Skip to content

Obamacare News of the Day

Wall Street Journal: Republicans Challenge Administration's Authority

  • Republicans are pointing to statements by a top Treasury Department official as evidence that the Obama administration overstepped its authority in delaying the health-care law's requirement that employers offer coverage or pay a penalty. Mark Mazur, assistant Treasury secretary for tax policy, said in a January interview with staff from the GOP-led House Oversight and Government Reform Committee that he wasn't aware of any examination of the legal basis for the administration's authority to delay the employer mandate.
  • Treasury officials have said the department delayed the mandate under a section of the Internal Revenue Code that gives the agency discretion in writing rules and regulations and that the agency traditionally has had "a long-standing authority to grant transition relief when implementing new legislation."

The Hill: Sebelius to meet with business leaders [We haven't heard when she's scheduled her next meeting with people who've had their premiums skyrocket or lost their health care providers in their new Obamacare plans]

  • The sit-down with members of the Business Roundtable, a powerful association of CEOs, comes as the administration nears the end of its blistering first enrollment period under ObamaCare.

The Hill: O-Care show hits Ellen

  • President Obama will take the administration’s furious healthcare pitch to "The Ellen Degeneres Show" on Thursday, The Hill has learned. The president won’t be in-studio with the Oscars host, but rather will urge viewers to sign up on the new exchanges before the March 31 deadline in an appearance streamed live from the White House.

RealClearPolitics: Health Law Concerns for Cancer Centers

  • In all, only four of 19 nationally recognized comprehensive cancer centers that responded to AP's survey said patients have access through all the insurance companies in their state exchange.
  • Not too long ago, insurance companies would have been vying to offer access to renowned cancer centers, said Dan Mendelson, CEO of the market research firm Avalere Health. Now the focus is on costs. "This is a marked deterioration of access to the premier cancer centers for people who are signing up for these plans," Mendelson said.

The Federalist: Ezra Klein's Misleading Explainer On The Individual Mandate

  • Mr. Klein gets most of his explanation about right, with one big exception. He says that a family making $80,000 a year will (eventually) be penalized $2,000 for failing to buy coverage — “less money than health insurance will usually cost you, but you don’t get anything for that money,” he says. Uh, that’s understating things quite a bit. A family insurance policy costs $16,351 according to the most recent employer benefits survey from the Kaiser Family Foundation.
  • A family that does not get covered will save $14,351 to use for other things. That is a whole lot of money for most people. Plus, even the $2,000 penalty will be impossible to collect. It can be collected only through seizing a family’s tax refund. It is easy enough to avoid having a refund if the family adjusts its withholding at the start of the year so it doesn’t overpay its taxes.
  • …as we indicated above mandates are impossible to enforce. It isn’t just in health insurance. Auto insurance is mandated in almost every state, but the rate of non-compliance is about 14 percent nationally and in many states the rate of non-insurance for auto (which is mandated) is even higher than for health (which is not). Similarly, with other mandates — child support, helmet laws, seat belt laws, even taxes. Non-compliance is always about 15 percent, even when there are severe penalties such as jail time for violation.
  • requiring healthy people to buy and pay the same as sick people for coverage simply isn’t fair. As Mr. Klein himself says in his video, sick people value coverage more than healthy people do and are willing to pay more for it.
  • … a mandated, community-rated system will fail to deliver the right services to the right people. Private insurers will be highly incentivized to load up on the benefits that attract the healthy people (preventive care, birth control pills) and skimp on benefits for the very expensive people (like cancer treatment). And it isn’t just private insurers that have these incentives. Public programs do, too. There are a whole lot more healthy voters than sick ones, so maintaining political support means providing more benefits to the healthy.
  • [RELATED] Real Clear Markets: Obamacare's Disappearing Insurance Mandate
  • [RELATED] Forbes: 14 Ways To Avoid The Obamacare Tax (Actually 15 if you include 'brief incarceration')
    • And pay close heed to catchall criteria #14 – “You experienced another hardship in obtaining health insurance”. As for the documentation that HHS says is required to claim this hardship , it merely notes: “Please submit documentation if possible.” [this purposefully vague "hardship" will capture quite a range of possible reasons]

Ace of Spades: Chris Christie…You're Damn Right I Expanded Medicaid

  • The wrinkle in this one is that while he's debating a lefty he defends himself not by making the conservative case against government healthcare but praising how much he's expanded it already.
  • Sure he says he hates ObamaCare but he's pretty proud that he's taken the ObamaCare money to expand Medicaid (you know the system that is a total waste of money) and boasts that NJ's Medicaid system is the 2nd most generous in the country.

Politico Pulse: CBO: SGR FIX COSTS $215B OVER 10 YEARS

  • The SGR reform bill being advanced by Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden would cost $180.2 billion over 11 years, the CBO said yesterday, not including $35 billion in interest. In addition to the bipartisan SGR repeal-and-replace plan agreed to by both House and Senate committees, the bill includes Medicare extenders and additional funding for Medicaid programs and anti-fraud measures. It doesn’t include a pay-for.
  • The Center for a Responsible Federal Budget argued in a blog post that lawmakers shouldn’t depart from most previous SGR fixes that have been paid for with existing funds. “The $215 billion that the legislation adds to the debt is not only far more than current law, but it is a substantial increase over the $145 billion cost (with interest) of freezing physician payments for ten years as is assumed in the baseline of the President’s budget,” the group wrote.

Previous
Next