Medicare patient Ann Lorenz has relied on the advice and recommendations of her neurologist, Dr. Jeffrey English, since she was first diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease 13 years ago. So the dramatic changes coming to Medicare via the Affordable Care Act—and its potential to limit seniors’ access to care as doctors foresee dropping Medicare patients—already worry Lorenz. “One of the first things you ask a new doctor is if they accept Medicare,” Lorenz, who lives in Atlanta, says in a new Impact of Obamacare video. “And we have always seemed to …
Last week’s Des Moines Register’s editorial page takes a sardonic view of the majority of Americans (51 percent as of last week) who are opposed to the health reform law. Saying they are trashing the law they call Obamacare—a word that supporters have openly embraced because of its widespread usage—the editorial charges “if you don’t agree with the law, then don’t use anything it offers.” Oh, if it was only that simple. While the editorial correctly notes that Obamacare is not a full government takeover of the private health sector, …
In recent interview, doctor and former Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean tried to make the case that Obamacare will boost small-business job growth. “But the fact is [Obamacare] is very good for small business. It’s incredibly good for small business,” said the one-time Democratic presidential candidate. Incredibly, Dean breaks away from his liberal colleagues and the White House by backing the results from a recent McKinsey & Co. survey. The survey was vilified for reporting that 30 percent of companies said they would drop employee health coverage once the …
As America closes in on the six-month anniversary of the passage of Obamacare and prepares for the November elections, liberal health groups are revving up to defend the unpopular new health care law. But the platitudes offered to justify the massive overhaul of the health care sector haven’t held up—as Heritage’s new online feature, Obamacare in Pictures, shows in graphic detail. Heritage’s Center for Health Policy Studies has compiled the best and most recent research on the impact Obamacare will have on various aspects of the health care system. These …
It’s not just the majority of American voters who are itching from the rash of regulations, taxes and government bureaucracy that has stemmed from Obamacare. Small physician groups aren’t ecstatic with the White House’s latest effort to cajole them into swallowing some bitter pills regarding their day-to-day operations. This week, several Obama administration officials, including a former member of the National Economic Council, published an article in the Annals of Internal Medicine that urged doctors to “embrace rather than resist change” coming from the new health reform law, which passed …
A new messaging strategy, based on public polling results from top Democratic pollsters, suggests that congressional lawmakers should wave the white flag when discussing Obamacare in their election campaigns. The PowerPoint presentation, released in a conference call organized by Families USA, encouraged officials to “keep claims small and credible: don’t overpromise or ‘spin’ what the law delivers.” In other words, abandon ship on claims that lawmakers made for months during the health reform debate—that the legislation would in any way reduce the nation’s deficit or lower health care costs (in …
Like many federal efforts in Washington, last week’s reintroduction from House Democrats to create a public health insurance option, which would become part of the 2014 insurance exchanges created by Obamacare, is a bureaucratic redundancy. Stuart Butler points out that the health reform law already has its own “public option” through expanded powers to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM). Calling the House bill a “smokescreen” for the nation’s opposition against a public option, Butler says the real story is in the “OPM alternative.” “Far from being an alternative, it …
This week, the White House issued rules for health insurers to extend dependent coverage to “children” up to 26 years old. Beyond keeping the “Big Kids” dependent on Mommy and Daddy, it also directly undercuts the President’s famous campaign promise that American families would see a $2,500 reduction in their annual premiums. Now, we learn that family premiums will rise about 1 percent in 2012 just from this one provision of the new law. It will cost $3,380 for each dependent in 2011, according to this Associated Press report.
When Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently addressed a crowd of health policy experts about the issues surrounding the nation’s physician shortage, she had the opportunity to highlight the fundamental problems doctors have been shouting about, like medical malpractice reform. Alas, she mostly stuck to the tired talking points that more primary-care physicians would flock to the profession if there were only more preventive services, more health information technology and better coordination of chronic diseases. That’s not to knock any of those measures, but they fail to address …
You might have seen this week a stunning demonstration of political condescension on the health care front. In remarks at the 2010 Legislative Conference for the National Association of Counties, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said, “But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it, away from the fog of controversy.” This revealing comment reinforces a patriarchal (or in Pelosi’s case matriarchal) attitude Congress has taken with the American public: What lurks within the House and Senate health care bills will be revealed …
