exchanges

Two officials from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services expressed confidence that exchange implementation was on schedule, stating, “All Exchanges will open for enrollment in October 2013.”

Despite their assurance, Dennis Smith, the Secretary of Health Services in Wisconsin—a state that has declined to operate a state-based exchange—is not convinced: “[W]e are not confident that the federal government has adequately prepared for handling an unprecedented number of applications, verifications, and enrollments.”

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: additional costs, exchanges, implementation, Medicaid, ObamaCare, States