FixHealthCarePolicy

Side Effects: Obamacare Adds to the Ranks of the Uninsured

Imagine if Washington applied Obamacare’s regulatory approach to car sales. Forget choosing your ride based on your own needs and what you can afford. Instead, your wheels would be dictated by what Uncle Sam thought was best for you. For example, you might want—and be willing to pay for—a Mercedes, but Obamacare Motors would let you buy only a Daewoo.

That’s how Obamacare will affect choice in health care coverage. One provision bars insurance companies from putting a limit on how much they will pay in medical claims. This may sound like a consumer-friendly change, but in practice it threatens to abolish lower-cost coverage options.

Employers who can’t afford to offer their workers gold-plated Cadillac plans often provide limited-benefit plans that are quite adequate for the vast majority of consumers. Such policies are especially prevalent among part-time workers or those laboring in low-profit-margin retail or service sectors. (more…)

Tags: Cadillac plan, limited-benefit plans, low-income workers, ObamaCare, Side Effects, uninsured

Side Effects: ER Overload Will Only Get Worse

Remember how Obamacare was going to save big bucks and reduce wait time in emergency rooms? The idea was that millions of previously uninsured Americans accustomed to using ERs for basic medical treatment would snatch up Obamacare coverage and start getting primary care from regular (and cheaper) medical practices.

Nice thought. But it doesn’t look like it’ll pan out.

Indeed, notes Rick Dallam, it looks like “it’s going to be exactly the opposite over the next four to eight years.” In an article in The Hill, Dallam, a health care partner at a firm that designs health care facilities, notes: “We don’t have the primary care infrastructure in place in America to cover the need. Our clients are looking at and preparing for more emergency department volume, not less.” (more…)

Tags: ER, medical treatment, ObamaCare, physician shortage, Side Effects, uninsured

Obamacare: No Friend of Small Business

Obamacare was marketed to the American people as health care reform that would expand coverage to reduce the number of uninsured. One of the ways this would be accomplished, proponents said, was by making it easier for small business to offer insurance. Small businesses are the backbone of the American economy and have the greatest potential to create the jobs that Americans are currently desperate for.

Unfortunately, Obamacare will hinder the growth of these businesses. In a recent paper, Heritage’s John Ligon explains how the new health care laws will be largely ineffective at expanding coverage offered by small business, while simultaneously severely limiting job creation and growth. (more…)

Tags: higher premiums, limit job growth, Medicare payroll tax, ObamaCare, repeal and start over, small business credit, stricter compliance, uninsured

Home Court Advantage Didn’t Help Obama

President Obama used his health care summit to gave his side every advantage possible. Whenever opponents spoke, he got to respond. By appointing himself the moderator, Obama gave himself the first word, the last word, and the most words.

Overall, Obama gave Democrats over twice as much speaking time as Republicans. The 17 GOP’ers attending received a collective 110 minutes. By himself, Obama hogged 119 minutes of microphone time and gave his 21 fellow Democrats an additional 114 minutes. When called to account for this, Obama proclaimed it fair because, “I’m the President.”

Obama exercised free rein to cut off opponents, speak sharply, and to pass judgment on which arguments were deemed legitimate or unworthy or even ridiculed. He wasn’t just a player; he also was the referee. (more…)

Tags: campaign promise, Congressional Budget Office, Health Care Summit, private health insurance, uninsured

ObamaCare Will Worsen Family-Doctor Shortage

Bloomberg News’ Pat Wechsler reports today that President Obama’s health overhaul, aiming to insure 36 million Americans who don’t have coverage, “will worsen a family-doctor shortage, triggering longer waits for office visits and crowded emergency rooms.”

“‘This is already a catastrophic crisis,’ said Joseph Stubbs, president of the Philadelphia-based American College of Physicians, the second-largest doctor’s group in the U.S. ‘Now we’re talking 30 million more people who will want to see a doctor. The supply of doctors just won’t be there for them.’”

Wechsler reports that, “Underserved areas in the U.S. currently need 16,679 more primary-care physicians to reach a ‘medically appropriate’ target of 1 for every 2,000 residents, U.S. data shows. The health-care overhaul bills before Congress would raise pay for family doctors, increase residency training and forgive school debt to help meet that deficit. Those measures, though, will take years to make a difference, said Stubbs, who also works as an internist in Albany, Georgia.” Read the rest of the story here.

Tags: doctor shortage, ObamaCare, uninsured

Obama Speech Fact Check

Fact checking President Barack Obama’s health care speech, the Associated Press reports: “The president’s speech to Congress contained a variety of oversimplifications and omissions in laying out what he wants to do about health insurance.” That is an understatement. We counted no less than 15 spurious claims made by the President, including:

1. OBAMA: “There are now more than thirty million American citizens who cannot get coverage.”

THE FACTS: On August 8th, President Obama said: “Reform is obviously essential for the 46 million Americans who don’t have health insurance.” So did 16 million uninsured people just disappear in the span of two months? Not quite. The problem is that the 46 million number was always highly misleading and the new 30 million number isn’t much better. According to an analysis based on the 2007 Census data there were 45.7 million uninsured people in the U.S. in 2007. But 9.3 million of those were non-citizens. Another 6.4 million actually are enrolled in Medicaid but mistakenly tell the Census they have no health insurance. Another 4.3 million are eligible for Medicaid or SCHIP but have not signed up. Another 10 million have no insurance, but also make more than 3X the poverty level. That means only 15.6 million U.S. citizens with incomes below 300% of poverty and that are nor already eligible for taxpayer-subsidized health insurance, are uninsured.

(more…)

Tags: abortion, illegal immigration, IMAC, individual mandates, Obama Health Care Plan, uninsured, waste

The Growing Shift To Government Run Health Care

Yesterday the U.S. Census Bureau released its annual estimate of the uninsured. While there is always valid discussion and debate over the number of uninsured (for recent analyses click here and here), an important component that gets overlooked is the emerging trend within existing sources of coverage.

This year’s census numbers expose a troubling shift: government programs continue to gain ground while private insurance is on the decline. There are a variety of reasons for this change — including expansions of public programs, like Medicaid and SCHIP, and the early effects of the economic downturn (which cause people to lose their jobs based coverage).

Here are some of the specific highlights from this years report: (more…)

Tags: uninsured