05.14.2014

#FullRepeal Daily Digest

Washington Examiner: Obamacare insurer says Americans have to break the 'choice habit'

In a line that says a lot about where health care is heading under Obamacare, an insurance executive offering plans through the law was quoted in the New York Times on Tuesday as saying, “We have to break people away from the choice habit that everyone has.”
Marcus Merz, the chief executive of PreferredOne, made the remark in an article describing the trend toward narrow networks in health care plans. The article notes, "In the midst of all the turmoil in health care these days, one thing is becoming clear: No matter what kind of health plan consumers choose, they will find fewer doctors and hospitals in their network -- or pay much more for the privilege of going to any provider they want."
[RELATED] Reason: Under Obamacare, People Must Be Broken of Their Preference for Choice
- Given the limited choices and the requirement to buy, then, it’s not really surprising that many customers end up choosing cheaper plans—and the narrow networks that inevitably go along with them. Or, as Karen Ignani, the head of the insurance industry trade group America’s Health Insurance Plans, says in the article’s second best quote, “What we’re finding is individuals are experiencing a preference for affordability.” It’s worth stopping for a moment to admire that quote. It is a minor masterpiece of lobbying communications nothing-speak. It is almost entirely removed from action or accountability. It's like she's talking about a new observational study on cloud formations.
- But people shopping for insurance under Obamacare are not simply experiencing some mysterious condition. They are being required, by law, to purchase a product, and then deciding that for the money they have spent—which in many cases is merely a fraction of the total cost, the rest of which is being picked up by taxpayers—they do not like what they are getting in return. That is why the choice habit must be broken.

Politico [Gov. Bobby Jindal]: What Hillary Knew – In 1993 Twenty years ago, Clinton's health care plan was on to something. But you wouldn't know it from Democratic policy since then.

Years ago, that famous figure testified publicly that if Congress were to pass legislation with an individual mandate to purchase insurance, “we worry that the numbers of people who currently are insured through their employment will decrease because there will no longer be any reason for many employers” to offer coverage, when individuals can receive government subsidies instead. That figure’s name is Hillary Clinton.
Back then, both Hillary and President Bill Clinton believed that placing responsibility primarily on individuals, as opposed to employers, to obtain coverage could cause employers to drop their existing plans. Little wonder that after millions of Americans had their health plans canceled last fall, Bill Clinton criticized President Obama’s “if you like your health care plan” promise; in fact, the Clinton White House knew that pledge was dubious two decades before Politifact finally named it the “lie of the year.”
Consider another truth the Hillary Clinton of 1993 could tell Obama today. “If we subsidize individuals below a certain income level,” she noted in her testimony before Congress, “there would be pressure on employers to keep wages below the subsidy level so that they [health insurance premiums] would continue to be paid for by the government.” That sounds a lot like what the Congressional Budget Office concluded in February: that Obamacare will reduce the labor force by the equivalent of 2.3 million workers, because employers will not raise wages and individuals will choose not to work in order to retain access to government insurance subsidies.
The left continues to argue that the next new program, the next new bureaucracy or the next new tweak to Medicare’s more than 7,000 reimbursement codes will finally provide the magic elixir needed to fix all that’s wrong with the U.S. health care system. But none has worked. In health care, as in many things, the Clintons were the future—once. But after 20 years of false hope and undelivered promises, their vision, as eventually implemented in Obamacare, looks more dystopian than utopian.

Politico: Will employer health plans become a casualty of Obamacare?

Employer-sponsored health insurance, which developed by accident in World War II and subsequently became the main pillar of our health system, is in danger of disappearing. A new study by S&P Capital Research, a financial research firm, predicts that the employer-based system will most likely disappear by 2025. Even Ezekiel Emanuel, one of the architects of the president’s health care reforms and the brother of former White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel, says in his new book that the bill’s health care exchanges will eventually supplant the existing system.
If true, this would be a disruptive development, as 170 million Americans now get their insurance via their employers. Like so much else in health care, the story of this rapid shift from reliance on employer coverage to its rapidly predicted demise centers on the Affordable Care Act.
Employers have mixed feelings about these predictions. On the one hand, they have provided health coverage for their employees for decades, and health benefits are an important recruiting and retention tool. For many employers, it is part of their corporate identity. Furthermore, employers, or at least the more responsible ones, have a stake in keeping their employees healthy. The key employee who disappears at a crucial stretch because of a preventable health condition such as a heart attack or stroke is a much bigger hit to the bottom line than the cost of preventive care for that employee.
On the other hand, employers have long been subsidizing the rest of the health care system, spending $578.6 billion annually on health care. A recent American Health Policy Institute study showed that employers will be facing marginal ACA-related costs of $4,800 to $5,900 per employee over the next decade. And the new S&P Capital study says that S&P 500 employers as a whole could save $700 billion by 2025 if they begin dropping coverage and pay the employer mandate penalty instead.

Free Beacon: Family Loses Obamacare Coverage Due To Glitch 'We have no coverage, no insurance. We can't get our medication'

The glitch occurred when Sharon, Connecticut man John DiMarco went back to change an enrollment form last fall that was eventually sent to his insurance company. That form omitted John and Dawn DiMarco’s $1100 subsidy.
The couple spent weeks going back and forth with state agencies over their resulting bill which was thousands more than advertised. Then, this month, they received a cancellation notice from Anthem Blue Cross Blue Shield.

Politico Pulse: OBAMACARE SUBSIDIES GET ANOTHER DAY IN COURT [another Court takes up a case involving the clear statutory language of Obamacare only allowing subsidies and employer penalties to be distributed to states that create state Obamcare exchanges – not federally-run exchanges]

While we wait for the federal appeals court in D.C. to weigh in on Halbig v. Sebelius, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 4th Circuit hears a similar case this morning in Richmond. David King, a 63-year-old Virginia resident, is suing HHS for awarding ACA subsidies through his state’s federal-run exchange, saying the health law allows subsidies to be awarded only through state-run exchanges.
Interestingly enough, the state has reversed positions on the case, with Attorney General Mark Herring yanking a supportive court brief from former AG Ken Cuccinelli and replacing it with a new brief taking the Obama administration’s side. The federal district court in Richmond has dismissed the challenge, as did the district court in D.C.

Heritage: Warning: This Medical News Story Could Be Biased, Simplistic, or Hyped

A team of researchers from HealthNewsReview.org examined coverage by major U.S. news outlets from April 16, 2006 through May 30, 2013. Focusing exclusively on coverage of new medical treatments, tests, products, and procedures, the researchers gave most news stories an unsatisfactory grade when it came to reporting accurately on costs, benefits, harms, quality of evidence, and comparable alternative treatments.
“Vested interests, marketing, politics and media hype often have more influence on how new medical advances get used than the best scientific evidence…For seven years, our media watchdog project has established that health care news stories often emphasize or exaggerate potential benefits, minimize or ignore potential harms, and ignore cost issues,” the researchers concluded. “Our findings can help health journalists improve their news stories and help physicians and the public better understand the strengths and weaknesses of news media coverage of medical and health topics.”