FixHealthCarePolicy

A Post-Health Summit Warning: Is Incremental Control Next for Obamacare?

In the wake of the White House’s health care summit, reconciliation is still seen as the likely route that congressional leaders and their liberal allies will take to jam Obamacare through Congress. Congressional Democrats and President Barack Obama already are using the summit as a public relations vehicle to help fast-track the Senate health care bill through a parliamentary process used primarily for budgetary issues.

But beware Plan B — the more “modest” plan. There’s a surer, well-worn path that the Clinton Administration took after the collapse of Hillarycare in 1994: A careful, well-coordinated, step-by-step march to the Left on federal health care policy.

The Republican congressional victory in 1994, even though it reflected public revulsion at the Clinton Administration’s proposed takeover of the private health care system, did not change the fundamental direction of federal health policy. It only changed the degree and velocity of liberal policy success. The Clinton team started taking baby steps to expand federal control over health care financing and delivery, lulling often clueless congressional Republicans into cooperation with long-term consequences for doctors and patients. In some cases, the GOP majority enacted provisions of the Clinton health bill word for word. (more…)

Tags: ClintonCare, Health Care Summit, HIPPA, Medicaid, Medicare, ObamaCare, reconciliation, schip, start over

The Reid Amendment: Sweetheart Deals and Interstate Warfare

Christmas is coming early for a few lucky states including Hawaii, Massachusetts, Nebraska and Vermont. But their good fortune will come at the expense of other states. Overall, the government health care plan is still alive and well in Majority Leader Harry Reid’s (D-NV) manager’s amendment released this morning, hiding in the form of expanding Medicaid eligibility and inserting State Children’s Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP) rules into the Exchange.

First, the winning states. Nebraska and Hawaii are easily identifiable because the Reid amendment specifies their sweetheart deals by name. While all the other states will lose the extra federal financing for new Medicaid eligibles after 2017, full federal financing will continue for Nebraska. Hawaii gets funding for Disproportionate Share Hospital (DSH) payments that it gave up years ago to expand Medicaid eligibility. Ironically, $18.5 billion in cuts to the DSH program in all the other states help finance the rest of the health care legislation. (more…)

Tags: CBO, manager's amendment, Medicaid Expansion, schip, Sen. Harry Reid

Pelosi Bill Undermines Obama’s Vision and Its Own Policies

On the campaign trail, then Senator Obama set a course for universal coverage of children through the State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) and opposed an individual mandate. H.R. 3962, as introduced by the House leadership, repeals the SCHIP program in 2014 and includes an individual mandate.

Moreover, the bill would send millions of young, healthy adults into Medicaid which will increase the cost of insurance for every one with private coverage because of the cost shift and “crowd out effect” associated with Medicaid. (more…)

Tags: individual mandates, Medicaid, Obama Health Care Plan, schip

States Lose Control, Families Lose Choices Under Obamacare’s Medicaid Expansion

Speaker Pelosi’s mammoth health legislation, H.R. 3962, includes the largest Medicaid expansion in history, adding as many as 18 million people to the program. Not only will childless adults become eligible for Medicaid for the first time in the history of the program, approximately 5 million children who have been served under the successful and popular State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP) will also be transferred into Medicaid. Speaker Pelosi’s bill preempts the decisions previously made by the elected women and men in state capitols.

For more than 10 years, states have made the choice whether to run their SCHIP programs as a separate non-Medicaid program or as a Medicaid expansion. A majority of states including California which serves the most children under SCHIP have chosen to run separate SCHIP programs. A separate SCHIP program provides states with greater flexibility in managing benefits, service delivery, and eligibility. Under the current SCHIP program, there is no individual entitlement and eligibility is reserved only to those who were previously uninsured. States had the flexibility to impose a waiting period to protect against families dropping their private coverage. All of this will be overridden under the new legislation. State SCHIP programs will be dismantled. (more…)

Tags: Medicaid, Nancy Pelosi, Obama Health Care Plan, schip