Right now, states across the country are trying to figure out what to do in response to Obamacare and its health insurance exchange architecture. In Oklahoma, the question has gone even further as the state government debates whether or not to accept federal funding, appropriated in the Obamacare statute, to create a state information technology system for a health care exchange. In Ed Haislmaier’s recent paper, he describes this dilemma: Trying to shoehorn patient-centered, market-based reforms into the bureaucratic architecture of Obamacare’s health insurance exchanges is not a viable strategy, …
State officials around the country are getting a lesson from the California legislature in how not to respond to Obamacare. While the new federally supervised, state-based health insurance exchanges are to be up and running by January 1, 2014, the California legislature is poised to create the California Health Benefit Exchange through enactment of two bills (AB 1602 and SB 900). If Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger—who ran for office as a champion of conservative economic policy—signs these bills, California would be the first state to enact an ideologically compliant set of …
Americans love having options. From the food we eat to the cars we drive, we relish making our own choices based on our preferences and what is best for ourselves and our families. Health care should not be an exception. Yet the proposals put forward by the Obama administration and the Democratic congressional leadership would create a massive government plan for health care and crowd out the choices Americans expect. A federal government takeover of our nation’s health care will limit, if not eliminate, an individual’s options in insurance and …
