The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) recently released its annual Long-Term Budget Outlook, which highlights the effects of existing policy on the federal budget. The verdict: The current trajectory is “unsustainable.” Growing federal health care spending is a major driver of future deficits. As CBO explains, “Spending for health care in …
A freshman congressman has offered legislation that would make the extensive federal rulemaking process associated with the new Obamacare law dramatically more transparent. The bill would also give Congress a stepped-up oversight role as federal agencies begin drafting rules to implement the law, which will go fully into effect by …
Today, the Sixth Circuit Court of Appeals issued a decision upholding Obamacare against a constitutional challenge. While this is disappointing, there are several reasons to believe that this flawed decision is not predictive of how the Supreme Court will rule. In recent years, the Sixth Circuit has achieved a growing …
Senators Tom Coburn (R–OK) and Joseph Lieberman (I–CT) unveiled a major Medicare proposal. Based on preliminary estimates provided by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the proposal would reduce total Medicare spending by more than $600 billion in the next 10 years and cut the program’s long-term (75-year) unfunded liability by …
The American Medical Association lost 5 percent of its membership last year as the physician group faced fallout from its endorsement of Obamacare and refusal to retreat from the law’s most controversial provisions. As physicians and medical school students back away from the well-known organization, they’re turning to upstarts like …
Yet another newly revealed flaw of Obamacare promises to add billions to the cost of the new health law. Due to what was presumably an oversight in the drafting of the legislation, it could potentially unload 24.7 million additional Americans onto the Medicaid program. That’s 50 percent higher than …
While economic growth remains sluggish, the last thing the United States needs is another weight holding it back. Unfortunately, the new health care subsidy program created under Obamacare for low- and middle-income Americans does precisely that. In recent research, Heritage’s Paul Winfree lays out exactly how the Obamacare subsidies will …
Spending in the U.S. health care system is growing too fast to ignore. Yet, the Patient Protection and Affordable Health Care Act (PPACA), also known as Obamacare, does nothing to “bend the cost curve.” Containing health spending requires engaging consumers in their health care expenditures, and one way to achieve …
This week, The New York Times highlighted a study on Medicaid, the federal–state partnership to provide health care to the poor and disabled, and its failure to offer enrolled children access to care. The researchers used a “secret shopper” technique to see how many specialists in Cook County, Illinois, turned …
