Last week, the state of Wisconsin released a report summarizing the effects of Obamacare on the Badger State’s health care system. The study, which was conducted by Gorman Actuarial and MIT Economist Jonathan Gruber—an Obamacare supporter—and commissioned by former Governor Jim Doyle (D), provides further proof that Obamacare is on track to break the promises President Obama made to the American people regarding his plan for health care reform: “It will provide more security and stability to those who have health insurance. It will provide insurance for those who don’t.” …
Click here to join the online chat on Obamacare. We are joined by Health Policy Analyst Kate Nix. She is taking your questions about the future of Obamacare and other policy alternatives that can be implemented to drive costs down. Lunch with Heritage feat. Kate Nix
Catching you up on clips, commentary and news of the day. Sign up for the daily email update from Scribe. The Movie Obama Won’t Want You to See – James Jay Carafano, FoxNews.com Why Tea Party should resist gutting defense – John R. Bolton, The Washington Times Big Brother Goes Green – Audrey Hudson Solar, we have a problem – Nicolas Loris, Washington Times Taxes and Business, There We Go Again – Mark Green Gov’t May Be Lowballing Medicare Shortfall By $6 Trillion – David Hogberg, Investor’s Business Daily Police grants …
Heritage Policy Analyst Kathryn Nix recently released a paper explaining why the premium support, or defined contribution, model for Medicare reform found in Heritage’s Saving the American Dream is the best way to get out of our health care spending and debt crises. Several elements of this approach to reform have already been applied to the program under Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage. Writes Nix, “Applying their successes to the rest of Medicare can restore permanent solvency to the program, preserve robust access to high-quality care, encourage continued physician …
Medicare continues to be a looming problem in the fiscal crisis. In an effort to lower the program’s cost and improve quality of care for the seniors it serves, Obamacare creates accountable care organizations (ACOs), which are supposed to encourage health care providers to band together and create savings through better coordinated care. In a new Heritage research paper, health policy expert John Hoff writes: The ACO scheme is a microcosm of the PPACA (Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act) and, like it, will not deliver on its rhetorical promises. …
The congressional enactment of the Budget Control Act to increase the national debt limit was mostly a triumph of process, not substance. But substance cannot be avoided. The looming question is how this process will deal with the biggest entitlement challenge: Medicare. On Medicare, Congress has only two options: (1) serious but careful structural reform, or (2) blunt across-the-board cuts that will make matters even worse. After almost 30 years of tiresome debate on this issue, studiously ignoring the findings of independent analysts and presidential commissions alike, Congress has yet …
In a recent article in Health Affairs, health economist James Robinson reveals that in areas where hospitals consolidate and enjoy a larger market share, providers are more likely to charge higher prices, as low competition gives them a monopoly in delivering patient care in the region. The lack of competition allows hospitals and other providers to raise the sticker price for the privately insured as reimbursements from Medicare and Medicaid fall. Economists call this “cost shifting,” when a lower payment from one group is made up for by a higher …
The recent proposal from the Gang of Six has received attention as a possible deal for raising the debt ceiling. On health care, the G6 proposal was initially weak, and as the story goes, the Gang allegedly beefed up its changes to health care spending to attract more support. But in reality, the improvements are small, and the plan ultimately fails to adequately address federal spending on health entitlements or to promise acceptable solutions down the road. Medicare, the health entitlement for the elderly and disabled, represents the largest driver …
This week, the House Budget Committee and Energy and Commerce Committee held hearings to examine the Independent Payment Advisory Board (IPAB), a board of unelected bureaucrats tasked under Obamacare to reduce the growth in Medicare spending. During the Budget Committee hearing, Grace-Marie Turner, president of the Galen Institute, described the board: [T]he IPAB is unprecedented in the power given to unelected officials to direct hundreds of billions of dollars in federal spending. The IPAB will give unelected, unaccountable government appointees the power to make decisions about payment policy in …
Conservatives, including The Heritage Foundation, support reforming Medicare to provide seniors with a defined contribution to apply to the health care plan of their choice. This approach would address the program’s insolvency, and it is superior to other options—including the President’s plan to allow an unelected board of officials to ratchet down spending—because it would allow consumer choice to catalyze patient-centered innovations and better value in the health care system. Among the straw man arguments liberals have made against this “premium-support” model is the claim that it would be too …
