Per Person Cost of Federal High-Risk Medical Plan Doubles
Published 02/27/12
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A new USA Today/ Gallup Poll shows that the majority of voters in swing states do not support ObamaCare. "On the issue of whether ObamaCare is constitutional, a matter that the Supreme Court takes up March 26,when oral arguments on the matter begin, voters in swing states 'stand overwhelmingly' with those who say the law is unconstitutional. Three of four voters (including the majority of Democrats) told pollsters that they believe the law to be unconstitutional. This indicates that, if the Court overturns the legislation, the public will in all likelihood be quite accepting of the ruling."
The Washington Post reports that the costs of the high-risk insurance pools in ObamaCare have doubled government projections. "Those who have enrolled in the program are projected to have significantly higher medical costs than the government initially expected. Each participant is expected to average $28,994 in medical costs in 2012, according to the report, more than double what government-contracted actuaries predicted in November 2010. Then, the analysts expected that the program would cost $13,026 per enrollee. The costs also are significantly higher than those of similar high-risk pools that many states have operated for decades. States spent an average of $12,471 on enrollees in 2008, according to the National Association of State Comprehensive Health Insurance Plans."
The Energy and Commerce Subcommittee on Health is expected to vote on legislation to repeal the Independent Payment Advisory Board on Wednesday. "The vote comes on the heels of the House vote to repeal the healthcare law’s long-term-care program. Only 28 Democrats voted for that bill, but Republicans are hoping for more success with the cost-control-repeal legislation, which already has 16 Democratic co-sponsors and the strong support of medical associations." |
Voters: We STILL Don't Like ObamaCare...
When Nancy Pelosi said that the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act had to be passed so the public could see what was in it, she probably wasn’t expecting either of these (here and here) reactions. Investors Business Daily reports: A Quinnipiac University poll last week found 52% of Americans want ObamaCare scrapped. That's up from 44% last May. Meanwhile, just 39% want to keep it, down from 45%. Even one in five Democrats now says Congress should repeal the law.
Medical costs for enrollees in the health-care law’s high-risk insurance pools are expected to more than double initial predictions, the Obama administration said Thursday in a report on the new program. The health-care law set aside $5 billion for a Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, meant to provide health insurance to those who had been declined coverage by private carriers. Since its launch last summer, nearly 50,000 Americans have enrolled in the program.
A House subcommittee is set to vote this week on legislation that would repeal one of the most controversial aspects of the Democrats’ healthcare reform law. The Energy and Commerce subcommittee on Health is working to schedule a markup of legislation to repeal the healthcare law’s cost-control panel — the Independent Payment Advisory Board. The vote is expected to take place Wednesday.
One of the most significant consequences of America’s inefficient system of employer-sponsored health insurance is that it makes life difficult if you fall ill and lose your job, or if you want to switch employers. This is the so-called “pre-existing condition” problem. The obvious solution to the problem is to transition out of the $300 billion-a-year tax subsidy for employer-sponsored health insurance, and create a level playing field for those who want to buy insurance for themselves. ObamaCare, unfortunately, eschewed the obvious. As a new government report shows, the law stands to make the problem worse.
As promised by then-Speaker Nancy Pelosi, we’re still finding out what was in ObamaCare, years after the Democrats passed it. The latest happy news, courtesy of the Washington Post, is that costs for enrollees in the high-risk insurance pools are literally double what the ObamaCare con artists predicted they would be: The health-care law set aside $5 billion for a Pre-Existing Condition Insurance Plan, meant to provide health insurance to those who had been declined coverage by private carriers.
Enrollment in ObamaCare's high-risk insurance plans—intended to provide immediate coverage for the especially difficult to insure until the law's major insurance expansions start up in 2014—has so far been underwhelming: Fewer than 50,000 people are enrolled in the program, according to a new report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. Initial estimates had projected that around 375,000 people would end up enrolled, possibly pushing it far over budget before 2014.
Americans don't like President Obama's expansive healthcare reform law, and skepticism about its implementation could damage Democrats’ efforts in November, according to a new set of polls from USA Today and Gallup. More than half - 53 percent - of voters in swing states and half of voters nationwide perceive the Affordable Care Act negatively, according to the survey. That's versus just 38 percent of voters in swing states and 42 percent of voters nationwide who view the healthcare legislation favorably.
The health care overhaul that President Obama intended to be the signature achievement of his first term instead has become a significant problem in his bid for a second one, uniting Republicans in opposition and eroding his standing among independents. In a USA TODAY/Gallup Poll of the nation's dozen top battleground states, a clear majority of registered voters call the bill's passage "a bad thing" and support its repeal if a Republican wins the White House in November. Two years after he signed the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act— and as the Supreme Court prepares to hear arguments about its constitutionality next month — the president has failed to convince most Americans that it was the right thing to do.
