FixHealthCarePolicy

Robert Moffit Weighs in on ObamaCare at Orange County Register

Robert Moffit, a top health care expert and senior fellow at Heritage, recently stopped by the editorial offices of the Orange County Register in California to discuss the impact we’re already feeling from ObamaCare.

Check out Moffit’s explanation of why ObamaCare is an attack on federalism and what the health reform law will mean for health care services and insurance. See the videos here.

Tags: federalism, health insurance, ObamaCare

Side Effects: Stay Single and Save 15 Percent or More on Health Insurance

No, this isn’t a Geico commercial. Come 2013, America’s bachelors may want to think twice before popping the question. Thanks to Obamacare, some couples can save thousands on health insurance just by opting to cohabit rather than marry.

How? The subsidy system erected in the complicated new health law manages to create a brand new “marriage penalty.”

Under the law, individuals who earn between 133 and 400 percent of the federal poverty level and can’t get health coverage through their employers qualify for generous subsidies to buy insurance in the government-run exchanges. These subsidies decrease with need, so the more you make, the less you get. (more…)

Tags: co-habitating, government-run exchange, health insurance, marriage penalty, Side Effects

Obamacare Taxes: Deep Impact

During the 2008 presidential campaign, then-Sen. Barack Obama pledged often and everywhere that Americans making less than $200,000 individually or families making less than $250,000 would not see an increase in their taxes. However, by signing into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) of 2010, President Barack Obama has officially turned his back on that promise.

As the Heritage Foundation’s Senior Tax Policy Analyst Curtis Dubay points out, the impact of Obamacare on taxpayers will spread wide and cut deep. Overall, 18 new taxes were slipped into this bill, raising $503 billion over a 10-year period to cement Democrats’ dubious claim of budget neutrality. Chief among these taxes are:

– A 40 percent excise tax on health insurance plans

– An increase in the Hospital Insurance (HI) portion of the payroll tax

– Payroll taxes on investment income

– Mandates on individuals an businesses to purchase health insurance, enforced with penalties in the event of non-compliance

In another move that smacks of politics as usual, Democrats have made sure these taxes and fees are not implemented until after their re-election campaigns. Almost all of these provisions take effect after the 2010 midterm elections, and the vast majority will not occur until after the 2012 presidential campaign, insulating President Obama and Congressional Democrats from the resulting political pressure. The greatest increase occurs in 2013, when Obamacare tax revenues triple from $12 billion to $36 billion, ultimately increasing to $102 billion per year in 2019. See a fuller list below: (more…)

Tags: excise tax, health insurance, Hospital Insurance payroll tax, indoor tanning beds, investment income, medical devices, new taxes, ObamaCare, pharmaceuticals

Morning Bell: A Sham of a Summit for a Sham of a Bill

Today’s White House-sponsored health care summit is an insult to the intelligence of every honest American. President Barack Obama’s communications minions are still trying sell his plan as an “opening bid” in the health care debate. But as Washington Post columnist Ruth Marcus asks: “With whom is he bidding? The public dance is with Republicans, but this is hardly serious. The White House does not enter Thursday’s summit expecting Republicans to make a deal.” In fact, the President’s recently-unveiled plan is specifically designed to be passed without a single Republican vote. That is why the Washington Post reports this morning:

Although Obama is billing the White House gathering as an opportunity for Republicans to air their ideas for reform, Democrats do not expect it to reveal much common ground and are showing little willingness to abandon the basic outline of legislation that the House and Senate have approved.

The real target of today’s summit are the 38 Democrats in the House who voted against Obamacare the first time. While Obamacare passed the House 220-215, Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) told reporters yesterday she is not sure if she has the votes this time around. The passing of Rep. John Murtha (D-PA) and the retirements of Reps. Robert Wexler (D-FL) and Neil Abercrombie (D-HI) have cost her three votes, and the inclusion of taxpayer-funded abortions in the Senate and White House plans will cost the vote of the only Republican to vote for the plan the first time around, Rep. Joseph Cao (R-LA), as well as Rep. Bart Stupak (D-MI) and 15 to 20 additional pro-life Democrats. (more…)

Tags: Health Care Summit, health insurance, President's proposal, start over, taxes

A Taste of Health Care Reform

Anthem Blue Cross, the California subsidiary of Wellpoint, one of the nation’s largest health insurers, recently announced steep premium increases for its individual (i.e., not employment-based) insurance customers. The political response to these premium increases – of up to 39% for almost 700,000 customers – was swift and blunt. Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius ordered a federal investigation into how Anthem could “justify” the increases, Rep. Henry Waxman (D-CA) scheduled a hearing, MoveOn.org launched a petition drive, and President Obama himself jumped at the opportunity to claim this as justification for the Democrat health reform effort, calling it “a portrait of the future if we don’t do something now.” Today, HHS released a report citing similar premium increases in several other states.

