In a recent article for MarketWatch, Andrea Coombes writes, “Whatever their opinion of the health-care reform law, wealthy Americans have a lot of money at risk in the Supreme Court’s coming decision on the law’s constitutionality.” Yes, the rich will pay higher taxes under Obamacare. But they aren’t the only ones. Obamacare raises taxes by more than $500 billion in a decade, and a number of these will hit Americans at all levels of the income scale. The specific tax hikes Coombes describes are initially intended to impact just the …
A study released today by Charles Blahous, one of two public trustees of Medicare and Social Security, once again shows that Obamacare increases federal deficits and significantly worsens the nation’s fiscal outlook. According to the study’s most optimistic scenario, the health law will increase federal spending by $1.16 trillion and increase the deficit by $346 billion between 2012 and 2021. The worst case—and most realistic—scenario: an increase in spending of $1.24 trillion and $527 billion in new deficits. Obamacare’s failure to reverse the federal government’s abysmal financial situation is not …
Earlier this week, the House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee moved legislation forward that would repeal one of the most intrusive and unpopular parts of Obamacare: the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB). A board of unelected government officials tasked with finding and implementing ways to control Medicare spending from the top-down, IPAB opens the door to rationing of care, both direct and indirect, without congressional approval. The bill to repeal this onerous part of the health law has 226 co-sponsors, 17 of whom are Democrats. Meanwhile, support for better ways …
Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, was among a number of experts who recently convened at The Heritage Foundation on a panel entitled “Beyond the Individual Mandate: Why Obamacare Must Be Repealed.” Turner is one of the authors of Why Obamacare Is Wrong for America, along with James Capretta, Thomas Miller, and Heritage expert Robert Moffit. At the panel, Turner highlighted a number of the law’s problems, including its constitutionality. Never before has the federal government required individuals to purchase a product, which as she says in her book, …
Last week, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) announced that average premiums in Medicare Advantage (MA) for 2012 have fallen by 7 percent, and enrollment has increased by about 10 percent. This is great news for the program, which allows seniors to receive Medicare benefits through a private plan of their choice. But in a serious twist of logic, Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius credited Obamacare with MA’s success: “Now this is just one of the ways the Affordable Care Act is making …
Over the course of the campaign, President Obama repeatedly promised: “If you like your current insurance, you can keep your current insurance”—despite any reforms his Administration would implement. This claim is far from true, as Amy B. Monahan and Daniel Schwarcz illustrate in their 2011 study “Will Employers Undermine Health Care Reform by Dumping Sick Employees?” published in the Virginia Law Review. Schwarcz presented the study on Capitol Hill last week. Obamacare mandates that employers provide health insurance for their employees or pay a fine. With the increasing cost of …
This year, Congress will have to reauthorize the Prescription Drug User Fee Act (PDUFA), which funds the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) drug approval process. As noted by Amanda Kronquist, a Heritage Health Policy Graduate Fellow, the FDA drug approval process has become “increasingly unpredictable, uncertain, and inefficient.” The House Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health held its first hearing this year on the topic yesterday. It heard from the FDA commissioner and others in the field on the PDUFA reauthorization and its effect on jobs, innovation, and patients. In …
Yesterday, the Administration released data from the 2011 National Health Interview Survey that shows, among other things, that the number of uninsured young adults declined over the last year. In a short press release, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) touted this as evidence that Obamacare is working, specifically attributing increased coverage of young adults age 19–25 to the Obamacare provision allowing those individuals to stay on their parents’ health plans. Undoubtedly, it’s true that some of those individuals did get coverage due to that provision, but HHS …
Medicare faces a dismal future that could threaten its very existence. In two recent papers, Stuart Butler, Ph.D., and Robert Moffit, Ph.D. of the new Heritage Center for Policy Innovation analyze the problem and offer detailed solutions on how to reverse course. Butler explains that many objections to Medicare reform are fueled by myths. For instance, many Americans believe that seniors have paid for their own Medicare through payroll taxes. But in reality, only Medicare Part A is financed through payroll taxes. Parts B and D are voluntary and financed …
Reports have surfaced that conservatives in Congress may propose further increasing income adjustment in Medicare to lessen the program’s insolvency. This is a great idea. While the left continues to argue for higher taxes for the likes of Warren Buffett to maintain the status quo of a costly, failing Medicare program, it makes more sense that Congress should simply stop subsidizing them. As Congress continues to pursue solutions to the entitlement spending crisis, one question that must be answered is whether the United States should even have universal federal entitlements …
