Fix Health Care Policy

Today is the official second anniversary of Obamacare’s signing, but there’s little to celebrate. The Heritage Foundation’s re-launched version of “Obamacare in Pictures: Visualizing the Effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act” shows through new charts and graphs Obamacare’s far-reaching negative effects on Americans.

Here are just a few examples of what the series reveals about Obamacare: 

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: impact, in pictures, negative effects, Obamacare anniversary

Two years ago today, President Barack Obama signed into law Obamacare, a 2,700-page bill that will radically alter America’s health care system and wreak havoc on medical costs, quality of care, and fundamental rights in ways that are beyond the scope of our imagination.

Much of what was contained in Obamacare was hatched behind closed doors where not even the slightest ray of light could find its way in. Even the men and women in Congress who were entrusted to represent the people cast their votes blindly, not knowing what lay in store. As even then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) famously admitted, “We have to pass the bill so you can find out what is in it.”

The American people have already spoken, however. They want this law repealed and tossed out, as we have seen in poll after poll for the past two years. None of the activities being planned by the White House to gussy up this law will likely make a dent on the unpopularity of Obamacare.

Though even today, two years later, much of Obamacare remains to be written by unelected bureaucrats in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), we know some of what’s contained in the law and the ramifications for the American people. Most broadly, Obamacare rips vast powers from the hands of individual patients and their families, and it vests control in Washington bureaucrats. And the costs are far greater than the Administration claim — heading as high as $2.134 trillion with millions Americans dependent on government for their health care.

Last week, the Congressional Budget Office predicted that under the President’s health care law, 20 million Americans could lose their employer-sponsored health benefits and the individual and employer penalties related to the mandates could hit $221 billion. At the time of passage, many people warned as much.

But wait, there’s more.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: harming Americans, higher costs, more taxes, Obamacare anniversary, wreak havoc

Obamacare is turning two years old tomorrow and it is now more unpopular than ever. Click here to join us right now for our “Lunch with Heritage” online chat. We are talking to Heritage’s health policy analyst Kate Nix. She is taking your questions about Obamacare, what’s wrong with it, and what the best alternatives are.

 Read the conversation on The Foundry…

Tags: harming Americans, health policy, Obamacare anniversary, online chat

This week, Obamacare will have its second birthday, but there’s little reason to celebrate. Throughout the week, Obamacare advocates will be emphasizing the law’s supposed benefits for specific groups, but, as Heritage’s research over the past two years has shown, Obamacare harms Americans—even the groups showcased by the left.

Today, the focus is on the impact of Obamacare on young Americans. Advocates will tout the provision that allows young adults to stay on their parents’ health plans until age 26. But Heritage research shows that despite this provision, the overall effect of the law will be that younger Americans will face higher premiums and incentives to remain uninsured, meanwhile serving as the generation that will ultimately foot the bill for the law’s new deficit spending.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: harming Americans, Obamacare anniversary, strategy memo, young adults

This year marks the 35th anniversary of a small but extremely influential book: To Empower People, by Peter Berger and Richard John Neuhaus. If you’ve ever heard the term “mediating institutions,” this is the book that made it (more) popular.

In their 45-page treatise, Berger and Neuhaus argue that a healthy nation relies on local institutions—like faith-based ministries and voluntary associations—to mediate between individual citizens and big government. When public policies are hostile to such institutions, the very nature of democracy is threatened.

Sadly, the reminder To Empower People issued in the mid-1970s is being recklessly ignored today by Obamacare and the Health and Human Services (HHS) anti-conscience mandate.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: empower people, HHS anti-conscience mandate, Obamacare anniversary

The White House and its liberal allies are planning a comprehensive public-relations campaign for the second anniversary of Obamacare and the Supreme Court oral arguments that will take place later this month. A four-page strategy memo obtained by The Heritage Foundation outlines the strategies and messaging planned for the coming weeks.

The memo, which is published below, includes a day-by-day breakdown of how the White House and liberal advocacy organizations want to frame the debate. The New York Times first reported on the Obama administration’s coordination efforts, including a White House meeting last week with more than 100 people present. The Center for American Progress, Families USA, Health Care for America Now, and Protect Your Care are among the groups mentioned on the memo.