On the contrary – it’s a portrait of the future for the entire United States if either the House or Senate Democrats’ health bill becomes law. The Wall Street Journal points out that while Wellpoint as a whole is profitable, it has been losing money in this particular market, and these steep premium increases are the direct result of California’s state insurance regulations. Regulations require that insurance companies offer individual “conversion policies” to former employees who have exhausted their COBRA continuation coverage rights. This may be a good idea in principle, but California takes it a step further and sets the premiums to be charged for such coverage by statute. And, since those electing to take advantage of this option are disproportionately those with higher than average health care costs (often due to pre-existing conditions), the statutory rates aren’t sufficient to cover the costs of providing care for those patients. To stay in business – and indeed, to meet financial solvency regulations also imposed by the state – insurance companies have to get the money someplace, and the only place left is to increase premiums for customers not covered by the statute. Essentially, several of California’s regulations have combined to, in effect, require these steep premium increases. (more…)

Tags: Anthem Blue Cross, health insurance, ObamaCare, premiums, Wellpoint

Could Trillion Dollar Debt Kill Obama Health Care Reform?

It seems the President’s spending habits have finally caught up with him, threatening to kill a government overhaul of health care. Though President Obama and congressional Democrats continue to insist that health care reform is on the horizon, the increasing national concern over the rising public debt presents an undeniable obstacle.

James Capretta, a Fellow at the Ethics and Public Policy Center, outlines why this is the case in a recent article for Kaiser Health News. First of all, President Obama is responsible for raising the debt to unprecedented levels. Capretta explains, “From 1789 through 2008, the U.S. government borrowed a total of $5.8 trillion. In 2009, the federal budget deficit exceeded $1.4 trillion. The administration now expects the 2010 deficit to break that record, topping $1.6 trillion. And in 2011, it would only fall to about $1.3 trillion. Thus, in just three years, the debt will have jumped an astonishing $4.2 trillion.”

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Tags: budget deficit, debt, health insurance, James Capretta, ObamaCare

What Obamacare and the NHS Have in Common

As US legislators continue to advance the largest expansion of government control over health care in the US, many Americans may need some comic relief. Although such massive consolidation of federal control over health care is by no means a laughing matter, the following 2-minute clip from a popular BBC Documentary Series “Yes, Minister” illustrates the ridiculousness of the efforts.

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Tags: British NHS, health insurance, ObamaCare

Michigan And Nebraska: The Senate Leadership Has Got A Deal For You!

It has been widely reported that various “sweeteners” are tucked away in the Manager’s Amendment to the Senate health care bill (H.R. 3950). Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) worked out provisions designed to secure the votes of Senators Ben Nelson (D-NE) and Carl Levin (D-MI) by exempting the biggest insurers in their states from the new health insurance premium taxes embodied in the bill.

Sure enough, the Manager’s Amendment adds under Section 9010(c)(2) a new subsection (C) tailored to exempt Blue Cross Blue Shield of Michigan and a new subsection (E) tailored to exempt Blue Cross Blue Shield of Nebraska from paying the new health insurance premium taxes.

Now, those Senators are reportedly pleased with themselves for doing such a fine job of looking out for the folks back home. The only problem is that they shielded just some of their constituents — which should surprise many of their other constituents.

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Tags: health insurance, Michigan, Nebraska, ObamaCare, Sen. Ben Nelson, Sen. Carl Levin, senate health care bill

Reid 2.0: Even Higher Premium Taxes

As part of Senator Harry Reid’s indefatigable effort to make each new version of the Senate health care legislation worse than the previous one, his Manager’s Amendment restructures and expands the health insurance premium tax included in the earlier versions of the Senate bill.

The earlier versions would have imposed a flat, $6.7 billion per year, health insurance premium tax (disguised as a “fee” imposed on private health insurers), starting in 2010.

The new version uses the same mechanism, but the tax doesn’t start until 2011 and is only $2 billion that first year — but then it increases to $4 billion in 2012, $7 billion in 2013, $9 billion in the years 2014, 2015 and 2016, and eventually $10 billion for 2017 and every year thereafter.

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Tags: health insurance, ObamaCare, premium taxes, Sen. Harry Reid, taxpayers

New Senate Health Bill: Exacerbating Federal Fiscal Insanity

Senator Reid seems comfortable with clandestine negotiations in order to ensure passage of any type of health reform. This course, aside from being politically dubious and whimsical, is fiscally reckless, and with its passage, will continue to add to the debt that will straddle future generations with a significant amount of fiscal stress.

As with the previous health reform bills, the assumptions and parameters the Congressional Budget Office must use will likely score this new bill as deficit neutral. Yet, the price tag for the overall bill will not changed, and will include massive expansions of Medicare and Medicaid making the long-term fiscal outlook in the US dismal at best.

Now, Congress wants to also raise the debt limit to finance more spending—including any type of health reform. Existing healthcare entitlement spending is already on an unsustainable course, however, and the intergenerational fiscal imbalance will only worsen, where future generations will face substantially higher net lifetime tax rates, permanently lower federal government purchases and transfers, or some combination of the two policy changes.

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Tags: debt, economy, health insurance, new taxes, ObamaCare, Sen. Harry Reid, spending