Experts have warned that Obamacare’s new subsidy program could cause a mass exodus of businesses out of employer-sponsored insurance. New research from McKinsey and Company based on a survey of employers reinforces this concern. According to their findings, 30 percent of employers said they would definitely or probably stop offering insurance once the law’s main provisions go into effect in 2014. The inclination to dump coverage exceeded 50 percent once employers’ understanding of the law’s effects increased. Obamacare encourages employers to dump coverage on two fronts. First, several provisions will …
It’s a simple fact: You can’t sustain Medicare unless you transform the current—and unaffordable—system. But the left continues to falsely decry conservatives’ plans to achieve this, accusing them of plotting to end the program altogether. It’s ironic, then, that the left has diligently pursued a strategy of its own to “end Medicare as we know it.” That strategy boils down to this: Downplay the problem. Writing for the Los Angeles Times, Michael Hiltzik claims, “One of the basic flaws of Ryan’s plan is that he folds Medicare’s long-term fiscal problem …
A frequent accusation against conservative Medicare reform proposals is that they would “end Medicare as we know it.” But the reality is that Obamacare has already accomplished this. One example is a new program that will, for the first time, attempt to pay for quality by penalizing hospitals that fail to meet bureaucratically created standards for quality and efficiency. Achieving better value in Medicare should be a goal of any serious reform plan, but the new law’s solution is unlikely to succeed. Instead, it will negatively impact patients and the …
Moving into the 21st century, the practice of medicine is on the cusp of exciting new territory. Advances in medical and pharmaceutical research, particularly in personalized medicine, promise new cures to diseases that affect millions of Americans. Now more than ever, Washington should get out of the way of innovation and strive to encourage investment in medical technology. Sadly, the reverse is true. Stringent FDA regulations and nightmare approval processes are sending investors’ dollars to other areas of the economy and forcing medical breakthroughs overseas. Obamacare changes could cause even …
Typically, demonstration programs exist to prove the effectiveness of a reform proposal before implementing it nationwide. This was apparently forgotten in the drafting of Obamacare, which relies heavily on accountable care organizations (ACOs) to curb runaway spending in Medicare and the health care system at large. Supporters claim ACOs, a form of managed care run by hospitals and physicians, will reduce health care spending and improve quality of care by encouraging better coordination and communication among providers. But the results of a five-year demonstration program show this won’t necessarily be …
It’s a fact that runaway spending, not lack of revenue, is the cause of long-term federal deficits. Still, some continue to push for higher taxes to solve the problem. A favorite tool of would-be revenue raisers is to eliminate “tax expenditures”—revenue the federal government “forgoes,” they say, due to tax preferences given to priorities like employer-sponsored insurance, mortgage interest payments, and contributions to retirement accounts. (Of course, since the money was never Uncle Sam’s to begin with, it’s inaccurate to say the federal government is somehow deprived by collecting less …
Successful health care reform requires bold changes, not more of the status quo. Nowhere is this truer than in the case of Medicaid, the federal-state partnership to provide health care to the poor and disabled. Unfortunately for taxpayers and program beneficiaries, this was neglected by Obamacare. The new law leaves failing policies in place while expanding the program to cover more than 20 million new individuals. This will only exacerbate existing problems. Despite the bad policies that are now law under Obamacare, some in Washington continue to recognize that Medicaid …
As the debate heats up over how best to control runaway Medicare spending, one provision of Obamacare has received growing attention. The new law creates accountable care organizations (ACOs) primarily to address fragmentation and rising costs in the health care system, but supporters tout ACOs as a key solution to Medicare’s looming insolvency. As more details come to light, however, government establishment of ACOs appears to be more difficult than purported. Writing for The Heritage Foundation, Rita Numerof, Ph.D., explains: ACOs are merely the latest in a long history of …
A week ago, the Medicare Trustees issued their annual report, which showed that the program is on the fact track to insolvency. The 2011 analysis projected that the Hospital Insurance Trust Fund (which funds Medicare Part A) will be insolvent in 2024, and the program’s long-term unfunded obligations—promised benefits that are not paid for—amount to $24.6 trillion. Heritage noted the highlights. Page 266 of the official report included a note from Richard Foster, the Medicare Actuary, who said the Trustees’ financial projections “do not represent a reasonable expectation for actual …
This week, the House Energy and Commerce Committee will consider solutions to Medicare’s flawed physician payment scheme. Physician payment is annually updated on the basis of the Sustainable Growth Rate (SGR), a special economic formula which, as configured today, would result in deep annual payment cuts. This directly threatens seniors’ access to care as it becomes financially infeasible for doctors to continue to take new Medicare patients under progressively lower payments. The problem will only get worse in the future, and it represents one of the most poignant examples of …
