Today marks the one-year anniversary of Obamacare. While advocates spend the week highlighting the new law’s effects on different groups of Americans, we are doing the same. A review of the facts on the ground and the conclusions of Heritage research over the past year reveals the far-reaching negative consequences. Today, the focus is on the “consumer protections” included in Obamacare. To be sure, some Americans will benefit from these changes, but, as Heritage analyst Brian Blase explains, the overall result is that: “Obamacare has increased government control of Americans’ …
The inability of some Americans to obtain health insurance for pre-existing medical conditions continues to be used by Obamacare supporters as justification for the mammoth legislation. The truth, however, is that the problem was nowhere near as big as portrayed, and the solution doesn’t require 2700 pages of legislation or $1 trillion in new government spending. Over 90 percent of Americans with private health insurance are covered by employer group plans where existing rules governing the application of pre-existing condition exclusions are not an issue. Before passage of Obamacare, the …
Last week, The Wall Street Journal reported that several health insurers “plan to raise premiums for some Americans as a direct result of the health overhaul.” Starting this year, Obamacare prohibits plans from placing lifetime limits on coverage, severely limits rescissions, and requires all plans to cover children up to age 26. Plans also have to fully cover preventive services and are prohibited from denying children due to pre-existing conditions. The list goes on. Since extra benefits cost more, it makes sense that insurance premiums would climb as a result …
Obamacare creates a host of new federal requirements billed as consumer protections. But enacting these policies falls not on the feds, but on the states. Some of these provisions were among the more popular components of Obamacare: guaranteed issue for children; letting individuals remain on their parents’ health plan up to age 26; requiring insurers to cover federally-defined preventive services, etc. The goals behind these mandates are worthy. But they could be achieved in better ways. The approach taken here is virtually guaranteed to accelerate insurance costs. Ironically, Obamacare also …
As the Obama Administration’s allies are gearing up to spend $125 million over the next five years to sell the health overhaul law to the public, including seniors, there has been a noticeable vacuum in the discussion over the impact on younger adults. This topic was in the spotlight at a recent event sponsored by the CATO Institute: “How Will Obamacare Affect Young Adults?” While the President received one of the largest margins of support from 18-29 year old voters during the 2008 election, there is growing skepticism over the …
The House health bill (H.R. 3962) creates a new minimum federal standard benefit package that will eventually apply to nearly all health plans, and establishes a new “Health Benefits Advisory Committee”. The Committee, housed within HHS, will make detailed recommendations, which the Secretary of HHS would then impose on all private insurers and employers through regulation. HHS would have broad, permanent authority to continually update and expand the federal benefit requirements for all private health insurance and could regulate not only specific items and services than must be covered but …