Read the rest on The Foundry…

Tags: liberal strategy, memo, messaging, Obamacare anniversary

Yesterday marked the first anniversary of Obamacare. While advocates spend the week highlighting the new law’s effects on different groups of Americans, we will do the same. A review of the facts on the ground and the conclusions of Heritage research over the past year reveal the far-reaching negative consequences of the new law.

Today, the argument is that Obamacare is good for women. Though there are sure to be those who experience some benefit under the new law, its overall effect will be negative for all Americans, women included.

The act includes new requirements that all health plans cover specific preventive services with no cost-sharing. Increasing prevention of serious illness is necessary to promote better health among Americans and would also likely reduce long-term health care spending. But Obamacare goes about it in the wrong ways, and it will have unintended consequences that hurt patients. Last year’s recommendation from the U.S. Preventive Service Task Force (USPSTF) regarding breast cancer screening for women between the ages of 40 and 50 highlights how these changes could hurt women specifically. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: cost-sharing, negative consequences, Obamacare anniversary, preventive services, women

One year ago, when President Obama signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, he proclaimed it would lower costs, reduce the deficit, and lift the drag on our economy. Since then, insurance premiums have not dropped; coverage has not increased; over half of the states have filed suit against the Department of Health and Human Services; and two courts have declared the legislation unconstitutional. Shouldn’t a year be long enough for Obamacare to secure a place in our hearts and minds?

Not when the bill is an unpopular, unconstitutional legislative behemoth designed to alter Americans’ relationship with the federal government.

Advocates of Obamacare were utterly disconnected from Americans’ concerns about the bill—most especially their concern that it violated the Constitution. Nancy Pelosi was surprised when a reporter asked what part of the Constitution justified a mandate on American citizens to purchase a consumer good or service: was this man serious? Her press spokesman later clarified, lest there be any confusion, that constitutional questions were not serious questions. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: Constitution, Individual Mandate, Obamacare anniversary, unconstitutional

Today marks the one-year anniversary of Obamacare. While advocates spend the week highlighting the new law’s effects on different groups of Americans, we are doing the same. A review of the facts on the ground and the conclusions of Heritage research over the past year reveals the far-reaching negative consequences.

Today, the focus is on the “consumer protections” included in Obamacare. To be sure, some Americans will benefit from these changes, but, as Heritage analyst Brian Blase explains, the overall result is that:

“Obamacare has increased government control of Americans’ health care choices, raised the cost of insurance, forced insurers to stop offering child-only policies, broken the promise that an individual can keep his insurance unaltered, and bailed out underfunded union early-retiree health care plans. The early results suggest that Obamacare’s ‘benefits’ are not worth their costs.” (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: consumer protections, government control, negative consequences, Obamacare anniversary

“I think that health care, over time, is going to become more popular,” then-White House senior advisor David Axelrod promised David Gregory about Obamacare last September. That same month, the Health Information Campaign, founded by high-profile leftist activists including former Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle and former White House Communications Director Anita Dunn, spent $2 million on a national television ad campaign touting Obamcare’s first insurance mandates. Now, six months after Axelrod’s promise, and a full year after the bill was signed into law, the results are in: Obamacare is more unpopular than ever.

Look at any poll and you’ll see that Obamacare has only gotten less legitimate. Last year at this time Newsweek showed 40 percent of Americans supporting Obamacare and 49 percent opposing it. Today, only 37 percent support it while 56 percent oppose. According to Quinnipiac, after Obamacare passed last year, 44 percent of Americans approved of President Obama’s handling of health care while 50 percent opposed. Today, only 44 percent approve while opposition has grown to 56 percent. And according to the Kaiser Family Foundation, after Obamacare passed, 62 percent of Americans thought the law would either have no effect on them or make them worse off. Today that number is up to 69 percent.

The reason why President Obama and his liberal allies have failed to turn public opinion around is simple: The major claims made by the President in the effort to pass Obamacare have all been exposed as frauds, and the early implementation by his Administration has been a complete disaster. (Read the rest at The Foundry…)

Tags: Obamacare anniversary, Public Opinion, repeal, Side Effects