A new poll by Quinnipiac University finds that most Americans, including independent voters, believe that the U.S. Supreme Court should strike down ObamaCare. The poll, released late Thursday, found that 50 percent of voters and 51 percent of independent voters want the high court to overturn President Obama’s controversial healthcare reform law. In contrast, only 39 percent of voters and 37 percent of independent voters do not want the high court to take action.
More than 2,500 Christian leaders have signed a letter opposing Obamcare’s anti-conscience mandate. The letter’s release adds to the most recent furor over the rule’s blatant violation of religious liberty and decries the mandate’s coercion of religious employers to subsidize abortion-inducing drugs, contraceptives, and sterilization regardless of moral or religious objections to such services.
House Republicans are planning renewed attacks against President Obama's healthcare reform law to coincide with Supreme Court arguments next month. The high court will hear challenges to the law's individual mandate and Medicaid expansion for six hours over three days, starting March 26. House Republicans are planning to ride the renewed focus on the law to chip away at controversial provisions, a leadership aide told The Hill, including its cost-control panel – the Independent Payment Advisory Board, or IPAB – that some Republicans have labeled a “death panel.”
The main attraction in the upcoming Supreme Court case regarding President Obama’s health care law is the question of whether the mandate to purchase health insurance is a legitimate exercise of the federal government’s power to regulate interstate commerce. Indeed, from a broad constitutional perspective, the answer to that question will determine whether we have a federal government of limited, defined powers or a de facto plenary power limited only by specifically protected rights.
Some lawyers are fretting that the Supreme Court will not decide ObamaCare this year, instead punting, and not revisiting the subject until 2017 or so. They might be right, but the odds remain good that the justices will hand down a decision this June settling ObamaCare’s fate one way or the other. Under the Anti-Injunction Act (AIA), a person cannot challenge the constitutionality of a tax until they (1) pay the tax, (2) demand a refund from the IRS, and (3) are denied that refund.
Elena Kagan served as Barack Obama’s solicitor general during the time that a legal strategy to defend ObamaCare was being assembled, and Judicial Watch, which investigates government corruption, now has filed a lawsuit to gain access to records of her role in the ObamaCare discussions. That’s because of the convergence of her appointment to the U.S. Supreme Court and that court’s scheduled review of ObamaCare in just a few weeks.
Just when you think everything that can be said about ObamaCare's constitutionality has been said, along comes another legal brief that makes a new point. The latest was filed by the Arlington-based Institute for Justice, a nonpartisan, libertarian public-interest law firm. The institute points out that the Affordable Care Act's individual mandate — the requirement to purchase insurance — is not only an unprecedented expansion of federal power. It also undermines several centuries of contract law.
Republican presidential candidate Rick Santorum has called for an end to President Barack Obama's health care plan during his Davison rally. "We have to repeal the biggest abuse and abuser of the Constituion: ObamaCare," said Santorum to large cheers and yells from the crowd. "It is the greatest affront to conservatism and American liberties." Santorum then turned his sights to candidate Mitt Romney's health care plan in Massachusets, calling the plan "Romneycare" for calling on all residents to have some type of plan.
GOP presidential candidate Rick Santorum recently posted that Barack Obama's administration is purposefully thwarting marriage and family via the conduit of ObamaCare. Santorum accused Obama and his administration of "implementing healthcare policies that discourage marriage and hurt families." Santorum also said, "Do you realize that if you are married under ObamaCare, you pay a lot more than if you are living together under ObamaCare? A lot more."
In yet another slight to rule of law, the Obama Administration has asked a federal court to put a press conference pronouncement above official regulation. Last week, the Department of Justice filed a legal response to one of numerous lawsuits currently challenging the constitutionality of the ObamaCare anti-conscience mandate. The Administration submitted its response to the legal complaint of Belmont Abbey College, represented by the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty, to the U.S. District Court of the District of Columbia.
Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker cheers on Republican presidential contenders, who all pledge a takedown of President Obama’s health-care reform law if they win the White House. Meeting with fellow state leaders at the National Governors Association here Sunday, the first-term Republican governor said his state can’t justify the plan’s added costs to his rapidly rising Medicaid budget when 90 percent of Wisconsin residents already have health insurance.
States are lagging in the creation of health insurance exchanges, the supermarkets where millions of consumers are supposed to buy subsidized private coverage under President Obama’s health care overhaul. Many states are waiting for a Supreme Court decision or even the November election results, to see whether central elements of the new law might be overturned or repealed. But that will be too late to start work. By Jan. 1, 2013, the Obama administration will decide whether each state is ready to run its own exchange or whether the federal government should do the job instead.
ObamaCare’s advocates bolstered their case by citing a Congressional Budget Office (CBO) analysis that said the health care law would reduce the federal budget deficit during the next decade by more than $130 billion. About $70 billion of that projected deficit reduction came from the Community Living Assistance Service and Support (CLASS) Act, a separate long-term care program that was attached to Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act.
Americans have the highest health spending on the planet. Why? Because they can afford to do so. What few people realize is that the United States has increased its standard of living vis-à-vis its biggest competitors despite rising health expenditures.
