Last week, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced new initiatives intended to provide states with increased flexibility to better manage their Medicaid programs. However, these initiatives do not seriously address states’ mounting Medicaid crises. The first HHS initiative is to improve coordination of care for individuals enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid, the so-called dual eligibles. Under Obamacare, 15 states will receive up to $1 million through a new bureaucracy focused on duals. While reform should address the problem of coordinating care for the duals, HHS’s approach …
Recently in The New York Times, Robert Pear highlighted the major problems with the Medicaid program. His findings reveal that having a Medicaid card in one’s wallet is of little use if it doesn’t give beneficiaries access to the care they need. A woman with several herniated discs and pain in her neck and arms told Pear that her Medicaid card is “a useless piece of plastic. I can’t find an orthopedic surgeon or a pain management doctor who will accept Medicaid.” Pear interviewed doctors and Medicaid enrollees in Louisiana …
One negative provision of Obamacare is back in congressional crosshairs. The CLASS (Community Living Assistance Services and Support) Program, a new long-term care entitlement, has already endured withering criticism. In July 2009, the American Academy of Actuaries released a blistering report on its structural flaws. Senator Kent Conrad (D-ND), Chairman of the Budget Committee, referred to CLASS as a Ponzi scheme during the Obamacare debate. And more recently, President Obama’s deficit commission recommended repealing or significantly revamping the program. Secretary Sebelius has repeatedly asserted that CLASS is unsustainable. She has …
Last week, Kathy Greenlee, the Assistant Secretary for the Administration on Aging, was placed in the uncomfortable position of defending the unworkable CLASS Program in front of the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee. Her task was made all the more difficult from recent remarks made by Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius and by Sen. Max Baucus (D–MT), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. At a Senate Finance hearing in February, Sebelius stated, “While the law outlined a framework for the CLASS Act, we determined pretty quickly …
Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Kathleen Sebelius testified last week at the House Ways and Means Committee on the fiscal year 2012 budget—although the question period centered on Obamacare. Sebelius opined that the new health care law will increase patient access to physicians and hospitals, provide more choices for Medicare beneficiaries, create jobs, and allow those who are happy with their current plans to keep them. However, reality paints a different picture. First, Obamacare will not increase access to health care for many seniors. For example, as a …
Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius testified in front of the Senate Finance Committee yesterday about the President’s 2012 fiscal year budget and the status of health care reform. Despite the projected $1.6 trillion deficit in the President’s budget, Sebelius claimed that it represents “the blueprint for putting (President Obama’s) vision into action and making the investments that will grow our economy and create jobs.” Here are some of the noteworthy exchanges the Secretary had with Senators on the committee. Senator Max Baucus (D–MT) lauded the Medicare “doc …
According to Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathy Sebelius, the design of the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program has basic flaws, but the bureaucracy will fix those flaws with hard work and deep thinking. Sebelius spoke on the CLASS program on Monday at a Kaiser Family Foundation briefing, and she outlined the Obama Administration’s updated technocratic thinking on this new government-run, long-term care entitlement created under Obamacare. Sebelius was in part responding to the recent assault on CLASS from a wide breadth of experts. According to …
Last night in the State of the Union address, President Obama stated that “the only way to tackle our deficit is to cut excessive spending wherever we find it—in domestic spending, defense spending, health care spending, and spending through tax breaks and loopholes. This means further reducing health care costs, including programs like Medicare and Medicaid, which are the single biggest contributor to our long-term deficit. Health insurance reform will slow these rising costs.” Is it possible that the President has already forgotten that the health care law included a …
The big news out of a majority of state capitols is that Obamacare’s Medicaid mandates will exacerbate state budget problems and drive many states to the brink of insolvency. Thirty-three Republican governors and governors-elect have signed a letter to the White House and Congress making an emphatic appeal that Obamacare’s Medicaid provisions be repealed. Medicaid pays health care and long-term care expenses for certain categories of individuals. Medicaid has many problems, but the central one is that it costs taxpayers nearly $400 billion annually without providing recipients a high quality …
Families USA is out with a new report, Lower Taxes, Lower Premiums: The New Health Insurance Tax Credit, which lauds the health insurance tax credits (subsidies) in Obamacare. But the report tells only half of the story. It is true that the tax credits will reduce the effective premium that many households will face for health insurance coverage. However, the key question from a policy perspective is whether the benefits of the Obamacare tax credits outweigh their costs. Since the Families USA report failed to list any of the costs …
